Counterfeit Courtship
Read Counterfeit Courtship Online
Authors: Christina Miller
Second Chance Reunion
Returning home, Confederate hero Colonel Graham Talbot faces his toughest battle yetâavoiding the marriage-minded young ladies in town vying for his attentions. With a stepmother and orphaned niece to support, the penniless soldier has no intention of marrying. Neither does the woman he once loved, his next-door neighbor Ellie Anderson. But Ellie has a proposal of her own: a pretend courtship to keep their unwanted admirers at bay.
Ellie's unpredictable childhood left her determined to safeguard her independenceâand her plantation. Blaming herself for driving Graham away to war, she devises a plan to help them both. But when it goes awry, Ellie will face a choice: save her beloved property...or trust in a relationship that's becoming undeniably real.
“Ellie, you need a husband.”
“You're a fine one to think so.”
Graham's downcast gaze cut into Ellie like a cotton hoe. “I've always thought so,” he said, his voice quiet.
“I meant you have no room to speak, since you refuse to marry, too.”
“With good reason.”
“My reason is good, too.”
“Then let's hear it.”
She knew she shouldn't have told him how good her reason was, knew he'd take it as a challenge. And one thing she'd never seen Graham Talbot do was back down from a challenge. “I don't want to, that's all.”
She couldn't explain to him the horror of being orphaned, of being taken in by strangers. Relying on her father to provide for herâand being disappointedâhad been one thing. Depending on neighbors for daily food was another.
Never again would she depend on anyone else to provide for her. Her uncle had taken the past thirteen years to teach her to be a planter. Not a planter's wife.
And a planter she would be.
CHRISTINA MILLER
has always lived in the past. Her passion for history began with her grandmother's stories of 1920s rural southern Indiana. When Christina began to write fiction, she believed God was calling her to write what she knew: history. A Bethany College of Missions graduate, pastor's wife and worship leader, Christina lives on the family's farm with her husband of twenty-seven years and Sugar, their talking dog.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
âPhilippians
4:13
To Jesus, the giver of dreams and gifts...
To my husband, Jan, my real-life hero and man of God who has always believed in me...
To my mother, who taught me to read as soon as I was big enough to hold a book...
To my father, who taught me that I could do anything I set my mind to.
With gratitude to...
Miss Mimi Miller, Executive Director of The Historic Natchez Foundation, for helping me with countless historical accuracies and details and becoming my lively new friend.
Mr. Terry Trovato, Dunleith Historic Inn docent and storyteller, for brightening this book with his tales and historic tidbits. What a delight it was to write portions of this book in the parlor, dining room and galleries of Dunleith, the house after which I patterned Graham's home.
Dina Davis, my amazing editor, whose expert skills made my book sing. I can't imagine this journey without her!
Mary Sue Seymour, the sweetest and wisest agent in the business.
Aunt Sister Sylvia Gehlhausen, who gave me a quiet place to write in her ancient, enormous home.
Contents
Natchez,
Mississippi
June, 1865
C
olonel Graham Talbot slid from his mare and eased the reins over a live oak branch, the need for stealth and silence driving him. He crouched low to the ground and prayed that Dixie wouldn't whinny and give away his position.
As he surveyed the surrounding area, a gang of five appeared from behind the stable. How had they gotten there without him seeing them? And how had they known when he would arrive?
Crossing toward the imposing structure in the open air would make him vulnerable, but if he stayed where he was, they'd be on him in moments. He had to take the chance that they wouldn't look his way. Staying low, he rushed for the next oak. Just a hundred more yards and he'd make itâ
“Colonel Talbot, is that you? Sneaking through your own backyard?” The shrill, syrupy voice brought him to a halt. “We've been waiting for you for days.”
He stood and raised his hands in surrender. Just as he'd feared, he'd been captured by a force he dreaded more than a platoon of Yankees: a mob of husband-hunting Natchez girls.
As the gaggle of simpering females emerged from the side yard of his stepmother's town house, Graham held in a groan. Their exaggerated giggles and faded finery didn't improve his mood.
The girl who reached him first snapped shut her yellow-fringed parasol and leaned in close, taking possession of his arm in a way that made him want to head back to the army camp. She was pretty, even charming in her own way, but when had the hometown girls become so bold?
And why couldn't they have stayed away until he got a bath and a shave?
He sneaked a glance at the Greek Revival manor next door and caught a glimpse of Ellie Anderson waving out an upstairs window. Her honey-blond hair gleamed in the sun as brightly as her mischievous grin.
Ellie. His childhood chum, the instigator of most of his youthful calamitiesâand the reason he'd entered West Point, leaving behind his rejected heart. Even at this distance, the belle of Natchez brought back memories he'd worked hard to forget.
He stopped the thought cold. That had been eight years and a war ago. He'd been only seventeen at the time and still more boy than man. Things had been different in those days...
Ellie continued to smile in that maddening way of hers, a sweet, guileless smile, nothing like the cloying grins of the misguided maidens surrounding himâ
“Our own war hero is home at last.” The girl next to him interrupted his thoughts, and that was probably good since, as he now realized, he'd been staring at Ellie with his big mouth open. “You remember me, don't you, Colonel? I'm Susanna Martin, but an old friend like you can call me Susie.”
“We've heard all about your war exploits,” the redhead next to Susanna said. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place her. Then again, after eight years, he probably looked different too.
“What is General Robert E. Lee like? Is he as handsome as they say?”
Handsome?
“General Lee is a brilliant soldier and a fine Christian man. I was proud to serve under him.” He started toward the house, wanting nothing more than a hot bath and a long visit with his stepmother.
But they sailed along with him, their giant hoopskirts swaying as the women jostled into each other, vying for position next to him. He was surprised they wanted to get that close. Having ridden all day yesterday and all night last night, he was bound to smell as ripe as fresh manure.
This sure wasn't the homecoming he'd looked forward to, but he extended an arm to each girl closest to him and let them carry him along. The South may have lost the war, and Andrew Johnson, the Yankee president, may have stripped Graham of his citizenship, his plantation and all his property, but he was still a Southern gentleman. And a gentleman didn't offend a lady. Not even five ladies who'd disrupted his plans and wearied his already-troubled mind with their chattering.
And with the war's end, being a gentleman was all he had left.
Climbing the stone steps to the breezy front gallery with its white columns and comfortable outdoor rockers, Graham hesitated. Surely these girls didn't expect him to invite them inânot in his filthy condition. But Noreen, like the lady she was, would welcome them into her homeâhis childhood homeâand so should he.
“We haven't had many parties this year, so we can't wait for tonight. Miss Ophelia started planning your homecoming when Lee met with Grant.” Susanna spoke in low, intimate tones, as if four other women weren't hovering about her, taking in every word.
“A partyâtonight?” How was he going to get out of that without hurting Aunt Ophelia's feelings? Now that she was a war widow, she'd likely motherâand smotherâGraham more than ever. Starting tonight, apparently. “Would you care to come in and tell me about it?”
Say no, say no...
“We'd rather hear about the war. All of Natchez knows about the hundreds of Yankees you captured.” Susanna's drab green eyes turned hard as an artillery shell. “Although I don't see why you didn't just shoot them.”
“I spared as many lives as I could.” They reached the front door, and he saw it was shut. He hesitated. As hot as it was, why would Noreen not have all the doors and jib windows flung wide open to catch a breeze?
He grasped the brass doorknob. Surely his stepmother would entertain these girls and let him escape upstairs to a bath. Graham opened wide the cypress door painted to look like mahogany, and followed them inside the too-quiet center hall. He gestured toward the parlor. “Please be seated while I find my stepmother.”
He barely had them in the parlor before he took off down the hall to the library. The room was empty. Where was she? It wasn't like her to leave the house unattended. Anybody could have walked in that door...
Something seemed amiss in the room, but he couldn't discern what. He ventured farther inside, toward the collection of poetry Noreen kept on the shelves between the windows on the east wall, and then he saw it. A nearly full teacup and a half-eaten slice of bread and butter sat on the table next to his stepmother's favorite fireside wing chair.
Food and dirty dishes sitting outâin Noreen Talbot's home? Something had gone wrong. He could sense it, just as he always could in battle.
Graham turned from the library and checked the dining room. He stepped through the breezeway to the kitchen dependencyânothing. He charged up the stairs. “Noreen?” Upstairs, he headed for her room at the end of the hall.
As he'd suspected, it was empty too, with both bed pillows fluffed and in place, Noreen's hairbrush and mirror at perfect right angles to each other as alwaysâand the third drawer of Father's lowboy flung open.
The drawer where he hid his revolver.
Graham hastened to search the drawer. As he'd feared, Father's Colt Dragoon was gone, and the lid lay beside the open box of bullets.
What could this mean? He glanced down at his dirt-caked boots and the clumps of dried mud he'd left on the Persian silk and wool carpet. Noreen could have moved the gun, but she didn't leave drawers and ammo boxes open.
A wave of soprano giggles pierced the air around him, interrupting his thoughts. The girls.
He dashed into the hallway and toward his own room. He had to find out what had happened to Noreen, a mother to him since shortly after Mama and Graham's baby sister died in childbirth. But first he had to get rid of those girls. The thought of doing that made his stomach sick.
He could think of only one way to get them out.
* * *
Ellie Anderson pulled her head back inside the window of Uncle Amos's second-story bedroom, unsure whether to laugh at the scene below or feel sorry for Graham Talbot. For a moment, she fought the urge to send him their old childhood signal: a shrill whistle from between her teeth. But from the looks of things, he had enough noise in his ears as it was.
Would he even remember that signal, or had his war years erased the memory? It was such a childish thing, like the handkerchiefs they used to attach to wires and dangle out the windows of their rooms. A blue handkerchief was an invitation to an adventure, red for a picnic, and a white one was a distress signal. They had worked fine until Uncle Amos caught Ellie trying to fly hers from the weather vane.
She watched until Graham and the debutantes entered his home. Then she turned from the window in time to see Uncle Amos tip a spoonful of grits onto his lap.
She hastened to the bed, where he sat propped up by three pillows. “I'm not getting the hang of this,” he said, the slur in his speech still unfamiliar, even two months after his stroke of apoplexy.
Reaching for a napkin, Ellie tried to smile some encouragement into his drooped face. “You will. Keep practicing.” She wiped his chin and nightshirt front, and then she loaded more grits onto the spoon she had built up with a length of inch-thick dowel.
Uncle Amos reached for it, grunting as he spilled the grits again, and tried to dredge the spoon through the bowl.
“Grab it like you would an ax handle, not with your Natchez table manners.”
A twinkle appeared in his eyeâthe first one she'd seen since he took to his bed. “When did you last see me holding an ax?”
Ellie breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for this smidgen of humor. Surely it was a sign that he would recover. It had to be. Because if he didn't get betterâ
Light footsteps tapped down the hall, interrupting her thoughts. Within seconds, Ellie's maid poked her head in the doorway, a fringe of tight, gray-streaked black curls escaping her red kerchief. “That spoon you made working?”
“Better, Lilah May,” Uncle Amos said in a loud voice of optimismâas always when anyone other than Ellie was around.
“Let me help him. Colonel Graham just got home. You best get over there and rescue him from all them women.” Lilah May sat next to Uncle Amos on the bed and lifted a cup of no-longer-steaming coffee from the tray. “Besides, this man needs some coffee.”
“Graham Talbot?” When she raised the cup to his lips, Uncle Amos held up one hand, stopping her. “What women?”
“Maiden women, that's who, from all over town. They got designs on him, for sure. One of them is going to wiggle her way right into that big mansion of his.”
Her uncle's good eye widened, making the droopy one seem even worse by comparison. “Get over there, Ellie.”
She glanced out the window, the hot midmorning sun streaming in and heating up the room, bringing only a breath of a breeze with it. At least today her uncle remembered who Graham was. “I'm driving out to Magnolia Grove to check the west cotton field this morning before it gets too hot. I want to see how well the plants are squaring.”
“All you ever do is work. You're the best plantation manager a planter could ask for, but you're also a young lady. Go see Graham.”
From the look on Uncle's face, this was an argument she was going to lose. “Make sure he gets more than coffee, Lilah May. If he had his way, that's all he'd take.”
With Uncle Amos's snort ringing in her ears, Ellie headed downstairs. Her maid and uncle could imagine her running to Graham's side if they liked. But she had no intention of joining the fuss and flurry over the war hero's return. They'd been friends too long, and she knew him too well to think he would enjoy the festivities this town had planned for him. A Confederate colonel who'd served under General Lee was worthy of celebration, to be sure. But Graham would rather entertain General Grant in the parlor than attend all the parties, balls and dinners that were in his futureâstarting tonight.
The poor man. Surely all he wanted to do was rest after traveling all the way from Virginia.
Someone ought to warn him. He might need her help.
She hastened to the library and rummaged in her desk for stationery, then she dipped her pen in the ink.
Graham, old friend,
Maybe your welcoming committee has already told you this, but your aunt Ophelia has been at the ready for weeks, prepared to give you a coming-home party the night you arrive. If you need a quiet evening instead, I'll be at our old hideout and will bring you home for some of Lilah May's good cooking.
Your friend, Ellie.
As she put away her pen, she noticed a letter addressed to her, propped against her walnut whatnot box where Lilah May always left the mail. Ellie pulled a pin from her hair and slit the envelope, then drew out the single thick sheet. Only three lines of large, bold handwriting scrawled across the page.
After my father's demise, I must put his accounts in order. May I call at your home Friday next at 8:00 p.m. to discuss the business he left behind?
As always, Leonard Fitzwald.
As always?
Surely that didn't mean Leonard intended to loiter here at their home as he had before the war. Honestly, if the neighborhood hadn't known better, they'd have thought Ellie and Leonard were courting.
The thought sent a cold chill down her back. Although not necessarily bad-looking, Leonard had an almost frail demeanor and, worse, some undefined, underlying peculiarity that made her uneasy. She'd have to find a polite way to discourage him from visiting, especially now that the cotton fields were squaring. Between supervising her new workers, keeping track of cotton prices and watching for the right time to sell the portion of last year's cotton harvest that she still had stashed away, she had no time for Leonard. However, since his father had been their cotton broker, Leonard no doubt had legitimate business to discuss.
But for now, Graham needed her help, so she tossed Leonard's letter onto her desk and headed for the back door. Maybe her old friend would take her up on her offer of escape from the party, and maybe he wouldn't. Either way, she'd have an excuse to miss it too. Some girls never grew up, like that silly Susanna Martin, who'd all but thrown herself at Graham in the yard. And Miss Ophelia, who seemed as excited about Graham's return as the debutantes were. As much as Ellie loved Miss Ophelia, she'd welcome a chance to forego the festivities.