Impending Love and War

by Laura Freeman

  Chapter Two

  Hiram and Adelaide had raised four children at Glen Knolls. Adelaide planned to sell the farm and move in with her youngest daughter. Cory would return to teaching in the fall unless she received a better offer. She imagined what it would be like to become Douglas Raymond’s wife, but her future slate remained blank.

  Most Ohioans looked forward to summer after months of snow and ice, but temperatures were above normal, teasing the nineties by the afternoon. The bedrooms on the second floor had been closed all day to keep out the sweltering heat that had meandered from the south like an unwelcomed visitor, unwilling to depart. Cory pushed the window open in Adelaide’s bedroom and leaned out on the sill for a puff of a breeze. None.

  Adelaide struggled to remove her black mourning dress, and Cory assisted. Adelaide refused to wear the corsets and crinolines of the latest fashion, and her simple undergarments of a single petticoat and cotton chemise were easy to discard. Cory grabbed a cotton nightgown and placed the opening over Adelaide’s head. She pulled it down over sagging breasts and a bony butt and helped her crawl into bed.

  Cory masked any repulsion at the sight of Adelaide’s wrinkled flesh. Beauty was fleeting. She would look like Adelaide someday.

  Time was another reason she had become serious about choosing a husband. She loved teaching, but she wanted a home and children. Without a fortune, she would have to rely on what nature had given her to attract a man. Cory looked down at her low-cut bodice and ample display of bosom. It brought her back to the nagging question of why Douglas hadn’t proposed. But more importantly, why had Beth turned down his proposal. What was wrong with Douglas?

  Maybe she should encourage another suitor, but none of the local men sprang to mind. If men weren’t intimidated by her status as a teacher, they were intimidated by her status as midwife. She’d helped her father with doctoring since she was twelve, stitching cuts, wrapping bandages, and all the other mundane tasks necessary for the practice of medicine. She’d delivered her first baby when she was fourteen, and her father said it was in her blood.

  John Beecher was the first ancestor to come to America, and he promptly died in the winter of 1637, when he and six other men set out to settle New Haven, Connecticut. Luckily, he had a son, Isaac, and John’s wife, Hannah, was a midwife. They needed her to stay and gave her John’s share of the land. She was a land owner. Men broke the rules for women who were important.

  She had saved nearly two hundred dollars from teaching and midwife duties for a tempting dowry, but why did a wife have to pay a man to marry her? Grandpa Donovan said a dowry put a wife on equal footing with her husband. She would bring something of importance to the marriage, and he had to respect her. It seemed archaic. Shouldn’t a man marry for love? Did she love Douglas? And why didn’t she know?

  Cory tucked a pillow behind Adelaide’s head. An oil lamp cast a yellow glow over the pale pallor of her skin. She settled back into the feathered softness of the mattress and pulled a well-used quilt to her waist. Her gnarled hands caressed the familiar fabric, hand stitched when her fingers had been straight and nimble. Adelaide was in her fifties and still strong, but the loss of her beloved husband had left her without direction.

  Hiram Thomas had gone out to cut hay with a scythe and had dropped dead from a heart attack.

  Adelaide stuck out her bottom lip, which quivered, threatening to catch a few fallen tears. “I told him specifically I was to go first.”

  Although stoic most of the time, Cory had witnessed Adelaide’s angry rants at her departed husband for leaving her behind. She needed to calm her.

  Adelaide stared at the empty side of the bed. “I can’t sleep alone in bed.”

  Cory wasn’t about to climb in next to Adelaide. It was one thing to share a bed with one of her five younger sisters, but none of them was bony, wrinkled, or smelled funny. She turned away and snatched a book from a table near the window. “Would you like me to read to you?”

  “Won’t help.” Adelaide moved around to find a comfortable spot. “I didn’t mind getting old with Hiram getting old with me. Now all I want is to die.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Adelaide was sometimes bossy and set in her ways, but Cory had taken a liking to her straight-forward talk and wealth of knowledge about life.

  Cory wondered if she would ever love someone so much she would want to die rather than live without him. It was romantic but unrealistic. Douglas would scoff at such nonsense. As an instructor in mathematics, he didn’t believe in anything unless it could be added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided.

  Cory accepted the fact men ran the world. They owned all the property. They controlled the money. They made the decisions. But Cory had been raised to believe in her abilities and possibilities. She would butt heads with any man who became her husband, and she would be the one ultimately to compromise. How much depended on the man. A sigh escaped her lips.

  “What has your brow so wrinkled, missy?” Adelaide demanded.

  “I was thinking of Douglas.”

  “That explains the worry lines.”

  Cory ignored the jab. Douglas had attended Hiram’s funeral. He had disapproved of Cory’s plans to stay alone with an elderly widow, and Adelaide had disapproved of him sticking his nose into business that didn’t pertain to him. Cory had settled the war by inviting him to call and check on them. He still seemed ill at ease no matter what she did. Douglas was a nervous type. It had been endearing at first.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and read a couple chapters to me,” Adelaide suggested. “Some of the book your cousin wrote.”

  Cory didn’t even know Harriet Beecher Stowe. They were distant cousins, both descended from the ill-fated John Beecher. Her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had made their relationship, if only by name, a social bonus, at least with abolitionists.

  She had finished reading the part about Mr. Shelby selling the slave Tom to trader Haley when a knock on the front door interrupted the story. It echoed up the steep staircase and the overlooking hallway to the master bedroom. Cory marked her place. “Are you expecting someone?”

  “I don’t know who it could be, especially at this hour.”

  Cory turned toward the open bedroom door. “I’ll go see who it is.”

  “Better take the gun.”

  Cory froze and allowed the words to register before swiveling to face the woman in the bed. “What gun?” And why did she need a gun to answer the door?

  “In the drawer on Hiram’s side.” Adelaide pointed to a four drawer high-back chest along the far wall. “Can’t be too careful. A lot of sordid characters travel on Darrow Falls Road.”

  This was news to Cory. Her mother had reassured her she’d be fine alone with Adelaide. Now she was telling her the farm was the target of reprobates and murderers. Cory opened the drawer. Inside was a muzzle-loading pistol of polished oak with brass fittings. Some family ancestor had probably used it in the Revolutionary War. “Is it loaded?”

  “The roundball and patch are packed with the powder, and there’s a percussion cap to ignite the powder instead of a frizzen. Hiram had it updated from a flintlock to a caplock after too many misfires.”

  Wonderful! A defective gun. Cory gingerly lifted the weapon by its gracefully curved stock.

  “Keep your hand off the trigger, girl,” Adelaide snapped. “You have fired a pistol before, haven’t you?”

  Her father had a modern Colt revolver not an antique like this. “I doubt if I’ll need it.” She kept her fingers away from the curved trigger and made her way along the hallway to the staircase. It was dusk, but evening light filtered through the side windows along the door to guide her down the steps. The visitor knocked louder.

  “I’m coming!”

  The pounding ceased.

  Was the caller Douglas? Had he forgotten something? Like a proposal. The steps ended at a small foyer before the door. She glanced around for anything Douglas might have left behind. The sideboard in the hallway was e
mpty except for a couple of unlit candles and the vase of flowers. The mirror above it reflected her image. Her German, Irish, and English ancestors had waged a war over her features, but most people complimented her on the resulting combination. She had her father’s dark brown hair with red highlights from her mother. Her green eyes, silky skin, and ample figure were maternal gifts as well. Maureen Rose Donovan Beecher had generously passed her beauty onto her daughters. Now, if only Cory could translate the gift into a ring on her finger.

  Cory studied the pistol in her hand and considered it impolite to answer the door with it aimed at whomever was on the other side. She placed it on the edge of the sideboard and lit one of the candles with a wooden match stored in a tin on the wall. The warm light softened the harsh shadows. She carried the brass candleholder to the door and turned the knob.

  Because Cory had often accompanied her father on his medical visits, she knew many of the people in Summit County, but she had never seen this man before.

  He was tall, and the breadth of his shoulders filled the doorway. He removed his broad-brimmed hat and silently stared at her. He had the palest blue eyes she had ever seen in a face that made her recall a Bible verse about angels walking among men. Her stomach fluttered, and her body responded in a confusing arousal of senses.

  “Tyler Montgomery at your service, ma’am.” He hesitated. “Does Glen Knolls live here?”

  Cory normally would have laughed at his mistake but hadn’t decided whether or not this stranger was friend or foe. “That’s the name of the farm. It belongs to Mrs. Hiram Thomas.”

  “You’re not Mrs. Thomas?”

  “No, I’m Miss Courtney Beecher.” She gave him a small curtsey. “May I inquire what business you have with Mrs. Thomas?”

  He stepped forward, and Cory retreated in the face of the power and size natural to him. Tyler had long, dark hair that curled over his shirt collar and framed a strong jaw. His handsome face was clean shaven. Barely shaven. She calculated he was in his twenties by the youthfulness of his face. He wore a light-weight crème-colored linen jacket and brown trousers.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Miss Courtney, but I’m looking for someone.”

  His voice had a hint of a lazy drawl that put Cory on alert. Southerners rarely came to Darrow Falls. Douglas had said something about a stranger at the college looking for a runaway slave.

  Adelaide made no pretense she was opposed to slavery. She was quite outspoken about abolishing it, but talk didn’t result in a fine or someone thrown into prison. Aiding a slave could. Cory wondered if Adelaide’s farm was part of the Underground Railroad aiding runaway slaves through Ohio to Cleveland and the freedom of Canada on the other side of Lake Erie. She’d been here nearly a month. She would know, wouldn’t she? She was letting her imagination run wild. Adelaide was too old and too smart to become involved in anything as dangerous as hiding a runaway. “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no one here.”

  “How do you know? I haven’t even said who I’m looking for.”

  “Whom,” Cory corrected.

  He raised an eyebrow, and Cory looked away. This man wasn’t one of her pupils in the one-room school house where she taught eight grade levels. She tried to remain calm, but something about this man was making her heart race. Was it panic and fear or something else? What was wrong with her? “Whom are you looking for?”

  “I have a description of him.” Tyler unbuttoned his jacket.

  Cory saw a fancy embroidered vest beneath. How could the man wear so many layers of clothing and appear so cool and calm? He removed a folded paper from an inside pocket and showed her a drawing of a black man. She quickly scanned the words describing a six-foot black male named Noah, heavily muscled, trained as a blacksmith, and traveling as a free man with falsified papers.

  A hundred and fifty dollar reward was offered for information leading to his capture. Information could be given to the sheriff in Akron.

  He was looking for a runaway slave. “He’s not here.”

  “May I look around?” Tyler stepped into the parlor.

  Cory realized too late that Tyler was a formidable man against two women. If he wanted to poke around, he’d do it. And even though she had nothing to hide, she didn’t want a stranger in the house. She bumped against the sideboard. She felt behind her and grasped the pistol on the table. “I told you he wasn’t here.” She waved the gun at him as the candle in her other hand flickered with the movement. “You better leave.” Cory cocked the hammer with her thumb.

  Tyler turned and stared at the barrel pointed at his chest.

  She struggled to hold the heavy pistol steady.

  “Are you here by yourself?”

  “No.” She waved the pistol to move him toward the front door, but he backed into the parlor instead. She followed and circled the parlor, trying to force him to leave. A big, strong husband would be welcomed right now. She had to smile. Douglas was rather slight in build and not known for bravery or confrontations.

  “A beautiful woman shouldn’t play with guns.” Tyler held his hands out. “I only wanted to look around.”

  The compliment wouldn’t gain him access. “You’ve seen enough.” She stopped near the table in front of the fireplace where she had entertained Douglas. “Now go!”

  He nodded toward the gun. “I’d feel a lot better if you lowered the pistol.”

  She waved it in his direction. “I’ll put it down when you leave.”

  Tyler placed the flier on the desk behind him but kept his gaze on Cory. “If you see this man, I’m staying at the Darrow Falls Inn. I’d appreciate any information.”

  “What do you want with him?” Cory glanced at the flier. “Are you a chaser?”

  “No, he’s a friend of mine.”

  “I doubt that. More likely, you own him.”

  Tyler moved to the center of the parlor. “He’s not a slave.”

  “He pretends to be a slave?” Cory stepped toward the desk. “The flier says he’s a runaway.”

  Tyler inched closer to Cory. “The flier is wrong.”

  “Then why are you looking for him?”

  “He’s in trouble.”

  Cory gripped the gun tighter. “Looks like you’re the one in trouble.”

  Chapter Three

  Cory had her back to the corner and realized too late Tyler had maneuvered his way to block her escape in either direction. She was trapped. As she debated her next move, Tyler reached for the pistol. She backed away, and her finger jerked against the metal trigger. The hammer slammed against the cap, which sparked and ignited the powder packed in the barrel. The lead ball discharged in a loud blast. Tyler collapsed backwards and lay sprawled out on the parlor floor rug.

  “Julius Caesar!” Cory screamed her father’s favorite oath. She studied the weapon and dropped the pistol on the table. She moved toward Tyler, a dark shadow on the floor and waved the candle over him. Cory fell to her knees beside his motionless body. “Tyler!” She didn’t question how she remembered his name but repeated it several times before he responded.

  His long, dark lashes fluttered open. “You shot me.”

  Cory laid the candlestick on the floor and watched the crème-colored linen of his jacket change to red beneath his left armpit. She tore open his coat and stared at the puddle of blood seeping through the embroidered vest.

  “It was an accident. How did I know the gun would go off?”

  She needed to control her growing hysterics. What had her father done the last time she helped him take care of a gunshot victim? Unfortunately, whatever he had done, hadn’t worked. The man had died.

  “Didn’t you know it was loaded?” Tyler tried to sit, but Cory shoved him down.

  “Lie still!” She leaned over him to view the damage.

  Tyler froze.

  “Of course it was loaded. Adelaide said it was loaded.” She moved the candle closer to illuminate her view.

  Tyler groaned.

  “Don’t die on me!”

&nbs
p; Tyler swallowed. “I’ve never felt more alive.”

  Cory puzzled over his words. “You must be delirious.”

  Her fingers nimbly unbuttoned his vest and undid his shirt. Tyler wore no second shirt under his white cotton one. That’s how he managed the heat. Cory pushed away his clothing. He had no hair on his sculptured chest, and she only had a minute to marvel at the firm musculature before peeling the ruined fabric from the wound on his side.

  Tyler stared at her chest. “You have luscious breasts.”

  Cory examined her décolletage. She was spilling out of her gown. She’d worn this dress for Douglas. “They’re not yours.”

  “I’m only looking.”

  Cory tugged on her gown to assure her nipples were covered. She lifted her skirt and tore a strip of material from her petticoat. She folded it into a pad.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m making a bandage. You’re bleeding.”

  “I am?” He raised his head to see.

  She pointed her finger in his face. “Don’t move.” She shoved his clothing aside and applied the folded cloth. It soaked up the blood. She lifted her skirt and tore more strips from her petticoat.

  “I’m getting seasick.”

  Cory paused. “Are you dizzy?”

  “I’m mesmerized. It’s like watching waves ebb and flow. How do you keep from spilling out?”

  The man was obsessed with her breasts. Idiot. “I’m trying to save your life.”

  He gazed into her eyes. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “My father is a doctor. I’ve often helped him with patients.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You shoot them so he can charge to doctor them?”

  Cory gasped. “I find your tone insulting. I’ve never shot anyone in my life.”

  He grinned. “So this was beginner’s luck.”

  Cory disregarded his remark and folded another cloth strip into a pad. She pressed it on top of the soiled bandage. She had no way to secure it unless she wrapped another strip around his chest. “I have to undress you.”