In a Stranger's Arms (6 page)

“All right” Varina answered for her brother, but it was Templeton who lunged forward to take the rope tether from Manning’s hand.

Caddie Marsh watched her children as they walked away with the dog—Templeton holding on to the end of the rope, Varina’s sturdy fingers fisted through the loop around the animal’s neck. The dog’s tail picked up momentum with each step, wagging from side to side. It seemed pitifully grateful to have found a home.

Manning envied that scruffy old mutt with all his heart.

“That was very thoughtful of you, Mr. Forbes.” Mrs. Marsh nodded after Tem and Varina. “Templeton’s always wanted a dog of his own, and I’d feel a good deal safer with a watchdog around the place. But I’m going to have trouble keeping the children and myself fed. That poor creature needs a master who can afford to take proper care of him.”

“I’ll furnish whatever he needs, Mrs. Marsh. With the Sergeant on guard duty, I can get some sleep at nights.”

The carpetbagger’s words rocked Caddie back on her heels. “You stayed awake all last night keeping watch on this house?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Manning Forbes turned his hat round and round by the brim, looking for all the world like a petty criminal confessing his misdeed to the justice.

“That makes two of us.” Caddie yawned just thinking about it.

Though he struggled to suppress it, a yawn overtook the Yankee, too.

Perhaps that exhaustion had sapped her will, making her too tired to resist. Too tired to hate.

By herself, she’d barely be able to scratch out a living at Sabbath Hollow for her children. Manning Forbes had the wherewithal to make it
something
again. Tem and Varina needed a man in their lives—a soft-spoken, generous man to make them forget the Yankee officers in Richmond.

The kind of marriage he offered was one she might succeed at. One uncomplicated by double-sided emotions like love and passion. As she grew more familiar with Manning Forbes, surely his bewildering likeness to Del would fade and her unsettling fascination for him would dim.

Manning Forbes admitted another good deed. “I took the liberty of bringing a few things from town that I thought you might need, ma’am. You’re welcome to them whether you say yes or no to my proposal.”

He appeared bent on putting her in his debt. For pride’s sake and for Tem and Varina’s future, she must repay him with the only currency left to her.

“Yes,” gasped Caddie before she lost her nerve.

He didn’t seem to understand what she was telling him. “I’ll just shift these supplies into your kitchen, then, shall I, ma’am?”

“Yes!”

He turned to his horse and began unloading his saddlebags.

“Yes, Mr. Forbes. Yes, I’ll marry you. If you’re stubborn enough to keep asking until I agree, I’m smart enough not to delay the inevitable.”

He froze with his back to her. When he turned again, his face had paled to the gray-white of ash. A barb of disappointment snagged Caddie’s heart. Despite his protestations that their marriage would be for the sake of business and propriety only, she’d expected him to greet her answer a bit more eagerly. If only so he wouldn’t have to spend another night sleeping out-of-doors.

“That’s fine then.” His voice sounded hollow. Haunted. “If you want to break the news to your children, I’ll harness the mare so we can all ride into town and hunt up a preacher.”

An hour later, Caddie found herself standing before the Methodist parson in Mercer’s Corner making promises she’d sworn never to make again. She tried to steel herself for the stares she’d get when her neighbors discovered she’d wed a Yankee carpetbagger.

By contrast, she could hardly wait to see the look on her brother-in-law’s face when he heard about her marriage.

Chapter Four

“
C
ADDIE
’
S GONE AND
done
what?”
As Alonzo Marsh glared at Manning, the muscles of his aristocratic jaw stretched so tight they looked ready to twitch.

On the way home from their hasty wedding, Manning and his new family had stopped by Hemlock Grove to drop off the rest of Lon and Lydene’s belongings.

Manning resisted a nagging urge to grin over the drawling Virginian’s obvious agitation. “I’ll say it again, louder, if your hearing’s poor, Mr. Marsh.”

He raised his voice, exaggerating each word. “Your sister-in-law and I got married in Mercer’s Corner half an hour ago.”

“I heard you the first time, Yankee!” Lon ground his heel onto the faintly smoking length of cigar that had fallen from his mouth. “I don’t know what kind of tricks or threats you used to drag that fool gal in front of a parson, but I warn you, you’re going to regret meddling with my family and my property.”

“My family, now.” Saying those words made Manning almost dizzy. Yet they tasted so sweet on his tongue, he could not resist saying them again. “My family and my wife’s property. Meddle with either and
you’ll
have cause to regret it.”

Lon’s pale eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared, as if they couldn’t drag enough air in to stoke the furnace of his fury.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with, Yankee.” His voice was quiet, but harsh with hate. Manning knew better than to underestimate the danger this man might pose.

“Neither do you, Marsh. So why don’t we agree to stay clear of each other? I can’t speak for you, but I’ve just about had my fill of fighting.”

The Virginian’s mouth turned up at the corners, but no one would be fool enough to mistake it for a smile. “I’m just getting warmed up, Yankee.”

Over Manning’s shoulder, he called to the children in the wagon. “If this carpetbagger here treats you bad, you two just light out to your uncle Lon, you hear? You’ll always have a good home waiting for you with me and Lydene.”

Not once during the war, when it had been his duty to shoot and kill his fellow Americans, had Manning Forbes wanted so desperately to do another man injury. His hands balled into hard, tight fists at his sides. They trembled with his yearning to batter Lon Marsh’s handsome, contemptuous face. Clinging to his self-control, Manning forced himself to turn his back on the Virginian and stalk off to the buckboard.

He glanced at Caddie’s ashen face as he vaulted onto the wagon seat, then flicked the reins over the mare’s skinny rump. Had Lon’s words spawned greater doubts about the wisdom of wedding him? Surely she hadn’t paid any heed to that venomous slander about him mistreating the children?

“What’s a carpetbagger?” asked Varina as the buckboard rattled away from her uncle’s place. She perched on her mother’s lap, while Templeton sat wedged between the adults, with the dog huddled at his feet.

“It’s a very nasty word,” replied Caddie before Manning could collect himself to reply. “I’ll wash your mouths out with soap if I ever hear you or Templeton repeat it. Is that understood, Varina Marsh?”

From behind them, Lon hollered, “At least have the sense to keep him out of your bed, Caddie! Then you’ll be able to get out of this fool marriage when you come to your senses. Have you thought what Del would say if he knew you’d brought a Yankee to live under his roof?”

“Ya!” Manning urged the old horse to greater speed, fleeing Lon’s barrage of poisoned missiles.

Was it his sensitive imagination, or did he feel Templeton edging away from him? The boy’s hand passed over and over the back of the dog in a rhythm perhaps intended to soothe himself.

Almost too quietly to be heard, the little fellow murmured, “You won’t treat Varina and me bad, will you, sir?”

“Templeton Randolph Marsh!” cried his mother. “You apologize this minute for asking such a question.”

Beneath the scrupulous Southern civility, Manning heard a faint note of doubt in her voice. Nothing Alonzo Marsh could say would have the power to wound him like this mute shadow of uneasiness from Caddie.

“Don’t scold the boy, ma’am.” Manning wondered if he’d ever bring himself to speak her Christian name. He certainly couldn’t call her
Mrs. Marsh
anymore. And
Mrs. Forbes
would sound vaguely blasphemous to him. “It’s an important question and he has a right to know the answer.”

“So do I,” insisted Varina.

For the first time since they’d driven onto Lon Marsh’s property, Manning felt his brooding ill-temper begin to lift. He had no experience of little girls, yet he sensed this one was out of the common. He was pretty sure he liked the difference.

“You do, Miss Varina. You both do.” Manning took a deep breath. He didn’t want to give them unrealistic expectations. Perhaps it wasn’t in him to be a father, or even a second-rate substitute for one. “I can’t promise you’ll always like what I say or do, but I swear I’ll try to be as good to you as your own pa would if he was here. Your uncle Lon doesn’t know me very well, and—”

“He thinks you’re mean on account of you shot at his toes,” Varina explained with exaggerated patience, as if illuminating a great mystery.

Manning glanced at Caddie over the top of her daughter’s head. She raised her eyes heavenward as if to ask
What am I going to do with this child?

He ventured a brief smile, hoping to let her know that whatever she’d done so far was just fine.

To Varina he replied, “I guess I’ll have to be on my best behavior for a while. To show your uncle I don’t go around shooting at folks as a rule.”

They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Off in the distance Manning glimpsed fine old houses scourged by the tide of war. If his plans for Sabbath Hollow took shape as he wanted them to, Manning hoped it might be a catalyst to revive this whole section of the county.

Now that he and Caddie were married, he would have to get busy putting his plan into effect. After the previous night’s tense vigil and the momentous events of the day, however, all Manning wanted to do was throw himself onto some excuse for a bed and sleep long and deeply.

“Ham and grits for supper,” announced Caddie when the buckboard pulled up at Sabbath Hollow. “Tem, take your sister and go collect me some kindling for the fire.”

“Can we take Sergeant with us, sir?” the boy asked Manning.

“That’s what he’s here for, Son. To go around with you two and look out for you.”

Manning jumped from the wagon and hurried around to help the womenfolk down, When Caddie’s hand, coarsened by work but still slender and graceful, made contact with his, a queer sensation traveled all the way up his arm.

He let go abruptly and turned to speak to the boy. “He’s your dog now, Templeton. You don’t have to call him Sergeant if you have another name you like better.”

Remembering what Caddie had told him about boarding Union officers in Richmond, Manning doubted that anything military would have pleasant associations for her children. “I just called him that on account of my sergeant used to have a beard about the color of this fellow’s coat.”

“Sergeant’s a good name.”

The dog swiped his tongue over Templeton’s fingers as though acknowledging the compliment.

Tem chuckled. “He’s like a soldier, standing guard over us. Come on, Rina, let’s get the wood for Mama to cook supper.”

“Ham and grits and ham and grits, ham and grits, ham and grits...” sang Varina as she marched off with her brother.

She was still singing it more than an hour later when they sat down to eat and later still when it came time for bed.

Templeton gazed at Sergeant with wistful eyes when his mother forbade him taking the animal to sleep in his room.

“He needs to stay outside so he can keep watch, Tem.” Caddie pointed her son toward the stairs.

“Then can I sleep outside with him?” Before his mother could answer, Tem turned to Manning. “Can I, sir?”

Manning glanced from the boy’s hopeful face to his mother’s. “Would it be so terrible if Sergeant slept at the foot of the boy’s bed for this one night? It’s the children I bought him to guard in the first place.”

“Yahoo! Thanks, sir. Come on, Sarge.” Flashing Manning a grateful grin, Templeton raced up the stairs as fast as his skinny legs would carry him.

The dog scrambled after his master, paws scratching against the bare wood of the stairs.

Before Manning could properly savor his stepson’s felicity, Caddie swept past him. Her tight-lipped glare made him feel like some vermin who’d invaded her house.

He frowned back. Was it such a crime to have made the boy happy? The house was a mess, anyway. A whole pack of dogs running loose couldn’t have made it a whit worse. Besides, this might go a ways to allaying any fears Templeton might harbor about the treatment he could expect from his stepfather.

Thrusting the whole incident to the back of his mind, Manning busied himself with a few small repair jobs around the house while Caddie put the children to bed. Sabbath Hollow would need a lot of labor and care to make it anything like it had once been. The only way to get there would be one job at a time in every minute he could spare.

By the time Caddie came back downstairs, Manning was losing the struggle to keep his eyes open.

“I made up a bed for you.” She spoke in a frost-crusted voice, staring steadily at some object just behind him “Third door on the left at the top of the stairs. I got the linen out of an old trunk in the attic. It smells awful musty, I’m afraid, but I’ll wash it tomorrow.”