Brides of Ohio

by Jennifer A. Davids

  She glanced over at Ruth Decker, who had backed off and looked very uncertain. Mr. Decker stood beside her and gave her a tentative smile. Without hesitation Katherine walked up to the woman and smiled gently. “Mrs. Decker, I never got to thank you for your kindness and hospitality when Mary and I first arrived. Thank you kindly.”

  Ruth Decker burst into tears and caught Katherine up in a firm embrace. “I am so ashamed of myself,” she sobbed. “I can be so ridiculous at times. There’s no possible excuse for how I acted.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Decker. Don’t worry yourself. I hope we can be friends now.”

  “Oh, of course,” Ruth exclaimed as she released her and mopped at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I’m going to have a quilting bee very soon, and you and Mary and Adele must come.”

  There were other apologies after that. Not as many as Katherine would have liked but, she mused as they rode home, it was a good beginning.

  Adele grasped her hand, and they smiled at each other. “I am looking forward to the quilting bee,” she said.

  “I am, too,” Katherine replied. “Mary and I have been working on a quilt, but it won’t be ready for a while yet.”

  A gleam appeared in Adele’s eye, and she threw a quick glance at Daniel who was sitting in the seat in front of them driving. “A Double Wedding Ring pattern perhaps?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  Katherine clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp. “Adele!” she hissed.

  The young widow’s eyes danced, but she said no more.

  Katherine was glad to see her so cheerful, a stark contrast to how she must have been feeling a mere week ago. She glanced up at her new friend.

  “If you had not come here, I would have drowned in my hate. …”

  “Your example has shown her what she needs to do.”

  Adele’s and Daniel’s voices echoed in her mind, and suddenly coming here made sense. She remembered the day Mary had told her she was going to abandon her plantation and go home to Ohio. The urge to go with her was so strong she had felt sure it was God Himself guiding her.

  The anxiety and worry she had felt for the past two months vanished as she now recognized her part in His plan. That God had used her as an instrument of healing gave her a sense of confidence she hadn’t felt for a long while. Not since before all that had happened with Chloe.

  She fingered her scar thoughtfully. Will I ever find out what happened to her, Father?

  Daniel had written his friend as he had promised, but the man had been unable to find out anything.

  Her hand dropped away from her face, and she squared her jaw resolutely. Trust Him, she told herself. Don’t lean on your own understanding.

  They pulled up the Kirbys’ drive, and Adele immediately climbed out. Katherine knew she was eager to see how Jacob was. The boy was weak, but Mary had declared he would be fine after a few days of rest.

  Adele was in the house even before Daniel had a chance to help Katherine out of the carriage. His fingers wrapped around hers as he helped her step to the ground, and her heart did a double flip as he pulled her close and placed a quick kiss on her lips. “You were wonderful this morning,” he murmured.

  She smiled and was about to reply when they heard the door to the house open. They turned to see Adele standing there, her face deeply distressed.

  Katherine felt Daniel’s arms tense. “What is it, Adele?” he asked. “Is it Jacob?”

  She quickly shook her head. “Katherine has a visitor.”

  Katherine stared at her in surprise. “Who?”

  “You must come inside,” she replied stiffly before disappearing into the house.

  The look on Adele’s face so upset her she was up the steps and into the house before Daniel. At the door to the parlor she gasped.

  A gaunt man dressed in Confederate gray stood in front of the sofa where Mary and Adele sat looking at him. He turned to Katherine, and she was shocked to hear her brother’s voice come from the skeletal form. “Gather your things, Katherine. I’ve come to fetch you home.”

  Chapter 17

  The soldier in Daniel immediately reached for his Colt the instant he saw Confederate gray. He cocked the weapon as he moved to stand in front of Katherine.

  The Southern officer glared at him. “You would shoot an unarmed-man, sir?”

  Daniel hesitated. Glancing at the man’s belt, he saw his holster was indeed empty. “No,” he replied as he slowly uncocked his weapon and lowered it.

  Katherine moved to go around him, but he blocked her with his arm, causing the soldier’s glare to intensify. She laid a hand on his arm, and Daniel looked down at her. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s my brother, Charles.”

  Daniel reluctantly let her go by.

  She started to hug her brother. When he did not return the embrace, she hastily stepped back a bit, hands clasped together. “Charles, I’m so glad to see you’re alive. Aunt Ada and I found your name posted on the lists. Where have you been all this time?”

  “An unfortunate clerical error. I’ve been a guest of the Union army for the past eight months,” he replied, glaring at Daniel.

  Daniel held his tongue but watched him carefully.

  “The last three were at Camp Chase. I was released just yesterday. Had I not been wounded, I would have written sooner to tell you and Aunt Ada I was alive. When I finally was able to, she told me how you had abandoned her to come here.”

  Katherine pursed her lips slightly, but her gaze did not waver from her brother for a moment.

  Mary broke the silence that had settled over the room. “You look so thin, Charles,” she said gently. “Let me get you something to eat.”

  “No thank you, ma’am.” Charles’s polite words were offset by the sneer on his face. “I have only come to take my sister home.” He looked piercingly at Katherine. “Her fiancé is waiting for her.”

  Daniel’s eyes widened as Katherine gasped. “Charles, what do you mean? I was never engaged.”

  “You are now. Aunt Ada has it all arranged. You will finally bring prestige to our name with your marriage to Thaddeus Adams.”

  “Charles, you can’t be serious!” Mary exclaimed. “Thaddeus Adams is nearly three times her age.”

  “You will kindly stay out of this.” Charles snapped. “This is a family matter and no concern of yours.”

  “Don’t talk to her that way. She’s been more like family to me than you ever were, Charles.”

  Daniel stared at Katherine in surprise. This was a new side to her, so unlike the meek, soft-spoken woman he’d come to know. But as much as he loved her gentle ways, he was glad to see her more assertive and sure of herself. And he did not fail to notice she wasn’t even reaching for her scar, as she certainly would have before. He silently cheered her on as she defiantly glared up at her older brother who was nearly as tall as he was.

  Taking a deep breath and calming herself, she went on. “I’m sorry, but I won’t even consider leaving here to marry Mr. Adams. Ohio is my-home now.”

  Her brother’s face grew red. “As head of our family, you are under my protection,” he shot back. “You will do as I say.”

  “No!”

  Charles’s face contorted with rage as he backhanded Katherine across the jaw.

  As she crumpled to the floor, Daniel sprang forward and pinned Charles Wallace against the wall, his pistol pointed directly between his eyes. Suddenly Daniel wasn’t in his family’s parlor but on a smoke-filled battlefield, his enemy backed up against a bullet-riddled stump. He cocked his gun.

  “Daniel!”

  He jumped at the warm hand on his arm and blinked as the image melted away.

  Adele was standing next to him, the pressure from her hands growing as she tried to force him to lower his weapon. Mary knelt on the floor next to Katherine, who he desperately hoped was only unconscious.

  He swallowed and backed away but kept his Colt trained on Charles. “Get out,” he said roughly. “Get off my property and
don’t come back. If anyone’s going to marry your sister, it’ll be me.”

  Adele and Mary made Katherine stay in bed for several days. She tried to tell them she was fine, but Mary would have none of it.

  “Head injuries are nothing to be played with,” she’d said sternly on the second day. “Your head hit the floor awfully hard when you fell.”

  Katherine remembered Charles backhanding her but little else after that save for the vague yet pleasant memory of Daniel carrying her up the stairs.

  By the fourth day, she still had a large lump on the back of her head and her jaw was bruised and tender, but she felt more than ready to get out of bed. She missed Daniel terribly. Mary would not permit him to even come up the stairs, but the notes he’d been sending up had lessened the ache considerably.

  The first had been a word-for-word copy of four of Shakespeare’s sonnets: eighteen, twenty-nine, fifty-five, and fifty-seven. How had he known those had always been her favorites? The next evening she had blushed furiously over a copy of Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty.”

  Now, as she sat up in bed rereading one of the sonnets, a small dark head poked its way around the corner of her door. “Jacob!” she exclaimed softly and motioned for him to come in.

  She was happy to see he was up and dressed and his once-infected hand seemed back to normal. It was still wrapped snugly with clean strips of linen. Mary was taking no chances of its becoming infected again.

  He sat on the edge of her bed and picked up one of the sonnets. She smiled as the child read the poem, his face becoming more confused by the second.

  “What does ‘bootless cries’ mean?” he asked. “Is he crying ‘cause he lost his boots?”

  Katherine chuckled. “No, he’s sad because his cries seem meaningless.”

  “Oh,” he said, handing it back. He looked at her for a minute and frowned. “That man was mean to hit you. Who was he?”

  Katherine’s heart was in her throat at the thought the boy had witnessed such violence. “Oh, Jacob, I’m sorry you saw that. Why were you even down there?”

  “I heard someone talk mean to Mrs. O’Neal, so I went downstairs so I could tell him to leave her alone.” He smiled crookedly. “But you did that real good.”

  “What else did you see?” Katherine was eager to know what happened after everything went black. She had asked Adele and Mary how they had gotten Charles to leave, but they had simply urged her to rest, smiling mysteriously when they assured her he would not be back.

  “Mr. Kirby, he slammed the man against the wall and pulled his gun on him.”

  Katherine gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. Oh, surely Daniel didn’t shoot Charles!

  Seeing the look on her face, the boy hurried on. “But Ma talked to him and he backed off and told the man to get out.” A broad smile lit up the youngster’s face. “And then Mr. Kirby said if—”

  “Jacob.” They looked up to see Adele standing in the doorway, giving her son a look of gentle reproach. “You should not be bothering Miss Wallace. She needs her rest.”

  “Oh Adele,” Katherine said as the woman took her son’s seat after shooing him out. “I feel fine.”

  The young widow looked at her carefully. “What did my son tell you?”

  “Daniel didn’t really pull his gun on Charles, did he?”

  Adele nodded soberly. “I have never seen Daniel so angry. For a moment, it seemed he was someplace else. He was startled when I put my hand on his arm.”

  “Is he all right?”

  She smiled reassuringly. “He seems fine. You can see for yourself. Mary says you may come down in a little while.” Her eyes sparkled as she pulled a note from her dress pocket. “Daniel sends you this.”

  Katherine opened it and tears sprang to her eyes.

  “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

  SONG OF SOLOMON 2:13

  Mary came in a little later and helped Katherine get dressed. She was surprised when Mary laid out her blue dress and fussed over her nearly twenty minutes longer than necessary.

  Putting her hair up in its usual style proved to be impossible; the lump on the back of her head was still so tender Mary was sure coiling raids against the nape of her neck would give her a headache. Instead, she swept Katherine’s thick hair up on either side, letting the rest fall in waves down to her waist.

  Katherine looked at her nervously when she’d finished. She hadn’t worn her hair down since she was a young girl. “Mary, I can’t go down like this.”

  Mary smiled gently. “It’s not entirely proper, but you won’t be going out in public. You look just fine. Lovely, in fact.”

  Katherine winced at her choice of words and, glancing into the mirror in the door of her wardrobe, started.

  Mary noticed and laid a hand on her arm. “What is it, dear?” she asked.

  “I’m … pretty,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and shook her head, but nothing changed. The same attractive young lady was still staring back at her with large, expressive eyes and hair with fiery red highlights. “It must be the mirror or because my hair is down. …”

  “Or because you’ve always been pretty?” Her friend pulled her into a warm hug. “Come on before Daniel wears a hole in the rug.”

  Mary left her at the foot of the stairs, sternly telling her she and Adele would not be very far away in the kitchen.

  Katherine reached back and nervously patted her loose wavy hair once more before stepping into the parlor.

  If she had somehow managed to become pretty in the course of four days, then Daniel had become twice as handsome in the same amount of time. She barely breathed as he stopped his pacing to stare at her.

  Before she knew it, he was holding her tightly, like he would never let go.

  Daniel finally loosened his hold on Katherine and looked down at her. It was the first time he had seen her in days, and his eyes were instantly drawn to the ugly bruise Charles’s blow had left on her jaw. Guilt gnawed at him as he ran his thumb over it.

  Katherine’s eyes softened. “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “I should have known better. You shouldn’t have been within two feet of him.”

  “I’m fine,” she soothed. “I’ve been through worse.”

  “And you’ll never go through something like that ever again.” He sealed his promise with a lingering kiss. Raising his head, he noticed her hair. “Trying to start a new fashion?” he teased, holding up a handful of it.

  “No.” She blushed. “I still have quite a lump on the back of my head. Mary was worried if we put it up I’d have a frightful headache.” The smile faded from her face and she took him in with worried eyes. “Adele said you weren’t yourself after …” Her voice trailed off.

  Daniel nodded and led her over to the sofa. “The war sneaks up on me at times,” he said as they sat down.

  Katherine’s eyes grew large with worry. “It’s not like Reverend Warren’s nephew?”

  “No,” he quickly reassured her. “Nothing like that.” Loud, sudden noises had a tendency to spook him more than they used to, and Michael had once awakened him from a very ugly dream. But he didn’t feel like he wasn’t in control or not getting on with life. “I was just so angry when he hit you. That and your brother and I being in uniform.” He grasped her hands and squeezed them. “I doubt it will happen again.”

  “Do you want to talk about it with me?” she offered.

  “Katherine, there are things I saw and experienced no woman should ever hear about,” Daniel replied gravely. “But I’ve spoken with Michael several times.” In spite of the fact he had not fought in the war, or perhaps because of it, Simon Peter’s son was a considerate and careful listener. They had also prayed together on more than one occasion.

  “I’ll pray for you then,” Katherine whispered tenderly.

  He smiled as she squeezed his hands, and he glanced down at them. “Thank you. Just your presence is soothing. Like that first day out in the courtyard.”

&n
bsp; Her eyes dropped away and her cheeks turned crimson.

  He was amazed by how beautiful she was when she was embarrassed. Some of her long, silky tresses fell over her shoulder. With her hair always pulled back in coiled braids, he’d never had the opportunity to appreciate its dark, fiery depths. He gently pulled more of it over her shoulder and thought of the Byron poem he had copied for her. ‘“And all that’s best of dark and bright; Meet in her aspect and her eyes,”’ he softly quoted. Their eyes met, and he quickly found himself kissing her soft lips.

  “Daniel Kirby,” she reproached a moment later, “how scandalous of you to send me a poem from a man described—by his mistress no less—as ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know.’”

  “Which is more scandalous, that I sent you one of his poems or that you know that about him?” They laughed, and Daniel wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life going back and forth with her like this.

  “Katherine …” His voice trailed off. The words were on the edge of his lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them. How could he? She wasn’t meant for the kind of life he could offer her.

  He quickly stood, and she stared at him with startled eyes. “I’m sorry. I have to do something. Tell Aunt Mary I’ll be back for dinner.”

  Daniel was so caught up with his own thoughts he failed to notice his aunt had followed him out to the barn and down to Scioto’s stable.

  He turned from fetching his saddle to find her standing near the stairs with her arms crossed. Her lips were pursed slightly, and she wore a look of concern. “What happened?” she asked him.

  He glanced at her and quickly returned to saddling his horse. Both Adele and Aunt Mary had expected him to propose to Katherine this evening, especially after what they had heard him tell her brother. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Why? Katherine loves you dearly. I never saw her this way, even with Thomas.”

  “No, it’s not her. It’s me.” He took Scioto’s bridle off its hook and fiddled with the straps. “She deserves better than this.”

  His aunt didn’t pretend to not understand what he meant. “She’s perfectly content here, Daniel. I can assure you of that.”