The formal address did not bode well. Had David given up his son? Had the fever returned? She drew in a breath and stepped into the room on trembling limbs.
Though pale, David tilted his head toward her.
“Prosperity.” Her name barely rasped from his dry throat.
She rushed to his side and picked up the glass of water to give him a drink. That’s when she saw it. The document that granted custody of Oliver to Reverend and Mrs. Myles Latham had been torn to pieces.
David did not speak to her that day. By the time Prosperity turned to him with the glass of water, he had slipped into slumber. Peaceful this time, his skin cool and the color returning. She sank into the chair and watched his regular breathing.
Each day cemented his recovery. None of the symptoms reappeared. Little by little he grew stronger.
Yet he did not address what she most longed to discuss.
Patience. She must wait until he was ready. She certainly deserved the delay, for she had kept him at arm’s length for months. If David had been the teasing sort, he would hold out until she could no longer bear it.
But bear it she must. She visited each day. Once the lull passed without return of the fever, he was moved to the general ward. When he could walk, he was sent to his quarters, though not yet required to resume duties. There they would pass the time seated on the shady veranda, discussing the books he had read since leaving Nantucket as well as the progress at the fort. She once brought Oliver, who never came down with a fever.
“He is of sound stock, like me.” She laughed. “I never seem to grow ill.”
David smiled, but his attention was all on his son, who kicked his feet and waved his little arms. “I missed him.”
“He fares well.”
“I can see that.”
“He takes mainly sweet milk now,” Prosperity admitted. “He does so well on it that we don’t think you’ll need to hire a new wet nurse when Elizabeth can no longer nurse.”
They spoke of such mundane things, yet she treasured each word shared. Sometimes she read to him while he closed his eyes. Other times he chattered on about his work at the fort. Never did they discuss the future.
They had time, she reasoned.
Yet as August slipped into September, and the daily downpours occasionally led to storms that lashed the island, she began to fear he could not forgive her. Never did he ask of her plans. Never did he look ahead. Instead he seemed content to dwell in the present.
But the present never lasts. In time, demands come and life moves forward. Prosperity took a housekeeping job that reduced her visits to three days per week.
One morning when she arrived, she found David bustling around his quarters.
“I can’t find the brush to knock the dirt from my coat.” He raked the hair off his forehead in a painfully familiar way.
“You are leaving?”
“I have been recalled to duty.”
Her heart sank. Though she’d known that day would come, she had hoped they still had some time. “Are you well enough?”
“I cannot shirk duty.”
She managed a tremulous smile. That was her David. “Naturally, but I shall miss our time together.”
He looked up as if startled by what she’d said. “Are you leaving?”
“I meant the days spent in conversation. They are already too few.”
“I am a soldier.”
“I know.” Again she smiled. “I am proud of that.”
His frantic search paused. “Aileen hated my work.”
Aileen. In their discussions following his illness, he never mentioned his late wife.
She looked him in the eye. “It’s who you are. An engineer and a soldier.”
“Then you do not regret my commission?”
“I cannot regret anything, for it has brought us to where we are now.” She hesitated. “It is what you wanted most of all.”
“Not most.” His gaze shifted downward as if he were suddenly abashed. But then he looked up again. “While I was sick, I dreamed . . .” His voice trailed off before he regained strength. “I dreamed you said you would marry me.”
Now that the words were before her, she could not find the right answer.
He reached for the doorknob, the brush forgotten. “I should be on my way.”
“It was no dream.”
“It wasn’t?” He looked back.
She shook her head.
“But the doctor—”
“I never loved him. Not in that way. He is a good man, like a father.”
“A father.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “A father!” He laughed. “What a fool I was!”
“No. I was the fool. And—and I stretched the truth. I told Dr. Rangler and your father that we were engaged to marry.” How that confession heated her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
He stared at her a long time, and she feared he would chide her for leaping to unwarranted conclusions.
Instead he shook his head. “That explains a great deal.” A smile teased his lips. “You were a bit presumptuous, though.”
“I did what had to be done.” The next would be more difficult. “I will not hold you to it, however, as you were not in your right mind at the time.”
His laugh barked out, and his lips curved into that glorious smile she so treasured. “Don’t think you can wiggle out of this that easily.” He grew serious and took both her hands. “I have never stopped loving you. I had to marry Aileen.” He looked away, stricken.
“I know.”
Her whisper drew him back. “I owe you an explanation.”
“No, you don’t. I know you, David Latham, and I know you would only act with honor. That is good enough for me.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Nor I you.” She smiled, hoping to ease his tension. “We are a pair, aren’t we?”
His lips pressed together for a moment. “Any future must include my life in the army and my son. I will not give up Oliver.”
“Nor will I.”
He seemed pleased though still reserved. “I heard how you fought for him. But you must realize that it will be difficult. You will face hardship and ridicule.”
“I know both.”
“Many won’t understand . . . about him . . . why he’s different.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “Those who matter most will.”
His throat bobbed again, and she thought his eyes misted. “I will love you unto death, Prosperity Anne Jones, and would be honored to make you my wife.”
“I love you, David Latham, and I wish to make my life with you, for better or worse.”
All the trials of the last few months slipped away. Once again he was the young man afraid to ask her to sit with him at the church social or the awkward gallant offering his coat to her in the midst of a cloudburst. Joy bubbled up until she felt giddy.
He caught up her hands. “Will you marry me?”
Though her hands trembled, she had never been more certain of anything in her life. “I would be honored to call you my husband.”
He drew her close, duty and dusty coat forgotten. His lips brushed hers, sweet as a summer shower and full of promise. Then he kissed her, firm and filled with a passion born from trial, a passion she had thought lost but that was now found. When the kiss ended, he continued to hold her, silent. Nothing needed to be said. She rested in the embrace, secure in his arms as the breeze rustled the leaves of the mahogany tree.
Though she wanted to stay like this forever, they could not. He had a duty to fulfill, and she had a hundred questions.
“When?”
His eyes twinkled. “Would tonight be too soon?”
“Tonight! We must speak with a minister and make necessary arrangements. I don’t need anything grand, but we must secure a time at church. And Elizabeth and Rourke will be terribly upset if we don’t include them.” Her thoughts raced ahead of her tongue, ending with a jumble.
“Not tonight then?” His grin told her
he had been teasing.
She shook her head and gently swatted his arm. “Since when did you become a tease?”
He sobered. “I don’t want to wait a minute, Prosperity, but I will wait for as long as you need. Until the end of mourning or even longer.”
“That is not necessary. Ma would want us together, especially with Oliver.” She squeezed his hands. “I suppose then that we first must find a minister.”
“My father is still on the island.”
The thought of Reverend Latham officiating made her more than a little nervous. “Would he approve?”
“Don’t be afraid.” David smoothed her hair. “He adores you. He asks every day when I’m going to seize the gift that God set before me. That’s you, Prosperity—you are my treasure.”
Once again her eyes filled with tears. “Then he will be perfect.”
He smiled and bent for another kiss, but a bugle call on the parade ground pulled him away. “Duty calls. Now, where is that brush?”
Prosperity plucked it from under the pile of gloves and hats on the nearby table. “I believe, Lieutenant, you are in need of a wife.”
“I believe, Miss Jones, that I have found the perfect match.”
“At last.”
“At last,” he echoed.
Her reflection danced in his eyes, precisely where it belonged.
Prologue
Early June 1856
Staffordshire, England
Catherine Haynes set her jaw and returned her cousin’s glare. By very subtly lifting her gaze above his piercing gray eyes and fixing it on the portrait of her mother hanging behind Papa’s desk, she could maintain the illusion of control.
“Well?” Ugly red suffused cousin Roger’s neck. “I am waiting for an answer.”
In the months since he and his family first arrived at Deerford, she had learned one important trait about her cousin. He expected compliance. This time she would not bow. Nor could she find words of refusal.
The mantel clock ticked off the seconds.
Roger braced his hands on the desktop, leaning forward like a snarling lion eager to capture its prey. “Your reply.”
Not a question.
Catherine drew an imperceptible breath and imitated Maman’s calm. “I cannot.”
“You cannot?” The sentence exploded with unspoken threat.
He would force her into this marriage.
Again the ticking of the clock filled the silence.
What would Maman do? Faced with similar prospects upon her return from the grand tour all those years ago, Catherine’s mother had abandoned her chaperones in the dead of night and eloped. Catherine had no such escape available.
Roger’s smile menaced. “If you continue in this stubborn refusal, you will lose what is left of your family.”
Meaning him. She had no one else. Not here. Maman’s family was in faraway Louisiana, and the decision to elope had cost her all contact with them. No letters. No word of any kind. How the separation must have hurt, for Maman often regaled her with stories of plantation life, of balls and soirees and golden days running between the tall rows of sugarcane. Catherine had begged her mother to take her there, but Maman said it was not possible. Then she’d died.
Only the portrait remained. Maman’s rose-colored gown flowed from her waist like that of an empress. At her throat rested the ruby brooch Catherine had often run her finger across when she was very young. H for Haynes, Maman had explained, a gift from Papa on their wedding day. Catherine had not found it with Maman’s jewels. Papa must have buried it with her.
Dear Papa. Catherine tugged at her heavy black sleeves to hide the welling of tears.
“I suggest a different answer,” Roger prodded.
Catherine brushed away the past. It could not solve this dilemma. She chose her words with care. “Mr. Kirby does not suit me.”
“Does not suit? You act as if you would bring an heiress’s fortune to your marriage. May I remind you that the terms of your father’s estate leave you but five hundred pounds?”
“And fifty pounds per year.” Eight months had not changed that fact. The passing of time had only increased her cousin’s urgency to be rid of her.
“Until you wed.”
That was the crux of it. Once she married, the annual payments would cease.
Roger settled into Papa’s chair.
She clenched her jaw against a wave of revulsion. Roger might have gained the estate through settlement, but he did not belong in her father’s place.
“I do not intend to wed. Allow me to manage the estate—”
He snorted derisively. “Is that what you call your playing around in the accounts?” He filled a pipe from Papa’s tobacco jar.
Angry words rose to the tip of her tongue and stopped there. Very few men considered a woman intelligent enough to manage accounts, least of all an estate. Roger was not one of them.
“If you examine my entries—”
“I have.” He slammed shut the open ledger before him. “Some might consider them adequate, considering your gender, but I found them entirely insufficient.”
“Insufficient! Compare my skills to any man—”
He cut her off. “Use those skills to benefit your husband.”
She choked. “I am in mourning and cannot consider marriage.”
“You have worn black long enough. It’s time to move on. I suggest you change into something more cheerful.” His cold gray gaze, fixed above fashionably long sideburns, bored into her. “That would be welcomed by our guests.”
Mrs. Durning, whose husband had just left to provision his ship for the crossing to the West Indies, and Mr. Kirby were expected. Neither cared about her attire, but at least it gave her an excuse to leave this unbearable interview.
“If you will excuse me, then.” She reached for the doorknob.
“Not quite yet.” He drew a breath on the pipe and exhaled a cloud of rich smoke.
If she closed her eyes, she could imagine Papa sitting there, his spectacles resting on the tip of his nose, where they would slide after hours of agonizing over the accounts. Papa had been a kind and generous man, often excusing debts and allowing rents to remain in arrears far too long. Of course, she hadn’t known that until he fell ill and she had to take on the accounts.
Roger cleared his throat. “At three and twenty you will soon slip from a marriageable age.”
“Apparently not, if Mr. Kirby is still calling.”
Roger’s jaw tightened. “His long association with the family places him in a rather fortunate position.”
“Fortunate? That is a matter of perspective, is it not? As you just stated, I bring a pittance into any marriage.”
“Precisely. Few would consider a wife who brings only five hundred to the marriage.”
She could not resist poking at his unstated desire. “You might continue the fifty pounds per year. We are cousins, after all.”
“Let me spell out what you could never have gleaned from your pitiable scribbling in the ledgers. Your father’s estate is in ruins.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he lifted a finger to silence her.
“Even if I manage to collect the arrears, which I fully intend to do, it will not offset the losses.”
Catherine would not be set down so easily. “Then how do you intend to pay the dowry?”
His lips twitched, signaling triumph. “I intend to sell the estate.”
“Sell Deerford?” The words barely escaped her constricted throat. “You can’t!”
“As you well know, I can. In fact, a buyer is at hand.”
“A buyer?” She clawed at hope. “Mr. Kirby?” Perhaps she would agree to marry him if it meant saving Deerford.
He laughed. “Certainly not.”
“Then who? Will he continue the tenants’ leases? Will he keep planting the land as always?”
“This clay soil was never suited to farming, dear Catherine. It will fare much better in the hands of the pottery ma
nufacturer that is buying it.”
“A factory?” Her head spun. “But, the house.”
“It would have been too costly to maintain.”
“What will happen to the tenants? You must take care of them. They have worked Deerford land for generations.”
He leaned back and blew out a plume of smoke. “They can apply for employment at the factory.”
“But they’re farmers.” Each face flashed through her mind, from old widow Evans to the two-year-old Herring twins. “They don’t know anything else.”
“Then they can move elsewhere.”
His cold statement sent shivers down her spine. She must help them, but how? The few guineas in her possession wouldn’t feed them long. They needed lands to tend.
“You must find them new homes,” she pleaded.
“Sometimes progress demands change. For them and for you.” He paused. “Deerford is extinct. You have nowhere to go, dear Catherine. Perhaps a husband—especially one as charitably minded as Mr. Kirby—would find a place for your tenants on his father’s or future patrons’ lands.”
Her throat closed. How carefully he had crafted the snare. If she hoped to help the displaced tenants, she must marry Eustace Kirby.
Roger seized his advantage. “I suggest you give full consideration to Mr. Kirby’s suit.”
She sank into the closest chair. “But he’s a clergyman.”
Roger’s brow quirked. “Do you harbor resentment against that noble profession?”
Cousin Roger would not think so highly of the ministry if he had been forced into it as Mr. Kirby had been.
“I wouldn’t make a good minister’s wife.”
“Let us hope Mr. Kirby doesn’t see that fault before the blessed event. I shall give him my blessing.”
“But I did not agree to marry him.”
“You would destroy your father’s hopes for you and leave your beloved tenants without a future rather than commit to a life of serving the Lord?”
Put that way, it sounded rather selfish, but she could not marry Eustace Kirby. The mere thought of kissing him made her stomach turn. Having children? Settling into a country parish? Impossible.
“There must be another answer.” Yet she could not see it.
Roger leaned back with a contented smirk and puffed the pipe. “Make no mistake, dear cousin, fifty pounds will not go far. Once you have no home . . .” He let her imagine the result.
Honor Redeemed Page 28
