Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (32 page)

“Yes,” I whispered.

Something in the air between us changed.  His eyes looked at
my lips, and suddenly but slowly, he placed his own lips to mine.  I was
shocked and kept my eyes open wide for a moment, but he had closed his eyes
tightly and kissed me softly.  His lips were moist and cool from being in
the water.  My stomach felt like something leaped inside.  I liked
that feeling.  My heart started beating faster.  He pulled back away
and looked at me uncertainly.  We stared at each other for a moment,
wondering, observing each other.  When had he become so beautiful, I
wondered?  I wanted to kiss again, so I touched his hand, and he squeezed
mine tight.  We simultaneously moved towards each other and kissed
again.  It was longer and sweeter.  When we parted, we both
smiled.  I wanted to giggle, I felt so happy and bubbly inside.

That had been the first of many kisses.  I smiled,
remembering that day.  We had been scared, but that was the day our
relationship changed.  I looked over at the manor house standing proud
beside tall trees, seeing the river beyond, and my gaze lingered over the
purple lavender to the laundry house.  I walked over to pick some to use
with the laundry that needed to be done soon.  The laundry house made me
think about the time when Ethan visited the plantation when he was on furlough
during the war.  He had hid out there in the laundry house before
eventually proposing to me here at the grape arbor.

He had been released for two days after his troop had just won a
battle against General Grant and his troops who were trying to take over
Petersburg.  He surprised me in June of 1864 when Clarissa and I were
cutting up vegetables in the kitchen house.  Clarissa had already moved in
with me, as well as Fanny, and we had been attending wounded Union soldiers out
on the lawn and up and down the riverbank.  My mother had already died,
and the property was being used as a temporary field hospital until the wounded
could be taken to a real hospital.  Clarissa and I had gone over to the
kitchen house to help Fanny prepare some soup for the boys who were well enough
to eat. 

“Ethan!”  His mother saw him first out the kitchen
window.  I dropped the corn stalk I was holding and ran to the open window
to see Ethan walk up the back steps of the kitchen house, over near the
cornfield.  Clarissa and I both ran around the corner and down the hall
just as he reached the back door.  He had a full beard all around his
face, and his hair was longer in the back.  He looked so grown up.

After greetings and kisses, Ethan said, “Mother, why are there a
thousand Union soldiers camped out on our lawn?”

“They came and wanted to use our home for prisoners and as a
lookout across the river.  I had to let them take over.  Fanny and I
got in a boat and came over here to be with Madeline.  Oh, it’s just been
awful.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.  Have you been hurt?”

“No, I’m fine, just worn out.  I came home to get a decent
night’s sleep but instead find the two of you held captive by the
Yankees.  Are you all right here?”  He looked down the hall and out
the open front door of the kitchen house and saw a Union officer who stood
across the courtyard in front of the laundry house with a rifle resting against
his shoulder. 

“Yes,” his mother answered.  “As long as we’re cooperative
and feed the wounded, they promised not to harm us.  They’ve been
accommodating, though Madeline and I decided to share a room together, as some
of the officers started sleeping in the house downstairs at night.”  She
eyed me worriedly.  “We’ve been pushing a dresser up against the door
every night, just to be on the safe side.”  We’d been worried one of the
officers would try something with us at night after they’d had a little whiskey
to loosen up their inhibitions. 

“Madeline?” Ethan turned his attention to me.  “Are you all
right?” 

I couldn’t hold back anymore in front of his mother.  I slid
quickly into his arms and buried my face in his gray tunic with green trim,
breathing in his scent.  “I’m fine now,” I said.

“Mother, would you excuse us for a moment?” 

“Of course, dear.”  She kissed his cheek again and then went
back into the kitchen.

Ethan led me out the back door he had just come in, and we sat
down on the ground, leaning against the kitchen house facing the field.

“How did you get on the plantation?” I asked.  “If the
Yankees knew you were here…” I shuddered to think what they’d do to him, even
if we did have a safeguard.  Ethan didn’t have a safeguard.

“We were in a battle close by and were released on furlough. 
A bunch of us went to Edgewood because I told them there was a grist mill there
and that there might be food.  There were many of our soldiers there
already, spying on McClellan’s Army over at Wellington Cross.  I saw them
all spread out across the lawn from the third floor bedroom.  The lawn we
used to play on, Maddie…covered with Yankees.  I swear I wanted to run
over there and shoot as many as I could and run the rest of them out, but of
course, I couldn’t do that.  I was way outnumbered.  I asked some of
our soldiers what was going on here at Magnolia Grove, and they said it was
being used as a hospital for the Yanks.  So I risked coming over here to
see you.  I walked under cover of trees to get here.  That fellow out
near the laundry house prevented me from coming up closer to the house.  I
stayed hidden inside the laundry house until I saw you and Mother walk over
here to the kitchen.  So I carefully went out the back door, through the
stables and around through the trees to get over here without being seen.”

I was amazed he was here and even more amazed at the risk he took
in getting here.  I was so glad he was safe and unharmed.  I touched
his full beard, which felt surprisingly soft.  I traced it from one side
around to the other, and he took my hand in his and pulled me closer, kissing
me feverishly.  My arms went around his neck as we continued, but I
stopped when realizing that his mother was close by at the open kitchen
window.  I convinced Ethan that we should sneak around to the grape
arbor.  We did so, hiding behind bushes and tall thick trees till we reached
the cover of the grapes and sat on the bench.  Mourning doves came to
roost in the trees above us and cooed soothingly.

“I’m so sorry about your mother.  Are you all right?”

I hugged him when reminded that I’d recently lost my mother. 
“Yes, I’m handling it.  It helps having your mother here.  I’m glad
you’ve been getting my letters.”  I leaned back up to look at him. 
“How is Jonas?  Is he with you?”

“No.  He got shot in the Battle of Wilderness just over a
month ago.  He’s alive,” he added quickly, noticing my horrified
face.  “They took him to a home being used as a hospital in Orange, and we
had to move on down this way without him.  I’m sure he’s fine.  It
was a shot to his leg.”

I told him about his mother allowing the Union soldiers use his
home earlier in the war and that she was guaranteed a safeguard for both
plantations.  “I used to talk to Lizzie Rowland a lot, before the Yankees
came here, and she said she’s seen Confederates over there, even Jeb Stuart
even came by her house one day for coffee on his way to Richmond to talk to
General Lee.  Is she doing all right over there?”

“Yes, she’s fine.  She’s been tending to our soldiers there.”

I also told him about the Union soldier who was here earlier in
the war, who tried to have his way with me, and I’d poked him in the eye with a
fireplace poker.  I showed him the scar on my wrist.  He placed a
lingering kiss there on top of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?  You made no mention of
it in your letters,” he said.

“I didn’t want you to worry.  You had enough to worry
about.  I didn’t want to bring up negative things in our letters, except
for my mother, of course.  I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”

He hugged me tight, caressing my back and kissing my head. 
“Yes, I have, but you’re not supposed to be affected by this war.  It’s
only supposed to be us men.”  He raised my head up to look at him. 
“You’ve got to leave from here, Maddie.  You and Mother have to get away
from these Yankees.  Will you go to Edgewood with me?  Please, I
won’t be able to go back out and fight until I know you’re safe.”

“Well, I…I suppose we could.”  I hated the thought of leaving
those Yankees in my home, and yet I did not relish being there with them
either.  “You say it’s just been Confederates over there?”

“Yes.  They’re using it as a lookout before sending more
troops over here to help.  One of them said he even saw President Lincoln
over there at Wellington.  But no Yankees have been at Edgewood so far.”

“All right.  I suppose we’d have to wait till nightfall and
sneak out the window.  Perhaps there is a long rope we could use from
storage.  I could hide it up in under my dress.  We have to bring
Fanny, too, and Jake and Zeke.  They followed us over here, too.”

“That’s fine.”  I started to leave, but he stopped me.

“Ethan, I can’t stay away too long, they’ll become
suspicious.  They may torture your mother to find out where I’ve gone.”

“Just one more thing before I let you go.”  He pulled a small
drawstring bag from an inside pocket of his coat.  Opening it up, he took
out a ring and held it in his palm.  Then he got off the bench and knelt
down on one knee in front of me.  “This is one of the reasons I came here
today.  Madeline, I love you more than anything.  Would you do me the
honor of becoming my wife?  I promise to make you happy, once this war is
over, to protect you, and to love you always.”

“Yes!” I said without hesitation.  “Oh yes, Ethan!  I
will marry you!”

I threw my arms around his neck while he was still kneeling, and
we kissed passionately, absorbed in each other.  “I want to marry
you…right now,” he said between kisses.  “This very minute.”  He
began caressing my torso.  “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

“Yes, I do,” I said breathlessly.  We continued kissing, and
Ethan’s thumb brushed against the side of my breast, causing me to gasp. 
He stopped and looked at me.  “You’ve become a woman in my absence.” 
His eyes burned into mine. 

I touched his beard again and said, “And you’ve become a
man.”  Before we could kiss any further, a gunshot broke our momentary
tranquility.  The birds stopped cooing and flew off in a flurry.

“Ethan, I have to go,” I said, standing up.

“Wait.”  He put the ring on my finger, kissed my fingers near
the ring, and then stood up and helped me to stand.  I looked at the ring
and smiled.

“It’s beautiful, Ethan.”

He explained to me its history, being passed down through his
father’s family.  I felt honored to be given such a ring.  “But
Ethan, I can’t wear this right now.  They’ll notice it.  Let me have
that little bag, and I’ll put it in my dress pocket for now.”

He helped me put the ring back in the little bag, and I hid it in
my pocket.  Then he kissed me one more time. 

“Come back to the kitchen with me, Ethan.  I’ll give you some
decent soup.”

“That sounds delicious.  I’m so weary of hardtack and beans.”

We snuck back over to the field side of the kitchen house, and I
went in first to make sure Clarissa was still there and safe, leaving Ethan out
behind the kitchen.  She was, and Fanny had already prepared some
soup.  Clarissa poured a bowl for Ethan, and I let her take it to him so
she could chat with him some more.  He told her the plan for escape.

Later that night, Clarissa and I snuck out through the windows and
then went over to the kitchen house to get Fanny, Jake and Zeke and snuck out
to Edgewood on foot.  We found Ethan and Jefferson – that was my first
look at him – a short distance from the dovecote under the trees and we all
made it to Edgewood safely.  I was able to rest in Ethan’s arms that night
in the room we shared with his mother on the third floor of Edgewood.  I
didn’t get a wink of sleep because I didn’t want to miss a moment of his time
with me, and he didn’t get that rest he came home for.  Neither one of us
complained. 

I remember lying there in the floor of an upstairs bedroom – so
Clarissa could have the bed – that the war had changed Ethan.  Not just
his appearance, with the longer hair and full beard, but also in his
manner.  He was more mature, more guarded, and more pensive.  Perhaps
I had changed in the same way.  The war had changed us all.  But it
had not changed our love for each other.  If anything, it had grown more.

Needless to say, the grape arbor was a special place for me. 
It was perhaps tortuous to recreate something that would forever remind me of
Ethan and all the special times we’d shared, but yet what better reason to
recreate it, to remember happier times and have a place to share these memories
with Lillie.  I wanted her to know how much we loved each other and how
much we loved her, so I would tell her how we professed our love for each other
here and how he had proposed to me here.  I would tell her that even
though we didn’t live in the same house anymore, didn’t mean we didn’t care
about each other very deeply.  I would remind her of that every day. 

July was long and hot and led into an even hotter August, which
brought occasional thunderstorms.  One late afternoon, the sky darkened
terribly while Lillie and I were sitting on the garden bench watching the birds
flitter about, and the wind picked up so that my hair bonnet blew off and my
dress blew sideways.  I hurriedly picked Lillie up, trying to hold my
dress down, and raced to the river-front door just as the rain hit.  The
rain started out light but kept getting harder, and the wind got stronger and
stronger, bending the long branches on the trees till they creaked.  It
wasn’t just going to be a brief shower.