The house quieted quickly after dinner. Drayton and his aunt lingered over one last cup of coffee before moving to the parlor. Neither had much to say, though both were obviously troubled by the young woman who had left them so abruptly after dinner. Once in the parlor, Lily settled herself in her favorite chair and propped her cane on the chair’s arm.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Drayton asked her. Instead of the brief shake of her head Drayton expected, Lily bent forward and opened the drawer of the small table next to her chair. Drayton watched in amazement as she retrieved a tobacco pouch and dainty silver pipe, then flashed him an almost impish grin. ‘’Don’t mind at all...if you’ll give me a light.”
One side of his mouth pulled down with disapproval, but he struck a match and obliged her, possibly because he was so anxious to have a smoke himself. She drew on her pipe long and gratefully, eyeing him as he made himself comfortable in the chair nearest her and puffed on his cigar. His face had changed in the past years; how very little it told her of what he was thinking.
“A little brandy would be nice,” she hinted. “There’s a tray in the dining room.”
Drayton dutifully rose and went off in search of the brandy, returning a few moments later with the tray. He sat it on the table near the lamp and bent to pour her a small glass. “Anything else?” he inquired as he offered it to her.
“A little more brandy,” she prodded. “I think I’ve earned it tonight.”
“Yes, I suppose you have.” He smiled wryly as he filled it a little more than halfway, then placed it in her slightly trembling fingers. Then smashing out his cigar, which had not given him the comfort he sought, he turned to pour himself a glass a bit more generous than hers.
“Welcome home, Drayton,” she toasted solemnly as she lifted her glass.
“Thank you, Lily.”
There was a long silence as the two studied one an other quite frankly, each noting the passage of time on the other’s face, remembering the years before. “You ought to have written me about her, Drayton,’’ Lily said at length.
“We were only married two months ago, Lily,” he responded lightly. “There wasn’t much to say.”
“Still,” she reproved, “you might have given me some warning, told me something about her....”
“And what should I have told you?” he challenged. “That she is very different from Kathryn, for one,”
Lily blurted out. “Pretty, I suppose, beneath all that black. But-” She searched about for a tactful way of saying “rude.” “But quiet and distant,” she said after a moment. She smiled. “I suppose if you had suddenly written me that you were bringing home a bride, I would have expected a flashy, giggly sort of woman no matter what you said about her, the kind of woman that can quite sweep a man off his feet. Ambrosia is hardly that! Though perhaps, if she smiled...” Lily frowned thoughtfully. ‘’Tell me, Drayton, why doesn’t she smile? What troubles her so?”
Drayton shifted uneasily in his chair and took a sip of brandy. “She was tired today, Lily. It was a long trip.” Lily finished the last of her own brandy, pondering his unwillingness to speak. Something in his eyes told her not to push him. At least not now. She decided to set off on another course. “You haven’t quite convinced me that you’re really finished with medicine.”
“I’ve been away from it for seven years, Lily,” he returned casually. “What could be more convincing than that?”
“You were running away from something then, Drayton.” She waited until he met her eyes. “The people here need a good doctor. And besides, you have a responsibility to yourself, to the years you devoted to studying... and to me.’’
He cocked his head and his smile was doubtful. “You?”
“A minor consideration, to be sure. But I was the per son who encouraged you to follow your heart, rather than go into business like your friends were doing, or studying law as Henry would have liked. I was the one who loaned you the money you needed to study, to buy all of those fancy books. I was the one who paid for your apprentice ship under Dr. Mott. And I was the one who believed in you, Drayton. As I still believe in you.’’
He stared at his brandy, his fingers nervously rotating the glass. ‘’And if my heart now tells me to leave all that behind, to make a new life for myself?”
“Then I would encourage you to do so. But I don’t believe that’s what your heart is telling you at all.’’
Drayton rose and went to stare at the empty hearth, sighing wearily as he propped an elbow on the carved mantel. “I can’t go back to it, Lily.”
“You’re afraid to go back, you mean.”
She watched his broad shoulders sag with the weight of his burden. “Yes.”
Her brow furrowed deeply. She had never expected him to admit to that, not after all this time. It was several moments before she could find her voice. “You must know, deep in your heart, that what happened that night was not your fault. If you had been home with Kathryn that night, you might have-’’
“I don’t want to talk about that night,” he broke in sharply. “It does no good to talk about it.”
Lily bit her lip hard, wondering what she could say to comfort him. For a time she was silent. She took a lengthy draw on her pipe, and a memory of Kathryn, blurred after long years passing, sharpened in her mind. She had been a lovely girl with a warm, promising smile, and Drayton had loved her from the first moment he saw her. The fire that had taken Kathryn’s life had all but destroyed him. It was almost as if a part of his soul had perished in the flames along with his wife and unborn child. He had not been strong enough to live with the memory, so he had run away from the reminders of all he had ever loved. Lily had prayed that time and distance would heal his heart. But in all the years he had been away, he had not forgotten. The past was still an open, festering wound.
Lily’s face softened with compassion and her eyes glazed with tears. In some ways he was so much like Henry had been, loving with his whole being, leaving himself completely vulnerable. She blinked tersely at her tears as he turned to face her. He would not want pity; he was too proud for that. She saw that the sadness had eased from his features, that a cool mask of nonchalance had slipped neatly into place. Lily watched him drain the last of his brandy from the glass, a strange thought striking her like lightning in a summer’s storm. The expression he wore was so similar to the girl’s-cool, distant, uncaring...but not quite convincing to someone who knew better. How a girl like Ambrosia managed to catch Drayton’s eye had been a mystery to Lily, until this moment. She puffed on her pipe and rearranged the puzzle pieces in her mind, knowing instinctively how very much alike the two of them were, and chiding herself for having dismissed the girl too quickly.
‘’Widow’s weeds don’t become your bride, Drayton,’’ she said suddenly. ‘’Perhaps if she were to dress in something bright and-”
‘’Ambrosia prefers black.’’ He paused in refilling his glass to flash her a cynical smile. ‘’It reminds her of the part of her life the Yankees destroyed.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
‘Tm talking about my wife, Lily. The war isn’t over for her. I doubt if it ever will be.’’ He took a seat and sipped at his brandy.
In spite of his efforts to appear indifferent, Lily could see that the admission hurt him. “She’s your wife, Drayton. She would hardly have married you if what you are saying is true.”
“She didn’t marry me because she wanted to,” he blurted out. “If circumstances hadn’t forced her into it-” He clamped his mouth shut then, realizing that he’d said far more than he’d wanted to say.
“’Forced her’?” Lily gasped, unable to hide her shock. ‘’Are you trying to say that the child she carries is not yours?”
His mouth set with grim tightness. ‘’The baby is mine. I have no doubt of that.”
Lily let out her breath. Drayton
was too well versed in such matters to be tricked by a conniving woman. “Unless my eyes deceive me,’’ she said slowly, ‘’your wife was carrying that child for some time before your marriage.’’ She paused, giving him ample time to deny it. He did not. “I cannot imagine that you forced yourself on her, so I must assume she was willing.” Again she paused, but he carefully avoided her eyes. “Why does a woman willingly give herself to a man,” Lily asked slowly, ‘’unless she seeks marriage? Or unless...she is in love with that man?”
Drayton said nothing but drained his glass and rose quickly to refill it again. She had come to him that night alone and afraid and desperate, seeking something from him that he had not been able to give her. And yet, for a single moment, something he had said or done had somehow broken through the wall of hatred she had erected between them, and he had seen a part of Ambrosia Lanford that no one else had ever seen, a part she kept so closely guarded that he doubted she even saw it herself. He took another sip of brandy and closed his eyes, wishing he could erase that night from his mind forever.
Lily drew another puff on her pipe and looked away. Drayton had told her enough for now, perhaps too much. There was a lengthy silence as Lily made herself busy emptying her pipe into a small silver tray and replacing it in the drawer.
Drayton stared at his empty glass for a long time before he set it aside and rose to pace before an empty hearth. “I’m going into town tomorrow to speak with Warren Pierce. He wrote me several times while I was in Charleston, advising me to come home. Apparently there’s been trouble with the business Father left me.” He paused, reflecting for a moment on the father who, after a lifetime of neglect, had made him sole heir to his estate, his house, his business...”I am seriously considering taking charge of Rambert Paints.’’
Lily straightened and struggled to contain a cry of protest. He had ignored his inheritance for two years. And he had never shown any interest at all in anything besides medicine. Taking charge of Rambert Paints was just about the last thing Drayton was cut out to do...with the possible exception of being a soldier. That last thought made Lily hold her tongue. He had left here without asking for her advice and had not even written her for months after he had left. She had understood that he was coping with his grief the best way he could. And though it was hard to accept after all the years he had been gone, she forced herself to understand that he was still trying to cope with that grief.
“I hope to move into father’s house soon, since it’s large enough for-”
“Move into your father’s house?” Lily broke in, unable to hold back any longer. “But you know this house will be yours someday! You belong here!”
“I’ll need a house in town if I’m to work there.”
‘’Town is no more than an hour away on a decent horse,” she argued. “Besides, you always hated that house of your father’s. You can’t think to move into it now, with a baby coming. Your wife will need help when the time comes, help that only a family can give.” She paused, quite out of breath. “And beyond all that,” she went on more calmly, ‘’I want you here for purely selfish reasons.”
“Such as?”
“I happen to be a lonely old woman,” she told him firmly. “And you happen to be my family.”
He lifted an amused brow. “You? Lonely? From your letters I assumed that you were quite busy, Lily. Let’s see...The Sprindle sisters come every Wednesday to play cards...”
“Weather permitting,” she inserted.
“And you visit Bea Hanover and a half-dozen other needy souls each month with a basket of fresh-baked bread and fruit...”
“Those are hardly social occasions, Drayton,’ ‘ she insisted. “I am seeing to those people’s needs.”
‘’And the preacher comes every other Sunday to dinner, and stops by whenever he has the time...”
“Those are professional calls, Drayton,” she corrected. “I finance many of his charity projects, you know.” She met his blue eyes evenly, without a trace of levity in her own. “Oh, all right. So I have quite a few friends hereabouts. But friends are not the same as family, ‘’ she said earnestly. ‘’I never had a child of my own to comfort me in my old age. But I do have you, Drayton. You’re like a son to me. You know that. And I need you-no, don’t shrug that need off so easily. I want you to stay with me.” She hesitated. and suddenly her voice was soft. “I-I’m asking you to stay.”
He held her eyes for a long moment. “’It’s late, Lily. I’m going to bed. “
He came forward to kiss her cheek. She stretched a trembling hand to touch his hair. ‘’Drayton?’’ He met her eyes again. “I-I have missed you these past years,” she whispered. “I have kept myself busy, but-”
He took her hand in his own and touched it to his lips. “I’ve missed you too, Lily. God knows, I’ve missed you too.”
He smiled at her as he released her hand but made no promises as he turned away and left her alone in the parlor.
Chapter 28
The following morning when Drayton came down to breakfast, he was surprised to find Lily already at the table, looking fresh and lovely as she had the day before. She glanced up at him and smiled, daintily touching a linen napkin to her lips. “I apologize for starting breakfast without you,’’ she said as he took a seat to the side of hers. “But I woke early this morning with a voracious appetite, and I wasn’t sure when you’d be up and about. And Ambrosia-I completely forgot to ask if she would take an early breakfast, though I didn’t expect she would after traveling half of yesterday. I read somewhere that Southern women have a habit of sleeping till noon,’’ she added thoughtfully.
“Not this Southern woman,” Drayton said wryly as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “She’ll be down directly.”
Lily watched him take a sip of coffee, all the while gnawing nervously at her lip. “Drayton…about last night. There’s no reason to rush into anything-”
‘’And no reason to put off making decisions which must be made.”
She sighed, fixing her eyes on her half-empty plate, no longer feeling an appetite for the hotcakes she had attacked so eagerly just a few moments before. “I’m only asking you to consider all the options,’’ she said quietly. “You could stay here for just a little while. You’ve been gone so very long, after all. And I-I hardly feel as if I know you anymore...”
He sighed and leaned forward to cover her hand with his own, touched by the emotion in her voice. “I haven’t made any final decisions yet,” he relented.
On the threshold of the dining room Ambrosia stopped short. She had rarely been witness to such open intimacy and would have been uncomfortable in its presence regardless. But the fact that she was a complete outsider, that she did not want to be here in the first place, made her much more so.
She waited in silence until Drayton’s eyes lifted to meet hers. The warmth in his instantly died. He withdrew his hand from his aunt’s and focused his attention on his coffee, while Lily, who just now noticed her standing there, welcomed her with a wide smile. ‘’I hope you slept well, Ambrosia.”
“Thank you for your concern,” Ambrosia mouthed perfunctorily as she approached the table. She was rigid as Drayton rose to assist her with her chair and she carefully avoided his eyes. She shook out the linen napkin which lay to the side of her plate and placed it on her lap.
To her dismay, Lily found that she was actually holding her breath in an instinctive reaction to the tension which filled the now silent room. “Your woman,” she blurted out, needing desperately to ease the silent uneasiness which had all but taken over the meal. ‘’What is her name? I have such a time with names! Sheila? Stella?” Lily frowned and shook her head. “Sharon, is it?”
“Her name is Sheba,” Ambrosia answered coldly. “And she is not my woman. I’m sure you must have heard that Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves.”
Lily’s smile froze on her face. “Yes...well...You
must forgive an old woman’s loss of memory,” she attempted lightly. She paused, giving Ambrosia ample time to respond, but the younger woman said nothing.
“As I was going to say,” Lily tried again, “Sheba is an absolutely marvelous cook. I’ve never tasted anything as light and delicate as these hotcakes of hers. I’m going to see to it that Sarah steals the recipe.’’
The glance Ambrosia tossed at her as she took a sip of coffee was enough to make Lily think twice about further conversation. From that moment on, the meal was a repeat of the dinner the evening before.
Drayton left the house within an hour after breakfast, leaving Ambrosia to explore the house and grounds on her own. She spent every moment of the time planning her escape. She took no note of the beauty surrounding her, concentrating instead on the various exits from the house, and taking a particular interest in the stable. A tall, muscular man with thick blond hair and an engaging, if bashful smile, paused in currying a fine dapple gray mare to introduce himself as Debbs, and show her all the horses. Debbs’s devotion for the animals he tended was very apparent, and he eagerly lapsed into stories about each horse, mentioning Henry Collins worth ‘s name often, adding that Miss Lily was reluctant to sell any of her late husband’s fine animals. Ambrosia asked a few pertinent questions as to which horses were most gentle, all the while eyeing the saddles and bridles kept in an orderly fashion on a pegged wall opposite the stalls. Taking a horse from here would not be so difficult as she had feared at first. She felt a twinge of guilt as she decided on a pretty white-faced mare and a spotted gray for Sheba, both of which she realized she would need to sell once they got into town, to get money for the journey south. She would have to locate one of the more questionable livery establishments in town, since she would have no proof of ownership. She bit her lip and tried to shake off the guilt. She had never stolen anything before, yet she could not imagine living out her life like this, in this strange place so full of Yankees, living with a man who owned her simply because she carried his child. She patted the mare’s neck and nodded a thank-you to Debbs before she left the stable. There was no other way.
Ambrosia Page 30