Little Love Affair (Southern Romance Series, #1)

by Lexy Timms

  She did not care. She turned, hiked up her skirts, and ran for Jasper. She had been wrong, she would tell him. None of it mattered. If he could take her away from all of this, none of it would matter. Even if all he could give her was one last kiss, a moment of heady pleasure, she would take it. She had to see him again.

  As she reached the cabin, she slowed. Voices sounded within, raised in anger. Clara frowned, something tugging at her memory. It sounded...

  It sounded like Solomon.

  It could not be. Holding her breath, she picked up her skirts and crept closer to listen.

  Chapter 15

  “You’re Solomon Dalton?” Jasper stared incredulously at his friend.

  “Yes,” the man admitted.

  “You’re Clara’s brother.” This could not be real.

  “Yes.” Horace’s face was white, but he nodded resolutely.

  “The man they’re mourning down there on the farm? The man they were told, today, was dead? You’re him?” His heart gave a twist. “And you heard—you heard her say you were gone.”

  “I...” Horace sank his face into his hands.

  “That’s why you couldn’t let her see you. Why you told me we shouldn’t be here. I thought your family were sympathizers! I thought...”

  “No,” the man whispered.

  That meant...

  “You marched with the Union army, and you turned traitor.” Jasper looked away to stare into the flames.

  “I couldn’t let you die! You’re a good man, Jasper! You’ve always been a good man, I could see it in a moment. When I left, I-I was sure I was going to die. I don’t know how to tell you so you can understand, but before I left, I saw it in my dreams a hundred times. When I didn’t, it felt like it should be for something that I survived. I was such a coward and I wanted...I wanted to understand what you were fighting for.”

  “Now you think you do?” Jasper could barely speak for disgust.

  “Yes,” the man said softly.

  “What do you think you know about us? We shared our rations with you, we—”

  “I fought with you! I killed my countrymen! I wasn’t a spy, Jasper. I had lost my way. I wanted something to believe in.”

  “You studied us like we were animals at a carnival!” Jasper yelled back. “And now you think you know something about the cause. So what is it? What do you think you know?”

  “That we were lied to.”

  “By the generals?” A thing he had told himself, and yet to hear it from a Yankee turncoat’s lips was more than he could stand. “We’re not fools, Horace.” Horace. His father’s name. “Solomon. Whoever you are. We knew the generals lied about how it would be.”

  “It wasn’t just them! Think of the landowners, the bankers. They talked about a society without pain, with everyone in their natural place. But you know the men in power can never see beyond their money.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  “It’s the same in the North, Jasper!” Solomon’s chest was heaving. “It is. Liars in black suits, only they’re running mills instead of farms. All of it profits off someone else—your generals were right about that. This world seems to need someone who works for nothing.”

  “You said they were liars, and now you say they’re right?” Jasper tipped his head back against the wall. He should walk away. Traitors were not worth the breath for argument.

  But this was Horace. Never in all his dreams would Jasper have thought it could come to this. He had thought there was a debt he could never repay, and now the world was turned upside down. He had saved Horace, and he was not sure he should have done so.

  “They’re right.” Horace’s eyes burned into him. “Every society has its poor. But they’re liars too, and you know I’m right about that. You’ve worked with William.”

  “And?” Jasper challenged him.

  “They told you he was meant to do work as a slave, that he’s an inferior to you in every way. Can you look me in the eyes and tell me they’re right, after knowing him?”

  “Yes!” Jasper shot back. He looked away, hands clenched. “...No,” he admitted.

  He slid down the wall, sank his head into his hands. Clear-eyed, polite, joking with the others. William was like any man Jasper might have known in his hometown. He spoke with the drawl that Jasper missed so much. More than once, Jasper had caught himself thanking the man for things that would be...expected. Beyond manners, in his hometown. He had pushed away the unsettling thought that treating William that way made more sense than treating him as a slave.

  “Do you know what they did to him?” Horace asked. He sank to his knees, still shaking, his eyes boring into Jasper’s.

  “Don’t,” Jasper whispered, but Horace did not stop.

  “Look at his back someday, Jasper. He’s a runaway. We’ve sheltered him for years, and he told me stories. His daughter was sold away from him when she was five years old. Her name was Annabelle.”

  “Stop it!”

  “You know he’s as human as you and I.” Horace was relentless.

  “What do you want me to say?” Jasper cried at last.

  “I want you to see that it’s all a lie! That they’re meant to be slaves, that they’re happy, all of it. I know you’ve been thinking it. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “You think your generals have some grand truth?”

  “They’re liars too.” Horace’s thin face was dark with anger. “The rich rule us, no matter which side we fight on. But slavery, Jasper...it’s built on lies.”

  “Then what’s the answer? Your mills? Beggars in the streets, workers not even fed and housed?” He turned the speeches around and threw them at his friend. He’d heard stories of the northern towns.

  “Have you heard nothing I’ve said?” Horace snapped, but he sighed, ran his fingers through the long, lank hair. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. I just know what I was looking for when I brought you back, that surety, everyone with a place in the world and a world without pain—it isn’t real. It isn’t an answer.” There were tears in his eyes. “I’m such a fool. I knew William and I still wanted to believe it. I let my family believe I was dead. I betrayed a friend, and for what?”

  They looked away from one another, and Jasper clenched his teeth to keep a yell of pain back. This was more hurt than he had known he could feel. He wanted to go back home, to...

  To a world built on lies? He did not want to believe Horace, and yet the words were sinking into his consciousness with a sickening rightness. Had he always known? Had he suspected? He could not bear to think of it. When Clara was so shocked that he was an honorable man...was she right to be? His memories of the battlefield, already tinged with regret and futility, were enough now to make him ill.

  It should not make him feel better that Horace was also wracked with shame—but it did.

  “You saved my life,” Jasper said finally. “Maybe that was why.”

  “And you saved mine.” Solomon looked down at his hands.

  “Clara saved your life,” Jasper corrected.

  “So did you. Clara...” Solomon’s voice trailed away into a weak laugh and a cough. He winced, holding his shoulder. “In another world, there’s not any other man I’d wish to see marry her.”

  “In another world.”

  “It can’t be.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Jasper demanded. “I’m well aware that we have no future, believe me.”

  “It isn’t right,” Solomon whispered.

  “Don’t.” Jasper cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I can’t speak of it.”

  There was a silence, wind in the trees and rustling in the underbrush.

  “I have to go, don’t I?” Solomon asked finally.

  “Are you mad?” Jasper whispered. “They want nothing more than for you to come home.”

  “As a hero, not a traitor! How can I face them? It would hurt them more than to think I was dead.”

  “What then? Is your plan to g
o back to the south? They won’t have you.”

  “I could go north. New York. Boston.”

  “Horace... Solomon. You have to tell them you’re alive.”

  That was when they heard the branch break. Solomon sat bolt upright, his face gone pale, and Jasper ran to the door and wrenched it open. The figure was a shadow in the forest, running down the hill. Her dress billowed behind her, and in horror, he realized who it must be.

  “Clara!”

  “No!” Her cry was almost a scream.

  She did not slow, but he was faster than she was. He caught her at the bottom of the hill and dragged her to a stop, trying not to hurt her as she made to pull away from him.

  “You knew he was from Pennsylvania?” Rage twisted her face into a mask.

  “Yes, but I never guessed...” His voice trailed away. “I’m such a fool.”

  “You’re worse than a fool!” Her voice rose. “You’re the reason he left us, do you realize that? He said it was for you, you and your kind. He left us behind and you told him what he did was right!”

  “I never knew that was what he had done! If we knew he was Union, we would have—”

  “What, strung him up for treason, when you’re the ones fighting your own government?”

  “You don’t know! You can’t understand.”

  “What can’t I understand? I understand all of it, Jasper. I understand that your people want to keep slaves, and that you’re rebelling, and that you took my brother from me and—”

  “Clara, please, go to him.”

  “Never.” Her face was cold.

  “He realized he was wrong. You heard him, he only wanted to spare you pain, not telling you what he had done.” He was pleading with her. He could not bear his words, but the pain in her face was worse. Her brother, the one she had grieved...

  “Well, it didn’t work, did it? He took my grief and turned it into shame.”

  “Go see him.”

  “No.” She yanked her hand away from his. “He can rot in hell for what he’s done, and so can you.” Her face twisted with determination. “My mother was right, Jasper. Passion leads only to heartbreak, and you’ve shown me that now. I never wanted to marry without love, and it was you that showed me I should.”

  “What do you mean?” He was terrified to hear it, and she did not even try to cushion her words.

  “I’ll be marrying Cyrus Dupont.” She raised her chin. “I accepted his proposal tonight. I want you and my brother gone before my mother can ever learn of his shame.”

  Chapter 16

  The gown floated about her like a dream, pale blue sleeves voluminous, blue ribbon accenting her shoulders and the lining of the stomacher. Clara turned her head to watch her mother pinning the hem, flounces just high enough for the even paler blue of the underskirt to show below it.

  “Oh, Clara.” Cecelia’s eyes were wide. “You’re going to look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” Clara tried to smile at her sister where she was perched on the bed.

  Late afternoon sun gilded her golden-brown hair, and for the first time in days, Cecelia looked happy. Clara had expected storms of tears in the wake of the news, but Cecelia had been reserved, withdrawing to her room or staring quietly at her hands, not speaking. Now, at last, even though her eyes were shadowed from crying, she looked as if she might someday be happy again.

  Clara wished she could have as much peace. She could feel her face trembling. “It will be a happy day,” she murmured.

  Now if only she could believe it.

  “Cecelia.” Millicent’s voice was calm. “I think I heard the goats braying. Would you go check on them? I’m worried they’ll dig under the enclosure again.”

  “Now?” Cecelia pouted. “But I want to see the dress.”

  “I’ll try it on for you later, “Clara promised.

  Cecelia slipped out of the room with a last, final glance, and Millicent knelt calmly by her daughter’s feet until the heavy slam of the barn door let them know that she had reached the enclosure.

  “Now,” the woman said briskly. “Suppose you tell me what this is about.”

  Clara looked over, opening her mouth for a denial, and she saw her mother’s eyebrow come up.

  “No, don’t bother trying to lie. You’re miserable, girl. You’ve been miserable for days. One might even say, since you accepted Mister Dupont’s proposal.”

  “I’m not miserable,” Clara whispered. Her composure was crumbling, but she clenched her hands one under the other. The gold of an engagement ring winked back at her, and she averted her eyes.

  “Yes,” Millicent said implacably, “you are.”

  Clara buried her face in her hands. She could not speak for fear of what might burst forth. For a week she had smiled, accepted congratulations, allowed Cyrus to kiss her cheek, her mouth. She ran for the stairs when it became too much, and buried her face in the coverlet. She had hidden it so successfully that even Cecelia’s surprise had given way to happiness.

  Every day, however, it grew worse. Was this what it would be like forever? Shying away from her husband’s kiss, wanting to run after a man that had betrayed her? Bereft even of the good memories she’d had of her brother?

  “Clara, answer me honestly.” Millicent took her hands, and her voice became stern when Clara tried to turn her head. “Look at me. Tell me, are you regretting this engagement?”

  She could not admit that, or everything would come tumbling down, and she could not make herself say no. Clara shook her head tightly, but when her mother’s hands tightened on her own, she felt herself nod at last, miserably.

  “I knew I didn’t love him, and I...”

  “Girl, why on earth did you say yes?”

  “You said kindness was better than passion!” The words burst out of her in a torrent.

  Millicent sighed. “Kindness, yes. But Clara, my love, you’re miserable. You think I don’t see you crying?”

  “What else is there?” Clara whispered. “I don’t love him.” Her lip trembled. “But better him than...”

  “Than a Confederate soldier?” Millicent said.

  The bottom fell out of Clara’s stomach. She met her mother’s eyes, shaking. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew. A mother always knows. Good grief, child, do you think that when I married your father it was all honorable speeches and courting calls in the sitting room? I know what it looks like when a child sneaks back with her hair in disarray and her gown misbuttoned.” She gave a snort at Clara’s sudden blush. “And you’ve a good head on your shoulders, child, so I said nothing of it. You called it off with him, as was wise. But to shackle yourself to a man that you cannot love in any measure...”

  The tears came in a rush.

  “He was so kind,” Clara whispered.

  “Kindness is only enough if you want it to be,” her mother said sadly.

  “You said—”

  “Clara, you were so headstrong, so sure of yourself. I never dreamed you would choose a path that would bring you such pain.” Her mother sighed. “No matter. We can undo it. I can’t pretend that Cyrus will be pleased, but he will abide by your wishes.”

  “And what then?” Clara cried. “So I don’t marry Cyrus. Then who? There isn’t a man in this town that I want. I want....I want Jasper.”

  “He left, child.”

  “He’s still there.” She had looked out one night to see a fire. “Both of them are.”

  “Ah, yes, the sick one. The one whose life you saved. You know, I—” She broke off at the look on her daughter’s face. “What is it?”

  Clara stared mutely at her mother. Every moment, the truth lay in her mouth, wanting to tumble out: Solomon is alive. He’s a turncoat, a traitor. They never found his body because he ran away. And just as many times, she wanted to storm up the hill to scream her fury at him and ask him how he could dare shame them so. As always she clamped her mouth shut. She had nothing to say to Solomon any longer, and she could not hurt her mother.


  However, the truth would fester if she did not speak it, and Clara feared now that it would eat her alive. Every morning she woke with bile in her mouth and a twisting sickness in her belly. She was resentment and anger and betrayal and desire, and not a single piece of it made sense, and not a single piece of it, either, was fair.

  “You’re not with child, are you?” Millicent asked finally.

  Clara could not help herself. She laughed, bending over with her hand at her stomach, every ounce of resentment and fury coming out in hysterical whoops of laughter that would not seem to stop. She laughed until she was shaking, until she could not catch her breath, and she slumped onto the bed with her head in her hands, nearly crying with it. “No. No, and I wish was, because then I’d have at least those moments to remember. I wanted to, I won’t deny it, and now I have nothing to look forward to and nothing to remember, and I don’t even have Solomon any longer.” The laughing turned to sobs and she clenched her hands in the coverlet, rocking back and forth, Millicent at her side.

  “There’s more than you know.”

  “Tell me,” Millicent said.

  Clara hesitated, but the die was cast.

  “Solomon’s alive.” She looked away, so she would not see the leap of hope in her mother’s face before she dashed it away again. “He turned on the Union. That’s why they never found him. He’s a traitor and he ran from the field of battle. Then he joined the Confederacy.”

  “Child, I know you want to believe he’s alive, but—”

  “I heard him,” Clara said brutally, looking back, and she saw her mother’s face go white. “In the cabin. He was telling Jasper—Mister Perry—that he regretted it, that he didn’t want to fight for the Confederacy any longer. He didn’t want to come home, because he thought it would be better if we believed he was dead. And it would have!” The words burst out of her. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to tell you—I wanted you to think he was gone. It was so much better when I thought he was gone.”

  “He’s alive,” her mother said quietly, and Clara heard the hope in her voice. Tears were running down her cheeks. “Solomon is alive.”