Counterfeit Courtship (16 page)

She hadn't come up with that on her own? He pulled the book closer and read the lines she indicated. Sure enough, peas were supposed to help the soil. And they would grow in the late summer and early fall, after the cotton was harvested.

He closed the book. “That's fine for next year, but we don't have the money to plant peas and then till them under at season's end.”

“Of course not. We'll harvest the peas and sell them. That's what I'm going to do, and we'll plant them on your thousand acres at Ashland too. We'll hire Mister Sutton to be overseer out there. Until we plant, he can supervise the movement of cotton from the barns to the river.” A smile of confidence and buoyancy broke out over her face. “You'll get a good fee for selling the cotton. Use some of it to buy pea seed. Then Mister Sutton can move to Ashland and oversee the field preparation and planting.”

“I'd have to sell the peas—mine and yours. Who's going to buy thirty-five hundred acres' worth of peas?”

“You're the broker. Figure it out.”

Well, if he could sell cotton, he could probably learn how to sell peas too. And it would mean Ashland would be—could be—a working plantation again. Of course, there was always the chance that someone would buy it, even right before the pea harvest.

But until and unless that happened, he would be a planter. Within a matter of days. Could he do it? “I don't know. This is moving too fast for me.”

“Graham, these are times of change. Nothing will ever again be like before. We have to change too. And sometimes we have to move faster than we want to,” she persisted, not knowing she'd dangled his dream before him.

He'd left that dream behind once, along with Ellie. Two dreams busted in one day was more than he could handle. And he'd run away. Like a coward. Like Leonard Fitzwald had on the battlefield.

Maybe he should have stayed and tried to find out why she'd refused him.

Maybe he should find out why she still refused him now.

That thought hit him hard in the chest.

He hadn't wanted to know before, hadn't wanted to endure the added pain of hearing what she despised about him. And that proved all the more that he was a coward.

But maybe it wasn't him. Perhaps something else was happening to her, something so painful that she couldn't tell him about it. She hadn't married in all the years he'd been gone. Why was that? And why had it never occurred to him to find out?

If he hadn't run off like a scared boy, he might have been able to help her, as a gentleman should. And if he didn't now, he wasn't a gentleman.

This idea of planting peas might be the most foolish thing he could do, but it was time to reclaim his dream of planting. And if he could do that, perhaps he could also claim his other, more important dream: Ellie's heart.

It was time to take the first step.

“Hire Mister Sutton. We are branching out into the pea business.”

Chapter Fifteen

G
raham never dreamed he'd share his library with a dog and a baby. Those two created a homey setting that completely took his focus off his work that afternoon, but having them there softened a bit of the hardness that had become a part of him these past years.

In a way, he needed that diversion while he used his father's library as his own for the first time. Father should be the one to work here, not Graham. But it seemed foolish to rearrange another room to accommodate him when there was every chance that Father would never work here again. As it was, his father sat alone in the myrtle garden, next to the statue of Rachel at the well. When Graham had tried to engage him in conversation that afternoon, the older man had simply muttered something about Daisy and the good dog. If only he were able to come out of this melancholy or whatever it was. Graham could sure use his help.

Betsy crawled off her blanket and chased Sugar on all fours. Her laughter brought a sort of pleasant ache to his chest.
God, thank You for letting me be the one to shelter this little girl. Please help me not to fail her.
Giving her a happy life would be worth any sacrifice he had to make.

The baby crawled toward Sugar and then sat down. The dog turned and raced to her, licked her toes and ran around the chair. Amidst Betsy's howl of laughter, Sugar skidded to a stop in front of her and licked the baby's toes again.

It looked as if the game wasn't going to end soon. Pleasant as this was, he would never get his work done at this rate. And he had to get these telegrams written so he could send them to the cotton buyers today.

Now Sugar joined in the noisemaking with a sharp bark each time she circled the chair. Maybe Ellie's idea of leaving the dog here to entertain the baby wasn't such a good one.

Graham glanced at the walnut mantle clock. Noreen and Aunt Ophelia wouldn't return from the Sutton home for another half hour. He should have known they would head over there, carrying a ham from Noreen's smokehouse and new potatoes from the garden. But he needed them here now.

He did have one other source of help...

Graham picked up the baby, who screamed her protest against having her game interrupted. Then he carried her upstairs and set her down on the floor of his room. He glanced at the pen barrel outside the window. No time to write a note. Instead, he hung his old white handkerchief, the same one he'd used the day he arrived home, on the wire “flagpole” outside his window.

If anyone at Ellie's house looked outside, he'd have help within minutes.

Just as he had Betsy downstairs and settled on her blanket again, the back door opened.

“Graham?” Ellie called. “I saw your signal.”

“I'm in the library, held captive by a cute baby and a renegade dog.” He could hear her tinkling laughter and her light footsteps as she crossed the center hall. He pictured every step she took. She'd been here so much, she was part of this home. It was incomplete without her.

The thought both warmed and terrified him. His pardon hadn't come, and he hadn't yet earned a dime for his family. He had to keep that in mind and not let his thoughts wander too far where Ellie was concerned.

When she stepped into the office, her honey-colored hair shining in the sun that streamed through the window, she took his breath. She'd changed from her businesslike black dress to a soft gray homey one with narrower hoops and a pretty band of lace at the hem. And when she picked up Betsy and snuggled with her, his heart nearly stopped.

“Is this sweet baby keeping you from your work?”

That baby was no longer his biggest distraction. “I'm trying to get my telegraphs written, but these two are making a commotion. A pleasant commotion, but a commotion nonetheless.”

“Are the women of the house gone?”

“You know those two. As soon as I told them about Lydia, they headed over there with armloads of food.”

Holding the baby with one hand, Ellie grabbed Sugar's collar with the other. “I'll take charge of these two. Do you want me to try to keep them quiet here in your house, or should I take them to mine?”

No question there. “If you don't mind, take them to the parlor. I like the sound of them playing. Just not right under my feet.”

Within a half hour, he had all his telegrams written, along with one to General Lee to tell him they had found Father. Graham had been right. Having a little happy noise in the house had helped him concentrate. He gathered his notes in his portmanteau and stopped in the parlor on his way out. “Do you mind staying until Noreen gets home? If I send these telegrams now, I might get an answer by the end of the day.”

“Go ahead.” Ellie looked like the mistress of the mansion, sitting beside the window, the baby on her lap and her dog at her feet.

Graham expelled a forceful breath. Things were changing in his heart. Fast. They needed to talk, and soon.

Betsy was pulling at Ellie's hair now, messing up her carefully arranged knot, and the wayward strands made her look even more adorable than before.

Best he get himself out of there before he started spouting everything in his heart.

Two hours later, he left the telegraph office with his portmanteau stuffed full of documents and with Ellie's cotton sold. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks. He could now provide for his family, he'd begun an interesting new business venture and he'd even started sorting out his feelings for Ellie. How could things get any better?

Well, they'd get a lot better if Father recovered, if Leonard Fitzwald somehow fell off the planet and if the Yankee president sent Graham a pardon. But even those challenges didn't seem as bad as before.

When he stepped onto the Commerce Street sidewalk, Leonard Fitzwald stopped his surrey beside him. “Doing business, Colonel?”

“My business is none of yours, Fitzwald.” Graham continued in the direction of his home.

“Tell Ellie—”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call her Miss Anderson?” He retraced his steps and stopped at the weasel's carriage. “I don't want to hear you speak her name again.”

Fitzwald laughed. “Before long, I'll be her husband, and then I'll decide who calls her what.”

If Graham didn't get out of here now, he'd drag the good-for-nothing out of that carriage and show him who'd do the deciding around here. He turned and started across the street.

“You and Ellie will want to attend the planters' meeting tonight at my home.”

“What planters' meeting?” Something in Fitzwald's tone bothered Graham. He took one step toward the weasel.

“The Natchez Planters' Alliance. The meeting in which we will decide the wages we pay the laborers. And the one in which we'll decide the consequences for any planter who doesn't join the Alliance.”

“You're not a planter. Why are you going?”

“I'm attending as a broker, since I took over my father's business.”

“You don't know anything about the brokerage.”

“I know this—your aunt already made the whole town aware of your plan to become a broker. If you and Ellie don't join the Alliance, you'll get no business from our planters. They're all plenty upset about Ellie's business practices.”

“What business practices?”

“Several members have lost their laborers to Ellie because they can't pay the wages she's offering. The purpose of the Alliance is to keep all the wages the same. No one planter will offer more than the rest—or pay the workers before the crop comes in.”

Graham tightened his grip on his portmanteau. He'd known Fitzwald would make things worse for Ellie, but he hadn't foreseen this. “Bullying is your idea of doing business?”

“It's not bullying. No one is forcing Ellie to join or to adjust her wages. We merely give planters an incentive to think of the community as a whole.”

“Why don't you leave Ellie alone? She's made it clear that she doesn't want to marry you.”

“Fact is, I have no plans to leave her alone.” Fitzwald made a huge show of lighting a cigar he'd produced from some recess of his coat. “I'm sure you claim to love her, but so do I. Now that the war is over, I need to settle down, raise a family. I'm the right man for her.”

He was delusional. The war must have addled his brains. “Why do you think that?”

“I always have, since before she moved to Natchez.”

“You didn't know her then.”

“But my father did.” Fitzwald's eyes turned hard. “He owned that little railroad line we're disputing about now. Worked hard to build it up. But he lost it in one night.”

Graham had heard stories like this before. “He gambled it away.”

“Exactly. To a cheating cardsharper.” Fitzwald puffed on his cigar. “His name was Edward Anderson.”

Ellie's father—a cardsharper?

“I can see your surprise. She kept that little secret from you, didn't she? It's understandable that she didn't want you to know, since gambling is a rather unsavory way for a woman's father to make a living.”

Ellie...
His heart ached for her. What a heavy burden for her to carry. “Does she know?”

“According to Joseph Duncan, she does, and is quite distraught at the news.”

So she hadn't known until now. And this weasel had made sure she found out. “She could have lived a happier life never knowing that. If you loved her as you say, you'd have found a way to keep it from her.”

“Look at me!” Fitzwald shouted as he ripped the black patch from his right eye. “Can you honestly tell me I have a chance with her?”

Graham couldn't help staring at the empty socket, the long scar, the smooth spot where half his eyebrow should have been.

“No. But because of who you are, not because of what your face looks like.” A little sick to his stomach at the sight, Graham finally looked away. “I'll talk to Ellie, and maybe she'll agree to sell you that railroad, as soon as we can find a way. I'm sure she'd give it to you to pay off the loan.”

Fitzwald slid on the eye patch again. “That's not good enough. Ellie is the woman I want.”

“Why don't you court Susanna Martin instead? She'd marry you in an instant, and she's pretty enough.”

The weasel laughed. “She has her cap set for you. And, as Ellie spends time with me, she'll learn to love me.”

Now that Fitzwald had his patch back on, Graham's sympathy for him disappeared. Sure, he was wounded, missing an eye, but he was trying to make life unbearable for the woman Graham loved—

The thought cut through him like a saber, sharpening and clarifying all his feelings about Ellie. Was she the woman he loved? Had he allowed himself to fall in love with her again? He paused, savoring for a moment the joy of discovery. Yes, he loved her—and he wasn't going to stand here and watch Fitzwald ruin everything for them. “I'm not letting her marry you and be miserable for the rest of her life. Take the railroad and leave her alone.”

“Remember that night eight years ago, when we both went to Ellie's house? I went there to propose marriage to her. So did you, and you ran me off.”

“I'm doing it again now.”

“Yes, yes.” He blew a puff of smoke right into Graham's face. “You're trying to do that. But the fact is, Ellie refused you that night. That's why you left town and never came back.”

“I'm back now. I'm going to marry Ellie, and you're going to stay away from her.” And at that moment, Graham knew it was true. Marrying Ellie was what he'd wanted as long as he could remember.

“When, Colonel? I've heard nothing of a date. I don't believe she consented this time either.”

“We don't have a date yet, but we will.” As soon as possible. As soon as he could court Ellie the right way, from his heart instead of trying to figure it out in his head. And as soon as he could get this weasel out of their lives. “Either get out of that buggy and we'll settle this like soldiers, or drive it away from here and leave Ellie alone. Those are your choices.”

Fitzwald tamped out his cigar. “We're not doing it your way, Colonel. Ellie won't make that payment, I'll start foreclosure proceedings on Magnolia Grove, and she'll marry me in order to keep it and to support her invalid uncle. It's that simple.”

The look he gave Graham with just one eye chilled him even more than General Sherman's cold, hard glare.

Graham had always known Fitzwald had a well-developed dark side. But until tonight, he hadn't realized the wickedness of the man's heart.

He had a feeling that, in the coming days, he would see even more darkness there.

* * *

“You never had that talk with Lilah May.”

Uncle Amos's words brought Ellie's head up from the ledger she was working in after supper that evening. She'd both anticipated and dreaded the talk, and so she'd put it off. And she didn't have time now, since she had to determine how much money she'd need from the sale of last year's cotton. By the end of August, they'd be harvesting, and she'd be paying extra wages. But judging from the way her uncle fidgeted with his pillows and bedsheet, she needed to have the talk, for his sake if for no other reason. “Lilah May, are you busy now?”

“Huh. The way this man's been eating, I'm busy cooking all the time. But I can spare a minute or two.”

Since Miss Ophelia had convinced her uncle to sit in his bedside chair every afternoon, his improved appetite made more work for Lilah May. But what a relief to see him getting better. If only his memory would do likewise. “Let's go downstairs to the parlor. Uncle Amos doesn't want to listen to women's talk.”

And besides, that way she could see when Graham returned from sending his wires to the cotton buyers. She closed the ledger and took it with her as she and Lilah May headed for the parlor.

Once there, she invited her maid to sit next to her on the deep blue couch. “Uncle Amos wants you to talk to me about romance and courtship.”