In a Stranger's Arms Page 4

  The moon’s ghostly visage seemed to mock him. If only it could be that simple! What if the widow took it into her head to marry someone else, by and by? And what if that someone mistreated her or the children? Manning would have no right to take their part then, either. The thought of such helplessness tied his belly in knots.

  Vivid recollections of Caddie Marsh bedeviled other parts of his body, much to Manning’s shame. The flickering caress of candlelight coaxing her hair to a coppery glow, softening the ravages of hardship from her features. The intensity of her gray-green gaze both times he’d caught her watching him. There had been a queer, mute intimacy in the looks they’d exchanged—almost like a touch.

  No other woman had affected him so. That this one did made Manning want to fling himself in the saddle and ride north as if the three-headed hound of Hades was baying at his heels. But his pledge bound him to her, like it or not.

  With dawn not far off, he’d brewed coffee to warm and wake himself. On a whim, he’d stolen down to the old mansion in the hollow and left a pot for Caddie Marsh to find. He’d half expected her to chase him off with his own rifle, but when he reached the back step unchallenged, worry snaked through his gut. He couldn’t stay awake every night to keep watch over them.

  So Manning had saddled up his horse and ridden into the nearest settlement, Mercer’s Corner. Midmorning found him wending his way back down the lane to Sabbath Hollow, with his saddlebags bulging and a lean, ugly dog loping behind his horse on a tether. Sometime during the past restless night and fatigue-addled daybreak, he’d made up his mind to match the fair widow stubborn for stubborn until she agreed to his proposal.

  She looked as intractable as ever when he first caught sight of her wrestling a big trunk out onto the verandah. She looked disturbingly fair, too, with rebellious tendrils of auburn hair escaping from their sedate, orderly arrangement to curl around her face. A face rosy from her exertions.

  Manning braced himself to be ordered away and scolded for returning after last night.

  Instead, Caddie Marsh approached him without a word, the pink hue of her face deepening. Hands fluttering as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them. Eyes downcast, unwilling to meet his gaze.

  Emboldened, Manning swung out of his saddle and doffed his hat. “Morning, ma’am. I trust you and your children weren’t disturbed in the night.”

  No matter how badly she might want him gone, Southern gentility prevailed. “We’re fine, Mr. Forbes, thank you. You’ve decided to move on, I see.”

  Did she sound just the tiniest bit regretful?

  “I expect you’ve come to collect your rifle,” she continued. “It was kind of you to give me the loan of it last night. I suppose I have you to thank for the coffee, as well.”

  It stuck in her craw, being beholden to a former enemy; Manning sensed it as plainly as if she’d screamed the words in his face. Somehow he must convince her that a business and personal partnership between them would be a favor from her to him, not the other way around.

  Before he could tell her she was welcome for the rifle and the coffee, Caddie Marsh looked up. The green blaze in her eyes belied her modestly composed features. “I won’t be bought.”

  “Bought?” The word spewed out of him. “Of course not! How can you think such a thing?”

  “After Richmond fell, I saw plenty of women sell themselves to the Yankees, Mr. Forbes. They’d have rather died first, but they did it to keep their children alive. I was lucky enough to have a house still standing. With shelter at a premium, I only had to board Yankee officers, not bed them.”

  Was she trying to shock him into going away and leaving her alone? Manning felt the blood rise in his face until his cheeks tingled. God bless him, he must be the color of a pickled beet!

  No wonder she’d turned down his marriage offer. He knew so clearly what he wanted from her that he’d assumed she must understand, too. Apparently she’d drawn different conclusions.

  “I wasn’t making that kind of bargain when I asked you to marry me, Mrs. Marsh.” A quiver in his loins warned Manning that he wished he was.

  “You weren’t?” Her face betrayed surprise and bewilderment.

  “Not now.” He stifled a vision that rose in his mind of candlelight flickering over Caddie Marsh wearing only a lace-trimmed nightgown, her mahogany hair unbound in a cascade of curls down her back. “Not ever.”

  “I...” She scanned the ground at his feet as if searching there for the words she needed.

  Manning gave her the opportunity to collect herself. “I need to marry you for legal reasons, ma’am, to protect my interest in Sabbath Hollow. Once I start fixing it up, I’d have to spend long hours out here. I expect you know how folks talk. I wouldn’t want to compromise your reputation—especially now that I know all you had to do to preserve it.”

  “I see. So you wouldn’t expect me to—”

  “I wouldn’t.” He cut her off rather than risk hearing her say aloud what he proposed to deny himself. “I’ll take a bed wherever you can spare one in the house. It’ll just be like taking in another boarder.”

  “And my children?”

  “I won’t be a husband to you, Mrs. Marsh, but I will do my best to be a good stepfather to them, if you’ll give me leave.” He sensed a subtle shift in her bearing that might bode well.

  Manning decided to press his advantage. “I mean to come asking every day until you say yes, ma’am. I hope your reason will get the best of your resentment against the Union. You need a man around the place, and unless you’ve changed your mind about your brother-in-law’s invitation, men aren’t in very abundant supply around here.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Her abrupt question bit into him, like a willow switch.

  Manning hung his head. “I didn’t kill all of ’em, ma’am.”

  Was he voicing his protest to her, or to himself?

  He heard her suck in a breath. “Of course you didn’t, Mr. Forbes. I can’t picture you doing anyone violence.” Manning flinched as though he’d taken a second strike directly on top of the first.

  “What’s the fish man doing here?’’

  Manning almost burst into giddy laughter at the child’s imperious query, for it extracted him from an unbearably awkward exchange with her mother.

  “He’s come courting Mama,” replied her brother in a tentative tone that left Manning unsure whether the boy approved or not.

  Caddy Marsh whirled around. “Templeton and Varina Marsh, how long have you been eavesdropping? Now that we’re back home, I’m going to have to polish your manners, I can see that”

  “What’s courting?” demanded Varina.

  Templeton nudged his sister to be quiet “We haven’t been here long, Mama, honest. I thought you’d hear us coming.”

  “What’s courting?”

  Mrs. Marsh relented in the face of her son’s chagrin. “Next time, make a noise or call out from a distance before you can hear what folks are saying. That’s what a gentleman would do.”

  “What’s courting!”

  Manning fought back a grin. Dropping to his haunches, he looked at the little mite eye-to-eye. Something about her steely gaze put him in mind of General Sherman. “Courting means I’ve asked your mama to marry me, Miss Varina.”

  “What’s marry?”

  Before Manning could reply, Templeton spoke. “Shucks, Rina, don’t be such a baby. Marry means he’d live with us and be our new pa.” The boy’s tone sounded anxious, but whether from fear or eagerness, Manning couldn’t tell for certain.

  “And we’d have fish for supper every night?”

  “Varina Virginia Marsh!” cried her mother.

  Surrendering to his own amusement, Manning chuckled. By the sound of it, he had a potential ally in his campaign to make Caddie Marsh his wife. An ally of considerable determination.

  “I can’t promise fish every night, Miss Varina. You might get sick of it if I did. But I can hunt possum and quail. Maybe buy a sow to raise shoats f
or barbecue.”

  “What’s barbecue?”

  “Something you’ll enjoy, unless I miss my guess.”

  Abandoning her interrogation for the moment, the child looked up at her mother. “Did you tell him yes, Mama?”

  “I—I have to study on it, Varina.” Caddie’s cheeks pinkened and she cast Manning a glance that might have held bashfulness or resentment. Possibly a compound of both. “A lady shouldn’t accept a gentleman’s proposal right off. That’d be too forward.”

  Manning almost chuckled again. The woman made it sound like he was some sort of gallant beau and she a blushing debutante culminating their lengthy courtship.

  “Your mama’s right, Miss Varina. Marriage is a big step folks oughtn’t to rush into.” He straightened from his crouch. “I’m content to bide my time until she makes up her mind.”

  From behind his sister, Templeton spoke in a quiet, wistful tone. “That’s a nice dog you got there, sir.”

  Manning glanced back. Though the poor beast was anything but handsome, it had behaved well during his talk with Mrs. Marsh. Perhaps he’d tuckered it out trotting back from town. It lay in the shadow of his horse, panting softly.

  “He’s not mine, Son. I brought him for you folks. An out-of-the-way plantation like this needs a good watchdog.”

  With wary incredulity, the boy looked from Manning to the scarecrow mongrel.

  “I think he’s hot and thirsty,” said Manning. “Would you and your sister do me a favor and take him to get a drink?”

  “All right” Varina answered for her brother, but it was Templeton who lunged forward to take the rope tether from Manning’s hand.

  Caddie Marsh watched her children as they walked away with the dog—Templeton holding on to the end of the rope, Varina’s sturdy fingers fisted through the loop around the animal’s neck. The dog’s tail picked up momentum with each step, wagging from side to side. It seemed pitifully grateful to have found a home.

  Manning envied that scruffy old mutt with all his heart.

  “That was very thoughtful of you, Mr. Forbes.” Mrs. Marsh nodded after Tem and Varina. “Templeton’s always wanted a dog of his own, and I’d feel a good deal safer with a watchdog around the place. But I’m going to have trouble keeping the children and myself fed. That poor creature needs a master who can afford to take proper care of him.”

  “I’ll furnish whatever he needs, Mrs. Marsh. With the Sergeant on guard duty, I can get some sleep at nights.”

  The carpetbagger’s words rocked Caddie back on her heels. “You stayed awake all last night keeping watch on this house?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Manning Forbes turned his hat round and round by the brim, looking for all the world like a petty criminal confessing his misdeed to the justice.

  “That makes two of us.” Caddie yawned just thinking about it.

  Though he struggled to suppress it, a yawn overtook the Yankee, too.

  Perhaps that exhaustion had sapped her will, making her too tired to resist. Too tired to hate.

  By herself, she’d barely be able to scratch out a living at Sabbath Hollow for her children. Manning Forbes had the wherewithal to make it something again. Tem and Varina needed a man in their lives—a soft-spoken, generous man to make them forget the Yankee officers in Richmond.

  The kind of marriage he offered was one she might succeed at. One uncomplicated by double-sided emotions like love and passion. As she grew more familiar with Manning Forbes, surely his bewildering likeness to Del would fade and her unsettling fascination for him would dim.

  Manning Forbes admitted another good deed. “I took the liberty of bringing a few things from town that I thought you might need, ma’am. You’re welcome to them whether you say yes or no to my proposal.”

  He appeared bent on putting her in his debt. For pride’s sake and for Tem and Varina’s future, she must repay him with the only currency left to her.

  “Yes,” gasped Caddie before she lost her nerve.

  He didn’t seem to understand what she was telling him. “I’ll just shift these supplies into your kitchen, then, shall I, ma’am?”

  “Yes!”

  He turned to his horse and began unloading his saddlebags.

  “Yes, Mr. Forbes. Yes, I’ll marry you. If you’re stubborn enough to keep asking until I agree, I’m smart enough not to delay the inevitable.”

  He froze with his back to her. When he turned again, his face had paled to the gray-white of ash. A barb of disappointment snagged Caddie’s heart. Despite his protestations that their marriage would be for the sake of business and propriety only, she’d expected him to greet her answer a bit more eagerly. If only so he wouldn’t have to spend another night sleeping out-of-doors.

  “That’s fine then.” His voice sounded hollow. Haunted. “If you want to break the news to your children, I’ll harness the mare so we can all ride into town and hunt up a preacher.”

  An hour later, Caddie found herself standing before the Methodist parson in Mercer’s Corner making promises she’d sworn never to make again. She tried to steel herself for the stares she’d get when her neighbors discovered she’d wed a Yankee carpetbagger.

  By contrast, she could hardly wait to see the look on her brother-in-law’s face when he heard about her marriage.

  Chapter Four

  “CADDIE’S GONE AND done what?” As Alonzo Marsh glared at Manning, the muscles of his aristocratic jaw stretched so tight they looked ready to twitch.

  On the way home from their hasty wedding, Manning and his new family had stopped by Hemlock Grove to drop off the rest of Lon and Lydene’s belongings.

  Manning resisted a nagging urge to grin over the drawling Virginian’s obvious agitation. “I’ll say it again, louder, if your hearing’s poor, Mr. Marsh.”

  He raised his voice, exaggerating each word. “Your sister-in-law and I got married in Mercer’s Corner half an hour ago.”

  “I heard you the first time, Yankee!” Lon ground his heel onto the faintly smoking length of cigar that had fallen from his mouth. “I don’t know what kind of tricks or threats you used to drag that fool gal in front of a parson, but I warn you, you’re going to regret meddling with my family and my property.”

  “My family, now.” Saying those words made Manning almost dizzy. Yet they tasted so sweet on his tongue, he could not resist saying them again. “My family and my wife’s property. Meddle with either and you’ll have cause to regret it.”

  Lon’s pale eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared, as if they couldn’t drag enough air in to stoke the furnace of his fury.

  “You don’t know who you’re messing with, Yankee.” His voice was quiet, but harsh with hate. Manning knew better than to underestimate the danger this man might pose.

  “Neither do you, Marsh. So why don’t we agree to stay clear of each other? I can’t speak for you, but I’ve just about had my fill of fighting.”

  The Virginian’s mouth turned up at the corners, but no one would be fool enough to mistake it for a smile. “I’m just getting warmed up, Yankee.”

  Over Manning’s shoulder, he called to the children in the wagon. “If this carpetbagger here treats you bad, you two just light out to your uncle Lon, you hear? You’ll always have a good home waiting for you with me and Lydene.”

  Not once during the war, when it had been his duty to shoot and kill his fellow Americans, had Manning Forbes wanted so desperately to do another man injury. His hands balled into hard, tight fists at his sides. They trembled with his yearning to batter Lon Marsh’s handsome, contemptuous face. Clinging to his self-control, Manning forced himself to turn his back on the Virginian and stalk off to the buckboard.

  He glanced at Caddie’s ashen face as he vaulted onto the wagon seat, then flicked the reins over the mare’s skinny rump. Had Lon’s words spawned greater doubts about the wisdom of wedding him? Surely she hadn’t paid any heed to that venomous slander about him mistreating the children?

  “What’s a carpetbagger?” asked
Varina as the buckboard rattled away from her uncle’s place. She perched on her mother’s lap, while Templeton sat wedged between the adults, with the dog huddled at his feet.

  “It’s a very nasty word,” replied Caddie before Manning could collect himself to reply. “I’ll wash your mouths out with soap if I ever hear you or Templeton repeat it. Is that understood, Varina Marsh?”

  From behind them, Lon hollered, “At least have the sense to keep him out of your bed, Caddie! Then you’ll be able to get out of this fool marriage when you come to your senses. Have you thought what Del would say if he knew you’d brought a Yankee to live under his roof?”

  “Ya!” Manning urged the old horse to greater speed, fleeing Lon’s barrage of poisoned missiles.

  Was it his sensitive imagination, or did he feel Templeton edging away from him? The boy’s hand passed over and over the back of the dog in a rhythm perhaps intended to soothe himself.

  Almost too quietly to be heard, the little fellow murmured, “You won’t treat Varina and me bad, will you, sir?”

  “Templeton Randolph Marsh!” cried his mother. “You apologize this minute for asking such a question.”

  Beneath the scrupulous Southern civility, Manning heard a faint note of doubt in her voice. Nothing Alonzo Marsh could say would have the power to wound him like this mute shadow of uneasiness from Caddie.

  “Don’t scold the boy, ma’am.” Manning wondered if he’d ever bring himself to speak her Christian name. He certainly couldn’t call her Mrs. Marsh anymore. And Mrs. Forbes would sound vaguely blasphemous to him. “It’s an important question and he has a right to know the answer.”

  “So do I,” insisted Varina.

  For the first time since they’d driven onto Lon Marsh’s property, Manning felt his brooding ill-temper begin to lift. He had no experience of little girls, yet he sensed this one was out of the common. He was pretty sure he liked the difference.