From This Day Forward

by Victoria Thompson

  “Well, I can see that you’re still upset and... and not thinking clearly,” he improvised. He hurried on when she would’ve denied it. “I’ll leave my offer open, Miss McClintock, so if you change your mind, don’t be afraid to tell me. I can provide a good life for you and for the child. The Ross family fortunes are at a low ebb right now, but as soon as this blasted war is over and we can start shipping cotton again, things will get back the way they were.” He glanced around, trying to judge the level of their need. “Can I send you anything? Some flour or—”

  “We’re fine,” she said stiffly, the pride of the impoverished straightening her spine.

  “Perhaps you’d like some coffee,” he said, naming a delicacy he knew she hadn’t seen in years.

  Her eyes widened, but she shook her head. “You already do too much,” she protested.

  “Your father gave his life for the South, Miss McClintock. It’s the least I can do to make sure his family doesn’t starve. And don’t forget, if you change your mind—”

  “I won’t,” she insisted.

  He saw the tears gathering in her eyes again and decided he should leave before another storm broke. Then he remembered his cane. So much for graceful exits.

  “Would you mind, uh, handing me my, uh...” He gestured reluctantly toward the fallen cane.

  She glanced down and seemed surprised to see it lying there. “Oh, yes,” she said and bent to retrieve it.

  She picked it up gingerly, as if she were afraid it might break, but then he decided she probably found it distasteful and didn’t want to touch it. She rose and handed it to him and as he took it, he caught the strangest expression in he eyes. It almost looked like longing, although what she could desire that he hadn’t already offered her today, he couldn’t imagine.

  Self-consciously, he took the cane from her and swung it down to the floor where it would be out of her direct line of sight.

  “If you change your mind, or if you need anything,” he repeated, “anything at all, just let me know.”

  Her lips curved into the sweetest smile he had ever seen, and her eyes glowed with what might have been love if he hadn’t known better. “You’re about the kindest man I’ve ever met, Mr. Ross. God will bless you for it.”

  Adam only hoped that was true, because if God was in a blessing mood, Adam knew exactly what he wanted.

  Not trusting himself to say another word, he turned and made his way slowly out of the cabin, fetching his hat from the peg by the door where he had hung it and taking care to limp as little as possible. He’d left his buggy out front, and he untied the reins and climbed stiffly aboard, acutely conscious of her gaze on him, watching every awkward movement. Damn you, Eric, he thought as he chucked the horse into motion and lifted a hand in a silent farewell.

  She waved back at him, still smiling that sad, sweet smile. It would, he knew, haunt his dreams, as would the rest of her. He’d just have to make sure it didn’t haunt many dreams before he was finally able to make her see the light.

  Who would ever have imagined that he would be so desperate to convince a pregnant, white-trash tart to marry him? And who would ever have dreamed that she’d refuse?

  Lori watched Adam Ross drive away, holding her tears until she was sure he was too far away to see them. All she could think about was Bessie’s familiar admonition: be careful what you wish for because you might get it.

  How many times in her twenty years had she wished for Adam Ross to come calling on her and beg her hand in marriage? How many times had she watched in anguish as he spoke to this young lady or that after church and wondered f this was the one who had finally caught his eye. If this was the one he would finally take to wife and destroy all her youthful fantasies.

  But he never had, and the years had gone by, and she had finally grown into a woman pretty enough for him to notice. Except he hadn’t. Probably, he’d never even looked at her before today, hadn’t even known she was alive until Bessie had gone to him and told her tale of shame.

  And finally he had come, and his goodness and kindness had made her feel her shame all the more. Her shame and her unworthiness, and then he’d finally done what she’d prayed he’d do and asked her to marry him. The irony of it was like a stake driven through her heart, and the pain actually doubled her over as she stood in the cabin doorway and watched the buggy disappear into a plume of dust in the distance.

  She wanted to die, as she had ever since that awful day late in January, but she knew she wouldn’t, not unless she did it to herself. She’d been too afraid before, and now Adam Ross’s words came echoing back: Don’t forget, it wouldn’t just be your own life you’d be taking. Do you think you have the right to destroy that one, too?

  If she hadn’t been able to think of this thing inside of her as a child, Adam Ross did, and if he wanted to protect it how could she do any less? Dear heaven, he wanted to protect it so much that he was willing to sacrifice himself and his every chance of happiness! No wonder she loved him so much.

  And she certainly loved him too much to let him marry her.

  Sobbing out her anguish, she stumbled back into the house and collapsed back onto the bench, buried her head in her hands, and wept.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been crying when she heard Bessie returning from the field. Her stepmother was cursing at the old, swaybacked mule that pulled their plow one of the few animals that had escaped the desperate Con federacy’s need for mounts. But even the Confederacy hadn’t been that desperate, and they had left this particular mule.

  Quickly, Lori scrubbed the tears from her face and went to the water bucket and splashed some on to get rid of the redness around her eyes. By the time Bessie tromped into the cabin, Lori was sitting calmly, shelling the peas she’d fallen asleep over earlier.

  Arming herself with her own anger at Bessie’s betrayal, she looked up and met her stepmother’s gaze.

  Bessie McClintock was a big woman. Not particularly tall but broad as a beam and just as solid. When she was out in the field with Pa’s battered old hat pulled over her eyes and her shabby skirts tied up into makeshift pants, she might’ve easily been mistaken for a man. Her face was as plain as dirt, as she herself was fond of saying, and her graying brown hair stuck out like straw from beneath the brim of that old hat. She gazed back at Lori through her mud-brown eyes.

  “Well, how much did he offer you?” she asked in a voice that could carry half-a-mile.

  Lori rose to her feet and favored her stepmother with her nastiest glare. “You had no right to go to him!”

  Bessie gave a rude snort. “What else could I do? We can’t feed ourselves, and without you to help in the fields, we can’t grow half of what we grew last year, either. How we gonna make do for a baby?”

  “I’ll help in the fields!” Lori insisted.

  “How? With your stomach out to here?” she scoffed, making her arms round in front of her. “And what’re you gonna do when it’s born? Squat down in the field and drop it in the dirt like a darkie?”

  Lori wanted to slap her. How could her pa have ever thought this woman could take the place of her dear mother? “We’ll manage! We always have, and you know how Pa felt about charity.”

  “Your pa never had to go hungry. And don’t go throwing his honor up to me. A man with honor don’t go running off to some stupid war and leave his family behind to starve.”

  “He thought he’d only be gone a few months!” Lori reminded her loyally, even though she’d had the same thought more than once herself.

  “Yeah, well, he was wrong, wasn’t he? And we’d both be dead now if it wasn’t for Adam Ross’s charity, so don’t talk to me about your Pa. I wanna hear what Adam Ross is going to do for us.”

  “Nothing!” Lori was only too happy to report.

  “Nothing?” Bessie echoed furiously. “That no-account hypocrite! That two-bit—”

  Lori stopped her before she could start actually swearing “He offered, but I refused.”

  “Are y
ou crazy, girl? I know women get funny notions when they’re in a family way, but that takes the cake! How much did he offer? I’ll take it even if you’re too proud!”

  “He didn’t offer money,” Lori told her with satisfaction. Bessie’s eyes narrowed as she studied Lori for a long moment. Lori grew uncomfortable under the scrutiny, but refused to squirm. Lifting her chin defiantly, she met Bessie glare for glare until Bessie finally figured it out, or though she did.

  “He’s gonna get that no-account brother of his back here to marry you!” she guessed triumphantly.

  “No!” Lori cried in horror. “How could you even think such a thing after what he did to me!”

  “What he did to you is what men’ve been doing to women ever since God put the first two on this earth. A woman just has to get used to it, Lori. I told you before. And even though Eric Ross is about the most worthless piece of horse’s back side walking around on two legs and calling hisself a man he can give you a home and a name for that baby and make sure neither of you goes hungry again. That’s about all woman can ask for nowadays.”

  “Well, this woman isn’t going to ask for it, not from him! I don’t care if I do starve!”

  “You know what the Good Book says about pride, don’t you, Missy?” Bessie warned and walked wearily over to the water bucket and took a long drink from the ladle.

  Glad for the reprieve, Lori sat back down at the table and furiously resumed her task with the peas.

  But if she thought Bessie was finished, she was mistaken. “So if he didn’t offer to get Eric back here, what did he offer? And don’t tell me nothing. I know the Rosses better’n that—Adam Ross at least. He’s one of them crazy Southern gentlemen who really thinks he’s responsible for taking care of all the evil in the world and protecting all the women and children, too. Since you qualify as both and his kin to boot, I reckon he had to ease his conscience good. How much? And you better tell me or else I’ll go and ask him myself—”

  “No!” Lori cried, knowing she had lost the battle. She couldn’t have Bessie trooping up to Adam Ross’s plantation house again. She forced herself to hold Bessie’s gaze. “He... he offered to marry me himself.”

  Bessie’s jaw dropped in almost comic surprise, but Lori didn’t feel like laughing. Bessie did, though, a hoot of joy that fairly shook the rafters. “Hallelujah!” she cried, stomping around in Pa’s old boots in a sort of jig. “This is the best news I’ve heard this year! Do you know what this means, Missy? It means you’ll be living in that big house and you’ll have servants and clothes and—”

  “I told him no,” Lori said, stopping Bessie in her tracks.

  The woman looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What do you mean you told him no?”

  “I can’t take advantage of him like that! I can’t let him sacrifice himself! ”

  “Sacrifice?” Bessie roared, shaking the timbers again. ‘What kind of sacrifice do you think it is for a man to take a comely woman to his bed?”

  Lori struggled with two conflicting emotions: terror at the thought of what she hadn’t allowed herself to think about before and outrage that Bessie could believe Adam Ross so base. “Adam would never...!” she insisted.

  “Any man would, and Adam Ross was a man, last I looked, crippled leg or not. What do you think? That he don’t get an itch between his legs like everybody else?”

  Lori wanted to clamp her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear this slander, but she knew the best way to silence Bessie was to out-argue her. “He wasn’t thinking about that! He was thinking about... about the Ross heir. He wants the... the baby,” she said, making herself say the word for the first time. “Because it’s a Ross. He wants it to have a good home.”

  “So he’ll take you as a brood mare and then turn you out to pasture when you’ve foaled, is that it?”

  Lori had never been so furious in her entire life. “No! He’ll take care of me, too!”

  “He will, if you take care of him in the bed. Use your head, girl! What do you think makes a man get married in the first place?”

  “Love!” Lori informed her triumphantly.

  But Bessie snorted again. “That’s what they call it when they want to get under a woman’s skirts.” She drew a deep breath and let it out on a long, weary sigh. “Look, what good do you think you’ll do by not marrying him? Who are you gonna help?”

  “Him! Adam! I can’t let him ruin his life!”

  “How you think you’ll ruin it? He’s livin’ alone up in that big house, and he prob’ly figures no woman’ll look at him because of that leg of his—”

  “That’s not true!” Lori protested.

  “I didn’t say it was. I said he thought it.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “He must be almost thirty years old, and he coulda married years ago, but you ever see him court anybody? You ever hear of him even calling on any girl?”

  Lori had to admit she hadn’t.

  “And he’s as vain as a girl about that leg. You ever notice how he walks real slow so he don’t limp when he thinks anybody’s looking? You take my word, he’s a proud man, and he ain’t about to put hisself in a place where some girl can say no, she don’t wanna marry him ’cause he’s a cripple. But that don’t mean he likes sleeping alone. Then you come along, a girl who can’t say no to him because she’s desperate. No wonder he wants you, damaged goods or not.”

  Lori gaped at her, reluctantly remembering how Adam had reacted when she’d refused him. The first thing he’d mentioned was his leg. Bessie was right! But she wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of telling her. “Even if that’s true, I can’t take advantage of him,” she said righteously.

  “And just how’ll you be taking advantage? You’ll be giving him a pretty wife who loves him.”

  Lori gasped in outrage. “How…? What...? Where did you ever...?”

  “It’s plain as a wart on a billy goat’s nose! Love and smoke can’t be hid, girl, and you been in love with Adam Ross since you was in pigtails.”

  Lori wanted to deny it, but Bessie didn’t give her a chance. “You ever stop to think you’d be doing him a favor? He’s all alone, girl. He needs a woman in his life, and you love him. Maybe you even love him more than he deserves. And hell, you might even make him happy. Looks to me like he’ll be getting the best of this bargain, whether he knows it or not.”

  Could Bessie be right about this, too? Dear heaven, Lori wanted her to be, but how could she be sure? “I don’t know,” she hedged.

  “Nobody does, girl. The best you can do is the best you can do, and you ain’t likely to get another chance like this. Think about walking into church on a Sunday with that baby big in your stomach and no ring on your finger. Then think about walking in with Adam Ross holding your arm. You don’t think you’re good enough for him, but look at me and your pa. I know he only married me ’cause he needed somebody to look after you, and he had his high falutin’ ideas about honor and such, but we was happy just the same, wasn’t we? We was good for each other, and you’ll be good for Adam Ross. You’ll bring him down a notch or two, and he’ll keep you outta the gutter. Seems like a fair trade to me.”

  Lori let her gaze drop to the bowl of peas in her lap. They blurred into a mass of green as tears filled her eyes as she pictured both scenes in her mind and imagined how her life could be if she accepted Adam’s offer. “But how can I face him again?” she asked as the tears began to spill down her cheeks.

  “You don’t have to,” Bessie said. “I’ll go see Adam Ross tonight and tell him you changed your mind. Next time you see him’ll be your wedding day.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Adam didn’t bother to hide his limp as he climbed the porch steps of Elmhurst, the house his father had built over twenty years ago as a monument to his success as a planter. The grounds of Elmhurst were deserted since most of his slaves were in the fields, breaking the earth for the new crop, so there was no one to see if he favored his left leg or no
t. The buggy ride had caused an ache deep in his thigh, but he ignored it, as he always did. Adam had found that one could endure just about anything if one simply ignored it hard enough.

  The house was quiet when he stepped out of the sunlight into the cool dimness of the hallway. The door at the far end, which was actually the front door of the house, stood open to catch the breeze from the river below. Adam paused to inhale the freshness of the air in which mingled the sweetly familiar smells of the house in which he had lived most of his life.

  Sensing her presence rather than hearing her, he turned to find his slave Sudie standing in the doorway to the parlor. She held a dust rag in her hand. He had often thought that she could have walked down the street of any Northern city and passed as a white woman, and the impression struck him at this moment more strongly than usual.

  Her skin was even fairer than Lori McClintock’s, probably because she spent less time in the sun, and her hair, while dark black and quite coarse, was less curly even than his brother Eric’s. It was wrapped now in a bandana that was tied in an intricate knot at her forehead to protect it from the dust she stirred up with her cleaning. An apron tied snugly around her waist accentuated the slimness of her figure. She might have been any age from twenty to sixty. She was the nearest thing to a mother he had known in more than twenty years.

  “Well, now,” she said with just the proper amount of surprise, “you’re back mighty quick. Must’ve took care of your business real fast.”

  “You know perfectly well where I went and how far away it is,” Adam reminded her as she came toward him to take his hat.

  “Land sake, how would I know that?” she asked. “You sayin’ you think I listen at doors?”

  Her indignation was comically overdone, as she well knew. “I don’t think you have to listen at doors, Sudie. I think you know things because you can read my mind. I first started thinking that when I was a little boy, and you always seemed to know when I’d been up to no good just by looking at me.”