Counterfeit Courtship

by Christina Miller

  “In this case, it is.” Without a sound, Ellie moved to the railing for a closer look and saw a square can in the man’s hand. “What’s that he’s carrying?”

  When the figure moved onto the front gallery, Sugar’s growl intensified. Then a sloshing noise—and the odor of kerosene. A flash of orange light and the roar of flames.

  “He’s setting the house on fire—”

  Ellie clambered to the staircase, but Sugar beat her to it.

  “God, have mercy!” Miss Ophelia’s shrill prayer fueled Ellie’s silent one as they raced to the ground floor. Her thoughts rolled like smoke as they burst into the great hall downstairs.

  Eerie orange light illuminated the room through the fanlight and sidelights of the front entrance, dancing on the walls and ceiling. Sugar ran from the front to the back door, her barking muffled by the sound of the crackling fire.

  Ellie threw open the back door. Sugar bounded out ahead of her and dashed around the house.

  Stepping from the back gallery to the yard, Ellie caught sight of the tools the workers had left propped against the wall. She grabbed the longest hoe and rushed to the front, Sugar’s growling bark loud in her ears. She had to stop Leonard. If she didn’t, he’d set the back gallery on fire too, and if he guessed where she’d hidden the cotton, he’d do the same to it.

  Reaching the front of the house, she slowed and peered around the corner. The fire’s light revealed a spindly form with an eye patch as the man tried to escape the dog’s attack.

  Leonard. The man of her nightmares.

  Sugar nipped at Leonard’s right leg, and Ellie saw her chance. She stole up to his blind left side and lifted the hoe as high as she could.

  Kicking toward Sugar but missing, and dodging her teeth to his right, Leonard pulled his sidearm from its holster.

  The anger that shot through Ellie fueled a sudden strength. “Don’t you ever hurt my dog!”

  He swung toward her, his one eye wide.

  She brought the hoe down hard on his head.

  * * *

  Graham and his half dozen field hands sat crouched like infantrymen in the thick stand of pine east of the chapel. The cicadas must have outnumbered the leaves on the trees, judging from their deafening racket. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his damp face and neck in the stifling heat and humidity. After all those years of war, who’d have thought he’d spend another night out in the open, waiting for an enemy to cross into his territory?

  He pushed back his hat, scanning the road and the overgrown yard around the chapel. Of a sudden, the cicadas hushed. Not a sound whispered from the road, the woods.

  Something had changed. He sensed it as always before battle. His heartbeat filled his ears as he rose silently to his feet, grasped the handle of his sidearm.

  Gunshots—six of them in succession—then the clanging of a bell.

  Magnolia Grove’s dinner bell.

  Ellie—

  “Fitzwald must be at the big house. Everybody move out!” Graham raced toward Dixie, hidden along a footpath a good twenty yards into the woods. What could be happening there? Who fired the shots?

  He flung himself onto the horse and thundered down the road. He should have stationed a man at the house. Should have given Ellie a weapon—

  Rounding the bend, he caught a whiff of burning wood.

  Surely that weasel hadn’t set something on fire...

  He spurred Dixie to top speed. When he reached Magnolia Grove’s lane, he saw orange flames leaping up to the gallery’s ceiling. In the glow, someone sloshed a bucket of water into the fire, her hoopskirts billowing with her effort.

  As Dixie galloped up the half-mile-long lane, Graham scrambled to sort the facts in his mind. The woman with the bucket had to be Ellie. She turned and rounded the house, no doubt heading toward the two cistern houses, fighting the fire with his elderly aunt.

  Nearing the brick structure, he scanned the area illuminated by the fire. If Fitzwald had set it, where was he?

  Graham jerked Dixie to a stop and hitched her to a low-hanging magnolia branch. Approaching on foot, he passed an inert form lying in the grass inside the circle drive. For an instant, he took in the sight of the hoe and the man lying facedown on the ground, his head in a puddle of blood.

  Ellie’s dog stood, growling, over the body.

  It had to be Fitzwald. But what had happened? “Sugar, stay.”

  The fire still crackled, flames licking at the second-story gallery now. Graham made for the cistern house in back. In the darkness there, a slight body rammed into his chest.

  Ellie. She held two buckets of water, much of which sloshed out with the impact and soaked his pants and boots.

  “Was it Fitzwald?” Graham shouted, holding her upper arms.

  “I think I killed him—” Her voice choked as with tears as she screamed her answer. “He’s in the front yard.”

  The air filled with the sound of men running, yelling. Graham grabbed the buckets from Ellie. “Where’s Aunt Ophelia?”

  “Cistern house. Pumping water.”

  He set down one bucket and pulled out his gun. “Find her and give this to her. Tell her to guard Fitzwald and use the gun if she needs to. Then get some more buckets.”

  As she ran toward the dairy, Graham’s men poured into the yard. Moments later, Myron Sutton thundered up the lane, his black gelding’s hooves pounding the dry ground.

  “Fitzwald set the fire, Sutton,” Graham hollered over the din of men’s shouts and the crackling of the fire. “Get Sheriff Tillman, fast.”

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, Graham emptied two buckets of water onto the last embers. Then he bent over, hands on his knees, and drew a long breath of less-smoky air. After a few moments of rest, he hastened to the front of the house.

  There in the circle drive, Aunt Ophelia stood guard over the motionless form, which now lay under the nearest live oak. A gun in each hand, she pointed both at Fitzwald’s chest. Someone, probably one of the workers, had bandaged his head with coarse cloths and stopped the bleeding, and someone had propped his legs on a sack of grain from the stable.

  “He’s still alive,” Aunt Ophelia said, “so the men dragged his sorry self over here, out of their way. Sugar and I are making sure that, if he wakes up, he doesn’t go anywhere.”

  “Where’s Ellie?” Graham glanced around, thinking to see her helping to guard Fitzwald.

  His aunt peered about as well. “Why, I don’t know. I’ve been keeping both eyes on this—this—”

  Her hesitation made Graham eager to hear what his refined yet unconventional aunt would think of to call Leonard Fitzwald now.

  “—this outsider.”

  Graham worked hard to keep from chuckling. Yes, “outsider” was the worst possible name Aunt Ophelia could call a born-and-bred resident of the town she loved. “So you no longer consider him one of our own?”

  “Don’t be cheeky. I’m armed, you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll gladly turn these weapons over to you as soon as you find Ellie and make sure she’s all right.”

  “I’m on my way.” He started toward the back of the house and the dependencies but stopped as Ellie rushed toward him.

  “The fire’s out, honey,” he said, taking in her beautiful sooty face and soggy, dirt-smeared dress. “We did it. We saved the house.”

  Without so much as a nod of apology to Aunt Ophelia, she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Miss Ophelia and I—we tried, but we couldn’t have done it alone.”

  He laughed and held her and smoothed her hair, which had come loose from its knot and hung down her back in a pretty, tangled mess. Then he pulled one arm away and pointed at Fitzwald, leaving the other around her shoulders. “Looks to me like you did a good job.”

>   “I was afraid I’d killed him.”

  Her voice sounded so small, so tinny, that it shook him a bit. “Are you all right?”

  “I just wish he was gone.”

  Graham looked at Ellie and then at the weasel. “He’ll be in jail soon. Tonight you have effectively prevented Fitzwald from causing any further problems for a long time.”

  Now if Graham could only solve a few more big problems in his life...

  * * *

  I almost lost it.

  The place Ellie loved more than any other, the home where she felt comfortable and relaxed, where she’d spent happy childhood days—might have burned to the ground tonight. With no near neighbor to see the fire, her dear Magnolia Grove home would have been gone before help could come.

  She ambled to the kitchen dependency and filled the coffeepot with water, then added grounds. It wouldn’t be as good as Lilah May’s or Miss Ophelia’s, but making coffee was the least she could do for the men who’d saved her home.

  After she served the workers, she made another pot, carried it to the front lawn, and sat next to Graham and Miss Ophelia in the dew-dampened grass. The torch one of the workers had brought from his cabin cast a pleasant glow on the lawn. She poured a cup for Graham and added a splash of cream as he liked it. Then she gave a heavily sweetened and creamed cup to Miss Ophelia and poured a sugary one for herself.

  “I sent Sutton for Sheriff Tillman, and the men back to guard the cotton in the old church, in case the weasel had others working for him.” Graham took a long swig of his coffee.

  “You’re staying here?” Miss Ophelia asked, laying her hand over her huge yawn.

  “For the rest of the night.”

  “Can we sleep inside the house?”

  “Too much smoke. The fire burned through the downstairs door and into the great hall. Fitzwald was trying to burn the house from the outside in.” His voice sounded husky, probably from breathing too much smoke himself.

  “I’m glad you were here to take over. I couldn’t have kept pumping water much longer.” Miss Ophelia’s fatigue sounded thick in her voice.

  “You were a hero as much as the men were, Miss Ophelia.” Ellie turned to Graham. “She not only pumped water, but she also rang the bell and fired Leonard’s gun in the air to call you.”

  Sugar ambled over and flopped down at the older woman’s side. She scratched the dog behind the ears. “We’re all heroes—especially Sugar.”

  “She sure is. She stood here beside Fitzwald and made sure he didn’t wake up and try to escape,” Graham said.

  “Yes, and she did more than that. I saw the whole thing...”

  As Miss Ophelia related the details of the evening, Ellie lay back in the grass as if she was a young girl again, without a care in the world. However, she wasn’t. She was a grown woman with the cares of family and business on her shoulders. With the help of God and her friends and workers, she’d avoided this catastrophe. But now she had the added expense of repairs on the house, and she owed these men a bonus for their part in saving her home.

  If only they could get rid of Leonard for good—

  She cut off that thought, remembering how she’d felt when she thought she’d killed him. No, she didn’t want that. All she wanted was for him to leave her alone. To go somewhere far away...

  An idea hit her like a bucket of cold cistern water. “Graham, he’ll go to jail, won’t he?”

  “Leonard? Of course, even with his political pull. That kerosene can has his name on it, and you and Aunt Ophelia both saw him set the fire.”

  Her heart raced as fast as her mind. “Can he make me pay the note while he’s in jail?”

  Graham’s head shot up and he hesitated a moment. “He can’t initiate legal proceedings when you miss the payment, and he has no relative to do that for him. Joseph is still his attorney, but rest assured that he won’t file the complaint.”

  “That means I won’t have to pay that loan until he gets out of jail.”

  “If you have to pay it at all.”

  That statement brought all kinds of possibilities to Ellie’s mind...

  Miss Ophelia made two attempts to get up off the ground before Graham had a chance to come to her aid. He hoisted her to her feet, and she patted her hair. “Everything’s going to work out, dear. I think I’ll retire to that rocker on the widow’s walk where I had a nice nap this evening, before a rude person interrupted it.” She glowered at Leonard.

  “Will you be all right by yourself, or shall I come with you?” Ellie asked, hoping she’d decline.

  “I will chaperone this party from the rooftop.” She smiled and winked at Graham.

  “I’ll come up as soon as I’ve spoken to the sheriff, Miss Ophelia.”

  Once they were alone, other than the unconscious Leonard, Graham reached for Ellie’s hand. “You’re free now. Your home and cotton are safe.”

  “Do you think he was going to burn this cotton instead of stealing it?”

  “I made a ruckus in town about the stolen crop, so Fitzwald probably thought he was less likely to get caught this way.”

  Ellie couldn’t help the prayer of thanks welling up in her heart. “What about the cotton in the abandoned house and the outbuildings?”

  “All safe. He probably intended to torch the house and the outbuildings at Mill Creek Plantation next—if he knew you had some of your bales there.”

  It was over. Leonard had no further hold over her—over them.

  “Now that he’s out of our lives, I need to ask you a question.” His voice thickened, as if her answer would matter even more than Leonard or the cotton. “Why did you refuse me eight years ago?”

  She owed him an explanation. Pulling in a deep breath, she focused on the sight of the burned gallery and the smell of smoke and kerosene. “I’ve told you about my fear of not being able to feed a child. My mother used to beg for our food. Father was always off somewhere, gambling and drinking. And when Mother died, I was hungry for days. When the police finally found me and sent for my uncle to collect me, I decided I would never rely on a man to provide for me.”

  “Not even me, Ellie? Have I ever let you down?”

  “I thought I had to live as a spinster, never have a child I might not be able to feed. That’s why I spent so much time learning from Uncle Amos. I knew it would be up to me to provide for myself—to run that plantation—when he was gone. And when he took ill, it was time for me to start. I did a good job until Leonard came home and called in that loan.” She sloshed some of the strong, almost thick coffee on her dress as she swirled it around the cup. “I admit that I still struggle with that.”

  Graham took the cup from her and set it on the ground beside him. “You’re saying you don’t trust God to provide for you.”

  “I can’t see how the two are related.”

  “Well, I can. You think this plantation can save you. And for some reason, you think you can’t have both it and love. But that’s wrong. You can have both.”

  It made sense—in a way. Above all else, she did not want to be guilty of not trusting God. But now she could see Graham was right about that. Forgive me, Lord. Help me to turn from that great sin.

  But one thing still bothered her. “Miss Ophelia lost her plantation—and her home.”

  “Yes, and unlike you, she did nothing to try to save them. But does she seem happy now? Does she like living with us?”

  Ellie had to admit she did.

  “Don’t you see? She didn’t give up anything. She hated living alone in that big house. The only time she was happy was when she was giving parties and having company. All my life I’ve heard her quote Luke 15. ‘Use your worldly wealth to gain friends.’ That’s what she did. And she’s happy now because she feels we need her, which we do.”

  Ellie could have
it all—love and security? She ached to believe that.

  The rattle of a wagon drew her attention to the drive. “The sheriff.”

  With a grunt, Graham stood. “Sutton’s riding behind him. Don’t take your eye off Fitzwald while we talk to him.”

  Ellie sighed but took Graham’s hand and let him help her up. Although she could have done it as quickly herself.

  Turning reluctantly to Leonard, she realized he could merely be pretending to be unconscious, lying there listening to them until he found an opportune time to escape.

  Apparently he was, since he cursed and sputtered as Sheriff Tillman, Graham and Mister Sutton began tying his hands and feet. When they had him in the back of the wagon, Ellie gave the sheriff her story.

  The sheriff frowned and shook his dark head. “In the morning, I’m going to remove your plantation from the sheriff’s sale, Colonel. I have a feeling Mister Fitzwald won’t have any political clout in this state after tonight. I’d sure like to see you pay the taxes and buy that place back.”

  Graham gave him a half smile, half frown. “I’d like that too, but I can’t because I haven’t received my pardon. No buying, no selling of ground until that comes.”

  Mister Sutton leaned against the side of the wagon, perhaps to rest his bad leg. “Well, since you’re getting married soon, why not put the land in your wife’s name? Wouldn’t be the same, but it’d be better than not having it at all.”

  “In Ellie’s name—and plant it right away?” He looked off into the distance, toward Ashland Place. “I never heard a better idea.”

  As the sheriff climbed into the driver’s seat, Ellie turned to Graham, heavy loads lifted from her mind and heart. “He’s right. Now that Leonard can’t collect from me, I can pay the taxes and get your ground back for you.”

  Watching the wagon pull away, Ellie gave thanks that she’d never again need to deal with Leonard. “Mister Sutton, you’ll have a sizeable bonus tomorrow.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said with his usual businesslike expression. “You’ve done more for us than I’ve done for you.”