Contract to Wed: Prairie Romance

by Holly Bush

  “Come in,” he replied to a knock at his door.

  “As promised,” Henry said as he came in, bottle and glasses in hand.

  “I was hoping you remembered,” Reed said and moved to the small table where Henry was seated and accepted a glass.

  “So,” Henry said between sips, “tell me about your family.”

  Reed rolled the brandy over his tongue. “What do you want to know?”

  “Father said you’d be tight-lipped. Wasn’t trying to be nosy. Just hoping they were in good health and all.” Henry crossed his legs and looked away.

  “Forgive me, cousin. Mother and Father are fine. Winston is well and set to marry in the fall.”

  “Sounds like things are getting back to normal. The girl Winston will marry, do you know her?”

  Reed smiled and raised his brows. “Quite well.”

  “Will they be living at the plantation? Father said your family managed to hang onto it.”

  Reed wondered how much his cousin knew. “Father made enough in gold running blockades to pay the taxes and begin again. Winston brought his first crop of cotton in without slave labor.”

  “I’m glad your family business survived. I am sorry about you brother Franklin. Terrible loss, a sibling.”

  “Thank you,” Reed replied.

  The two men sat in companionable silence, listening to the hushed chatter of guests as the hotel quieted for the night.

  Henry leaned forward and stared at Reed. “I know I shouldn’t ask. Can’t seem to help myself. But if the plantation survived, why didn’t you take it over rather than a younger brother.” Henry looked at Reed’s stern face and hurried to continue. “None of my business,” Henry said, smiling at Reed, “Anyway, why would a successful lawyer want to plow and sow?”

  “How is your family, Henry? Your father’s letters to Mother were always interesting. I would like to meet them.”

  Henry chuckled. “Quite an assortment there. Mother and Father are fine. My younger sisters drive my father crazy with a varied group of suitors.” Henry poured another brandy from the crystal decanter and sat back. “Funny we never met. Our families I mean. Your mother and my father corresponded regularly. Father loved getting letters from Aunt Lily. Said she was the pride of the South.”

  “Pride of the South,” Reed whispered and sipped.

  Henry turned the framed daguerreotype around. “Father said my sister Susan was the spitting image of her. He’s right.”

  “How is your father’s business?” Reed asked.

  “Doing well. Always be a market for coffee, I imagine.”

  “Begs the question, why would a coffee wholesaler’s son, move west and leave a prosperous business behind?” Reed asked over the cut edge of his glass.

  Henry chuckled. “Turnabout is fair play, I suppose. I tried my hand at Father’s business for a while. Didn’t care for it much. Had a dream of moving west. Wanted to watch this country grow. I love it here. I found a beautiful woman and my life’s work. Oh, I miss my family and what I grew up with, but I know I would’ve never been happy in Boston.”

  Envy of a clear-cut longing and the fulfillment of that goal filled Reed’s head. Nothing seemed clear for Reed. He was schooled as an attorney, yes, but had practiced little. Reed certainly missed nothing of his life after the war began. Had the war not come, things may have been different. He would have continued on as the second son to a prosperous cotton farmer and would have managed a great estate’s affairs. But the war had come. Gone were a genteel existence, his older brother, and Reed’s legs.

  Henry corked the brandy and stood. “Mary Ellen told me to keep this visit short. That you’d be tired. I fear I’ve worn you out more than you already were.”

  “My bed does seem to be calling,” Reed said. “Thank you for the ramp. An ingenious invention.”

  “Mary Ellen and I both would like you to be happy. We have no family nearby and want you to make your life here,” Henry said. “I know I’ll never replace your brother, I never had one, of course, but it will be good to know I have someone to lean on. And that you, too, can count me as family.”

  The sincere exposition touched Reed in a way that seemed foreign. His thoughts of family were as muddy and murky as the bayou, filled with pride, resentment and the undeniable knowledge that he may have done the same things under the same circumstances. Maybe, just maybe, his mother’s encouragement to begin a new life elsewhere came from the heart. And maybe she was right. He had best try and forget the hurts and the wrongs of the past and make something of himself in a new land. He had told Henry it was a new world, and perhaps this was the place for a new beginning.

  Reed watched Henry turn the brass door handle. “My brother’s fiancée was to marry me. Her family’s plantation adjoined ours,” Reed said.

  Henry turned back with a confused look. “I’m sorry, Reed.” He stood unmoving and smiled wistfully. “Maybe it was for the best. If she loved your brother, you two wouldn’t have been happy.”

  “Had nothing to do with love, Henry,” Reed said. “After Franklin was killed and I returned from the war like this,” Reed said with a sweep of hands to his chair, “Father decided that Winston should inherit. That I was not up to the task. Belinda was part and parcel of the deal.”

  Henry’s eyes widened. His mouth opened and closed. “Oh.”

  Reed watched the man absorb and tackle that bit of Jackson family chicanery. This was the first time Reed had spoken aloud this tale, and it sounded sordid and cold to his own ears. What must this straight-laced Bostonian think, Reed wondered.

  “What shit,” Henry said in awe, finally.

  Reed laughed. “Well put, cousin. What I think exactly.”

  Henry shook his head again and left Reed in his thoughts.

  Reed wheeled himself to the window and listened as human sounds faded and a night orchestra began. Crickets chirped and an owl screeched in the distance over the low hum of a faraway piano. Reed smelled rain in the heavy air. He remembered the shocked look on Henry’s face and relived its source. Betrayal, anger and bitter disappointment filled Reed’s head. But he could not hate his father even though he wanted to. Reed knew that forging a new life in the devastated South would require a man fit in all ways. His father bound and determined to resurrect a lost cause with new rules to follow.

  His cousin had proven, against all odds in Reed’s mind, to be a man he could like. There was no doubt of the sincere outrage in his eyes. And the straight talk had freed some of Reed’s anger and cleared a space in his mind to look forward and not back.