“I suppose you know how to use the netting to keep out mosquitoes.” She realized her voice sounded odd and stilted. “There’s a basin and water—there’s more water in the kitchen. There’s a privy and bathing room attached to the back of the house. I suppose you know all this. One of the men will bring up your things.”
“Thank you, Miss Holt, but we can see to ourselves.” He looked down at her intently. The flickering candle cast shadows over the planes of his face, highlighting his cheekbones and making his eyes seem to glow.
She took a step toward the door. She didn’t know why, but she stopped and made a slow turn to look back at him. It was as if he had spoken, but he hadn’t—and then he did.
“Mallory.”
The candle in her hand trembled and smoked. “Yes, Colonel?”
“You once called me Stuart. I did write to you. I thought when you didn’t answer that my letter didn’t reach you, or maybe you chose not to answer. Then I heard about your father, and that Grace Hall had burned and you were living here.
“I didn’t write any more after that. I didn’t know if you would even care.” He paused. “I’m very sorry about your father and your brother. I heard he died at Gettysburg.”
She said abruptly, “Yes, he did. Were you there?”
His head lifted a little but his eyes didn’t leave hers. “Yes. I was there.”
“Then—it could have been you who killed him.”
They stared at each other as footsteps sounded along the hall and Logan came into the room. He carried a valise which he dropped negligently beside the bed.
Mallory moved away from Stuart as Logan straightened and said, “I suppose we’ll have to make the best of things, Stuart. I don’t hold any hard feelings against you.” He smiled in the wavering light. “At least, not yet. But I think I know why you really came here.”
Stuart gave him a guarded look. “And why is that?”
“I’m sure you know the terms of my father’s will—that if I should die without heirs this house and property go to you, his brother’s son.”
Mallory’s head jerked a little with surprise.
Logan turned and put his arm around Mallory. “I suppose you wanted to look it over. But don’t get your hopes up, cousin. I expect to have heirs. Mallory has just consented to be my wife.”
After a long pause Mallory lifted her eyes to meet Stuart’s.
“Congratulations,” he said quietly. “You’re a lucky man, Logan.”
“Yes,” Logan agreed. “Now suppose you tell me, Stuart, what you’re planning to do about this so-called deserter.”
“I thought I made that clear. I intend to find out what happened to him and the stolen money he carried.”
“I’m sure he’s long gone,” Logan said affably. “But you must do your duty. We’ll let you know when supper’s ready.”
Stuart nodded.
Logan led Mallory firmly from the room and to the staircase. “I’d forgotten you had met him before,” he said as they descended the stairs. He took the candle from her so she could hold up her skirts and place her hand on the handsome mahogany railing.
“Yes.” She wished she could say something to make it seem as though their meeting had meant nothing to her, but it would have sounded false—as indeed it was. She glanced down at Logan and wondered why she had ever thought he looked like Stuart. Aside from their build and the dark hair they barely resembled each other.
When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Logan stopped. The chandelier was lit and he blew out the candle. “What do you know about that soldier he’s talking about?”
Her heart lurched. “Why would you think I know anything about him?”
“Something about the way you looked, the way you spoke. Did you see him?”
To hesitate would seem like an admission. She said quickly, “I don’t remember, but I’m sure he didn’t come to the house.” She still believed it would be more dangerous for Logan to know the truth, not because she didn’t trust him, but because he should be able to truthfully deny knowing anything about the man. She didn’t want him to have to lie on her behalf.
Logan looked at her thoughtfully. “All that money…” he said, as if to himself.
Mallory’s thoughts turned inexorably back to that dark, frantic night. She thought Deke had searched the man’s pockets before they buried him but she couldn’t be sure of anything. Of course he couldn’t possibly have had that much money on him without their noticing.
She tried to remember if there had been saddlebags on the horse. There must have been…if only they had known! Would she have felt right about keeping the money if she’d found it? After all, the Yankees had burned Grace Hall, which had been worth much more than that!
Well, there was no use wondering, for the money was certainly gone and if it had been on the horse Deke was now a very rich man.
She’d never told Logan, either, about the Yankee captain and his aides who had stayed at Grace Hall before her father’s sickness. At first the captain had seemed polite, but when she didn’t return his friendliness he became less polite and more aggressive in his attention toward her. Once he had made some remark about her thickly lashed eyes resembling a fawn’s, and her face being a “tantalizing combination of innocence and sensualness,” which she hadn’t understood, but she’d understood the look on his own face.
She stayed in her room with the door locked most of the time, but one night he had caught her in the library and made such crude advances that she had slapped him across the face with all her strength—which due to the fact that she was an active and healthy young woman, was considerable. In fact, she recalled a little smugly, he had lost his balance and very nearly fell to the floor.
His lust turned abruptly to loathing. It wasn’t long afterward that her father became ill and the soldiers moved out. A few days later her father was dead. The captain ordered her to gather her clothes and whatever else she could carry and get out of the house. His men, with kerchiefs over their faces to protect them from the “disease”, proceeded to plunder it of all its valuable furnishings.
Mallory had stood on the porch and watched them. When a man came out carrying a huge, gold-leaf mirror that had belonged to her French great-grandmother she picked up a small flowerpot and flung it at the mirror. Glass had flown everywhere.
She rather thought her teacher, Miss McKay, would have approved of that spectacle.
She felt sure her humiliating rejection of the captain’s advances was the real reason he had ordered her home to be destroyed. And because she and her father had refused to take the oath of allegiance—those hateful words wherein they would renounce the Confederacy and swear loyalty to the Union.
Federals were requiring the oath of all former soldiers and citizens, and often those who refused were not allowed to buy food, transact business, or even get married. Preachers who refused to take the oath and continued to pray publicly for President Davis rather than President Lincoln were arrested.
The Yankees had also confiscated the property of such “rebels”, but for some reason hadn’t taken Mallory’s one hundred and six acres—maybe because someone in authority felt badly that her house had been burned practically over her head, and so soon after her father’s death. She didn’t know the reason, but it did nothing to soften her feelings toward the Yankees.
Suddenly Logan set the candle stand on a table, turned, put his arms around her, and kissed her. She was too surprised to react. He drew back and looked at her closely, a small furrow on his brow.
“Let’s not wait,” he said. “Let’s get married tomorrow. We’ll send for the reverend and be married here.”
“Tomorrow! But, Logan, that’s too soon!”
“Why?” he asked, still watching her. “We’ve been living in the same house for months. You’ve known me all your life.”
“You’re nine years older than I am, Logan, so it’s not as if I saw you very much when we were growing up. I—I need time to get ready. I want a wedding dress.”
He made a sound almost like a snort. “Where do you expect to get a wedding dress, Mallory?”
“I can make one. Henrietta is a good seamstress—she can help me. If I could get some material…”
A spark of anger ignited in his dark eyes. “I tell you there’s no money for anything like that. My mother’s wedding dress is in the attic. You can wear that.”
“I don’t want to wear your mother’s wedding dress. I want my own.”
“You’re as stubborn as a—” Logan stopped as footsteps could be heard descending the stairs, and before the person came into view he said in a low, determined voice, “We will discuss this later.” He went into the parlor just as Brooke appeared around a curve.
She’d changed into one of her better gowns. Mallory knew nothing of what the style was these days, but whether the gown was still fashionable or not it looked very alluring on Brooke’s excellent figure. It was cut low in the front and fell in sleek lines to the floor. She was obviously wearing only one petticoat beneath it which allowed it to—almost—show the outline of her legs. She had combed and re-pinned her naturally curly hair.
“Just so you know,” Brooke whispered, darting a glance up the stairway, “I’m going to marry Stuart.”
Mallory stared at the other woman. “What?”
Brooke pulled her into the dining room. Tipper was setting the table with some old, chipped dishes that had been stored in the attic and which they’d been using since someone had made off with the Dubarry china—as well as the delicate crystal and the silver trays that had once gleamed upon the mahogany sideboard.
The former slave didn’t glance in their direction but Mallory felt as though Tipper’s ears had extended themselves across the enormous room.
“You’re going to marry Logan and I’m going to marry Stuart. Don’t look at me like that—I know what I’m doing. Besides, who else is there? Certainly not Henry. All the southern boys are either wounded or so worn out with fighting they’re no fun, and I want to have fun, Mallory!”
Tears came into the jewel-like blue eyes. “You know what it’s been like here. I’m so tired of it all, tired of never going anywhere, of not knowing where our next meal is coming from! I’m going back to Pennsylvania with Stuart and you can just try to stop me!”
“Brooke, Stuart can see to it that you get to Pennsylvania, if that’s what you want to do. You could stay with your aunt and uncle. Are you in love with him?”
“Well, I—I never thought about it. He is very good-looking. I know he’s a Yankee and I hate the Yankees but we just have to get over it, Mallory. We women have got to look out for ourselves. Let the men hate the Yankees! I’m not going to waste my life pining and whining for the old days!”
Mallory turned to walk through the dining room and along the passage that led to the kitchen. Brooke followed, holding her skirts daintily.
“Well,” Mallory said, “that’s your business. I’m not going to pine away either, but it’s going to be very hard to forget what they’ve done.”
“Don’t you think I know that? The war took my father, even if he did die of malaria in camp. He should never have gone in the first place. And my husband—I can hardly remember Lawrence. We had only just met, you know.”
“Yes,” Mallory said, “I know.”
Natchez had been full of Confederate soldiers when the war began, a beehive of recruiting and of sending the new recruits off with pride and patriotic fervor. The young ladies of the surrounding region had swarmed into the city, half intoxicated by the attention shown them by the unprecedented number of gallant young men.
Many of the older people had looked upon the situation with stern disapproval, but had little choice but to accept it. There’d been a large number of quick marriages, and in a few cases, illegitimate births that were often concealed by sending the unfortunate young lady to some distant place, only to return a year or so later with a “relative’s” baby she had agreed to raise as her own. Sometimes the babies were given to other families to raise. Certainly there mustn’t be a scandal, especially among the city’s social elite!
Brooke had gone into town almost daily, attending parties, soirees, balls, and concerts. It was at that time she’d met the man who had so briefly been her husband. Mallory’s father, who was sixty years old and not in good enough health to join the army, hadn’t permitted his daughter to engage in these activities—at least not after the first month or two when he saw how intense the situation had become.
Nor had Mr. Holt allowed her to nurse in the hospitals as many other women had done. Instead she’d busied herself knitting socks and scarves and blankets, patching holes in coats and trousers and lining worn-out shoes and boots with pieces of carpet. The items were brought to her and retrieved by members of the Military Aid Society. Her father had permitted a few soldiers to call on her, but thinking of Stuart, Mallory hadn’t been much interested.
“You must help me,” Brooke said, touching Mallory’s arm with a pleading look. “Don’t let Corinne try to interfere.”
“Do you think she’s going to try to marry Stuart too?”
“Of course not! But she’ll do something, I know it.” Brooke’s grip tightened. “Mallory, you are attractive to men, in your way. Just remember, you’re marrying my brother. Stuart is mine.”
“Stuart might have something to say about that.”
“He’s going to say, ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘I do’ so fast it’ll make your head spin!” Brooke giggled so infectiously that Mallory couldn’t resist a smile. Brooke had always gotten what she wanted, but Mallory didn’t think Stuart would fall willingly into her trap—whatever she had in mind.
Mallory wished she didn’t care, but the thought of Stuart marrying Brooke made a familiar ache creep into her heart. And Logan, well, she had a few things to say to Logan.
In the kitchen Henrietta was plucking chickens while Corinne stuck more wood in the stove, on top of which bubbled a large pot of dried peas.
“Where have you girls been?” Corinne turned to survey them disapprovingly. “Brooke, you start the rice, and Mallory, help me make some cornbread. We only have two chickens left, and we’ll use the last of the cornmeal, but the colonel says he’s going to bring food. Perhaps, after all, it is a good thing they have come.”
Corinne eyed Brooke’s lavender-blue gown. “And what have you got in mind, young lady, dressing in such a way for these soldiers? Surely you can’t be thinking of impressing them? Why was your old gown not good enough for the likes of them?” She began measuring out the milk she’d brought from the springhouse.
“Goodness, Corinne, that old thing was a rag! I see that you’ve changed clothes as well.”
The Frenchwoman was only twelve or thirteen years older than Brooke and Mallory, but she seemed much older. She always wore black bombazine gowns and kept her dark hair pulled into a severe chignon. She too had changed her dress, but this one was also black and buttoned to her throat.
“You are showing entirely too much bosom, Brooke. What do you expect of these men? They are probably starved for female companionship! Go and put something over your shoulders.”
“I won’t,” Brooke said, with rare defiance. She’d always been a little afraid of Corinne. “This is my nicest dress and I’m not going to spoil it with a shawl.”
“You are going to catch cold! I feel a chill in the air.”
“Oh, leave her alone, Corinne,” Mallory said, cracking eggs into a bowl. “She’s old enough to wear what she likes.”
Corinne shrugged and muttered something in French. Brooke left the kitchen with a patter of quick footsteps and went to help Tipper in the dining room.
“Don’t put the cornbread in the oven yet, Mallory. It will take a while to fry the chickens. We have some venison hash left from yesterday. I’ll make some hominy croquettes and I suppose we might as well cook a cabbage. We have turnip greens and yams left from yesterday too. This food was supposed to last until the end of the week. Heaven knows how much it will take to feed three extra men!”
Although the air outside was rapidly cooling it soon grew hot in the kitchen. By the time the food was prepared Mallory’s dress had become limp and wrinkled and she felt sure it smelled of cabbage. As the other women began carrying food to the sideboard in the dining room she slipped back upstairs and flung open the door of the armoire.
Her closets and armoires at Grace Hall had been filled with gowns—day and evening gowns, satins, plain silks, watered silks, summer frocks with rows of lace and flounces, and winter dresses made of cashmere and merino wool. There had been hats, silk shawls, slippers, gloves, and spangled fans, all pleasantly scented with sachets. And jewelry: brooches, pearl necklaces, diamond earbobs…The soldiers had carried almost everything away to send to wives and sweethearts in the north.
She looked longingly at the three ball dresses she had managed to save, crammed into a corner of the armoire. They were useless now. She might as well have left them at Grace Hall to burn.
Her hands trailed lightly over them, lingering on one of white satin and tulle with a scarlet sash. She had worn it that night in Philadelphia…