Surrender at Orchard Rest Read online

  As it should be.

  But—but perhaps I can have something more in life. I have come here today to ask you a great favor. I have a chance, you see—

  Somerset turned at the sound of branches crackling underfoot like an evening bonfire. Sawyer Russell walked out of the wood coming from Lone Pine. Her heart leapt when she saw him, but there was always a moment of disquiet whenever he found her at Eric’s grave. He always professed not to mind. He was quick to remind her that Eric may have been his cousin but he also was his best friend, and he missed him too.

  He always looked solemn, even when he smiled as he did now. Somerset took in the familiar sight of his best gray trousers and white dress shirt. He hadn’t expected to run into anyone. He wasn’t wearing a coat or cravat and looked disheveled even for someone who’d been traveling. He’d run up by train to Nashville for a horse show and hadn’t known when he’d return. He looked startled to see her in the middle of the cemetery, but he held out his hands as she rushed to him.

  “You’re home!” cried Somerset. “I didn’t expect you for days and days yet.”

  Sawyer bent down and kissed her cheek, a flushed new pink apple. He was growing a mustache, and she was still getting used to the unfamiliar rasp against her skin.

  “You are a sight for a tired man,” Sawyer said. “I came home early. It seems the service made me a horse snob, Somerset. There wasn’t a single animal that I’d have to pull a plow, much less own as a personal riding animal, but bother horses right now.”

  He caught her under the chin and raised her face to his. For a few seconds Somerset forgot about anything at all except for his bourbon taste and the pressure of his hands at her waist and the way the sun beat down on them, immersing them in a bright light that matched her feelings exactly.

  He released her, and she felt no need to play coy or look down. She took his hand instead.

  “I’m relieved you’re back. It’s been so busy with Joseph being ill that I haven’t had the free time to notice your absence, but now that you’re with me, I wonder how I got by without you.”

  “It’s good to be missed then.” He green eyes radiated warmth as he gazed at her, but he was tired. Weariness tugged at the corners of his eyelids. “How is Joseph’s leg?”

  Somerset sighed.

  “It looks ghastly. I feel like a wartime nurse every time I have to clean it. It hasn’t developed any streaks though, and he hasn’t shown any signs of blood poisoning or lock jaw. Dr. Harlow says that’s as much as can be expected.”

  “I still feel like part of it is my fault.”

  Joseph and Sawyer were clearing timber from an unused field only two weeks before when they lost control of a cedar. Joseph nearly moved out of the path in time, but a bough had pinned him just above the knee into the soft clay. Times were perilous for the first week when Joseph’s fevers soared and he was delirious, reminding them all of an earlier time that he had nearly lost his life. They feared that he would lose his leg yet, but Joseph was adamant that he’d succumb to infection before he would allow an amputation. He was a poor patient, and sitting at the plantation all day, propped up in the library, did not suit him.

  “It wasn’t either of your faults. When two men do the work of half a dozen every day of the week, something unfortunate is bound to happen. I’m surprised something like this didn’t happen a long time ago. I’m thankful you weren’t injured and I’m grateful Joseph wasn’t killed.”

  “He’ll be using a crutch for the rest of his life—if he doesn’t lose the leg,” Sawyer said, his tone laden with regret. “He’ll never be able to work as hard as he did before, and with the way Joseph uses hard work as a panacea for everything, he’s going to have a hard time with it. Did Fairlee ever come?”

  “No. She never wrote or telegraphed back either.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “She hasn’t come home in two years. Her letters never come more than seasonally.”

  “He never talks about it. He won’t talk about it, I should say. If anyone asks publicly about Fairlee, he grins and talks about how she’s nursing her grandmother in Tuscaloosa. He never looks the least bit troubled or worried, and to be frank, that’s what worries me. He always wore his heart on his sleeve as far as she was concerned.”

  “You all marched home and they took up right where they left off. He was on her front porch every single night. He escorted her to every homecoming celebration in the county. Then she got up one morning and took the train to Tuscaloosa and has stayed with her grandmother ever since. No one knew of a fall out between them.”

  “Those two lived on argument,” added Sawyer. “If they had a fight, every plantation in Century Grove knew about it by morning. Still, don’t you think she would have at least telegraphed you back?”

  Somerset shrugged.

  “We’re still friends. If she hasn’t said anything and he hasn’t said anything, it must be awful. I’ll leave them to work it out. He’s making himself miserable, though, and all of us, too.”

  “There’s not much damage he can do in the library or parlor, is there?” smiled Sawyer.

  “He isn’t happy unless he’s out gallivanting. Papa has been bringing in all the latest newspapers to try to keep him entertained, but the papers just aggravate him and he pours himself a drink with each one. By the end of the day, the whole library smells like rye. Then after a few drinks, he insists on writing to Fairlee. You should see the expression on the Tuscaloosa postal clerk’s face when I hand over his ink-splotched envelopes. Everyone is going to be talking about us soon.”

  Sawyer laughed and kissed her forehead.

  “Speaking of notorious reputations, you should head home, Somerset. I don’t want you caught in the woods with me and no chaperone. Anyone is likely to ride past at any moment. What were you doing all the way out here on foot?”

  “I’m supposed to be looking for the last of the strawberries for Mother. She’s throwing a party tomorrow night to try to keep Joseph entertained. She wants to serve shortcakes. I decided to walk over here and pay my respects, though. It’s going to be my only chance this week.”

  Sawyer smiled at her with sympathy, and Somerset couldn’t help but notice the way the sunshine highlighted his cheek and jaw bones, throwing his facial shape into prominence and making him vaguely resemble Eric. The Rutherfords and the Russells were cousins, but there were no frank similarities between them. The Rutherfords were known for their crow hair, blue eyes and sharp features, while the Russells were all golden skinned with golden brown hair. The rare hint of commonality took Somerset by surprise.

  She smiled back at him, fighting the urge to move closer to him, to wrap her arms around him.

  “You’re invited to dinner at our house tomorrow. I didn’t think you’d be back in time to make it. Mother is at her wit’s end trying to keep all of us in line. I’ve been at Mother all week about maybe having some dancing, but she said that was too formal and the ladies wouldn’t have enough gentlemen to dance with. Will you come?”

  “You know I can’t turn down an excuse to spend time with you.”

  “Well then. It’s settled. I’ve been thinking about when we should tell our news. Maybe tomorrow is the big day.”

  Sawyer’s expression became alert.

  “Do you really mean that, Somerset?”

  “I do. I don’t want to wait much longer. The sooner we can get things settled, the better. I admit I was worried about Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford’s feelings about Eric, but he’s been gone five years now. Plenty of people have moved on much sooner. I’ve been respectful of everyone else’s feelings, and now I’m ready to move on.”

  The hope on Sawyer’s face made her stop and stare at the ground. It was one of the things she loved about him. One glance from him had the power to stop her mid-sentence. He never looked at her without a singular expression of concern and reverence. From the hospital in Atlanta to the hard times of starvation in Century Grove, they had sojourned on a difficult jou
rney together, and there had never been an instant during which she believed he was thinking of himself. Yet she was made vulnerable by her own admission and her love for him.

  “Sawyer?”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say those words.”

  “You do still want to marry me?”

  “I want nothing else.”

  “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

  He shook his head as if to clear it and took her face in his hands.

  “I just didn’t think we’d ever get to this point. I told you it would be enough if you would just try to love me. I thought I exceeded my luck when you actually said we’d marry, but now you’re determined to go through with it and I can’t help but be stunned.”

  Somerset laughed aloud.

  “I spent your whole trip thinking that if I had just gone ahead and announced our engagement when it happened, we’d be married now instead of sneaking around the cemetery in the middle of the day. Mother will want to make quite the production of this, I’m afraid. I played my cards all wrong, Sawyer. There’s no telling when she’ll finally turn me loose now.”

  He squeezed her hand and kissed it.

  “We could elope,” he suggested into her palm.

  “I’ll consider it if she wants a year-long engagement. I’m practically an old maid.”

  Sawyer laughed loudly, the sound at variance with the solemn setting.

  It was true Somerset was no longer young. She had been on the cusp of her debut, the edge of becoming a belle when the war broke out. Many men, who were now long dead, had gone to fight with the happy knowledge that she would soon be of courting age when they returned home. She’d been little more than a child when Fort Sumter was shelled, missed the portion of her life that she had been bred for, and now she was stuck in the vacuous area of life where she should have been settled with a family. Somerset was still fresh-faced, though. Her eyes, the famous Marshall blue eyes that came from Blanche’s family, had lost the vacant look they acquired during her lengthy search for Eric in Georgia. Over the long months of their covert courtship, a spark returned to her that she feared had disappeared on the Chickamauga.

  She was twenty-three, an impossible age. She thought she had lost everything worth caring about in the war except for her brothers. She had gone from the frocks of girlhood to mourning weeds with little ground in between. There were still days where she felt bitter about all that she’d never attained. Sawyer and the rest of his contemporaries never saw her sober black gowns or lack of jewels. She was a prize left over from old days, a reminder of when men were gods and women needed champions. Somewhere between the brightness of her eyes and the fullness of her lips, Sawyer found himself lost. When he factored in how she loved a good prank and was also smart, he couldn’t believe that she chose to love him.

  “So you’ll come to dinner?” she implored as she squeezed his hand. “And you’ll think about what I asked?”

  “I will,” he promised.

  He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. His graveness was deeper than usual.

  “Be careful on the walk home,” he added. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Try not to grow more spinsterish in the meanwhile.”

  She squeezed his waist.

  “I won’t grow any more spinsterish if you promise to grow richer before our wedding. I think I could look quite young and happy with enough money.”

  They laughed hard enough over the unlikelihood of money to startle the crows from the oaks overhead.

  She set off walking toward Orchard Rest. She could not resist turning at the cemetery gate to see him once more. He cut a striking figure against the green of the oaks and the drab white stones. He seemed more meditative than usual, if that were possible. She waved at him as she banged the gate shut, but he had turned to face Eric’s monolith. She leaned on the gate for a moment savoring the good feeling, appreciating whatever impulse had allowed her to make room in her heart for a new life. She may have lost the future that she had been born for, but she was about to embark on a new adventure.

  It didn’t occur to her until much later that night that she had never gotten around to finding out where he was going in the middle of the day or so soon after getting home from his trip.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  Somerset sat at her dressing table, pinning her hair in place. Blanche’s party for Joseph was less than an hour away, and she wasn’t ready. Her mother had made her a new dress, and although they were all still in half-mourning, Somerset couldn’t help but be dazzled by it.

  She loved to get pretty new things, and Blanche had been generous in the past weeks. This dress had a neckline as low as a ball gown with jet beads hanging from gray silk tassels that danced as she moved. The waist was skintight and the skirt was the newest fashion, flat at the sides and flaring out in the back over a corselette. Gray silk roses trailed down the back of the skirt, each one folded and sewn in Blanche’s precise tiny stitches. The bottom half of the skirt showcased a dozen lace panels over white silk embroidered in gray roses.

  The afternoon sun streamed through her window as she turned before her mirror, admiring her pirouetting reflection but wishing the dress was any color but black. Although the ball gown was lovely and she looked like a fashion plate out of Godey’s Lady’s Book, Somerset never lost the sensation that she was in mourning for every man she ever met. Blanche said the farm had turned a profit for the first time since the war, but Somerset couldn’t fathom what the dress must have cost—or that her papa, Thomas, had allowed it.

  She took a seat on the worn ottoman by her bedside table and picked up the daguerreotype of Eric, cradling it in her palm. She studied his features, taking in the straight, strong nose and the wide high cheekbones prominent in the square, heavy-jawed face. His wide, blue eyes weren’t captured well in the image, she thought, as if his ghost-like state was predestined in a single image. She shivered but smiled again at the hint of a smirk that he couldn’t keep from his lips even in the most serious of images.

  Somerset had been hesitant to let Sawyer court her, reluctant to feel anything for any man, but she found herself drawn to him in spite of herself. She knew from the moment he noticed her at Helen’s debut that he was interested, but she had been smitten enough with Eric that she never considered another man. Then in Atlanta, when she was bodice-deep in corpses and searching for Eric’s, he had been a helpmeet while he recovered from his injuries. The day she’d given Eric up for lost, there had been sorrow on his face and sympathy over her loss, even when he loved her as well, as he put her on the train to Alabama.

  Somerset was forced from her thoughts by a light knock on the door. Ivy Garrett, daughter of their closest neighbor, appeared in the doorway with a cluster of her mother’s famous tea roses.

  “I’m here early, I know, but Mother sent you these flowers for your hair. They’re only buds, but she thought you might like a little color.”

  Ivy had been out of mourning for a year and was perceptive of Somerset’s desire to be out of black. Ivy wore a dress the color of ripe plums bedecked with cascading bows of gold. Even under the harsh light from the western window with her black hair, moonlit skin, and dark gray eyes, she looked luminous.

  Ivy nodded at the picture in Somerset’s hand.

  “I miss him, too.”

  “I’ve thought of Eric more since Joseph was injured. It took me back to when Joseph had to convalesce at home for a few months after Eric was killed. No matter what happens, I never put Eric’s memory far from me, but when I come under fire from a crisis, I have to make peace with the loss all over again.”

  “He would hate that you’re suffering.”

  “He never could stand to see me sad, but at least I’ve suffered for a good cause this time. I went to the cemetery today to talk to Eric about some ideas I’ve been sorting through, but I couldn’t summon the words. I have so much to tell everyone, Ivy. It’s difficult to wait for the right moment to tell.”

 
; “Go sit at your dressing table while I pin these in your hair. I’ll be waiting to hear then. I could stand some happy news.”

  Somerset stood and crossed the room to her dressing table.

  Ivy wrung her hands and exhaled at the vision that was her friend.

  “Somerset, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”

  Somerset felt the blood rush to her face. She ducked her head in pretended modesty, her lips curving upward in a smile.

  “What a dress!”

  “Yes, it’s perfect for lounging around failing plantations on these stifling summer days,” said Somerset.

  Ivy worked the mass of buds into her low bun. Mrs. Garrett had some of the finest roses in the South. It was rumored that Jefferson Davis himself had taken cuttings back to his home after a barbeque at Maple Pool. Somerset felt the rough prickle of the leaves and baby thorns against her bare neck. The hair on her arms rose at the sensation and then it vanished.

  “There, all finished. You look like someone out of a fairytale. How beautiful you will look on your trip, my dear.”

  “Trip?”

  “To Richmond, of course.”

  “Richmond?” Somerset echoed.

  Her dropped jaw reflected in the mirror matched her tone as she turned and stared up at Ivy.

  Ivy dropped her lashes. They were onyx against her translucent skin.

  “What did you hear about Richmond?”

  “Your mother came to Maple Pool last week to borrow Momma’s steamer trunk. She said she means to go home for a visit next month.”

  “She considers Baton Rouge home, not Richmond,” interjected Somerset.

  “She said she was going home to Richmond. It is where she’s from, after all, Somerset. She might be homesick.”

  Somerset laid her ivory-backed brush on the table.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why didn’t she mention it?”

  Ivy rubbed the back of Somerset’s neck.

  “She was probably too distracted by Joseph’s illness to bring it up to anyone but your daddy. How is Joseph?”