Counterfeit Courtship (9 page)

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“Graham Talbot sure knows how to make a girl wish she'd never agreed to help him.” With a few minutes to visit with her uncle before she needed to leave with Graham, Ellie leaned back in the sewing rocker and debated how much to say. Something about her arrangement with Graham bothered her, but she wasn't sure what. Her uncle's mind seemed sharp this morning, so perhaps he would have some good advice. Rocking hard in the armless chair in a most unladylike manner, she decided to tell him everything and get his opinion.

“Made you mad, did he?”

“Not exactly mad, but he doesn't appreciate my help.”

Uncle Amos smoothed down his bushy white beard. “A man doesn't like to depend on a woman for a ride.”

“It wasn't about the horses and carriage. I had a great idea to help him out of a big problem, but instead of thanking me, he seems to resent it. Then this morning, as we were discussing his father and how I could help find him, Graham suddenly excused himself and dashed out to the stable.”

Uncle Amos grunted. “That's what a man does when he needs some thinking time.” Calm as always, her uncle used his clumsy left hand to drag the comb through his bedraggled-looking hair. He succeeded in making it look even worse. “Give him some grace. He's been through a lot.”

For once, Uncle Amos didn't understand at all. Why did he have to choose this day to side with someone other than Ellie for the first time? She bounded to her feet, glad for a chance to do something other than sit there and take out her frustration on the rocker. “I'm getting my scissors. You need a haircut.”

“No, no! It's just now growing out from the last time you cut it.”

“Let me even it up then.”

“Get Lilah May to do it. I need you to do more important things.”

He was humoring her as always. “She's making your breakfast. That's important, isn't it?”

Her uncle lifted his head and shoulders from the pillows he was propped up against, as if trying to see out the door, then leaned back again. “Tell me more about Graham before she gets here. What did you try to help him with?”

Ellie paced to the window, looking for Graham, then returned to the rocker. She raised the back of her hoops so she could ease herself onto the chair. “He's in turmoil. He says his money, his plantation and his citizenship are all gone, and he has nothing left.”

“He's right.”

“You should have seen how the girls acted at Miss Ophelia's party. Every unattached woman of marrying age in Natchez is chasing him.”

He pointed the index finger of his left hand at her. “All but one.”

“Yes, but I'm the one who caught him!”

Uncle Amos perked up at that. “You're courting with him? This soon?”

Ellie shifted in her chair. Why must he have that look of joy on his face? She was going to have to disappoint him as she had eight years ago, when he'd guessed that Graham had proposed. Might as well get it over with now. “We're pretending to court.”

He slumped back down. “How and why does one pretend to court?”

“Why? Because we both need protection from unwanted attention. You know how many men come calling here. And I'm protecting him from all those women.”

“By telling lies?”

“We didn't lie. Not once. We merely let people draw their own conclusions.”

“Including Miss Ophelia?”

His stern expression made her drop her gaze to the floor. Apparently, his apoplexy hadn't hampered his protectiveness of Miss Ophelia. “Including her.”

He let out a puff of air. “My other question—how do you pretend to court?”

“Well, it's so new, we haven't worked out all the details yet. We went to the party together, and today we'll go to River Bluff Hall, as you and I discussed earlier this morning.”

“What else?”

“I don't know. Whatever courting couples do.” She hesitated. “With the war over, people are starting to have parties and dances and picnics again. So I suppose we'll go to some of them together. What else do you think we should do?”

“Courting involves more than where you go. You get to know each other, find out whether you get along well enough to marry.” Uncle Amos gazed out the window, a faraway look on his face. “Or you might find out whether you care about each other enough to take a risk with your love.”

Ellie had no words. Where had all this wisdom about love come from? Her bachelor uncle, who everyone said had been the beau of Natchez when he was young, had no experience with romance as far as she knew. Could he know what he was talking about? Had he learned this by watching others?

And was he right?

If only Mother were still here to answer all her questions.

But if Mother were here, everything would be different. If she had lived, Ellie would have stayed in New Orleans and somehow taken care of her. She never would have known Graham, never would have heard his heartbreakingly sweet proposal. And her fear of marriage, her fear of depending on a man to provide for her, never would have forced her to refuse him...

Uncle Amos turned his face from the window—and his mind from the past, so it seemed. “I don't like this, Ellie. Somebody's going to get hurt. I think it's going to be you.”

“Me?” Ellie pointed to herself. “How am I going to get hurt?”

“It sometimes happens that way. When a man or woman pretends to be in love, love often comes unexpected, unwanted. The game turns into reality, but the falsehood gets its revenge. Love comes to only one. The other gets hurt.”

A cold chill crept through her, but she tried to laugh it off. “That won't happen.”

“You can't be sure.”

“I am sure. The more I help him, the more he pushes me away. He'd rather have nothing to do with me.”

“Don't believe it.”

“I do. I know it's true.”

“How long do you intend to continue this fabricated courtship?” He dropped his voice. “This false promise?”

False promise? “I didn't think of it that way...”

“It's always a mistake to play around with love. But you're old enough to make your decisions. Please promise me that, when one of you begins to take this joke seriously, you'll put a stop to the game.” His voice grew more tender. “Hearts broken carelessly can't always be mended.”

What if he was right? Could she ever care for Graham? Could he care for her? She needed the answer, because if love had a chance of blossoming between them, or in the heart of only one or the other, that would change everything. If love was even a remote possibility, she couldn't follow through with this scheme.

She'd wanted her uncle's opinion, and she'd surely gotten it. She clasped his hand. “If either of us begins to take the game seriously, I will call it off. I promise.”

“That's good enough. Just one more thing. Lilah May!” He leaned forward in bed and shouted in the loudest voice Ellie had heard him use since he took ill.

Within moments, Lilah May dashed into the bedroom, her face damp as if from exertion. “What's the matter? You ain't never yelled at me like that before.”

“I want you to take this girl to her room and have a long talk with her—the talk her mother would give her if she were still alive.”

Lilah May's eyes narrowed. “You mean the courtin' talk?”

“Uncle, that's not necessary—”

“It is. Lilah May knows more about love than both of us put together. If you're going through with this, I want you to tell her everything you just told me.” He pointed his finger at her again. “And anything else you might have left out. Does that suit you, Lilah May?”

“Suits me fine. I got a thing or two I been wanting to explain to her since the day the colonel got home.”

She must have seen Ellie riding through the yard with Graham, putting on that show for Susanna and her cronies.

Could Lilah May be an expert on romance? Her features had softened when Uncle Amos mentioned love. But Ellie had never seen her maid look at a man that way.

As she thought about it, she remembered hearing rumors about a husband who had died before Ellie came to Natchez. She hesitated. It may be true—Lilah May could have all the answers Ellie needed.

She checked her timepiece. She had only a few minutes before Graham was to call. “Can we talk tomorrow afternoon instead? Graham won't want to wait for me.”

He nodded. “Be sure you do it tomorrow. And I'm glad you had word of James. I'll pray you find him.”

Ellie gave him a kiss on the cheek and excused herself to get her hat. In her room, she pondered her uncle's words. If he was right about romance, then Ellie was wrong. But what could she do about it at this point? She could hardly spread the word that she'd called off the courtship two days after Graham came home.

Besides, if she did, Graham would have one more reason to say she didn't think things through before acting.

Surely Uncle's poor health clouded his judgment. How could the courtship ruse not work? She had no feelings for Graham, and he'd made it clear he had none left for her. In a way, that was sad.

Graham clearly didn't like the courtship idea. Neither did Uncle Amos, and she was pretty sure she knew what Lilah May would have to say about it. The problem was knowing her own mind in the matter.

A bachelor soldier, a bachelor uncle and a woman who may have been in love and married years ago—could she trust their opinions? But who else did she have to ask? Susanna? Never.

Sugar howled out her “my friend is here” bark as Graham, dressed in his uniform, crossed the side yard to her home. Ellie hastened to don her favorite hat, a sky-blue crepe bonnet that matched her dress and had a straw-colored feather and darker blue velvet loops. Graham's father had once remarked about how good the color looked on her.

If all went as planned, they would see the elder Mister Talbot today. Graham hadn't yet seemed to admit that his father might not be well. Illness, injury—it was hard telling what they would see if they found him. Ellie closed her eyes and whispered a prayer for the kind man. Her problems and Graham's would have to wait until they found Mister Talbot and discovered his condition.

Minutes later, passing Sugar in the downstairs hall, Ellie felt a twinge of regret for not paying more attention to the poor dog yesterday. On impulse, she snapped the leash onto Sugar's collar and called up the stairs to let Lilah May know she was taking the dog along.

What would her maid tell her about love tomorrow, and what would she think of their imaginary courtship? Would she say Ellie invited heartache, either for herself or Graham? Uncle Amos's words still rang in her ears until she decided to stop paying them any mind, at least for today.

Her uncle's reaction, especially his insight, had certainly surprised her, but she had a feeling she'd be even more astounded once she'd had her talk with Lilah May.

Chapter Nine

G
raham had wished Ellie would stay home today, it was true. But now, as she sat next to him in the carriage, taking his breath in her blue dress and hat, she made him wish it twice as much. Why did she have to be so pretty? Blue-eyed girls with no intention of marrying should never wear blue hats that made the sky pale in comparison to their eyes.

On the other hand, who said he couldn't enjoy her company—and her beauty—as they traveled?

Heading south on Commerce Street, they met a half dozen Union soldiers on horseback, eyeing Graham and his Confederate grays. He held the gaze of each man as they passed, every instinct still honed to treat them as the enemy. When the troops turned onto Orleans Street, Graham relaxed a bit and realized his fists were clamped around the reins and his teeth clenched. With effort, he refrained from looking over his shoulder at the men. “I'm not sure I'll ever get used to seeing Yankees in Natchez.”

“I admit they used to affect me the same way. But since the fall of Vicksburg, when the federal troops occupied Natchez, we've all become accustomed to seeing Union soldiers in the streets.”

He hesitated, continuing to fight against the tension that kept trying to force its way into him. “Noreen tells me you're doing a great job of running the plantation,” he said, trying to focus on something other than those Yankees.

“I've mostly been doing what Uncle Amos taught me through the years.” Ellie's voice brightened as if she was trying to help him relax. “But I think we need some new methods. I have twenty-five hundred acres in cotton and, as you've seen, not enough workers to weed and harvest it.”

“Pardon me for asking, but how do you plan to get that crop out of the field?”

“I don't have a plan yet. Nor do I have a plan for paying this loan or getting last year's cotton to market.” She paused. “I didn't care for Robert Fitzwald, but at least when he was alive, I had a competent cotton broker. I know quite a bit about the market, but I have no experience dealing with buyers.”

She turned her gaze to the sky, seeming to seek her answer in the clouds. “I may have to try to sell the cotton myself. But you know how those New Orleans and Texas buyers are. They'd just as soon deal with a rattlesnake than a female planter.”

Ellie was probably right. With her gentle nature, she wouldn't stand a chance with the buyers.

If only he could fix her problems as he had when they were children. Only these problems were bigger and much more frightening. She shouldn't have to deal with them alone. “On Monday, we'll meet with Joseph again. Between the three of us, we'll think of a solution.”

Ellie lowered her gaze, a smile forming on her lips. “A plan?”

He gave her a mock frown. “I intend to be in on all your plan-making from now on.”

Her laugh tinkled much like the bells on Buttercup's harness. “Enough of my problems for today. Did you receive your invitation to Joseph's picnic Sunday evening? He's holding it in your honor. I hope your father will be well enough to attend too.”

The complete change of subject surprised him, but it shouldn't have. Ellie had never been one to sadden others with her problems. Most women would take to their beds, doing nothing but cry about a dilemma as serious as the one Ellie faced. Instead, she loaned him her carriage and horses and came along to help him find his father. Graham breathed a prayer that locating him would also solve Ellie's problems.

He felt her gaze on him and shifted his focus to the picnic—and courting. A courting man would invite his girl to a party. His stomach churned as he formed the words in his mind. This was no easier than it had been back when he'd first realized he was in love with her. Best just to get it said. “Assuming Father won't need me at home, will you go with me?”

“I'd like that.”

Her big blue eyes twinkled at him just as they used to when he'd suggest an outing. Except in those days, they went on outings because they were children having fun. Now they were adults and, as she'd so eloquently said, he was not fun.

Nonetheless, it was time for him to commit to the pretend courtship. And he dreaded finalizing that. It seemed crass somehow, a cheapening of the genuine.

And if he went along with it, the genuine might never happen...

Where had that thought come from? He sat up straighter on the carriage seat. The genuine wasn't going to happen. Not for a long time, if it ever did, and not with Ellie. She'd turned him down once. That was enough.

Although she stole his breath when she looked at him, the bright sky and her bonnet intensifying those blue eyes.

He pulled his gaze from her and studied the road instead. They had serious business to attend today. Finding his father was crucial for everyone's sake. He couldn't spare the time or energy to concern himself with dreams that would never come to pass. Better to handle this courtship fallacy in a businesslike manner.

Out in the country now, and out of earshot of everyone in town, he might as well get it over with. Putting it off wouldn't make it easier. “I've made a decision.”

“About what?”

As much as the courtship had absorbed his thoughts, it seemed almost unnatural that she didn't know what he was talking about. “Courting.”

“Good. What do you want to do?” Her tone sounded light, as if she didn't care what he had decided, but the catch in her voice gave her away. And he couldn't blame her, considering the fact that Leonard Fitzwald pursued her as hard as Graham refrained from it.

“I think it's best for everyone involved if we continue the courtship and even intensify it a bit.”

“Intensify?”

The anxiety settling in her eyes tore at his heart. “Don't worry. I don't mean in a personal way. I mean only that we should be seen together in public a lot, doing family things together. Act more like a courting couple.”

“You would have to frown less.”

He could feel her relief. He'd be a fool to expect anything else. “You'll have to annoy me less.”

“I can't make any promises.”

Her smile heated the summer morning to a sweltering level. He shifted an inch away from her. The woman still had more power over him than General Lee ever had, and she never knew it.

“Fitzwald is not going to sit passively by and let you sell Magnolia Grove without opposing you. He needs to know that you're with me most of the time and that I'm watching out for you.”

Ellie's smile turned downright wicked. “And I'll let Susanna Martin know I'm watching out for you.”

He laughed, a full, rich belly laugh—the first time he'd laughed that hard in years. Then he felt guilty for doing so. “Ellie, I'm sorry. You're in danger of losing everything you own, I'm looking for my father, whose condition is anybody's guess, and I'm laughing like an idiot.”

“Stop apologizing. Laughing helps us feel better. Being gloomy would make it worse.”

That was easy to say. “Laughing doesn't come naturally to me anymore.”

At least, it hadn't until now.

When they'd traveled a good two hours, a cold drizzle began to pepper the carriage top. Moments after the thunder started, something large bumped against his foot. He looked down to see a white tail sticking out from under their seat.

“Ellie, your dog is right underneath me.”

“She's afraid of thunder.”

She had to be joking. “Sugar is a hunting dog. How can she be afraid of thunder?”

“Don't you remember how gun-shy she is? To her, thunder sounds like gunfire. During a storm, she always crawls under my bed, right under me, as she's doing to you now.”

Fine—Ellie's dog liked him better than Ellie did.

“Thunder's getting closer. If we had much farther to go, we'd need to pull over, but if I remember right, River Bluff Hall is a mile past the next bend. My cousin's lane is over there, off to the right.”

Ellie sat up straight, looking ahead. “When were you last here?”

He had to think about that as they rounded the curve in the road. “Both my grandparents died around 1855. The property was sold, and I haven't been here since.”

Minutes later, they pulled onto the lane, and Graham reined in Lucy and Buttercup at his mother's family home—if one could call it that. Nothing remained except piles of bricks, two dozen fluted columns with their Corinthian capitals, some balustrades and iron stairs, and a giant live oak with resurrection fern greening up in the summer rain.

“When I was a boy and we visited here, the first thing I did was go up to the observatory on the roof. You could see the Mississippi River from there.” As he thought back, looking at the ruins, those days seemed a century ago.

Ellie was out with her dog before Graham could secure the reins and reach her side of the carriage. They walked around the ruins, with Sugar on her leash and staying inches from Ellie's skirts. Not a wall of the house remained, and the columns revealed some of their brick structure where plaster had fallen off.

Burned. The home where he'd spent happy times with his grandparents was gone—eerily gone, its desolation complete.

Clearly, his father wasn't here. “Let's head home. We can stop at the houses we pass and ask if anyone's seen Father.”

“Should we give up so soon?” Ellie turned in a circle, her hand shading her eyes. “What if he's right here somewhere?”

They were wasting time. “Look at the sky. This rain isn't going to stop. We need to get closer to home before it starts to pour. Besides, there's no place for a man to hide in these remains.”

She started for the carriage and then stopped. “What if he's at the family cemetery?”

Ellie and her ideas. “No sane person would visit a cemetery in the rain.”

“I'm going to look. Lots of family plots are by the river, so this one might be just through those trees.”

She was right about that, but not about his father being there. “We need to go.”

“I'll be five minutes.” She took off through the woods, Sugar in the lead.

The wind shifted then. Within moments, the drizzle intensified to a downpour, and thunder crashed around them. Graham jogged toward the trees, then made his way to the cemetery, the old path barely discernible.

A hundred yards ahead, Ellie knelt beside a dark figure who embraced a tombstone.

It couldn't be. Father, out here in the rain? As Graham ran closer, he realized the man sat beside the stone, his arms wrapped around it, his head resting upon it. With Sugar beside her, Ellie knelt on the ground next to him in the tall, wet grass and the mud, her eyes closed and lips moving as if in prayer.

The rain now beat down on Graham and poured into his eyes, blurring his vision. “Father? Is it you?”

He didn't raise his head, didn't answer. Catching up to him and Ellie, Graham touched the older man's shoulder. “Father?”

The man looked up from the stone, his eyes empty, as if his mind and heart had deserted him. “She's gone.”

Graham's blood turned cold as the headstone. Those hollow eyes had his father's shape and color, and the man had the same full mouth, strong chin and jaw. He had Father's thick, long beard and graying, dark hair, his tall, muscular form. But although the physical resemblance to his father was unarguable, none of Father's mind resided here.

“Who's gone, sir?”

“My Daisy. I couldn't find her, and now she's gone.”

Daisy—Graham's baby sister who'd died at birth, taking their mother with her. The chill in Graham's body turned to a cold sweat and mixed with the cold rain.

“Father—Papa—it's me. Graham.” He grabbed his father's arm and turned the man to face him. “Papa, don't you know me? It's Graham. Your son.”

He looked into Graham's eyes, but the light of recognition Graham wanted to see wasn't there. Papa hesitated. “Where is she? Have you seen my Daisy?”

Graham swallowed hard against the fear lodged in his throat. He'd seen this before, always after battle. He'd never dreamed he'd see it in this man, the strongest man in his world, the most solid, the most stable.

Stronger and more solid than Graham, which meant it could happen to him too.

Papa pulled from his grasp and embraced the little granite stone. Then racking sobs shook his body as he mourned a girl he'd never seen.

Ellie laid her hand on his arm. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”

His father joined her, his voice thick with his pain. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

Graham opened his mouth to recite the psalm with them, but his throat felt so dry, he couldn't bring out a sound. The shadow of death. He'd often wondered what that was, but now he looked it in the face. His father—a shadow of his real self, looking and sounding like death itself.

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Forever.
The word was both comforting and chilling. Would his father suffer this way forever?
Dear God, I didn't think anything could be worse than war. I was wrong.
He knelt down and clasped his father's shoulders. “Papa, let's go home.”

And never come back to this place.

* * *

An hour later, something nagged at the back of Ellie's mind, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

Having stopped for dry clothing and a hot meal at Graham's cousins' home, she tamped down the strange feeling. She'd fought with it all day, not wanting to burden Graham. He had enough on his mind, especially now, with his father wandering about Ambrose and Maria Cooper's house, still looking for Daisy. But the foreboding feeling seemed to have something to do with their meeting with Leonard Fitzwald and the danger of losing her property, so she couldn't shake it off.