Spirit of the Ruins

by Jenny Lykins

  Ty glanced around, a bit at odds as to what to do, but the man continued to stare. He tilted his head, then slowly started toward Ty.

  Ty returned the stare. The man almost looked familiar…

  “No, you are not seeing a ghost, Hennessey.” Stephen stood next to a column on the front veranda, his clothing once again pristine. “He is not who you think he is.”

  Stephen sauntered down the steps, cocky, the brim of his hat not quite shadowing the purple bruise already blooming on his jaw. “Though I can understand your hesitation. The resemblance is striking, is it not?”

  Hennessey? Had Stephen called the man Hennessey? The Hennessey he wanted Callen to marry?

  The man, closer now, turned his gaze back to Ty.

  Ty stepped forward and offered his hand, letting the man look his fill, knowing Hennessey had to be in shock if he knew Tylar McCall had died that day on the battlefield. And, of course, from his look, he knew.

  After a long hesitation, including a study of Ty’s face, hair, and clothing, Hennessey took Ty’s hand and shook it.

  “Evan Hennessey,” the man murmured uncomfortably, as though he were introducing himself to someone he already knew.

  “Ty McCall,” Ty murmured back. The other man didn’t bother to hide his shock at the name Ty gave. He turned, glancing back at Stephen.

  Stephen rolled his eyes, even though one of them had grown puffy.

  “His name may well be what he claims, but he is not Callen’s husband. He is not the Tylar McCall whose father worked for mine. He is not the Tylar McCall of the 1st Mississippi Cavalry, and he is not—”

  “I know,” Hennessey said, his voice quiet, calm. “I helped you bury that Tylar McCall.” He turned to Ty, studying him in disbelief. “I found Stephen pulling you...Tylar...out of Bloody Pond. We buried him together, to keep him out of the mass graves.” He shook his head, readjusted his hat as if it would help him think. “A twin brother? A cousin? You must be a relative. Who did you fight with in the war?”

  Ty shifted his weight and rubbed the back of his neck. Hennessey wasn’t being accusatory or nosy. He was just thinking out loud, pondering a question with an impossible answer.

  He deserved as much of the truth as Ty could tell. And as much as he hated to admit it, so did Stephen.

  “I...” He looked at Stephen and chose his words carefully. “I have no memory of fighting in the war.” He inclined his head toward the house. “And I have no memory of Windsor before I...happened upon it.” Hennessey listened, his head cocked in thought. Stephen simply stared Ty down. “I’ve seen the picture of Callen’s husband, and I’m as...baffled...as you are at the resemblance. And the name.” Ty’s mind raced, editing how much to tell and exactly how to tell it. “I have tried to convince Callen I’m not her husband, but she doesn’t believe me.”

  Ty could literally feel Stephen’s body go rigid, no doubt picturing Ty stretched out on Callen’s bed, with Callen cuddled up at his side, smoothing back his hair in a very wifely gesture.

  Hell. No wonder the man wanted to kill him. He looked Stephen in the eye, nonetheless, and silently challenged him to say differently, but Stephen merely glared. Though his grudge was far from over, Callen’s brother wasn’t going to drag her reputation through the mud in front of witnesses.

  “Evan, good morning.” Callen swept down the steps and onto the drive, her hair neatly bound in a series of loops, the striped peach gown warming her flawless skin. Tiny, teardrop earrings dangled at her ears, drawing attention to the perfect line of her jaw, the elegant length of her neck.

  But as flawless as the exterior was, it was her soul that attracted him most.

  Ty gave himself a mental slap. Now was not the time to be cataloging all that made this woman perfect.

  “You will stay for breakfast, won’t you?” she asked, her voice showing none of her earlier anger. “Magnolia is already setting another place.”

  “Yes!” Stephen insisted, guiding Hennessey toward the steps, ignoring Ty’s existence all together. “We have some business to discuss.”

  Ty stood on the drive, wanting only to disappear into the cellar, get back to his own time, sort out the chaos in his mind, but Callen slipped her arm into his and pulled him with her toward the house.

  “There will be no talk of business at the breakfast table,” she announced, allowing Ty to help her up the steps, her voice much lighter than the hand gripping his arm. “You know, Stephen, that Mother always swore it was bad for digestion.”

  Ty didn’t know about the others, but his digestion pretty much had already crashed and burned that morning. And at the moment, the chances of him getting into Windsor’s cellar unnoticed anytime soon were nil.

  When they entered the dining room, Stephen glared at the four place settings on the mahogany table, then jockeyed the seating to place himself and Hennessey nearest Callen. Hennessey obviously wanted to ask about the puffy bruises and split lip on Stephen’s face, but kept his questions to himself. He kept glancing at Ty, too, clearly suppressing questions there, as well. But every time his gaze turned to Callen, his face would soften and he got that indescribable look of a man in love.

  Oh yeah. The old digestive process shut down completely while Ty fought back his first experience with true, raging jealousy…unexpected jealousy, in an impossible situation, for a woman he could never have.

  He picked at his food, searched his mind for safe topics of conversation - which were few – studied the surroundings for the first time in daylight in an attempt to resist the urge to punch out Hennessey’s lights every time he looked at Callen.

  He saw now that Windsor had not been totally spared by the war. The china showed signs of wear with the occasional tiny chip. The upholstery on the dining room chairs was nearly threadbare in places. The walls in the dining room looked to have had a fresh coat of paint, but the entry hall needed new paper. He could even see where pictures had once hung there. Had they been sold for money? Stolen during the war? One of the windows had a cracked pane, but beyond that the stuccoed columns gleamed with a fresh coat of whitewash.

  He saw now, too, that Stephen’s immaculate clothes were new, as was Callen’s soft peach gown.

  Hennessey’s suit had seen better days.

  Obviously, money was coming into the Windsor household from somewhere.

  Ty glanced around the table, any possible answers to some of his questions totally evading him. Was Stephen pushing for a wedding for personal reasons? Was Callen to be a sacrificial lamb to join two old families’ assets? From the looks of things, Windsor had begun to rise from the ashes of the war. What benefit would Stephen gain if his sister married Hennessey?

  Callen watched Tylar shove his food around his plate, conveniently taking bites only when the conversation lulled. He said very little, glancing around as though he’d never seen the inside of the big house, never spent his childhood racing through the rooms with Stephen, Garrett, and herself.

  Her gaze automatically strayed to the entry hall, to the tell-tale lighter patch of paper where an oval portrait of Garrett once hung. When Stephen had returned from the war, he’d removed all reminders of their older brother. A brother whose name appeared on the list of soldiers presumed dead.

  A list of Yankee soldiers.

  Callen had rescued every picture, from portraits to daguerreotypes, that Stephen, in a rage, had ordered burned. She’d hidden them away in the farthest reaches of the overseer’s attic until the day they could once again grace the halls of Windsor.

  Perhaps Tylar’s inquisitive gaze merely searched for signs of Garrett.

  But no, if he truly could not remember Windsor, if he truly believed his outrageous story, then he would have no memory of the brother who’d chosen to fight for the North.

  Breakfast dragged on at an interminable pace. Stephen ignored Tylar. Evan uncomfortably but diplomatically tried to draw everyone into the conversation. Tylar obviously wanted nothing more than to get away, and Callen wanted nothing more than
to escape with him. She desperately needed to know if he planned to stay and be her husband, or leave her to mourn him the rest of her life.

  She glanced at him as she poured the coffee, at his odd clothing, wondering where he had gotten such attire. Could it be possible that he fully believed his story? Her heart sank even further in her chest at the prospect. She’d had such hopes that he would help her reclaim Connor. Her Tylar would never hold their son’s condition against him, and if Stephen refused to tell them where Connor was, then they would have found him together. But this Tylar, with his strange clothes and fanciful stories... She couldn’t trust him yet with the truth that he had a son - imperfect in the eyes of some, but an angel in the eyes of his mother.

  The meal finally, blessedly, came to an end. Evan lingered, partially from Stephen’s efforts to keep him there, but Callen knew that he waited for an opportunity to speak to her alone. Evan cared for her - she’d known that for years - and he would make a wonderful, caring husband for someone. But not her. She didn’t love him.

  She already had a husband that she did love.

  That husband excused himself from the dining room table. Distracted, he wandered toward the front door, pausing to look into the parlor, his gaze still scrutinizing his surroundings as though seeing them for the first time.

  Her breakfast, already not setting well, soured on her stomach.

  “I’m sure you gentlemen will excuse me,” she said as she rose from the table to follow him.

  “Callen, Evan has come here to see you.” Stephen’s voice held a knife sharp edge.

  “And I am certain,” she said, forcing a smile toward Evan, “that he will be kind enough to allow me to check on Tylar.”

  “Er...yes...of course,” Evan murmured, too well-bred to disagree with her. She would apologize later, but at the moment all her thoughts centered on her husband.

  From the dining room window, Stephen watched his sister catch up to the impostor. If they had not stopped in the garden in full view from the window, he would have been right behind her. But, he decided, rubbing his aching jaw then flexing his stiff fingers, perhaps he would be better served to observe this man from a distance.

  “I apologize for my sister,” he said to Evan, continuing to watch the pair. “She has quite obviously been taken in by this man.”

  “Who the devil is he?” Evan’s gaze followed Stephen’s. “The likeness is most uncanny.”

  “I’ve no idea who he is, but we both know he is not Tylar McCall.” No one knew that fact better than Stephen. “His resemblance, his showing up on our doorstep, cannot possibly be coincidence. Nor can it be anything good.”

  He and Evan watched the couple in conversation. The man had at first seemed distracted, then he helped Callen onto a bench as he talked, his gestures growing animated while he paced on the shell path in front of her.

  “He must certainly be kin to Tylar. A brother. A cousin,” Evan pondered. “If he suffered an injury during the war, perhaps someone identified him as McCall and the name seemed familiar enough to him to accept. I have heard of men blocking out the entire experience, denying any memory of the war or having no recollection of who they were.” He stared out the window as if seeing something very far away. “Lord knows, had I the power, there are things I would choose to forget.”

  Stephen continued to stare at the very image of his dead brother-in-law.

  “We all lived the same hell.” He tossed his napkin onto the table. He had brought his own scars home, his own demons to fight, but ironically his suffering came from neither Minié ball nor bayonet. “This man is up to no good. Look at his clothing. And his speech holds only a trace of the South.” And where the devil, he thought to himself, did he learn this kickboxing? Stephen rose, stiff and sore from the fight, still watching the couple, ready to act at any sign of danger to Callen. “He will leave Windsor today, willingly or not, and then you will have your talk with my sister.”

  Evan leaned back in his chair, his gaze moving from the scene in the garden to Stephen.

  “I’ll not ask for her hand while she believes she is still wed.” His gaze strayed back to the couple and he shook his head. “But I will have a talk with her. For her own good, she must accept that this man is not Tylar.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Callen sat on the wooden bench and watched the face so dear to her light up with outlandish stories of flying machines, horseless vehicles, contraptions that cooked meals in minutes instead of hours. He tried desperately to convince her of the future from which he claimed he’d come. But her thoughts rejected his stories and turned to the memory of the agony she’d suffered when she’d been told of his death. His voice faded in her ears as she relived the pain of her heart being ripped, still beating, from her chest. She had been married exactly three months and one day to the man she’d loved since childhood, and she had only just begun to suspect that she was with child. And then the news had come, in an envelope edged in black, and the unspeakable words, stark, funereal black on ivory paper, penned in her brother’s hand. Even now, five years later and looking at the very alive face of her husband, those words could still rip through her like a rusty, poisonous blade.

  After the worst of the shock had passed, her first reaction had been a desperate attempt to remember what she’d been doing on the day he’d died. Had she been laughing at something while her husband lay dying? What were her last words to him? Take care of yourself. And his last words to her? I’ll come back safely. I promise.

  She had not dared mourn him as she’d wished, for fear of losing the tiny piece of him still alive and growing within her. So she had cried quietly, until no more tears would come, and then she had somehow found the strength to calm herself and go on, to give life to his son. A son who had his warm, bronze eyes, his mischievous grin. His tremendous courage.

  And a son whom she saw only once a month, when a carriage would arrive, never on schedule, always unannounced and unexpected. She would rush to Connor, smother him in kisses, play with him for a few blissful hours until they whisked him away as quickly as they’d come, and all the while she fought back tears.

  Lord, would there ever be a time when she didn’t want to cry? Would there ever be a time when she allowed herself to cry?

  But at least Connor knew she was his mother. Stephen had not denied her that.

  At four and a half, her son had yet to question why he didn’t live with her. She vowed, for the thousandth time, that they would be together, mother and son, before he ever had a chance to ask that question. Before anyone had a chance to hide him further away because of his condition.

  And time was running out.

  “I know this all sounds unbelievable,” Tylar said, his eyes alive with excitement in his effort to convince her of his fairy tale. “But technology has literally exploded in the last...er...the next century and a half. Some of the things even boggle my mind, and I’m used to it!”

  She looked up at him, focused on the strange words he babbled, and wanted to cry again. Still. Harder.

  Why had God returned a husband to her who had delusions of coming from the future, for pity’s sake? Who wouldn’t even accept that they were married? A man she dared not even tell he had a son, let alone enlist his help in finding him?

  Suddenly something inside her snapped as she gazed up at her youthful, vital husband.

  She was too young for her dreams to die. She would bring him to his senses if it was the last thing she ever did. And what better way to jar a man’s mind than to tell him he had a son?

  “Tylar.” She interrupted some nonsense about a panel from which one could watch moving, talking pictures. “There is something I’ve not told you.” Please, God, let this be the right thing to do. She squeezed her hands together until they hurt. “By the time I knew, Stephen had written that you’d been killed. But now, perhaps this will help you come to terms with...well...with who you are.” She looked up into his eyes. Lucid eyes. Intelligent. Questioning. The look gave her hope.
“Tylar, we have a—”

  “Callen.” Evan approached, pulling off his planter’s hat, giving her an apologetic look that did nothing to ease her urge to choke the life out of him. She simply looked up and glared as Stephen appeared behind him.

  “I need to speak with you.” Evan shot a glance at Tylar. “I feel I must say this, and under the circumstances, Tyl...Mr. McC...” he nodded toward Tylar, “he should hear it as well.”

  Tylar stopped his pacing as Callen continued to stare her displeasure at the unwanted intruders.

  “Callie.” Evan sank to the bench beside her and took her hands in his, a liberty she allowed only because of his air of concern. “We have known each other since childhood. You know I would never lie to you.” He shifted on the bench, glanced at Stephen, Tylar, then looked her in the eye. “This...gentleman...” he nodded toward Tylar and said the word as if not quite sure of its accuracy, “has admitted he is not your husband. Please understand that I am not telling you this to hurt you, but Tylar, your Tylar, is dead. I helped Stephen bury him. He was...forgive my crudeness...gut shot. But he didn’t suffer long. I saw him just minutes before, wounded but riding for the pond. He is gone, Callie. You had grown to accept it before. You must admit this truth to yourself and get on with your life.”

  Callen looked up at Tylar, praying for him to deny Evan’s words, but he merely stood there, a look of sympathy on his face, pain for her misfortune, but nothing more.

  What Evan and Stephen had to gain by perpetuating this story, she could only guess. The marriage between families that Stephen kept insisting upon? A joining of what was left of their properties? Thanks to the income of their father’s overseas investments before the war, Windsor had slowly begun to recover and should turn a profit of its own within a matter of years. Certainly Tylar had had nothing to offer but himself, which was worth more to her than all the wealth in the world, but Stephen’s jaded mind would never accept that as enough. And though Evan had never struck her as mercenary, she could think of no other reason for him to corroborate with Stephen. She struggled to keep her anger at their deception from showing on her face.