To Win Her Favor

by Tamera Alexander

  “My daughter’s station in life has already fallen far below what it once was, Mr. McGrath. And though I have known the pain of losing children in death, there is a special pain in seeing your child’s life become shackled, pared down. To see her choices, her future . . . stripped from her, piece by piece.”

  Cullen exhaled. So much for getting the man to see his side of things. He could feel Linden watching him, willing him to say yes, but he just couldn’t see his way through the fog of it all.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Linden, but I can’t do it. It’s not right. Me marryin’ a woman just to get her land.”

  “But that’s not the case, Mr. McGrath. Or at least it doesn’t have to be. Meet my daughter first, and then decide. She should be home soon. Margaret’s a good girl. Though . . .” Melancholy touched his expression. “You must bear in mind, she was raised with four older brothers. Two of my sons went to be with the Lord shortly after their birth,” he added softly. “But Oak, Ezra, Ike, and Abe—they doted on their baby sister even as they taught her how to climb trees and how to ride and shoot with the best of them.”

  A young girl who had climbed trees and fired guns? The man’s description hardly painted an appealing image. But Cullen was careful to keep his opinion from showing.

  “When Maggie was young, her mother, God rest her, used to worry that our daughter would grow up so wild no man would want her. But that certainly wasn’t the case. Maggie did have someone special. Once.”

  “What happened?” Ordinarily Cullen wouldn’t have asked so personal a question, but considering the circumstances . . .

  “He was killed in the war. As were so many other boys Maggie grew up with. Gone. All of them.”

  As hard as he tried, Cullen couldn’t get the deal to work in his mind.

  Slowly, Mr. Linden stood, using the desk for support. The collie rose with him. “Mr. McGrath, I can see none of my arguments has proven successful in persuading you. But you have given ear to an aging father’s request, and I appreciate that. As I appreciate our time together and the opportunity to get to know you. Now, allow me to see you out.”

  Uneasy in a way he couldn’t describe, Cullen returned the leather pouch of money to his pocket and followed Mr. Linden and the dog back through the house, viewing it in quite a different light from before. He found himself searching what he assumed were family portraits adorning the walls, but in none of them did he see a young woman.

  Not that it would have mattered what Margaret Linden looked like. Still, he was curious.

  Once outside, Cullen looked for Levi where he’d left him tethered, but the horse wasn’t there.

  “Not to worry, Mr. McGrath. Your Leviathan is safe in Cletus’s care, I’m certain.”

  As though he’d overheard their conversation, Cletus rounded the corner of the house. “I get your fine mount for you, sir.”

  “Much obliged for your kindness,” Cullen said, noting Cletus’s brief backward glance.

  Cullen once again found his gaze drawn to the land. The sun was slowly making its way behind the hills, bathing the fields in a golden glow.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Mr. Linden said with feeling.

  A little too much feeling, Cullen thought, and eyed the man beside him. “You still haven’t given up, have you?”

  “There are many forms of persuasion, Mr. McGrath. Stating one’s case is only one of them.”

  Cullen had to smile at the man’s cunning.

  He sighed. All of this could be his. No one else in this city—or state, for that matter—was going to sell him property. That had been made doubly clear. But one thing he didn’t know . . .

  “What happens, sir, if my answer remains no?”

  Linden looked at him with what appeared to be cautious hope, yet with the weight of the burden still heavy. “The property will go to auction as advertised. The land should bring substantially more than the amount for which I offered to sell it to you. Though with the abundance of property available and people’s shallow pockets, one never knows. Whatever sum remains once the back taxes are paid will, hopefully, be enough for my daughter and me to arrange for another living situation in town.”

  The disappointment in his voice matched the disappointment Cullen felt. Then an idea came.

  “What if I were to buy your land but agree that you and your daughter could continue to live on here as long as you like. From what I’ve seen, this is a large house with plenty of rooms. Eventually I could afford to build a cabin nearby and live in that.”

  Mr. Linden leveled a stare. “And what about when I’m gone, Mr. McGrath? Will you continue to live beneath the same roof with my daughter without benefit of marriage? Or beside her in a cabin? The two of you out here all alone. What would such questionable behavior do to my daughter’s reputation?”

  Cullen had never heard so deafening a silence as that which followed, nor could he remember a time since boyhood when he’d been so thoroughly reprimanded. And appropriately so, as he reflected on his proposition. Yet even in the face of such reproof, he still sensed the man’s gentleness and acceptance.

  What difference would it have made to have had a man this like for a da? A man of integrity and kindness, instead of one given to drink and to gambling.

  Thinking about his past, he wondered . . . what if, somehow, it crossed an ocean and caught up to him? Then again, if he stayed tucked away on the outskirts of town, minding his own life and business, what was the likelihood of that happening?

  I don’t want my daughter to have to face that kind of world alone.

  Linden’s plea for his daughter returned and tugged at Cullen’s conscience. He knew what it was like to have a protector. He also knew what it was like to be a father and to be helpless to protect.

  “Have you given thought, sir, as to what your daughter would say about the proposition you’ve made to me?”

  “Oh yes . . .” Mr. Linden gave a perplexed sigh. “I’ve given it much thought, Mr. McGrath. And she will not be for it. At least not at first. She can be headstrong, like her mother. But she’s also a practical-minded young woman. In the end I believe she’ll see this is the best way. The only way.”

  They stood in companionable silence as the lone cricket, nestled somewhere in the hedge below, continued to call for others to join him. Mr. Linden, appearing wearier by the minute, gripped the bowed porch railing for support, and Cullen looked out across what could be his future, if only he could accept the terms.

  If he were still a praying man, he would’ve asked the Almighty for a sign to show him which way to go, what to do. Just as he’d done that night in the church in Brooklyn. Or perhaps he would’ve visited a priest to gain a bit of wisdom and perspective.

  But his praying and priest-going days were over. It was up to him, and him alone, to make this decision.

  Cletus exited the stable, leading Levi behind him, and Cullen—his thoughts racing—extended his hand to Mr. Linden.

  “Sir, it’s indeed been a pleasure to meet you.”

  All traces of playful cunning aside, Linden met his grip and held on tight, the earlier disappointment in his voice now accentuating the deep lines of his face. “And you as well . . . Cullen McGrath. Go with God, son.”

  Sensing a stirring within him, Cullen hesitated, then gave the collie a last rub before descending the porch steps. He accepted the reins from Cletus and swung up into the saddle, then paused again to take in his surroundings for one last time.

  They say its hills are as green as those of home.

  The breeze on the back of his neck felt like a whisper from eternity, and it slowly fingered its way down his spine. Hoping he was doing the right thing, Cullen swiftly dismounted, took the porch steps in twos, and offered his hand again.

  “My answer is aye, Mr. Linden. I’ll marry your daughter. If she’s willin’.”

  Chapter

  SIX

  Smiling at her father from across the dinner table, Maggie lowered her fork to her plate, waiting for the humor h
e so skillfully hid at times to bloom at the corners of his mouth. When it didn’t, her own smile faded.

  “An agreement?” She heard the wariness in her own voice. “Exactly what kind of ‘agreement’ are you suggesting that I enter into with this man, Papa?”

  “Precisely the kind you think I’m suggesting.” Her father tucked his napkin beside his plate, his dinner only half consumed but the gesture announcing he was finished. Bucket started to rise from where he lay in the corner, but a single look from Papa convinced the dog otherwise. “I’m proposing that you marry him, Margaret. In fact, I’ve assured him that you’ll seriously consider the idea.”

  She wanted to laugh, the idea was so preposterous. But the seriousness and loving concern in her father’s eyes wouldn’t allow it. Nor would the dire state of their circumstances.

  “So the man you were with on Harding turnpike today, the man who tamed the wild thoroughbred, the same man who—”

  The door to the kitchen opened and Onnie entered, carrying a pitcher of water. Maggie smiled up at her, deciding to continue the conversation after she left.

  As Onnie refilled their glasses, Maggie caught the worried glance she gave first to Papa’s plate and then to Papa himself. Maggie remembered asking Onnie once how old she was. The woman had said she wasn’t rightly sure when she’d been born, but she figured, based on the ages of her brothers and sisters, that she had to be at least fifty. That was well over a decade ago.

  But looking at the dear woman now—part family, part servant—Maggie thought she looked every day of her sixty-plus years.

  Onnie retrieved Papa’s half-eaten plate of food but didn’t turn to leave. “Got some news just now, Mr. Linden.” She dipped her head. “Miss Maggie. It come by my youngest sister. She say Willie and his family, they leavin’ tonight. Goin’ with a passel of others. Marna and her husband and children, they travelin’ with ’em too. She come to say good-bye.”

  “Your sister and her family are leaving?” Maggie asked. She looked at her father for his reaction, but she couldn’t read his expression as she usually could. Marna and her family had lived and worked on a neighboring farm for years.

  “Yes, ma’am. Marna say it got to be better up north than here. And I reckon she right.”

  For a moment no one spoke, the horror of what had happened that morning, what was happening all too frequently these days, filling every corner of the room.

  The silence lengthened until finally her father looked up.

  “Onnie.” His deep voice seemed oddly fragile against the quiet. “As you know, our situation here is . . . uncertain at best. If you and Cletus would like to go with your sister and her family, please know that you’ll have our blessing.”

  Maggie didn’t know if the knot at the base of her throat was due to the emotion in her father’s voice, the glistening in Onnie’s dark eyes, or the fact that she couldn’t imagine life without this woman she’d known for all of hers.

  “Yes, sir,” Onnie responded softly. “I know that. But I’s too old to start over someplace else. I reckon I stay here long as I can. ’Sides, who gonna take care of you two if I go?” She laughed in a way that wasn’t fully convincing. “Cletus, he feel the same. I’s born here on Linden Downs. Then Cletus and me, we wed here. We aim to stay on right here, too, long as God wills.”

  Her father opened his mouth as if to say something more, then firmed his lips and nodded instead. Onnie closed the kitchen door behind her, leaving a starker reality in her place.

  Grateful for Onnie’s admission, and relieved at the same time, Maggie folded her napkin and tucked it neatly beside her plate, the polite gesture seeming trivial in light of all else.

  “To continue our conversation,” she offered softly, eager to get the idea her father had put forth settled between them, “the man you were with on Harding turnpike today, the same man you met earlier in the cemetery . . . this is the man you’re suggesting I marry?” She huffed a laugh she didn’t feel. “All because he showed up here this afternoon with a pocketful of money and promises. Like some carpetbagger or foreigner who thinks he can—”

  “No, Margaret. It’s not because of anything remotely like that.” Her father’s tone gained an unaccustomed edge. “It’s because within two weeks’ time my father’s farm, the land he bought and toiled for all his life, the land I’ve been unable to keep for my family”—he winced, his breath catching—“for you. No matter how I’ve tried, that land and everything on it is going up for auction, and I will have no place for my daughter to live. Do you know what that does to me? To know I’ve failed you so miserably?”

  “Papa, no . . .” Maggie moved to kneel by his chair. “You haven’t failed me. This isn’t your fault.”

  He shook his head. “Bourbon Belle will be gone. Everything we’ve worked for will be—”

  He took a sharp breath and grimaced, gripping his arm against his chest. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

  Maggie put an arm around his shoulders. “Breathe, Papa. Just breathe.”

  He paled. His lips moved but no words came.

  “Onnie!” Maggie screamed, aware of Bucket beside them. She tried with shaking hands to unbutton her father’s collar.

  In a heartbeat Onnie was there, a cup of water in one hand and a powder in the other.

  “What is that?” Maggie watched her swirl the mixture.

  “Mister Linden.” Onnie held the cup to his mouth. “You gotta drink this medicine, sir. Just like the doctor said.”

  “The doctor gave him that?”

  Onnie’s telling glance said it all. “There you go, sir. That’s it now, that’s it.”

  Her father gulped the mixture, water trickling down his neck and beneath his open collar.

  “A little more, sir, then we done.”

  With Onnie’s help her father drained the contents of the cup, and Maggie watched through tears.

  Later that evening, seated at her father’s bedside with Bucket keeping guard nearby, Maggie observed her father as he slept, watching the labored rise and fall of his chest.

  They’d sent for Dr. Daniels, and he’d brought more powders. Digitalis, he called it. Maggie had pounced with questions, but didn’t like the answers.

  “It will help with the pain, and the recurring incidents,” he’d told her before leaving. “He’ll have good days and bad. But I’m sorry, Miss Linden. There’s nothing else to be done. Rest is vital. That, and a calm and serene environment. Which I know, understanding your present circumstances, will be a challenge. I wish there were more that could be done, but his heart is simply giving out.”

  Her father’s eyes fluttered open then shut again.

  “Papa?” She leaned close and slipped her hand into his. “Are you awake?”

  He moaned. Or was it a sigh? “I am now, Maggie.”

  She smiled, then tears welled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Because of the way . . . your voice sounds right now.”

  She kissed his forehead and smoothed his thinning hair. The breathlessness he’d been experiencing, the fatigue. She had thought he’d simply been overexerting himself. He was getting older. But this . . .

  “He’s a good man . . . Maggie.”

  It took her a second to realize whom he was referring to.

  He pulled in a breath. “I wouldn’t lead you down this path if . . . he were not.”

  “Let’s not speak of this now, Papa. We’ll—”

  His grip tightened. “Promise me you will do this.” His gaze sought hers. “Promise.”

  Not wanting to upset him further, she nodded. “I promise . . . to meet him. To speak with him. I’ll seek him out in town and—”

  “No need, my dear. He’ll be back in the morning.” He closed his eyes, and tears traced his temples. “I have considered every possibility. This is the only way.”

  Using a fresh cloth, Maggie dabbed the moisture from his face. “Did you tell him?” she asked quietly. “About Belle and our pl
ans for her? And . . . about me?”

  Her father’s sheepish smile told her much. “I intended to, but—” He drew air into his lungs then slowly exhaled, the act causing Bucket’s ears to prick. “He does not hold a . . . favorable view of thoroughbred racing, my dear. He made that entirely clear. It seems his”—he held his chest as he coughed, the air rattling dull in his lungs—“his father’s . . . overindulgence in the sport . . . left a bad mark on him.”

  Maggie dabbed his forehead with a cool cloth. “But simply because you race horses doesn’t mean you gamble. Quite the contrary. You can’t afford to gamble with something so precious. Only fools would do such a thing.”

  “And he is no fool, Maggie,” he said with surprising strength, peering up at her.

  And neither am I, she wanted to say.

  Her father reached for her hand. “Sometimes in life, when what we want most is just beyond our reach . . . and the ground beneath us gives way, we must grab hold of the nearest branch.” He closed his eyes briefly. “And hang on.”

  Emotion tightened Maggie’s throat. Her father had a habit of waxing poetic on occasion. And that was only one of the things she dearly loved about him. “Papa, I—”

  He shook his head. “Listen to me, child. Your dream is still within reach. You simply must . . . find a different way to lay claim to it.”

  He grimaced as another bout of coughing tore through his chest. Maggie helped him sit up, then held him until the spell passed. Finally she eased him back against his pillows. His eyes fluttered as though he was fighting to stay awake, and she too felt a wave of fatigue.

  She wished she could press him for more information, but she knew better. He needed to rest.

  At her urging he drank several more sips of the horehound and boneset tea she’d made earlier, then slipped into sleep again. She leaned forward, arms wrapped around herself, and studied the yet strong features of her father’s face, while clearly seeing evidence of time’s relentless pursuit.

  Please don’t take him. Not now. Not yet.

  It wasn’t so much a prayer as it was a desperate plea. But maybe, in the end, those two things were more akin than she thought.