Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1)

by Sara Mitchell

  “Good afternoon,” she said. “Mrs. Elmira Whitaker was supposed to accompany me for introductions but was unable to come at the last moment. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I took a chance and stopped in anyway.” She smiled, a toothy smile, Leah decided critically. “I’m Mrs. Felicity Ward. Would you by any chance be Miss Garnet Sinclair?”

  “I’m her younger sister, Leah.” She glanced behind Mrs. Ward, toward the slouched figure of the young man still sitting on the driver’s side of a fancy surrey. “Garnet’s not at home.”

  “Oh.” She waved long gloved fingers. “I assume I’m to take that literally to mean that she is not inside at all? I do understand she’d been injured, which is why I waited until now.”

  “She’s out with my father,” Leah acknowledged reluctantly. “I don’t know what time to expect them home.” Curiosity was an itch begging to be scratched, so she opened the door and stepped back. “But you’re welcome to come in for some refreshments, if you like.”

  “Thank you, dear, but I wouldn’t dream of intruding. If you could just give your sister my card. I do want to meet her, very much.” She extended a heavy vellum calling card, her gaze wandering over Leah’s plain shirtwaist and skirt down to her shoeless feet.

  Leah resisted the urge to apologize over her appearance. She decided Mrs. Ward was a snobbish woman, plainly convinced of her superiority over backwoods rustics. Without blinking an eye she stuffed the card in her pocket. “She’s looking forward to meeting you too. Unfortunately, she stays very busy. I’m sure, since you’re also an artist, you understand. Were you needing to ask her advice on your work? Garnet knows every inch of the valley hereabouts, from Woodstock to Winchester.” In a precise mimicry she allowed her own gaze to roam over the statuesque woman, feeling a certain satisfaction when Mrs. Ward’s nostrils flared, and the patronizing smile froze in place. “I’ll be sure to give her your card.”

  “Thank you.” The artist turned her back in a rustle of starched petticoats and watered silk. But at the top porch step, she whirled around, marching back across to an astonished Leah. “I offended you, didn’t I?” she demanded.

  Leah’s mind went blank. “Why do you ask?” she finally managed, feeling young and gauche.

  Mrs. Ward gave a peal of laughter, her gloved hand lifting to pat Leah’s burning cheek. “So I can apologize,” she said. “Everyone tells me I’m an unforgivable snob—doubtless due to my heritage. My grandfather owned one of the richest plantations in the Carolinas, and my mother never let me forget it.”

  “Your father fought for the Union,” Leah said. “That’s why you grew up in California. So claiming snobbery due to your heritage doesn’t make a lot of sense.” She wished her family were home. “But you can still apologize if you want to.”

  “You’re an outspoken young lady. I like that, especially since I’m one myself, though no longer so young.” She tapped a long elegant index finger against her chin, studying Leah. “It would seem you’ve been doing a little digging about me. It wasn’t necessary. I’m not a threat to your sister. I’ve seen her work. She’s very good.”

  “She’s better than very good.”

  “Fine. She’s excellent. But her medium is pen and ink, mine oils, and for the most part she prefers floral illustration while I work on canvases to produce scenic works of art. We both want to . . . to share the Shenandoah Valley with the rest of the world. Her, with her magazine illustrations, me with a collection of paintings.” A look of frustration clouded the pleasing roundness of her face. “I was counting on her assistance. Someone with an artistic eye to help me settle on locales.”

  Knowing Garnet, Leah thought her sister would share every one of her cherished places with this brash outlander, while inside her vulnerable heart would be shrinking from the intrusion. “Why did you select this end of the Valley?” she asked, half to herself.

  Mrs. Ward smiled. It was a peculiarly ironic smile, one that rendered the older woman more approachable. “I haven’t told anyone else,” she confided. “But since you’re so protective of your sister, I’ll tell you.” She leaned forward, and Leah caught a whiff of a heavy fragrance. “I saw one of her works in the American Monthly. ‘Flowering Dogwood, A Shenandoah Spring,’ was the caption. It took my breath away.”

  “I remember it.” Leah swallowed the prick of chagrin for her disrespectful thoughts.

  “Of course you’ll know that, for the last several years, I’ve been painting various scenes from different parts of the country.”

  “You have a traveling exhibit, part of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, don’t you?”

  “Why, yes I do. You certainly are knowledgeable for—never mind.” Another deep-bodied laugh escaped. “I can tell by your expression it would be better to leave that remark unsaid. By the way, you have a very paintable face. Did you know? It would be fascinating . . .” She pursed her lips and studied Leah through narrowed eyes.

  “Thank you, but I prefer my face—unpainted,” Leah said.

  “What a shame.” Mrs. Ward waved her hand. “At any rate, when I saw that dogwood illustration by Garnet Sinclair, I knew that the Shenandoah Valley would have to be my next project. I contacted Mr. Smoot, persuaded him to tell me where she lived.”

  “I see.” Oh, she saw all right. Prying, pretentious busybody, treating them like a family of paper dolls she could dress and undress as she chose. “Mrs. Ward, I’m sorry but I have—”

  “I really will leave now,” the other woman interrupted. “I do hope you’ll think about everything and realize the mutual benefits your sister and I could enjoy. It was lovely to meet you, Leah.” She stood for a second longer. “I hope your sister appreciates what an effective watchdog she has.”

  A rolling thunderclap accompanied her as she swept down the steps, one hand waving away the driver’s assistance. They disappeared into the cedars that lined the drive just as the approaching storm clouds snuffed out the sun. Leah sat down on the steps, her mind on the departed guest while her eyes watched the approaching storm. It looked to be a nasty one. She hoped Garnet and their father wouldn’t be caught in it.

  Felicity Ward, on the other hand, could probably benefit from a soaking.

  Sloan tried hard to ignore Garnet’s fear while he methodically bared her arm and shoulder. It was more difficult—all right, it was impossible—not to notice the fine-grained alabaster skin, and the light smattering of cinnamon-toned freckles.

  The healed wound was an obscenity, the ugly black stitches protruding from that tender skin offensive.

  Garnet’s eyes, an unblinking rainwashed green, filled her face. Her earlier response to him had made him feel like Jack the Ripper. As far as Sloan was concerned, whoever was responsible for that look deserved to be—he stifled the stew of conflicting emotions and bent to examine the cut. When he pressed it lightly with his fingers Garnet’s breath hitched, her arm reflexively jerking.

  “Hurt?” Sloan asked, keeping his voice impersonal.

  “N-no. It’s not that.”

  The pause that followed brought his head up to search her face. Uncertainty, fear, doubt . . . nothing he hadn’t expected. But what raised his eyebrow was the resolution, shining like gold amid a pile of rubble.

  “What is it then?” he asked finally.

  “My father trusts you.” Both of them glanced over at Jacob’s stalwart back. When she spoke again, her voice was low, the words a hurried jumble. “I don’t understand it, but I-I trust you too. Even so, I don’t know if I should say anything; it’s been five years. But I’m afraid if I don’t take a chance now . . . he wouldn’t have, I mean I see now how he, well arranged to come here, because he trusts you. But if I tell you, it could put you in danger—”

  Put him in danger?

  A long rumble of thunder boomed a warning, and he glanced out in surprise. The sky had darkened to the color of his black riding boots.

  “Sloan, this looks like a nasty one,” Jacob called without turning around. “Ah . . . You ’bou
t finished there?”

  “Not quite,” Sloan said, thinking rapidly. “Tell you what. No sense in either of you racing a storm. Why not put your horses in the barn, stay here ’til it passes? I should be finished with Garnet by the time you return. I don’t have much to offer, but for the duration, my house is yours.”

  Jacob turned around, his gaze barely grazing his daughter before darting away. His face blanched, whether from the exposed wound or her exposed skin, Sloan wasn’t sure. “Garnet?”

  “You better hurry, from the looks of the weather,” Garnet said. “Don’t worry, Papa. I’m . . . I trust Mr. MacAllister.”

  “Aye. Well, then . . .” He nodded once, then jogged down the steps and across the yard, accompanied by another peal of thunder.

  “Thank you,” Garnet said. “I-I didn’t want him to hear this. Not yet. How . . .” She lightly stroked Phineas’s head, which seemed to have found its way onto her lap. “How did you know?”

  Sloan shrugged. “You need to tell me something, but you were having trouble. If it wasn’t because you’re still afraid of me, I thought it might be because you were afraid of your father’s reaction.” Especially if she was about to confess to physical assault, or worse. In spite of Jacob’s vehement assertions, Sloan’s opinion of mankind was jaded enough not to preclude the obvious reason for Garnet’s aversion to the male of the species.

  Right now she looked resolute, but her manner remained uncertain. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about if I remove the stitches, and you tell me whatever you wish. Talking will keep you distracted from what I’m doing, and when your father returns we both know he’ll be relieved.”

  A ghost of a smile flickered. “Will it hurt?”

  “Might pinch a bit. I’ll be as gentle as I can. I’m going to swab it with this”—he showed her the bottle of benzoic acid—“then cut the knots and tug out the sutures. You needn’t watch. Talk to me, Garnet. Tell me why you think I might be in danger.”

  While he waited for her answer, Sloan went to work on her shoulder. Her skin quivered when the soaked cotton wool first touched her skin, but her right hand continued to stroke the fox’s head. “I was sixteen,” she said after a while. “And I had a . . . crush on this boy at school. Only my older sister, Meredith, fancied him too. She’s a born flirt, not in a bad way . . . all the boys liked her. Meredith’s fun to be around, so full of life—sorry. This is difficult.”

  “You’re doing fine, take your time.” He snipped the first knot, then tugged the thread out. Garnet emitted a tiny gasp, then resolutely continued her tale.

  “Meredith convinced Tate to stay after school with her, to help clean the chalkboards. I was hurt. Jealous . . . but I understood. Meredith’s beautiful, and she doesn’t have this hair.” She gestured at her head.

  Sloan stared at her in surprise, jarred from his concentration on her shoulder. “What does your hair have to do with it?”

  “The color,” she said impatiently. “I’ve been teased about it ever since I was a child. It’s a curse. People with red hair stand out—especially if they don’t have the temperament associated with the color.”

  Jenna’s teasing face flashed through Sloan’s mind. “And you don’t?” He clipped off knots, deftly tugged threads loose.

  “No.” Her face was lowered, her right hand pausing from its ceaseless stroking. “I don’t have much of a temper. Compared to my sisters, I’m dull. Eccentric but colorless, except for my flaming sunset hair.” Her tone made it plain that the description was not a compliment.

  Dull. Colorless? How could anyone be so blind about herself? “So you left Meredith at school and started home on your own,” he prompted.

  “Yes. Did Papa tell you that?”

  “He said you changed, your sixteenth summer. And that the change occurred after the day you told him the horse ran away from you. That’s not what happened, is it?”

  Garnet didn’t answer.

  Sloan removed the last thread and laid his scissors and tweezers aside on the fresh towel he’d placed on the porch floor. He cleaned the scar, pleased with his handiwork—no sign of infection, redness diminished, complete healing—then secured a light gauze pad in place.

  A strong breeze, smelling of rain and honeysuckle, swirled beneath the porch roof, stirring loose tendrils of the hair Garnet thought of as a curse. Sloan contemplated her for a moment. She still hadn’t spoken.

  In a dispassionate sweep, he stroked his fingers over her bare skin, starting at the downy hair on the nape of her slender neck, following the trapezius muscle to her biceps, on to the inside of her elbow. Not until he reached her wrist did she finally react.

  “What are you doing?” She lifted her hand, as though unsure whether to push him away or slap his face.

  “Forcing a reaction. Tell me what happened that day, Garnet. It won’t take your father long to unhitch the horses. If you don’t want him to hear this, you need to tell me now.”

  Sloan sensed the automatic mental recoil as though he were inside her head. She won’t do it, he decided, disillusionment battling with the instinct to comfort. He couldn’t blame her—in all his years as a practicing physician, none of the physically and emotionally brutalized women he’d treated had been willing to admit it. For some bizarre reason, they seemed to blame themselves.

  Then he remembered Jenna—and his brother. Some women were born Jezebels, after all. “Never mind. We can talk later,” he said. “Here, I want to see how much range of movement you—”

  “I left the road to follow a path through the woods. I was disobeying. I wasn’t allowed to leave the main road back then.” She was breathing rapidly, and beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and upper lip. “I—there were some men. Four. They . . . they smiled at me. I didn’t realize they weren’t just being friendly. And I didn’t realize what they were doing, what I was seeing, until it was . . . too late.”

  “Garnet.” He couldn’t help but lift her hands to hold them between his, his gaze on her anguished face. “It’s all right. Not your fault. Tell me how they hurt you, Garnet. I won’t condemn you, I won’t blame you—” He broke off when a sobbing laugh bubbled out of her throat.

  “You should.” She swallowed hard. “I do. One of them . . . he told me what pretty hair I had. He was the first boy, except he was grown—a man—but he was the first other than my father to tell me I had pretty hair. So I-I . . .” She yanked one hand free and covered her eyes. “I flirted with him. Flirted. Tried everything I’d watched Meredith do. I wanted them to like me. God, forgive me! ” The wrenching cry tore from her chest. “I was stupid and shallow and vain—when I saw the body I didn’t understand, at first. I remember tossing my head, hoping the sun would shine on my hair, that the young man would notice and pay me another compliment. Then I caught sight of the body. When they saw me staring . . . everything changed.”

  A body?

  The first raindrops spattered on the tin roof. Sloan picked Phineas up and placed him on the floor. “Tell me what happened.” Without making a fuss he knelt and took her hands again. Her fingers dug into his. Sloan gently ran his thumbs over her knuckles in a calming motion. “Garnet,” he said very quietly, “what did you mean about seeing a body?”

  She went deathly still. After waiting a moment, Sloan disengaged their hands so he could cup her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Take your time; just tell me.” He stroked the soft skin with the tips of his fingers, then finally released her, though he didn’t allow her any distance between them.

  “They’d killed a man.” Her dilated eyes fixed on his face. “Dug a hole, and were about to bury him in it. The back of their wagon was full of boxes of dynamite. I didn’t know until much later, of course, when I saw similar boxes in Mr. Cooper’s store that he’d ordered for Kreuger Mines. And I remember him remarking that this was a repeat order, because the first batch had been stolen.

  “Th-the men . . . I think they stole that dynamite. And they told me if I said anything, told anyone, that they
’d find me. They’d hurt me, my family—nobody would be safe. To prove the point, they shot our dog. His name was Chowder. He was barking . . . they shot him . . .”

  A clap of thunder shook the earth, and with a whooshing roar sheets of rain cascaded from the heavens.

  A sad smile curved Garnet’s mouth. Sloan thought it the most poignant smile he’d ever seen. “I love rainstorms,” she murmured. The gray green eyes blinked once, and her throat muscles tightened. “They hauled me out of the buggy. The one man . . . began to kiss me. When I struggled, another one held me. They were so strong, I couldn’t—I didn’t know how. I was helpless.” She paused. “I always wondered about my father, because it was after that summer that he taught us how to defend ourselves. But . . .” Her voice trailed away again.

  Sloan waited, fighting a desperate internal battle not to haul her into a protective embrace.

  “They . . . they would have done more than—well, more,” she confessed, “but another of the men stopped them. He was older. He made them stop. They dumped me back in the buggy, told me it didn’t matter who I was or where I went, that my hair would be easy enough to spot. So I came home, and I told Papa the horse had bolted when a rabbit ran across the road, and that Chowder ran after the rabbit. I told Papa lies . . . so many lies. But I didn’t know what else to do. I had to protect my family. And . . . I was sc-scared.”

  Her voice broke. She blinked again, looking around as though waking from a nightmare. “He’ll get soaked if he doesn’t stay in the barn.”

  “I’m sure he’ll do the wise thing and stay there.” With calm authority that belied his inner fury, Sloan began to work Garnet’s arm back into the sleeve of her shirtwaist. “You don’t need to catch a chill either. Come along, let’s go inside. I’ll make you some coffee. Nothing like Leah’s tea, of course, but it should be drinkable. I’ll even let you help. I want you to start exercising your left arm, so the muscles don’t atrophy.”