Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1)

by Sara Mitchell

“I’m all right.” And he was, finally. “Thank God. I’m all right.” His trembling fingers tangled with hers. “Give me a couple of weeks, and I’ll be right as rain. Nothing but a broken ankle, some assorted bumps and scrapes. Meredith,” he breathed her name in a grateful prayer, “I needed you so much.”

  “I didn’t know. Until Clyde rode up to the house, Benjamin, I didn’t know.” The pulse in her throat fluttered like hummingbird wings. “I should have been here. I should have known.”

  “You’re here now.” He couldn’t stop touching her, didn’t want to even try. His hand moved up her arm, reveling in the reality of flesh and bone beneath the soft cotton sleeve. “You look . . .”

  “I look like the inside of a dustpan.” She took a deep breath, coloring a little. “But I don’t care. Someone told me once that appearances didn’t matter when it’s irrelevant to the circumstances.”

  The tips of his fingers brushed strands of dusty chestnut hair at her temples. “Beautiful,” he said. “You look . . . beautiful.”

  Quick tears sheened her luminous green gold eyes. “That fall must have blinded you as well.”

  “I’ve heard before—love is blind.” He watched her eyes widen, her mouth open in a soundless exclamation. “Meredith? Tell me you can feel it. Tell me you’re not here out of pity or concern.” Iron bands encased his ribs. Breath wedged in his parched throat, stalling the open declaration. For Benjamin, the words would be a commitment, one he’d shied away from his entire adult life.

  He needed Meredith to admit she loved him, before he could afford to take the risk himself.

  “I’m not here out of pity,” she said, her voice strained. “But I am concerned. And I’m concerned, because I . . . because I—” She shoved away from the bed, rose clumsily to pace back and forth beside it.

  Suddenly she stopped, whirling to face him, the action almost violent in its intensity. “Benjamin, I know what you need to hear. I don’t know if I can say it. I’m terrified, you see.” Her voice broke. “Terrified of making another mistake. I’ve made so many, because I don’t listen to God. I don’t know if you can understand—I’m not even certain myself.”

  Then, because she was Meredith and perhaps because the Lord was still in a miracle-granting mood, she threw her hands in the air. “I’m in love with you!” She yelled the words, and her belligerent expression challenged Ben. “There. I’ve told you. Think whatever you like about it. And for your information, I may have thought I was in love before, but this is different. Different, do you hear?”

  “I hear. Meredith—” he began, tenderness in every syllable.

  “It’s different because of God,” Meredith chugged right along, ignoring Ben. He wasn’t sure she’d even heard. “I can’t explain, and you’re in no condition to listen. You look worse than I do, and you have a broken ankle. But I’m telling you, Benjamin Walker, that you’d better have something more than friendship in mind when you respond to me come morning.”

  “If you’ll hush up your pretty little mouth and listen, I’ll try to respond now.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like—what? I mean—Benjamin, wait! You’re hurt.”

  He’d risen onto an elbow, because he refused to lie there limp as a beached trout while he spoke the words aloud. His head was pounding, his ankle throbbed, and when he moved, the blasted medicine turned everything in the room the consistency of cheesecloth.

  “Benjamin, please lie down.” He felt her hands against his shoulders. “You’re weak. You’ll hurt yourself. You’ll—”

  “I love you.”

  The hands pressing against him fell away. Grinning like a fool, Ben collapsed back against the pillows. “Now give me a kiss to seal the declarations, so I can go to sleep. In the morning, I promise to tell you anything else you need to hear.”

  “You love me? Truly?”

  “More than all the hotels in all the world. More than my life.”

  She looked dazed, as if he’d punched her diaphragm instead of making an avowal of love. Instead of a magnificent woman, Ben gazed up at an uncertain girl. He patted the bed. “Come here, sweetheart.”

  Obediently Meredith sat, still staring at him with unblinking eyes.

  “Lean down.”

  Again she obeyed, each motion tentative.

  With the last of his waning strength, Ben curved his hand around the back of her neck and brought her mouth to his. “I love you, Meredith Sinclair,” he whispered against her lips. He kissed her again. “And for your information, I’ve never told that to another woman, never felt for another woman what I feel for you.”

  With his thumbs he wiped away the welling tears. “It’s a gift. From God, given to both of us. Let’s accept it, and each other, hmm? Forget about the past, Meredith. It doesn’t matter anymore. Can you do that, for me?”

  “I can do that. Now.” She leaned forward and laid her mouth almost reverently against his. “Go to sleep, Benjamin. I’ll be here in the morning.”

  “Did you . . . bring the chest? Meredith . . . bring your heartwood chest?”

  “Yes, I brought it with me. Go to sleep.”

  He drifted off, Meredith’s hand curled tightly with his, her voice whispering into his ear.

  Meredith fell back into the hotel routine as though she’d never left—with one significant alteration. Two days after she arrived, Benjamin closed the doors to the dining room, gathered the entire staff there, and announced his and Meredith’s formal engagement. Even on crutches, her fiancé dominated the room with his self-assured presence.

  Meredith floated through the days with newfound confidence, reveling in the unabashed approval of everyone in the hotel. Didn’t matter to the staff that her position was now that of Mr. Walker’s affianced instead of his office manager. She performed the same duties, more vital now than ever with Benjamin recovering from the broken ankle. And since the summer season was in full swing, the hotel crammed to the rafters with guests all hours of the day and far into the night . . . well, Meredith was in her element. And she loved every moment of it.

  One afternoon a week later she tracked Benjamin down in the dining room, where he’d been having a discussion with Mr. Dayton. It was a little past two, and the large room was deserted except for waiters setting the tables for afternoon tea. From the restaurant manager’s defeated slump, Meredith gleaned that Mr. Dayton was not happy with whatever Benjamin had told him.

  After nodding to Meredith, he turned back to Benjamin. “Since you insist, I’ll take care of the matter, Mr. Walker.” After another nod, he left.

  “You really are a bully underneath that lazy smile of yours. A charming one, I’ll admit. But still a bully.”

  Benjamin leaned against the back of the rolling invalid chair he’d conceded to for better mobility and turned the smile on her full force. “Oh? What have I done this time? No—come over here. Sit beside me so I can hold your hand.”

  “I will not.” Meredith clutched her writing tablet against her chest. “If I come over there, you’ll want more than holding my hand. Then my mind will turn to mush, and I’ll forget what I was going to say.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Like I said—a bully.”

  “Like I’ve said for months—a tigress of an office manager. A kitten when—”

  Meredith leaped across the room to press her palm against his lips. Frantically she glanced around. “Benjamin!”

  He kissed the palm of her hand. “Sorry, love. Teasing you is irresistible when you’re playing your office manager role. Now,” his voice altered, “tell me what’s the matter.”

  “How did you—never mind.” She debated for only a moment, loath to disturb the idyll of this past week. Then: “A letter arrived in this morning’s mail.”

  “What is it? Here now, your hand’s trembling.” Frowning, Benjamin wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tugged. “Sit down. Do you have the letter? Is it from one of your sisters? Your father?”

  Meredith turned a dining room chair so she could
be close beside him. “It’s from Preston, Benjamin.”

  A stillness descended. The air seemed charged, as though lightning were about to strike. Meredith felt perspiration dampen her palms, and she had to suppress the cowardly impulse to tell Benjamin she’d left the letter in the office. It was amazing that she used to think of this man as a benign soul completely lacking in temper.

  “Give it to me, sweetheart.”

  “Only if you promise to talk with me about how best to respond.” She stared him down. “He betrayed both of us, Benjamin.”

  “Meredith.” The blue eyes crackled with heat, but it was the softness of his voice that lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. “Give me the letter.”

  She plucked it from the back of her writing pad and slapped it against his chest. “Here.”

  Benjamin unfolded the single sheet of cream vellum, scanned the words, then tore the paper into confetti and let it fall to the floor. “Mr. Walker and his fiancée Miss Sinclair regretfully decline the invitation to attend his groundbreaking ceremony at the site of Healing Springs Hotel.”

  “I sort of thought burning it would have been more satisfying.” Meredith attempted a smile, though the latent violence of Benjamin’s action had rattled her.

  It was still something of a revelation, both the intensity of his emotions and the control he was able to exert over them. She watched his hands clenching and unclenching on the invalid chair arms. After a moment she laid her palm over his.

  “It still hurts, doesn’t it? Losing Poplar Springs?”

  “Yes. Not as much, of course, because—well, you know the reason.”

  Nobody but Meredith, Benjamin, Hominy, and Benjamin’s lawyer, Mr. Hackett, knew that Benjamin was in the process of purchasing a thousand acres of land on Little North Mountain, let alone why. The information would remain a zealously guarded secret until the last legal loophole was secured.

  “Benjamin?”

  She wasn’t sure what he saw in her face, but the lines creasing his forehead and cheeks vanished. “Don’t, sweetheart. You’re not to blame, for anything.”

  “I know that.” This time she managed a smile. “Most of the time, I don’t even think about it anymore, especially now.” She leaned and kissed the top of his head. “It’s just that earlier . . . for a moment when I first read that letter? Like you, I wanted to destroy it. Burn it, rip it up—didn’t matter. But I wanted to do it in Preston’s office. In front of Preston.”

  Meredith watched the last of the pain vanish from her beloved’s face, watched the tension drain from his muscles. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Benjamin? Is that an awful sin? I mean, God does warn us that we’re supposed to forgive, not entertain vengeful thoughts.”

  “We’re human. I reckon as long as the thoughts don’t extend to action, the Lord’s willing to smile and look the other way, so to speak.”

  “That’s irreverent, Mr. Walker. And if memory serves correctly, in God’s eyes, sinful thoughts are no less so than sinful actions.” Meredith pretended to pout. “Trust you to force me to answer my own question . . .”

  He grinned. “And it worked, too, didn’t it? Though I wasn’t trying to be irreverent. It’s just”—he looked sheepish and elated all at the same time—“I’m in love with the most wonderful woman in the world. I’ve learned that Cade and my mother were right. I like the way I feel, when I pray, as though I’m talking to a friend. For some reason, God’s decided to fill my life with everything I’ve ever wanted. Right now, even lamed up with this ankle, I feel like I could do anything I set my mind to.”

  The momentary qualms vanished. “Why, Mr. Walker, there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind of that,” Meredith said. “And with both of us working together, we’re . . . unstoppable!”

  Forty-Eight

  Garnet trailed her fingers over a cherry bureau in Meredith’s ground-floor suite at the Excelsior Hotel. Not as fine as a Jacob Sinclair piece, she mused. But for all its splendor, these were still rooms in a hotel. She smiled to herself, thinking of Meredith’s reaction were she to make that observation out loud. Meredith never broached life tentatively. When she finally realized she was in love with Benjamin Walker, that once impossible, undecipherable, annoyingly inflexible man metamorphosed into a masculine paragon of irreproachable character.

  It would be entertaining to witness one of their inevitable altercations.

  “What are you smiling about?” Meredith asked around a mouthful of hairpins.

  Garnet glanced across the room where her sister sat at the dressing table, her hands busily pinning up her hair. “Your room. It’s very elegant. A far cry from our childhood bedrooms at home. The bathroom is positively decadent.”

  Until Meredith moved in, the first-floor suite for the most part had been reserved for Benjamin Walker’s most distinguished guests. The bathroom was half again the size of the parlored bedroom, with Italian tile floors, marble sink, and a soaking tub Garnet would have traded both her aching feet for.

  “Ah yes. My very own private bathroom. When I saw it, I stopped protesting about moving into the hotel.” Meredith’s eyes crinkled. “I thank the Lord every day for saving me from the likes of Lamar Aikens.”

  “And Preston Clarke?” Garnet kept her voice casual.

  A scowl clouded Meredith’s sunny countenance. She jammed the last pin into her hair and twisted around on the vanity bench. “You’re about as subtle as your hair, sister dear. I’ll go to the grave with that particular reminder of my defective nature. I thank God for rescuing me from Preston Clarke as well, but Benjamin does a fine job of keeping me safe now”—her arm lifted in a sweeping gesture—“as you see. It would ease my mind considerably if my family would stop worrying about that . . . that wealthy weasel.”

  “He’s a powerful man, and he threatened you.” The prickling heat spread from her unstable stomach outwards; Garnet hoped her face wasn’t turning green. Even in their comfortable carriage, the trip from Tom’s Brook had not been pleasant. “You know Papa would prefer you to live at home until the wedding. He’s”—careful, Garnet—“ambivalent about your living in the hotel.”

  “I know. But it’s the height of the season, and Benjamin has a broken ankle.” Meredith reached for a faux pearl hair comb that, Garnet knew, she wore to complement the real pearls in her betrothal ring. “If it eases your mind, I let Papa lecture me for the first quarter of an hour after you all arrived. Then I asked him how this was different from the boardinghouse, where two gentlemen clerks lived on the floor below me. At least three stories separate me from Benjamin’s apartments, along with almost three hundred guests. And Hominy functions as my maiden auntie. I can count on one hand the number of moments Benjamin and I have been alone together.”

  “You don’t have to convince me. I’m on your side.” Without warning a wave of vertigo swept over Garnet.

  She eased down onto an elegant lounge, swallowing hard against the upsurge of nausea as her hand instinctively slid over her flat abdomen. She ached to share her news, but after much discussion with Sloan the previous evening they had decided to wait a little longer. Tomorrow evening after all was Meredith’s and Benjamin’s formal engagement dinner. The entire family would be present—along with half the population of three counties, to hear Meredith tell it.

  This moment belonged to her sister. Time enough later, to share her own joyful tidings.

  “Are you all right? You’re pale.” Meredith bustled over, dropping down to kneel by the lounge. “Garnet? Shall I fetch Sloan, or would you like to try some of the crackers I stole from the kitchen?”

  Garnet blinked twice, couldn’t summon a response that didn’t sound either stupid or hopelessly false. “Some crackers would be nice,” she finally managed, avoiding Meredith’s eye.

  Without another word, her elder sister whisked away, returning shortly with a tray of soda crackers, a cold cloth, and a carafe of mineral water. “FrannieBeth, by the way, swears that if you nibble a couple of these ev
en before you rise in the morning, it helps,” she began conversationally as she handed Garnet a cracker before pouring her a glass of water. “And she ought to know, since she’s been through this twice—no, three times. She lost the one in between Alice and Jessup, you know.”

  “Meredith . . .” Garnet said, but had to concentrate on chewing small bits of cracker for several moments. Sitting back, she gave in and allowed Meredith to dab her forehead with the cool cloth. After a while, when the worst of the queasiness passed, she slanted her sister a look. “How did you know?”

  Meredith shrugged. “I wasn’t sure, but a time or two at the picnic, I saw the way you reacted when certain foods passed under your nose. And Sloan hovered, more than usual. I’ll be interested to see how Phineas reacts to a baby, seeing as how he’s been your only ‘child’ for so long.”

  Garnet surprised them both by bursting into tears. “I’m sorry . . . don’t know what’s come over me. It’s just that . . . I wanted to tell you, but we didn’t want to detract from your engagement party.”

  Meredith emitted an inelegant snort. “Now that I’d never allow, not after all the planning and preparation invested to celebrate my particular . . . ahem . . . ‘momentous event.’ Gaspar is determined to outshine even the lavish meals served at the huge resort hotels like Saratoga and the Greenbrier. Mr. Dayton is planning gigantic floral arrangements for every table—I asked him how we were supposed to find our plates. Poor man, he took me seriously, and it took ten minutes to convince him I’d been teasing.”

  She continued to feed Garnet crackers, talking all the while. “The wait staff, Benjamin told me this morning, decided among themselves that they wanted to dress in formal livery, in honor of the occasion. Only—they don’t have formal livery. Benjamin’s always felt it was pretentious, here in the mountains. But when Mr. Dayton mentioned it, Benjamin was so touched he arranged express delivery from New York. The order arrived two days ago, and now the laundry room has had to hire extra—oh.” Her hand clapped over her mouth. She made a face at Garnet. “I’m doing it again, rattling like my tongue’s tied in the middle and loose at both ends, when we need to be talking about you.”