“I . . . I . . .”
As she reached for her words, Shaw was suddenly looking over her head, behind her.
“Sorry boys,” Abby heard, as she turned to see Douglas standing with poorly concealed rage on his face. He continued tightly, “If you could excuse Miss Milton for but a moment.”
He extended his arm to Abby and began pulling her toward the French doors at the side of the ballroom. She worried she had already done something wrong.
Once they were alone on the stone terrace outside the ballroom, Douglas turned toward Abby and a torrent rushed from him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He bent at the waist and pushed his hands against his thighs, as though struggling to catch his breath.
Righting himself, he continued, “I know I brought you here to introduce you, to let you meet the people of Charleston.” He shook his head, clearly agitated. “I didn’t expect to react like this. But I just couldn’t let those men in there have at you. Watching Anderson and those others crowding you, breathing on you, something came over me, like I had lye in my veins. And then he winked at you. I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t . . . couldn’t breathe the air while I watched you slipping through my grasp.” He laughed out loud and looked up into the night sky, shaking his head good-naturedly. When he looked back down at her, his face was serious.
Abby looked back at Douglas in the moonlight, unsure what he was trying to tell her. She could still hear the music and muffled laughter coming from inside the ballroom, but she couldn’t piece together what Douglas was saying right in front of her. Nothing she hoped for ever came true, and certainly this moment, this confusing, rushed moment that had crept up on her from embers of doubt, seemed unfathomable.
He took hold of Abby’s hand and guided her a few steps farther from the house before continuing.
“I think we have to submit to this, this pull between us. I know it’s complicated with our living arrangements, but we will figure it out. That will be the easy part. I haven’t felt, not anything, not since before, but then there you were.”
Abby could sense the hope growing in her chest, spreading its fingers like the light of a rising sun and expanding throughout her body.
“Abby—” He paused as he scanned her face. They were standing so close she could smell the mint on his breath. “I cannot wait any longer. I thought . . . I thought I could, but then one yearning look from another man showed me how wrong I was.” He gazed down at her and moved a stray tendril of her hair from her face. “I am transfixed.”
Abby grabbed the iron rail framing the patio to steady herself and give herself a moment to parse through his words before responding. She wanted to accept his declaration, to swoon in his arms and embark on some sort of fairy tale, but that was not the kind of luck she had. He’d only just begun to know her, he couldn’t have any concept of the darkness in her soul, how she had already been befouled. The American Abigail was just a mirage, waiting to return to vapor.
She paused, searching for the right words and trying to temper her own response. “I think perhaps you are confused,” she began cautiously, “and fancy yourself besotted, when really you are only starved for companionship. You barely leave your home—you consort with such a limited population. It is no wonder you enjoy my company when you so rarely keep company with anyone at all.”
“No, Abby,” Douglas said firmly. “I know my own mind, and my heart. They both belong to you. That is, if you will have them. We are not so many years apart in age and really, there is nothing that should stand in our way.” He looked at her expectantly.
Abby returned Douglas’s gaze for a long moment without responding. She was struggling between hopefulness and cynicism, thrilled by Douglas’s words, yet petrified that his affection was directed at a false girl, someone she had invented.
“But you don’t even know me!” she nearly shouted. “And once you do, everything that drew you to me will be revealed as counterfeit. I am not the sophisticated young lady you see before you. Do you forget why I am in the States at all? I am an indigent, a parasitic factory girl, smothered by filth, inside and out.”
“I do know you, Abby, more than you think. We have both been polluted in the past, by forces beyond our control. But I know who you are. I see it in the way you carry yourself, wearing your lady’s posture like a costume over arms that would rather swing carefree, in constant motion. I see who you are in your impulse to attend to every last bugger in need, whether it’s Reggie’s hands or that god-awful horse you couldn’t resist. I see you, each time your lip twitches before you smile, the way you run your finger along the outer spine of a book that piques your interest. I see your loyalty to your family, and maybe, if I’m lucky, to me. I understand your trust is hard to earn, and I am aware you’ve been dealt great blows, that you’ve suffered in the past. I wish only to see you contented, and to keep your company for as long as you will bestow such graciousness upon me. I will respect your wishes if I have misjudged the situation, but please, let me know if you are with me. That you might one day perhaps be mine.” He moved his face down so their noses were nearly touching. Abby felt the warmth of his breath against her cheeks.
“Are you, Abigail Milton? Are you with me?” he whispered.
Suddenly nothing mattered beyond keeping his gaze on her, feeling the warmth of his recognition, the flood of his ubiquity. She found herself nodding. She had the fleeting thought that the person he described was the woman she wanted to be.
“You are then? With me?” He prodded for definitiveness as he brushed the back of his fingers along her face.
“I confess,” she answered, surprising herself with the force of her emotions, feelings that previously she had refused to wholly acknowledge, even within herself. “I am with you.” They stood so close that only moonlight could pass between them. Douglas stared down at her with intensity, his light eyes having turned a deep, stormier blue. Abruptly he stepped back from her and cleared his throat.
“I think it’s best I give you some space before I am tempted to ask for things I do not yet deserve.”
The air felt suddenly cool without the shroud of him around her.
“Yes, perhaps we should return,” Abby responded regretfully. “People will wonder what has transpired between us out here.”
Douglas glanced toward the open doors, the ballroom’s yellow light bleeding onto the patio stones.
“I believe you owe those rogues a couple of dances to boot.” He shrugged resignedly. “Now that I am sure of you, I suppose I can bear it. I did bring you here under the guise of introducing you to society. I assume I need to take my lumps and watch you glide around in the arms of other men.”
“Oh, but I’d really rather not, to tell the truth,” Abby admitted. “You wouldn’t subject me to those men, would you? The way they looked at me. I think, I think that our living arrangement, and then coming here together tonight, it has given people ideas about me.”
Douglas was silent for a moment as he considered her words.
“Let us compromise. In the interest of limiting ladies’ gossip, I think it is incumbent upon us to sacrifice a bit of your time to dances with the local gentlemen. If you can survive three waltzes or polkas or what have you, I will come and rescue you under some excuse.”
“Three dances and no more?”
“And no more,” Douglas agreed. “But first,” Douglas smiled mischievously as he removed Abby’s dance card from where it hung on her wrist, “let me add my name for another dance or two.” He leaned on the railing and wrote his name with great flourish, working on the card for too long.
When he handed the card back to her, she scanned it quickly and laughed.
“I may lack experience with proper etiquette, but I’m fairly certain that you are not supposed to put your name next to eighteen of the twenty-two available dances!”
“Twenty-one,” Douglas corrected her. “We’ve missed the first dance while we’ve been out here. Now get on with those other d
ances so that I might enjoy your company again sooner.”
“When people see my card, they’ll talk,” Abby warned. “What happened to avoiding ladies’ gossip?”
“Abigail, my darling,” Douglas smiled carelessly, “they’re talking already. Let’s at least make it interesting.”
“But you brought me here to help with my reputation, not to tarnish it.”
“Oh fine,” Douglas gently tugged at the card so that it tore off the string on Abby’s wrist. “We’ll tell the card committee that I spilled my drink and you need a replacement. But,” he perked up as he placed the ravaged card inside his coat, “I intend to collect on these eighteen dances in the future.” He extended his elbow for her hand. “We’d better return you to your suitors before we incite a riot.”
When they reached the men, who were still waiting by the wall, Douglas bowed gallantly.
“My apologies. Miss Milton is available now.” He smiled pointedly at Abby and added, “Well, she’s available for the next few dances at least. Get your chance while you can, boys.”
Abby was vaguely aware of herself being escorted to the dance floor by Shaw Anderson, but she was in a near trance, trying to digest what had just happened. As Shaw spun her this way and that, she replayed Douglas’s words in her mind. Images of his darkened eyes swirled through her mind, memories of his warm fingers on her face. Abby felt herself grinning and hoped that Shaw would not think himself the cause of her delight. She allowed herself a quick glance in Douglas’s direction, and her heart fluttered as she saw that he was watching her from where he stood amongst a small crowd of bystanders, at the outer edge of the ballroom. Abby offered a silent thank you to Shaw, a skilled dancer who was allowing her to appear graceful under Douglas’s gaze.
The song ended, and Abby was handed off to one of the Meyers brothers. She couldn’t say which. The song was a polka. As with the waltz, Larissa had trained Abby so thoroughly in the proper steps that she hardly had to concentrate on her form at all. She looked back toward Douglas in anticipation, but she saw that he was no longer looking at her.
He was, instead, kissing the hand of Cora Rae Cunningham.
25
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA 1846
Rain pelted against the bedroom windows, persisting until Abby was thoroughly awake. She had shared a carriage home the night before with Fiona and Lemeny Weaver, sisters who lived with their parents on the other side of Meeting Street. Like Douglas, their elder brother, Amos, had stayed behind at the Montroses’ for card playing after the conclusion of the dancing. Douglas had advised Abby that if she wished to preserve her reputation against his blatant display of favor at the ball, he must refrain from accompanying her home. Abby winced remembering the way Fiona and Lemeny had riddled her with questions about Douglas. They were fifteen and seventeen years old, respectively, and they had not seen Douglas since before his late wife’s passing. They explained that Douglas, and his transformation back to some version of his former self, was all anyone in Charleston was talking about. Surely everyone was gossiping about her now, as well.
Glancing now toward the stormy morning sky, Abby wondered what would become of their plan to meet for a midday picnic. After returning to Abby for their promised dance the evening before, Douglas had asked permission to court her formally, beginning with a picnic in the gardens behind the house.
At a knock on the door, Abby sat up in bed, pulling the comforter up with her. She wanted to lie languid for longer, reveling in the memories of moonlight with Douglas the night before. As the knock was repeated, Abby wondered if she must answer.
“Abby,” Larissa called gently, “are you up, dear?” The governess opened the door a crack and peeped in, smiling when she saw Abby half risen. “I was hoping to get in at least an hour of studying this morning. I did let you sleep in you know, though it hardly looks like late morning with the sky so brown. Oh, and there’s this, too.” Reaching into the pocket of her colorless wool dress, Larissa pulled out a folded note. “Mr. Elling has informed me of your plan to enjoy your midday meal together today.” She raised her pale eyebrows at Abby as she placed the note back into the front pocket of her skirt.
Abby remained silent. She saw no reason to explain herself to Larissa when it felt as though she hardly understood the situation herself.
“Take heed, Abby,” Larissa warned, “Douglas Elling is this city’s mysterious tragic hero. All the bitterness that was hurled at him prior to the fire was replaced afterwards by sympathy and an awfully powerful curiosity. If you become involved with him, everything you do, down to lacing your boots, will become fodder for the tattlers. I happen to think it’s a fine idea, regardless,” Larissa added as she walked deeper into the room and began arranging Abby’s textbooks on the writing desk, “but I warn you so that you will know what you risk.”
Odd, thought Abby, that of the many risks she felt herself taking lately, being talked about was the hazard that made Larissa take notice. Abby’s mind was consumed with other questions as she thought of Douglas. Whether to trust him, whether he might hurt her, use her, forsake her for the likes of Cora Rae Cunningham—those were Abby’s real concerns. There was also the question of why she should care so much. She’d learned long ago not to let anything become too important, lest it might become lost to her.
Now Larissa was at the wardrobe sorting through Abby’s dresses.
“This one,” she declared, holding up Abby’s hunter-green day dress. “I think it’s your most flattering. I don’t know why you insisted on all these stark frocks the last time we visited the seamstress. Still, this one brings out some bit of brightness in your eyes.”
“Larissa, what are you doing?”
“I’m helping,” Larissa smiled as she hung the dress on the door to the wardrobe. “I’ve been waiting for you and Mr. Elling to catch onto each other for months. Both of you so stubborn, but idealists just the same. Come, no time to waste.”
GRACIE WAS STILL BASKING IN HER OWN ROMANCE OF the night before as she dressed for her Sunday morning visit to church. It had been her first ball since obtaining a real beau. To have spent the evening in the company of Harrison Blount had been as sweet as summer lemonade. Harrison had been the perfect gentleman, attending to Gracie’s every need throughout the party. At evening’s end, he had tried to steal a kiss, but Gracie played coy. It was incumbent upon a proper belle to be the moral compass of any relationship with a man. If she continued playing her cards right, they might be affianced by summertime.
Gracie’s rumination was interrupted by the sound of Cora Rae shrieking in anger.
“No!” Cora Rae shouted from the next bedroom, “not this one, you stupid ape!”
Gracie hurried into the hallway to see what had so agitated her sister just as a shoe came flying out of Cora Rae’s bed-chamber. She peered cautiously through Cora Rae’s door to find her sister slumped on the floor, surrounded by at least ten rumpled Sunday dresses and three frantic house slaves. The dress Cora Rae was wearing was buttoned only halfway up the back, her ivory shoulders bare between the gaping swathes of powder-blue fabric.
“Rae,” Gracie scolded, “what has come over you?”
“These creatures can’t find me one decent dress to wear!” Cora Rae snapped. “Is it so much to ask to hope to look passable for a trip to church?” She seethed. “Clover would have known how to find the right dress. I hope when they catch her they beat the daylights out of her.” Raising herself off the floral carpet, she looked at the three frightened black women standing in her bedroom. “Get out of my sight, all of you.”
The women each glanced back toward the heap of dresses, likely reluctant to leave behind the mess, but then trained their eyes to the floor and soundlessly exited the bedroom.
Gracie leaned against the doorframe and looked at Cora Rae. “Now what is it, really?” she asked.
“It’s just the incompetence of the people surrounding me.” Cora Rae groaned as she sat down at her vanity table, identical to Gracie’s
except for the mess of cosmetics and perfumes strewn across the top.
“And what else?” Gracie pressed.
Cora Rae turned back from the mirror to Gracie and sighed dramatically.
“If I must tell you,” Cora Rae began, “it’s your little friend, Abigail Milton.” Cora Rae pivoted toward the mirror to adjust her hair, her dress still unfastened halfway down the back. “It seems you’ve underestimated her.” She continued as she fiddled with clips in her hair. “While you were toadying up to Harrison last night, I had to watch that tramp mesmerize the man I’ve been waiting on for years. You should have seen how she had him looking at her. It was all he could do not to have her in the middle of the ballroom floor.”
Cora Rae dabbed at her eyes with a cloth and rose to view the dresses remaining in her armoire. “And now I have to undo all the damage that you were supposed to prevent. I should never have entrusted you to act as my emissary.” She began pulling more dresses from the wardrobe and dropping them on the bed. “This is just so typical of you, Gracie. Let me remind you that if I cannot have my heart’s desire, then neither shall you have yours. I don’t even think I’d take Harrison for myself, I’d just turn him off you.” She looked back to Gracie with an injured expression. “I wouldn’t have to resort to these ugly threats if not for your own capriciousness. Now how about you get out of my room and think on that?”
“I’m sure that Douglas is not as besotted as you imagine,” Gracie answered cautiously. “I was visiting with Abby less than two weeks ago, and she did not mention a word to me about any romance between them. Anything that has passed between them must have been incredibly recent, and can therefore be undone.” She stepped farther into the bedroom and seated herself on Cora Rae’s plush canopy bed, noticing that the bed coverings were still drawn back in significant disarray.
Trouble the Water_A Novel Page 23
