Emily's Song

by Christine Marciniak

  She cocked her head as if the question made no sense to her.

  “Of course. It’s not what Sam can do for me that I love; it is who he is. Himself.”

  “He is going off to war.” His father was very blunt about it, almost cold.

  Sam saw tears pool in Emily’s eyes. How he hated the thought of leaving her.

  “I know,” she answered with a deep sigh. “I wish he didn’t have to.”

  “You wouldn’t try to stop him?”

  “Would you?” She gazed directly at his father, and Sam fought the urge to reach out to her.

  “In a heartbeat if I thought it would make a difference.” Sam saw moisture in the corner of his father’s eyes and a lump formed in his throat.

  “Same,” she answered and gave his father a sad smile. “Same.”

  His father turned a smiling face to Sam. “Break open a bottle of champagne, my boy. We need to celebrate your engagement to this charming woman.”

  Sam hurried to the wine cellar to get one of the best bottles of champagne. Maybe Emily really was from the fairy folk, the way she was able to enchant his father like that. Or perhaps he was the luckiest man alive to have met the perfect woman.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Emily

  Emily sighed as Beck helped her once again into the brown dress in the morning. “I wish my new dresses were ready. What will Sam’s mother and sister think when I greet them wearing Elizabeth’s old dress?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Elizabeth’s old dress,” Beck said as she did up the dozens of tiny buttons in the back. “Except maybe that it has too many buttons for my taste.”

  It wasn’t so much the dress as it was the fact it was borrowed. From them. “But I come to them with nothing. And it’s so obvious. And they’ll hate the fact that I’m marrying Sam.”

  “If you won over Mr. Marshall, you’ll win over his mother and sister.” Beck’s tone was reassuring, but Emily wasn’t convinced.

  She looked at Beck through the reflection in the oval mirror. “That’s not how it works. Mothers always hate the woman their son is going to marry. They feel jealous and threatened.”

  “I don’t think so,” Beck said as her nimble fingers did up the dozens of buttons. “Mrs. Marshall liked Dinah well enough, she wasn’t threatened by her. And she loved Anna.”

  “Anna.” The perfect Anna. Could she even compete with her? “Tell me something about her. Was she as perfect as Sam seems to remember?”

  “Pretty much.”

  That was not the reassuring response she wanted.

  “They grew up together.” Beck continued and motioned for Emily to sit at the dressing table so she could do her hair. “She was small and sweet and made him laugh. When she died, we despaired of him ever being happy again, and it’s been close on five years. That’s a long time to be sad. But you make him happy. His mother will see that, and she’ll love you.”

  That was some relief at least. “And his sister?”

  “Leave her to me.” Beck ran the brush through Emily’s hair. “I’ve got a plan,” she said after a moment.

  “About Elizabeth?” Emily looked at her in the mirror but Beck shook her head.

  “No, to get free. You said you’d help, right?” Defiance flashed in her eyes.

  “Sure.” She’d really rather deal with one problem at a time, but since there was nothing she could really do about Mrs. Marshall or Elizabeth right now, she might as well hear what Beck had in mind. “What is your plan? What can I do?”

  “Once Sam has gone off to war, you remember some people in Philadelphia you want to visit and take me with you. Then I’ll conveniently get lost, and you’ll return alone.”

  The family certainly wouldn’t be happy with her, but she couldn’t force Beck to stay enslaved just to make her own life easier. “Sounds good.”

  “When does he go off to war?” Beck asked as she arranged her hair in a chignon.

  “A couple of weeks.” The words hurt her heart as she said them. A couple of weeks. That was all they had left, and then he would be gone.

  Samuel Marshall, he died in the Civil War.

  Why did she have to know that? It broke her heart. But if she were to be honest with herself, if she didn’t know that, would she have agreed to marry him, effectively trapping herself in the past forever? She couldn’t be sure. She’d like to say yes, she would, but would having Sam be enough to make up for everything she would be leaving behind? When she was with him, she felt more protected, more loved, happier, than she had remembered being since she was a small child. She was more concerned about his well-being than her own, if that wasn’t love what was? All her thoughts were of him. Yes, she would give up everything for Sam. And that was what she was doing, because unless she knew that he was definitely dead she was not going back to her own time. She would be here waiting for him to come back, until she knew he wouldn’t. He would know she was here for him.

  “A couple of weeks gives me time to get things together before we leave,” Beck said, putting the finishing touches on the hairstyle.

  Right. They were talking about Beck’s plan. She needed to concentrate.

  “Do you have a place to go when you get to Philadelphia?” She turned so she could look at Beck directly, not through the mirror.

  “Not specifically, but I’ll figure it out, don’t you worry about that. I just need you to get me out of Maryland without anyone stopping me.” The determination in her eyes was proof that she’d be fine.

  “I can do that.” It felt like far too little.

  Sam and his father were both at the table when she got downstairs for breakfast. They stood and bowed politely toward her as she entered the room. There were aspects of this time period that she could get used to, this respect was definitely one of them. Sam hurried and pulled out her chair for her.

  “You slept well?” he asked.

  “Quite, thank you,” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing your mother and sister today.”

  She was actually quite nervous about encountering them again as Sam’s fiancée, but she wasn’t going to admit that.

  “And they are looking forward to seeing you.” Mr. Marshall’s words were meant to be comforting, but he didn’t sound completely convinced as he said them, and she became even more nervous.

  When Mrs. Marshall and Elizabeth arrived, shortly before lunch, they immediately went to the study with Sam and his father. Emily was left anxiously awaiting the outcome of their conclave. She picked up Pride and Prejudice again. She never seemed to get past the first chapter, and today wouldn’t be any different. She couldn’t concentrate.

  His mother would hate her, she was sure, despite what Beck had said. Emily had been able to charm his father, but that didn’t work on mothers. Would his mother convince Sam this was a horrible idea? Was it a horrible idea? Would he go back to Dinah? What would she think if she were the mother? She’d think her son had lost his mind. Maybe he had. Maybe they both had, but yet, it felt so right.

  She had read the same page at least five times, when she heard the door of the study open. Soon Sam hurried into the parlor. She stood, and he took her by the hand.

  “My mother is looking forward to getting to know you,” he assured her, squeezing her fingers gently, as the rest of his family came into the room.

  “Miss Parks,” Mrs. Marshall said, sounding completely pleasant and not at all like she hated her. “When you dropped into our lives, I did not expect you would stay, but Sam is happier than I have ever seen him, and I look forward to having you in our family. Perhaps you were dropped from heaven for my boy.”

  “Perhaps.” She smiled at her future mother-in-law. That was as good an explanation as any for how she ended up here. She stole a glance at Elizabeth, who had crossed her arms and glared at her through narrowed eyes, her lips making a thin line across her face. Perhaps her brother’s happiness wasn’t as important to her as having her best friend be her sister-in-law.

  Mrs. Marsha
ll glided across the floor and seated herself on the horsehair sofa. “And Sam tells me we are to plan a wedding at the same time we prepare him for war.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Emily said. She was really turning this household upside down. How could they not hate her? “We really don’t have much time, but of course an elaborate wedding is not what’s important to us.”

  Elizabeth’s eye’s widened, and she nearly skipped across the room to her mother. “We should have a ball!” she said with sudden enthusiasm. “That’s what we should do. Have a small wedding in the church of course, because it has to be a church wedding or it doesn’t count, and then come back here and have combination wedding/farewell ball for Sam. Mother, I’ll need a new dress.”

  Emily managed to suppress the laugh that threatened to bubble over. Elizabeth was truly selfless in a mercenary way.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Marshall said, putting her hands together in delight. She seemed almost as excited about the idea of a ball as Elizabeth. “And you will of course need a dress, Miss Parks.”

  “Oh, Sam took me to Mrs. Barnes yesterday and we ordered some dresses.” She wondered if she should sit, but Elizabeth sat in the chair she’d been occupying and decided for now she’d stand.

  “Just the same, we can take you back to Mrs. Barnes. A mother knows what a girl needs for her wedding.” She gave Emily a tender smile. “And your own mother, will she be able to be at the wedding?”

  “My mother…my parents are not living.” A lump formed in her throat as she said the words. It was true as far as it went. Right now, in this time, her parents were not alive. She of course had every hope and confidence that they were alive, healthy, and probably torn apart with worry, back in her own time.

  “I am so sorry, dear.” Mrs. Marshall stood and hurried to Emily, taking both of her hands in hers and looking into her eyes. “But you are our family now. We shall take care of you.”

  Tears came to Emily’s eyes. How was it that these people should be so nice to her? Of course they were doing it because they loved Sam and he loved her. Why did this all have to end?

  With Mrs. Marshall in charge, suddenly the day turned into a whirlwind of activity. They headed into town to arrange things with the priest and then back to Mrs. Barnes so that Mrs. Marshall could approve the dresses already ordered. It turned out that one of the day dresses was pieced together, and Emily tried it on so that Mrs. Barnes could get final measurements. They ordered a dress for Elizabeth, and Mrs. Marshall agreed to pay more so that Mrs. Barnes could bring in help to get the dresses done in time. Then there was a stop at the dry goods store to get Emily a workbasket and supplies so she could begin to sew some of her trousseau. Emily had her doubts about this. If they were relying on her sewing skills for her to have underwear, she’d be going commando the rest of her life, but she went along with it to make her future mother-in-law happy.

  When they got back from town, all she wanted was to go off somewhere alone with Sam. She needed to be with someone she didn’t have to pretend with. She needed to have him hold her and kiss her, but as Sam took her hand to escort her out to the garden, Mr. Marshall clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I think we need to go over the books.”

  She watched with regret as Sam was led behind the closed doors of the study.

  “Shall we have tea in the parlor, girls?” Mrs. Marshall said, and without waiting for an answer headed to find a servant to bring the refreshments.

  Emily followed Elizabeth into the parlor where the afternoon sun had warmed the room to slightly past cozy, and moved on to oppressive. As soon as they’d crossed the threshold, Elizabeth turned a cold face to her.

  “What’s your game?” Elizabeth waved a finger in her face. “Who are you? Why do you want my brother? Where do you come from? What’s your story?”

  It was tempting to tell Elizabeth the truth, but she wasn’t at all sure how that would be taken. Better to save that until there was more trust between the two of them.

  She held up one finger. “First, I have no game.” She tried to sound as sincere as possible, the only problem, she found was that when you were tried to sound sincere you often didn’t. She held up a second finger as she answered the second question. “I’m Emily Parks. I have no particular family significance. I can’t tell you I’m of the Oak Ridge Parks or anything like that.” She’d always thought people who introduced themselves that way were pretentious, and she supposed they were, but it was a way to prove your bonafides to strangers who doubted you. Third finger up. “I want your brother because I love him like I’ve never loved anyone before in my life. And I know he has to go off to war, but I want him to have what happiness he can first, and to know I am waiting for him when he returns.” She crossed her arms. She’d answered the questions; the ball was back in Elizabeth’s court.

  “Don’t you think Dinah could have given him that happiness?” Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as if daring her to actually answer the question.

  Emily sighed and sat down on the sofa. She wiped a sheen of sweat from her forehead and wished that Dinah were not collateral damage in all this. She had nothing against Dinah. She’d had no intention of stealing Sam away, but he insisted he wasn’t in love with Dinah and Emily was not going to argue with him about that. “I’m sure Dinah could have made him happy. I’m sure she wanted to. What happened with me and Sam wasn’t planned. I didn’t go out to steal him away or anything. We fell in love.”

  “Very quickly,” Elizabeth interjected her eyes narrowed disapprovingly.

  “Yes,” Emily agreed. “Very quickly. And if I were you I’d have my doubts too. I’d say how could they know they love each other after such a short time? I’d say, they barely know each other what are they doing making a lifelong commitment? And you know what I’ve said those same things to myself. But I’ll tell you this, I’ve never been happier than with Sam, and he’s the one who wanted to get married before he left. I agreed because the most important thing for me right now is to make him happy.” It was hot in here. She wished Mrs. Marshall were bringing lemonade instead of tea.

  “Dinah says you’re a fake who is after the plantation and don’t care about Sam at all.” Elizabeth sat with a flourish in the chair across from her.

  Damn that Dinah, why did she have to keep poisoning people against her? “That’s not true. I don’t want anything from Sam except Sam. That’s all.”

  “I’m not sure I trust you,” Elizabeth said, nose in the air

  “I don’t blame you,” she answered, clearly throwing Elizabeth off guard. “I wouldn’t in your position. But hopefully as you get to know me, you’ll learn that all I want is the best for Sam.”

  “And what if he changed his mind and said he still wanted to marry Dinah instead.”

  The very thought stabbed at her heart a little. She hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Had Sam said something to his sister that would make her think that? But she had said what she wanted was what Sam wanted, so she had to answer honestly.

  “If that was what he wanted, it would break my heart, but I would let him go. Providing of course it was before the wedding. Once I’m married I intend it to be forever.” She leveled a steady gaze at Elizabeth. She was not going to be intimidated out of loving Sam. Especially not by his little sister.

  “What if Father writes him out of the will for marrying you?” Elizabeth cocked her head to one side as if she’d found and played the trump card.

  That had already been dealt with between Sam and his father as far as Emily knew, but she answered anyway, and hoped that Mrs. Marshall would get back soon and they could settle into forced civility.

  “If that bothers Sam, he is free to not marry me.”

  Elizabeth studied her through narrowed eyes. “You won’t try to take over the running of Bonne Terra, will you?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with maybe a bit too much passion. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  Elizabeth seemed to find this answer acceptable. “One las
t question,” she said. “Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte?”

  “Austen all the way,” Emily answered without hesitation, even though the question was so out of the blue. “I find Bronte too dark.”

  “But don’t you sometimes think the world is a dark place?” Elizabeth tilted her head in inquiry not inquisition.

  “Exactly why I like some light in my literature,” she answered. It was also why she preferred comedies to documentaries. Life was dark and dangerous, entertainment should be fun.

  Elizabeth looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Maybe we’ll get along, after all.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Emily answered and allowed a hint of a smile. She felt she’d passed a major test she’d never studied for.

  ****

  It wasn’t until after dinner that Emily finally got time to spend alone with Sam. Ignoring the family gathered in the parlor, he took her by the hand and led her out to the rose garden. “We will not have as much privacy now that they have come back,” he said, giving a gentle pat to her hand that he had tucked into the crook of his elbow.

  “I know.” She repressed a sigh. It wasn’t Sam’s fault that others had intruded on their little cocoon. She clung to his hand, leaning against him as they walked, wishing they could be promised a happy ever after.

  “Somethings bothering you.” It wasn’t a question so she didn’t bother denying it.

  “It’s Dinah. She seems to think she can get you back.”

  “She can’t.” He said it with such certainty that she hated to pursue this further, but she couldn’t let it go.

  “But…” How could she say this and not sound like she was having doubts about marrying him? “You’re from the same world, you two. She knows how to do things like run a plantation that I never could. You’ve known her for much longer. You don’t really know me at all.”

  He led her through the arbor into the garden. “Are you having second thoughts?” Was there actual worry in his voice?

  “About marrying you? Not at all,” Emily quickly assured him. She didn’t want him to think she didn’t want him. “But…”