A Beauty So Rare

by Tamera Alexander

  “I’m sorry, Marcus.”

  He sighed, wiping his hands on a rag. “So am I.”

  “What do we do now?” she asked softly.

  “We”—his smile was halfhearted at best—“will clean ourselves up and enjoy your latest culinary masterpiece.”

  “No . . .” She gestured toward the plants. “I meant about the potatoes. You’re not giving up.” She looked at him. “Are you?”

  “No.” He exhaled again. “But with the renovation and the possibility of leaving, I—”

  “I’ll help you. In whatever way I can.”

  This time his smile was one she recognized.

  “Thank you, Eleanor. Before trying another graft, I’ll take a brief hiatus, study my notes again, and send my findings to Luther Burbank. Who knows, maybe he’s found something that might help us both.”

  Side by side, they washed their hands in a barrel behind the conservatory, the water ice-cold. Back inside, Eleanor shivered, squeezing her hands to encourage the blood flow.

  “What did you make this time?” He started to lift the cloth, but she pretended she was going to smack his hand.

  “No peeking!” She laughed at his bewildered look. “This is a special treat.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “You’re very kind, Mr. Geoffrey. But this one has proven quite the challenge. This is my seventh attempt.”

  He looked at her. “What happened to the other six?”

  “You don’t want to know.” She positioned the dish in front of him. “Are you ready?”

  “Whatever it is, I’m certain I’ll enjoy it.”

  She smiled, then whipped the cloth back. “Ta da!”

  “A strudel!”

  “An apple strudel,” she corrected, reaching for the knife and cutting him a slice. “I remember what you and Caleb said.”

  Marcus frowned. “What did we say?”

  She handed him a piece on a cloth napkin, trying for her best German accent. “That nothing is as gut as your Mutter’s strudel.”

  He laughed, but the way he looked at her reminded her that she was a woman engaged to another man. No matter that the other man wasn’t the one she loved. Guilt chided her conscience, and she looked away, at the exact same moment he did.

  Marcus tasted the strudel, chewed for a moment, and then nodded. “It’s very good.”

  But she knew him better than that. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s fine.”

  “Fine? I’ve worked on this for hours, made it seven times, and all it’s worth is fine?”

  “It’s good, Eleanor. It’s simply . . .” He hesitated, remorse in his expression.

  “Not your Mutter’s strudel?”

  He shook his head. “But it means a great deal to me that you made this for me. Danke . . . mein lieber Freund.”

  Eleanor smiled her return thanks, then quickly busied herself with putting things away. What he’d said to her was kind, and appropriate. Thank you, my dear friend. So why did it hurt so much?

  She heard him behind her and turned. He was pulling up each of the potato plants, roots and all, one by one, then dumping them into a bucket. Wordlessly, she joined him.

  “You don’t have to do this, Eleanor. Your hands are going to get all—”

  She’d already pulled up two plants and held them up as if saying, “Too late.”

  He got another bucket, and silently they worked, one on each trough, pulling and dumping. She occasionally unearthed another potato and looked at it carefully before discarding it, just in case.

  She pulled the last plant and pressed it down into the overfull bucket when something caught her eye. She knelt down for a closer look. A shiny little round thing. On one of the vines. “Marcus . . . what is this?”

  “What is what?” he said from one aisle over.

  “What is this little . . . ball on one of the plants?”

  He peered over the trough.

  Not wanting to damage whatever it was, Eleanor retrieved the entire vine and stood to show him. “It’s right here.” She pointed.

  He frowned and laid his bucket aside. “It looks like a seedball. But that’s not possible. The Early Rose variety doesn’t produce seedballs.”

  He reached for the vine—and the little ball dropped. And rolled. In her direction, from the faint sound of it.

  They stared at each other, and she sensed his excitement by the look on his face. Goose flesh rose on her arms.

  “Don’t . . . move, Eleanor.”

  Knowing what he meant, she kept her feet perfectly still. But she looked down, trying to find it. “Where do you think it went?”

  Already he was on his knees searching. Slowly, meticulously running his hands over the floor. He crawled under one table, then the next. She wished the sun would come out so he could see better. He was beside her when he stilled.

  His breath left him. And tears rose to her eyes.

  He stood, cradling the seedball that looked especially tiny in his hand. And though he didn’t say a word, she read the fire of possibility in his eyes and knew that—if Marcus Geoffrey was given a choice—any possibility of his taking a brief hiatus was long gone.

  Moments later, Eleanor raced up the front steps of the mansion to the shelter of the porch. She shook the droplets of rain from her parasol, brushed them from her skirt, and stepped inside the entrance hall. Heart heavy and eager for the privacy of her bedroom, she needed time, and quiet, to sort out what Marcus had told her, along with the jumble of her thoughts.

  “Eleanor . . . I’d like a word with you, please.”

  She winced, in no mood for company. Yet she knew better than to refuse her aunt.

  She continued around the corner in the direction the voice had come, and found her aunt in the small study, staring out the front window.

  “Good afternoon . . .” Eleanor decided not to sit, hoping the visit would be brief. “Enjoying this lovely rain?”

  Slowly Aunt Adelicia turned to face her. “Be careful, Eleanor,” she said, her tone not the least gentle.

  Eleanor stared, feeling as though she’d walked into the middle of a conversation. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  Aunt Adelicia turned and looked back out the window, then at her again. A calculated move, one that took Eleanor only seconds to follow before it dawned on her. Her aunt had watched her hurrying back from the conservatory. And suddenly the pieces fell into place.

  “I was simply visiting with Mar—” Eleanor smiled to cover the social misstep. “Mr. Geoffrey. He and I are friends, Aunt.” Seeing the arch of a dark eyebrow, she added, “Good friends, but only friends.”

  “Trust my counsel on this, Eleanor. . . . Men are never good friends with a woman unless there’s something else at play.”

  Affronted by the remark, and the insinuation, Eleanor forced a laugh. “He’s not like that. He’s . . . different.”

  Her aunt’s mouth curved in a way that made Eleanor feel like a foolish little child, and—whether roused by the conversation with Marcus, or the stark memories of war, or perhaps the wearing concern about her father, or her utter lack of desire for Lawrence Hockley—her temper rose to compensate.

  “I’m telling you, Aunt Adelicia . . . we are only friends.”

  “And you are an engaged woman.” Despite the directness of her tone, her aunt’s voice remained controlled. “Betrothed to one of the most prominent men in the city of Nashville.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “You have accepted Mr. Hockley’s offer of marriage.”

  “Again, Aunt”—a rush of heat filled Eleanor’s chest—“I am not ignorant of this fact.”

  “Then why do you persist in spending time with another man?”

  “Your questioning is absurd,” Eleanor said beneath her breath. And yet, her own conscience silently pressed the question. Hadn’t she—just a while earlier—felt a prick of warning when Marcus had looked at her?

  Not wa
nting her aunt to see she’d struck a chord, Eleanor lowered her eyes. The distant drum of rain on the roof filled the tense space between them.

  “Some choices in life, Eleanor, you only get to make once. You think there will be other opportunities, but they never come.”

  Eleanor lifted her gaze. “Don’t you think a woman like me knows about choices that never come?”

  Aunt Adelicia blinked, her expression showing the barest hint of surprise.

  “The only reason I’m marrying Lawrence Hockley is because of you.”

  “The reason you are marrying Lawrence Hockley is because you love your father, Eleanor. And you realize it’s the right thing to do. For him and for you.” Aunt Adelicia moved closer. “People of integrity do the right thing. No matter how difficult. No matter the cost to them personally. And everything comes with a cost, Eleanor. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.”

  The room grew quiet.

  Eleanor looked out the front window in the direction of the conservatory, then back at her aunt. “You say some choices come only once. It’s the same with our lives. We’re only given this one. I simply wish I could live mine the way I choose—not the way others choose for me.”

  A muscle twitched in her aunt’s delicate jawline. “I trust that will be your last word on this subject.”

  Eleanor took a deep breath, her lungs feeling deprived of air and her spirit of strength. She crossed to the door.

  “Eleanor.”

  She turned.

  “Mr. Hockley has requested a meeting with Dr. Cheatham about your dowry. That conversation will take place two weeks hence.”

  The comment landed like a blow to her midsection. Her aunt’s intention, no doubt.

  Torn between the compulsion to apologize and the urge to continue with the litany of reasons she shouldn’t marry Lawrence Hockley, Eleanor left the room.

  41

  Eleanor opened the door to the mercantile and stepped inside, grateful to be out of December’s chill and cold. Three weeks had come and gone, and still no word from Marcus’s father or uncle. She knew worrying about the situation wouldn’t change a thing, but that didn’t keep her from testing the theory.

  Thinking about Marcus going to war . . . She would miss him terribly in any case, but his leaving under that condition would make it far worse.

  She made her way down the center aisle toward the glass containers lining the shelves on the back wall, her thoughts careening like a runaway train. If he did have to leave soon, and he couldn’t finish the renovation, then who would? And what if his replacement wanted to charge more than the original bid?

  Then there was the building about which he was being so secretive. She’d tried to get more information from him, but he remained tight-lipped. The crews had torn down the old plank-wood building the week before, and had begun laying brick. But she had no idea of Marcus’s plan.

  “He’s in government,” he’d said about his father. The more she’d considered his response, the more it made sense that Marcus hailed from an important family. The manner in which he carried himself. His education. She pictured Marcus some twenty years older and fancied his father resembling that image. A very handsome man, indeed.

  “Miss Braddock, how may I help you today?”

  The girl, Mr. Mulholland’s youngest—thirteen, maybe fourteen years old, Eleanor thought—had her father’s businesslike manner about her.

  “I’d like a bag of peppermint sugar sticks, please.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but a gentleman came in not an hour ago and bought every last one. What about another confection? Ginger drops, perhaps? We also have licorice.” She pointed. “Or maybe a bag of penny candies?”

  Eleanor sighed. She’d wanted to take her father his favorite. She scanned the containers. “I’ll have a bag of lemon drops, please.”

  Back outside, she walked to the corner where Armstead had agreed to meet her. And there he was, right on time.

  As Armstead guided the carriage through the city, Eleanor watched life pass by outside the window—all the different people, coming and going, living their lives. How does God keep up with us all?

  And yet she trusted that, somehow, He did.

  With Thanksgiving behind them, Christmas only two weeks away, and the renovation well under way, she had more tasks on her list than hours in each day to complete them.

  Yet as the weeks passed, she grew more certain that her work with the widows and children was what she was meant to do. So why, given that certainty, did she feel so at odds in every other area?

  What she wouldn’t give for someone to tell her that everything was going to be all right.

  Twice a week she went to the asylum. But like some no-account lurker, she kept to the hallway, fearing what would happen if her father saw her again.

  Only once had she ventured inside his room since that day he hadn’t known her. He was asleep in his chair, and she’d sat for a full half hour, watching him, loving him for the father he’d once been, and clinging to the hope that, one day, he would open his eyes and know her again.

  Looming on the corner ahead, a large, prestigious, redbrick building drew her attention. The Bank of Nashville. She knew she should view the building—and the president somewhere within—as an answer to prayer.

  But whenever she was with Lawrence Hockley, she either wanted to shake the man senseless until he realized she was there—with a voice and an opinion—or just shake him senseless and be done with it. Yet Lawrence seemed oblivious to her frustration.

  She leaned her head back against the velvet cushion, willing the steady jostle of the carriage to soothe her nerves.

  She’d heard more than one wife speak about her husband being in the same room, and the wife saying something, yet the man claiming never to have heard. Eleanor knew now how those women felt. And yet, she also didn’t.

  Because she and Lawrence Hockley weren’t yet married, and they certainly weren’t living together as husband and wife—a thought that caused the knot in the pit of her stomach to graduate to a dull ache in the center of her chest.

  The recent conversation with her aunt returned in full voice, but she silenced it.

  If only there was a way for her to provide for her father’s care without going through with this marriage. . . .

  The carriage slowed, and she opened her eyes.

  The asylum itself no longer held the foreboding quality it once had. But she still wasn’t eager for anyone to know her father was there. Especially Marcus.

  That day in the conservatory when she and Marcus had reviewed the bids for the home, she’d been tempted to tell him about her father. But considering what he’d said about the asylum early on, and knowing he was leaving, she’d decided it best to leave things as they were.

  Still . . . she’d spoken the truth that day when she’d told him her father would have enjoyed knowing him.

  An orderly allowed her entrance, and she followed him on the familiar route, bag of lemon drops in hand. When she reached her father’s room, she found his door partially open—and heard his voice.

  She peeked around the corner.

  Seated in his chair, her father was reading. Aloud. Like they used to do together. Wanting to see if anyone was with him, she gave the door a gentle push—and the hinges, once so amiable, betrayed her with a loud creak.

  His head whipped in her direction, and Eleanor froze, not wanting to relive what had happened on that awful, awful day. Yet, she missed him so much.

  He stared at her over the rim of his glasses.

  She stepped into the room, tentative, as though testing to make sure the floor would hold. “Hello,” she said softly.

  No response.

  The bag of candy crinkled in her grip, and he looked down at it, then back up at her.

  “Is that for me?” he asked, his tone more hopeful than cautious.

  “Yes.” She chanced a smile. “It is.”

  She moved closer and handed it to him, but he didn’t lo
ok at the bag. He just kept looking at her. She edged toward the chair opposite his, afraid any sudden movement might trigger a reaction.

  “Would you mind”—she motioned behind her—“if I sit down so we can—”

  “No! You can’t sit there!”

  Eleanor hastened a backward step and nearly tripped in the process, taking the frustration in his voice as a warning.

  “My friend is sitting there. We’re reading a book together.”

  Heart thudding, she looked at the empty chair, then back at her father. He sounded so logical, so normal. So like his old self. And yet, the chair . . . was empty. But what was worse, it was clear he didn’t recognize her. His own daughter. She searched his gaze, hoping, praying, willing him to remember. But . . .

  She detected not the slightest trace of comprehension.

  Tears welled in her throat. Her chin shook. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing toward the door, her father’s face blurring in her vision. “I didn’t realize that your friend—”

  “Eleanor . . .”

  She stilled at the voice behind her, knowing it so well. But also knowing . . . the owner of that voice didn’t belong in this part of her world. Her mind spinning, working to think of a way to explain all this to him, she turned—and saw him holding two cups of coffee.

  She looked from the coffee back to him. “Marcus?”

  “I can explain,” he said softly.

  She exhaled, remembering not only what her father had said a moment earlier, but weeks ago as well. “You’re . . . the friend?”

  Marcus just smiled.

  “But . . .” She shook her head. “He said he was reading to someone, and . . . when I saw the empty chair, I thought . . .” She briefly closed her eyes. “So . . . my father’s not—”

  “No. At least, not in that regard, Eleanor.” He glanced beyond her to her father, who was ferreting through the bag of lemon drops. “Come,” he whispered. “Allow me to reintroduce you to someone very special.”

  The tenderness in his tone, the confidence in his manner, his utter lack of hesitance, gave Eleanor strength in that moment she would never have had on her own.