uneasy. She’d have to find a polite way to discourage him from visiting, especially now that the cotton fields were squaring. Between supervising her new workers, keeping track of cotton prices and watching for the right time to sell the portion of last year’s cotton harvest that she still had stashed away, she had no time for Leonard. However, since his father had been their cotton broker, Leonard no doubt had legitimate business to discuss.
But for now, Graham needed her help, so she tossed Leonard’s letter onto her desk and headed for the back door. Maybe her old friend would take her up on her offer of escape from the party, and maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, she’d have an excuse to miss it too. Some girls never grew up, like that silly Susanna Martin, who’d all but thrown herself at Graham in the yard. And Miss Ophelia, who seemed as excited about Graham’s return as the debutantes were. As much as Ellie loved Miss Ophelia, she’d welcome a chance to forego the festivities.
As Ellie neared the back door, Sugar got up from the rug and let out a sharp bark. Ellie grabbed the braided leather leash from the nail she’d hung the dog’s leashes on for the past ten years. Fastening it to Sugar’s matching soft leather collar, she gave silent thanks to God for allowing them to keep their ancestral home, as stately as Graham’s and even larger. Others around them had suffered much more than she and her uncle had, but now the war was over, and they could all make a new start.
Everything would be fine—if Uncle Amos recovered. And if Magnolia Grove returned a profit this year.
The thought took her breath. As the only father she’d known since the age of twelve, her uncle had to get well. But he had shown little improvement since the early days of his affliction, and she had to face that fact.
Magnolia Grove stood an even smaller chance of improving—and now it was up to Ellie to make that happen. At least she still had ground to work. Graham, on the other hand, had little to come home to.
If things had been different, he might have come home to her.
She brushed aside the thought as always. Their world had changed—they’d changed—since that summer night when he’d come calling, a bouquet of white crape myrtle in his hand and his heart in his eyes.
If only she’d been free to accept his offer...
The black-and-white-spotted English setter barked again and tugged at the leash. Ellie made her sit, then she scratched behind the dog’s floppy, curly ears and opened the door. With Sugar nearly dragging her toward Graham’s home, she let her gaze drift over the white house with its two-story columns and Doric capitals.
A white handkerchief hung from his bedroom window, fluttering in the gentle breeze.
Their distress signal?
She picked up her pace, Sugar trotting ahead of her. He’d been home ten minutes. What calamity could have happened in that time? And why ask for help from her, of all people?
She caught sight of him in the stable and hastened toward him. “Graham, welcome home.”
He turned toward her from the horse he was brushing. If she thought earlier that he’d changed, she now saw how much. Once the best-looking boy in Natchez, today he could turn every woman’s head in Mississippi. Of a stronger build than she remembered, and still in his uniform, he looked at once both powerful and intimidating—and yet she felt strangely safe with him. His dark hair brushed his collar, needing a trim, and he wore several days’ growth of beard, but the lack of scissors and razor couldn’t detract from his stunning looks.
His eyes had changed the most. She’d dreaded this day in the past weeks, not wanting to see cold, war-hardened eyes. But instead, she found gray-green eyes that had surely seen the worst of horrors—horrors he had commanded—and yet had become even softer than before.
They no longer held his heart in them—at least not for her. At the thought, she drew a long, slow breath of thanksgiving that held a pinch of bitter disappointment as well.
“Ellie.” He dropped his currycomb onto a low table. Then he bowed from the waist, a little too formally, considering their long friendship. “Perhaps you’d rather I call you Miss Ellie, or Miss Anderson.”
“That would be silly.” Equally silly was her sudden pleasure in hearing his deep, velvety voice. “Why did you hang the distress flag?”
He drew a ragged breath and glanced toward the house, his eyes intense, as if he was heading into battle. “I’m in trouble.”
“You?” Ellie couldn’t help laughing. “The hero of Natchez needs my help?”
“It’s female trouble.”
Female? “Well, you do work quickly. Don’t expect me to get you out of a hasty engagement or any such nonsense.”
“It’s nothing like that.” The intensity in his eyes lessened a bit, so maybe her teasing had lightened his mood. “A whole flock of women was here when I got home. They came inside with me, but Noreen’s gone.”
“Is that all? All you have to do is put on some water for tea. Noreen keeps a few cookies in the pantry, so put them on one of her Spode dishes—”
“I don’t want to serve refreshments. I want them out of the house so I can find Noreen.”
The man must have been too war-weary to think straight. “She’ll be back. You can surely tolerate an hour with a few pretty women.”
“You don’t understand. Something’s wrong. I know she left in a hurry, because her half-eaten breakfast is still sitting in the library. And Father’s revolver is missing.”
Now, that was different. “In that case, tell them you need to go. If Miss Noreen left dirty dishes, something has happened.”
“They’re not going to listen.”
She thought for a moment, watching Sugar inch closer to the horse.
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”
I have a plan. How many times in his life had Graham regretted having heard those words? He had a feeling he was going to regret it again. “All I want you to do is go in there and ask those women to leave while I look for Noreen.”
“If that’s all it takes, you do it,” Ellie said in her easy drawl.
The sick feeling in Graham’s stomach intensified to a burn. How was he supposed to tell her that, since he left her house that night eight years ago, he had spent almost no time with women and had no idea how to handle them? What was he supposed to say—that he’d led men into battle but couldn’t lead a gaggle of women out of his home? After all his time at war, he simply didn’t trust himself with the social graces. But the grin on Ellie’s face told him she wasn’t interested in hearing about it anyway.
Well, she was going to hear about it, whether she liked it or not. “Look, I’ve been three days without a bath and in the saddle the past day and a half, and I smell worse than a wet dog. I’ve been stripped of everything I own, plus my citizenship, and now to be disgraced in front of all those ladies— I still have my pride. I can’t do it.”
“My plan is brilliant. Trust me.”
