When she met Jonathan’s eyes, however, she saw the slight quirk of his lips, and she sensed that she hadn’t fooled him for one minute. This man was smart, very smart, Grace told herself. Her veiled sarcasm would not be lost on him. She even suspected that he was very good at reading minds, and at that, she began to fiddle with her silverware.
Distant thunder rumbled over the roof of the house. Elizabeth began fidgeting in the mahogany chair. “I think it’s going to rain,” she said, looking disturbed. “And now we can’t sit out on the front porch this evening.” She turned back to Jonathan. “Every day I sit there, watching and waiting for Fred. He promised me he would return from the war.”
Grace stared at her mother. Was she going to pretend that Jonathan had not told them her father was dying when he last saw him? She glanced across at Jonathan and saw that he was looking toward the window. She guessed he was trying to avoid the subject.
Grace opened her mouth, then closed it again. This was no time to remind her mother of the cruel truth, she decided. Instead, she followed Jonathan’s gaze to the window where the mimosa bush had begun to tremble as the breeze picked up into a steady wind.
“Mother is right,” Grace said. “You shouldn’t be out on a stormy night. It will get dark early, and there are deep ruts in the road when it rains. Sometimes thieves lurk in the woods along the roads.”
“And you two ladies live here alone?” he asked, looking from one to the other with a deep frown rumpling his smooth brow.
“The neighbors are very kind to look in on us,” Grace explained, “although we manage just fine.”
He studied her face for a moment, as though weighing her words. “I imagine that you do,” he said with a smile.
Grace was grateful that he didn’t respond to the sharp tone in her voice; when her independence was questioned, she had learned to rally back.
“I will accept your kind offer on the condition that you allow me to do something for you in the morning before I leave.”
“Like what?” Grace inquired.
“Forgive me for saying so, but I noticed as I turned up the lane this afternoon that the gate is broken. Your reference to thieves in the woods concerns me. I’ll stay if you allow me to repair the gate. It shouldn’t take long, and I promise not to overstay my welcome.”
“It’s settled then,” Elizabeth said, looking extremely pleased—a look Grace rarely saw on her mother’s face.
Another explosion of thunder shook the teacups in their saucers. Grace glanced through the lace curtains to the side lawn, where an eerie yellow light tinged the afternoon. Pale white light flickered and zigzagged past the window.
The mimosa bushes quivered, and overhead the thick branches of trees heaved as debris flew about.
“It’s getting worse,” Grace said, glancing at Jonathan, who had walked over to stand beside her. She was surprised to see that his face had turned pale, and his eyes had widened as he stared out the window. He looked as though he were becoming ill.
“What is it?” she asked.
He turned to face her. The muscles in his face clenched, and his blue eyes held a terrible kind of fear.
“What’s wrong?” she touched his sleeve.
He shook his head and passed a hand over his eyes. “Just a bad memory. Forgive me.”
“Of course,” she said, wondering why the storm affected him so.
Then the very foundation of the house seemed to quiver as thunder blasted again and again. Something crashed in the front of the house, and Grace rushed out of the dining room and down the hall to see what was happening.
In the parlor, she felt the rush of the wind. A corner of the drape flew about the east window, and as she hurried in that direction, she saw shards of glass strewn about the floor. The empty tea pitcher she had left out on the window ledge had been blown back against the window, shattering a small corner of it. Now remnants of the glass pitcher and the window were being tossed about like dust bunnies.
Seizing a small pillow from the sofa, she stepped around the edge of the glass and quickly stuffed the thick pillow into the gaping hole. Immediately, the wind softened.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Jonathan asked from the doorway.
She turned to see that he looked more pale than before, and she began to feel alarmed for him. He was obviously fighting some illness.
“I’m afraid I carelessly left a tea pitcher out on the window ledge when I was pruning the shrubs yesterday,” she explained. “The wind blew it against the window and broke a pane of glass. It’s okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm and soothing. “Why don’t you sit down? You don’t look well at all.”
He sank into the chair and again passed his hand over his forehead. Grace noticed the frayed threads along the sides of the chair and the chip in the mahogany arm. The furnishings were in sad condition, but there was nothing she could do about it, and Jonathan seemed not to notice.
“I must apologize,” he began.
“Perhaps I am the one who should apologize. I fear my food has poisoned you.”
“No, it’s not the food.”
“I’ll get you some water.”
She hurried back to the dining room, where her mother was getting up from the chair. “Is everything all right?” she asked calmly. Despite the fierce storm taking place outside, her mother did not look troubled.
“Yes. Mother, why don’t you go up and lie down? You always say you sleep best when it is raining.”
“Oh, I do. Will Mr. Parker be staying overnight?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think so. The storm is too bad to allow him to leave now.”
Grace hurried into the kitchen to pour a tumbler of water from a pitcher. What was wrong with him? she wondered. Had he been injured in the war?
As she passed through the hall, she saw her mother climbing the stairs. At least her mother was not aware of the man’s sudden illness. It would be like her mother to try and put him to bed and insist he stay on for a week.
When Grace returned to the parlor, Jonathan was standing before the broken window, surveying the damage.
“Here’s some water for you,” she said, as he turned and crossed the room to her side.
“You seem to have temporarily repaired the damage,” he said, indicating the pillow. He accepted the glass of water, drank it, and handed the glass back to her. “I’m afraid the war is still with me,” he said, glancing back at the gray day beyond the window. “Whenever I hear heavy thunder, for a moment I’m back in battle.”
She sat down on the settee and looked at him. “Would it help to talk about it?”
He sat down in the chair again, cradling his head in his hands. “It’s the same memory every time. We’re camped for the night after a thirty-six hour ride. Men were falling asleep in the saddle, and we had to stop and bed down for the night in a wooded area. We were awakened from a dead sleep by the sound of cannon fire at daybreak. When I looked around, we were surrounded by Confederate infantry; it didn’t seem we had a chance. We tried to move deeper into the woods while soldiers were coming at us with clubbed carbines and sabers. We had masked our guns in pine thickets the night before, and we opened fire. The wounded began to fall…gray coats, blue coats, soldiers piling up together…” His voice was softly muffled by his fingers covering his face.
The keening wind and biting rain hit the window as he spoke, but he didn’t seem to notice. Even Grace scarcely heard it as she stared at the man relating a memory that was obviously horrible to recall. He had stopped talking, and she took a deep breath.
“How did you manage to escape?” she asked gently.
“I’m not sure. I just remember firing and backing up, further and further into the woods. Then I heard a bugle, and I barely made out a column of our cavalry riding into the battle. Somehow they turned the Rebs back just in time. I stumbled down a bank to a creek and fell in. Then…when I looked around, I saw the water was red…and I saw some of my men lying there…their heads in the wa
ter.…”
He stopped talking, and Grace said nothing. He had painted the scene quite vividly for her, and she felt sick just thinking about it. When he spoke of Federal and Confederate soldiers dying together, it was almost too appalling to imagine; yet in her mind’s eye she had seen it all. She wondered how he could possibly have survived.
“I am so sorry,” he said, removing his hands from his face and looking at her with sad, bleak eyes. “I have no right to tell you such a horrible story. I have forgotten my place,” he said, coming to his feet. “I will leave now.”
“No, that isn’t necessary,” she said. “It is late, and Mother wants you to stay.”
Grace realized as she spoke the words that she was using her mother’s wish to justify her decision, but it didn’t matter. He had told her something quite personal—she knew that—and in doing so, had somehow bridged the awkward gap between them.
She looked across at the broken window and saw that the pillow had worked wonders in keeping out the wind and rain. The rain had stopped, but the storm laid a bleak gray light over the land. Grace got up and lit the lamps. She smiled as she realized that for once, she would not awake in the night, jumping at a strange sound, worrying that a thief might be breaking in. She would feel protected with Jonathan Parker staying in the guest room.
She was borrowing misery if she took comfort from the thought of having a man under their roof. He would be leaving tomorrow, and she would never see him again. That realization felt as heavy in her mind as the thick humidity settling over the room after the rain.
“Will your mother be joining us?” he asked.
“No, probably not for a while. She tires easily and usually goes to bed rather early. But then, she is so glad to have you visiting that she may surprise me and come downstairs for more conversation.”
“I hope she does.”
He cleared his throat, and his voice was stronger when he spoke. “I know the news I have brought about your father is painful.”
“Yes. But it feels good to be able to talk with someone who was with Father at…at the end.” She leaned forward. “Tell me more about him.”
Jonathan was quiet for a moment as his eyes lifted over her head to something outside the window. “He spoke of you and your mother constantly. I soon came to realize that he was an amazing man.”
She swallowed hard. “What was wrong with him? Other than starvation, I mean.”
“He had dysentery. It was rampant among the soldiers, and conditions in the hospital left something to be desired. But it was the fever that had begun to take his life. I would not have left him alone at the end, but the nurse convinced me that the outbreak of fever was contagious. I had to think about returning to Kentucky.”
“Of course,” Grace said, wondering if her father had suffered very much. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask anything more. The pain was too great. Then she thought of one more thing, still holding onto one last hope. “Was he…conscious when you left?”
Jonathan looked at her with compassion. “No, he was not.”
Silence filled the room until he sighed. “After he gave me the Bible, he seemed to fade away. I’m…so sorry.”
The bitterness that had festered in her heart like an ugly sore suddenly burst open. Grace jumped up from the love seat, hugging her arms around herself.
“It’s all so unfair!” she cried, pacing around the room. “I don’t know how Mother keeps her faith or why she bothers. Good people die; horrible people kill and go free. Nothing makes sense to me.”
“I know. I was always amazed at your father’s faith. My parents were not as devout, and I learned quite a bit from him in the short time we were together.”
The words he spoke fell into the tense silence, and for the first time all evening, Grace was conscious again of the difference in his voice and her own. She thought about the difference between his background and hers and the fact that he had fought opposite her father and brother. Yet, she had sat and listened to his horrid account of fighting between her side and his, and for a moment, both sides had seemed to blend into one terrible tragedy. But they were separate tragedies, and the South had suffered defeat.
“You look troubled,” he said, watching her closely.
She blinked and looked away. “Tired,” she replied. “I’m tired. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go on up to my room. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Mother has prepared the guest room for you. The third door on the right upstairs.” She glanced toward the darkness beyond the window, then back at him. “Well, good night.”
Turning, she hurried down the hall and up the stairs to her room, desperately needing her privacy. She was grateful her mother had faithfully lit the upstairs candelabra, for its soft glow offset the gloom. Yet it did not reach the shadowed corners of the long upper hall, which greeted her every evening.
With each step, Grace’s feet felt heavier. Her heart seemed to be dropping to her feet as she lit the lamp on the table beside the door in her bedroom. Then slowly she turned and closed the door.
Exhaustion crept over her as she walked to the armoire and pulled out her nightclothes. She was tired of dealing with the conflicting emotions that were a part of her every waking moment. War, death, poverty, loneliness. And now she had spent several hours with an interesting man, a Northerner, who was sure to set the tongues wagging throughout the county.
That didn’t bother her. What bothered her was the fact that she had been cheated once again. Fate had dangled an enticing dream before her, then just as quickly, and as cruelly, yanked it away. She had no hope of having a husband and a family. The future that stretched before her was bleak and unexciting.
As she tied the strings on the bodice of her nightgown, she began to wish she hadn’t asked Jonathan Parker to stay overnight. It would have been so much easier to thank him for his trouble, then send him on his way.
She walked to her bedroom window and stared out at the dark night. The wind sighed through the branches, a low moan that seemed to echo the mood in her heart. Despite the humidity of the May evening, a chill crept over her skin as she turned from the window and walked across the room to extinguish the light.
She would be relieved when Jonathan Parker climbed on his black stallion and rode out of their lives, she thought as she crawled into her feather bed and settled into the softness. She closed her eyes, but in the next second, deep blue eyes looked into her own, and the handsome face of the stranger under their roof lingered in her memory.
She rolled over and flopped against the pillow, angry again. She didn’t need to be reminded of what she was missing for the rest of her life.
Chapter 3
When Grace stirred against her pillow the next morning, she knew before she opened her eyes that something had changed in her life. Something was different about today. What was it? She stretched her slim body against the linen sheet as her memory settled in place. Suddenly, she bolted upright. Jonathan Parker!
Tossing back the covers, she hurried to the washstand, lifted the china pitcher, and poured water into the bowl. The morning ritual of splashing water on her face to wake up was unnecessary today. She was wide awake as she began to bathe, using the special lilac soap she hoarded.
Her eyes fell on the sweat-stained overalls, crumpled in a heap in the corner of the bedroom. Sniffing, she tweaked her nose in disgust. Mr. Jonathan Parker wouldn’t be seeing her in overalls today. No sir! Her mind moved on to the possibilities of her wardrobe, though they were slim.
When she finished her bath, she stepped over the overalls and hurried to the armoire, determined to feel the softness of a dress against her skin. She had not worn crinolines in a very long time, one of the advantages of their distressed situation, but today she intended to enjoy every minute she had with their charming Kentucky guest. Today she would enjoy being a woman. She felt surprisingly good about their northern house visitor in the bright sunlight of a new spring day. The mo
rbid thoughts of the night before had been washed away by a deep sleep, just as the hard rain had polished the leaves of the magnolia tree to a waxy green and scrubbed up the sky to a fresh clean blue. She was ready to be up and about her business, to face life again.
Reaching inside the armoire, she withdrew a pair of lacy pantaloons. Turning to the wardrobe, she chose the dress with tiny pink rosebuds that always made her think of flower gardens in the spring. While she dressed, she studied her reflection in the mirror.
She had been blessed with clear skin. While her nose always managed to hang onto the first sunburn, the rest of her skin turned a light golden tan once she adjusted to the sun. Wide-set hazel eyes beneath sharply arched brows stared back at her as she lifted a work-roughened hand to the deep hollow in her cheek. She had lost more weight, and dark circles showed beneath her lashes. Another year of drudgery and she would be skin and bones, she thought, frowning suddenly. She reached up and smoothed the little wrinkle from her brow. There was no point in thinking about life’s unpleasantness now; she wanted this to be a good day.
She reached for the silver-handled hairbrush and worked it through her tangled blond hair as she thought about the day ahead. Why not relish gazing at the handsome man, talking to him, maybe even flirting a little bit? After all, he would soon be only a memory, so she should make it a good one.
She whisked her hair back from her face and secured it with a black grosgrain ribbon at the nape of her neck. Then her fingers darted up to fan the wavy ends out across her shoulders. The vinegar rinses she put on her hair kept the shine in it, which always surprised her, considering how little time she had to take care of herself.
Placing her hands on each side of her narrow waist, she whirled before the mirror, satisfied that she achieved her goal: She looked and felt like a woman.
She hurried out of the room and down the steps, led by the sound of voices from somewhere below. At the bottom step, she turned her head toward the open front door. Following the voices, she sauntered up the hall to peer out onto the front porch. Beyond the round white columns that rose to the roof, Grace could see raindrops, like crystal beads, glimmering on the thick grass in the yard. While the yard was pitifully overgrown, like all of the land, a timeless beauty lingered in the massive oaks with their brawny arms and in the creamy blossoms on the magnolia tree.
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