Leigh

by Lyn Cote

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2006 by Lyn Cote

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

  in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including

  information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in

  writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may

  quote brief passages in a review.

  Warner Faith

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  The Warner Faith name and logo are registered trademarks of the Time Warner Book Group.

  First eBook Edition: October 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56866-1

  Contents

  Copyright

  Praise for The Women of Manor

  The Carlyle Family

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Historical Note

  Reading Group Guide

  THE WOMEN OF IVY MANOR

  To my own college friends: Angie Greene Kuchenbecker,

  Barb Ullrich Baumgartner, Jan Shortness Mottaz, and

  Jeanne Mosher Craig.

  Thanks for all the fun and great memories

  from when we were all young and foolish—I mean, idealistic.

  Also to Dar Listowski Holle, my traveling companion

  to Europe and Hawaii.

  When we were young and single and carefree.

  And to Connie Brown Piper.

  You’ve always been like a sister to me.

  Praise for The Women of Manor

  BETTE

  “Lyn Cote weaves a powerful story of love, secrets, betrayal, and passion during the tumultuous years of World War II. Her unique blend of storytelling and dynamic characters brings this era of history to life.”

  —DiAnn Mills, author of When the Lion Roars

  “Lyn Cote lured me into realistic, gripping, and sometimes heart-wrenching encounters with an era that has left an indelible mark on both history and human hearts. BETTE is truly unforgettable.”

  —Kathy Herman, author of the Baxter series and A Shred of Evidence

  “Lyn Cote’s craftsmanship shines in BETTE. Her beautiful plotting includes textured settings that jet you around the world into the lives of characters so real we think we know them. Add a heroine we can all admire, and once again the ladies of Ivy Manor grab hold of your heart and hang on.”

  —Lois Richer, author of Shadowed Secrets

  CHLOE

  “Will steal your heart… With her customary high-quality plotting, Lyn Cote has brought to life [a] long overlooked period of United States history. Appealing characterizations exemplify the pathos, despair, and courage of post-WWI America.”

  —Irene Brand, award-winning author of Where Morning Dawns and The Hills Are Calling

  “Like finding the missing piece of a favorite puzzle… What a treasure! A fresh presentation of a world I didn’t know. I loved this page-turner!”

  —Patt Marr, award-winning author of Angel in Disguise

  “[A] rich journey… Meticulous historical detail and vivid characters… a treat for the reader.”

  —Marta Perry, author of Her Only Hero

  “A romance of epic proportions, absorbing and satisfying, that never lets you forget how the Father takes you just as you are and that His love can bring you home from the farthest journey. Cote has written a winner. You will remember this heroine long after the final page is turned.”

  —Deborah Bedford, author of A Morning Like This and If I Had You

  “A heart-warming tale… A compelling story driven by equally compelling characters”

  —Valerie Hansen, author of Samantha’s Gift

  “Lyn Cote hooked me from the very beginning, then expertly reeled me across the pages… Pages full of romance, suspense, heartbreak, forgiveness, acceptance, and, ultimately, a satisfying ending.”

  —Sylvia Bambola, author of Waters of Marah and Return to Appleton

  “Lyn Cote’s return to historical fiction is a delight! CHLOE is lyrically written, enhancing a plot that’s teeming with zigs and zags. Compelling characters take us on a journey toward happiness reached only by plumbing the depths of despair. This one’s a keeper!”

  —Lois Richer, author of Shadowed Secrets

  “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me.

  I once was lost, but now I’m found

  Was blind, but now I see.”

  —John Newton

  The Carlyle Family

  PROLOGUE

  New York City, November 1983

  Through two horrific days and one long night, Leigh Sinclair had held it together. Until an hour after she hugged her little girl and watched a doctor give the child a sedative at the hospital and finally, thankfully, brought her here—home to her own bed. Then Leigh had fallen apart.

  All her self-control dissolved in an instant, and she started shaking and couldn’t stop. Nate had led her from her sleeping child into the dark living room. He’d nudged her down onto her sofa. Murmuring, he’d sat down and laid her head against his shoulder. And slowly the trembling had ebbed.

  Just a few weeks ago, Leigh had only known Nate Gallagher, NYPD detective, professionally. He’d made it clear she interested him, but she’d kept him at arm’s length as she did every other man. Then she’d needed him and he’d come through for her. Now he stroked her long hair with steady hands, giving her wordless comfort.

  “It’s all my fault.” The words flowed out of Leigh’s mouth a second time. Through the crisis, she’d fought voicing this admission, knowing it wouldn’t help, knowing that guilt was natural and unavoidable. Yet all the while fearful that someone else—everyone else—would point accusing fingers at her.

  Nate said nothing in reply, just continued stroking her hair. In her weakness, she felt the latent strength in his large rough hands.

  “I’ve always carried so much guilt about Carly,” she whispered. “Not just now. But always.” And I always will.

  Little Carly’s face glowed in Leigh’s mind. Grandma Chloe always said Leigh’s little girl got her looks from Leigh’s grandfather, who’d died in World War I. That was because Grandma Chloe had never seen Carly’s father. Carly was the spitting image of her father with his fair skin, black hair, and gray eyes.

  But Carly had never seen her father, either.

  This fact never stopped gnawing at Leigh. She knew it had created an invisible barrier between her and Carly. Every time she looked at her, her daughter’s sober little face—her silent little mouth, those somber eyes that hid every thought—haunted Leigh.

  “Everything will be okay,” Nate said at last.

  Leigh gazed up at him. His face was guarded by shadow, but the moonlight illuminated the warmth of his auburn hair. She couldn’t form words, her mouth paralyzed.

  I’ve stood apart from my daughter since she was born. Secrets separate us. Secrets I can’t divulge. Will I never break through to her, connect with her heart-to-heart?

  Part One

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maryland, August 24, 1963

  I know why you’re doing this,” Le
igh muttered beside her mother, Bette, in their Chevy Impala. Leigh kept her voice low, not wanting to upset her five-year-old sister, Dory, who sat in the backseat with a coloring book. “You think if you get me out of D.C., I won’t be able to get to Dr. King’s march.”

  Her mother made no reply.

  Leigh snapped on the radio, knowing it would annoy Bette. The air between them vibrated with the top-of-the-charts “Heat Wave,” the words blurred by the hot wind rushing through the wide open windows.

  Still her mother made no response. “I don’t know why you have to act like this,” Leigh muttered louder.

  That was enough to break her mother’s silence. “This is not open for discussion,” Bette said. “You have no idea what may happen this Wednesday. Have you forgotten mobs in Alabama clubbing Freedom Riders with baseball bats? I haven’t.”

  “This isn’t Alabama,” Leigh snapped. “And Mr. Pitney, the advisor to the school paper, doesn’t think there’ll be any violence.”

  “Mr. Pitney is very young and should have better sense, Linda Leigh,” Bette answered back, her voice fierce but low.

  “Don’t call me that name. I hate it.” Hate you. “I go by Leigh now.”

  Bette gave a sound of irritation. “Linda Leigh is a perfectly good name.” She paused, obviously trying to control her temper. “You’ll spend the last week before school starts at your grandmother’s. And tomorrow, I’m going to call the school and tell the principal what I think of a teacher urging his students—my daughter—into harm’s way.”

  “I will get back to Washington if I have to hitchhike there.” Leigh stared straight ahead.

  “Why can’t I make you see sense? The march will be dangerous.”

  Martha and the Vandellas sang out husky and loud, “heat wave…” The raucous song evidently finally got to Bette. She snapped off the radio. “Why are we listening to that trash?”

  “It’s not trash, Mother. It’s rock and roll.”

  Looking out the window at the lush green tobacco fields rolling by, Leigh realized they were almost there, almost to Ivy Manor. She folded her bare arms on the open window and set her chin on them, frustration roiling inside her.

  “There it is,” Dory piped up from the backseat, sounding the usual joy of coming to Grandmother’s house. “There’s Ivy Manor!”

  As her mother drove up the lane to the large house with white pillars and green ivy, Leigh felt a lift in spite of her frustration. Until…

  “Maybe Grandmother can make you see sense,” Bette said as she parked and turned the key.

  “No one—not even Grandma Chloe—is going to change my mind,” Leigh kept her voice low as her little sister climbed out of the backseat.

  Her mother ignored her, as usual. Now that they’d stopped and the wind no longer evaporated their perspiration, the humidity wrapped around Leigh, smothering her. She felt limp in the heat. Her mother, on the other hand, looked as fresh and collected as always. Of course, even when going to the country, her oh-so-proper mother wore a stylish red sundress and chiffon scarf, under which her bouffant style had every hair in place. In contrast, Leigh and Dory had dressed sensibly in one of their matching outfits that Dory loved so much—blue shorts and white sleeveless blouses with blue collars. The outfit now made Leigh feel childish in comparison to her mother.

  Her insides still churning at highway speed, Leigh got out and slammed the car door, eliciting a world-weary sigh from Bette, who scolded her with a look for slamming the door. Leigh felt like going back and slamming it again. But she couldn’t give in to childish anger. Instead, her ponytail swishing against her shoulders, she ran ahead, overtaking her sister, calling for her grandmother. Then Leigh heard the voice she loved best, summoning them to the shaded and screened summer house on the back lawn.

  With Dory right at her heels, Leigh whipped inside the summer house and flew straight into Grandma Chloe’s arms. Dory was right beside her, and they hugged Chloe together. Chloe wasn’t overweight and she didn’t rinse her gray hair blue or tease it like other grandmothers did. And she always smelled subtly of roses. The fragrance enveloped Leigh, giving her a sudden feeling of ease. Grandma Chloe would set everything right.

  “Leigh, Dory, how wonderful to see you.” Chloe kissed their foreheads and cheeks before releasing them. She rose then and reached for their mother. The two older women hugged. “Bette, honey, of course I’m happy to see you, but what’s come up so suddenly?” Dressed in a cool, sleeveless lavender-print sundress, Chloe eased back onto the wicker rocker. Dory took her usual place, perching on one of its wide, curved arms.

  With another sigh, Bette sat down on a white Adirondack chair. “I hope you can put up with these two girls for the rest of the week.”

  “No!” Leigh fired up, vaguely aware of her grandmother’s surprised look. “Grandma, Mr. Pitney, my journalism teacher, said that the one of us who writes the best first-person account of the march on Washington will be the new editor of the Scribe this year.”

  “Your safety is more important than an article in a school paper,” Bette snapped.

  “Grandma, she’s treating me like a baby again.” Leigh pictured Mr. Pitney’s face in her mind. He’d said the newspaper staff could call him Lance when they were working on the school paper. Mr. Pitney looked like a Lance—tall, young, with golden hair and a cool mustache. “I’m old enough to go to a public place alone. I’ve been to Lincoln’s Memorial a zillion times.”

  “Mother,” Bette raised her voice, “would you please talk some sense into this girl’s head? President Kennedy tried to persuade Martin Luther King Jr. to cancel—”

  “Nothing’s going to happen!” Leigh’s hands tightened into fists. Her mother never took her seriously. Lance did. He didn’t treat her like she was just another teenager. “It’s going to be a peaceful demonstration. Dr. King believes in nonviolent protest—”

  “Well, the KKK doesn’t,” Bette declared flatly. “The po lice in Washington and the surrounding counties in Virginia have had all leaves cancelled. The Justice Department and the army are practicing riot control—”

  “Stop it,” Leigh snapped, imagining the appreciative look on Lance’s face when he read her account of the march. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  Chloe looked back and forth between her daughter and granddaughter with a look of growing distress.

  “That’s enough, young lady,” Bette ordered.

  “But,” Leigh began. Dory hid her face against Chloe’s slender shoulder, bringing Leigh’s words to an abrupt stop. She sighed.

  “Sorry, ladybug,” she apologized to her little sister with her favorite endearment.

  “I don’t like arguments, and don’t speak disrespectfully to your mother, Leigh,” Chloe scolded gently, rocking while patting Dory’s head.

  Leigh flushed, feeling warmth suffuse her face and neck. “Sorry.” Her little sister looked upset, but their mother had involved her in this. Leigh hadn’t.

  “The KKK will not let this go by without reacting,” Bette continued in a calmer voice. “They gunned down Medgar Evers on his own front porch just two months ago. What if one of them decides to shoot Dr. King right in the middle of the march? It would be chaos. Leigh could be trampled—”

  “This is Washington, D.C., not Mississippi.” Leigh felt her tenuous hold on her temper begin to fray. She could not lose this battle. She’d die if Mary Beth Hunninger got the editor’s job. Mary Beth was “the girl” on campus at St. Agnes Girls Academy—runner on the track team, National Honor Society president last year, and now she wanted to horn in on the Scribe.

  “Why does everybody got to be so mad?” Dory’s small voice asked. “Make them stop fighting, Grandma.” Again, Dory buried her face in their grandmother’s shoulder.

  “I’ll do what I can, ladybug.” Chloe smoothed back Dory’s dark bangs and then tightened the little girl’s ponytail. “Now, if I have this correct, Bette, you want me to keep your girls here at Ivy Manor this last week before school starts so
that they will be out of Washington, away from Dr. King’s march, right? And Leigh, you want to go to the march and write an article about it for school?”

  Leigh stood in the center of the screened octagonal room, tension zinging through her.

  Chloe sighed. “I hate being put into the middle like this, Bette.”

  Leigh stood her ground. Surely Grandma Chloe wouldn’t side with her mother. She couldn’t.

  Bette rubbed her forehead. “I know, but for some reason whatever I say, my daughter always does the opposite.”

  That wasn’t true. Leigh folded her arms and glared at her mother.

  “What does Ted say?” Chloe asked.

  Bette humphed. “He says he won’t get into it.”

  Chloe nodded and continued to stroke Dory’s hair. “Well, only because you asked me, I’ll tell you what I think. You’re both right. Dr. King plans this to be a nonviolent protest. But there’s always a possibility of violence whenever any very large group of people gets together.”

  Bette nodded and murmured a satisfied, “I know.”

  Leigh frowned at her grandmother.

  “They’re preparing for at least one hundred thousand,” Bette declared. “Apart from the KKK barging in with baseball bats, just a crowd of that size… Anything could happen to Leigh.”

  Sensing defeat, Leigh flung herself down into a wicker chair with a sound of disgust.

  “Why is reporting on this march so important to you, Leigh?” Chloe asked.

  Leigh frowned. That was easy. She couldn’t bear to think of having to take direction from Mary Beth,her rival ever since Leigh had started at St. Agnes in the ninth grade. “Grandma, I’ve worked hard on the Scribe the last two years. I can’t let… someone else get the editor job.” I’m going no matter what you say or do, Mother.

  “Your mother’s fears about possible violence aren’t exaggerated.” Chloe rocked back and forth gently. She picked up a strand of Dory’s ponytail and tickled the little girl’s nose with its end, making her smile. “Even Dr. King is afraid that they may be met with resistance from white supremacists.”