Love's Awakening (The Ballantyne Legacy Book #2): A Novel (17 page)

Muttering a curse, Jack seized his shirtfront and shoved him against the nearest wall. The glass Wade held clattered to the wooden floor, sloshing whiskey onto Jack’s boots. Jack jerked the pistol from his waistband and pressed it against his brother’s temple. “I want proof that the bounty is void by tonight. And I need to know what the McTavishes were doing around one o’clock this afternoon.”

“Careful, Jack.” Wade tried to shake him off, but Jack pressed the pistol nearer till he stilled.

“By tonight,” he repeated. “And if I find you lied—”

“Having a disagreement, boys?” Their father’s sturdy silhouette filled the nearest doorway, his voice low and deep. It was the same quiet, measured tone that warned Henry’s mood was growing dangerous. “Put away your pistol, Jack. Surely there’s no call for that.”

The irony of the words shattered Jack’s focus.

Surely there’s no call
 . . .

Yet Henry Turlock had shot a lawman in the back before his very eyes when Jack was just a boy. Over whiskey and an unpaid debt. No one but the two of them knew where the sheriff was buried. His father had threatened to kill Jack if he told.

Slowly Jack lowered the pistol, letting it go slack in his hand, though his gaze remained locked with Wade’s, underscoring his words. Would he kill a man to ensure Ellie’s safety? Aye. His own brother? Aye. The violent footprints his father had made were all too easy to follow.

“Ansel, please, I didn’t mean to deceive. I was only trying to help school Chloe.” Ellie’s plea fell flat in the stuffy confines of the Turlock coach as its antique frame bumped and swayed over the main road to New Hope. Though it was a decidedly neglected conveyance, much like the rest of River Hill, she was thankful Jack had lent it to them. The chaise would remain behind for now till Ansel arranged for repairs.

Across from her, her brother’s usual calm was decidedly ruffled. Rarely was Ansel angry, but today she’d dealt him a double blow. She’d had no escort. And she was consorting with the enemy. Though he had never maligned the Turlocks to her hearing, his silence was just as damning. He saw them for what they were—poisonous distillers and slave owners in dire need of God’s saving grace, and having none of it.

He leaned back against the upholstered seat, his blue eyes grieved. “El, I received word you’d met with trouble on the back road, something that might have been avoided if you’d had an escort. Then I ride to River Hill to find you looking quite at home in Jack Turlock’s parlor—”

“It’s not what it seems. I go there for Chloe. For lessons.” Even as she spoke the words, she felt warm as a cup of tea—
and more than a tad blameworthy. “She’s like any other girl under my tutelage.”

“How long has this gone on?”

“More than a month . . .” She cringed at the surprise in his eyes. “I-I’ve said little, knowing Andra wouldn’t be pleased—”

“Not only Andra. Our saintly mother might make peace with your mission, but the rest of us see it for what it is—foolish, dangerous. This afternoon, riding unescorted, you could have been . . .” He left off, delivering the dreaded ultimatum. “You can’t return to River Hill.”

Ellie clenched her hands in her lap, thinking of Chloe’s frightened face as they’d ridden away. She’d appeared in an upstairs window, likely banished there by Jack, who’d disappeared once Ansel arrived. Ellie had wanted to say goodbye, reassure Chloe all was well, but there’d been no time. The thought of not seeing her again held a wrench she’d not anticipated.

“Please don’t say anything to anyone about the trouble,” Ellie entreated, thinking how caustic Peyton could be.

“I won’t, but you will.” Ansel’s voice, in his dismay, held a hint of Scots, so like their father’s. “The
Elinor
docked an hour ago. Da and Mama have disembarked and are on their way home to New Hope.”

As she brushed and repinned her hair, Ellie’s fingers trembled with excitement—and trepidation. Of all the days for her parents to return! The mirror in her room cast back a pale face and a slight bruise on her chin, a telling reminder of the frightening afternoon. She would tell her father and mother the truth—but not on the day of their homecoming. Thankfully, the ruined chaise was hidden away at River Hill,
and the Turlock coach that returned them home had ridden out of sight. The ugly bruise she could do little about. She feared it was something her keen-eyed father wouldn’t miss.

She hid her torn dress in the clothespress, left her bedchamber, and hurried to the third-floor window of the landing, taking in the expansive view. The Allegheny glided by, a mesmerizing blue, the road alongside bearing a passing dray and a few riders on horseback. No Ballantyne coach or baggage wagon stirred the summer dust just yet.

By now Andra would have had the house in a spin, issuing last-minute orders, airing their parents’ rooms, reviewing the dinner menu, sending the staff for fresh flowers. Thinking it, Ellie felt mired in inadequacy. Andra wasn’t here but in York. She herself had been home mere minutes, feeling chastised as a child by Ansel in the coach. The household was utterly unprepared. She didn’t even know where the maids were.

As she tread the staircase to the foyer below, Mari and Gwyn sped past, arms full of flowers. Mama loved her garden, and thankfully, despite the storm, it had survived, even thrived. Truly, the lilies had never seemed so fragrant, the late June roses so deep a pink. Ellie caught their perfume as they went by and breathed a prayer of thanks.

Ansel came down the stairs, expression still tense. “I wouldn’t say anything about this afternoon, El. Save it for later. We’ve enough on our hands explaining Andra’s absence . . . among other things.”

He was thinking of Peyton, she knew. Each of them had a story to tell. Of jail time and York and being accosted on a back road. Ellie was ashamed that so much had transpired in her parents’ absence. It made them all seem so . . . inadequate. Likely her parents would never go traveling again.

Taking a bracing breath, she stood on the wide front veranda, fighting for poise when she felt like pacing, unwelcome
images springing to mind. The beguiling blue parlor. The antique armonica. The moment Jack’s concern for her had melted his unflappable reserve and allowed her a glimpse into his heart. Strangely, it was these impressions that were uppermost, not the terror of what had happened along the back road.

“Here they come,” Ansel said.

Ellie focused, done with daydreaming, her whole world righting again. Shoulder to shoulder, she and her brother followed the dusty path of the largest Ballantyne coach with expectant eyes, its journey weighted with luggage, the big wheels turning impossibly slow.

Despite everything that had happened, she felt an unbridled happiness take hold. It seemed she was a child again, awaiting her handsome father after some trip, shivering with delight at the very thought of what he might bring her. A wax doll. A miniature tea set. Some frippery from a far port. Only now she was nearly one and twenty. And he wasn’t even aware she was waiting.

The servants were assembling—maids, stable hands, the gardener, and Mamie—though they remained on the porch behind Ellie and Ansel. Emotions running high, Ellie wished for a more private homecoming, though Mama always liked to include everyone.

The coachman began to slow the horses as they rounded the circular drive, keeping the summer dust to a minimum. When the vehicle shuddered to a halt, the finely painted door swung open with the aid of a groom, and everyone seemed to hold a collective breath.

The first to alight, Eden Lee Ballantyne fastened her warm gaze on Ellie, unabashed surprise and pleasure in their depths. Ellie had almost forgotten how lovely her mother was. She had a timeless beauty that never seemed to ebb, though her fiery hair at midcentury had faded to auburn.

“Daughter, you’ve come home—all the way from Philadelphia!” There was an undeniable question in the welcome as Ansel helped her down. She hugged them both but clung to Ellie the longest. “Well, let me look at you . . . You’re every bit the rose I remember. But where’s Andra?”

“Andra is away—” Ellie began.

“We’ve much to tell you,” Ansel said, turning to their father next. “I suppose you saw Peyton at the levee.”

“Aye.” Silas Ballantyne cast a formidable shadow in the glare of sunlight. He squinted as he looked toward Ellie, his tanned face creasing in a smile. “But he said naught about Ellie being home.”

Slipping free of her mother’s embrace, Ellie found herself locked in her father’s hard arms till all the breath left her lungs. “I’d hoped to surprise you—for your birthday.”

“Surprise me? That you’ve done in spades.”

“I came home in April, during the storm,” she said in a little rush, “but safely.”

Ansel shot a wary glance her way as if he feared she’d mention Jack. But she simply smiled up at her father, determined to steer clear of such foundering matters. “You and Mama look wonderful, rested, despite all the merriment in New Orleans.”

He clasped her shoulders with gloved hands, jade eyes roaming over her as if he couldn’t quite believe it was she. “And you? Have you had enough of Philadelphia? Are you quite finished?”

She bit her lip, moved by the emotion in his lined face. “Madame Moreau might say otherwise, but I believe I am.”

When he brought her close again, she tried to stem her emotions, but her relief at having him home was so great and her ordeal of the afternoon was so harrowing, she rested her cheek against the lapel of his fine broadcloth coat and cried.

“Is
oniething
the matter, Daughter? Or are you just glad to have us
hame
?”

His tender Scots set her at ease. “Both,” she whispered, not wanting to alarm him. “I’ll tell you all about it soon.”

She stepped back when Mamie’s voice sounded, calling for them to come inside. She had a tea tray set for Mama, some flip for Father. The evening promised to be very late indeed.

 17 

He who bestows his goods upon the poor shall have as much again, and ten times more.

J
OHN
B
UNYAN

The day, Jack mused, seemed to have a touch of eternity in it. Since Ellie had met with trouble that afternoon, time seemed to drag with little to fill the long hours but dark thoughts. Returning to his study after confronting Wade at Broad Oak, he sat at his desk, his emotions in a snarl, unsettled as the Monongahela at flood stage. It was all he could do to scrawl empty words across the paper before him, trying to ignore the fierce knot in his gut.

The land, twelve hundred acres, is very good, drained and ditched. The house, built in the former century, is sound, the dependencies made of Fort Pitt brick . . .

If this was the proper course of action, why did his soul sink lower with every word?

Vexatio dat intellectum.
Vexation sharpens the intellect.

Nay
, he thought, pushing away from the desk. A little vexation, perhaps, not a boatload. Although Dr. Brunot had come and assured him Ellie had only been frightened and roughly handled, it failed to ease him. His ensuing confrontation with Wade had resulted in frustration and few answers. Chloe was now sulking and morose, likely realizing Ellie wouldn’t be back. Even Mrs. Malarkey was keeping to her room. And the battered chaise remained in River Hill’s coach house, an ever-present reminder of all the trouble.

At candlelight, he left his office, the gloom of evening matching his mood. Sweat slicked his brow, as the day had been the warmest thus far, promising a feverish summer. Undressing by the riverbank, he left his clothes atop a rhododendron bush and dove into the cold current, wishing the water could wash away his turmoil. The far bank seemed endless, but he finally reached it, spent and nearly sick, lungs seared from lack of air. He’d not eaten, he remembered, since breakfast.

Still winded, he returned to the opposite shore, where he shook off and dressed, his gaze drawn to the ground beyond his boots. Sometimes he sighted bear, cougar, and other animal signs in the tangle of reeds and underbrush, but these . . . These were human footprints, each distinct as bare feet met river sand, all leading to one place.

The forgotten tunnel.

In his grandfather’s day, when hospitality was at its peak, before Jack’s mother had disgraced herself by running off with a Turlock, the tunnel had been built to hasten supplies from boat to house in all kinds of weather. Busy as he’d been elsewhere, he’d never used it, letting the vegetation choke the entrance, the dock and moorings fall into disrepair.

Curious, he followed the trail, finding the overgrowth slightly disturbed, as if the trespassers were being careful . . .
wary. Alarm scissored inside him, and his right hand rested on the pistol at his waist. Shoving aside a mulberry branch, he ducked low and stepped inside the tunnel’s entrance.

Smoke stung his senses, and he heard the drip of water from moss-covered bricks taken from Fort Pitt the century before. Smoke, aye . . . an endless dripping . . . a distressed cry. The latter sent the hair on his neck bristling. He wanted it to be an animal, but there was no mistake. He’d heard the sound of newborns wailing in the servants’ quarters at Broad Oak for years.

“Who’s there?” His voice was thunderous, hurling through the tunnel and sounding just like his father’s.

Silence.

He sprinted back to the house, taking a different route so he wouldn’t be seen, and came into the keeping room that led to the brick-lined cellar and the tunnel’s other entrance. Taking up a lantern, he fumbled with flint and tinder till it flashed before jerking open the heavy door closed for a decade or better. The resulting groan threatened his resolve, but he shrugged aside his misgivings and plunged ahead through spiderwebbing and dank darkness.

“Please, sir—don’t shoot!”

Lantern held high, he stood over them, a ragged, frightened knot of slumped shoulders and bare backs etched permanently with a horse whip, a dozen terrified eyes turned his way. A woman’s sobs tore at him, but it was the babe’s crying that rent his heart.

Jack took in the young mother’s tear-wet face, saw the newborn she clutched as if fearing he would grab hold and fling it away from her. Bloodied rags lay in a heap about her, and her thin dress was little better. Was she hemorrhaging?

“We be gone soon, sir,” one man said. “We mean no harm. Just lookin’ for a place called Hope.”

New Hope?

The Ballantynes were deeply involved then. Jack leaned into the wall, eyes on the faint remains of a fire they’d made. The smell of river water overrode the odor of old bricks, even smoke. Indecision weighted him. He could simply wait till dark, send them a few miles more to Ballantyne land and be done with it. “Come with me. I won’t cause trouble for you if you’ll cooperate.”

At that, a muscular man lumbered to his feet, a younger man after him. Out of the shadows came another woman. Blast! How many?

Someone moved to pick up the new mother, another the child. Turning, Jack led the way back through the tunnel to the keeping room, the events of a too-long day overtaking him. Above ground, he summoned Mrs. Malarkey, who surveyed the tattered company with such abhorrence it seemed she was seeing ghosts. In a heartbeat he recalled her Southern, proslavery roots.

“Ready the empty cottage nearest the house. My father’s transferred these slaves downriver to me.” The lie was strangely bitter, but he pressed on. “And tell Solomon I want Dr. Brunot sent for . . . again.”

Sated from Mamie’s feast of chicken fricassee followed by raspberry flummery, Ellie sat with Mama on the back veranda till she went upstairs to bed. A night wind was coming off the river, ruffling the edges of Ellie’s muslin dress and spreading the scent of honeysuckle to the far corners. An occasional insect flitted about but was hardly noticed, quickly banished with the swish of a fan.

Table talk had been light at supper, in keeping with the spirit of thankfulness that graced every gathering. The Scots
meals of his youth had been merry if meager, her father always said, and he’d not ruin fine fare with unpalatable conversation. Weighty matters always waited till later, often discussed behind closed doors. Still, Ellie’s thoughts wove about in a decidedly unmerry manner, and she wondered if Peyton would tell of his time in jail or Ansel of the bounty hunters. As it was, Ellie couldn’t dismiss the shocked look on Mama’s face when she’d first set foot in the house and learned Andra had gone east.

“To York? Is my mother ill again?”

Ellie hoped Ansel would give a soft answer, but Peyton spoke first, ever brusque. “Ill, aye. Perhaps dying. Last month a letter came from your sister Elspeth.”

Her parents exchanged a glance.

“The post is on Andra’s desk,” Ellie said softly, starting up the stairs to retrieve it.

The foyer was all too quiet when she returned. Mama took the letter, expression laden with alarm.

Da fixed them all with a solemn eye. “When did your sister leave for York?”

“Early this month, soon after she received the post.” Ansel rubbed his jaw, where a day’s growth of beard glinted. “There was no dissuading her. She promised to send word once she arrived, but we’ve not yet heard.”

Mama finished reading the letter and passed it to their father, who simply pocketed it. No more was said, the conversation turning to the storm and repairs both at home and in town. As the night lengthened and a late supper was served, Ellie fought to stay awake, waiting till Mama was abed and her brothers had left the study to take her turn. Despite the late hour, the study door was ajar in invitation.

She stood on the threshold, drinking in the sight of the man her small world revolved around. He glanced up from his
desk, a smile softening his intensity in the glow of candlelight. “You’re a patient lass to wait so long.”

Relieved, she took a stool nearest him, the embroidered top fashioned by Mama’s own hand. When little, she’d twirled upon it till she grew dizzy, but tonight she sat stone still, hands folded in her lap. If confession was good for the soul, she was anxious to end the tumultuous day and bare her heart. “Did Ansel tell you . . . anything?”

“About you?” Their eyes met, his questioning. “Nae.”

“Then I’d best start from the beginning.” Not one to mince words with her plain-speaking father, she came straight to the point. “I left Philadelphia because the Matrimonial Society was hounding me.”

His mouth quirked in a wry grin. “You’re of an age to be hounded, aye?”

She nearly smiled. “I suppose I am.” In hindsight, the society didn’t seem so bad. Perhaps they’d simply had a mission. “On the way home the weather overtook me, and I sought refuge at Widow Meyer’s tavern.”

“A tavern.” The words were threaded with surprise. “Where was your maid?”

Where, indeed.
“Rose eloped after I released her from her indenture document. She wanted to marry a tradesman she’d met in the city. I wanted to come home.”

He nodded thoughtfully, never taking his eyes off her.

“There, along the turnpike, I met up with Jack Turlock.” Her gaze fell to the paperwork atop the broad desk, all awaiting his signature or perusal. She couldn’t bear the displeasure she feared she’d find in his face. “A storm had swept through and a great many people were stranded. He was clearing the road. He brought me home as soon as it was safe to do so.” She met his eyes again, thinking there’d been nothing safe about it. They’d forged on despite a second storm, come what
may, in typical Turlock fashion. “I thought that was the end to the matter, but . . .”

“But . . .” His expression held a flash of amused exasperation. “The Turlocks have a way of continually cropping up.”

“Truly. Within days I found there was little for me to do here at home, as Andra is so . . . competent.”
Bossy
, she refrained from saying. “So I posted an advertisement for a day school. Soon I had a few young ladies signed on for dancing and French and needlework.” She rattled off the names of prominent Pittsburghers her father knew, saving Chloe for the last. “She came here and nearly begged me to school her. I-I didn’t have the heart to refuse her, though Ja—Mr. Turlock turned me down.”

“Why would he?”

“He cautioned me against taking her, saying it would spoil what I’d set out to do and I’d likely lose my other students. Chloe is living at River Hill, you see.” She paused, still puzzled by Jack’s sudden reversal. “Then he changed his mind and allowed the lessons after all. Chloe is certainly in need of a feminine touch.”

“You’re fond of her, I take it.”

“More than fond. She needs me, or seems to, though I sometimes think we’ll accomplish little.”

“You hold lessons at the girls’ homes?”

“Aside from a weekly dancing lesson here, yes. Till today it’s never been a worry. I’ve always had an escort. But this afternoon, the stables were busy and I decided to take the chaise myself. River Hill isn’t far along the back road, as you know . . .” At the admission, all the levity was chased from his expression. She forged on, surprised at the chill of memory. “As I was riding to meet Chloe, some men stopped me and searched the carriage. I don’t know what they wanted, but they damaged the chaise’s hood. It’s still
at River Hill. They even took the pistol Peyton gave me from your gun case—”