Legacy of Secrets
Sara Mitchell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

“Halt this instant! You’ve been shooting at me!”

Gray swiveled toward the voice, which emanated from behind a large, two-trunk oak. “Shooting at you?” he shouted back, marching across the glade. “Stop spouting nonsense and show yourself. I’m here to guide you back. You’ve nothing to fear.”

“I don’t believe you.” Neala Shaw, the bedraggled young woman with curly brown hair, brandished a tree limb in his face. “Who are you? You’re trespassing.”

Gray propped his shoulders against the tree. “You wouldn’t deter a kitten with that twig, much less a man with a gun.”

“Are you one of the sheriff’s new deputies?”

“No! I’m Isabella Chilton’s nephew. I just arrived for a visit. And I certainly didn’t plan on rescuing any damsels in distress today.”

“Well, what on earth are you angry for? You’re not the one who was almost killed!”

SARA MITCHELL

A popular and highly acclaimed author in the Christian-fiction market, Sara’s aim is to depict the struggle between the challenges of everyday life and the values to which our faith would have us aspire. The author of eight contemporary, three historical-suspense and two historical novels, her work has been published by many inspirational book publishers.

Sara has lived in diverse locations, from Georgia to California to Great Britain, and her extensive travel experience helps her create authentic settings for her books. A lifelong music lover, Sara has also written several musical dramas and has long been active in the music ministries of the churches wherever she and her husband, a retired career air force officer, have lived. The parents of two daughters, Sara and her husband now live in Virginia.

Jesus wept.

—John 11:35

For I am convinced that neither death nor life,

neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor

the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation, will be able to

separate us from the love of God that is in

Christ Jesus our Lord.

—Romans 8:38

For B.K. and Barry—neighbors and dear friends who

not only walk the extra mile, but provide new shoes,

food for the journey and umbrellas for all the storms

of life battering our family these past few years.

Thanks for being there.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to:

Dr. Robert S. Conte, historian, the Greenbrier

at White Sulphur Springs, for his hospitality, help and

endless patience with all my questions. Any historical

inaccuracies fall solely on my shoulders!

Melissa Endlich, my editor, whose enthusiasm and

insight warm the heart and energize the creative soul.

Janet Kobobel Grant, my long-suffering agent,

whose belief in me never falters.

Prologue

Richmond, Virginia

September 1862

On a humid, chilly evening in late September, the boy finally reached his goal. His journey had lasted three terrifying nights and four equally terrifying days; except for the first night, when he’d stowed away on a northbound freight train, he was forced to evade swarms of soldiers, rebel and bluecoats alike. They roamed the countryside and main roads like the biblical plague of locusts his grandmother talked about, the ones inflicted upon the Egyptians.

For two of those nights the boy hid shivering in fear under cover of a forest, in a thicket of wild rhododendron, his nose filled with the ripe odors of leaves and wet earth while a hundred yards away the awful sounds of bloodcurdling battle rent the air. The thought of killing a human being twisted his insides. When he could no longer bear the cold and fear and uncertainty, he clapped his hands over his ears, choking on tears wept in desperate silence.

Swallowing hard against the memory, he focused on his present surroundings—a narrow alley on a busy street. Tall brick buildings engulfed him instead of trees; a cluster of wooden crates shielded him instead of bushes. Instead of the noise of battle, the sounds of a city filled his ears. Buggies and wagons rattled past in the street. Crowds of people choked the walkways. As the moments passed, gradually he crept onto the sidewalk and huddled in the shadow of the doorway to some kind of store. Directly across the street, a fancy hotel rose in lofty grandeur between two nondescript brick buildings. Inside that hotel, the man he had traveled over a hundred miles to see dined with his family, oblivious to the existence of the scrawny thirteen-year-old boy who was his nephew.

Time passed while he tried to decide what to do. He could feel his heartbeat clear up inside his ears. Dusk settled in, and he watched the lamplighter’s progress along the street, lighting up the tall streetlights. Several times shiny carriages stopped in front of the hotel, collected and discharged men in top hats and expensive-looking suits, along with women in their hooped skirts wide enough for a flock of chickens to hide under. A colored man clad in a hideous purple uniform guarded the hotel entrance, nodding to arriving guests as he held open the door.

Several passersby glanced askance at the boy, and one frowning man in a greatcoat actually stopped, asked him what he was about, loitering on the walk.

“I’m waiting for my uncle.”

“And where might your uncle be, boy, that he left you here on the street after dark?”

Sweat gathered on his palms and at the small of his back. “Oh, he’ll be out in a few moments. He had to leave a message for someone in the hotel.”

“Hmm. Well—” his voice turned brisk “—that’s all right, then, I expect. How old are you, son?”

He stood straight, keeping his gaze open and earnest upon the gentleman. “Thirteen. You don’t need to worry about me, sir. I’m perfectly fine.” The cultured drawl of his proud North Carolina grandmother rolled easily off his lips, and he watched smugly as the lingering suspicion faded from the man’s face.

“Very well.” He touched two fingers to his top hat. “But you be careful, son. There’s a war going on, and it’s drawing closer to Richmond every day. I’d hate to see you conscripted into the army, though you’ve one foot in adulthood.” Some emotion flickered in his eyes. “War’s horrific enough for grown men. Don’t believe anyone who claims otherwise, or fills your head with stories of the glory of battle. You tell your uncle to take better care of you, in the future.”

“Yessir.”

The man patted his shoulder, then walked on.

The longing boiled up, fast and ferocious, as it always did. He watched the stranger stride down the street, wishing so fiercely it made his teeth hurt that he had a father who cared whether or not he loitered alone on a city street. Who tried to shield him from the brutality of war. Before the fear could take hold again, he darted across the street and ducked inside the hotel while the doorman was busy handing some ladies down out of a dark green brougham.

The lobby was a maze of gleaming oak columns and red-cushioned chairs scattered between huge urns of potted plants. Mindful that his clothes were rumpled and dirt stained, he slipped from urn to urn, behind columns, making his way toward the dining room. The scullery maid at his uncle’s imposing town house on Grace Avenue had been easily persuaded to provide directions to the hotel; ever since he’d been a toddler he’d perfected the art of pleasing females.

Heart thumping, as a large grandfather clock dolefully bonged nine times, he slipped inside the dining room—and saw them. Even when seated, his uncle was a commanding presence in his swallow-tail coat and blinding-white shirt, where a diamond stickpin winked with every motion he made. Next to him sat a pretty plump woman dressed in a deep red gown. Jet earrings and necklace decorated her ears and throat. That would be his aunt, and the two little boys dandified up in revolting little suits his cousins.

Everybody was smiling and talking, including the boys. He watched, still and silent as one of the wooden columns, while his uncle leaned over to hear something his wife was saying, a tender expression on his face the boy had never witnessed on another man’s countenance, not in his entire thirteen years.

The longing intensified until it was a monster, biting into him in chunks of indescribable jealousy and pain.

Suddenly one of the sons, the one barely a toddler, knocked over a glass. His older brother laughed.

Across the room, the boy tensed, not breathing, while he waited for the father to reprimand his son, to perhaps even backhand him. Waited for the mother to deliver a shrill scolding, to lecture the hapless child on proper deportment.

Instead, the father calmly signaled for the waiter, righted the glass himself. Then he ruffled his son’s hair, the expression of indulgence on his face visible all the way across the room.

Something snapped inside the boy.

That little boy should be him. He should have been part of a well-to-do family who dined in fancy hotels. His mother should be dressed in fancy lace and velvet, seated next to her husband. His father. His home should be the immense stone town house with the neatly manicured yard.

For years his mother and grandmother had filled his head with stories and promises of a grand Mission that someday he would undertake, to right a Grievous Wrong. Now, unnoticed and invisible to the family that should have been his, he made a vow of his own.

Chapter One

Charlottesville, Virginia

Spring 1889

The funeral service was over, the mourners dispersed. A light breeze carried the faint scent of spring hyacinths, and the sound of the church bell, tolling its doleful message. Six blocks away, Neala Shaw followed her brother Adrian up the front steps, into a house devoid of light and life. Silently they hung coat and cloak on the hall tree, then just as silently wandered into the parlor. Unable to bear the shadowed gloom, Neala made her way to the windows to pull back the curtains before confronting her brother.

“Adrian…what you said, about leaving?” The silken threads of the tassels holding the curtains were tangled; she concentrated on combing through each strand with her fingers. “Tell me you didn’t mean it.”

“I did mean it. Every word.” He tugged at his tie, yanking it off with quick, jerky movements. The stiff shirt collar followed. “Mother and Father are gone. Even if I wanted to, there’s no reason to stay here.”

Neala dropped the tassel and turned to stare blindly out the window, wishing just once her temperament would allow her the satisfaction of retaliating with equally hurtful words. How could Adrian behave so, when less than an hour earlier they had buried both parents?

She could still hear the sound of the shovels, still see the clumps of dirt pouring onto the coffins, signaling with brutal finality that, while Edward and Cora Shaw’s souls were with God, their lifeless bodies were forever consigned to the earth. Until she herself died, Neala would never see them again, never hear their voices, never inhale the scent of Mother’s honeysuckle toilet water or Father’s sandalwood hair tonic. Never feel the warmth of their hugs.

All because of an accident. A tragic, deadly accident that shocked the community and devastated the few members left in the Neal Shaw family.

“Adrian, this is our home. I don’t—”

“Was our home. The house and all its contents go on the auction block tomorrow, remember? Father may have been a respected university professor, but he knew as much about providing for his family as a squirrel finding nuts in a snowstorm.”

Neala winced. “Where will you go?”

He shrugged, abruptly looking much younger than his twenty years. “I bought a train ticket for Newport News yesterday. Always wanted to see the ocean.”

Curiosity overpowered caution. “Adrian, how on earth did you pay for the ticket?”

He avoided her gaze. “Sold Father’s watch,” he muttered after a minute. “I didn’t have anything else.” His voice rose in the face of Neala’s silence. “It’s not as though Father’s here to care one way or the other. Besides, it’s his fault we’re in this mess. You could always sell Grandfather’s legacy. I doubt if it’s worth more than a few dollars, but that’s more than Father left.”

He could have slapped her face and not wounded her so deeply. “I will never part with the clan crest badge. Perhaps that’s why Grandfather left it to me, instead of you.” Neala watched her brother’s face close up, but she was beyond placating him. “That crest has been part of the Shaw family for over three hundred years. Now it’s the only legacy we have left. It’s a shame I’m the only one who appreciates it.”

“What did you expect? They named you after him, not me. He left the crest badge to you, not me. Not his only surviving grandson.”

Silence gathered in the room, hanging like a damp fog. “I need to finish packing,” Adrian finally muttered. “You’ll be all right, won’t you, sis? With the auction, I mean?”

“I’ll manage just fine, Adrian.”

“Um…do you know what you’re going to do? Where will you live? The Johnsons’?”

“No, they don’t really have room, especially with Hannah in the family way.”

“Oh. What about the Marsdens?”

“Mr. Marsden suffers from sciatica. They’re moving to Thomasville, Georgia, this fall.”

Adrian hunched his shoulders, his expression sheepish but defiant. “Well, what about one of the boardinghouses where some of the teachers live?”

Neala folded her handkerchief into a neat square to give herself time to collect her sluggish thoughts. “Too expensive, I’m afraid, my dear.” She managed with Herculean effort to produce a matter-of-fact smile. “Mrs. Hobbs told me about a school for women,” she shared, the words dragging. “It’s farther north, somewhere up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I believe. She suggested I apply for residency there. I hadn’t considered it because you were here, and this school is apparently only for women who have lost all their family connections. Mrs. Hobbs says tuition is paid through donations or trusts or something, since the only applicants accepted are those who find themselves without any resources.” Carefully she kept her voice stripped of any hint of censure, but Adrian’s cheeks turned a dusky red.

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” he snapped. “This time tomorrow I’ll be long gone. Tell everyone I’m dead, too. The way things have gone over the past few years in our family, I may as well be.”

He stormed out of the parlor, and a moment later Neala heard the front door slam.

Philadelphia

The odors in the squalid alley would suffocate a buffalo. How could a human being survive, much less breathe here, Grayson Faulkner wondered as he and his partner picked their way down what seemed like a tunnel into perdition. A pack of snarling, slobbering dogs fought over the bloody carcass of another animal; Gray averted his gaze and breathed shallowly to keep his gorge at the low end of his throat. Rotting garbage, putrid food scraps and rusted tins formed piles higher than their heads. If he’d known what teaming up with a bounty hunter entailed, he’d never have let Marty Scruggs talk him into it.

When this job was finished, his old friend would have to hornswoggle a new partner. Seeking adventure all over the earth had been a satisfying way to explore life. But even Gray’s years as a deputy marshal out in Wyoming Territory, where he’d seen plenty of depravity in the wild cattle towns, hadn’t prepared him for the likes of a city slum.

Beside him, Marty gagged, then cheerfully cursed the dogs, the place, and the man they were looking for.

“I agree,” Gray said. “So I hate to break it to you now, but after this job, my friend, I’m through.”

“You and me both. But you lasted longer than I thought, seeing as unlike me, you’re a gent born with a whole place setting of silver spoons in his mouth.”

They passed a pile of steaming garbage, the stench so rank Gray’s eyes watered. When he finished this job, he’d take a long-needed vacation, he promised himself. Somewhere green and fresh, where the air sparkled and he could hear birdsong. Somewhere nobody knew or cared about his prowess with a gun, or his family. Surely some little corner of this vast country could provide relief for a man on the verge of destroying whatever passed for his soul.

“Isn’t this the one?” Marty hissed.

“Looks like it,” Gray agreed after a moment.

They climbed several flights of creaking stairs lit only by a single bulb hanging from a long wire in the wretched foyer; the higher they climbed, the darker and more stale the air grew. Through thin, decrepit doors they heard voices arguing, babies wailing, smelled the stomach-turning odors of urine, sweat and mildew along with rancid food. Gray opened one flap of his shapeless sack coat, curling his fingers around the holstered Smith & Wesson revolver. It was a new hammerless model that had replaced his trusty Peacemaker; Gray was as proud of the New Departure model as a parent with a precocious child.

“I’m right glad you’re along.” Marty grinned slyly. “Still the best marksman east of the Mississippi, I hear.”

Gray felt heat burn his ears and cheeks. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, or read, but likely it’s tommyrot.”

They reached the top floor; in wordless accord they approached the door on the end, and Marty knocked twice. The churning in Gray’s belly stilled, and an almost eerie calm descended—the falcon, poised to swoop upon its prey.

The door opened a crack, just enough for the two men to see a woman’s pitted face and suspicious eyes. “Don’t know ye,” she snapped. “Go ’way.”

Marty planted his foot in the door. “We’re here to collar Kevin Hackbone. Please step aside, ma’am. We know he’s in here, and we know there’s no way out except through this door.”

Gray watched a multitude of expressions streak across her face, unable to completely divorce himself from an uprising of pity. If she’d had a chance, a decent place to live and a man who took care of her…He stepped closer, crowding the doorway until reluctantly the woman stepped back. “He won’t go easy,” she said, jerking her chin toward a narrow hall.

“His choice,” Gray returned quietly.

“If you help us, it’ll be better for you,” Marty added. He exchanged glances with Gray, then tugged out a pair of handcuffs and headed down the hall, to a closed door. “Come on out, Kevin,” he called. “You’re under arrest back in New York City, for robbery, assault and battery, and too many other crimes to waste more breath on.”

“Come and get me, ya boot-kissing son of a sewer rat!” a nasal voice yelled through the flimsy panel.

“Now, Kevin, there’s two of us out here.” He shot Gray a quick glance, winked. “One of us is the Falcon himself. You’ve heard about him, right? Might wriggle away from me, but you know and I know you’ll never make it past him.”

“Got a knife, boyo. And I’ll use it, I will.”

“I’ve got a gun,” Gray called back, glaring at his irrepressible friend. “And I’ll use it.”

The door opened. Looking like a mangy ferret, Kevin eyed the cuffs dangling from Marty’s hand, then glanced down the hall where Gray waited by the door. After a long moment, Kevin heaved a sigh and held out his hands. “Knew it was just a matter of time,” he muttered, all bluster gone.

Going too easy, Gray thought with a prickle of disquiet. He watched, every muscle tensed, waiting for Kevin to make a move as Marty proceeded to handcuff his hands behind his back.

“No!” the woman behind Gray suddenly shrieked, a demented scream ripping from her throat. She dashed down the hall before Gray could stop her, and there was a knife in her hands, a knife she lifted high above her head, a knife aimed for Marty’s unprotected back.

It happened too fast. Even as he raced after her, shouting at her, Gray knew he was too late. Too late he screamed somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind as he lifted the gun and fired but the knife had already plunged into Marty’s back. Marty half turned, his eyes wide with disbelief. He shook his head, his gaze finding and holding Gray’s even as his hands fell away from Kevin and he dropped to his knees, then crumpled on top of the dead woman—the first woman Gray had ever been forced to kill.

Gray scarcely noticed Kevin’s escape. He gathered Marty in his arms, feeling the blood soaking his hands. “Hold on,” he pleaded, pressing against the wound with all his might. “Hold on, Marty. You have to hold on….”

The friendly brown eyes, always so full of humor, full of life, were glazed now, staring vaguely up into Gray’s face. Marty’s mouth moved, and he coughed, blood trickling down his chin. “Gray…” he whispered, one hand fumbling aimlessly until Gray grabbed it, gripped it tightly. “Glad it wasn’t you, Falcon…” The ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. “Would…ruin…your reputation.”

His head lolled, and his body went slack.

His friend was gone.

Chapter Two

Isabella Chilton Academy for Single Females

April 1890

Drizzling rain accompanied a week of demanding examinations, but winter session at the Isabella Chilton Academy was finally over. Along with academic and home-management courses, graduates from the Academy were educated in every facet of etiquette and social skills in order to survive a world where a woman’s role was no longer as rigidly defined. Since 1866, when Miss Isabella had converted her husband’s family estate into a school in order to save it from Yankee carpetbaggers, every student who completed the four-year curriculum acquired either a husband or gainful employment with which to support themselves.

“God’s design from the beginning was for marriage between a man and a woman,” Miss Isabella liked to remind the students. “Regrettably, the world seldom chooses to abide by God’s design.”

Neala had spent the better part of the past year learning that painful lesson.

As was the custom, on the first day the capricious April weather cooperated, Miss Isabella treated students to a day trip. Today the destination was a shopping-and-luncheon trip to Berryville, which spawned a giddy atmosphere among all the women except Neala.

Restless, a trifle pensive, Neala had elected to stay behind to assist Miss Crabbe with school paperwork. An Academy fixture for years, Eulalie Crabbe was an excellent secretary, but the high-strung spinster could handle no more than two tasks at any given moment. “But it’s not just the paperwork,” Neala explained to Abigail Schaffer, one of her new friends at the Academy. “I, well, I need to take a long walk this afternoon. To think about…things.”

“I understand.” Abby gave a smile that belied the wistful tone.

“Why can’t you help Miss Crabbe tomorrow?” Nan Sweeney interrupted from behind Abby. “You told me last week you were hoping to finally purchase a new ready-made wrapper, to replace the dress you ruined in the harness-room fire.”

Would anyone ever forget that wretched imbroglio? It had happened over five months ago! All right, she could have perished—but if she hadn’t tried to put out a fire she was responsible for starting, she would never have been able to look in a mirror again.

Violet Gleason, a farm girl standing next to Nan, chimed in, “Please do come. It won’t be the same without you, Neala…”

“All right, my dears. Her decision’s made, and I concur.”

With the brisk kindness for which she was famous, the headmistress silenced the rest of the protests with a commanding wave of a gloved hand. Liam Brody, the school’s coachman and stableman, handed the women into the coach, then shut the door with such haste he caught the ribboned hem of someone’s gown. Muttering what no doubt were Gaelic imprecations, he rectified the mistake, jammed his top hat farther down over his forehead and swung up into the driver’s seat.

Neala and Miss Isabella shared a smile. “Don’t let Eulalie keep you past two,” the headmistress ordered. She pressed her plump heliotrope-scented cheek against Neala’s. “And don’t forget to carry your whistle when you go for your walk. Mr. Pepperell is planting tomatoes this afternoon. I’ve told him to keep an ear out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Hmm.” The older woman idly stroked the side of her nose. “You haven’t yet learned your limitations, have you?” A faint frown appeared between her eyes. “Don’t let the new girls pester you so you miss your walk.”

“They’re never a bother,” Neala murmured. “If I can help them know they’re not alone, it’s the least I can do.”

“We all help one another here, it’s true. But you are neither their mother, nor headmistress of the Isabella Chilton Academy. My students must also learn how to embrace solitude, and endure loneliness.”

Heat crept up Neala’s cheeks. “I just want to be a friend.”

Miss Isabella’s face softened. “Ah, Neala. My dear, I do understand. You are indeed a very good friend, to all of us. Even when you’re trying to shoulder more than your share.” She smoothed the row of ruffles on her basque. “While you go for that walk, remember that you do have a home here. People who care about you—simply because you’re you. Think about that as well, hmm?”

At a little past four o’clock, Neala headed toward the thick forest that screened the Academy from fierce northwestern winds. Today, however, the wind was light, playful; spring bloomed in all its flagrant abandon. Neala loved this season of new birth, with the scents and colors of restored life bursting forth from the earth, reminding all mourners that death was never final.

Some time later she reached the sunlit glade she’d designated her forest chapel. Most of the students found hideaways like this, somewhere on the vast grounds where they could escape for a sip of solitude. Few of them…All right, only Neala and the mysterious widow Tremayne ventured this far into the woods. What was her name? Josephine? No—Jocelyn. Jocelyn Tremayne. Several times Neala had invited Jocelyn to join her. Though polite, the widow always refused, saying she needed time to adjust to her new life. If Neala pleaded, Abby occasionally joined her for a hike down to the river. But Abby preferred to spend most of her spare time in the stables, because she loved horses, so Neala tried hard not to be the infernal nag her brother considered her.

She kicked an acorn, then sighed, allowing the tranquil surroundings to purify her restless spirit. She hadn’t yet grasped the notion of embracing lifelong solitude, but these walks seemed to help.

She would have made a wonderful explorer, like Lewis and Clark. Or perhaps an Indian. Yes, definitely an Indian squaw with beautiful long black hair. Long, straight hair worn in easy-to-manage braids. Not an infuriating head full of wispy brown curls that refused to obey hairpins no matter how firmly attached.

An hour later, pleasantly winded, mostly at peace, Neala started back for the school. She was humming a hymn whose words she had forgotten, absently stroking tree trunks as she wound her way back along the faint path her footsteps had created over the past ten months, when the resounding crack of a rifle shot rent the twilight silence.

Simultaneously the bark of the white pine inches from her face exploded outward. Neala leaped back, hands flying to cover her eyes even as realization slammed into her with the same force as the bullet struck the tree.

Some stupid hunter had almost killed her, thinking she was an animal.

She ducked behind the pine even as another bullet zinged past a mere two feet behind her. How stupid of her, to have worn dark mourning clothes for her walk, which made her far more difficult to distinguish from a deer or some other large animal. Neala scanned the direction from which the shot had been fired, but she could detect no sign of movement. She cupped her hands on either side of her mouth to create a makeshift megaphone like a ringmaster at Barnum & Bailey Circus.

“Don’t shoot again!” she yelled. “I’m a person, not your supper!” Then, after two seconds of thrumming silence, she added, “And this is private property! One more shot, and I’ll see that you’re the one being hunted!”

A massive oak with two joined trunks offered more protection than the pine. Neala gathered up her skirts, hunched her shoulders and darted behind a thicket of mountain laurel, then raced for the oak’s protection. She hunkered down, frustrated and angry because the oaf out there had spoiled the atmosphere.

Cautiously she peered around the tree. A hand’s width from her nose, leaves and dirt exploded almost simultaneously with the echoing crack of a third shot. Stupid, careless hunter, she thought, a lump forming in her throat. If Adrian were here…

Impatient with herself, Neala smacked a fist against her palm. Right now she needed to extricate herself from a potentially dangerous situation, not wallow in maudlin longings. And if she didn’t put in an appearance within two minutes of the coach’s return, someone—probably an irate Liam—would set out to search for her. If the hunter were still in the vicinity, he might accidentally shoot Liam as well. What a wretched dilemma!

“Did you hear me?” she yelled again.

There was no response. For several vexing moments Neala sat, her mind searching furiously for a solution. Only when she crossed her arms did she remember the whistle dangling around her neck. All students, regardless of the length of time, were required to carry a whistle with them if they were out of sight of the main house. Neala Shaw, you have nothing but a mess of day-old oatmeal for brains.

Shaking her head, she lifted the whistle to her lips and blew.

Gray lay sprawled under one of the trees planted years earlier by new students, a charming if somewhat mawkish custom, to his way of thinking. Hands folded to pillow his head, eyes half-closed, he could almost hear Aunt Bella’s crisp denouncement of such cynicism. From her perspective the trees were planted so newly orphaned students would have something to nurture, something they could claim, at a place she wanted them to regard as home.

Home.

Gray rolled and sat up, fighting the ever-present discontent with his life. Nothing assuaged the malaise, not women nor drink nor even a couple of shooting competitions where he’d reaped adulation and medals for pretending every shot he fired was aimed at Kevin Hackbone’s heart. Sumner—no, it was not Sumner anymore. Now his only refuge from a stifling lifestyle was a school for females. Life was full of bitter irony.

Gray shuddered.

Why did Aunt Bella have to pick this particular day to hare off to Berryville?

He’d arrived an hour earlier, eager for a much-needed visit with the only female left on earth whose presence he could tolerate longer than twenty-four hours. Growing up, Gray spent miserable hours wishing Isabella was his mother, instead of the sweet but overprotective woman who refused to let Gray become a man. Even now, on his visits home, she treated him as though he were a perpetual three-year-old toddler. At fifteen, he finally rebelled and ran. Aunt Bella was the only family member with whom he’d stayed in touch. Understanding soul that she was, she’d waited out a year; when he turned sixteen she calmly told him to take his sorry carcass back home and mend fences, or she’d write his mother herself. And send Gray’s two older brothers to fetch him.

A smile tweaked the corner of his mouth, remembering that first reunion. Aunt Bella had been spot on, of course.

He flicked open his watch, to discover only seven minutes had passed since he checked the time. Swearing beneath his breath, Gray stood up, scanned the winding drive again. It was going on five, dusk not far away. Why weren’t they back home? He needed to talk, needed to hear her advice, soak up the love offered without chains.

When he heard the faint but piercing sound of a whistle, he whipped around, hand automatically going to the butt of his gun. Across the lawn, Mr. Pepperell had also straightened. He dropped his tools, his head swiveling back and forth as he, too, scanned the estate’s southern woods. Gray loped over.

“What is it? Who’s ruining the peace and quiet by blowing a blasted whistle?”

“I—oh, my, it most likely is Miss Shaw. She told me she was going for a walk.” He paused to wipe a shaking hand across his brow. “I don’t know precisely what—that is to say, I hadn’t expected…”

“Why is she blowing a whistle?”

The gardener swallowed several times, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Instead of a dapper gentleman politely sharing botanical tidbits, now he resembled an old man on the verge of collapse. “Distress.” He peered dazedly up at Gray. “It’s to be used only as a call for help. A—a safety measure, if you will. All students wear one when out of sight of the main house. They’re most of them young women from towns and farms, not used to the country.”

Clumsily he began untying his gardener’s apron. “I must go. I’m the only one—”

“No, you’re not,” Gray interrupted. “I’ll go see what the problem is. You stay here, alert the household to be prepared with bandages or whatever might be required.”

Ignoring the gardener’s halfhearted protests, he took off at a run in the general location of the last whistle call. When he reached the woods he paused, rapidly searched and discovered a path of sorts. Good. Jaw set, Gray plunged into the shadowed forest.

Chapter Three

Within two minutes, Gray was forced to slow his pace. Wet shrubs newly leafed slapped his sides; low-hanging branches tried to gouge his face, and he slipped twice on the narrow path that seemed to delight in its number of twists and turns.

After ten minutes he stopped completely. He swiped at his face, then tugged off his jacket and hung it on a dead branch. Irritation boiled through him. This whole day had been nothing but one infernal nuisance after another. And some timid female who couldn’t find her way out of a potato sack…Well, this was just what he needed, tearing through unfamiliar woods like some stupid Galahad, only to wind up more lost than the equally stupid female. And she wasn’t helping much at all.

“Where are you?” he roared. “Blow the whistle again!”

He waited, yelled again. Nothing. Very well. Stay lost, then. A chilly night in dark woods would teach a valuable lesson.

The whistle blew.

Gray ignored the quick tug of relief, turned on his heel, plunged off the narrow path and fought his way through yet another thicket of wet leafy shrubs, only marginally pacified when the whistle continued to blow at regular intervals. The young miss deserved a blistering lecture for getting herself lost—and he deserved to deliver it.

Of course, a remote possibility existed that she actually had hurt herself, along with getting lost. Aunt Bella needed to apply a firmer hand with her students, since these woods doubtless were home to bears, maybe even a wildcat or two. Trespassing hunters…

The skin at the back of his neck tightened. No matter how helpless or irrational a woman behaved, she never deserved to be mistreated. If this one had been harmed in any manner, or even frightened by some wandering weasel, Gray would track the vermin down and teach him a few manners.

He burst into a small clearing, and a feminine voice called loudly, “Halt this instance! You’ve been shooting at me, not a deer or a…bear!”

What—? Gray swiveled toward the voice, which emanated from behind a large two-trunk oak. “Shooting at you?” he shouted back, marching across the glade. “Stop spouting nonsense and show yourself.” With an effort he moderated his tone. “You’re safe now. I’m here to guide you back. You’ve nothing to fear.”

He reached the tree, peered around, and barely avoided getting brained with a dead tree limb.

“I don’t need a guide. And I don’t believe you.” A bedraggled moppet with curly brown hair and snapping brown eyes brandished the limb in his face. “Who are you? You’re trespassing, and furthermore hunting is forbidden on this land.” Her irate gaze fastened on Gray’s revolver. The flushed cheeks paled.

Gray propped his shoulder against the tree trunk and crossed his arms over his chest. Her head scarcely reached his chin; she’d gotten herself lost, and she was alone in the middle of the woods with a man she’d never met. Yet she stood there, taking him to task without a shred of awareness of her helplessness. “Your stick wouldn’t deter a tabby cat, much less a man with a gun. Even a man without one,” he drawled, palm itching to slip the weapon from its holster to scare a modicum of common sense into her.

For a second the girl stared at him wide-eyed. Then she popped the whistle back in her mouth and blew. The sound at close range shrilled into Gray’s unprotected ears, and he covered them in a reflexive action worthy of the greenest tenderfoot.

“Mr. Pepperell will be here any moment,” she confidently stated after trying to deafen him. “Also a very husky Irishman. They won’t take kindly to a trespassing hunter. You could have killed someone through your carelessness.”

Disbelieving, for the first time Gray studied the woman objectively, without the haze of resentment fogging his mind. At first he’d pegged her for one of Isabella’s youngest students, too naive to grasp her circumstances. Upon closer examination he realized she had to be in her early twenties, possibly a few years older. The wild tangle of curls and guileless eyes were nothing but a smoke screen.

She might be orphaned now, but he’d wager she’d had siblings at one time, all of them younger, poor saps she ordered about with the same officious superiority his sisters had inflicted upon his own miserable childhood.

“For your information,” he finally said, mildly enough considering his mood, “I happen to know that your husky Irishman is only an inch taller than you, say, five feet six inches? And he’s about as husky as a plucked rooster. As for Mr. Pepperell, he’s nearing seventy. Had he come hunting you down, by now he would have expired from heart palpitations.”

He lowered his head until their faces were mere inches apart. “Did you bother to consider the shock to his heart, the risk he’d face trying to race over a mile of rough terrain, to rescue you? I volunteered instead.” He paused. “But turns out you’re not lost. Or hurt. You’re only supposed to blow that whistle if you’re in danger, or dire straits. Ever read the fable about the boy who cried wolf?”

The chit searched his face with nothing but relief showing on hers. “If you know Liam and Mr. Pepperell, you couldn’t be the irresponsible hunter, even though you are wearing a gun.” She heaved a long, unladylike breath. “Are you one of the sheriff’s new deputies?” With a quick flick of her wrist, she tossed aside the stick, then absently tucked wayward curls behind her ears. Her expression remained as bright and friendly as a puppy’s.

“No!” Gray ground out, his back teeth snapping together in an effort to keep his temper from exploding full force. “I happen to be Isabella Chilton’s nephew. I just arrived for a visit—a much-needed, peaceful visit. But my aunt wasn’t there. So I didn’t have anything better to do than chase through the woods to rescue an idiot girl who doesn’t have enough sense to steer clear of an angry male.”

“Well, what on earth are you angry for? You’re not the one who could have been killed by a trigger-happy hunter.”

A late-afternoon breeze dislodged more of her hair. Sighing again, she plucked out some hairpins and haphazardly stuffed the loose curls back into a slipping topknot. Despite his extensive travels, Gray had never encountered a woman so indifferent to her appearance. “Since you’re not the hunter,” she finished, “would you mind scouting the area before we leave? I doubt he’s around, since I finally remembered to blow the whistle, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that someone was, ah, shooting at you?” He swept her disheveled form with another raking glance while the memory of Mr. Pepperell’s worried eyes and trembling fingers filled his mind. “How about telling me what you’re really up to, and save us both from a scene I’ll probably regret. I despise liars, especially female ones who never consider the consequences to anyone but themselves.”

She blinked, the self-assurance squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin fading. As rapidly as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, she transformed into an uncertain young girl whose aura of wounded dignity pricked Gray’s conscience. “It’s probably safe enough now,” she murmured. “I’m going back this way.” She gestured with her hand. “It’s longer, but less strenuous.” Without another word she headed off, her every step away from Gray a silent reproach.

He fought a losing battle with the nettles pricking his conscience. “Wait,” he called, reaching her in half a dozen strides. It was a half-dozen more before he gathered the courage to speak again. “Listen. I apologize. I had no right to speak to you the way I did.”

He yanked at his shirt collar, feeling stupid, petty—and a complete churl. Impossible to explain how her innocent query about his being a sheriff’s deputy had ripped wide open a wound so painful to his soul he wasn’t sure he’d ever heal. But he owed her something. “Will you stop a second, so I can at least offer a proper apology?” he growled.

She hesitated, then glanced up, her expression solemn. “All right.”

“I’m sorry.” He bit the inside of his cheek, then shrugged. “It’s been a long day. I lost my temper. I’m usually not this boorish.”

A shy smile flirted at the corner of her mouth. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have accused you of being a careless hunter.”

Gray still didn’t believe her story, but finally had enough presence of mind to keep the thought to himself. “Well, we’d best make haste. By the time we return, Aunt Bella should be back.”

“With my ‘husky Irishman’ driving the coach,” the young woman added dryly. “Not to mention all the others, who aren’t going to be happy at all with my latest snarlie.”

Latest…snarlie? Where had Aunt Bella unearthed this creature?

“Well, it’s over now,” Gray said, and managed what he hoped was a comforting smile. “All is well, hmm?” Ha. His need for peace was unlikely to be satisfied now, and the talk he’d yearned to enjoy with his aunt unfortunately would revolve around someone other than himself.

He started down the path, but the woman didn’t budge. “What is it?” Regrettably, he was unable to erase the edge in the words.

For a few seconds more she stood there, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Then she shrugged. “Yes. You’re right. All is well. Thank you for…coming to rescue me.” There was a pause, then she added in a wistful tone, “You’re nothing at all like your aunt, are you?”

They didn’t speak again. Thirty long minutes later, grateful for the excuse, Gray left her at the edge of the woods to return and fetch his jacket. Slanting sunbeams poured across the lawn, bathing Miss Shaw with a golden aura that contrarily enhanced her aloneness. Gray stomped back into the woods, and considered seriously the temptation to find a very large oak tree so he could bang his head against its trunk.

Chapter Four

Rutter, Virginia

Shoulders slumped, Will Crocker trudged down the dirt lane that led to his home. It was dusk, when light and shadow blurred surroundings into indefinable shapes. A man could be invisible at dusk, if he were careful. Will shrugged, vaguely uncomfortable with the thought, and hurried toward the four-room unpainted frame house where he and his mother had lived for the last fifteen years.

The hardscrabble community of Rutter, population 973, boasted few amenities, though one or two families made persistent efforts to achieve a level of civilized comfort—whitewashing the clapboard, planting a flower garden; one family had ordered an entire parlor set of golden oak out of the Sears catalog.

Momma always had a good word to say about their neighbors; she tried as much as she could to thank Will for his efforts to improve their own home, despite the disconsolation that plagued most of her waking moments. Life’s unfairness had crushed her spirit; by the time Will reached his twelfth year her hair was completely gray, her eyes sunken in the once pretty face.

When Grandmother died, they had lost everything. Many a night when Will came home, the sound of his mother’s bitter weeping seeped like cold fog through the thin bedroom wall. She seldom wept in front of him, and he allowed her to cling to the illusion that he didn’t know how often she cried herself to sleep.

Mood bleak, he drew aimless patterns in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. No matter how bitter he might feel during these isolated moments, his mother loved him as much as she was able. Will was her only remaining relative. If he abandoned her, he knew she would die. Twice, in his late twenties, he’d gone so far as to move out. The first time his mother quit eating and almost starved herself to death; the second time she’d almost burned the house down. Will never tried living on his own again.

A vague shiver danced along his spine, one of fear and the longing he never quite knew what to do with because he couldn’t remember a time when both emotions hadn’t been part of his life, all forty-one years of it. When the Zuckermans’ snug little house appeared at the bend in the lane, light glowing through the windows, he gave in to the longing instead of the fear. Silently, imagining himself invisible as a gray field mouse, he slipped up to a side window and peeked through the narrow gap in the curtains. Mrs. Zuckerman had died the previous year, but their oldest daughter, a horse-faced but congenial spinster everyone called Miss Leila, moved in to take care of her father. At the moment they were sitting at a small table, playing some kind of board game. A fire danced merrily in the parlor stove. Pretty crocheted doilies were scattered about on tables and the backs of chairs. Their old hound dog slept beneath the table, and as Will watched, Mr. Zuckerman reached down to give the fellow an absentminded scratch behind his ears.

The ache in his belly grew and spread. As silently as he’d slipped up to the window, Will backed away, then turned a resolute face toward his own home. Whatever he found when he stepped over the threshold, he would deal with it. He was no longer the mewling whelp of a boy prone to nightmares, or the scarecrow young man forced to work repugnant jobs for degrading wages so they wouldn’t be thrown out into the streets.

Yet he could still feel the darkness inside, spreading like spilled ink. One day it would blacken him entirely, and he would disappear.

When he reached the door to their house, he paused, flexing his hands in a relaxing motion. Then he gave two brisk knocks and turned the rusting knob.

“Momma? I’m back!” Carefully he hung his bowler hat on the hall tree.

“William!” She rushed from her bedroom, her arms out-flung. “Is it finished, then? Were you successful this time? Do you have it at last?”

He hugged her, savoring the welcome, the warmth that could transform so quickly into anguish…or anger. When he felt her stiffen, he released her instantly. “It’s good to be home, Momma. But I’m very tired. Spent the last two days traveling, you know.” He tried a laugh. “Had to walk the last fifteen miles.”

She drew back, crossing long skeletal arms over her flat chest while her gaze seemed to devour him. “William? You look so tired, baby. And I don’t see any excitement on your face.” Vague fear swam into the pale brown eyes so like his own. “Something happened, didn’t it? Something bad.” Two bright red spots appeared on her cheeks. “William, please don’t tell me you failed. Not again. No, not again. I’ve been hoping—praying for you. We’re so close…”

Carefully Will gripped her shoulders, sat her down in her rickety old rocking chair he’d salvaged from the dump on the edge of town. “I promised to take care of us, and I will. Some things take a long time, remember? Listen, why don’t we eat, and I’ll tell you about the trip,” he finished, hoping to divert her. “Let me hang up my coat, and—”

“Don’t turn your back to me!” Her hand closed over his forearm, her fingers digging in. “You’re lying…” She slapped him hard, right across his mouth.

As abruptly as the rage boiled up, it disappeared. Tears swam into her glittering eyes. “Oh. Oh, William, baby, I’m sorry. So sorry. I can’t bear it.” She choked on a sob that brought moisture to Will’s eyes. “I didn’t mean it, you know I didn’t mean it. William, forgive me. Please.”

With a final anguished, tear-drenched look at Will, she fled to her room and slammed the door. A broken stream of sobs and wails about how horrible a mother she was, about the unfairness of life echoed from the room, washing over Will in a seething flood.

His jaw throbbed from her blow, and he slowly lifted a hand to wipe away the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

The unnerving attacks were becoming more frequent. Yet he didn’t blame her. He couldn’t. She was his mother. He owed her his life, and to a great extent, his future. But this last attack…He released a long, tired breath. Footsteps heavy, he headed for the stove. The squalor of unwashed dishes and unemptied slops pail, the odor of rotting food and musty ashes revolted his senses.

But on the grease-laden warming plate rested a dish. A neatly folded piece of cloth covered his dinner.

With stoic resignation, Will sat down to eat before he set about cleaning the kitchen.

Chapter Five

Isabella Chilton Academy

The cuckoo clock Mr. Chilton had bought her over forty years earlier on their wedding trip to Europe finished declaring the nine-o’clock hour. Isabella gratefully settled into the cushions of her favorite settee, and allowed a wisp of sweetly painful nostalgia to drift through her mind. Everett, that clock always did make you smile….

Unlike his previous visits, this evening Grayson ignored the clock’s charming antics of woodcutter and wife chopping while the cuckoo warbled. Instead, as restless as one of the school toms on the prowl, he wandered about her private parlor, his hands idly drifting over the collection of objects given to Isabella by her students. His expression remained aloof, almost grim. She waited without comment for him to speak, though as always the growing hardness that surrounded him like a suit of medieval armor saddened her.

He swiveled suddenly, dropping back onto the game board one of the chess pieces he’d been fiddling with. “Aunt Bella, I need to talk with you about—” A muscle twitched in his jaw; he lifted a hand to tug his earlobe, an endearing boyhood habit he’d never outgrown.

Calmly Isabella laid the piecework in her lap. “Talk to me about what? Perhaps your recent adventures over these past few months? Those, ah, shooting exhibitions? Don’t scowl, dear. You had to know your mother would write to me when she read about you in the weeklies. Your father was kind enough to include several of the articles, one with a rather…interesting…photograph of you.”

Grayson emitted an ungentlemanly snort. “Ah, yes. The photograph. The one where I was straddled with a foot on the back of two horses while I shot a bull’s-eye at the target? Caused the gents to swear and the ladies to swoon. Doubtless Mother’s was the only swoon not feigned.” His laugh was short and bitter. “When I stopped by home for an overdue visit my ‘reckless behavior that shamed the family name’ provided fodder for three evening meals.”

“I’m sorry your visit home was another difficult one.”

He merely shrugged again, and looked away. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

“Come along, now.” Isabella leaned forward. “Talk to me, my dear, about whatever you need to. But since it’s after nine, doubtless there’ll be a knock or two on the door soon.” She paused, then finished matter-of-factly. “Ofttimes in the evenings, after chores, a student comes to me with her burdens, needing to share, or just needing a chat.”

“There. That’s what I want to talk about with you, Aunt.” Her nephew casually scooped up the glass paperweight from the piecrust table and turned it round while he talked, his words increasing in volume along with velocity. “You run a school for orphaned women. But that doesn’t mean you’re their mother. No matter how many years they live here, they’re not family. In truth you know little about them. Yet you take on all the responsibility for their misfortunes, not to mention their futures—and your own.”

“My future, and that of my students, rests where it always has. In God’s hands.”

Isabella was not surprised when Grayson merely arched a brow, looking more cynical than ever. “The truth of what I’m saying doesn’t change, especially after today’s incident in the woods, with Miss Shaw.”

Ah. Here then was the real purpose for this circuitous conversation.

“Now, really, Grayson. Someone shot at her. I think her reaction proved to be remarkably levelheaded.”

“Ha! You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there.” He paused. “What do you really know about her background, Aunt Bella? I don’t think you have ever fully appreciated the risk, inviting strange young women without any family connections into your life. I know Uncle Everett’s family pretty much washed their hands of you after he died, and you turned Sumner into this school. But I don’t think Uncle Ev—”

“Without the Academy’s existence, I would have no home at all, Grayson. Not here, at any rate.” Not for the world would she admit that his words jabbed, deep inside. “Tell me, are you more concerned about the fact that Sumner is no longer the beautiful Chilton family estate, or are your objections primarily all the ‘strange young women,’ Neala Shaw in particular?”

“Aunt Bella…” A band of red spread across his deeply tanned cheeks, but his expression revealed little. Somewhere over the years the boy had learned to screen his feelings from even his favorite aunt. “I’m not quite that much of a heartless cad. I’m sorry for her orphaned status—I know life is difficult, especially for…for women like Miss Shaw—but my first concern is you. For your safety and well-being, especially when you insist on maintaining such a small household staff. What if I hadn’t been here this afternoon? Your gardener would have expired from the exertion had he been forced to traipse through the woods, after an irresponsible woman old enough to know better than get herself lost, then spin wild tales.”

“Neala is neither irresponsible nor given to melodrama. Really, Grayson. Last fall, for example, when she’d been here less than a month, she saved the stables from burning down. She almost died herself because she refused to run away. If you knew her—”

“The point is that you don’t really know her any better than I do. She could have set that fire herself, Aunt Bella.”

“Grayson! What a scandalous observation.”

Her nephew shrugged. “Just staying objective. You seem to think letters of introduction from solid citizens, detailed applications, and one personal interview are sufficient to protect you. But I’ve seen—”

“As they have been,” Isabella interrupted. She tapped her foot several times, then forced it to stillness. “I’ve been operating this school for almost twenty years, my boy. I can count on one hand the students who had to be dismissed for lack of good character.”

“All it takes is one,” Grayson muttered darkly. “Women have never been the ‘weaker’ of the species, regardless of how you view them.” For a nightmarish second an expression on his face turned him into someone Isabella didn’t know at all. “Contrary to your quaint notions about creating godly wives and ‘Able Stewards of Society’—isn’t that one of your slogans?—a lot of females these days prefer to dump their husbands completely, or marry a lonely old man in hopes he’ll die soon after the vows. They’d rather help rob a bank than work in one. Sweet young things with innocent-looking eyes can be ruthless, far more devious than most garden-variety male criminals. Women kill, Aunt Bella. And smile at you while they carry out the deed.”

Oh, my dear, my dear. He was still suffering, deeply. “You are referring to your friend’s tragic death last fall, I presume.”

Grayson had been in a very bad state, Isabella knew. He had written her a brief note explaining about the death of his childhood friend, asked if he could come for a visit—then spent the next months making a spectacle of himself with that dreadful pistol of his. Until the telegram two days earlier letting her know of his pending arrival, Isabella had not heard from him at all since the note.

“‘Tragic death.’” He slammed the paperweight down hard enough to scratch the table and send several other knickknacks skittering toward its scalloped edge. “What an insipid description of the deranged woman who plunged a butcher knife in the back of an unarmed man. The partner I was supposed to be protecting. The friend I’d known for most of my life.” His eyes glistened as he stared through Isabella, seeing frightful images she could scarcely imagine before he covered his face with his hand.

A knock sounded on the door. “Miss Isabella?” The door opened a fraction. “Can I talk with you for a little while? It’s about this afternoon—Oh!”

Neala Shaw froze in the portal, her eyes flooding with dismay, guilt—and a smattering of outrage. “Mr. Faulkner. I didn’t know you’d be in here.”

Though her aching knees protested, Isabella managed to rise without betraying the effort it required. “Do come in, my dear. As it happens, my nephew would like to talk about this afternoon, as well.”

“Yes. Do join us, Miss Shaw,” Grayson echoed so mockingly Isabella almost swatted his arm. The mask was firmly in place again, all emotion smothered beneath the cynicism.

Small wonder that Neala walked across the room with the aura of a condemned convict headed for the gallows. Isabella started to speak, then caught herself as she watched the pair of them size each other up as though they were the only two people in the room. Hmm. She silently thanked the Lord for His nudge, and waited for an appropriate moment to leave.

“Mr. Faulkner, since you’re here, I suppose I should apologize for hitting you with a stick.”

“Miss Shaw, no apology is needed, since in point of fact, you missed.”

“Yes, I did.” Two bright spots of color turned her pale complexion the color of broiled salmon. “But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Perhaps I should extend an apology anyway, since in God’s eyes the intent of the heart, as much as the action, determines one’s guilt.”

“Spare me your self-righteous homilies. I need them even less than your contrived excuses.” He stalked across to stand in front of her, hands fisted at his hips. “My aunt, and Mr. Pepperell—now, they’re the ones who deserve your apology. They’re the ones who would have worried themselves into early graves if I hadn’t been here.”

“Your aunt knows I would never—” Neala broke off, then whirled around to Isabella. “Miss Isabella…are you all right? I thought you looked…fatigued, at supper, but I thought it was from the trip to Berryville. I didn’t know, I mean I didn’t realize…and I haven’t seen Mr. Pepperell since lunch. Is he—is he—”

“Calm yourself, Neala.” Isabella slid Grayson a reproving stare as she laid a hand on the girl’s rigid shoulder. “Mr. Pepperell and I are both right as rain. You’ve done nothing wrong, and certainly nothing to cause me worry. Concern, perhaps, because you still tend to assume more responsibility than is appropriate. How fitting, isn’t it, that my nephew seems to share that very same trait?”

Grayson made a derisive sound, which Isabella ignored. Keeping her lips pressed together to keep a smile at bay, she squeezed Neala’s shoulder a final time, then started for the door. “I’m sure the two of you can talk about me much more freely in my absence, so I’ll go take care of a matter and return shortly.”

“Aunt Bella…”

“Miss Isabella…”

“I trust both of you to remember what they say about the spoken word? Once allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.”

She closed the door behind her, and let out a soft chuckle. Well, Lord, You wanted me out of the room. I leave them in Your far more capable hands.

Gray stared at the closed door in consternation. His aunt had left him alone in the room with Neala Shaw. He didn’t know which would provide more relief: tossing the conniving little baggage out the window, or exiting that way himself.

Neala cleared her throat. “Obviously she expects us to come to some sort of accord.” Her fingers fluttered at her waist before she twined them together. “Mr. Faulkner, it would help tremendously if you believed me, about someone shooting at me, I mean.”

“Why should I, Miss Shaw?”

“Because I’m not a liar!”

“Well, now how would I be knowing that, me darlin’?” he retorted in a perfect mimicry of the Academy’s Irish stableman. Her obvious frustration pleased Gray more than was polite, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to quit needling her. He folded his arms, rocking a little on his feet while he watched a barrelful of expressions race across her face. “This is only the second time we’ve met, after all. Why, for all I know your hunter might be lying in wait in my bedroom.”

“Well, if he was, at least he’d be close enough to do the job! Oh!” The brown eyes rounded in dismay as her palm flew to belatedly cover her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that! I can’t believe…I don’t know what came over me. I don’t talk like that, I don’t even think like that.”

Abruptly she turned her back to him.

Deprived of the entertainment of watching her face, Gray’s attention zeroed in on a long strand of curling hair that had escaped the pins to dangle down the back of her neck. She’d managed to stuff the rest of the mass into a twist of some sort; he thought it made her look dowdy, incredibly old-fashioned. Yet his fingers itched to twine that strand around his hand. He wanted to know if her hair felt as soft as it looked, if the curls were as untamable as the fire sparking in her eyes a moment ago.

And he hated the longing almost as much as he hated himself.

“Apparently you’ve not heard about my reputation,” he observed coolly. “Even if you send a man with a gun after me, Miss Shaw, I’m not the one who’ll end up in a pine box.” When she turned back around, something in the dark brown eyes goaded him to add, “Well? Why don’t you go ahead and say what you’re thinking—that your headmistress’s nephew is a dangerous fellow, and today he tried to shoot you out in the woods?”

She blinked, and the expression disappeared. “Mr. Faulkner,” she began, then hesitated. Just as Gray opened his mouth to deliver another jab, she drew herself up and leveled a look upon him worthy of Aunt Bella. “Mr. Faulkner, do you enjoy intimidating people and insulting women innocent of any wrongdoing, or do you merely possess a misogynistic streak?”

“I only enjoy intimidating devious women,” he whipped back without missing a beat. “Insults I save for conniving liars. As for an innocent woman, I can’t remember the last time I encountered one, age notwithstanding. So you might say my…ah…misogynistic streak developed over years of exposure to various members of your misnamed ‘gentler’ sex.”

This time she stepped back as though he’d just sprayed her with venom, but at least she didn’t turn her back on him. “There’s no use trying to talk with you, is there?” she whispered, half to herself. “You’re just like Adrian…”

Adrian? “Who’s Adri—”

“Tell your aunt I wished her a good night,” Miss Shaw chirped in a voice women used with toddlers and small children. Without meeting his eyes she scuttled across the room to the door, where she delivered her parting shot. “I’d wish you the same, except I think you’ve forgotten how to have a good anything, which I find terribly sad.”

The door opened and closed with a firm click. Gray stood, her words ringing in his ears. The desolation he’d been fighting for months pressed back around him, squeezing all the air out of his lungs.

Neala Shaw…

He closed his eyes, half lifted his hand as though reaching out for that dangling strand of hair. Eventually, moving as if he were fighting his way through thorns, he returned to the fireplace and sat down in the chair where Aunt Bella had been sitting. The faint scent of his aunt’s toilet water wafted through his nostrils.

With a shuddering sigh Gray leaned his head back and tried not to think of anything at all.

Chapter Six

After completing morning chores, Neala grabbed her old corduroy jacket, a small writing tablet and a freshly sharpened pencil. As an afterthought, on the way out she retrieved a small magnifying glass from her desk. It was Saturday, and a brisk southwest wind carried the scent of rain and lilac through the windows. On her way downstairs, she debated whether or not to fetch an umbrella, decided the contraption would only be in the way and darted toward the back entrance off the kitchen, hoping nobody would stop her for a chat.

Grayson Faulkner’s scowling image intruded into her mind as she scurried past the entrance to one of the school’s informal parlors. What an infuriating man! Rude, unpleasant—a bully, he was. And he had hurt her feelings, which infuriated her even more. How could a saintly soul like Miss Isabella be kin to Mr. Faulkner?

Well, by the end of the day the rude bully of a man would be the recipient of a much-needed lesson. When Neala returned from her outing, she planned to be armed with enough proof of the hunter’s presence in the woods yesterday to satisfy an entire room of Pinkerton detectives, much less Miss Isabella’s nephew, who thought entirely too much of himself.

A small voice tweaked her conscience. All right, Neala conceded the point. Grayson Faulkner might be rude, unpleasant and arrogant, but last night, in the parlor, she’d sensed an undercurrent of emotion that, for the flicker of an eyelash, had almost prompted her to…feel sorry for him?

“Neala!” Judith Smithfield, her arms full of quilt scraps, interrupted the discomforting revelation. “We’re quilting in an hour. Join us this time?”

“Not today, Judith.” She waved an arm and grinned. “I’m off on a mission. I’ll try to join the fun next Saturday.” She ducked into the kitchen, almost tripping over a half-full pail of sudsy water.

“Oops, sorry, Neala!” Deborah McGarey sang out from beneath the huge island in the center of the kitchen. “I’m making pound cakes, but decided to break the eggs on the floor instead of the bowl.”

Both of them laughed as Neala carried the pail closer. “Need help?” she asked reluctantly, relieved and guilty when Deborah shooed her on with a wry remark that only the guilty party should clean up smashed eggs.

Now there was the manner in which congenial people engaged in conversation, Neala thought, tossing her head. Stride determined, she crossed the grounds toward the forest. Civil people did not assume the worst about perfect strangers. Civil people did not act as though you had just perpetrated a crime of Machiavellian proportions, or accuse you of lying. And certainly a man who rushed to the rescue of a damsel in distress did not react like a churl.

The damp breeze swooped down, tugging several pins from Neala’s hastily bundled hair. When a handful of curls blew over her eyes, she glared upward, then stopped long enough to untie a large kerchief from around her neck. In a few ruthless movements she covered her hair and retied the ends beneath her chin. She looked like a gypsy washerwoman—but since there was nobody to see her but birds and other woodland critters, what did it matter how she looked?

What mattered was unearthing evidence of the wayward hunter.

Over an hour later, Neala was ready to concede that the general populace afforded scant appreciation to detectives and officers of the law. Not only could she not find the exact spot where she’d been when the first shot rang out, she could not find the tree she’d ducked behind, from which she’d hoped to extract a bullet, or at least mark as evidence of being struck by a bullet. Thoroughly out of sorts, she finally collapsed beneath a stumpy pine tree, yanked off the kerchief, and rubbed her face with it. The wind had blown the clouds away, leaving behind sunshine and a watery, pale blue sky. Much preferable to a rainstorm when one was playing detective.

And playing detective was all she had accomplished, besides collecting dirt in her shoes and the remains of a spiderweb in her hair. On the other hand, the day had turned pleasantly warm, she was alone in one of God’s forest cathedrals, and nobody was clamoring for her attention. All in all, perhaps ’twas best to send both hunter and Mr. Grayson Faulkner the way of the clouds. Neala lifted her sturdy nickel brooch-style watch to check the time, made sure the whistle around her neck was still within instant reach, then with a contented sigh opened her notebook and began to write.

Some time later, a flying pinecone landed smack on top of the notebook in her lap. Neala yelped in surprise and dropped her pencil. The pinecone scattered detritus along with her concentration as it rolled to a stop in the crease of her notebook. Neala gawked at the missile for a bemused moment, then leaned forward to retrieve her pencil. When she straightened, her eyes almost popped out of her head. Mr. Faulkner had materialized between the trees some twenty paces away. He strolled toward her, grinning like a mischievous boy while he tossed a second pinecone in his hand.

“You were so lost in your girlish scribblings I probably could have jumped from behind the tree instead of lobbing a missile before you noticed.”

Neala ignored the crack about girlish scribblings. Based on her scant acquaintance with the man, it was not an unexpected remark. “You’re fortunate I didn’t scream louder than this whistle—” she glanced at his holstered gun “—which I might have if you’d decided to gain my attention by firing a bullet over my head.”

The smug look on his face deepened. “But you’re already accustomed to dodging bullets, aren’t you?” He extended a hand.

Neala allowed him to help her up, but stepped back the instant she gained her feet. She ignored the strange squiggle that shivered through her from the firm warmth of his bare palm, focusing instead on irritation. “Mr. Faulkner, did you follow me just to bait me like you did yesterday?”

The smugness on his face darkened to disapproval. “Absolutely. And for the last ninety-six minutes I followed, you never so much as glanced behind you.” One eyebrow lifted in a sardonic arch. “Too busy trying to scout out a likely spot to plant some evidence, I daresay.” The forest stilled—no rustling leaves or twittering birds or even a stray breeze, as though nature held its collective breath while Mr. Faulkner scratched his chin and contemplated Neala. “If I wanted to shoot you dead, you’d be stretched out on the ground, with nobody the wiser. Tell me, Miss Shaw, do you enjoy tempting fate, or do you merely have a wish to expire in the woods, like some fairy-tale maiden?”

His phrasing replicated her accusation of the previous day, and the gleam in his eye told her he’d done so deliberately. All right, enough was enough. Neala returned his bold appraisal, though the weapon strapped to his side intimidated by its sheer presence. On the other hand, the bizarre prescience she’d experienced in Miss Isabella’s parlor returned in greater force, the one where Mr. Faulkner very much reminded her of Adrian. Her brother also used to cover his unhappy restlessness with hurtful words and a facade of hatefulness. “Mr. Faulkner, it’s plain that for some reason you don’t like me very much. It’s not necessary for me to understand why, but I’d like to. Miss Isabella’s fond of saying that a few bruises on an apple don’t mean the entire fruit’s gone completely bad. It just means that—”

“I’m well acquainted with the concept, and its application.” He ran a hand through his hair, took a long breath. A faint glimmer of humor washed through his eyes. “Miss Shaw, you look like a squirrel’s nest.”

Neala self-consciously lifted a hand to the unruly locks of hair dangling around her face and neck. “My hair has a mind of its own, especially when the humidity is high. But it’s rude of you to remark on it, Mr. Faulkner. Didn’t your mother teach you better manners?”

“My mother taught me many things, including manners. I’ve spent the past fifteen years trying to forget every one of her…lessons.”

The rancor in his voice sent a chill along Neala’s spine. “I better return to the school,” she began with forced cheeriness. “Three hours is the limit for Saturday free time on your own, unless you’re on the school grounds within sight of the house.” She lifted her hand to cup the whistle and took a steadying breath. “I have no idea why you’ve chosen to think the worst about me, nor do I particularly care to defend myself against someone whose mind is closed to reasoning. But for your information, Mr. Faulkner, I came out here in order to find evidence of that hunter—not to ‘plant’ it, as you accused me of.”

“Didn’t find any, did you? I wondered how long you planned to wander around.”

“In a war, spying is a hanging offense.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re not at war, Miss Shaw.”

“Aren’t we?” Neala retorted quietly. She turned her back and retrieved her notebook and pencil. “I’m going now, Mr. Faulkner. You can either follow along or choose your own path. Either way, you’ve made your feelings toward me obvious. I’d appreciate it if you’d ignore me in the same manner I plan to ignore you.”

He frowned, then abruptly swiveled on his heel and hurled the second pinecone into the trees. “You understand nothing about my feelings, Miss Shaw. Toward you or anything else. If I’m wrong about you, I apologize. If I’m not—” the pause was loaded with thinly veiled threat “—and you cause my aunt or her school any suffering at all, even a moment’s concern, you’ll not be able to run far enough or long enough. I’ll find you, and you’ll think my behavior today saintlike by comparison.”

“I…see.” Neala tapped her pencil against her lips in a vain attempt to hide the smile threatening to burst free. Oh, but the relief flooding her insides was a heady sensation, the urge to reassure Miss Isabella’s thunderous nephew impossible to ignore. “Mr. Faulkner, I think you’re a lion with the heart of a kitten. Bless you for trying to protect Miss Isabella and the Academy.”

She lost the battle with her smile. “At least I finally understand the source of your anger, misguided though it was. After all, yesterday I did try to wallop you with a tree branch. I know you don’t believe me, but someone really was shooting out here in the woods yesterday. And when the bullet hits the tree trunk inches from my nose, I have to conclude that—albeit by mistake—they were shooting at me. I’ll let the matter drop, however, since it’s obvious I’ve been unable to produce any tangible proof.” She shrugged. “You’ve also helped me realize that my actions might cause Miss Isabella more concern—of course, you know she doesn’t ‘worry!’ I…Well, I’ve grown very fond of your aunt. Ever since my parents’ deaths, I suppose I’ve come to regard her as—”

She stopped, belatedly aware that the hue of Mr. Faulkner’s tanned face had turned a deep shade of red, and a muscle twitched the corner of his mouth. Ninny, she scolded herself. Few men were comfortable with sentimentality. “I’ll hush,” she murmured, then impulsively reached across to lay her hand on his forearm. “Don’t worry, Mr. Faulkner. I know God is watching over Miss Isabella every breath of every day.”

Mr. Faulkner snarled an ill-tempered curse. Then, without another word, he turned his back and strode rapidly into the woods, disappearing within seconds beneath the trees.

Neala remained a few moments longer, watching until she realized she must look like a moon-eyed girl gazing after her sweetheart. Rubbish, she thought. Idiotic, as well, gazing after a man who had just blistered the air with invectives. By the time she found her path back to the school moments later, however, she was forced to admit that loneliness was even harder to bear, after meeting a man like Grayson Faulkner.

Chapter Seven

May, 1890

Two weeks later, after classes on a lazy Thursday afternoon, Neala and Abigail decided to spend their free Saturday hiking down to the Shenandoah River. A picnic on the riverbank would be their reward for the muscle-stretching trek down the steep cliff. To be sure, a well-marked path had been carved out by some Chilton ancestor over a century earlier; more recently Liam had hammered out handholds on some of the steeper sections. The hike posed little danger as long as the hikers exercised due diligence.

“We’re all of us adult women,” Miss Isabella lectured new students. “Therefore I ‘restrict the restrictions’ here at the Academy, because I expect each of you to exhibit common sense in all your choices. Since fresh air and healthy exercise offer an excellent venue with which to strengthen our individual godly temples, it is my hope that all of you feel free to explore the five hundred acres surrounding the Academy. Carefully. Good sense is a gift from our Lord. Expend it wisely, my dears, and try to limit your nonsense to games of croquet, badminton and the like.”

“I enjoy Miss Isabella’s sense of humor,” Abby said around a mouthful of oatmeal cookie. “Did you hear her earlier today, pleading with Mr. Pepperell to stop talking to the tomatoes because she’s afraid we’ll end up with such a bumper crop the house might slide off the cliff from the weight?”

Neala looked up from the list of supplies she was writing down in her tablet. “’Tis very wry, is it not?” she agreed. “I remember when I first arrived I never knew when she was serious, or merely teasing. Um…shall we take lemonade in our canteens, or sassafras tea?”

“Better stick with tea. I don’t believe we have many lemons in the springhouse right now.”

Neala dutifully added tea to their list, and they spent several congenial moments discussing other particulars. Then Abby took a deep breath and began fiddling with the eyelet edging of her shirtwaist. “Neala?” she asked, her voice softer. “Are you…I mean, do you still…” She grimaced, her gaze touching on Neala’s, then shifting to some place that bespoke of a pain more vast than the universe. “I had another dream last night,” she finished in a rush. “It wasn’t a nightmare—I don’t have those as much anymore. But I was with my family, and it was so real…” Her hand reached out blindly and Neala grabbed it, wrapping reassuring fingers around it. “I didn’t want to wake up, Neala. I didn’t want to wake up, because then I would have to accept all over again that they’re gone, and I’m not. I’m still here, scarred and disfigured and…and alone. I mean, alone because I know I’ll never marry.”

“Oh, Abby…” Neala swallowed hard, her own throat tightening against tears. “I understand. Sometimes I still think I need to tell Grandfather, or Mum…” Her voice trailed away. “But I do understand, completely,” she finished. “Your heart sort of jerks when all of a sudden you remember they’re gone. And it hurts so bad it’s hard to breathe.”

“At least your brother is still alive, even if you never see him again. Oh—I’m sorry, Neala. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Truly I didn’t.”

“I know.” Neala squeezed her hand once more and released it. They both sat back in the grass and smiled at each other. “Sometimes I dream that Adrian returns to Charlottesville, buys back our home, then finds me…” She stopped with a deprecatory grimace.

“Perhaps someday he will.”

“Not likely.” Neala chewed her lip for a moment, then waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll always love Adrian, but I know I need to stop weaving fanciful tales that will never happen. Miss Isabella reminds me at least twice a week that I need to learn to accept how people are, instead of trying to nicely bully them into what I think they ought to be. I know she’s right, but it’s difficult.”

She lifted her face toward the sky, soaking up the sunshine. “God planted a yearning in me for everybody in the world to get along, I suppose. But I must have a really hard head underneath all these wretched curls, because I keep trying despite the futility of it. My brother used to get so annoyed with me…”

Abby reached across to tug one of the infernal curling strands that was forever escaping the pins. “I love your hair. I wish mine had all that bounce and shine.”

“Well, I’ve always admired yours because it’s straight.”

“What about Jocelyn’s? Have you ever seen such a beautiful shade of red? She’s very private, have you noticed? Even when I compliment her hair, she just gives me this sad smile. I wish she’d share her story.”

“I’m sure she will, one day. Perhaps she’s been able to follow Miss Isabella’s advice better than the rest of us. ‘Talking about the past can’t redo it. We waste the present, and bore the listener…’”

“‘…Because we all have a different past, and must walk a different path to overcome it,’” Abby continued, quoting one of their headmistress’s most oft-repeated homilies.

They both laughed. Miss Isabella had a quote for everything—and never hesitated to trot an appropriate one out for a listener.

Neala pulled an annoying curl away from her face and wound it around her finger. “Well, I’ll probably never accept that my brother’s dead, but I have accepted that he…that he abandoned me.” There. She’d finally stated the words aloud. “That’s why I was allowed to come here. Miss Isabella decided I was enough of an orphan.” She shrugged. “In all but the strictest sense, I am. I’ve heard nothing from my brother in over a year now.”

“We both should remember that all of us here are only orphaned in bloodlines,” Abby reminded her gently. “We have a home now, remember. And sisters?”

With a determined wave of her hand, Neala banished the hovering wisps of grief. “Absolutely. And now that I’ve come to know him, I might claim Liam as an uncle despite him being an Irishman instead of a Scot.” They laughed again, and scrambled to their feet. “Come on, let’s go inspect the kitchen and make sure our choice of picnic supplies is available.”

“Don’t forget to post our names on the list so everyone knows where we are. We may never have found your hunter, but when Nan and Alice climbed down to the river last week, they happened onto a pair of day-trippers, and I heard yesterday that someone else spotted either a hiker or a hunter—or was it some kind of animal?—on the edge of the grounds.”

They commenced strolling across the grass as they talked. “The view over the river, toward the mountains, is breathtaking. With the Colonial Highway just at the bottom of the hill, I can easily imagine how a weary traveler would decide to break his journey, wander about. Sometimes I think I can almost hear God’s voice in the river water, or the wind in the trees before a rain.”

Abby only shrugged. Unlike Neala, her friend’s faith in a loving God remained cautious, at times indifferent. Neala might not understand completely, but her imagination was vivid enough to realize that anyone’s faith might be damaged beyond repair, when God allowed your entire family to burn to death.

Saturday morning dawned clear but chilly. A spring storm had swept through the previous night, followed by a refreshing northwest wind that plunged temperatures back toward February instead of May. Due to the chill, Abby and Neala decided to wear their cloaks, despite the awareness that it would hinder their progress down the cliff.

“But I’d rather watch my step a little more carefully than fall ill with ague,” Neala cheerfully stated as she slung the cloak over her shoulders. “Besides, I’ve had this cloak since I was a child, and it’s short enough not to trip me up.”

Abby glanced ruefully down. Her own cloak covered all but the tips of her boots. “The pastor’s wife gave this one to me several years ago, before I came here. She was taller than I am, but I was grateful to have a cloak at all.”

“Hmm. I have an idea,” Neala announced, fingers flying as she dumped shoulder satchel and canteen, then proceeded to unbutton her cloak. “We’ll switch. I’m taller than you are, so my cloak will fit you better. Yours won’t hang down to the ground, so neither one of us will have to worry about tripping.”

“Neala, I didn’t mean…”

“I know. But I do. So hurry up. We have to be back by three, remember.”

Forty minutes later they paused for breath, giggling at each other because a strong wind had forced them to pull the cloaks’ hoods over their heads and Neala announced they looked like a pair of phantoms floating down the cliff.

“Does add a bit of drama to our outing, doesn’t it?” Abby said, giving a little shiver. “The wind creates all these rustling sounds, but we can’t see anything much to the side, or behind us. There might be a bear about to pounce, or a wolf who mistakes one of us for Red Riding Hood.”

“We’ll wallop ’em with our walking sticks—oh, fiddle-faddle. My shoelace caught on these briars. Here—I’ll sit on this rock and untangle it.”

“Be careful. Those thorns are vicious. Want me to help?”

“I’ve got it. Why don’t you go on ahead? This is the section where we have to go single file anyway. I’ll be along in two shakes of a flea’s whisker.”

Abby nodded agreeably, and a moment later disappeared around a jutting boulder the size of a house. Neala only faintly heard the sound of her boots scraping over the stones. She hurriedly yanked at the laces, jerked when a thorn stabbed through her glove. Then her fumbling efforts caused the laces to knot. Several moments had evaporated by the time she retied her boots and set off after Abby. Impatient with the delay, Neala had to resist the urge to leap down the cliff like a mountain goat instead of exhibiting the common sense Miss Isabella prized so highly.

“Abby? Here I come!” she called, just as a gust of wind buffeted her back and shoulders. From somewhere above she heard a crunching, grating sound, like stone grinding against stone. Neala tossed her head in a vain effort to clear wisps of hair out of her eyes, at the same time fumbling for one of the handholds Liam had carved. Drat this wind, but it was difficult to see, between her wretched hair and the hood. “This wind is dread—”

An explosion of sound, as if a giant had just wrested one of the cliff boulders loose and hurled it over the side of the mountain, kicked the word back down her throat.

The path! Abby! Neala’s heart lurched, pounded in sickening hard beats as she scrambled, slipping and reckless, down the trail, ripping her glove, tearing fingernails as she desperately fought to keep her balance on the steep, rock-infested path.

“Abby! Answer me! Abby! Did you see—” Gasping, she skidded to a trembling halt. “Father in heaven…Jesus, blessed Lord, help me.” The agonized prayer died as Neala froze, not wanting to believe.

Abby lay sprawled in an unmoving heap on the only level part of the trail, her body completely covered by the rippling folds of Neala’s cloak. All around her lay chunks of shattered stone. As though from a great distance Neala heard a faint splash—the remains of the falling boulder hurling itself into the river.

She didn’t remember rushing to Abigail’s side, didn’t remember much of anything but the sound of roaring in her ears as she knelt beside her friend and with shaking hands pulled the cloak away from Abby’s head. When Abby stirred, then moaned, breath and sound and color spewed through Neala in a flood tide. She gasped Abby’s name, tears leaking from her eyes as she gently, carefully turned her over and stuffed Abby’s cloak beneath her head. Sluggish blood oozed from a gash just above the other woman’s eyebrow, but after a frantic search Neala found no other signs of blood, no other evidence of injury or a broken bone. Praise be to heaven above, but apparently she’d only suffered a glancing blow.

Abby’s hand jerked, and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times, then winced. “N-Neala? Did…I…What happened?”

“Shh…You’ll be all right. You’re alive…Thank You, Lord! Oh, Abby…you’re alive.” One hiccupping sob escaped before Neala managed to throttle the wild emotion clamoring inside. Tenderly she laid her hand against her friend’s chalk-white cheek. “The Lord worked overtime today, dearest. Somewhere above us, a boulder dislodged and fell. Probably loosened from all the rain we’ve been having.” She struggled to catch a breath. “You s-seem to have been in its way. But you’re alive. I don’t know what I would have done…I couldn’t have borne it, Abby…If you’d waited with me instead of going ahead…”

Abby’s cold hand crept across to brush Neala’s. “Do…hush,” she whispered, her voice clear but weak. “I’m just glad it didn’t…squash me like a bug.” A faint smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. “But I think—I think you better…blow the whistle?”

Chapter Eight

The Grand Hotel, Philadelphia

The rowdy bunch playing poker at a nearby table erupted into another argument. Gray and his friends, lounging up at the bar, turned to watch.

“My money’s on the gent with a beard.” Carl toasted his choice with his half-full glass of ale. “Looks mean enough to settle the fight with fists.”

“Nah…too civilized here. We’re not in Denver anymore,” Dan said. “I’ll go for the tall guy with the prissy middle part in his hair and too much pomade. Probably a lawyer. Fork-tongued pettifoggers can talk their way out of a hornet’s nest after convincing the hornets to sting the innocent bystanders. Whaddaya think, Falcon?”

Gray clapped a hand on Dan’s broad-as-a-barn-door shoulder. “I think I know better than to place bets on anyone about anything. How ’bout having the barkeep send a round to the winner of their…What’s this one? The fourth shouting match?”

“Sixth,” Carl replied with a sloppy grin. With his carrot-red hair and youthful face, he looked more like a tipsy leprechaun than Gray’s old buddy. “It’s the sixth altercation,” he repeated. “But who’s counting? I’ll pony up an’ send ’em a round, pal, but only if you pick the winner first. I wanna see if your luck’s still as bad at wagering as it’s good at shootin’.”

Gray elbowed him in the ribs, causing Carl to stumble against the man on his other side. Everyone apologized and toasted each other…a companionable assembly of gentlemen enjoying a few after-dinner drinks in a high-quality tavern across the street from a quality hotel. No prickly sensibilities, no irrational reactions, or raucous tempers itching to explode like the ill-mannered foursome playing poker. Why couldn’t females understand a man’s need to fraternize with other men without feeling guilty about it?

“Quit stalling, Gray,” Carl jibed.

With a good-natured snort Gray gestured across the room, toward the saturnine man holding his cards in a white-fisted hand. His unmoving silence presented a stark contrast against his arguing fellow card players. “I’ll take the quiet one,” Gray said. “Been my experience the ones who make the least noise wind up the most dangerous.”

His two friends solemnly nodded. Ten years earlier they’d all signed on as army scouts at the same time, then maintained a deep if largely disconnected friendship after they’d left the army. Periodically they’d meet somewhere between Kansas City and New York—wherever each could travel within a day’s time—to catch up on each other’s lives. Gray mused with fuzzy sentimentality that he hadn’t realized until now how lonely he’d been since Marty’s death.

“I think we should consider establishing some kind of business together,” he announced, smacking his palm against the bar with a resounding thud. “Settle down in one place. Get respectable.”

“Settle down? Get respectable?” Dan swiped a strand of wheat-colored hair off his forehead. “You been letting your aunt sweet-talk you into giving up your sinful ways?”

“Not a chance. Aunt Bella knows better.” Gray spread his arms wide, almost knocking Carl off balance again. “She just welcomes me home like the prodigal son.” Then he scowled, for a brief moment remembering his motive for joining his friends in this saloon. “Sure wish I’d known there’d be a curly-headed little hornet in the jar this visit.” He swore ripely over the subject, not for the first time, causing Carl and Dan to roar with fresh laughter.

“Never known you to react like this to any woman outside your mother,” Carl observed between chuckles. “Some of ’em you treat like they’re another man, and some a foul-tasting tonic you have to imbibe. Never understood why they all still flutter ’round you.”

“Some young ladies seem to thrive on dreams of taming us wild ones.” Dan nodded sagely. “Did I ever tell you about this schoolteacher I saved from a scalping when—”

“Yes!” Gray and Dan chimed in together.

Unabashed, Carl grinned. “So how ’bout when Dan brought his purty little cousin to Richmond, two years ago, wasn’t it? Thought he’d finally found someone to pull the thorn out of Gray’s woman-hating heart.”

“Don’t hate women,” Gray muttered, feeling heat steal up the back of his neck. Not even the one who irritated his memories, with her thick mass of hair he wanted to bury his hands in, whose voice tantalized his thoughts with its soft Southern drawl. Neala Shaw was the only woman in years who didn’t cower.

And Gray didn’t want any part of her. Or any woman. He could enjoy a woman same as any other man—without allowing her to take over his life. “Just…don’t ever want to be tied down to one,” he finished, the words delivered almost defiantly. The clinging…the tears…the hurt looks calculated to instill permanent guilt—never again. No, sir, never again. He was a man, not a six-foot little boy, and he did not need mothering, or managing.

But he didn’t hate all women. Fact was, he wanted to protect them, keep monsters from taking advantage, hurting someone weaker—no. If either of the species were weaker, it had to be the hapless male. Take himself, for instance. All he’d ever wanted was—

“Well, don’t fret about Roberta chasing you down.” Dan interrupted his sodden musing. “She married a train engineer last October. You’re safe from her fluttering eyelashes—and me, having to pound your head, for breaking her heart.”

“Ha! You’re the one who’s safe,” Carl interrupted with an inebriated guffaw. “’Cuz you’d’ve been the one getting his head pounded, not our friend here. Good ol’ Gray. Best man with a gun, best man with his stropped-razor tongue and falcon’s eyes, and best man with his fists.”

For some befuddled reason, the turn of conversation pricked Gray on the raw. Deep inside he knew his behavior toward women, and at times men, as well, could be disrespectable, and more often than he cared to admit, ventured perilously close to dissolute. The idealistic boy out to save the world from evil was long dead and buried somewhere west of the Mississippi River, and Gray told himself he didn’t mourn over him. But surely at the advanced age of thirty-two Grayson Faulkner had not transformed into a misogynist, as that prissy urchin had accused him of. Surely he retained enough family honor to justify the moniker of gentleman.

When he wasn’t three sheets to the wind, that is.

“On second thought,” he abruptly announced, “let’s call it a night.” He waved toward the massive wall clock hanging between the stuffed heads of an elk and a ten-point buck. “It’s after eleven. Closing up in less than an hour, anyway. Tomorrow’s Sunday, y’know. Can’t have drunkards and carousers spoiling the Sabbath, remember.”

“When’s the last time you sat on a pew for a church service, Gray?” Carl asked.

Before Gray could answer, the quiet poker player across the room shoved away from the table and surged to his feet. “You there!” he called in a flat nasal voice, the tone belligerent. “You there at the bar with your pie-eyed friends. You been staring at me, and I don’t like it.”

Ignoring the angry blustering of the other men at the table, the man tossed down his cards and started toward the bar.

“Uh-oh.” Dan glanced from Gray to the oncoming poker player. “Want us to take care of him for you, buddy?”

“Yeah, we’ll settle it,” Carl chimed in, slamming his drink down on the bar. “Shame for you to go visit your folks sporting a black eye.”

Weary to the bone, eaten up with a bitter sense of shame that would not leave him alone, Gray was tempted to give in.

Pride, and a sense of fair play, wouldn’t allow him. “I could go home wearing a blasted three-piece suit from Paris, with a carnation in the lapel, and the reaction would be the same as if I sported buckskins. And a black eye.” As casually as he could manage given his none-too-steady knees, Gray stiffened his back and shifted his stance. “My family condemns me for my actions.” Almost as much as he condemned himself.

The poker player stopped a yard away. “Got no use for rude drunks.”

“Me either,” Gray responded, flexing his hands. “Didn’t mean to stare. Sorry to cause offense and all that.”

Carl and Dan made a poor job of stifling laughter.

The stranger’s face burned brick-red. “Seems ta me you and your drunk friends need someone to teach you a lesson.”

“Ah…mm…” Gray struggled to retain a hold on his slippery temper. “Been out of school a while now.” He tucked his thumbs into his waistband and propped his elbows on the counter behind him. “I don’t want a fight, mister. Why don’t you go on back to your table and try to teach your friends a lesson. From the looks of it they need schooling more than we do.”

The man’s head lowered and he took another step forward. “You don’t want to make sport of me, you drunken lout.”

“Nope,” Gray cheerfully agreed. “Matter of fact, we were just leaving, weren’t we, boys?”

Grinning like maniacs, Carl and Dan nodded.

“And,” Gray repeated more softly, “I don’t want a fight. This isn’t the West, you know, friend. There are laws against public scenes.”

“I ain’t your friend. And if you weren’t angling for a broken jaw, ya shouldn’t have stared at me.”

Without warning, the man swung, coming in with a left hook that might in truth have broken Gray’s jaw if the blow had connected. But Gray read the action in the man’s glittering eyes, and in a few swift moves rendered the astonished fellow immobile, sweating with pain. Both men knew the slightest pressure could break either a wrist or an arm; only Gray knew how thin the thread keeping him from losing control was. He blinked, fighting the tremors and volcanic emotion that stretched his body as taut as a man on a rack.

“When you live around pigs too long, the stench tends to cling.” Sucking in a sobering breath, Gray released his victim except for a punishing hold that kept the man’s right hand at an angle that ensured his continued compliance. “If you knew me, you’d know better than to provoke a fight I don’t want. Now go on back to your poker buddies, and leave me alone.” With a contemptuous shove he released him.

Silence hovered throughout the room as the routed card player slunk between tables. Men shifted their gazes as he passed by.

Feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a deep pit, Gray muttered a curse beneath his breath. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sick of feeding fodder to the Faulkner gristmill.”

But as he stalked out, flanked by Carl and Dan, Gray lost the battle against the penetrating voice warning him that he was the perpetrator of the gossip, not the victim of it. For years he’d fought to free himself from suffocating familial chains, only to discover that in his determination to escape he’d trapped himself inside a cell without a door. He might as well wish himself on the North Star as to wish he could repudiate the Faulkner name, or change the person he had become.

Wouldn’t it be a fitting cosmic joke if Neala Shaw were right after all? Grayson Faulkner, youngest son of a prestigious family whose honor and philanthropy dated back four generations, was a misogynist. And on the way to becoming a public punching bag as well.

Isabella Chilton Academy

Tucked fifteen feet up in the notch of a massive oak, screened by branches and a cluster of leafy maples, a man watched the wiry Irishman and the girl—who should be dead—explore the edge of the cliff. Still as a hoot owl, he watched them discover where he’d patiently chipped the base of the boulder until one hard shove sent it over the cliff. Of course he’d been canny enough to wipe away the boot prints, so he wasn’t concerned with discovery. They would assume he’d climbed down the cliff and escaped in a boat up the river, or vanished into the forest. People were predictable and seldom thought their way beyond the obvious.

Nonetheless, the unpleasant truth scraped his mind like a hacksaw blade: Neala Shaw was still alive. Instead of preparing for a funeral, someone had decided to investigate. And even a brainless dolt would realize the significance of their findings. Sure enough, moments later he clearly heard the windblown voices, heard them reach the inevitable conclusion. The Irishman—Liam, he heard her call him—vented his spleen in a loud mixture of Gaelic and English.

“…and ye can be sure as St. Patrick’s cowl I’ll no’ be standing back fer that dunderhead of a sheriff. The black-hearted jackanapes who’d be after harming Miss Isabella’s girls will be answering to me, see if he don’t.”

“Liam…”

“Now, missy. You got eyes, and a brain underneath all them curls. You know same as me the way of it, here.”

Temptation cascaded through his veins; he wanted to finish her off now, right now, not even caring that he’d have to kill the Irishman as well. He wrapped his arms around the thick tree trunk to keep from giving in to the urge.

Frustration knotted his stomach and set his head to throbbing like a wound. The boulder hadn’t even struck the right girl. All his careful preparations, every second of his meticulous planning, the dark nights he’d sweated through preparing the site to ensure the supposition of an “accidental” death…and still she was alive. She might as well be rubbing his nose in the dirt, gloating over his failure.

How could he have known they’d change cloaks? Why had they done so? It wasn’t fair! It was not to be allowed!

He closed his eyes and struggled to remember his ultimate goal. Over the past several years he’d experienced other failures, but in the end patience and persistence always yielded success. Neala Shaw would be no different. And this time, the final act of retribution would bring about the final victory.

When he reopened his eyes, Neala and the Irishman had vanished. He could hear nothing but leaves scuffling in the breeze, and his own ragged breathing. Panic raced over his skin, freezing cold, like sleet in January. Then his ear caught the faint sound of voices. Ah. They were returning to the house, then. Not searching the woods or the path down the cliff to the river. He was still undetected, still safe. Still in charge of destiny, theirs as well as his own.

Carefully he climbed down the tree, dropped to the ground, then set off after them. Through binoculars he watched as they crossed the lawn and entered the main house.

Nothing to do now but wait. And maintain the watch.

For the next two days he prowled, a silent onlooker stoking resolve with a blend of righteous anger and bitter frustration. They knew the boulder was deliberate—but was there enough evidence to point to Neala Shaw as his target? The sheriff hadn’t put in an appearance, but that might be because the old woman who ran the school didn’t want to broadcast such disquieting news: either a student had been singled out for elimination, or the intent had been to kill whoever was on the path at the time.

Every now and then he wanted to laugh. Delicious temptation goaded him to ignite a whispering campaign, for the pleasure of watching all the other students flee like roaches escaping a fire. The hoity-toity Isabella Chilton Academy’s reputation would be as smashed to bits as the boulder he’d shoved over the cliff.

By the end of the second day temptation dribbled away. All he truly cared about was Neala’s reaction. Would she finally run again? He passed delicious hours hoping so. He was weary of this place, especially since it only served to remind him of his failures to eliminate Neala Shaw. And he’d been sighted at least once, which festered inside, more of a worry than he liked to admit. The longer he lurked about, the greater the likelihood of exposure, questions. Speculations that would force him to have to kill an innocent bystander.

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