by Julianne Lee
“Sure. You wanted to be free, and here you can be. You can be anything and anyone you want. You don’t have to marry anyone if you don’t want to. And you don’t have to guard your reputation as if it were all you had.”
“It’s all any woman really has.”
“Not here, it isn’t. You can have so much more. You can be more. Don’t go. You were meant to be here. And Shelby was meant to be there. She’s the one who wrote those letters. She’s the one who is my ancestor, and if you return to the moment you left, then I might not exist.”
“Not exist? Of course, you will. You’re right here.”
“Not if you don’t live your life exactly as Shelby did. Look, is this your handwriting?” He showed her the letter. “This says you shot and killed a man. Could you have done that?” The blanching of her face told him she couldn’t even imagine it. “You would have to be Shelby for your life to turn out just as hers did. And you’re not. She married Lucas before the war. You didn’t want to marry him at all. You’re not Shelby, you’re Mary Beth, who is a lovely person and who belongs here.”
Her voice trembled. “You have no idea who I am.”
Jason bit the inside of his lower lip, considering well his next words. Then he ventured, “I’d like to.”
“I wouldn’t know how to live in this time.”
“You could learn.” Casting about for ideas, he hit on the answer in a flash of realization. “Your inheritance.”
“What inheritance? My parents have been gone far too long—”
“Shelby’s. When Shelby’s mother died, there was a sizeable chunk of money. That’s how we met; she wanted to buy my house with her inheritance. Shelby has a job. She has friends—including me—who would help you adjust. You could take a leave of absence, or even quit the job entirely and go to school for a year or two.
“School?”
“There’s a community college just up the road.”
“College?” She now sounded excited, and that made him smile.
“Sure. You read and write; I can see you’ve been to school.”
“As a very young girl. But not since I was twelve.”
“But you read and write. Probably better than most college freshmen. A couple of years in college, and you’ll be employable.”
The doubt began to leave her eyes, replaced by a growing spark of excitement. “I could learn to work? And nobody would think less of me?”
“They’d admire you.”
“I could learn to drive one of those cars?”
“You’d pretty much have to. And I could teach you.”
She gazed at him with soft, wondering eyes. “Teach me, or control me?”
He grinned. “See, you’re thinking like a modern woman already. We’ll have you burning your bra in no time. Are you ready to be free, or are you too afraid?” He reached out for the diary.
Mary Beth gazed at the small book for a moment, its leather thong crumpled and dangling stiffly from it. Then she handed it to him and gazed up at him instead.
For all the times he would have liked to kiss Shelby, none struck him as hard as this moment. Mary Beth looked the same, but in those eyes was someone else now, far more interesting and, he thought, more interested. There was a moment of suspended hope, for he knew he risked getting slapped for this, then he leaned in to kiss her. Ever so lightly his lips touched hers, like being sniffed by a kitten, and when she smiled, his heart felt lighter than it had in a while.
Something slipped from the back of the diary and fell to the floor, and Jason bent to pick it up. It was a letter, unopened. The wax seal on the back was unbroken and the letter intact. He turned it over and found on the front, “To Mary Beth Campbell, to be opened on December 12, 2004.” A cold chill sent a shudder through him. He handed the letter to Mary Beth.
“Here. It’s for you.”
Wondering, wide-eyed, she accepted the packet and broke open the seal, then she unfolded the pages and began to read aloud...
Chapter 23
March 1864
Dear Mary Beth;
Shelby sat at the dining room table, a bit uncomfortable now that she was beginning to show with another pregnancy and her dress was tighter than she would like. Two-year-old Matthew stood on a chair at the window, making single-syllable commentary on the progress of his father across the dooryard. He’d been able to set aside the cane, and now walked independently though yet with a bad limp. Samuel Clarence hadn’t made a peep about that day in his office, and though Shelby knew the coming years wouldn’t be easy the family at least had a chance of surviving long enough to see the end of the occupation. There was hope.
Matthew’s fat toddler hand smacked against the window and rattled the panes.
“Matthew, don’t.”
Outside, Lucas halted and looked back at the house to wave at his young son. “Da!” Matthew smacked the pane again, and Shelby went to pick him up and make him stop. Lucas, seeing her in the window, lit up with a big, white smile. Then he waved to her before going on his way to tend the mare they were still hiding in the woods. Her heart lifted to see him smile like that. Every day he awoke, every breath followed by another, was precious to her.
She let Matthew down on the floor and admonished him to keep his hands off the windows. Ruth called Matthew from the other room, then came to take charge of him. Shelby watched them go, Ruth chattering baby talk right along with her nephew, and was reminded of how thankful she was for the presence of this woman who loved Matthew like a second mother. For a certainty, all her children would grow up well-loved.
The boy’s grandfather snored on his cot by the fire, sleeping more and more these days. The old man hadn’t had much interest in things since the summer before, and though Lucas’s return seemed to give him the will to hang on, they all knew it wouldn’t be long for him. Shelby, more than anyone, knew this time was a gift.
She turned to the table and the task before her, Mary Beth’s diary laid out with a few sheets of writing paper. She’d finished the diary. It was full now, half the words hers and half those of a woman she’d never met and could never know, but to whom she felt a kinship hard to explain.
The pen hadn’t been cleaned last time Lucas had done the accounting, and so Shelby flexed the nib a little against the side of the ink well before dipping it again. Considering for a moment, she paused, then returned to the letter.
I write this, on the assumption that you must now be where I was. I must also assume you will come looking for this diary, for I certainly would. I have no way of knowing whether you will actually find this, or if it will even survive the century and a half it must traverse before your arrival. But I write on the chance that it might.
I imagine you must be very upset and confused right now. I was terrified when I first arrived here. Everything was strange. I knew nobody, and it seemed everyone here expected things from me I couldn’t fathom. I was lost, and had no way of finding my way home. And, at first, no way of knowing what had happened or why. You must be terrified, and possibly regretting what you did.
I want you to know, bringing me to Lucas is the greatest thing anyone could have ever done for me. He loves me more than I’d ever thought possible for a man to love. I could never have cared for anyone, even myself, as much as I do him. I can’t help but wonder if what you did was little more than fate working through you, for I couldn’t imagine a life without Lucas or Matthew. I was meant for this.
So, thank you, Mary Beth. From the depths of my soul, I am thankful for you and for what you did. And I pray you will find as much happiness in the future as I have found here with Lucas, for you deserve all joy. Thank you for giving me this life. Though by the time you read this I will surely have been dead for over a century, I will always keep you in my heart, through this life and into the next world. Bless you.
Acknowledgements
In writing historically accurate fiction, the importance of information sources and other support cannot be overestimated. I am most grateful
for the gracious help of the following folks:
The kind gentlemen of the National Park Service at the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center; The Nashville Public Library; The Hendersonville Arts Council, Hendersonville, Tennessee; The Southern Cross Guest Ranch, Madison, Georgia; Tricia Mundy; Becky Panknin; Diana Diaz; my father, Alan R. Bedford Sr.; and as ever, Ginjer Buchanan.
Copyright & Credits
First edition 2003, Droemer Knaur, Munich, Germany
Second edition
Book View Café
March 6, 2012
ISBN 978 1 61138 156 6
Copyright © 2012 Julianne Lee
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Other Books by Julianne Lee
Son of the Sword
Outlaw Sword
Sword of King James
Sword of the White Rose
Knight Tenebrae
Knight’s Blood
Knight’s Lady
A Question of Guilt, A Novel of Mary, Queen of Scots and the Death of Henry Darnley
Her Mother’s Daughter, A Novel of Queen Mary Tudor
Contact Julianne at [email protected], or visit www.julianneardianlee.com
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