Whispers from the Shadows

by Roseanna M. White

  He didn’t smile. “Before they come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes.” This time it came out on a laugh, part joy and part desperation. Yes, let it be soon, let it be now, this very minute. Let God join them together so that no man could tear them asunder.

  Now he smiled, in a quiet sort of way, and looked to the others in the room. “If anyone has any objections, speak now or else get to work.”

  Rosie was the first to jump into action. “A wedding dinner with only twelve hours’ notice? I had better get Emmy to help me. We have that ham, a mess of potatoes still, and those greens. Emmy can make the cake.” She paused beside them, the sparkle in her eyes belying the matter-of-fact words. Her hands settled, one on each of their arms, and gave a little squeeze. Then she bustled from the room.

  “Alain?”

  Arnaud was glancing around the chamber as if taking its measure. “How many do you think we can fit in here? Ah, no matter.” He grinned and sank into a chair. “I will invite all of Baltimore and let them fight out who can witness the nuptials. Although I will give them time to rise first.”

  “And I will find Reverend Gruber.” Mr. Lane approached with a warm smile and reached for her hands. “Gwyneth, my dear. You know we welcome you most happily to our family. And I believe, with everything within me, that your father would approve of this.”

  She nodded, those tears stinging again. “I know he would.”

  Winter looked to be fighting off tears of her own. “We ought to find you a wedding gown. And send for Philly, who will never forgive us if we exclude her. Oh, how I wish there was time for Amelia to come, but she will understand.”

  “She will indeed.” Thad took her hands from his father, winked, and pulled her toward the door. “Just as I am sure you all understand when I beg you to excuse us for a moment.”

  A laugh stuck in her throat as he tugged her into the hall before they could object, down it and around the corner until they were out of sight, and then he lifted her enough to set her feet upon the bottom step of the stairwell, evening out their heights. “There,” he said. “Now the important part.”

  “Thad, I—”

  His lips silenced her, caressing hers with a warm urgency, a patient need. Once, twice, a third glorious time, and then he mumbled, “Were you saying something?”

  She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him when he waited a second too long for her liking. “I cannot think what.”

  He took the kiss deeper, and she held on as her knees went liquid, let herself get lost for a moment in the rush of sensation. Was it some facet of chemistry that did this to her, as Philly suggested? Some magic? Or was it, as it felt it must be, a knitting of their souls?

  “Oh.” She pulled away, though not by much. A fraction of an inch, enough to fit in a smile. “I was going to say I love you.”

  Thad grinned before feathering a kiss over her cheek and down to her jaw. “A good thing to say. I ought to say the same.” From jaw to lips. “In one moment.”

  The moment stretched, crystallized, and only ended when Winter cleared her throat and stepped up beside Gwyneth on the stair. “We have much to do, and there will be time enough for that after the vows are exchanged,” she said, a smile in her voice.

  Gwyneth smiled too and loosed her arms from their happy home around his neck. And hoped, prayed his mother was right. That there would be time enough.

  Winter looped her arm through Gwyneth’s. “Come, my dear. We will go through your dresses, and—Where are you going, Thaddeus?”

  He was already halfway up the stairs. “I have something to give her, if you recall.”

  “Ah. Yes, he does.”

  They took a more leisurely approach up the staircase, arriving at the top as Thad emerged from his bedchamber. Which, Gwyneth realized with a dry throat, would be hers tonight as well. A thought which might have terrified her had Thad’s smile not filled her so completely with joy.

  “Here we are.” In his hands he held a delicate chain of gold with three pearls upon it. Even as she admired the simple beauty of the necklace, he reached to fasten it around her neck. “I realize pearls are not the traditional engagement gift, but these have a story I’m sure Mother will share in a few minutes. And since I do not know if I will be able to get a ring in time—”

  “Of course you will have a ring,” Winter said.

  Thad grinned and kept his gaze on Gwyneth, as if his mother were not even there. “I mean, I will have a ring.”

  “My mother’s.”

  “’Twas my grandmother’s.” The clasp secure, he dropped his hands and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “But I am afraid not much else will be what you likely envisioned for your wedding, and the honeymoon trip will have to wait. When the war is over, though, my love, I will take you anywhere in the world you please.”

  Gwyneth grasped his hands and cherished the feel of the cool pearls against her skin. “Perhaps I once daydreamed with my friends of orange blossoms and wedding trips to Paris and Rome, but all I ever really wanted was what I have right here. The kind of love I saw in my parents, with the promise of forever they taught me was paramount.”

  He leaned down and brushed a single, soft, eternal kiss upon her lips. “I love you, Gwyneth. More than life itself.”

  A moment later he was bounding down the stairs, leaving her in a haze of bliss to veil the frightening night just passed. She looked to Winter. “I fear I am dreaming.”

  “No time for that today.” With a smile, Thad’s mother took her hand and pulled her into Gwyneth’s room. “Show me your best things. I daresay your gowns are more in ton than anything Philly or I could offer, though we would be happy to lend you anything you might need.”

  As she pulled out dress after dress, each and every one she had packed, Gwyneth felt a bittersweet stirring in her heart. Mama ought to have been with her on her wedding day. Papa ought to be below with the gentlemen. The Wesleys, at least, should have been fluttering about, the mister trying to be useful and the missus with her constant “Now, love” this and “Here, love” that.

  But they were not, none of them, and some by choice. All her ties to England seemed to have drifted away like smoke on the wind. How blessed she was that the Lord had put her in another family just as loving, just as true to Him, just as much her own.

  Philly joined them within the hour, Emmy not long after, and, given the constant stream of visitors she heard downstairs, Arnaud had been busily spreading the word. All the exclamations that floated up the stairs sounded joyful and, perhaps, edged with desperation. The fierce clinging to life and hope in the face of destruction.

  Around midday, Rosie poked her head into the room, where they were all mending gowns and adding bits of lace. “Gwyneth, Mrs. Lane, Reverend Gruber arrived and would like to talk to you.”

  Though she had been sitting in a pew in Reverend Gruber’s church every Sunday for months now, nerves still jumped and twitched in Gwyneth’s stomach at that. The good reverend, like everyone else outside the family, knew her as Miss Hampton. That would have to be rectified before he officiated the wedding. If he would even agree to do so.

  “I showed him to the study. Mrs. Rhodes and her girls are at work decorating everything else.”

  “Come, dear.” With a calming smile, Winter took her hand and led her down.

  The minister waited within. Thad was there too, which helped the knots unravel. As did the warm smile Reverend Gruber gave her.

  “My dear Miss Hampton. Many congratulations. I cannot say how glad I am to have learned that you and our Captain Lane have decided to wed.”

  She let him take her hand and returned his smile, but she glanced to Thad. “Thank you, Reverend. But there is one thing…”

  “Ah.” Thad chuckled and tucked an arm around her waist. “Quite right. Her last name is actually Fairchild, sir. Gwyneth is the daughter of the British general.”

  When the minister’s face went pale, Gwyneth feared the
worst. That he would refuse to marry them, that he would storm out announcing to one and all that she was the enemy. Then the man shook his head. “The one who was murdered? I read about it in the papers. How very terrible for you.”

  She relaxed against Thad’s arm. “It has been, yes.”

  “And given that, you can see why we thought it best to introduce her as a distant cousin. Though certainly we do not want to use the wrong name in the vows.”

  Reverend Gruber waved that off. “First names will suffice in the ceremony, and I will enter it in the register correctly, but as no one will really look at it, you needn’t worry. But, my dear, you haven’t reached your majority, have you?”

  “Nay, sir. I am nineteen.”

  He pressed his lips together, turning kind blue eyes from her to Winter. “Who, then, is her legal guardian?”

  Winter merely shrugged as Thad hummed. Gwyneth shook her head. “I do not actually know. Both of my parents have passed now, and I was not present for the reading of the will…someone in England, I suppose. I have a whole host of uncles. But the Lanes have taken on the role here. They are the ones to whom my father entrusted me when he realized he was in some danger.”

  His gray brows pulled down, Gruber thought about that for a few moments and then nodded. “That is good enough for me. No one in this country will much care, and I daresay by the time your uncles may object, it will be too much ancient history for them to make an inquiry.”

  Not to mention that Papa’s brother the earl, the one most likely to be her guardian, would by no means want to invite the scandal such an objection would bring. Gwyneth loosed her pent-up breath and looked up at her beloved.

  Within a few more hours, they would be man and wife.

  A rumble of thunder roared through, so loud it shook the glass in its panes. The reverend started and then looked toward the window and the angry black clouds clustering over the bay. “I do hope neither of you is superstitious about rain on wedding days.”

  Thad, bless him, grinned. “A rain that will help extinguish the fires smoldering in Washington can be only a blessing on our union, my friend.”

  Gwyneth held tight to his side and watched the roiling cloud bank move in. Dear Lord, let it be so.

  Twenty-Nine

  Smoke drifted thick through the air, black and roiling, burning Arthur’s nose as he looked around at the collection of buildings that had once been whole but were now little more than rubble. Though from the looks of it, Washington City had not been much to begin with. This was the capital, the heart of a nation? He shook his head and nudged his mount to the right. “You are certain Baltimore is safe?”

  His friend and former superior smiled and pulled his horse to a halt. “As safe as any town could be to you when burgeoning with panicked Americans. You really think Fairchild’s daughter may be there?”

  Arthur shot a glance to Gates. Though he trusted General Ross with his very life and had fought directly under him in the past, it had not been his decision to share their reason for seeking information on Baltimore, and he was still unsure as to why Gates had done so. But the man looked as unflappable as ever, so Arthur shrugged. “If she is in this country, it is the most likely place to find her.”

  Ross nodded and scanned a row of smoldering buildings. “Cochrane and Cockburn and I have yet to discuss our next point of attack, but Baltimore is the likely target. We have received word that the Potomac is grossly unprotected, and their own newspapers are reporting the sad state of their defenses. But you will have several days to get in and out before we would march in that direction. We—”

  An enormous boom cut him off, and Ross muttered a curse as he spurred his horse in its direction. Arthur signaled Gates and Scrubs to keep up as he followed the general outside city limits, heading toward the fort at what they had recently learned was Greenleaf Point. All along the way they heard exhausted soldiers asking in a panic if the fighting had resumed, but Ross made them no reply.

  “General!” A colonel galloped their way, his face smudged with soot and one cuff singed.

  Ross pulled up. “What is it, Calcott?”

  “The gunpowder you instructed us to destroy…the well must not have had enough water to cover the barrels we tossed down it…someone threw in a cigar stub…” He paused to take a breath. “A score are dead or wounded, sir.”

  As if howling in protest of the tragedy, the wind screamed over them. Thunder roared and a crack of light split the air, momentarily blinding Arthur. The lightning hit a tree nearby that creaked and groaned and crashed its way to the ground across the road.

  Their horses reared, whinnied, and tried to turn and flee. Arthur glanced at Scrubs, who surveyed the coming fury with what looked like a satisfied smile, and Gates, who eyed the churning clouds with far more sobriety.

  “I think,” Gates said, loudly to be heard over the wind, “that we are not going anywhere today. We had better find shelter.”

  With huge drops of rain pelting his shoulders, Arthur had no recourse but to agree.

  Music nearly drowned out the din from the storm, but occasionally a deluge of rain would overpower the fiddle and whistle, or a rumble of thunder would shake the whole house. In those moments Thad had glanced out the window at the tree limbs littering the street and the debris gusting by and whispered a prayer for safety and protection for their homes. Then he had spun Gwyneth into his arms again for another dance.

  His wife. He had been smiling so much this afternoon that he would likely strain a cheek muscle, but it couldn’t be helped. The woman who owned his heart had agreed to marry him and pledged herself to him before as much of Baltimore as could squeeze into his house, and she was even now watching him from across the room with joyful eyes.

  When he had married Peggy, it had been a quiet, somber affair. Just his family and one of her friends, a private ceremony, a small supper. This was more like her wedding to Arnaud had been. What a wedding ought to be. Pure, unbridled hope with no ghosts haunting it.

  Arnaud stepped up beside him now, slapping a hand to his back. “Did General Smith grant you time off for a honeymoon?”

  From his other side, Smith snorted. “If only we could afford such leisure. He may stay at home with his beautiful bride as long as this storm rages, but once it is gone, we have much work to do.”

  “I know.” Still Thad grinned. His next days and weeks might be filled with drilling, digging, and fortifying, but he would come home each evening to Gwyneth. Able to take her in his arms whenever he pleased. To hold her and be held.

  “I have special work for you two.” Smith turned to face them, his countenance empty of anything but casual well wishing. “You must drill with everyone else, of course, but rather than dig, I need you to organize support from the local businessmen. We need, above all, capital. The state has little to give us, so go to the bankers, the merchants, and anyone else with sterling to spare. With Washington in ruins, I expect an outcry that will bring volunteers here in droves. We need farmers and bakers willing to feed them. Townsfolk to house them. Our every effort, our every focus must be on readying this city for the British arrival.”

  Thad felt a soft touch on his back, and Gwyneth slipped under his arm, resting against his side. “We can all help with that, sir. Encouraging the people to share what they have with those who will be flooding the city. Thad’s mother was saying how we would do our part while the men are drilling by organizing food and shelter. And, of course, Rosie intends to have our kitchen working at its capacity.”

  “How fortunate she taught you to cook.” Thad grinned at his bride and gave her a squeeze. She looked beautiful in her best dress, with her hair so carefully arranged, but he had to be honest. ’Twas that light of beneficence in her eyes, the determination to help others, that made her radiant.

  And the way she looked up at him with that expectant warmth didn’t hurt either.

  “Your assistance will be much appreciated, Mrs. Lane. If all greet our efforts with such enthusiasm, then
Baltimore will soon be a bastion of safety.” The general smiled as he bowed slightly at the waist. “Allow me to say that Thaddeus has found himself a jewel of a wife, with a spirit as lovely as her countenance.”

  “Thank you, General.” Her cheeks flushed a perfect pink at the compliment.

  Arnaud caught Thad’s gaze and winked, nodding at the window. “It looks as though we are in a lull. I had best get Jack home before the next round hits.”

  Thad made no argument, especially when the majority of his friends and neighbors followed suit. Within fifteen minutes the house was empty of all but those who had offered to help clean up. He knew Mother and Philly would be stealing Gwyneth away any moment to help her take the pins from her hair and change out of her dress, and his pulse thudded. But he would steal her himself for a moment first. While the others were saying their farewells to the mayor and his wife, Thad tugged her into his study and shut the door behind them.

  She laughed as he swept her into his arms. “Why, Mr. Lane. There are still neighbors who needed a goodbye.”

  “They will understand, Mrs. Lane.” He kissed her soundly, as he had been wanting to do all afternoon, until a gust of wind tore by with such force that it sounded as though the window might be pushed from its frame.

  Gwyneth held tight to him, her face toward the shuddering glass. “Are your summers always so stormy?”

  “Some years are worse than others. It seems that the higher the heat, the more we see. And, of course, hurricanes strike us occasionally, though not as often as in the southern states. Perhaps this is the edge of one.” He stroked a hand down her back and then up again to where her hair so often tumbled down, though today none had dared escape Mother and Philly’s careful arrangement. “Not exactly the sunshine you likely envisioned for your wedding day, hmm?”

  “Stop it.” She pulled his head down to place the caress of a kiss upon his lips. “I would have it no other way. I married you, which is all that matters. In God’s time, according to His plan. And if He feels we need a storm to sweep us into our life together, then so be it.”