Cheryl Reavis (11 page)

“Thy will.
Thy
will. And then you take a deep breath and...let go.” Mrs. Justice smiled, and Kate couldn’t keep from smiling in return.

“Thank you, Mrs. Justice.”

“You’re welcome, my dear. Good night now.”

Kate waited, listening as Mrs. Justice walked toward the nursery wing. It was good that she was going. Perhaps she could give him the emotional comfort Kate had been too afraid to offer.

“Afraid,” she whispered. And she only just this moment realized it. She couldn’t say why exactly. She only knew that she was and that she shouldn’t have been. They had no connection beyond Max and Maria’s marriage. Yes, Robert had confided in her, but it didn’t mean anything. Their long conversation, when she was hiding from Mrs. Kinnard, had set some kind of precedent, she supposed. And it was always easier to tell a stranger something because they couldn’t be hurt by the revelation. He was simply—

Kate gave a sharp sigh. She didn’t know what he was doing, and perhaps he didn’t, either. Her only certainty at the moment was that she was exhausted and she wanted to go to sleep. But first she crossed the kitchen and quietly looked into the hallway. She didn’t see Mrs. Justice, but she could hear a quiet murmur of voices coming from the nursery, and she felt at least a little hopeful.

She had never been in the room the Markham family apparently kept available for visiting friends and relatives or, as in this case, people like Mrs. Justice and Mrs. Russell, who came to help when some emergency arose. Kate had always used the room upstairs whenever she’d stayed here, the one she now knew had been Robert’s. When she opened the door, she could see that a fire burned brightly on the hearth. There were four beds of varying sizes, one against each wall, and a braided rug had been placed on the floor beside each of them.

Warm. Comfortable. Just as Mrs. Justice said.

Kate walked to the bed she assumed was hers—the one with a nightgown draped across the foot. She sat down on the edge, trying to gather her wits enough to get undressed. She really wanted to lie down just as she was and feel sorry for herself. She had presumed too much in her remarks to Robert. He had revealed to her something terrible, something personally devastating, and she’d given him no real words of comfort at all. She’d only heavy-handedly suggested that no one—
she
—didn’t particularly expect him to follow through with what he’d started by returning home, and that Maria would be the worst for it if he didn’t.

She gave a heavy sigh and moved to the washstand despite the impulse to forgo everything but sleep. There was indeed hot water in the pitcher, and Mrs. Justice had laid a clean piece of flannel, a towel and some rose-scented soap next to the basin. Kate made some attempt to wash away the stickiness of the jam from her face and fingers. She would have liked to wash away the worry she felt as well, but there was nothing she could do about that or about the ache in her heart. She couldn’t stop thinking about Robert Markham and what had happened to him and to Samuel.

The warrior and the poet.

What would she do if something like that happened to Harrison? Mrs. Russell—and Grey’s mother—how did they bear the loss?

She pushed the thought out of her mind and finished washing up. She took the pins out of her hair and shook it loose, then put on the nightgown. It smelled of sunshine and fresh air and lavender sachet, and it was decidedly too big—but comfortable, just as Mrs. Justice had predicted.

“Bless Mrs. Justice’s heart,” she said aloud, borrowing the phrase she’d heard many times during her visits here and never once heard in Philadelphia. For the first time she actually thought she understood what it meant. She climbed into the bed and stretched out, savoring the lavender smell of the crisply ironed sheets, as well. It felt so good to lie down.

I laid me down and slept; I awakened; for the Lord sustained me.

She closed her eyes, but her mind raced from one worry to another unabated.

Don’t forget your prayers...

She kept thinking of Harrison. Was he lonely? Worried? Afraid? And then she thought of Robert again.

Robert
.

What a struggle it must have been for him to get this far; she believed that,
knew
that, she supposed, the same way he had known she had asked God to help him. It was so disconcerting to have him know that she had prayed for him—when she hadn’t the right to pray for anyone except Harrison. She was Harrison’s mother, and offering prayers on his behalf was perhaps the only privilege she had where he was concerned.

Don’t forget your prayers...

“Thy will,” she whispered. “But please help him.”

And she lay there listening to the sounds of the house settling and the wind outside, knowing the prayer she had just spoken had been as much for Robert Markham as it had been for her son.

Chapter Eight

“I
wouldn’t go up there,” Perkins said.

Kate wasn’t close enough to put her foot on the bottom step of the staircase, but the sergeant major still presumed to know what her immediate plans were. And, of course, he was right—but at least he didn’t know the nature of her business,
why
she was in such a hurry to see her brother this morning.

She had awakened sometime during the night thinking it was dawn, but a full moon had lit the room, not the sunrise. She’d lain there in the moonlight, and she had finally acknowledged something she had been well aware of for some time. She was becoming far too involved in Robert Markham’s troubles. She was simply too...concerned about him, and she didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to worry about where he was. She didn’t want to look into his eyes and see the anguish there. And she could only think of one remedy for all those things she
didn’t
want. She would have to leave and return to Philadelphia as soon as possible.

Having made that decision, she had slept very late, and she felt the better for it. She’d had a quiet breakfast with Mrs. Justice—Mrs. Kinnard, thankfully, wasn’t yet on the premises. The last thing Kate needed was to squander her newfound energy crossing swords with her.

Or with the sergeant major, for that matter.

“Why shouldn’t I go see my brother?” she asked him anyway.

“Your brother-in-law’s up there. With the Colonel.”

“Whose idea was that?” Kate asked, trying to ascertain just how distressing this encounter might turn out to be—for everyone.

“Your brother-in-law’s.”

“Do you know why?” Kate persisted.

“Well, Private Castine said he went out early this morning—the sun was barely up. He stayed gone a long time, and when he came back, he went out there to the summer kitchen and he was banging around in there for a while, doing nobody knows what. Then he wanted to see the Colonel, and he wouldn’t take maybe for an answer.”

Kate frowned. “Has he been up there long?”

“Not long. I reckon they’re still in the staring each other down stage.”

Kate had no doubt that Perkins was right. It occurred to her—belatedly—that he was no longer at Mrs. Kinnard’s house, and she wondered if that was good or bad.

“Have you seen Mrs. Woodard this morning?” she asked, trying to discover yet another aspect of the situation if she could, hopefully without seeming to do so.

“I have. She sent for the Little General first thing. They’re in the parlor.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Major,” Kate said. She headed to the parlor, then immediately changed her mind. She was far more concerned about what was happening upstairs between Max and Robert at this particular moment. She walked as quickly as she dared toward the rear of the house instead, through the kitchen to the back stairs, looking over her shoulder at one point to see if Perkins might have guessed that she was all but running because she was about to shamelessly eavesdrop. He apparently hadn’t, and she quietly climbed the steps to the first landing.

She could hear Robert quite plainly.

“—to ask a favor.”

There was a long pause before Max answered.

“What kind of favor?”

“Permission to live in the summer kitchen. I want to be here—on the premises—it’s my family home. But I don’t want to distress Maria by being underfoot when she’s not...used to the idea of my being back. I think it would be better for both of us.”

Again, there was a long pause. She could almost feel Max considering the consequences of having Robert out of the house, but still so close, good and bad.

“I’ll speak to Maria about it,” Max said finally.

“I’ve already spoken to her,” Robert said.

“When in blazes did you do that!”

“When she was waiting downstairs for Perkins to bring the baby home. I didn’t think I needed your permission to have a conversation with my sister.”

“Well, think again!”

“Maria doesn’t need you to tell her what to do!”

Kate hurried up the rest of the stairs, but Perkins was already there ahead of her.

“Excuse me, Colonel Woodard. Urgent dispatch,” he said, stopping just short of breaching military protocol by barging all the way into the room and putting himself between the two men.

Kate couldn’t see her brother, but she could imagine the look Perkins was getting about now. She didn’t doubt that the dispatch was “urgent,” but she wondered if Perkins had been holding on to it longer than he should have in case he needed to derail an impending brawl.

“It’s urgent, sir,” Perkins reiterated in the unlikely event that his superior officer hadn’t heard him the first time. “I’ll handle this,” he said under his breath to Kate, but it was apparently loud enough to cause Robert to look in her direction.

Oh,
Kate thought. He looked so sad and so weary. She had been asleep when Mrs. Justice had returned from her attempt to talk to him, and she wondered how late their visit—if it could be called that—had lasted. Or perhaps they hadn’t talked at all. Perhaps, after Mrs. Justice had left, the candle had burned down and once again he’d sat in the dark until he’d left the house this morning.

She sighed and turned to leave the way she’d come. Clearly this was not the time to talk to her already annoyed brother.

“Kate!” he said loudly.

“Yes, Max,” she answered.

“Did you want something?” His tone suggested that he wasn’t likely to be receptive if she did.

“I did—do—but I’ll wait until you’re a little less...truculent.”

“I’m a colonel,” he said. “I’m
supposed
to be truculent.”

“Indeed you are. And the nonmilitary members of your family find it ever so endearing. I’ll be back later.”

“I need to talk to you, Kate!” he called after her.

“And so you shall!” she called back as she reached the first landing. She didn’t go any farther. She stood there, assuming that he meant for her to wait her turn.

It’s worse than I thought.

Looking into Robert Markham’s eyes just now, she was more convinced than ever that she should
not
stay here. Robert Markham seemed to want her company, but even that might be more than she could give. His body had been seriously wounded—and so had his soul. That aside, he couldn’t find the woman he obviously loved, and when he did, he would likely be gone again, hopefully not in the dead of night without Maria knowing.

Eleanor
.

She could still hear the longing in is voice that night when, in his delirium, he had thought she was Eleanor Hansen.

But none of that was any of her concern. Her focus needed to be on her son and not on her unbridled curiosity about her brother’s family situation, a curiosity that was piqued every time she encountered this enigmatic ex-Rebel...
prizefighter
.

She looked around at the sound of footsteps behind her. To her dismay Robert was coming down the stairs. She thought he would just go on by, but he didn’t. He stood on the landing with her, apparently giving no thought to decorum or her brother’s current mood.

She looked at him with all the directness she could muster, hoping to seem calmer than she felt.

“Did Max say yes or no?” she asked, making no attempt at pleasantries.

“Neither. He gave me a curt nod. I’m taking that to mean he’s handing the summer kitchen over to me—against his better judgment.”

She couldn’t help but smile. In her opinion that was exactly what the nod meant. She continued to look at him, and she was beginning to regret this direct approach. She couldn’t seem to look away, and if he had second thoughts about having spoken to her so frankly about Samuel’s death, she couldn’t tell it.

“I think I’ve remembered something else,” he said after a moment. “About the night I got here.”

“What is that?”

“I remember hearing you say that you had to learn how to build a fire. It’s rather a strange comment, especially given the circumstances, but nonetheless the memory seems real. Is it?”

She frowned, not wanting to say.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, despite her silence. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore. I intend to teach you. It’s the least I can do for someone who saved my life.”

“I didn’t save your life.”

“Mrs. Justice maintains that you did. She thinks something very bad would have happened to me, had you not been here. I’m inclined to agree.”

“I was only—” She stopped because it occurred to her that he could be teasing her, despite the seriousness of his face. There was something different in his eyes now. Amusement? Mischief? She didn’t quite know.

“So, Miss Woodard, prepare yourself to learn. I’ll let you know where and when.”

With that, he continued down the stairs into the kitchen.

“I don’t think my brother’s nod included that,” she called after him, and she actually thought she heard him laugh.

“Kate!” Max suddenly barked at the head of the stairs, making her jump. Between his
and
Mrs. Kinnard’s penchant for abrupt summoning, it was a wonder she had an ounce of serenity left.

“I need to talk to you,” she said ahead of whatever pronouncement he was about to make. She climbed the stairs and edged past him to lead the way into old Mr. Markham’s sitting room, and she closed the door firmly as soon as he was inside.

“I’m going home,” she said without prelude.

“I want you to stay here,” he said at the same time.

“What?” she said.

“I said I want you to stay here.”

“No. I’m going home to Philadelphia—”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“You haven’t said anything!”

He sighed. “No. I guess I haven’t. It’s...Maria.”

Kate waited for him to continue, but he now seemed disinclined to do so.

“What about Maria?” she said to prompt him.

“I have to go back to New Bern. I think I’ll be there for...a while. I want you to stay here with her.”

“Max, I’ll be in the way. Maria needs to reconcile with her brother and not have to deal with one of her in-laws perpetually underfoot.”

“No,” he said firmly.

“What do you mean,
no?
I was headed home, anyway.”

“We’ll get to that at a later time,” he said. “I want—” He stopped and took a breath. “I
need
you to be here. Maria’s going to have another child—”

“Oh, Max,” Kate said, smiling. “Maybe a little girl this time. You need a little girl.”

“I’m leaving Perkins behind again—because of this brother situation. But there’s only so much he can do where Maria is concerned. I need you here to make sure she doesn’t...overdo.”

“Did her talk with her brother go that badly?”

“I honestly don’t know. She was...upset afterward. She didn’t really give me any of the details. If there are more talks, I may need you to referee—I have no doubt that you can handle it.”

“Well, I’m not sure I like that remark. You make me sound like Mrs. Kinnard.”

“I meant it as a compliment, Kate. You’re very...astute. I think you will see early on if things aren’t going well and intervene. I won’t be easy about leaving if Maria is here alone. Will you do this for me?”

Kate looked at him, more than a little amazed that he was actually asking rather than telling.

“Kate?”

“Yes, all right. I’ll stay until you get back,” she said, watching yet another of her so-called plans dissipate.

“You just found out about this, didn’t you?” she asked, because she was certain that Max would never have allowed Maria to confront her brother last night if he had known.

“The army surgeon told me this morning. It seems my wife is very...persuasive when it comes to when I may and may not know what I ought to know.”

Kate couldn’t help but smile.

“This is not cause for amusement,” he said pointedly, and her smile broadened.

“She loves you,” Kate said.

“She loves that wayward—prodigal—ex-Rebel brother of hers,” Max countered.

“Yes. She does. And that’s what makes her Maria.”

“I can count on you, then?”

“I’ll do my best. I don’t think I’m very good at refereeing. My first impulse is always to flee.”

“That’s not what Perkins tells me. He said you did a fine job placating Mrs. Kinnard and keeping her in hand.”

“Oh, yes—except for the small fact that Perkins and I both have been ready to shoot her—on several occasions. Besides that, he doesn’t know about the times I went into hiding— You won’t go yelling at the lieutenant who was supposed to see me to Philadelphia, will you?” Kate suddenly asked. She thought she had seen him in the house earlier, and it seemed the least she could do for the man—intervene on his behalf since she’d deliberately put him in an untenable position with his superior officer.

“I expect I will,” he said. “Why? Feeling guilty?”

“Just a bit,” she said. “He tried his best to dissuade me. He and his wife.”

Max was looking at her steadily. She could tell the moment he decided that despite the opportunity she’d inadvertently given him, he didn’t want to discuss her refusal to board a northbound train when she was supposed to.

“It’s been a long time since you’ve seen Harry,” he said quietly, indicating perhaps that he understood more of the situation than she thought. She looked away. Max was making an observation, not asking a question, so she said nothing.

“Does he write to you?”

“Sometimes,” she said, deliberately keeping her response to his question to a minimum. She didn’t trust herself to be able to enter into a conversation about Harrison, not even with Max, who knew everything there was to know about her downfall. “He...sent me a
carte de visite.
”

She wanted to tell Max how worried she was that he might be unhappy at his boarding school and how unsuitable she thought that particular institution would be for a quiet boy like Harrison, despite its being the alma mater of the Howe men. But she didn’t. Max had enough worries of his own.

“Perkins has retrieved your trunks, by the way,” he said after a moment. “They may have already been delivered to the house.”

“Hmm. I think I can see how disingenuous your ‘request’ for me to remain here was just now.”