The Secret Admirer Romance Collection

by Barratt, Amanda; Beatty, Lorraine; Bull, Molly Noble

  At the front of the church, Adam waited in his best outfit, his eyes shining with the love he’d saved for her alone.

  She basked in its glow, knowing he saw the same reflected on her face. She’d stepped away from convention to show her love to the man God had placed on her heart, and she’d been rewarded with more happiness than she’d ever imagined.

  From his spot of honor beside Adam, Neil caught her eye. But instead of his usual teasing look, he nodded with approval.

  Janet stopped a few feet away from Adam. She turned to Pa and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Pa.”

  With great ceremony, he placed her hand in Adam’s. “Your mother would be proud of you.”

  With a slight squeeze and nod, Adam let her know he also felt their mothers watching from above as they took the holy step together.

  At the close of the ceremony, they sealed their vows with the traditional kiss. Flushed from the contact, a moment passed before she realized Adam had slipped a folded piece of paper into her palm before turning to thank the pastor.

  She almost laughed out loud. The courtship was over, but the love notes would continue to provide a source of mystery and entertainment for some time to come.

  Her heart sang with joy.

  Anita Mae Draper’s historical romances are woven under the western skies of the Saskatchewan prairie where her love of research and genealogy yield fascinating truths that layer her writing with rich historical details. Her Christian faith is reflected in her stories of forgiveness and redemption as her characters struggle to find their way to that place in our heart we call home. Anita loves to correspond with her readers through any of the social media links found on her website at www.anitamaedraper.com. Readers can enrich their reading experience by checking out Anita’s storyboards on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/anitamaedraper.

  The Last Letter

  by CJ Dunham

  Dedication

  For Red Pen, a.k.a. Nancy Dunham. Thank you, Mom, for editing every copy I’ve ever written, and rewritten, and rewritten. You not only made me, you’ve made me the writer I am today. And for Ferron, who is my support, and my “Cyrus,” the love of my life.

  Chapter 1

  It was a day of stark contrasts, almost more than she could bear.

  The heavy winter sky had thrown off its gray shroud. A luminous spring day, the most brilliant Emilia had seen since before the war, beamed above her. Its lapis blue mirrored the distant lake, and the water sparkled as if competing with the brightness of the sky. All around her the world was flooded with color, yet here she was, still wearing black.

  With somber steps she continued down the cobbled main street of Canandaigua, New York, with another letter in hand. As she passed the fabric shop, she gazed with longing through the window at the rows of calico fabrics: they came from her father’s warehouse. “Papa,” she whispered, the ache choking her voice. For the first time in over a year she had the desire to take up needle and thread, but who would she quilt for now? She had sent Papa and her only sibling, Johnny, off with handmade quilts, but they had been killed in the battle of Melvern Hill three years ago. She had made quilts for her fiancé, Asa, and his comrades, who were freezing under threadbare blankets, but it wasn’t the cold that had reduced the company from one hundred to twenty men. A quilt is a comfort not a shield, and last year Asa also fell; for him it had been at the Battle of Cold Harbor.

  Asa! As she thought of him all the fondness came back. He was a good man. He would have been a good husband. They would have had a good life. But now all she had left was a weekly ritual of mailing letters to him. They had made a vow before he left that they would write faithfully to each other until the last day of the war, and so she continued to send letters. It seemed a morbid thing to write one’s dead fiancé, but it wasn’t really. More than once, Emilia had caught her father talking to her mother’s picture after she died. He confessed it eased his grief. Well, this ritual gave relief to both Emilia’s grief and integrity.

  On she walked, past the milliner, barber, and bread shops, as she did every Monday. But today was different: the bells of the Methodist Church began to ring, followed by a succession of bells of three other churches. Among the clamor came the incompressible cry, “Lee has surrendered! Lee has surrendered!” The town went wild. Hats flew up in the air. Like the breaking of a dam, people began to flood the streets as word spread.

  The letter fluttered in her hand with a rising breeze. Dated April 10, 1865, it now marked the last letter she would send to her deceased fiancé. The war was over.

  At this moment it seemed easier to be brave in the face of danger than in the face of this emotion, but she managed to lift a foot, then another, and make what would be the last offering to Asa’s memory. As she walked, the jubilation seemed to nip at the heels of her grief. Hand bells began ringing like a swelling tide, flowing down the street behind her while she maintained a slow, methodical gait.

  When she got to the post office, Mr. Andrews, the postal clerk, wore an uncharacteristically grim expression, a stark contrast against the flags and ribbons blurring past the window. He didn’t reach out to take her letter either, just stared with what appeared to be watery eyes. He was an older man but didn’t have the dewy eyes of the aged. Tears of joy would have been understandable considering the victory celebration erupting on the other side of the wall, but his was the countenance of a pallbearer. The wrinkles around his mouth and eyes trembled slightly, as if cracks in a stone that was about to crumble.

  Emilia parted her lips to ask if he was all right, but a lump lodged in her throat, and she saw that her hand was likewise trembling. Until now she hadn’t realized how much this ritual had sustained her, given her a purpose.

  A man entered the post office. With a vague glance over her shoulder, she saw that he was tall, broad shouldered, and filled the doorway. He wore the blue uniform of a Union officer, yet he was so young, only in his twenties. His face was shadowed under the brim of his stained hat, but she could see his dark brown eyes looking back at her.

  She extended the letter to Mr. Andrews. He accepted it while looking at her with that intense expression in his eyes. “Miss Davis,” he said as she turned to leave. His words caught her like a snag on her shoulder, and how she dreaded snags! She was not a perfectionist, except with quilts, and of late with the penmanship of her letters. She had surrendered her last letter, so what could he want?

  “Miss Davis,” the postman hesitated. “You have a letter.”

  “I just handed it to you, sir.”

  “No, you have received a letter.”

  “I believe there must be a mistake.” Emilia had distant relatives, but they were just that, distant. She knew them by name only, and that because they were recorded in the family Bible, but she couldn’t tell where they lived, and they certainly wouldn’t know Emilia’s address. Yet Mr. Andrews held up a letter.

  “Miss Davis.” His voice cracked. “It’s from Asa Wilson.”

  A long moment of silence passed between them. Her mind couldn’t fully attach to the words he spoke, as if he’d uttered them in a foreign language. Again she parted her lips to reply, but nothing came out; verily her mind couldn’t even form the astonishment into a single word. In a timid gesture he extended the envelope.

  She looked at the crinkled envelope and saw her name: Emilia Davis, 221 Downy Lane, Canandaigua, New York. She forced her eyes to look at the return address. 1st SGT Asa Wilson, XVIII Corps, Washington City.

  “It can’t be!” Emilia gasped. A shadow moved behind her. It was the officer as he took a step toward her then hesitated. “How can it be?” she asked Mr. Andrews, who could only offer a shrug. This had to be a cruel joke, and crueler still in this setting of unbridled reverie. “Asa Wilson died June second last year. You know that.” Blood drained from her lips. “Who would do—” Then it struck her, what this could mean, and she snatched the letter from his hand. Her breath shook with a rising tremor as she ripped open the envelope.


  “It can’t be,” she mumbled as she shot the postman a pleading look. “Could it be that he’s still…that there’s been a terrible mistake and he’s still…” It’s a joke, it’s a mistake, this is wrong, wrong, she told herself, but hope is a sudden flame when ignited.

  She slid the letter out of the envelope and looked at the signature. It was signed Asa Wilson! Written in pencil, the handwriting was similar, but the down strokes heavier. Irrational as it was, the first thought that came to her mind was, What has this war done to him?

  Mr. Andrews came around the counter to steady her hand, but it was too little too late, for next she saw the date at the top of the letter: June 2, 1864: the day Asa died. This had been his last letter to her.

  Now it felt as if all the blood drained out of her head. Fainting, all she was aware of was something warm pressing against her back, and realized that it was the soldier’s chest as he caught her.

  Chapter 2

  I’ll fetch water,” a deep voice spoke in her ear as she was lowered to the bench outside the post office. The officer left as the clerk began patting Emilia’s hand.

  “You just rest here a bit,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Emilia lifted her chin, drew a breath, composed herself, and slid the letter in the envelope that had appeared on her lap, presumably placed there by the postman. “I wish to return home.”

  “You need to rest!”

  “I need to think. I need to go home. I’m going home. Now!”

  Mr. Andrews called after her about seeing a doctor, but her mind had gone as numb as her ears, and her frame stiff as a dressmaker’s mannequin as she moved back down the street.

  The letter clutched to her breast, Emilia walked beneath the lane of cottonwoods to the low white gate of Downy Lane. Papa always had a sense of humor, and as he was in the textile business, he deemed it the perfect name for their small but cozy property.

  The cottage was five rooms short of a manor, Mama once said. But as Emilia approached the porch, she thought that, though it was not impressive or large, it was the most beautiful dwelling she’d ever seen. How she loved the Grecian-style porch with its small but proud pillars! The family had done well in textiles. Since girlhood she’d fallen in love with the sight of rolls and rolls of cloth the way a sailor falls in love with the sea. Cloth had become her life, and her skill as a seamstress was unmatched, even by the tailor.

  No longer able to maintain servants, Emilia entered the empty house and collapsed in her favorite button-upholstered chair. It was situated next to the parlor bay windows. More than for the view, she adored this spot because of the potted tree beside the chair. It was an orange tree, and even she had laughed at Papa’s foolishness for trying to grow oranges in New York. It never did produce fruit, but, oh, the fragrance of its blossoms filled the entire room! This was where she was wont to sit to read the Bible, to pray, and, once upon a time, to sew. Today, it was where she sat to read Asa’s last letter.

  Just then she noticed the figure of a man at the gate. It was that scruffy-looking officer from the post office. He was indeed tall, his shoulders almost too wide for the blue coat. The double row of gold buttons down the front added to his impression of height. He could have been the face of war with that misshapen hat, the miserably untrimmed dark beard and mustache, and the brooding yet intense brown eyes shining from under the brim. Perhaps he had come to ensure she had arrived safely home? But there seemed to be another agenda as he stood there with a saddlebag slung over his shoulder. Then as suddenly as he had appeared, he turned away and disappeared under the dappled shadows of the cottonwoods.

  This near encounter made Emilia more acutely aware of her aloneness as she slumped in the chair, the letter burning as if a hole in her chest. Distant cheers and horns and clanging bells pealed out like the rolls of unwelcome thunder. It was unlike Emilia to tremble, as she did now, praying for strength as she read the letter:

  Dear Emilia, [Emilia winced: Asa had always written Dearest]

  I must be brief as I haven’t much time. [Oh, the irony of that line! It was unbearable.] I wish for you to know that despite all the sacrifices I’ve made for this war, I am grateful I was here to help preserve the Union and to do my all to end the blight of slavery in this land. But I do not wish for you to think of my hardships. Rather, think of me resting on these cool nights, gazing up at the stars as they bloom in the ever-deepening blue of night. I have missed you more than you know. I have thought of you daily, especially at night, wishing I could share these views of heaven with you. I have cherished each of your letters and have slept with them as I dream of better times.

  Emilia turned the page over, angling it into the sun in an effort to read the pencil marks.

  Kansas has just become a state in the Union, and I find myself aching for a new life out west. This may sound strange, but I want to own a store and live free, out on the wide-open plains away from all this turmoil and strife. If anything should happen to me, I want you to know that I have come to admire you above all other women. When this war ends, after the mourning has past, I wish for you to think of starting a new life, of living under brighter skies and embracing a beautiful hope of your future.

  I have been cheered by your goodness even in these harsh times. Whatever you do, don’t stop sewing, for your quilts and your grace are a gift to all who know you.

  Emilia, carry on to that brighter place, and know that you are loved.

  Emilia dropped the letter in her lap. Why, why did Asa have to write like this now? Why did his last letter have to be the first time he wrote with such a sympathy of expression? Now she felt something more than fondness for him, she felt the stirrings of love—unrequited love!

  A wagonload of people flew down the road, shaking cowbells, of all things, and shouting, “The war is over!”

  I know, I know! she wanted to shout back. That’s all I know. The war is over, the war is over! Everything is all over! As if in a voiceless reply, the verses Papa had taught her from Psalm 139 shot through her mind: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter-most parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.”

  Picking one of the last blossoms left on the tree and placing it inside the letter, she vowed, “Yes, Asa, I will find that brighter place.”

  The screen door banged like a gunshot. Emilia jumped at the sound. Only now did she see a horse and carriage parked near the porch. Lost inside the last letter, she had not noticed the arrival of a man—who was now standing in the entryway, staring at her.

  Chapter 3

  Miss Davis?”

  Emilia sprang to her feet, alarmed, until she realized that it was only Mr. Langley, the family banker and financial adviser. Emilia’s shoulders dropped in relief.

  “Miss Davis, good morning,” he said with a nod.

  “Mr. Langley,” she returned. “What brings you here?” Though she hardly needed to ask.

  “One could barely make you out, dressed in black, sitting in shadow.” He had been urging her for months to discard the mourning dress and join him on outings, both of which she’d refused. “Have you heard the news?” he spouted, an actual note of enthusiasm in his otherwise monotone voice.

  “How could I not?” she retorted, walking toward him while yet another rider whooped and shouted as he rode down the lane toward Main Street. “It is good news.” It was her turn to be monotone, feeling as if a dam had burst and the full effects of the war were just now tumbling down upon her. “Shall we?” she asked, stepping out onto the porch.

  “Why, yes, yes, of course,” he replied, following. “I meant no impropriety. I’d forgotten you had to let Opal go as well.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that you could forget anything, Mr. Langley,” she threw back over h
er shoulder as she found a seat on one of the wicker chairs on the porch. Although he was only in his late thirties, his eyes drooped and gave him the appearance of a man ten years his senior. His goatee was not only trimmed to perfection, it came to such a point as to appear to tuck into the V of his starched high-necked collar. It was hypocritical, she knew, to judge him for the dishwater gray of his eyes, but if only poor Mr. Langley had some color in them; something to give them the appearance of depth.

  “The end of the war will bring about remarkable changes, not only in the financial climate of the country,” he said, drawing a chair up next to her, “but in other respects as well, I hope.”

  Emilia was not blind to his intentions, nor was she receptive. “But that is not why you’ve come, Mr. Langley.”

  “No,” he leaned back, “it is not. Unfortunately. This is a business call. I’m hard pressed to tell you that there is no other recourse. Downy Lane must be sold. Without your father’s income, well, the estate funds are running out.”

  Emilia looked out over the estate. There was not an inch of lawn that did not hold a family memory, and the whole of it seemed infused with the footfalls of every Davis who had lived here since the days of the Revolutionary War. How was it that war marked the beginning and the end of this place?

  “Miss Davis.” He leaned forward, and she noted that the fragrance of his hair tonic was stronger today. “I understand that your female sympathies run deep and that this is a most distressing time for you; however, it’s time to move forward. You cannot stay here alone, not a young and lovely woman as yourself. It’s not safe. It’s not done.”

  “Are you ordering me to give up my home?”