by April London
“Frances.” Hester kept her gaze steady on Tamsyn while she spoke. “I’m so glad you made it from Essex in time. James, don’t just stand there. Bring her in and sit down.”
“Yes, I’m so glad we made it in time. I would have simply died if I’d missed this dinner party.” Frances smiled. She slipped her gloved hand around his elbow and he escorted her into the room.
The candlelight sparked off the dress with each step she took. The butler appeared, an extra chair held in white gloved hands.
James seated Frances in his own seat, next to Tamsyn and added the extra seat to the corner of the table.
“James, introduce Frances to your guest,” Hester urged.
“Ah.” James kept his gaze on the table. “Frances, this is Ms. Tamsyn Moody.”
Tamsyn’s teeth ground against one another. She nodded at the beautiful woman seated next to her.
“Ms. Moody, this is Miss Frances Amory.” He took a deep bresth. “My fiancée.”
“James saved her from the rebel dogs when they attacked her.” Hester injected.
“I do hope you weren’t harmed.” Frances smiled and turned her attention back to James. “With your approval, James, our wedding can now move forward. We can be wed in a month’s time.” She beamed with her news. Those around them offered their congratulations.
“Finally!” Hester clapped the loudest. “It will be the wedding of the season!”
Abigail squeezed Tamsyn’s hand again, but she couldn’t look up. Her head pounded and conversation continued around her. Her heart began to race and she tried to pull air into her lungs.
“Tamsyn,” Abigail whispered.
“Excuse me.” Tamsyn pushed the chair away from the table. It tipped over and clattered to the floor. She didn’t look back and rushed from the room.
At the top of the stairs she stopped.
Where do I go?
She passed by James’s room. She refused to take refuge there. Tears drained down her cheeks. She pushed inside the guest room. This is where I should have stayed.
Closing the door she leaned against it. Her shoulders shook. Her chest burned and her stomach churned. Tears rolled down her face and stained the front of the dress. I have no place here. I never had a place here.
The urge to vomit came over her and she scrambled toward the basin on the corner table. She clutched the edges of the sturdy table as another cheer came up from the table downstairs.
Her upper lip curled with disgust. I have to find a way out of here.
There were still a few coins tucked into the bottom of the trunk. Her last gift from Ben. It wouldn’t be enough to take her all the way to Tennessee but it might get her back to her cabin in Virginia. Once there she could get a message to Davis.
A plan formed in mind. She scrubbed her face with her hands and took a deep breath. With her nausea under control, she straightened and slipped back to the door. She cracked open the wooden door. The noises of the party carried on downstairs.
She moved down the darkened hallway and slipped inside James’s room. The door clicked shut behind her. Feeling her way in the darkened room Tamsyn found the trunk was still in the corner. The lid creaked open.
She bit her bottom lip.
Her hand rummaged until her fingers closed on the small carpeted bag that was hers. Inside she’d left the coins, her wedding band and the deed to the farm in Virginia.
She pulled the bag out and rummaged through the trunk until she found her other items. She left the gowns James bought inside and closed the lid.
She slipped back to the door and opened it.
“I told you, Frances.” Hester’s harsh whisper carried the length of the hallway.
Tamsyn jerked to a stop in the doorway. Frances and Hester stood at the top of the stairs.
“I see.” Frances tilted her neck and stared down at Tamsyn. “Hester, please excuse us, for a moment.” Frances dismissed Hester with a wave of her and and stepped forward. “You’ve packed your bags and removed your items from his room. Very good.”
The tall woman stalked closer. “I’ll forgive his little indiscretion with you.” Frances went on. “But you must know, he couldn’t possibly have cared for you.”
Tamsyn stiffened. Frances was right. He’d never once mentioned caring for her.
She turned on her heel and walked away from James’s fiancée.
Back inside the guest room she dropped her bag by the door and turned the lock. She dropped onto the bed, letting the tears flow until she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Thursday, April 27, 1865
Tamsyn slipped past James’s room and down the stairs. With her bag in her hand, she hoped to make her way to the train station by sunup. Dressed in her own homespun clothes she pulled her cloak from the peg where it hung by the front door. In the wee hours of the morning she’d sneaked back into Abigail’s room for the dress.
The shock of finding George asleep and naked in the girl’s bed nearly deterred her plan. She pushed it aside, and found her dress across the chair of the vanity.
Her hand touched the knob of the front door. She realized the noises of the door opening and closing would carry up the stairs awaken everyone. Tamsyn decided to make her way out through the garden.
The kitchen was still empty. The party had carried on, late into the night and the help took advantage of a still sleeping family.
Outside in the garden she stopped short. Early dawn streaked pink across the sky and next to a large orange flower stood Suzette.
“Bonjour, Tamsyn.” Suzette whispered and smiled. “You are up early.” The woman took a second glance at Tamsyn. “Traveling today then?”
Tamsyn nodded.
“It was very nice to meet you, Suzette.” Tamsyn pressed toward the gate of the garden.
“No one will be at the train station this early.” Suzette made a delicate and precise snip and the petal fell into her open palm.
“I’m walking,” Tamsyn said. “I’m not certain how to get there or how long it might take.”
Suzette clicked her tongue. She picked up her basket and hurried to the gate with Tamsyn. “I’ll tell you how to get there, if you come have le café with me before you leave.” Suzette opened the gate.
Tamsyn’s stomach rumbled.
“Perhaps a toast as well.” Suzette laughed and led Tamsyn through the narrow alley between their homes. Suzette’s own gardens were bare in comparison to the Steele garden. “Mrs. Steele offered to help me make it beautiful but I find that I don’t have the time to care for the flowers.”
“You mix the perfumes?” Tamsyn followed Suzette into the kitchen where a cook stirred the fires in the oven.
“Oui.” Suzette dropped her basket and motioned to a small table in the corner. “Sit, I’ll cut off bread and grab le café.”
Tamsyn dropped her bag by her feet and sat.
“So you met Mademoiselle Amory, I take it?” Suzette set a cup of coffee in front of Tamsyn. The steam swirled up under her nose. She kept her eyes on the cup in front of her and nodded.
“How did you come to know the Steeles?” Tamsyn asked in an attempt to turn the conversation from her own misery.
Suzette smiled. “I was a mail order bride. Monsieur Barlow brought me here from Canada just before the start of the war. I move in here, with him, and met the Steele family.”
“Mrs. Steele said you were a widow,” Tamsyn urged Suzette to go on.
“Oui, Monsieur Barlow felt his talents were best served by joining the fight. He died a few weeks after enlisting.”
“I’m so sorry.” Tamsyn offered. “Why did you stay here?”
Suzette’s laughter startled her. “My family sold me, they would not wish to have me back.” Suzette sipped her coffee. “I am better here. The children are better here. I have a home, friends.”
“Robert?” Tamsyn broached the topic.
“Pardon?”
“Robert seems taken by you.”
A dark crimson blush spread across Suzette’s face. Suzette had lived a full life already and was still very young. “Mr. Robert is very kind.” Suzette spread butter onto her bread. “But it would never work. He is…how do you say it again, Mrs. Larne?” she called to the cook.
“High class,” the woman called over her shoulder.
“Oui, high class,” Suzette agreed. “I am not.” She waved the conversation aside. “Mademoiselle Amory is a piece of work, non?”
“Did everyone know he was betrothed to her?” she asked while Suzette sipped from her own cup. “Except me, I mean?”
Suzette remained silent.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Tamsyn reached for a slice of bread.
“Frances Amory has been chasing after James Steele for a decade.” Mrs. Larne bustled about the kitchen. “The Amorys have been pushing for this wedding for almost as long. Frances weaseled a proposal out of James before the war started.”
“Mrs. Larne, do go on,” Suzette urged.
Mrs. Larne laughed and shrugged. “Her family lost most of their money about ten years ago, before you came here, Suzie. She tried to get him to marry her before he left.”
“What happened?” Suzette leaned forward.
“He refused. It was the talk of the town. How romantic it was. How he refused to marry her because he didn’t want to leave her a widow if he died.”
“I remember that.” Suzette nodded. “It was right after I came here. Frances swore to wait on him and cried if he died there would be no other for her.”
“So she loves him?” Tamsyn asked.
The cook and Suzette both huffed in unison.
“So, will you give up on Robert?” Tamsyn asked. “What you could have with him?”
“Will you give up on James?” Suzette asked.
Tamsyn thought carefully before she answered, “I’ve played the role of the ‘other woman’ once already in my life. I won’t do it again.”
Surprise crossed Suzette’s face. The same look had crossed her mother’s face the night she told her she was pregnant with a married man’s child.
“Thank you for the tea and toast. If you’d be so kind, point me in the direction of the train station and I’ll be on my way.”
“Left when you leave the house. Right at the first street you come to. You can’t miss it.”
Suzette offered Tamsyn a tight hug. Tamsyn left the house by the kitchen and hurried up the tight alley.
“He will forget all about you.”
She spotted Hester’s dark clad form near the front of the house. Clenching her jaw, she hurried onto the street and away from Hester.
Focusing on making her way to the Boston train station occupied her thoughts. Suzette’s directions were simple enough but there weren’t many others out in the city so soon after the sun came up. It made her nervous. Several times Tamsyn had been certain she heard footsteps close behind her. She would turn to find the street empty.
The call window slid open just as she walked up carrying her bag.
“Hello.” She smiled at the man behind the window. “How much for a ticket to Johnson City, Tennessee?”
“Seven dollars.”
She frowned. She didn’t have enough.
“I’ll purchase the ticket for the lady.”
Tamsyn stiffened.
“What times does her train leave?” the familiar voice asked. He handed the paper money to the clerk.
She swallowed hard.
“Forty minutes.” The clerk passed the ticket through the window. “She can board in ten.”
“Thank you.” He touched her back and urged her away from the window.
“What are you doing here?”
They sat on a bench next to the window.
“You are not an easy woman to follow.” George narrowed his eyes and dropped, exhausted next to her.
“Why are you following me?” She set her bag between her feet.
“Abigail asked me to make sure you were safe.”
“How did she know…”
“You were very loud this morning.” He lifted a dark eyebrow and grinned.
Tamsyn dropped her head with embarrassment.
“I asked her to marry me last night.” His eyes danced with happiness.
“Oh, George, that’s wonderful. Please tell Abigail how happy I am for her.”
“I’d rather you tell her yourself.”
“I can’t stay, George.”
“I know. Hell, I bought the ticket so you could leave.” George leaned toward her and sighed. “He didn’t think Frances would wait. But he screwed up. He should have told you.”
“I don’t want him to get into trouble with General Grant. Will you go with him, if he’s called in, and explain?” She recalled the promise James made.
“What are you talking about?”
“General Grant made James responsible for me. He was afraid I was more involved with my husband’s spying than I let on.”
George laughed out loud. “Grant released him from that.”
“No.” She shook her head. “James told me if I didn’t come to Boston willingly he would place me under arrest.”
George grimaced. “He has a lot of apologizing to do. When he comes for you, make him beg.”
“He won’t come.” She took a shaky breath.
The conductor called for ticket holders to board the train and she shifted to take her bag.
George stood with her.
“I need to send a telegram,” she remembered. “Where should I do that?”
“I can take care of it. Where should I send it?”
“My brother, Davis Hart. In Johnson City, Tennessee.”
“I’ll send it before the train leaves.”
“Why did you buy the ticket?”
“James will want to know where to find you. Because he will come after you.” George nodded to the conductor and walked away.
Chapter Seventeen
Sunday, April 30, 1865
Johnson City, Tennessee
She stepped onto the platform. The bright sunshine warmed her face. She took a deep breath and smiled.
“Tamsyn?” Davis appeared, winding through the crowd. He’d mastered the use of his peg and moved with speed to where she stood. He opened his arms and she collapsed against him.
“The damned Yank broke your heart, Tam, I’m so sorry. We’ll be home by dark.”
“I wasn’t sure anyone would get the message.” She cried against his shoulder. He held her until she gathered her composure.
He smiled down at her. “He sent word when the telegraph came through. I bribed the man at the telegraph office not to hold the message until the end of the day.”
She laughed at her brother’s foresight despite her sadness. “How’s Elizabeth? She didn’t want to come with you?”
“Little Bit wanted to make something special for you. She stayed with Ma.”
She cringed. Little Bit.
“Sorry, Tam.” He led her to the wagon just outside the train station. Tossing her bag into the back he helped her climb onto the seat.
She looked ahead to the mountains. The wagon jerked to a start and peace washed over her. She’d not been home in five years. Home.
She soaked in the colors. The landscape bloomed, living in bright greens, blues, purples. She closed her eyes and breathed the scent of new growth around her.
This is where I belong.
“Lavinia has been by every day, asking if you’ve sent word.”
Sweet Lavinia. “How is she?” she asked.
They bumped higher along the rough mountain road and she shivered with the sudden drop in temperature. Davis laughed and pulled a blanket from the back of the wagon. “She finally got her claws into Aaron.”
“Really?” Tamsyn giggled. “So, Lavinia is my sister-in-law now?”
“Yup.” He grinned. “She was widowed twice before Aaron made his way home from the war. She’s expecting any day now.”
“Mama happy ab
out it?”
“Happier than a squirrel in an acorn bucket. Everyone else left for Missouri right before I made it back. I’m getting married soon too.”
The horses pulled into the last stretch of road before the house would come into view.
Tamsyn leaned over and stared at her brother. “Who?”
“Do you remember the soldier, Knowles?” he asked.
She nodded, biting back a smile.
“Her name is Vera,” Davis blurted.
“I’m happy for you, Davis.”
“Whoa.” Davis pulled the reins to stop the horse in front of the house.
Tamsyn stared. Nothing really had changed.
The whitewashed two-story farmhouse looked the same as it had the day she’d pulled away in a similar wagon with Ben. Her oak tree had spread out, shading the side of the house where her room had been, and a wraparound porch where she had played for hours as a little girl.
It was home and she felt a sense of relief about being there.
“Elizabeth found where you carved your initials into the tree.” Davis winked.
Davis hopped from the wagon and turned to help her down. Before letting go he kissed her on the top of the head. “Glad to have you home, sis.”
“She’s here!” The front door slammed and footsteps raced across the porch. “Mama!” Elizabeth leapt from the side of the porch and into her mother’s waiting arms. Tiny arms encircled her neck.
Tamsyn buried her face into Elizabeth’s hair and dropped to the ground.
Sobs erupted from somewhere deep inside her. She tried to stop. Each deep breath brought more tears. She rocked and cried, holding her daughter.
“Mama,” Elizabeth whispered, pulling her head back to look up. “I spent all day in the kitchen with Gram. We made cookies! Oh, Mama, I missed you so much. I told my teacher you would be home soon, but I don’t think she believed me. She’s not very nice. But Gram says she’s a good teacher. And she has red hair, just like me.”
Tamsyn giggled.
“Come on, Elizabeth, let your poor Mama stand up.” Davis bent and pulled Elizabeth off, tossing her up onto his shoulders. “Want to help me with the horses?”
“Oh, yes! Mama, I’ll be right back! Uncle is going to let me help with the horses!”