by Denney, Hope
Somerset located Victoria’s seat and snatched up the little handwritten placard with her name on it.
“I finally know what it is to live for today,” Somerset said and held up the card. She turned to look for Holt Harlow’s.
“So Somerset Forrest is playing the role of a Fate tonight?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She moved on to a fresh table and began scanning the seats. Sarabeth had done well in laying out the dinner guests. Her skill in mixing the young and old with the eligible and the taken was adept. Somerset realized she hadn’t seen her own seat and that she might be in the main dining room beside Sawyer. She decided she might need to switch more seats than just Victoria’s and Holt’s.
“Aha!” She held up Holt’s card.
“Trying to make a match of it between my younger brother and your sister?” asked Kirk.
Somerset removed Lorena Hall’s card and put Victoria’s in its place. She left Lorena’s at Victoria’s previous seat.
“If you say that I did this, I’ll say that you’re lying or confused or whatever good lie strikes my fancy at the time. Sisters love to matchmake for each other. You have sisters.”
“None are unmarried so I suppose they do.”
She began climbing the steep lawn back up to Riverside. Kirk offered her an elbow and she took it as the worn heels on her shoes sank into the damp earth. Kirk considered something before he spoke.
“And Warren is?”
“Not my son,” she replied. She thought the question should offend her, but she and Kirk were old friends. He was as bold a man as she was a woman.
Kirk cleared his throat. He paused and gestured at the strings of lights in all the trees.
“Will you look at all these lights, Somerset? It is like Heaven—or yesteryear. Picture the year of sixty-four. There was never a conflict. You come out here in a gown of—of—of what?”
“Blue silk with cherry trim is the dress I wanted and never had.”
“You come out here to gaze at the moon with Eric in a gown of silk with cherry trim. Bess is toting your first baby and you have another on the way. The orchestra is playing your favorite song—what is your favorite song?”
“‘I’ll Twine ’Mid the Ringlets.’”
“And that is being played. Later in the evening you’ll go home to a luxurious home all your own. You have everything that you want and, better yet, need. All is right with the world. Can’t you see it?”
“It’s a charming picture. I’ll have sweet dreams tonight. Thank you.”
“With some substitutions it could be real. You aren’t in blue and cherry, but you’re a vision in purple. I’m sorry not to be Eric, but I’m told that I’m handsome, if in a different way, and I’ve saved enough money to build my own home now. Drat, I’m no good at making flowery speeches. I have entertained some charming pictures, too. I think I can show you better than I can tell you.”
Kirk closed his eyes and began to lean forward. Somerset put one hand up and tapped his chest.
“Now that’s no way to treat a lady after she rescues you.”
“I—”
“You’re charmed by all this moonlight. You’re elated to be at your first ball in years. You might have had too much to drink in between dances. Blame anything. I’ll make allowances for any of it, any excuse you want to offer me. You have been my friend since we were both in dresses, and I will overlook anything from you but this. I don’t want a proposal, and I don’t want to be kissed.”
“Somerset, I—”
“You had too much to drink. You got taken in by the Marshall charm under the starlight. For a moment I reminded you of a girl you used to love. You’re going to escort me back in and ask a lady to dance while I forget this moment ever happened. No one saw. I forgive you. Just don’t ask me to sacrifice a perfectly good longstanding friendship to an impulsive kiss.”
“Maybe I’m the pale wildwood flower in your song,” Kirk said. He sounded rueful and his smile was brittle.
She led them up the steps. Her heart was not as heavy as it might have been. It made her blood rush for someone as handsome as him to try to take liberties with her, but she didn’t want to risk any more failed attachments. They were too much alike to risk romance. She wished they had been farther from the house so she could soothe his humiliation with a hug, but the number of chaperones forbade such a friendly gesture. Franklin opened the door for them and Kirk, relieved that she made it so easy to get away, hurried to take Lorena Hall onto the dance floor.
Somerset started for the dining room to be sure she wasn’t seated at the family table.
People were breaking into groups for parlor games on the edges of the room, eager to distract themselves with whatever merriment they could extract from the night. She saw Sawyer, Joseph, and Timothy Garrett sitting around Mrs. Russell’s tall rosewood table. There was a flaming bowl of raisins in a shallow porcelain bowl in the center of the table so she knew someone had suggested a game of Snap-dragon. She would remind herself to stay away from the punch if the quality of the night was fading so soon. She glanced at the clock and saw Mrs. Russell was about to announce supper and realized the importance of making sure she wasn’t expected in the dining room, especially since Sawyer was intoxicated.
Victoria, Helen, Ivy, and several other girls abandoned dancing to gather in the draped nook that Sarabeth used to store her antiques for a game of Pass the Slipper. Helen was it. Somerset laughed aloud to see her standing in the middle of the circle. She was terrible at Pass the Slipper and never would open her eyes in time to see who held the treasure. Somerset saw it was Caroline Rutherford, of all people. Her sharp face blended in with the surrounding expressions of innocence. Helen didn’t stand a chance.
Mrs. Russell began to ding her triangle to quiet the room.
Somerset hurried toward the dining room. Through the wide door frame, she glimpsed Cleo lighting a rosy hurricane lamp on the sideboard. Her secrets would be safe with Cleo. She could wad up her card and wander down to the river with Victoria, Ivy, and Holt, where she could eat barbeque under the stars and maybe try to make poor abashed Kirk feel less shamed when she ran into him again.
She passed through a straggling group of people playing Blind Man’s Bluff. Interest in dancing and games was breaking up in favor of supper. People were beginning to drift in clusters toward the porch exits in hopes of getting to the beginning of the line at the buffet of food.
“I’ve almost got you!” proclaimed the abandoned man who was unfortunate enough to be it at mealtime.
“No, you don’t. I’m not playing.”
“You might not know that you’re playing but you are,” he retorted. “I can’t see through this miserable blindfold, and you’re no different to me than anyone who volunteered to play this wretched game.”
“I was making my way to the dining room. I’m not playing,” repeated Somerset.
He made a grab at her and she leapt away from his grasp. He was tall and built broad through the shoulders. He struck her as fast, though, if he wanted to be. She darted behind him toward the door, and he turned too well to be as blindfolded as he claimed to be. He made another expert lunge at her. Several nearby observers made high-pitched impressionable murmurs at the display in front of them. People began to migrate away from the doorways.
“You’re very stubborn,” she said as she inched back.
“So are you,” he said.
He made another maneuver for her and she found herself blocked in between a walnut bookcase, him, and Mrs. Russell’s floral velvet settee. She made as graceful an evasive move as she could in such a heavy dress and found herself teetering on the edge of the settee. A ripple of conversation ebbed across the room like a high tide and she was the moon. Joseph was watching them with greater interest than he could contain. Sawyer’s eyes met hers across the room, and Helen covered her mouth in delighted surprise. The masked man who was it reached out a hand and took her forearm to steady her. Another hand reached
out and touched her face.
“I think it’s folly to make someone who doesn’t know anyone be it,” he declared. “I couldn’t possibly know you or anyone else by touching their features. I’ll unmask myself now and see whom I caught.”
He flung away the black bandanna with a flourish. It draped over Mr. Rutherford’s shoulder like an old shoelace, and he looked sheepish as he laid it on the end table beside him.
“Now I can properly see you,” the stranger announced.
Applause crashed through the room with startling amplitude.
Somerset looked down from her precarious position on the settee into a face as handsome as it was loved. The light blue eyes, the thick black brows, and the head full of coarse black hair met her gaze as naturally as a tintype image. She swallowed and looked with eyes too shocked to blink at the long face and the decidedly square jaw and the smile that just bordered on a smirk.
She gasped as partygoers hurrahed and toasted.
He offered her a steady hand to assist her to the floor, and when she took it, the crowd went wild.
***
Chapter 10
The applause died away at the climax of the game and the crowd shifted back to the exits in search of sustenance. The room fell away from her and she forgot the guests, her own discomfort, and the reason she was going to the dining room. Somerset took the proffered hand and let him swing her from the settee to the floor. She eyed him as he studied her in turn.
“You,” she said, fending off a wave of hysteria. “You. How did I not know it was you behind the mask from the start?”
“I indeed, but who are you? Perhaps Venus? Are you Rebecca of Ivanhoe? No, Guinevere of Camelot. Yes, Guinevere. It is good to be known in these parts, I’ve been gone so long.”
“I—I’m Somerset,” she stammered.
She drew back. His voice was all wrong. It was deeper, more resonant than his. When he spoke, she felt it in the center of her chest. It was thunder, if thunder could be described as self-assured. Eric’s voice had more of a lighter tone, a rich but ringing melody fit for courtroom argument and sweet compliments susurrated to the nape of her neck as she went inside Orchard Rest for the evening.
She was convinced that, if he suddenly materialized at a country dance, someone other than she would find it remarkable. Corpses arrived home again and again in the days right after surrender. Mistaken identities and false casualty reports were a way of life, but a dead man returning home five years after the fact would draw everyone’s attention. She’d falsely believed the approbation when he hurled away his blindfold and took her hand to be celebration that he returned home.
His eyes flashed in recognition.
“Ah, Somerset. I am pleased to meet you, Miss Marshall, I presume? Of the Marshalls from Somerset Manor, a daughter of the steamboat and tobacco business?”
“Forrest,” she corrected. “My mother is a Marshall.”
“A daughter of Thomas and Blanche Forrest then. Hmm. Tell me, Miss Forrest, do you routinely find yourself in games you don’t want to play? You make the nicest birthday present I’ve ever received and all because you didn’t watch where you were going.”
“Phillip Russell,” she said.
“Yes. I’m myself as you established when I unmasked. Are you staying through supper tonight? As the guest of honor, it will be considered the height of rudeness if I don’t appear at my own name-day meal so I’m afraid I have to go to the dining room now and preside over the table. I should like to talk to you more later, if you don’t mind, and dance with you. You wouldn’t refuse a man a dance on his birthday?”
“No, never.”
Mrs. Russell appeared again in the ballroom and gestured to Phillip.
“We’re waiting on you, young man. Your food is growing cold and the cake will be brought in soon for you to cut. Somerset, Miss Garrett was inquiring about you. I told her you’d soon have your plate ready and join her, dear.”
Somerset smiled. Mrs. Russell played the consummate lady. She realized something was awry with her and Sawyer and was taking care to keep them apart in public displays. She put aside the urge to hug the woman in gratitude even if she did lead her to Sawyer earlier in the evening. She started for the porch and felt Phillip’s gaze on her back as she departed the room.
Once outside, she bypassed the mountain of food and traipsed down the sloping back lawn to the weathered tables with their white skirts blowing in the breeze. It was growing warmer, there was a mist in the air off the river, and she felt the warning of rain later in the night. Heat lightning flashed once, twice, five times over the woods beyond the river. People’s voices rose and fell as if on cue as they sampled the food from their double-served plates and rivaled the cacophony of the katydids. She spotted Ivy sitting near the river, chatting in a uninterested way with Lorena Hall. The set of Lorena’s chin said she was displeased that Somerset would be holding court at her table, but she smiled and spoke to Somerset as if they were bosom friends.
“I declare, Somerset, you make the rest of us look dull. What excitement you caused by crossing Phillip’s path during a boring old game!”
“I tried not to play, but he was of another mind or just desperate not to have to play anymore. I think he was hoping to make me be it,” said Somerset, sitting down and arranging her train.
“I haven’t been able to get him to look my way all evening,” continued Lorena in a peeved way. “Doesn’t he resemble Eric, though? Well, the Rutherfords and Russells are cousins.”
“Perhaps if you wouldn’t stand so close to him he could see you better,” interjected Ivy with dry venom.
“He’s said to be a powerful businessman, the likes of which we don’t have here in the Grove or Tuscaloosa. It comes with age, I suppose. He’s ten years older than Sawyer, which puts him on the brink of forty. Not that you can tell. Everyone looks aged and distinctive if they served in the war. He’s got crow’s feet around his eyes like Sawyer, but his hair is as black as can be. Sawyer is getting very gray in the temples, I’ve noticed.
“When you bounded away from him and landed on the settee and he reached out and caught you, I thought my heart was going to come out of my throat. You both looked so passionate although I thought you were going to die of fright when he whipped off his mask and everyone clapped and crowed. Whatever was going on in your head?”
“I felt foolish that I jumped on the furniture in front of everyone.”
“No one thought you looked foolish,” said Ivy. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Look, there’s Joseph going out to smoke,” pointed Lorena. “He looks well, so debonair. I can’t believe how ill he was only a short time ago. Somerset, do you know if he is still courting Fairlee? A rumor has been flying around that they parted company last month and she gave him back his ring.”
“The engagement is broken,” responded Somerset. “Whether they stay apart remains to be seen.”
“Your interests are diverse enough that surely one of them will work out for you,” said Ivy.
“Now Sawyer is joining Joseph. I love the way he leans on those brawny forearms against the porch railing. He looks like he could hoist a wagon over his head. He’ll be utterly wasted on the prairie. There’s no one but savages and people who couldn’t succeed here in the East.”
Helen drifted down to their table to her seat with her plate.
“What a poky old party,” she yawned as she sat down. “I pity youth today for not realizing what good times Theodore and I had growing up.”
“I think it’s a splendid party,” Somerset said.
“You don’t have much to compare it to. You look beautiful, dear.”
“How is the baby?” asked Ivy.
Helen began to list the innumerable wonderful things about the newest addition to her family, and Somerset sat back in her seat, feeling more relaxed as their table filled up and the conversations evened out. Kirk Harlow and Demeter Hall found them, and Kirk sank
into his seat beside Somerset with the same expression she used to see on patients’ faces during the war when they determined they’d rather die than cling to life. She studied his sharp nose, long jaw, and jutting chin in profile with the gold curls spilling over his forehead. He brooded well, and she couldn’t say anything to console him for his outburst earlier without drawing everyone else in on the situation.
“Psst,” she hissed. “Convention says we shouldn’t dance more than three times in one evening, but I have always wondered what it would be like to lead a reel with you.”
He stretched his lean body out more relaxed in his chair, balancing the plate on one palm so that it looked like a doll’s saucer. He knew she was trying to make him feel better but he didn’t mind. She knew the sight of her mischievous smile and dancing eyes in the shadows perked up his spirits when he sniggered. Kirk always found the humor in any situation, Somerset realized, and was willing to make fun of himself if need be.
“My dance card is full,” he jeered, “but I might be willing to break rules just once if Momma isn’t looking.”
Lorena leaned toward him.
“Kirk, I declare! We haven’t spoken all evening, and I know I’ve passed you in the ballroom at least three times…”
Ivy raised her eyebrows at Somerset.
Caroline broke with tradition and dragged her chair away from her designated table, where Holt and Victoria were having a quiet conversation, and deposited it behind and between Kirk and Somerset.
“This is more like it,” she sighed, dropping her napkin into her lap and setting to work polishing off her drumstick.
“Hello, Caroline,” Kirk greeted her.
“I felt decrepit over there with all the youth,” she explained, holding her napkin to her mouth and gesturing to her old seat.
Kirk’s eyes tracked his brother smiling as Victoria tittered at a joke. He nodded in affirmation at Somerset and she squeezed his elbow in excitement.
“I assure you that you don’t look decrepit, but I sympathize,” he drawled. “I thought I was a young man until I saw all of our younger siblings having a good time tonight.”
