In a Stranger's Arms Read online

  “You do, Miss Varina. You both do.” Manning took a deep breath. He didn’t want to give them unrealistic expectations. Perhaps it wasn’t in him to be a father, or even a second-rate substitute for one. “I can’t promise you’ll always like what I say or do, but I swear I’ll try to be as good to you as your own pa would if he was here. Your uncle Lon doesn’t know me very well, and—”

  “He thinks you’re mean on account of you shot at his toes,” Varina explained with exaggerated patience, as if illuminating a great mystery.

  Manning glanced at Caddie over the top of her daughter’s head. She raised her eyes heavenward as if to ask What am I going to do with this child?

  He ventured a brief smile, hoping to let her know that whatever she’d done so far was just fine.

  To Varina he replied, “I guess I’ll have to be on my best behavior for a while. To show your uncle I don’t go around shooting at folks as a rule.”

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Off in the distance Manning glimpsed fine old houses scourged by the tide of war. If his plans for Sabbath Hollow took shape as he wanted them to, Manning hoped it might be a catalyst to revive this whole section of the county.

  Now that he and Caddie were married, he would have to get busy putting his plan into effect. After the previous night’s tense vigil and the momentous events of the day, however, all Manning wanted to do was throw himself onto some excuse for a bed and sleep long and deeply.

  “Ham and grits for supper,” announced Caddie when the buckboard pulled up at Sabbath Hollow. “Tem, take your sister and go collect me some kindling for the fire.”

  “Can we take Sergeant with us, sir?” the boy asked Manning.

  “That’s what he’s here for, Son. To go around with you two and look out for you.”

  Manning jumped from the wagon and hurried around to help the womenfolk down, When Caddie’s hand, coarsened by work but still slender and graceful, made contact with his, a queer sensation traveled all the way up his arm.

  He let go abruptly and turned to speak to the boy. “He’s your dog now, Templeton. You don’t have to call him Sergeant if you have another name you like better.”

  Remembering what Caddie had told him about boarding Union officers in Richmond, Manning doubted that anything military would have pleasant associations for her children. “I just called him that on account of my sergeant used to have a beard about the color of this fellow’s coat.”

  “Sergeant’s a good name.”

  The dog swiped his tongue over Templeton’s fingers as though acknowledging the compliment.

  Tem chuckled. “He’s like a soldier, standing guard over us. Come on, Rina, let’s get the wood for Mama to cook supper.”

  “Ham and grits and ham and grits, ham and grits, ham and grits...” sang Varina as she marched off with her brother.

  She was still singing it more than an hour later when they sat down to eat and later still when it came time for bed.

  Templeton gazed at Sergeant with wistful eyes when his mother forbade him taking the animal to sleep in his room.

  “He needs to stay outside so he can keep watch, Tem.” Caddie pointed her son toward the stairs.

  “Then can I sleep outside with him?” Before his mother could answer, Tem turned to Manning. “Can I, sir?”

  Manning glanced from the boy’s hopeful face to his mother’s. “Would it be so terrible if Sergeant slept at the foot of the boy’s bed for this one night? It’s the children I bought him to guard in the first place.”

  “Yahoo! Thanks, sir. Come on, Sarge.” Flashing Manning a grateful grin, Templeton raced up the stairs as fast as his skinny legs would carry him.

  The dog scrambled after his master, paws scratching against the bare wood of the stairs.

  Before Manning could properly savor his stepson’s felicity, Caddie swept past him. Her tight-lipped glare made him feel like some vermin who’d invaded her house.

  He frowned back. Was it such a crime to have made the boy happy? The house was a mess, anyway. A whole pack of dogs running loose couldn’t have made it a whit worse. Besides, this might go a ways to allaying any fears Templeton might harbor about the treatment he could expect from his stepfather.

  Thrusting the whole incident to the back of his mind, Manning busied himself with a few small repair jobs around the house while Caddie put the children to bed. Sabbath Hollow would need a lot of labor and care to make it anything like it had once been. The only way to get there would be one job at a time in every minute he could spare.

  By the time Caddie came back downstairs, Manning was losing the struggle to keep his eyes open.

  “I made up a bed for you.” She spoke in a frost-crusted voice, staring steadily at some object just behind him “Third door on the left at the top of the stairs. I got the linen out of an old trunk in the attic. It smells awful musty, I’m afraid, but I’ll wash it tomorrow.”

  Manning turned toward the stairs. “It has to beat an old army blanket and a tree trunk. Thank you for making the bed up—you needn’t have gone to any trouble.”

  He had not climbed far when Caddie’s voice stalled him “Is it true what Lon said?”

  His head rocked with weariness and his body ached in strange ways from being so close to her. The day’s events had roused his emotions to a pitch he usually took care to avoid. He was tired of being called and thought a Yankee and a carpetbagger.

  As Manning spun around and thundered back down the stairs to face his unclaimed bride, his anger flashed like a photographer’s phosphorous. “Did you not listen to what I told the children, or did you think I was lying to them? I’ve given you no reason to think I’d ever mistreat Templeton and Varina. Just because I wasn’t born in the South doesn’t mean I’m some kind of criminal!”

  “No, no!” She clapped a hand to her lips and moved toward Manning, stopping so close to him he could have reached out and touched her.

  If he’d dared.

  Her slender fingers fluttered down her lips, coming to rest on her chin. “I didn’t mean about the children. It’s the other. About getting out of our marriage if I didn’t... if we didn’t...”

  “Oh, that.” Manning’s anger ebbed, but the strange agitation lingered.

  Her nearness disturbed him. The queer look in her eye, half frightened, half curious, disturbed him. The subject of her question disturbed him most of all.

  “I can’t claim much knowledge of these matters.” He stepped back from her. “But I don’t think your brother-in-law is lying. An unconsummated marriage can be dissolved.”

  “Then must we...?” She hugged her arms tightly around herself, as if protecting her bosom.

  Manning didn’t want to think about her bosom.

  She tried again. “You said we wouldn’t need to...”

  “And you think because I’m a Yankee I must have bamboozled you into wedding with false promises?” Manning shook his head. “I haven’t. Nobody needs to know our... sleeping arrangements but us. This can be a kind of insurance policy for you, if you decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth to keep around.”

  “You mean it?” She seemed to sway on her feet, but whether from relief or exhaustion, Manning wasn’t sure.

  “I do.” It was the second time he’d spoken those words to her in the last several hours.

  Would he be able to keep from blurting them out a third time if she asked him one short, simple question?

  Do you want me?

  It wasn’t as though she wanted a Yankee carpetbagger in her bed, Caddie told herself as she tossed and turned on her musty sheets. So why had her flutter of panic been accompanied by another flutter in that secret spot, deeper than the pit of her belly? Why had her sigh of relief also quivered with a faint note of regret?

  Because he reminds you of Del, reason informed her, like a schoolmarm impatient with the class dunce. You’re back in Del’s home with Del’s children, married to a man who bears a strong resemblance to him.

  Of cours
e. Caddie chuckled softly to herself as she rolled over again. Considered in that light, it was only natural she’d think about the things a husband and wife did together in the dark, private moments before sleep.

  But to think of them with a tremble of longing? Caddie lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, where shadowy moonbeams danced. She’d never taken much pleasure from those hasty, demanding marital encounters with Del. She was pretty certain proper-bred ladies weren’t supposed to.

  A few times she had sensed the potential for enjoyment in Del’s probing caresses of her bare skin, in his hurried thrusting between her legs. Before it could develop into anything more than a vague pulse in her loins, Del had always made one last grunting jab into her and rolled off, snoring.

  One of the most painful shards of memory from the day she’d caught Del and Lydene in bed together was the sound of that vulgar creature. Giggling, purring and panting—obviously relishing Del’s carnal attentions. More shameful still, Del had sounded as though he was enjoying himself far better than he ever had in his lawful marriage bed.

  How Caddie wished she could forget about it all and go to sleep!

  Thanks to the man resting peacefully in the next room, she couldn’t forget. Like a toothache, those sordid, painful memories gnawed at her until nearly dawn. And when that strutting old he-creature of a rooster began to trumpet the rising sun, Caddie very nearly ran outside to ring his neck. To blazes with what he cost and how much they needed him to start a brood of chicks!

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to extract a few moments of true rest from the night. Then the dog barked from the nursery. Caddie jammed the lumpy, threadbare pillow over her head to shut out the noise and almost suffocated from the dank odor. When she came up gasping for air, the dog had quieted, but her new husband was stirring in the room next door.

  “Is there some kind of male conspiracy afoot to deprive me of a decent night’s rest?” Caddie grumbled to herself as she rose and dressed.

  She stripped the musty linens from her bed, then marched out the door. There she collided with Mr. Forbes, who had just emerged from his room.

  “Oh, glory be!” Caddie stumbled over one of his long feet.

  Manning caught her. The cloth of her dress had grown so flimsy, she could feel the heat of his large, strong hands through it. Where he touched her, it burned.

  Or did it itch?

  Manning Forbes might be a stranger, but he was also her husband. If he made up his mind to lay hands on her, he’d be well within his rights. She had only his word that their marital arrangement stopped short of the bedroom door.

  The word of a Yankee, Caddie had never expected to see the day when she’d be prepared to rely on that. Was Lon right? Had she lost her mind, agreeing to this marriage?

  “Pardon me!”

  “My fault. I should have been watching....”

  They fumbled apart. Both blushing. Neither making more than fleeting eye contact.

  This arrangement had sounded so easy and practical when Mr. Forbes had advanced it yesterday. In the intimate light of early morning, Caddie realized it would be anything but. In fact, she suspected it was going to be mighty awkward. Today and for a long time to come.

  “You slept well, I hope.” She plastered herself back against the wall, the bundle of bedding held like a shield in front of her.

  “Fine.” The shadows under his eyes told a different story. “And you?”

  “Very well, thanks.” If he could lie about it, so could she.

  “I’ll get some coffee from my pack and brew us a pot, shall I?” Manning asked as they descended the stairs.

  “You fetch the coffee. I’ll make it.” Eager as she was for a cup, somehow the notion of a Yankee blundering around in her kitchen didn’t sit right with her. “Then I’ll go check if the hens have laid.”

  “I can do that for you.” Manning Forbes passed Caddie a small sack of coffee beans, then headed for the door.

  “No!”

  The questioning, anxious look on the Yankee’s face reproached her in a way no words could have done. She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but she’d already accepted more of his help than her pride could tolerate.

  “I’ll see to breakfast.” Caddie struggled to blunt the sharpness that crept into her voice. “In the meantime, could I prevail upon you to chop me some firewood?”

  “Yes, of course.” His whole bearing radiated eagerness to be of service. “I’ll get Templeton to help me.”

  An anxious whimper rose unbidden from Caddie’s throat.

  “Yes?” Manning Forbes shot her a swift glance.

  It galled her to admit weakness in herself or her kin, especially to a Yankee. Concern for her little boy did battle with her pride and left it a bloody wreck.

  “Don’t expect too much of Templeton, please. He never was a very forward child and he had a hard time growing up through the war. So many frights. So many worries. Varina never knew anything else, so she took it all as a matter of course. She’ll sleep like a log anywhere and eat what doesn’t eat her first.”

  Manning chuckled as he headed out the back door. “She seems a very self-reliant little mite.”

  “Oh, she’s all of that. And it was a blessing while we were in Richmond. I don’t know how I could have managed with two high-strung children.” Caddie had no intention of confiding in a Yankee, but somehow she couldn’t help herself. “It’s going to be uphill work making a proper lady of her, though.”

  Manning found out just what Caddie meant later that morning when he and Templeton were scavenging for deadwood to split.

  They had pulled a fallen maple trunk clear of some underbrush when a series of piercing shrieks rent the air. Manning had heard nothing like them since the battlefield amputations at Antietam. Sergeant began to bark wildly.

  Had an intruder broken into the house and attacked Caddie and Varina? Manning dropped his hatchet.

  “Stay here, Son!” He glanced at Templeton then bolted for the house.

  Strangely, the boy did not look a bit perturbed.

  “Mr. Forbes, sir,” Templeton called out, barely audible over the screaming and the barking. He didn’t sound perturbed, either. “That’s prob’ly just Rina getting her hair combed.”

  Manning slowed his desperate scramble and looked back at the boy. “Are you sure?”

  Templeton nodded, petting the dog to calm it “She takes on like this every time Mama combs her hair.”

  The ferocity of the caterwauling had not abated. Manning found it hard to believe the child wasn’t being butchered with a dull meat ax.

  “I’ll just go see if I can help any.”

  The boy looked dubious. “I’d stay clear if I was you.” Manning kept walking toward the house, though his gut tightened way down deep, a sensation he recalled from the tense hours before battle.

  He found Caddie and her daughter in a large room that must have once been a fine parlor. At some time before or during the war, it had been stripped of furnishings right down to the curtains. Once likely spread with luxurious rugs, the hardwood floor now hid its proud face under a carpet of grime many layers thick.

  In the corner beside an impressive fireplace, Caddie had managed to corral her daughter. Now she held the struggling child tightly around the waist, while her other hand raked a comb through Varina’s rusty mane. Manning winced as he watched the little girl’s sturdy heel collide with her mother’s knee. Wrestling a yearling hog would have been easier.

  Varina’s raucous protests echoed off the bare expanses of wall, ceiling and floor, making them sound even louder.

  If he had any sense, he’d heed Templeton’s warning and steal away again. But he couldn’t bear to let any opportunity to help escape him.

  Manning sucked in a deep breath, and when the child paused briefly for air, he bellowed, “That’s quite enough, young lady!”

  Thanks to battlefield promotions, he’d mustered out of the army a captain. He’d had to learn how to put the fear of God int
o his subordinates when necessary. Now he put on his sternest face of command. “What is the meaning of all this commotion? I thought someone was being murdered!”

  Mother and child froze in a comic tableau, their eyes wide and mouths round.

  Caddie recovered her wits first. “Don’t pay any mind. Varina always takes on like this when I comb her hair—and near as bad when I wash her face. I don’t care how our family fortunes have fallen, I won’t have my child traipsing around like some little cracker gal!”

  She seemed to be addressing this last part to the child, but the resentment in her voice suggested that he, being the nearest Yankee at hand, was personally responsible for her daughter’s deficiencies in grooming.

  Varina thrust out her lower lip and scowled. “I bet Aunt Lydene wouldn’t comb my hair or wash my face.”

  “You are not too big to paddle, young lady!”

  “Combs hurt!”

  ‘‘If you wouldn’t squirm so, I could take my time and be gentle. Besides, you never take a scrap of notice when you fall and bloody your knee.”

  “No call to cry after it’s over.”

  Manning almost choked on suppressed laughter. By will, he dragged down the corners of his mouth. “Ladies, ladies. That’ll be quite enough. Templeton and I could use your help gathering wood, Varina, but if your hair is flying wild it’ll get caught in the twigs. That’ll hurt worse than your mother’s comb.”

  The child’s pout grudgingly twisted into a grin.

  “May I have the comb, please?” Manning held out his hand.

  “I’m fully capable of dressing my own daughter’s hair, sir.”

  “Not without raising the roof in the process.” His palm remained where it was.

  Caddie looked ready to protest again, but instead she handed over the comb. Her wry look asked if he was man enough to tackle the job he’d set himself.

  Though he tried to appear confident, deep down Manning had his doubts. What if he bungled the whole thing? What if he made such a mess of it that Varina took it into her determined little head to run off to her uncle?

  As his hand closed over the comb, his fingers suddenly felt like enormous sausages, far too big and clumsy to assay the delicate operation of grooming a little girl. He might not have any experience with children, Manning conceded, but he’d once owned a wildly spirited mare who’d resented being curried.