by Tamara Gill
Wow! I was right, the Romance of the Raid article must have been about Sean and Sara. But what was this about driving Sean back to the US?
An emotion flickered across Sean’s face. Was it resentment or irritation? “Do you think that I have not thought about her and missed her since that time, Bailey?”
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
Sean said the word through gritted teeth. Jaclyn could see the flash of hot anger in his eyes. Although she couldn’t see Grandpa Bailey’s face she wondered if the old codger was testing Sean. Bailey was not a man who trusted lightly. He expected people to prove themselves first.
“Sara’s in love with you, O’Dell. Are you in love with her?”
A little of the tension left Sean’s body and there was real amusement in his smile. “What do you think, Bailey?”
“What I think is not at issue, sir. I want to know your feelings for my granddaughter.”
Jacqui wanted to know too. When she’d last seen Sean and Sara together he’d shown a definite soft spot for Sara, but he wasn’t in love with her.
“And if I say the words, will you be satisfied?”
“I want you to tell me how you feel about my girl.”
“Words are easy, Bailey. They can promise everything but mean nothing. Why do you want to hear the words from me?” There was a dark ironic undercurrent to Sean’s lilting Irish accented tones. He’d learned a lot of hard lessons at a far too young an age.
Sunny Girl moved restlessly. Jaclyn thought she saw a smile touch the edge of Grandpa Bailey’s mouth. She definitely heard the expression in his voice. “Perhaps to some people, O’Dell, but I know you, remember? You spent three weeks in the old ramshackle cabin on my farm licking your wounds and regaining your strength. During those weeks it wasn’t just you and my granddaughter who got acquainted. You’re not the sort to twist words to get your way. If you say you’ll do something, you will. You speak your mind and hold your peace when you can’t speak honestly.” He nodded briefly. “If you tell me you love my granddaughter, I’ll believe you.”
Sean was frowning at Grandpa now, almost as if he was shocked at the older man’s analysis of his character. Jaclyn wanted to shout out to him that Grandpa was right, Sean was an honorable man in the best sense of the word, but she couldn’t get involved. Not this time.
The brown horse pulled at the reins. Sean let them slip through his fingers as he eased forward in the small English saddle. “I fell in love with your granddaughter about the end of the second week I lay hidden in your cabin. My injuries were healing and I had the time to focus on Sara the woman, rather than Sara the nurse. I’d thought her gentle and sweet...”
Grandpa snorted derisively. Sean laughed.
“I discovered then that she is a determined woman with a quick wit and a sharp tongue when she’s a mind to use it. It’s a combination I like, particularly when it’s all tied up in a shapely package that pleases a man’s eyes.”
Jaclyn slapped her hands onto her hips and tried not to be indignant. Tied up in a shapely package that pleases a man’s eyes? Get off it! Sean, old pal, you need a dose of reality. She hauled her thoughts up short. It wasn’t Sean who needed a dose of reality, but her. This was 1866. Women’s lib had a hundred years and many struggles and setbacks to pass through before it would flourish. The giddy years of the flappers, a depression, two world wars, the prosperity of the 1950s, all would play their part in breaking down the Victorian customs under which Sean and Sara lived.
Perhaps that was why she was here, listening to two men discuss a woman both loved in their own way, instead of being there at the moment when Sara and Sean eloped. In 1866 it wasn’t the woman’s decision that was important, but the opinions of the men in her life. This, then, was the crucial moment in the elopement, not the actual event itself.
“That’s no way to talk about my granddaughter!”
Sean shot him a mocking smile. “You wanted to know my feelings, Bailey.”
“Huh.”
Jaclyn put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Grandpa’s profile had turned a bright pink. Obviously sex was not a topic he cared to discuss.
“I asked you to meet me, sir, because I wanted the blessing of Sara’s family for our marriage. I hope you will give it to me now.”
“And if I do not?”
“I’ll marry her anyway,” Sean said.
The statement hung between the men like a promise or a curse, depending on the individual’s point of view. The color receded from Grandpa’s face. “I could tell the authorities that I’d found one of them danged Fenians. You’d be arrested for sure and that would keep you from coming for my Sara.”
Sean nodded. The brown horse stamped its feet. His body moved with the animal, his eyes never leaving Grandpa’s face. “But you won’t, will you? Because you are also an honorable man, Mr. Bailey. You know I’ll take care of Sara and you know that she loves me. We will be happy together.”
“My Sara wouldn’t be happy with a Fenian who plans to invade her country again.”
“After I returned to America I drifted south, it’s true, but I ended up in Lexington where I knew no one, not in Nashville where I had a reputation as a no-good and I needed the warmth of the Brotherhood to sustain me. I’ve a new life now. I plan to marry and make a family. I’ll not join the Brotherhood again.”
Sunny Girl sidled and pranced. Grandpa eased up on the reins and allowed her to move in a narrow circle until she calmed. Jaclyn had a brief look at his face as the horse turned. A smile twitched across his lips then it was gone before he once again faced Sean.
So that’s the way the land lies. He was testing Sean, but approval wasn’t very far away.
“Do you have employment yet, Fenian?”
“I wondered when you’d ask, Bailey.”
“I take it you have, then?”
Sean nodded. A little smile played on his lips. “I’m the foreman of a thoroughbred breeding farm outside of Lexington in Kentucky. The owner is a carpetbagger from New York who doesn’t want to live in the South. He sees the farm as a tidy little investment.”
“Is it?”
Sean nodded. “The poor bastard who owned it was killed in the war. Ironically he fought for the North. That didn’t stop his widow from being forced to sell out at a fraction of the place’s worth.”
“Kentucky,” Grandpa muttered. “That’s a world away. I’ll never see my granddaughter again if she goes with you.”
“We’ll write and we’ll visit. You and her parents will always be welcome.”
Sean’s tone was gentle. He knew how it felt to be an exile, but there was equal hardship on those who were left behind, alone and missing loved ones they knew would never return.
Grandpa said, “Adam will disown her if she elopes with you, O’Dell. He won’t be visiting you in Kentucky.”
“I’m sorry for that, but I think your son will lose more than Sara if he does.”
Grandpa nodded. “I’ll do what I can to change his mind. It will take time, but I think it can be done. He loves Sara and he’s been worried about her these past months.”
Sean kicked his horse into motion and moved beside Bailey and Sunny Girl. He held out his hand. After a moment Jim Bailey shoved out his own and took Sean’s in a handshake. A deal had been struck and the handshake confirmed it.
Delight blossomed inside Jaclyn. Sean had used his right hand, the arm that had been wounded at the Battle of Fort Erie. Not only had the arm never been amputated, but he evidently had strength in it. She’d been right all those months ago and Kempson wrong. The arm had healed and it wasn’t useless, despite the reeve’s gloomy predictions. Jaclyn wanted to cheer. Instead a tear trickled down her cheek. She brushed it away furiously. This wasn’t the moment for weak-willed weeping. God, she was as bad as a Victorian miss, having the vapors over nothing at all.
As the two men broke the handshake, Sean looked down, flexing his fingers in a speculative way. “Did you ever find out
what had happened to young Jack?”
Bailey shook his head. “It’s the damnedest thing, as if the boy had disappeared from the face of the earth. I heard Denison shouting and saw Sunny Girl bolt. I put the skiff into the water and rowed hard, hoping Denison would see me and forget about Jack. I know the boy fell off the horse—”
“How could he not?” Sean murmured. “Jack didn’t know the back end of a horse from the front.”
“I know. Sunny Girl is fast and she was frightened. She ran hard and Denison couldn’t catch her, so he never figured out that the filly’s rider hadn’t managed to escape on her. I went back, you know, time and again, even after you’d returned to the States. I never found a clue what had happened to him.”
“His disappearance haunts me,” Sean said, flexing his fingers again. He looked over at Grandpa Bailey. “I owe him this. Without Jack’s defense of me Kempson would have cut off my arm that night and I’d be dead or a cripple now. I owe Jack my life and I owe him my future.”
Jaclyn’s tears ran faster, not from relief now, but from tenderness and the hurt she had unwittingly caused. She reached out, wanting to ease his pain, but something held her back.
“Your future?”
“Would you see your granddaughter married to a one-armed man with no prospects?” Sean shrugged. His expression was wry as he added, “Then too, I would never have had the opportunity to get to know Sara if I hadn’t been holed up in your old cabin gaining strength and waiting for the fuss to settle down after the invasion ended. I’d have been on that old scow with the others, waiting for the government to decide what to do with us.”
“True enough,” Grandpa said. He eased up on the reins again and Sunny Girl began to turn. “I don’t suppose you are going to tell me when you’re coming for Sara?”
“Soon. I cannot be away from the farm for too long at time.”
“I thought not.” Bailey paused, then said, “Remember, O’Dell, you take care of my Sara. I’ll hold you to it.”
“I will, sir. Tell her to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
Grandpa nodded and put his heels to Sunny Girl. She leapt down the path, past Jaclyn, heading for home. Sean watched him go for a moment, then he too turned his horse.
In seconds he would be gone, burdened with a guilt that he didn’t need to carry. It wasn’t the fate of Jack that Sean worried about, it was Jaclyn. A boy alone in the world could survive, but in Sean’s mind a woman could not.
She stepped out of the shelter of the trees. “Major O’Dell!”
He pulled the horse to a stop. Slowly he turned the animal, almost as if he was unsure of what he would eventually see.
Jaclyn smiled at him. “Hi.”
He frowned. “Jaclyn?”
“Yup, it’s me. How’re you doing, Sean?”
“How did you get here?” He looked past her into the trees. “Were you there while I was talking to Bailey?”
She shrugged. “All tied up in a in a shapely package that pleases a man’s eyes? That’s a hell of a thing to say about a woman, Sean. If I were old Jim Bailey I’d have slugged you.”
“Good thing you aren’t.” Dismounting in one easy, fluid motion, he tied the reins to a tree before he turned to look at her. A smile twitched his lips. “Talk about shapely packages. Don’t you ever wear a dress?”
Jaclyn thought about the body hugging dresses in her time and had to grin. Sean would love them. “Not in winter I don’t. I’m already freezing to death here.”
He walked over to her and touched her cheek with a gentle finger. A finger on his right hand. Jaclyn caught his hand and cradled the palm against her cheek.
“I thought you’d drowned,” he said. His voice was husky with emotion.
“No. I just... I went back to where I came from.”
“You could have sent a message.”
She turned her face into his hand. “Not from where I was. Sean, you have no idea how happy I am that your arm healed so well.” She rubbed her cheek against his palm like a cat marking its territory, then she pulled away.
His fingers curled into his palm as he let her go. “In the beginning Sara insisted I work my arm muscles while I was holding something in my hand. We started with light things then moved on to heavy.”
“She must have begun before your wound was even healed.”
“After about a week I think. I didn’t do much at first.” He smiled. “When Bailey decided it was time I returned to America, Sara gave me a set of explicit instructions and told me I couldn’t come back for her until my arm had healed.” He paused and flexed his fingers. “I still do those exercises every morning and every night.” He shot Jaclyn a rueful look. “Absurd isn’t it?”
“It sounds like a man in love to me. You should have told Grandpa Bailey. It would have convinced him for sure.”
“Jaclyn...”
She retreated. “I’m glad you’re okay, Sean. I didn’t know what had happened to you and I was afraid, well, of the same thing you were.”
They stood staring at each other, separated by time and traditions, brought together by strange irrational circumstances to form a bond that would never be broken.
“So you’ve come here to find lightness of heart and to give it too?”
“I guess so. I’ve got to go.”
“Stay.”
“I can’t. Sean, I have to go back where I belong. I don’t have the choice.” She hugged her arms over her chest. “Sara loves you. I think you love Sara. Be happy Sean.” She turned and headed back to the tree where she had arrived.
“Jaclyn!”
She turned her head but kept on moving.
“How will I know you’re all right this time?”
“You have to believe, Sean. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”
Instead of watching where she was going, Jacqui had been watching Sean. Her foot hit a rock or a tree root in the path and she stumbled. For a moment she hovered, waving her arms frantically as she tried to get her balance, then she pitched forward. The path came toward her at an alarming speed. She figured she was going to land right on her nose and she didn’t have a hope of breaking her fall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The old, yellowed paper was brittle beneath her fingertips. With a gaze that was abstracted, but rapidly regaining focus, Jaclyn lifted her hand, staring on the trembling she couldn’t control. Not surprising, she thought wryly, with her heart pounding a rapid, staccato beat.
Sean.
She wondered how he had reacted to seeing her vanish before his eyes. It must have been quite a shock, but at least he wouldn’t be pining for her as he had since those four hot days in June when both their lives had been changed.
She moistened her lips. Should she try again? Would it make any sense to go back? The parting with Sean would be no easier and indeed it might just be more difficult. She stared at the old newspaper, her trembling hand hovering.
Slowly she lowered her fingers to the page, right on top of the headline, Romance of the Raid. Nothing. No vision of Sean by the great rushing falls, no echo of voices, no sense of otherness. Shaking now, she turned the page, touching other articles, drawing her finger along the drawings in the advertisements. Nothing. The door to the past had shut tight.
It was over. History had swallowed her up, used her to ensure certain events happened, then spat her out when the job was done. She stared at that old frayed newspaper through a veil of tears that she blinked rapidly to dispel.
This was the end. She felt bereft.
Whatever the purpose, however it had worked, her adventure had changed two lives, hers and Sean’s. Today she had closed the final portal between them. Sean could marry Sara without the worry and guilt over what had happened to Jaclyn. And Jaclyn...
“Got what you need?”
Jaclyn looked up, blinking a little dazedly as Bill the archivist dragged her out of her thoughts. “Umm, yes. Actually, I did.” She looked down at the newspaper, then carefully closed it up and eased it ba
ck into the protective sleeve.
Bill perched on the edge of the wide table as if he were settling in for a long chat. Even though she liked him Jaclyn wished he would go away. She wasn’t sure she was capable conversation at this moment. Her mind was still crying out for what she had lost and part of her was grappling with the question of why she had been the one chosen to travel back into the past to rescue Sean.
Still, Bill had helped her out, finding what she needed for final closure to her adventure, so she smiled at him as she gathered up her papers.
He watched her with bright, curious eyes. As he tilted his head to one side Jaclyn was reminded of a bird. A smart bird, a crow, maybe.
“So you’re studying under Tony Perlaine?”
Not really. “You could say that.” She peeled the off the cotton glove, hoping he would get the message. She was done here.
“Perlaine’s a stickler for digging deep into every topic. We see lots of his students in the archives, particularly his masters and Ph.D. candidates. He works them hard.” Bill smiled. “But from what I remember of the research you did this summer, that’s nothing new for you.”
Jaclyn wrinkled her nose and laughed lightly. “Yeah, I guess I did put in a lot of time. It paid off though. Professor Perlaine wants me to publish the summary I wrote on my research.”
“Hey, that’s great. A good start to your career.”
Jaclyn nodded. Publishing credits were the lifeblood of academic life. She stood.
The archivist stood too. “Well, good luck with your courses this year.”
“Thanks. And thanks again for arranging for me see the actual newspaper. It really helped.”
“No problem.”
Jaclyn gathered up her notes then tucked them under one arm before putting her pencil into her pocket.
Bill held out his hand. “We’ll see you again, then.”
He made the words sound like a statement, when they should actually have been a question.