Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (14 page)

“I intend to do just that,” he said, winking at me.

He spread out the blanket near the water’s edge, and we sat down
to eat the food Cora made for us…some Virginia ham, a chunk of hard cheese,
more fresh bread, strawberries, and a bottle of Madeira wine, complete with
glasses. 

“This is wonderful!”

“The wine was my idea.  I hope you don’t mind,” Ethan said.

“No, not at all.”

“This is a spot where I brought you once before…on our
honeymoon.  It used to be hangman’s hill where pirates were hung long
ago.  Now it’s a popular spot where gentlemen bring their sweethearts to
picnic and perhaps steal a kiss or two.”  He grinned, and I wondered if he
had planned to steal a kiss or two from me, hoping that he would.  “This
is sort of a celebration for you and me.  One, for finding you again.” 
He started pouring the wine into the glasses.  “Two, for our anniversary –
it’s today.”

“It is?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes, June 10.  We married two years ago on a Saturday and
came here to Williamsburg the next day.  We had a picnic right
here.”  He handed the glass of wine to me.

“Aw, how sweet of you to bring me here again.  Thank
you.”  I clinked my glass against his.  “Happy anniversary, Ethan,” I
said.  I wished I could remember the honeymoon he spoke of.  Perhaps
I would get more memories while I was here by the water or in the town where we
had stayed.

He picked up my hand and kissed it.  “Happy anniversary,
sweetheart,” he said very seriously.  He then started cutting some cheese
with a pocketknife while I tore up the bread.  He began to tell me more
things that I had forgotten over the years.  One story was about a friend
of ours, Hannah Carter, whose family was also into cotton.  She had come
over to Ethan’s plantation with her mother and father, as her father had
business to discuss with Edward. 

“Hannah had been your friend, but that day, she almost lost your
friendship.”

“Why?” I asked, taking a bite of cheese.

“Because you found Hannah lying on a bench with her head in my
lap, down by the river.  She liked me, you see.  She knew you liked
me, too, but she wanted to see if she could catch my eye.  She didn’t come
right out and say that, but I could tell what she was doing.  She begged
me to walk her down to the river, saying she was hot and wanted to cool off by
getting her feet in the water.  She took off her shoes but not her
stockings, and she slipped on the rocks in the water.  She was soaking wet
and said she hurt her ankle.  I picked her up and laid her on the
bench.  She also claimed she hit her head on a rock and asked if she could
lay her head in my lap.  So I sat down beside her, and she put her head in
my lap.  That’s how we were when you came upon us.”

 “I remember that now,” I said.  I looked at him
accusingly.  “I was so angry.  I thought the two of you had been
playing in the water and then came up to the bench to kiss.  Right when I
found the two of you, she touched your face and had this dreamy look on her
face.”

“What can I say?  She couldn’t keep her hands off of me,”
he said, smirking.

I smacked his arm playfully.  “You were my beau.  You
were supposed to tell her that and make her keep her hands off you.”

“I did tell her that, right when you walked up.  So…you
remember?”

“I do now,” I said, smiling.  “How old were we?  I
must’ve been about 14 or 15.  You had all the plantation girls after you, and
I was so jealous.”

“But I only had eyes for you.  You know that, don’t you?”

“You can keep reminding me, if you want,” I said, smiling. 
We were quiet for a moment while Ethan got the ham out and gave me some, which
I put in the middle of the bread to make a sandwich.  I mused about
finally remembering Ethan as a young man and myself when I was a young lady
when he told me about Hannah.  I remember how butterflies danced in my
stomach when I saw him that day, after he got Hannah off of his lap.  He
later kissed me in the woods by the river to convince me that Hannah meant
nothing to him.  I remember how happy I was, and it made me smile just
thinking about it.

“What are you smiling about?”  Ethan asked me.  “Did
you get another memory?”

“Hmm?  Oh, no.”  I was too embarrassed to tell him
that I’d been thinking about kissing him.  “I’m just enjoying
myself.  Thank you for all this.”  I found myself staring into his
beautiful eyes.  They were mesmerizing and distracting, seeming to change
colors before me, reflecting green in the sun.

“You’re quite welcome.  Madeline, I want you to know how
much it means to me to be spending time with you – our ride on horseback this
morning, our morning picnic, and the trip here.  I feel like I’m getting
to know you again, as much as you are me.” 

My heart began to flutter again, and I smiled.  “Thank you
for being patient with me.  I remember a lot about us when we were young,
but not so much yet when we grew up.  And yet there is…an affinity between
us.  I feel very close to you, just as I did growing up.  I cherished
you then, did you know that?”  I took a sip of wine to try and compose
myself, as I suddenly felt nervous.  “I’m beginning to remember how I felt
when we were courting, too…how it changed.  I just feel so close to you
sometimes, almost like a part of you.  I know that may sound strange, I
can’t explain it.  I just feel…” 

At that moment, he reached over towards me and accidentally
knocked over his glass of wine that had been sitting between us.  It spilled
onto the blanket and over onto my dress.

“Oh Madeline, I apologize.  Your dress!” he said.  He
began dabbing the wine off the dress with an unsoiled area of the blanket,
seemingly embarrassed.

“It’s all right,” I said, smiling.  “Really.  Don’t
make a fuss about it.  The dress already had a stain on it anyway.” 
I moved the pin so it would cover up this newer wetter stain.  While he
was cleaning up the wine glass, I wondered what he had been about to do before
he overturned the wine.  I thought perhaps he was about to kiss me
again.  I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss we shared earlier by the
river and hoped we would do it again soon. 

To my disappointment, he didn’t kiss me at this time, but went
quiet instead and started cleaning up the picnic.  “I know what you mean,”
he finally said, putting the cork back into the wine bottle.  “When we
were married…”  He stopped what he was doing and looked at me
intently.  “After we were married, on our honeymoon here in Williamsburg…” 
He paused and I swallowed hard.  “We talked about how we felt like we were
one unit then.  Like in the Good Book how it says that the two shall
become one flesh.  We felt that, physically and spiritually.”  I had
to fight back forming tears.  I wanted to feel that.  He picked up
his wine glass and finished drinking the little dab that was left from the
spill.  “When you were gone, it felt like I’d been split apart inside.”

“Oh, Ethan,” I really had to fight back tears then.  I
touched his cheek.  He closed his eyes and took my hand and kissed
it.  He looked at me and sighed.  “I apologize if I’m being too
forward.”

“You’re not.”

He was still holding my hand.  My heart beat fast with the
anticipation of him kissing me, but then we heard another horse-pulled carriage
arrive, which was another young couple who’d come to picnic by the water. 
Ethan let go of my hand.  “We should head into town now,” he said. 
He looked a bit disappointed or flustered.  I felt like he was holding
back, perhaps concerned he was getting too intimate and didn’t want to scare me
off.  Actually the opposite was true.  I wanted to feel that
closeness with him more than anything, that intimacy.  Yet I was too shy
to initiate a kiss myself.  I finished my wine and helped him pack up the
picnic hamper.

We got back in the Phaeton and made our way into
Williamsburg.  As we entered the little town, we passed the College of
William and Mary, where some repair work was being done on the main part of the
campus, the Wren Building.  Ethan explained that part of it had been
destroyed by Yankee soldiers during the war.  He also said that
Williamsburg had been under control of the Yankees during most of the war, and
that no one could enter or leave without permission.

We passed by many taverns and shops, including Campbell’s
tavern, and blacksmith, boot maker, and gunsmith shops.  We could see the
Governor’s Palace standing regally down a long side road.  Ethan pointed
out the King’s Arms Tavern as the place we spent our honeymoon.  It didn’t
spark a memory, like I’d hoped.  We stopped in front of the mercantile
where we got out and went inside for some needed supplies. 

While we were looking for items on Ethan’s list, I saw a man
enter who looked around and saw me, then abruptly turned and went around a
corner of the store behind a tall pile of flour bags.  He looked familiar
but seeing him only at a glance, I couldn’t be sure.

“Madeline?”

“I’m sorry.
 
Did you say
something?”  I turned my attention back to Ethan.

“Would you find the coffee while I get some sugar?  You
still like coffee, right?”

“Yes.  Of course.”

I set off in search of coffee, all the while wondering who the
familiar man was and why he took off so quickly. 

I found out when I came around strands of garlic hanging from
the ceiling.  Jefferson stood before me, looking at me curiously, like he
couldn’t believe his eyes.  He looked around me and took off again. 
I turned around and saw Ethan coming around the corner of the hanging
garlic. 

“Madeline, did you find the coffee?”

“Coffee?  Uh, no.  Not yet.  Did you find the
sugar?”  I tried to smile, but seeing Jefferson unnerved me.  He was
probably the last person I wanted to see.  After all those lies he told
me, I really wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but then again, I didn’t
want Ethan to know yet that we had seen each other while I was away.  He
might get the wrong idea.

“Yes, it’s on the counter in my stack.  I’ll help you find
the coffee.”

After finding the coffee and a few other items, we headed to the
counter to settle the bill.  Ethan asked that it be put on the Wellington
tab to be paid at a later time.  We carried the things out to the Phaeton
and placed them in the floorboard.

As Ethan went back inside to retrieve the last of the items, I
saw Jefferson again.  I walked closer to him.  “Jefferson?” I said
loudly.  He was leaning up against the wall of the mercantile, eying me
worriedly.  “Jefferson, you lied to me!” I said through my teeth. 
“How could you?!”  He quickly put a copy of the Weekly Review up in front
of his face as Ethan came back out of the mercantile.  I turned around
quickly and joined him at the carriage.  I looked back, but Jefferson had
disappeared.  I felt relieved but at the same time wary.

Ethan got out the post for needing help at the plantation and
took it inside the mercantile and asked permission to post it.  He came
back out and said he was allowed to post it out front.  While he was doing
that, I sat in the carriage to wait for him.  Suddenly a shot rang through
the air, and a bullet whizzed close by me, hitting the Phaeton instead. 
Screams filled the air, one of them being mine, and I noticed that people out
on the street had scrambled to the ground while others ran into the
mercantile.  Horses whinnied, including our own, who stirred the Phaeton
with their startled movement.

I looked anxiously at Ethan, who quickly ran over to me and the
Phaeton, settling the horses.  That bullet had passed so close to
me.  Had someone been trying to shoot me?  Could it have been
Jefferson?  Was he really that angry that I had refused to marry
him?  If he really wanted to marry me at all, that is.  He’d told so
many lies, I couldn’t be sure what he really wanted or how he really
felt.  If not Jefferson, I had to wonder why anyone else would want to
kill me.  Perhaps Ethan was the target; but if so, the shooter had
terrible aim. 

“Are you all right?” Ethan asked me anxiously, reaching his head
inside the carriage.

“Yes,” I said, barely able to speak.

“Stay here, or better yet, go back inside the mercantile,” Ethan
said.  “I’ll be right back.”  He took off running down the road in
the direction the shot came from.  I saw him pull out a small handgun he
had tucked inside his boot.  He disappeared around a corner, and I went
back inside the mercantile to wait.  People started talking to each other,
asking if anyone saw who had shot the gun and who they were shooting at. 
The mercantile owner came over and closed the door, hoping to keep out the
assailant.  I stood next to one of the windows and watched and waited.

Ethan returned a few moments later, came inside, and took me in
his arms.  “Are you all right, Maddie?”  I nodded into his chest and
just let him hold me for a long moment to try and settle my nerves.  We
turned and walked back outside to the carriage and climbed in.  He
inspected the Phaeton where the bullet had passed through and made a hole in
the back, and also checked on the horses.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked me again.  He sat
close to me and put his arms around me, kissing the top of my head.