To Mend a Dream (5 page)

No judgeship for him. Not anymore.

He clucked his tongue, and the stallion set off at a trot. Aidan guided him down the hill and up another embankment. Their destination: his favorite spot on Darby Farm, just beyond the apple grove, and the reason he was all but certain this was the farm he'd been meant to find. He went to the meadow every chance he could to think and—

Movement through the woods caught his eye, and he reined in. He leaned down to peer through the trees. Miss Anderson, hurrying along the road to the house. She was starting bright and early this morning, and only her third day on the job. She managed a pretty fair pace too.

“She'd give you a run for your money, Rondy.” The stallion tossed his head.

Upon first meeting the young woman, Aidan had gotten the distinct impression she didn't care for him‚ which was fine. He wouldn't have expected her to. After learning where he was from, most Southerners viewed him as death incarnate—only with greater dread and animosity.

Smiling, he urged the blood horse on, hoping Priscilla wasn't still abed. Then again, Mrs. Pruitt's day was well underway. She would see Miss Anderson inside.

He dismounted before reaching the meadow and looped Rondy's reins around a branch. He stood for a moment, drinking in the hushed tranquility of the place, the beauty of the magnolias and the stalwart
majesty of the oak and cedar standing guard. To his knowledge, this field had never been tilled, and he planned to keep it that way.

An old cabin sat tucked among the trees a short distance away, and he set a path for it, the timeworn shanty already feeling like a trusted friend. As well it should, considering how he'd come to know about it.

He'd learned a little about the Darby family since moving here. One of the founding families of Nashville, the Darbys were well respected—or had been. The latest Mr. Darby, the former owner, had been killed in the war. As had happened to so many of these properties following emancipation, the farm went bankrupt and was auctioned.

That's when he'd come along.

He'd struggled at first with buying someone else's land and home at auction, imagining what heartache had preceded that event. And yet, someone would buy the place. And he'd paid a fair price as foreclosure and auction prices went.

He might well be pulling the wool over his own eyes, thinking his situation was any different, but he really did want to restore the place—the farm, the house—to what it had been. Only better this time.

Because they were on
this
side of the war.

The cabin lay just ahead, leaning slightly to one side as though resting on its elbow, and the trickling melody of the stream, just a stone's throw beyond, worked to soothe the restlessness that was his near constant companion these days.

He peered through the window opening and caught sight of a squirrel scurrying across the remnants of the old stone hearth. What must it have been like to be in this very place when Nashville was founded nearly a hundred years ago? And what would this spot be like a hundred years hence? He'd be long gone by then. And what would he have left behind? What would he and
Priscilla
have left behind?

There were times, like now, when he wondered why he'd asked her to marry him. And—though this did little for his ego—why she'd said yes.

These questions, and others, stirred inside him. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the split-log sill of the window, and found his thoughts drawn back to that field in North Carolina so many years ago. The soldier's voice was as clear in his memory as was the warble of the mockingbird in the tree above.

“If you've never seen the sun rise over the Tennessee hills, the city set off to the east, with the fog still clinging to the trees and the air so fresh from heaven . . . then you've never seen a sunrise. And my mama's peach cobbler? Oh, sweet Jesus, let me live to taste that again. That's the best stuff around, Boston. Better than anything you bluecoats got up there where you live.”

He'd known the Confederate soldier only as “Nashville.” That was one of the rules. No names exchanged. They went by their hometowns instead and talked about everything but the war. They traded newspapers and childhoods, shared pictures of sweethearts, and the rebels always wanted to barter for tobacco. Either that or shoes.

If someone had told him when he'd first put on his uniform that, come one summer afternoon, as opposing generals met on opposite hills to decide how best to kill Johnny Rebs and bluecoats, he'd lay down his rifle, kick back in a field, and “jaw” with the enemy, as Nashville had called it, he wouldn't have believed it. But that afternoon, as well as what happened a handful of hours later, had changed his life in ways the Confederate soldier couldn't have known. And that he himself had never dreamed.

Nashville had painted a picture of this setting that still resonated within him.

“There's a meadow a ways from the house, where my grandparents
first lived. It's everything that's best about this world, Boston. The trees, the stream, the way the sun falls across the land. Such a peacefulness to it. Not like the upside-downness of the world we're in right now.”
Nashville had smiled, a gesture that seemed to come as easily to him as breathing.
“Sometimes I go there in my mind . . . and I feel finer than a frog's hair split four ways.”

The snap of a twig brought Aidan's head up, and—the memory settling back inside him—he saw her again through the window on the other side of the cabin. Miss Anderson was picking her way through the trees, headed straight for him. But he didn't think she'd spotted him yet.

Curious as to how she'd found this place, he was surprised to discover he was glad she had. He waited until she got closer.

“Miss Anderson,” he said softly. But despite his best intentions, she sucked in a breath.

“Mr. Bedford.” She looked around. “W-what are you doing here?”

He laughed, finding her question a bit odd, considering the place was
his
. And by the blush that crept into her cheeks, he could tell she swiftly came to a similar conclusion.

“I come here quite often, Miss Anderson.” His gaze traveled to the meadow, then the stream, then wove a path through the pines back to her. “It's a sort of . . . haven, I guess you could say.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she frowned. “A haven. From what?”

The thinnest sliver of incredulity slipped past her polite tone, and from her perspective he couldn't say he blamed her. He didn't know her personal circumstances, but what he did know was that, compared to the majority of people in this city who were still putting their lives back together even five years after the war had ended, he had so much more than most. So through this woman's eyes, what did he have to complain about? Much less seek a haven from?

Yet he'd learned long ago that a man could have everything he needed to be considered successful while still feeling as though he lacked what was most important and precious.

Because . . . that described him.

How much he'd like to honestly answer her question, to talk to someone about all that was on his mind, including the frustrations roiling inside him. But he took present company into account and knew that was impossible. Not only did he not know this woman, but she was, in effect, working for him. At least temporarily. In addition, he was betrothed.

He should be sharing all these things with Priscilla. Only, hard as it was to admit,
she
was perhaps his greatest frustration. And even with all the other concerns he
could
discuss with Priscilla, he didn't completely trust her to understand them, much less be interested enough to listen.

Which was a rather disturbing realization, considering he'd be spending the rest of his life with her.

Aware of Miss Anderson awaiting his response, he took in the beauty and peacefulness of their surroundings and settled upon one he could safely give her. “A haven from everything in the world that is not this.”

She held his gaze, and he could see her mind working, weighing, trying to decide whether he be friend or foe. Then the tiniest smile tipped one side of her mouth, shy, though not coy in the least. Nothing about this woman seemed false.

On the contrary, even on first impression, she seemed authentic and kindhearted—and so much like a young woman Nashville had described as his sweetheart.

“But if everything in the world were such as this,” she said softly, “where would the longing for heaven be?”

The words left her lips like a feather on the breeze, and Aidan found it impossible not to stare at her. The woman was a mystery. Master seamstress, fluent in French, patient beyond what any creature without wings should be, and now this. Wisdom and humility wrapped up in all that beauty.

The moment he'd opened the door and seen her standing there that first day, he'd thought her lovely. It hadn't been a consciously formed opinion, rather something he'd simply known upon looking at her. Which he was doing now, likely in a manner he oughtn't.

For though he'd thought her attractive before, he'd not seen her lips as so kissable. Or the slender column of her throat so inviting. She had a quiet strength about her, a strength wrapped in softness, that—

She blinked and looked away, and the moment shuddered and skipped like a pendulum jarred mid-swing.

“If you'll excuse me, sir, I need to be—”

“Miss Anderson,” Aidan said quickly, not wanting her to go, yet knowing it was best if she did. He also knew he was responsible for this, even as he told himself
this
had been nothing. He'd only been appreciating her beauty. But seeing how she was looking at him now—gaze wide, watchful—and feeling the pounding of his pulse, even he couldn't believe his own lie. “Thank you . . . for sharing what you did.”

He grappled with what to say next that might somehow make the moment less awkward, or—

“Thank
you
, Mr. Bedford.” Uncertainty faded from her gaze and warmth took its place. “For reminding me of why, at least in part, this world is the way it is.”

Aidan watched her go, the gentle sway of her hips drawing his eye. Finally, with a sigh—both regretting and enjoying her retreat—he purposefully dragged his gaze back to the meadow.

He'd been so certain, when first seeing this place, that he'd found Nashville's farm, that he'd bought it. But since moving to this city he'd seen at least a dozen other arthritic, old cabins situated just beyond the setting of a farmhouse similar to this one, each staring back at him as though mocking his unaccustomed sentimentality. Though none of the settings was quite so beautiful as this one.

He ran a hand over a hewn log of the cabin and felt the roughness of time beneath his palm, almost as if the passage of lives lived out day by day within these walls had left a physical mark on the place. One he could feel both with his hand and his heart.

He'd likely never be certain where Nashville had lived, but he was determined to live with more of the gratitude and zest for life that Nashville had shown him. Even in so brief a time.

CHAPTER FIVE

N
OTHING HAD HAPPENED
.
N
OTHING
HAD HAPPENED.

The phrase echoing in her head, Savannah gathered the swatches along with her notebook and hurried from the central parlor to the sitting room where Miss Sinclair waited. But no matter how many times she tried to convince herself, it didn't change the intimate turn her thoughts had taken yesterday as she'd stood there staring at Aidan Bedford.

This
woman's future husband.

She didn't know what had come over her.
Embarrassing
didn't begin to describe it. Yes, the man was attractive, but she'd seen attractive men before. No, there was something else about him. Something unexpected, deeper than she'd first thought was there. And kinder. And it had drawn her in.

The way he'd gazed upon the land reflected her own love for its beauty and—