course not.”
“How long have you had this understanding with Colonel Talbot?”
“Understanding?”
“I heard years ago that he proposed marriage to you. Is that true?”
Ellie turned her face to the floor in what she hoped looked like a demure gesture. “It’s true.”
“Something’s not right about this.” Susanna stood and made for the door. “I don’t believe you and the colonel are courting at all.”
“Believe what you like, Susanna. It makes no difference to me.” Ellie walked with her to the entrance, and the other girls trailed in their wake. “See you at church on Sunday.”
When she’d shut the door behind them, Ellie fetched Sugar from the stable and brought her back to the parlor. Although she still wanted to go to Magnolia Grove before the heat of the day, she probably needed to stay until Graham came downstairs.
She went to the library to collect the dirty dishes he had said were there, and she washed them in the kitchen dependency. This area was as clean as if Miss Noreen still had a staff of twelve servants. How she kept it that way was beyond Ellie. If Lilah May and Roman hadn’t stayed on after the others left, the Anderson home would be in sorry shape.
Moments after she had dried and put away the dishes, she heard Graham clambering down the stairs. Ellie hastened through the breezeway to the dining room and then the center hall.
“They’re gone?” he asked, freshly bathed, shaved and dressed in what must be his father’s suit—a good idea, considering all the Union troops still occupying the city. “How did you manage it?”
“I didn’t manage much of anything.” Ellie moved to the sunny spot Sugar always chose on the faded runner extending from the front entrance to the back door. The dog ignored her until she picked up the leash. Then she came to life, prancing in anticipation of going outside.
“I told nothing but truth, but I let them come to the conclusion that we are courting.”
“But we’re not courting.”
“Lands, no. But since they think so, they got out of here in a hurry. You’re free to go and look for Miss Noreen.”
The look of dismay on Graham’s face was not what she’d expected. “I can’t believe you did that. Don’t you realize why they left in such a hurry?”
“Of course. They wanted to leave us to our happiness.”
He sat down hard on the wooden settle bench along the hall’s east side and dropped his head into his hands. Just the way he always had when one of her childhood schemes had gone wrong. “No, they didn’t. Have you forgotten who you’re dealing with? Susanna left here to spread the ‘news’ all over Natchez.”
“I’m not sure about that...” Or was she? What if he was right?
“The entire Pearl Street neighborhood will know by the time the party starts. Maybe the whole town.” He raised his head and impaled her with his gray-green eyes. “You did it again, Ellie.”
“What did I do?”
“You trapped me in another of your great ideas without thinking it through. That’s why these plans of yours don’t work out. You don’t stop to think.”
“I thought about it—”
“You never think beyond the present. You have to start considering the consequences of your actions.”
Hadn’t she heard that all her life? First from her parents, then from Uncle Amos and the tutors he’d gotten for her. “I can’t help it if the consequences surprise me, can I?”
He groaned. “We’re going to have to figure out what to do. After I find Noreen.”
“Graham, I’m sorry—”
“You say that every time too.”
Well, maybe she did, but that was better than not saying it.
Graham got up and started for the door. “I’m going to see if the neighbors know anything about Noreen. This afternoon, we’ll decide what to do about this. And how I’m going to get out of going to Aunt Ophelia’s party.”
The party. Ellie retrieved her note from her dress pocket and handed it to him. “I was going to slide this under your door, but then I saw your signal.”
She grabbed Sugar’s leash and followed Graham outside as a carriage pulled up near the spot where his horse snitched mouthfuls of grass from the yard’s edge. Within moments, Miss Noreen stepped unassisted from the conveyance. She turned and faced the carriage door and held out her arms. Someone placed a bundle into them.
A bundle that squirmed and cried...
Graham’s eyes misted over at the sight of his stepmother, and that surprised him more than anything else that had taken place this morning. What had happened to the soldier, the commander in him? He’d apparently been replaced by a nose-wiping ball of mush who hadn’t even realized he was homesick.
He also hadn’t realized he’d been running toward Noreen, but his slightly elevated pulse told him he had. He reached for the slender, gray-haired lady to give her the hug of her life—
And was met with a tiny fist to the gut.
“What? What is this?” In his relief and joy at seeing Noreen, he’d noticed but paid little attention to the white blanket he’d thought was merely wadded up in her arms. But there was something in that blanket. And that something was raising a fuss. So the crying hadn’t come from the baby buggy Mrs. Lemar was pushing up the walk as he’d thought. “What’s going on?”
“Graham.” She laid one hand on his upper arm and leaned toward him. “I thank God you made it home.”
He bent down to receive her kiss on the cheek. That alone would have made him start to bawl right here in the street, along with the baby, if he hadn’t been so shocked by his—or her—appearance.
“Everyone please come inside,” Noreen said. “Ellie, you too, dear, and Joseph.”
Joseph? Graham shot a glance back at the carriage. Their attorney, Joseph Duncan, climbed out and stretched his long legs. His suit was somewhat shiny from age and his stovepipe hat faded, but his famous, magnificent mustache was groomed to perfection as always and white as the clouds overhead.
Graham was about to offer his hand when the old gentleman gave him a snappy salute. “Welcome back, Colonel. I was a captain in the War of 1812. I know how pleasant it is to come home.”
Although it felt rather silly to salute a civilian more than three times his age while wearing a borrowed suit, Graham returned the gesture. “What’s going on? Whose baby is that?”
Joseph ambled down the walk with him. “We’d better let Miss Noreen tell her story.”
Noreen
