Always (5 page)

As the woman in line ahead of Ross and Johanna moved on, Karen turned to see who was next. Her expression hardened. She uttered only one word. “Oh.”

Once again, Ross got the message. Karen still held a mysterious grudge against him.

She gave him a short nod. “Ross.”

“Karen. It’s nice to see you again, although the circumstances are less than—”

“Yes,” Karen interrupted, casting a cool eye over Johanna’s impeccably dressed figure. “How nice of you to come, Johanna.”

“I was so sorry to hear of your father’s passing. It must have come as such a blow,” Johanna said.

“Yes. It did.”

“You must let me know if there’s anything we can do.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Ross was relieved to see the woman ahead of them finish speaking with Marguerite Winters and move on. Unlike her daughters, she had not lifted her mourning veil, and so when Marguerite saw Johanna, Ross couldn’t read her expression. It was to her credit, however, that her kindly greeting came out without hesitation.

The feud between Nathaniel Winters and Johanna’s father was legendary. Although both men had been members of the same Episcopal congregation, they held vastly different political views. Later, when Nathaniel’s weekly paper grew to become a daily, the
Gazette
came into direct competition with the only other daily newspaper in the county, the
Morning
Herald
. The
Herald
was well established, having been founded by Malcolm Davenport’s late father early in the century.

Johanna swept up the older woman’s hand. “Mrs. Winters, I want you to know how very sorry I am at your husband’s untimely passing.”

“Why, uh, thank you, my dear.”

“My father asked me to express his heartfelt condolences. Even though he and Mr. Winters failed to see eye to eye in business, he always had nothing but the utmost respect for your husband personally.”

“I’m sure Nathaniel would have been, um, gratified to know that.”

“He also said to tell you that if there’s anything he can do for you or your family, you’re to let him know.”

“Thank you, but—”

“Anything at all. We’re all members of the same congregation, and it’s time to let bygones—”

“So true, dear,” Marguerite said, slipping her hand free.

Ross stepped forward. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Winters. Nathaniel will be sorely missed in this community.”

Whatever it was Karen held against him, Ross was glad Marguerite didn’t seem to share her hostility. The older woman’s embrace was warm and sincere. “Ross, it’s so good to see you again. Thank you for coming.”

“He was a good man,” Ross said softly.

“Oh, yes,” Marguerite agreed, breaking the embrace. Her voice trembled with emotion. “He was rather set in his ways, but he
was
a good man, wasn’t he?”

“The best.”

“He was always especially fond of you, Ross. Please come by to visit.”

As Marguerite proceeded to greet the next person in line, Ross held his breath. Johanna was just stepping up to address Emily. Those two had never gotten along.

“Oh, Emily, how awful it must be to have to return home under such dreadful circumstances.”

“Yes.” Emily’s tone was not unlike her sister’s only moments before.

“It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. What has it been, almost four years now?”

“Yes.”

“You’re looking well, despite all that’s happened.”

“Thank you, Johanna. So are you.”

“Ross has been so dreadfully worried about you since yesterday. Mercy, he told me you fainted.”

Emily looked at Ross with annoyance. “It wasn’t anything.”

“Are you feeling better?” Ross asked, catching and holding her gaze.

“Much.”

“We didn’t get to talk very long yesterday, Em. We should do some catching up.”

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town.”

Ross tried to read the meaning behind her clipped words, but except for the darkening expression in her eyes, her thoughts were closed to him. He had to swallow hard to control a surge of raw frustration. Here they were, face to face, yet she was cutting him off as effectively as she had four years before when she’d refused to answer his letters.

Johanna was prattling on, “...must be going, but do come by for a visit before you leave town. As Ross said, it’s been so long and we have so much to catch up on.”

“I’ll try to find time,” Emily said, wearing an expression that said she would rather have her fingernails torn off.

Johanna tugged on Ross’s arm. As there were still more people waiting, he had no choice but to follow. “Good-bye, Em.”

“Good-bye, Ross.”

He forced himself not to look back as they crossed the cemetery to the city sidewalk. “Thank heaven that’s over,” Johanna said when they were out of earshot.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he said tightly.

Johanna sniffed. “I think Emily was always a little bit jealous. Of you and me, I mean.”

“It wasn’t like that with Emily and me,” he said, though if he were pressed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to put into words exactly how it
had
been between Emily and him. Especially toward the end. The word
disastrous
came to mind.

“Well, maybe not for you,” Johanna said, “but for her it was different. Another woman can tell.”

“You weren’t a woman back then,” he said, impatient to get her off the subject. “You were a girl. Both of you were girls.”

“That’s not the point,” Johanna said as they crossed the street to the opposite sidewalk. “She was sweet on you, Ross. Maybe you didn’t see it, but it was there, and when you started coming to call on me—”

“Can we please drop this subject? It’s history.”

“Fine.”

A few moments of silence passed before Johanna couldn’t resist speaking again. “She wasn’t very friendly, was she?”

“The two of you were never exactly friends.”

“I hope she doesn’t take me up on my offer to come visit.”

This irked Ross. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, a woman like that coming into my home. It wouldn’t look proper at all, would it?”

“What are you talking about? What’s the matter with Emily?”

She gave him an odd look. “You mean, you don’t know?”

“Know
what
, for chrissake?”

Her sumptuous lips thinned into a prudish line. “Oh, Ross, that language. You’re not in the army anymore.”

“It’s going to get a lot worse unless you tell me what you’re talking about.”

“I assumed you knew. Everyone does.” Johanna lost the prudish frown and took on something close to a sly smile. “But I suppose you’d already left to join the army.”

“Johanna,” Ross said, losing patience.

“All right, let’s see. I suppose it was sometime during that winter after you joined up when Emily had to leave town. It was after the new year, the end of January, as I recall.”

“Had to leave town?” Ross tried to remember the date he had received his last letter from Emily. He thought it had been close to the time Johanna was referring to. Four attempts to elicit correspondence from Emily after that had gone unanswered. “Is that when she moved to Baltimore?”

Johanna laughed. “To go ‘visit’ her aunt, they said. Mercy, there’s only one reason a single girl suddenly up and leaves home for an extended visit with out-of-town relatives.”

Ross stopped cold. He stared at Johanna. “What?”

Her arm was still wrapped possessively around his, and so she was forced to stop with him. “You heard me.”

But he
couldn’t
have heard her right. Emily would have told him if she’d been in trouble. Ross had to struggle to breathe past a tightening knot in his chest. “Sounds like gossip.”

“Maybe,” Johanna said in a tone that plainly said, maybe
not
.

Ross had to look away from his preening fiancée to think clearly. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Again, he tried to remember the date of the last letter he’d received from Emily. January. Had it been in January?

“She would have told me,” he muttered. He hadn’t meant to speak his jumbled thoughts aloud, but Johanna didn’t seem to notice his agitation.

“Well, she didn’t actually tell anyone that I know of, but she didn’t need to. It was obvious. Everyone had it figured out by the time she left. She had gained some weight, and she had been spending time with that awful Karl Becker before he enlisted.”

Ross looked at her sharply.
“What?”

“I said, she’d gained some weight and was spending time with Karl Becker before—”

“
Karl?
Are you sure?”

Johanna frowned. “Of course I’m sure. What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, it’s just that all of this sounds like nasty rumors.”

“Well, rumors get their start somewhere. Everyone saw them together over the holidays. They were quite the talk.”

“The talk?” Ross echoed blankly. But now, it was beginning to come clear to him. He remembered the gleam in his old friend’s eye just a few minutes ago when he had spoken of Emily. During that last year before war broke out, Karl had begun calling on her. Back then, much to Ross’s relief, his womanizing friend had never seemed to interest Emily beyond idle flirtation, but now Ross wondered what had happened between those two after Ross left in September to join the army.

“He was always so wild. It’s surprising that he’s managed to make anything of himself,” Johanna added.

“Damn it!” Ross barely registered Johanna’s words. He had warned Emily about Karl. He had warned her at the very start, on the night of the chestnutting party when he’d first caught them together. Karl had lured her behind the Brenners’ springhouse to steal a kiss.

Looking back now, Ross knew he’d probably overreacted, pulling Karl away from Emily and throwing a punch that broke his former friend’s nose. But he’d done it for all the right reasons. Karl was known for setting his sights on any engaging smile that caught his eye, whether it be that of an innocent farm girl barely out of braids or an attractive widow twice his age. Emily had been sixteen then and no match for Karl’s slick charms.

“Ross, that language of yours,” Johanna chided, “Won’t you at least try to curb it in public?”

“It can’t be true. It’s an ugly rumor. It has to be.”

Johanna urged him forward again. “Well, possibly, but I doubt it. Emily stayed away for almost four years. It took her father’s death to bring her home. What does that tell you?”

“It tells me that she found a better life living in Baltimore than she did in this gossiping town, that’s what.”

“I can understand if you don’t want to believe it. You’re shocked, that’s all. You’ve said often enough she was like a sister to you, and I suppose no big brother wants to believe the worst of his little sister.”

“She
was
like a sister to me, and I know she wouldn’t…” He trailed off. He didn’t want to believe the rumors, but doubts surfaced again. What if...? He pushed the doubts away. The rumors weren’t true. This wasn’t the first time a young woman’s reputation had been destroyed by false, vicious gossip.

“I wonder what she did with the child,” Johanna mused. “Probably gave it up for adoption. Or maybe she’s even raising it herself down in Baltimore.”

“
What
child?” Ross demanded. “Hell, there
is
no child! All this is the result of wagging tongues and small minds!”

Perhaps it was because of Ross’s irascible mood that Johanna didn’t chastise him for his foul language. Nevertheless, he was glad to see they were approaching the Davenport household, one of the finest in this upper-crust neighborhood.

When they stopped at the front gate, Ross disengaged from Johanna’s possessive grip. “I don’t want to hear another word about this, is that understood?”

“Certainly. I’m just telling you what I heard, but if it upsets you, then we’ll leave it be.”

“Fine. Enough said.” Ross let out an aggravated breath and reminded himself that he had no reason to be so furious with Karl. Not if the rumors weren’t true.

“I suppose I’ll go finish out the afternoon at the newspaper,” he said. “I’ve got a deadline to meet.” Johanna lifted a gloved index finger to touch his jaw, urging him to look at her. “Just so long as you don’t forget supper tonight. Seven o’clock. Mother is expecting you.”

She smiled then, tilting her chin up, her blue eyes sparkling. If Ross didn’t know better, he would think she was setting up to kiss him. But Johanna was no more likely to commit the social faux pas of kissing a man, even her betrothed, in public on the street than she was to parade naked through Centre Square.

There was a time when Johanna’s feminine charms had driven him crazy with adolescent desire, and, indeed, she had led him a merry chase before her father had drawn the line and demanded that she marry within her own social circle. But that was years ago. Ross was older and wiser now and no longer idealistic. He was marrying her for a number of reasons, the least of which being that she was still pleasing to the eye.

“Seven o’clock,” he said.

“Don’t be late,” she cooed, letting her finger slide down the line of his jaw before turning to open the gate and walk up the front steps. She tossed him a coy wave before disappearing in a swirl of silk and crinoline.

Feeling drained, Ross headed back toward the center of town. Luckily, the
Herald
office was a good ten-minute walk, time enough to clear his head. Now he knew why Emily had attracted such curiosity the day she’d come back to town. He remembered how she’d refused to make eye contact with the people they passed. It made him sick at heart, but he also knew Emily had enough gumption to face down the gossip mongers if she chose to. She was a fighter, and no one knew that better than Ross.

When Johanna had referred to Emily figuratively as Ross’s little sister, she spoke the truth, but Johanna didn’t even know the half of it. No one did. Neither Emily nor Ross had ever let on how close they had been as children. The schoolyard teasing would have been unbearable. Friendship between a boy and a girl was unheard of. But somehow it had happened. It happened during one unusually hot summer in 1855.