In a Stranger's Arms (19 page)

Besides, he was more than indignant. He was scared. Every asset he had in the world was currently tied up in the business. The orders he’d brought back from Washington would help in the long run, but not to meet a bill this size anytime soon.

“Lon’s behind it, of course,” Caddie admitted, as though any sin committed by her brother-in-law must be her fault. “You were right about that no-account scoundrel. I shudder to think what would have become of the children and me if I’d been fool enough to let him stay.”

Manning had some idea how difficult she found it to speak ill of her kin, no matter how Alonzo Marsh might deserve it. Whether she knew it or not, disparaging Lon in Manning’s presence represented a curious sign of trust—a token of acceptance.

The happiness this realization lit in him did battle with his worry about the tax bill, and almost won. If Caddie had learned to trust him, even this little bit, he couldn’t let her and the children down.

Unaware of the struggle raging inside him, Caddie confessed something else. “I think I’ve figured out why Lon’s so anxious to get his hands on this place.”

Manning raised an eyebrow.

“Treasure—well, silver mostly.”

As Caddie told him the whole convoluted story, Manning nodded at suitable intervals and tried to appear as though it was all new information to him. Meanwhile, deep in his mind, painful memories stirred and came to life, like rotting corpses animated by some sinister force.

This wasn’t the first he’d heard of the Marsh silver. What’s more, he had a pretty good idea where to find it.

Recovering the cache would solve the immediate threat of Sabbath Hollow being seized for unpaid taxes. But to disclose his confidential knowledge of its whereabouts could betray the secret he must protect at all costs.

Now, more than ever.

Chapter Twelve

M
ANNING HAD COME
back.

After he finally shuffled off to bed, Caddie sat in the shadowy kitchen, slowly sipping her coffee while she tried to unravel her hopelessly tangled thoughts and feelings.

Manning had come home. Contrary to Lon’s confident, sneering prediction.

A tiny grin tugged at the corner of Caddie’s lips. She’d give a hundred dollars cash to see the look on her brother-in-law’s face when he heard the news.

A fellow like Manning, who stayed put even when there were no fat pickings to be had, could not rightly be called a carpetbagger. Besides, if Lon was in cahoots with the Yankee tax collector, as she suspected, he had no business questioning anybody’s motives.

For some reason, the whole idea didn’t sit as well with her as it should have. It was one thing for Manning to stick with a struggling business that promised to flourish in time. Quite another to stand his ground while that atrocious tax levy hung over their heads.

Caddie’s stomach fluttered, remembering what else Lon had said. Some trash about Manning finding out a beautiful woman could still be as cold as creek water.

If only Lon knew! Her coldness was less apt to drive Manning away than her unwelcome ardor. Tonight, for instance...

Any man who’d been anxious to share her bed would have pressed his advantage after she’d kissed him like that. Manning had gone out of his way to ignore her lapse of self-control. Just as a well-bred gentleman might overlook a social gaffe committed by one of his guests. Of course, any visitor who persisted in such offensive behavior ran the risk of being stricken from future guest lists.

Still, carnal desires aside, Caddie couldn’t help but wish for a single night of intimacy with her husband. Manning Forbes had proved himself a man of honor, even if he’d been born on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon Line. A consummated marriage would bind him to her and the children far more firmly than their current arrangement could ever hope to.

A fine howdy-do, that! Consummating their wedding vows might strengthen Manning’s connection to her family. But any effort she made to lure him into bed would probably send him packing.

When he woke late the next morning, Manning took a few minutes to unpack before heading up to the mill. A strange glow of satisfaction stirred within him as be stowed his modest worldly possessions in their familiar places. It almost felt like the old house was welcoming him back under its eaves the way his family had embraced his return last night.

His family. The notion should have elated him. Instead, it skewered him with guilt.

From the bottom of his rucksack, he pulled out the small wooden box he’d constructed a lifetime ago. Manning passed his hand over its deceptively simple pattern of redbud inlay with a caress of pride. The straight, unsmiling lip of the little casket seemed to glower at him. It demanded he rummage in his pocket for the key, unlock and raise the lid, then sift through the papers inside until he unearthed one from the very bottom.

Since finding Caddie and the children, Manning hadn’t reread the letter. Now he did, though he knew every word by heart.

Not that it contained any momentous news. Only the routine account of one young family, written by a soldier’s wife to her husband in the field. Millions of similar communications must have circulated on both sides, during the war years.

Ending with the customary salutation “Your faithful wife, Caddie Marsh,” it told how tall a boy named Templeton had grown, and how many teeth a baby named Varina had sprouted. Now that he knew the children, Manning gloated over those passages of the letter like a fond father.

Sternly he reminded himself, as Caddie had reminded Varina, he was not their father. Tem and Varina’s real father, who’d likely once smiled over this letter, had been killed by the Yankees a few days after he’d received it. Killed by a Yankee.

A Yankee named Manning Forbes.

“Manning?” Caddie’s voice, accompanied by a brisk tap on the door, set his heart hammering like the pistons of a steam engine under dangerously high pressure.

He wanted to call out to her, but he couldn’t forage up enough air from his lungs. His gut kinked and twisted into one untieable knot of panic. If the cooling corpse of Delbert Marsh had sprawled in the middle of his bedroom floor while he held a smoking rifle, Manning could not have been more agitated.

As the knob turned and the door opened, he thrust Caddie’s letter into the box and slammed the lid.

“Oh, you are here, after all.” She jumped back at the sight of him, one hand rising to her breast. “When you didn’t answer, I thought perhaps you’d gone off to the mill without my knowing.”

“Am I supposed to report my every move to you?” He grabbed the box and slammed it into the top drawer of the bureau.

He didn’t mean to be harsh with Caddie, but he couldn’t help himself. A rush of anger often came hot on the heels of a bad scare. Once during the war, a couple of drunken fools from his company had stolen up on him during his picket watch. After darn near messing his longjohns, he’d come just as close to shooting the pair of them.

Caddie’s face paled and her reply sounded thoroughly chastened. “N-no, of course not. This is your home to come and go as you please.”

This was not
his
home! The damning thought blazed through Manning’s mind and nearly came out of his mouth. This was Del Marsh’s home.

Again Manning turned his anger over the situation against Caddie—and hated himself for it “Would it be asking too much for a bit of privacy, as well?”

The hurt in her eyes grieved him. But his secret had become a domineering master, stronger even than his bedeviling feelings for Caddie. If he had cared less for her, less for the children, less for the old plantation itself, the secret would not have held him so deeply in its dark thrall.

“I apologize for disturbing your privacy.” Caddie’s words came out stiff and cold. “I thought I heard you stirring up here, but when you didn’t answer my knock... Let me assure you, it won’t happen again.”

He wanted to apologize for his sharpness, but he couldn’t without risking discovery. “What did you want me for?”

“The new county tax collector is sitting out on our front porch. He came by to make sure Dora had given me the bill. I thought you might want to speak to him while he’s here, rather than ride off to Westchester.” The firm, proud set of her lips told him he’d received his last kiss from them.

“I
would
like to speak to him.” Striding to the door, Manning plucked his coat from its hook.

His misplaced antagonism toward Caddie found a far more deserving target. If the blasted tax collector hadn’t come calling, she’d have never blundered into his room like that. Without the tax bill and its threat of ruin, he might never have to risk exposure by retrieving the lost family silver.

Manning descended the stairs behind Caddie with more righteous wrath in his belly for a fellow Yankee than he had ever harbored toward the Rebs on the eve of battle.

Off the top of her head, Caddie couldn’t say which of the two Yankees had got her dander up worse. The well-fed, well-barbered tax collector or her rumpled, irascible husband.

“Mr. Larkin, may I present my husband. Mr. Forbes, this is Mr. Larkin, the new tax collector. He’s ridden all the way over from Westchester to make sure we received our assessment.”

Fanning himself with his hat, the man rose from the bare bench where he’d been sitting.

As Jeff Pratt’s mother had done with her, Caddie refused to invite the tax collector inside her home. Nor would she offer him any refreshment. With his commission on the tax money he was trying to squeeze out of them, the odious man could afford to drown himself in the finest French brandy.

Larkin held out his hand to Manning. A soft, white, well-padded appendage, compared to Manning’s lean, brown, callused one. “Good to meet you, Forbes. Fine place you’ve got here.”

“Sabbath Hollow belongs to my wife and her boy, Mr. Larkin.” Manning looked as if he’d sooner have shaken hands with a leper. “You might say I’m just a boarder working for my keep.”

Did he slant a fleeting glance at her as he said it? Caddie asked herself. Was he trying to beg her pardon in his odd, sidewinding way for being so testy when she’d gone to fetch him?

Well, let him beg. Treating her like she was some kind of spy in her own home...! Imagine how he might take on if he found out she’d searched his room during his absence.

The memory of it provoked a passing qualm of guilt, which Caddie stubbornly ignored. After all, what call did the man have to guard his privacy in so zealous a manner unless he had something to hide? And what could he be keeping in that box he took such pains to conceal?

The tax collector chortled. “Can’t say as I’d mind boarding in such a grand house. Or have such a fetching landlady.”

Shooting the tax collector wouldn’t help their situation any, but at that moment Caddie could imagine few occupations quite as satisfying.

When Manning raised his hand and swatted Mr. Larkin hard on the temple, she couldn’t decide whether to kick him or kiss him.

“Sorry about that.” He flicked something off his hand—or pretended to flick it. Caddie couldn’t be sure. “A nasty old blue-tailed fly was just about to bite you, but I got him.”

With a bemused look on his beefy face, the tax collector rubbed a bright welt on his brow. “Ah—thanks.”

He didn’t say he’d sooner have taken the bite than the swat, but he must have been thinking it.

Caddie sensed her resentment against Manning beginning to erode, and she wasn’t sure she wanted it to. Far better to stay annoyed with him than to go around mooning over the man like some calf-eyed girl. Especially when he didn’t show the slightest glimmer of returning her feelings—whatever they might be.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me, I know you have plenty to talk about.” Hard as she tried to say the word gentlemen with unaffected sincerity, a hint of scorn crept in.

Still massaging his head, Mr. Larkin made a little bow in her direction. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

She dropped a stiff curtsy, but did not reply with the polite falsehood that she’d found any pleasure in meeting him.

Withdrawing to the kitchen, Caddie discovered Dora busy cutting vegetables for soup. She could tell the girl’s thoughts were a million miles away. Or more likely, half a mile uphill.