Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1)

by Sara Mitchell

  Shenandoah Home

  SARA MITCHELL

  Copyright © 2001, 2018 by Sara Mitchell

  Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, or by any storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover design by Roseanna White Designs

  OTHER NOVELS BY SARA MITCHELL

  Inspirational Historicals:

  Sinclair Legacy Series:

  Book 2, Virginia Autumn

  Shadowcatcher Series:

  Trial of the Innocent

  In the Midst of Lions

  Ransomed Heart

  Love Inspired Historicals:

  Email thi

  Legacy of Secrets

  The Widow’s Secret

  A Most Unusual Match

  Mistletoe Courtship novella

  Contemporary Inspirational Novels:

  Montclair

  Love Inspired:

  Night Music

  Shelter of His Arms

  Ackowledgments

  Iwould like to thank Colleen Ritter, gift shop manager and tour guide for Old Town Winchester Welcome Center; and Jim Lonas, with the City of Winchester Fire and Rescue, for their time and courteous efforts to ensure historical accuracy for parts of this book.

  Any mistakes made are the sole responsibility of the author, who has a tendency to allow fiction to outweigh fact when it comes to storytelling.

  CONTENTS

  Part I: Garnet

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Part II: Meredith

  Chapter Interlude

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Part I

  Garnet

  Prologue

  Sinclair Run

  Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, October 1888

  Might never know whether all the choices he’d made these past fourteen years had been the right ones, Jacob Sinclair mused one windswept autumn afternoon. But then a widowed Scottish furniture maker struggling to rear three motherless daughters faced obstacles that would doubtless try the soul of a saint. And the blessed Lord was fully aware that Jacob Sinclair was no saint.

  Jacob stepped outside his workshop and heaved a gusty sigh, feeling the need for a draft of clean autumn air. He shaded his eyes while he scanned the meadow behind the run, his heart restive because Garnet still wasn’t home from her day’s wanderings. Why couldn’t the girl be satisfied with drawing the wildflowers littering their property?

  Och, but didn’t he know better by now than to grumble over the nature God had given his middle daughter? He ran his hand through his thinning hair, tugging the strand that always fell across his forehead. It had been a day just like this, he remembered suddenly, when he’d settled on the special object for Garnet’s heartwood chest. A paint box October day, trees dripping color, Indian summer air fragrant with cedar, wood shavings, and linseed oil. The kind of day that made a man thank his Maker for life. Jacob had needed such days back then, when the grief over Mary’s passing was still fresh, the bright spots few and far between. What year had that been? ’72? ’73? No . . . Garnet had just turned seven, so it would have been the autumn of 1875.

  But he’d been smiling that day, Jacob recalled . . .

  He hummed an off-key Scottish jig while he worked, each stroke of the wood chisel in his hands keeping time with the beat.

  At the end of the tune he straightened to study the grain of the board, a handsome piece of cherry. Stained, work-roughened fingers caressed the surface, while in his mind Jacob pictured a graceful woman with slim white hands, carefully tucking something inside a hidden drawer—the secret heart of the small chest he was in the process of creating. Perhaps a sprig of dried flowers? Lily of the valley, or that large pinkish flower Garnet brought home yesterday afternoon. Mary, God rest her blessed soul, would have known its name . . .

  He banished the painful graveside memories. Over a year had passed; his girls had recovered, and that was what mattered. Giving himself a mental shake, he pulled out his watch, then removed his apron. Right now it was time to wake five-year-old Leah from her nap so they could fetch Meredith and Garnet from school.

  An hour later he pulled old Dipple to a halt underneath a sugar maple burning the sky with brilliant scarlet leaves. Laughter and loud talk filled the crisp afternoon air as children scattered toward home on foot, mule, or wagon. Smiling, Jacob watched the exodus before turning his attention to the front of the school. He was a bit late today, but his two older daughters, instead of fidgeting on the porch steps, were nowhere in sight. Where were they? Jacob frowned as he scanned the almost empty school yard. Normally they raced for the buggy, pigtails and petticoats awhirl, Garnet with her longer legs usually winning despite being younger than Meredith by thirteen months.

  Beside him, Leah began to wriggle, twisting on the seat to search the yard. “Papa? Where’s Mer’dith an’ Garnet?”

  “I’ll go find them.” He cupped the bouncing little shoulders in his hands. “You must stay here in the buggy, muffin. Promise me.”

  Solemn now, she nodded. “I promise, Papa.”

  Jacob kissed the tip of her nose, then followed the sound of childish shouts to a grove of cedars some twenty yards behind the schoolhouse. Anger flared as he took in the scene. Several boys were pounding on the door to the privy, hard enough to rattle its flimsy hinges. Ugly words dirtied the air.

  It took Jacob less than a second to realize the foulmouthed attack was directed at Garnet. Sunny, funny, sensitive Garnet. Rage to shame a thunderstorm poured into him. He wanted to lash out with fist and boot against the verbal sewage spewing forth. From the sons of neighbors—tousle-haired, gap-toothed boys his daughter had called her friends, who now mocked her form and face and striking red hair.

  Gathered nearby the privy a cluster of girls watched, not one of them trying to stop the cruel baiting. Meredith stood trapped in their midst, tight-lipped and rigid, her eight-year-old face beet red, chin q
uivering.

  Jacob descended with the swiftness of a vengeful guardian angel, reaching for the two nearest boys. Each of his hands closed over the backs of their shirts. They yelped as he lifted them completely off their feet; a single threatening look cowed the other two spineless mongrels. “I ought to whip the lot of you!” he thundered. “You, Slocum—’twas only last week Garnet spent all evening drawing you a picture, because your dog had died. And you, Otis Teasel—who gave you her own pair of shiny new brogans this past winter ’cause the soles of your own were full of holes?”

  He shook the pair of them, then flung them against the other scoundrels. “Get on home, the lot of you. I’ll be expecting apologies to my daughter come morning.”

  They scattered, the girls tumbling after them in a flurry of high-pitched squeals.

  Meredith flew into her father’s arms. “I couldn’t stop them, Papa! I tried and yelled, but they just laughed and pushed me down, and Garnet ran but they chased her i-into the privy . . .”

  Jacob hugged her, hard, then gave her a gentle prod. “Go on along now. Wait with Leah in the buggy.”

  Shoulders slumped, Meredith disappeared around the corner of the schoolhouse. He took four deep, calming breaths before he spoke to his middle daughter. “Garnet, it’s all right. You can come out now, little one. The loutish halflins have fled. ’Tis just me, needing to fill my arms with my flower-loving daughter.”

  The door creaked open, letting loose its breath-stopping stench. Garnet’s tragic freckled face peeked out from between long strands of tangled hair, and Jacob felt as though a hot splinter had lodged in his chest. This morning her face had been scrubbed clean, her bright hair meticulously braided with new green ribbons. Now the ribbons were gone, along with the braids, replaced by a squirrel’s nest of dirt, leaves, and sticks. As though someone had poured—

  Jacob closed his mind to the image. “Och, darling, come here.”

  “I’m all right,” she whispered, but her arms wrapped tight around his neck, and her elfin frame shook. “Last week Miss Wimbish had the blacksmith put a new hook inside the privy door.” A shuddering sigh tickled Jacob’s ear.

  He gathered her into a close embrace and wished he could absorb her wounds into himself.

  The following Saturday afternoon Jacob had just finished unloading a pile of lumber from the buckboard when Meredith barreled into the workshop, her eyes wide. “Papa! You need to come—Garnet’s . . . Garnet’s . . . you need to see!”

  Several sheets of prime yellow poplar thudded to the sawdust floor. “Is she hurt? What’s happened? Where is—”

  “Papa, Papa, come see!” Leah appeared in the doorway, puffing and equally wide-eyed. “Garnet looks funny.”

  Pulse racing, Jacob followed their flying figures out across the yard to the wash house, just off the back porch. A half-dozen paces away, Garnet stood, poker straight with her arms crossed, head lifted. But her lips trembled when she looked over at Jacob.

  “I told you you’d get in trouble,” Meredith began.

  “Meredith, Leah—inside the house.” Leah tugged on his trouser leg. “Go with Meredith, baby,” Jacob said.

  Instead Leah scampered across to Garnet, wrapping her arms about her sister in a fierce embrace. “Garnet hurts. You have to hug,” his tiny mother hen ordered. Only then did she march up the back steps with Meredith.

  Jacob didn’t acknowledge his youngest daughter’s plea, for he couldn’t tear his gaze from the sorry sight of his middle daughter.

  This morning Garnet’s hair had been a glorious cloud of burning red, deep chestnut, and burnished gold—a color to make the angels weep. Now it was a repugnant shade of . . . black. Lusterless and lifeless.

  Like the expression in Garnet’s eyes.

  Jacob gently lifted one stiff, damp braid between two fingers. When he dropped it his fingers came away stained. The front of Garnet’s corduroy jacket sported twin black smears as well. “Why?” he asked. “Why do this to yourself?”

  Her lips quivered again, and he saw her throat muscles working. Ah, little one, he thought. If only you’d been given a personality to match the hair . . . With a deep sigh he unwound her arms and picked up her hands. “Here, too?” He smoothed the stained, sticky fingers open on his large palm, trying not to wince.

  Miserably she nodded.

  “Did I ever tell you about your Granny Mae—my mother? Her hair was the envy of every lass in Glasgow, for no other was blessed with so fine a shade of red. Put a sunset to shame, your granddad always said. ’Twas just like yours, Garnet.”

  “It’s not a blessing. I hate it.”

  Jacob knelt and cupped her chin. “This is because of what happened on Tuesday, isn’t it?”

  Narrow shoulders lifted. “Yesterday, too. Rowley Futch said I was ugly, that I looked like . . . like a monster threw up b-blood all over my head.” A single tear pooled in the corner of her eye. “I . . . called him names too. But it didn’t help.”

  “Your Granny Mae wouldn’t have bothered with mere names—she’d have called down a curse on his head—turned him into a salamander on the spot.”

  “Curses only work if you have a brogue.”

  If he hadn’t been staring directly at her from inches away, Jacob would have missed the flash of returning humor in her eyes. Relief filled him, lightening his heart, his voice. “Well now, lassie,” he said in the rumbling brogue of his ancestors, “then I’ll be workin’ on helping ye tae cultivate one tonight, won’t I?” They smiled at each other, and he wiped away the tear.

  “I’m sorry, Papa. It—it’ll wash out, won’t it?”

  “ ’Twill grow out, if not.” The smile in her eyes died, and Jacob relented. “We’ll study on the matter after supper and chores.” He tapped the end of her straight nose. “Learn a lesson from this, flower-face?”

  Solemnly she nodded.

  “And that would be—?”

  “That Rowley’s already a slimy salamander. And . . . when I finish school I’ll join my friend Mary Mahoney’s church and become a nun. Nobody will see my hair but me.”

  “Ah, Garnet, Garnet . . .” He surveyed the sticky black clumps of hair, then the rueful expression of a daughter whose personality remained as elusive and enticing as the wildflowers she loved to draw. “Do you think a cardinal complains because it isn’t a sparrow or the mockingbird because it isn’t a blue jay? God gave you red hair, and whether you believe it or not, it is a crowning glory. I pray that doubting heart of yours will someday believe that you are beautiful, not only inside where it counts, but on the outside as well.”

  Ah yes, Jacob thought now, a bittersweet smile touching the corners of his mouth. That was when he knew what would go into the secret drawer of Garnet’s heirloom chest, and he prayed that someday she would understand.

  One

  Sinclair Run

  April 1889

  That’s it! Garnet decided, eyeing the white flowers on the other side of the creek. The faint odor of licorice—typical of Sweet Cicely—teased her nose; beads of moisture clung to the flowers’ shiny green leaves, a gift of random sprays of water from the gurgling creek. As she watched, a single droplet slid to the serrated edge of a leaf, then fell soundlessly to the earth.

  To capture on her sketchpad enough of that precise moment—the instant a single droplet stretched thin as angel hair from the tip of the leaf . . . “That’s it!”

  The sound of her voice, loud enough in this deserted glade to summon a herd of cattle, made Garnet laugh. Eyes fastened to the wildflower, she tightened her grasp on the large cloth bag holding her supplies, took a flying leap across the creek, and landed with scant grace in a patch of loose earth that promptly gave way. Mud and humus spilled into her tramp-about shoes.

  Undaunted, Garnet spent several moments studying the flowers from different perspectives, selecting the best angle from which to draw before she finally settled onto a patch of ground. Mind churning with possibilities, she absently removed her old brogans and poured out the di
rt. Anticipation caused her fingers to twitch when at last she reached for sketchpad and pencil.

  Someone sniffed, the tiny sound tugging at her attention.

  Garnet paused, charcoal pencil tip hovering over the paper, but she didn’t raise her head. Then, with the precision of a skilled craftsman, she finished a detailed rendering of the leaf she’d been working on. It was . . . credible, at least for a first draft, and captured the essence of the flowers. Enough for her to finish the work back in the attic room her father had converted into a studio for her, where—

  From somewhere behind and to her right she heard a soft rustling, followed by another sniff. Garnet turned her head to see, since the brim of her sunbonnet limited her range of vision to what was directly in front of her. JosieMae Whalen was sitting in a clump of bluebells and red clover, her lantern-jaw face streaked with grime.

  “JosieMae . . . child, what are you doing here?” Garnet thrust the sketchpad aside and scrambled to her feet, wincing when all her muscles screeched in protest. Spots danced across her eyes, and with a start she realized the air was late-afternoon golden. “How long have you been sitting there?” she asked, dropping down beside the heavyset girl, her arm automatically wrapping around JosieMae’s shoulders.

  “Dunno. You was workin’,” she whispered, sniffing more loudly this time. “I like to watch.” Dull red crept into her cheeks, and she ducked her head after meeting Garnet’s gaze for less than a blink.

  Garnet knew why. JosieMae’s left eye had a tendency to drift upward, inflicting upon the hapless twelve-year-old the look of a halfwit. As a consequence the girl seldom looked directly at anybody. Garnet hugged her hard, resting her cheek against chopped-off, unwashed hair. “Want a drawing lesson?”

  “Huh-uh. Ma’ll skin me for a washrag if I don’t be home for evenin’ chores.” She wiped the back of her hand across her nose.

  Garnet dug around for a handkerchief, handing it matter-of-factly over. “Save a corner of that for me,” she said with a conspiratorial smile. “If my face looks like the rest of me, I’ll need to wash up a bit before I go home, or Leah will come after me with a mop and bucket.”