“Well, who is this?” Maria said, kneeling down to see them.
“It’s me, Joe,” Joe said, grinning. “And this is Jake.”
“My Joe and Jake? It can’t be!” Maria cried, hugging them both in spite of her pretended lack of recognition. “Mmm—sweet, clean boys.”
“Joe was stinky,” Jake said, grinning his lopsided grin.
“Was not,” Joe said. “You fell in the manure—not me.”
“Come on, come on,” Maria said. “Let’s go get your clothes on so you can have some supper—tell Mrs. Woodard and Kate thank you very much for making you presentable again.”
“Thank you very much,” Joe said dutifully.
“Wood and Cake!” Jake said, breaking into a giggle and a run.
Maria intended to take the boys up the back stairs, but dashing down the wide hallway with their flannel wraps flying behind them was infinitely more exciting. She ran after them, and she didn’t catch up until they were halfway up the stairs—and naked. She snatched up the discarded flannel as she went, but they weren’t about to stop long enough to be wrapped again. There was nothing to do but shoo them along ahead of her toward the small dressing room that had been turned in to a nursery of sorts and hope that the seamstress didn’t decide to emerge from her sewing. Maria already had the distinct feeling that the woman thought she’d been dragged to the most godless place on the face of this earth. Little naked boys running about would surely erase all doubt.
“This way, this way,” Maria whispered in an effort to steer the boys from a distance.
For once, they actually went in the direction Maria intended. Her father’s door stood ajar, and she could see Max in the room, his gaze holding hers as she passed.
Max stood quietly, waiting for Mr. Markham to wake enough to notice that he had company. He didn’t mind the wait. The truth of the matter was that he was very glad to have a moment to recover from his encounter with Maria on the stairs—if he could. Even the glimpse of her at the door just now was enough to stir his desire again.
Maria.
What an unexpected development that was. Would she ever and always surprise him?
Apparently so, he decided.
“Maxwell,” the old man said, opening his eyes. “Welcome to the…house of…all manner of…bedlam, tumult and…turmoil. And that’s only on the…ground floor. Sit down…my boy. It’s safer in…here, is it not…Bruno?”
“Yes, sir,” the orderly assured him.
“Have you seen…Maria?” the old man asked.
“Briefly,” Max said.
“I hear…my daughter was having a…fitting of some sort in…her bedchamber. Or perhaps it was a…fit…she was having. Your lovely mother…had the presence…of mind…to bring a half-constructed…wedding gown…with her and the seamstress to do…the sewing. It took some doing…to get Maria Rose to agree…to accept it, but accept it…she has.”
“Is all this too much of a bother for you, sir?” Max asked him.
“Me? No, indeed. I live for adventure…and I get precious little of it…these days. I understand…in spite of…all the excitement going on…there may actually…be some dinner in the offing…at some point…this evening. And right now…Bruno and I…are biding our time, ever hopeful—”
Mr. Markham closed his eyes and struggled to catch his breath. Max stood to take his leave. The old man was not nearly so improved as he might have first seemed. “I’ll leave you to that, then, sir. Perhaps I can hurry them along in the kitchen.”
But Mr. Markham motioned him closer, and Max bent down to hear what he had to say.
“Your regimental surgeon…is a…blunt man. And my…own doctor agrees with his…opinion. The wedding…must be…soon, Maxwell. If I am…to see it. Make that…seamstress…sew fast. Do you…understand?”
“I understand,” Max said. And he did. He had seen the look of death too many times in the prison not to.
“Don’t worry Maria…about it. Just…make haste. Will you do…that?”
“I will,” Max said.
The old man nodded and closed his eyes.
Max stepped from the room into the hallway. Valentina Kinnard stood hovering outside the door.
“I am so ashamed,” she whispered, leaning close.
Max looked at her, expecting her to elaborate. She didn’t.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“What must you think of us here? It’s no wonder you’ve moved out of this house—what with Maria Markham throwing herself at you like that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“How very gallant of you, Colonel, to try to protect her reputation. But I saw what she did just now on the stairs. I saw everything—”
“Not quite everything, Miss Kinnard.” She had clearly missed his enjoyment of it. “As long as you’re guarding the upper hallway and back stairs, would you happen to have seen where Maria went just now?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s safe, Colonel Woodard. Truly. She’s well occupied in the nursery—dressing the boys and giving them their supper. You don’t have to worry about any more of those…those—incidents with her. Honestly, she’s becoming just like that friend of hers, Nell. But my mother will speak to her, and you won’t be troubled again, I can assure—”
“Excuse me, Miss Kinnard,” he interrupted, moving by her. He wasn’t quite sure which room was the nursery, but he could hear Maria singing. As he came closer, he recognized that same song again, Trooper Hazeltine’s song.
Bushes and Briars.
She had a lovely voice—soft and soothing. He couldn’t hear anything from the boys at all.
He quietly opened the door and went inside, in spite of Valentina’s gasp. Maria was kneeling by the cot where both Joe and Jake lay quietly on the verge of sleep. Maria looked surprised to see him, but she didn’t stop singing. The room was hot and stuffy. He removed the bowls that had held the children’s cornbread and milk supper from a nearby chair and sat down. Then, he took the fan from her hand and began fanning the boys for her. She suffered his participation without comment, but her cheeks grew pink. She was quite undone by what had happened on the stairs, he suddenly realized. She was embarrassed, while he, on the other hand, couldn’t be more complimented.
Jake opened his eyes long enough to grin and then closed them again. Joe appeared to be already asleep. Both of them were worn out by their adventure—or the consequences of it. Max wondered idly if his mother had ever scrubbed a little boy clean before. He had certainly gotten dirty as a child—but he’d always had a nanny to make him right again. He couldn’t help but think of Kate and how very much of her own lost boy she must see in these two.
Maria stopped singing. Neither child stirred. She glanced at him. She couldn’t get out unless he moved, and he wasn’t moving. He stopped fanning.
“Your father has asked me not to worry you, but I think you should know,” he said quietly, more because he thought Valentina might have an ear to the keyhole than to keep from waking the boys.
Maria looked at him with alarm. Jake stirred suddenly, and she reached out to pat his back. Max took up fanning again.
“He asks that the wedding take place quickly,” he continued after a moment, his voice still low.
Maria seemed poised to ask a question, but then she clearly understood the implication of what he was saying and looked away from him. He could see her take a quiet breath, the rise and fall of her breasts.
“I see,” she said. “What was to have been an excuse has become an actual reason.”
“I intend to oblige him. Is that all right with you?” he asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“I would appreciate it if you would say what’s on your mind.”
She gave a soft laugh and shook her head. “Very well. I’m feeling trapped. Completely, utterly trapped. But you wouldn’t understand that.”
“Wouldn’t I?” he asked. “I have had some…experience with that sensation. Enough to know there is o
nly one thing to be done.”
“And what is that?”
“You have to realize your options. And once you’ve done that, you either pick one and damn the consequences or you simply endure.”
She was looking at him now, directly into his eyes in that unsettling way she had.
“There is one other thing,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Valentina saw what happened—on the stairs.”
“Oh, no!” Maria said.
“It doesn’t matter. The marriage will cancel out anything Valentina decides to tell.”
“Are you certain you want to have a marriage? I have no explanation for what Valentina saw. I was…” She blushed and looked away.
“I am certain,” he said without hesitation. “It’s only in that song you were singing that a man is put off by a woman’s so-called boldness. The rest of us are flattered beyond words.”
She gave him a perplexed look, but she didn’t say anything more.
“We’ll just have to move everything forward, which needs doing anyway, for your father’s sake. Just be prepared to get a lecture on proper behavior from Mrs. Kinnard.”
“I shall certainly look forward to that,” she said with just enough of what he was beginning to realize was her characteristic drollness to make him want to smile. He also wanted to touch her again. And taste her. His mind filled with the memory of their “incident” on the stairs. At that moment she had needed him, in precisely the way he needed her.
He abruptly stood and walked to the door, then turned to say one more thing. “I warn you now that getting everything done quickly probably won’t meet local standards—so try not to hit me again, all right?”
Chapter Fifteen
“Carscaddon is about to faint.”
“Is she?” Max glanced at his sister, but he didn’t stop rocking Jake, who hovered on the edge of sleep.
Kate came into the room and sat down on the foot-stool nearby. “Not she. He. Being the only representative of the occupation army and the entire Yankee population at a blatantly Confederate dinner table is clearly not his cup of tea.”
“He’ll survive,” Max said, and Kate smiled. She reached out to touch Jake’s small hand.
“How is this one—he’s not sick, is he?”
“No. It was just a nightmare.”
“About the fire?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Why didn’t you tell Maria you were the one who got them out of that burning house? She didn’t know—until I told her.”
“It never came up,” he said. “Max—”
“What?” he said pointedly. “What is going on?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, my darling brother, you omitted one little detail about this so-called mutually beneficial marriage of yours—”
“I told you the situation as I see it.”
“And you left out the part that you are totally smitten.”
“I am not ‘smitten.’”
“Well, of course you are. You look at Maria the exact same way John Howe looks at Amanda.”
“And how is that?”
“Smitten,” Kate insisted. “And believe me, I am an authority.”
“I told you I respected Maria and admired her.”
“You didn’t say you’d die for her, go into a burning house for her.”
“I went for the boys.”
“Whom she dearly loves.”
He took a quiet breath so as not to disturb Jake.
“Have you seen Harry lately?” he asked, because he suddenly felt that Kate wanted to talk about her son.
“Not lately,” she said. She tried to smile, but didn’t quite make it. “He’s off somewhere with the senior Howes. They really don’t like for me to know much about his comings and goings. They don’t trust me to maintain my discretion, I suppose.” She gave a small shrug.
“About Maria,” she said, renewing her inquest.
“Shouldn’t you go back to the table and protect poor old Carscaddon?” Max said pointedly.
“He’ll survive,” she said, throwing his words back at him. “Max, I don’t think you realize how changed you are.”
“For the better, I hope.”
“Yes,” she said. “And no.”
“Kate—”
“You’re more at peace than I’ve seen you since the war ended—but you’ve walled yourself off from your feelings, Maxwell. I know you had to—so you could survive what happened to you in the war and in the prison—and so you could get past John’s leaving you in that horrible place. I just think you should be aware of it, that’s all. So you don’t mess up a real chance for happiness with a woman you truly care about.”
“Kate, it’s all right. I’m all right.”
She looked at him, then at Jake. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “That child loves you, you know. And his brother does, as well. It was clear when he woke up afraid just now, no one would do but you.”
“Well, neither of them seem to notice the uniform.”
“But the thing is, Max, there’s more to this situation than you and Maria wanting to take care of these boys and her making you more acceptable to the Rebel populace—”
“Kate, enough. Will you please return to the table now and save Carscaddon? I’ll be down shortly.”
“Aren’t you going to enlighten me at all?”
“About what?”
“About where Mother has gone for starters—that’s why I came up here—to find her. And why are all those unescorted women downstairs? Why are we having this clearly important dinner tonight instead of tomorrow night as planned, and why does Perkins have his ‘sack and burn’ face on?”
“Mother and the Methodist minister are in with Mr. Markham. The man—and his doctors—feel that he doesn’t have much time. He wants me to get the marriage done before he dies. Unfortunately, I need Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Kinnard and Mrs. Justice to keep the haste required as respectable as possible.”
“Then why are Valentina and her mother ready to pounce on Maria? When you took Jake back upstairs, and it looked as if she might go with you, I thought they both were going to leap out of their chairs and restrain her bodily.”
“They aren’t privy to the wedding plans.”
“You mean Mrs. Kinnard has hopes for Valentina and doesn’t know you’re already taken.”
“Correct.”
“So when are you going to enlighten them?”
“Any minute now,” he said. There was a sudden commotion outside in the hall. It continued down the main stairs.
“What on earth is that?” Kate asked.
“That would likely be Perkins and Mother dragging the minister downstairs so he can announce the impending marriage.”
“He’s not willing to do that?”
“I doubt it. I’m asking him to go against the way things are done here. But I have every confidence Mother will bring him around gently, however. And if she can’t, there’s always Perkins. If the minister is lucky, he might even get some cake and coffee out of it.”
Kate looked at him, then threw up her hands and laughed. “Leave it to my brother to make the already exciting absolutely sensational.”
“I do my best,” he said, smiling.
“And have as long as I can remember. So when will the nuptials be?”
“Wednesday.”
“Wednesday!”
“Shh-hh. Don’t wake the boy.”
“Max, that is two days away. You can’t have a wedding by Wednesday.”
“Indeed, I can. You yourself saw Perkins’s ‘sack and burn’ face. And if all goes according to plan, the minister is going to ask those women downstairs to help me.”
“Let me see if I understand this. You expect Mrs. Kinnard to help you marry Maria—when she’s got plans for you and her own daughter.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“And that hateful Mrs. Russell—whose idea of a happy occasion would be
to wear a red dress to your funeral.”
“That’s right,” he said again.
“And you think they’ll do it because it comes from the minister and not you.”
“Exactly.”
“You are insane.”
“Be that as it may,” he said, refusing to be daunted by mere logic.
Kate leaned back and smiled again. “Well. Wednesday. I think—”
She stopped because Maria appeared in the doorway.
“I think I will go give poor old Carscaddon some moral support, after all,” Kate abruptly decided, taking her leave. She gave Maria a brief hug and whispered something in her ear on her way out the door.
Max put Jake in his bed beside his brother, delaying a moment to see if the rocking took. The boy slept on.
Maria waited for him in the hallway.
“Are you ready to see the elephant?” he asked when he joined her.
“What?”
“See the elephant,” he said. “Until a soldier has gone into battle, he hasn’t ‘seen the elephant.’”
“I don’t know if I am or not,” she said, looking up at him.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not going to faint, if that’s what you mean.” She shook her head. “How can you be so…?”
“So what?” he asked when she didn’t go on.
“So calm about all this.”
“I can assure you that, at the moment, I have no kinship with calmness whatsoever.”
“I still don’t know why you’re doing this.”
“I’ve told you why.”
He stared into her eyes as long as she would let him, then took out his pocket watch. It was well past nine. He didn’t have much time to get the announcement made, suffer the immediate repercussions, and still uphold the existing ten o’clock curfew—which he was determined to do.
“Last chance,” he said.
“It’s too late for last chances,” she said. “I have given you my word. If the elephant is ready, so am I.”
He offered her his arm, and surprisingly she took it, until they reached the head of the stairs. He followed her down the steps, thinking all the while about what had happened on the other set of stairs.
The minister was standing at the head of the table by Mr. Markham’s empty chair when they entered the dining room. Neither Max nor Maria took their seats. Instead, they stood together just inside the doorway. It was clear to Max that only his family—and somehow the Carscaddons—had any idea of what was about to transpire.
The Bride Fair Page 19