“Promise me you’ll help her.”

Former Union soldier Jeremiah “Jack” Murphy should never have given his word to a dying man, especially a Rebel. But now he feels honor-bound to carry the message to the man’s young bride. Besides, with false charges following him, Jack needs somewhere to turn. After he fulfills his promise, perhaps the North Carolina mountains can give this weary soldier some shelter. Yet when he meets beautiful widow Sayer Garth, leaving is the last thing on Jack’s mind. Sayer, and her young sisters-in-law, need help that Jack is more than willing to provide. If only he could be certain that his presence—and his secrets—won’t put them all at risk....

“Is my husband dead?”

Sayer clearly surprised him with the directness of the question. She had been waiting month after month, year after year, first for a letter or some word of him, then for Thomas Henry himself, and she couldn’t bear to wait any longer.

“Is that why you’ve come here?”

Jack hesitated, then looked into her eyes again. “Yes.”

She made a small sound and looked away, clutching at her skirts in the great effort it took to stay upright and in control.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said again. “To bring you such bad news. I see this isn’t the time for us to talk, ma’am—you aren’t well enough yet. I shouldn’t have said anything. I will take my leave. When you’re stronger—”

“I want to hear what you’ve come to say. I want to hear all of it, Mr. Murphy.”

CHERYL REAVIS

The RITA® Award-winning author and romance novelist describes herself as a “late bloomer” who played in her first piano recital at the tender age of thirty. “We had to line up by height—I was the third smallest kid,” she says. “After that, there was no stopping me. I immediately gave myself permission to attempt my other heart’s desire—to write.” Her books A Crime of the Heart and Patrick Gallagher’s Widow won a Romance Writers of America’s coveted RITA® Award for Best Contemporary Series Romance the year each was published. One of Our Own received a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series Romance from RT Book Reviews. A former public health nurse, Cheryl makes her home in North Carolina with her husband.

The Soldier’s Wife

Cheryl Reavis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For he shall give his angels charge over thee,

to keep thee in all thy ways.

—Psalms 91:11

In memory of Joanne and Dot,

two of the finest nurses I’ve ever known.

Thank you for teaching me. Thank you

for helping me. Thank you for making me laugh.

I miss you rascals.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Excerpt

Chapter One

Jack Murphy hadn’t intended to go looking for the wounded man. He couldn’t hear him now, and it was likely that he had finally died, but for which heartfelt cause, Jack couldn’t say. The soldier they all heard calling from the battlefield could be one of their own or one of the Rebels—or it could be a ruse engineered by either side to draw some gullible soldier into the open.

He stopped crawling and listened intently. It wasn’t gullibility that had brought him out here, and it had nothing to do with the Golden Rule Father Bartholomew and the Sisters at the orphan asylum had done their best to teach him. His hands were still shaking badly, and he simply hadn’t wanted the others to see him like this. He was Jeremiah “Jack” Murphy, and Jack Murphy’s hands never shook.

The sweet, dank smell of scarred earth rose up from the ground beneath him, land that should have been plowed for spring planting by now, not fought over and bled on. He could hear his comrades in the distance, the quiet murmur of their voices. Every now and then, one of them laughed despite their recent ordeal. Little Ike was finally reading his letter from home, sharing it with the others. Jack envied him that letter. It had been a long time since he himself had gotten one from the only person who ever wrote to him, Elrissa Suzanne Barden, the girl who had promised to marry him when the war was over. The irony was that he hadn’t wanted to go to war at all. He’d enlisted because so many of the boys he’d grown up with in the orphanage had already joined. He’d always looked out for them; most of them had been culled from the dirty backstreets of Lexington as he had. They looked up to him. He couldn’t let them deliberately go into harm’s way without his overseeing the effort. He gave a quiet sigh. So many of them dead now, despite his determination to keep them all safe and together, their faces coming to him whenever he was on the verge of sleep, faces of the boys who had too quickly become men and then were gone. A line of clouds moved across the moon. He lifted his head, trying to see in the darkness. He couldn’t detect any movement, couldn’t hear any sound. Most certainly the wounded man had died.

His hands were steadier now, the tremors fading as they always eventually did. There was no reason for him to stay out here. He’d made what must at least seem like a humane gesture, and now he could go back. He could eat some hardtack and wish he had coffee to soften it. He could make Little Ike reread his letter. He could think about Miss Elrissa Barden standing in lantern light on a dark and windy railroad platform and try to remember her pretty face.

“Wait,” a voice said distinctly when he began to move to what he hoped was a less conspicuous place. The voice was close by, and he turned sharply in that direction.

“Will you...wait?” the man asked.

Jack made no reply. He was still trying to get his bearings. Where—and how close—was he? And how close was his musket?

“Please,” the voice said, feebler now. “I don’t...”

The moon appeared from behind the clouds, and Jack could just make him out in the semidarkness. Surprisingly, he was sitting upright, leaning against the wheel of a broken caisson. And he was farther out into the open field than Jack was willing to go.

“Wait!” the man said sharply when Jack was about to move away again. “I’m shot. Don’t leave me...out here. Please...”

Jack hesitated, his head bowed. This man was nothing to him. Nothing. For all he knew, he was the one who had shot him.

The soldier was weeping now, his sobs carrying eerily into the night. Jack waited, knowing if he waited long enough, he wouldn’t have to make the choice.

“Have...mercy...” the man said, the words suddenly lost in a near animal-like moan.

Jack clenched his fists. How many times had he been in this kind of situation no matter where he found himself? The orphanage. Mr. Barden’s dry goods store. The army. Always when he least expected it, a sudden choice between right and wrong would be staring him right in the face. It was as if his life were some kind of classroom, one where he was supposed to learn the principles of moral rectitude—and he was always getting called on.

Here’s another one, Jack, old boy. Let’s see what you do with this one.

And this one could get him killed.

The man grew quiet, but he was still alive. Jack had no doubt about that, just as he knew what Father Bartholomew would say:

It’s not that we don’t know what is right, Jeremiah. We always know. It’s that we don’t want to do it.

Jack exhaled sharply. All right, then.

He began to crawl again, making a wide circle to get to the wounded soldier without being seen from the far side of the open field. Whatever happened, however it turned out, Father Bartholomew and the Sisters, at least, would be happy. The Golden Rule and the parable of the Good Samaritan all rolled into one.

But he wasn’t about to take any chances. He made his way slowly. The closer he got, the more he could tell about the uniform—or what was left of it.

“Here, Reb,” Jack said when he had moved to where he thought—hoped—he’d be out of sight and could sit up. He pulled the cork from his canteen despite the color of the uniform, and he tried to get the man to drink from it. Most of the water ran down his neck. The smell of death rose from his body.

“Much...obliged,” Jack thought the man said. He couldn’t be sure because the soldier had suddenly hunched forward in agony.

“What...are you doing...out here, Yank?” he said when he could, his voice barely audible.

“Came to see what all the fuss was about,” Jack said, and the man actually laughed, a pain-racked laugh that immediately died away.

“Just to...keep me company, I...guess.”

“Or rob your pockets.”

“You’re out of...luck...there, Yank. I’m...going to ask you...to do...something for me.”

“I doubt I’ll do it.”

“I’m going to ask...anyway. You...got a...wife?”

“No.”

“Sweetheart?”

“Yes,” Jack said, despite the dearth of letters from Elrissa.

“You should have...married her before you...left...lest you end up...like me. My wife...she’s not going to know...what happened to me...if you don’t...tell her.”

“I can’t do that, Reb.”

“Take my...blanket roll,” the soldier said in spite of Jack’s refusal. “My letters...I couldn’t mail them. Take them—take everything. Her name is...Sayer Garth. She’s in...Ashe County...North Carolina side of...the Tennessee border. Anybody can tell you...where the Garth place is. Get them to her...tell her...Thomas Henry gave them...to you. Say I know how...hard she’s...prayed for me. I know...she wanted me...to be...ready if I fell. Say her prayers were answered...and I wasn’t afraid to die. Tell her...I don’t want her...to grieve. My little sisters...they’ll cry when they know...I’m not coming home, but...you tell them...I don’t want that. I don’t want any...sad faces. You say I went...easy. Don’t...don’t tell them about...the pain.”

The soldier was quiet for a time. Jack could see the rise and fall of his chest, but he couldn’t tell if he was conscious.

“I can’t save...her,” the man said abruptly. “Marrying her won’t be enough...if I’m dead.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I’m afraid...for her. I don’t know...what...to do. I swear...I don’t. I don’t know if it...was the right thing. I don’t know what to do!” He threw back his head suddenly and began to moan, overwhelmed by the agony of his wounds. “End...this...” he whispered.

“No,” Jack said. He knew exactly what the man meant.

“You were...ready enough...to take my life...this morning...”

“I’ll leave you my canteen—”

“It’s your revolver...I need.”

The man gave a long shuddering sigh. His head dropped forward for a moment, but then he lifted it and looked in Jack’s direction.

“First time...I saw her I was...eight years old,” the man said. “She was six...living...with her daddy’s kin. Rich people, they were. They came...to the mountains every summer. Came all the...way from...I can’t...no. No...I remember. Town on the Yadkin River. It was...bad there in the...in summer. They...always stayed in the...high country till...first...frost. Her people didn’t want her. Why didn’t they...want her? I never did...know. She tried so hard not to...vex them. Big scared eyes...she had. All the time. I told my...mama...when I got...grown...I was going to marry that...sweet girl...take her away from those people...that didn’t want her. I...wanted her. But I had to leave her...with those big...scared...eyes of hers come back again. She’s so pretty...so...pretty. Sayer...Sayer...if I could just see you...one last time...” His voice trailed away. Then, “I think I’ll have...some more of that...water now...if I might,” he said politely, as if they were in some situation where politeness mattered.

Jack lifted him upward and held the canteen to his lips. It was the only thing he could do for the man. If he still prayed, he might offer the Reb a prayer, but he was too weary and his emotions too raw. Even such a simple gesture as that was beyond him.

This time the Reb managed a swallow or two before he fell back against the caisson wheel. There was a breeze suddenly, carrying with it the sounds of the soft spring night. A whip-poor-will in a tall pine at the edge of the field, crickets in the grass, frogs in a ditch somewhere nearby. Not the sounds of war and dying at all.

“Graham?” the man said suddenly. “You listening to me, Graham!” He was looking directly at Jack, but Jack had no sense that he was actually seeing him. He grabbed on to the front of Jack’s uniform, his grip surprisingly strong. “Promise me! Promise you’ll help Sayer!” He made a great effort and lunged forward, his other hand clasping Jack’s shoulder. “Promise me!”

“All right,” Jack said, trying to keep him from falling on his face. “All right. Let go—”

“Give me...your word,” the man insisted. “Say it... Promise...me...”

“I promise,” Jack said to placate him, pulling the man’s fingers free from his jacket. The Reb began a quiet, but urgent mumbling.

“...teacheth my hands to war and my...fingers to...fight. Is Graham dead?” he suddenly asked as his mind shifted to another time and place. “I don’t... I can’t— Hey!” he cried, his attention taken by something only he could see. “All right, now! Get ready! Get ready! Sun’s in their...eyes.” He abruptly raised his hand as if he were about to give a signal, and Jack struggled to keep him from falling.

“Let’s go! Let’s go! Come on! We got ’em, boys. We got ’em!” the Reb said, his voice stronger now. He suddenly threw back his head and cried out. The terrible sound he made rose upward in a blood-chilling yell Jack had heard a thousand times in battle. He knew it had nothing to do with the pain. The Rebel soldier was shouting his defiance one last time, and it echoed over the battlefield and into the soft spring night.

But then the cry ended, suddenly cut short, and the still-raised hand fell onto the dirt.

* * *

Sayer Garth started as a pair of mourning doves suddenly took flight from a nearby rhododendron thicket. She couldn’t see any reason for it, no one coming along the narrow pathway leading down the mountainside to the old buffalo trace that passed for a wagon road. A cold wind blew off the mountain, and her hair swirled about her face. She pulled her shawl tighter around her and listened intently, but she couldn’t hear or see anything that might have caused the birds’ alarm. Even so, her heart pounded with fear.

“Please,” she whispered, and it occurred to her that all her prayers since Thomas Henry went off to war had come down to that one word. She felt it with every bit of strength she had whenever she thought of him, or the girls, or herself.

Please.

She took a quiet breath and waited. She was so tired of jumping at every little sound and shadow, of being hungry, of being on a mountain ridge alone.

“Thy will,” she whispered. “Thy will, not mine.”

For nearly four years she’d lived in the Garth family cabin with Thomas Henry’s two younger sisters. His mother, a kindly but frail woman, had died less than a year after he’d left. He had been gone so long! Sayer wondered if she would even recognize him when she saw him again. And how strange it was. Of late, in her mind’s eye, he always looked the way he’d looked when he was a boy. She could barely remember the dashing young soldier she had so hurriedly wed. The truth was she’d been too ill at the time to remember much of anything. She knew that he had suddenly appeared at her bedside early one bright Sunday morning and had informed her uncle, John Preston, and his wife, Cecelia, that he would be bringing a preacher that very afternoon, and ill or not, he intended to marry one Sayer Preston before he marched off to war. He wouldn’t be put off and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Sayer gave a quiet sigh because the truth was she didn’t really know if she remembered the incident or if she only knew about it because people who claimed to have been there had told her. She could recall the illness easily enough, the fever, the way her body had ached and sunlight had hurt her eyes and made her head pound so. She knew that she had said yes to Thomas Henry’s proposal and that she had worn a freshly starched and ironed—and far too big—nightdress borrowed from her aunt. It was much more elaborate than anything she’d ever owned. There were tucks all over the bodice and around the sleeves at the wrists. And so much lace—lace on the nightdress and the intricately tatted lace of the Spanish shawl she’d been covered in for decency. She remembered the beautiful butterfly-and-iris pattern of the shawl and the cedar-and-lavender smell of it—but not much else. She must have said the right words when the preacher asked, because their names—and the preacher’s—were written in the Garth family Bible, along with the names of two church-member witnesses. She thought that Thomas Henry’s mother had attended the ceremony, and the cook and the two hired girls had been allowed to come—which was only fitting since Sayer had spent so much of her time in their company.

But what she remembered so clearly had nothing to do with the wedding at all. What she remembered was a long-ago wagon ride from the railhead to the mountain house, and the way a boy named Thomas Henry Garth had stared at her the first day they met, stared and stared until she’d wanted to cry. She was used to living in her uncle’s house all but unnoticed—unless someone—her aunt Cecelia—decided she had done something wrong—and she hadn’t known how to withstand the scrutiny of this fair-haired boy with the gentle brown eyes. She remembered, too, the first thing he ever said to her.

I won’t bite you.

After a moment of forcing herself to return his steady gaze, she had been certain somehow that he was telling her the truth. He would never hurt her, and that belief was reinforced every summer because of the way his face always lit up when the train bringing her uncle and her aunt—and her—finally arrived at the railhead.

Thomas Henry was the one person in this world she knew she made glad, not because of anything she did or didn’t do, but simply because she existed. All through her childhood he had never missed waiting for the train, and he’d always brought a secret gift for her—some dried apples and cherries or pieces of honeycomb wrapped in brown paper, and once, when they were both nearly grown, a pencil—just in case she might like to write him a letter once in a while.

The pencil had alarmed her at first, but he had immediately understood.

“You just write to me if you feel like it,” he said. “Tell me what it’s like living in a town. I’ve never even been to a big town with a railroad through it. I won’t write back,” he hastened to reassure her. “It might cause...” He hadn’t finished the sentence, but she had known what he meant. Her aunt would never allow it. She knew that, but she had already begun arranging in her mind all the things he might like to know about the place where she lived—the ferry that crossed the river and the trains. He’d especially want to know about the trains, what kind and how many. She could count the whistles she heard in the daytime and at night and give a good estimation of that.

Remembering her forbidden enthusiasm for the plan suddenly made her smile. She had been pleased with all his gifts, but she had truly cherished that cedar pencil. What little was left of it she now used to write to him while he was away fighting in the war, because it made her feel some kind of connection to him, and she sorely needed that.

She sighed. Why couldn’t she remember his face? Not long after he’d left, he’d written that he had had a daguerreotype made and had sent it to her. The daguerreotype had never arrived, and it seemed to her now that she very much needed it.

She stood watching the path a little longer, until she was certain that no human had disturbed the mourning doves. A sudden snippet of memory came to her after all. Thomas Henry, leaving her almost immediately after the wedding ceremony, taking her hands and pressing a kiss on the back of each one, despite the onlookers. And then he’d winked, the way he often did when no one was looking, and pulled the blue ribbon from her hair, the closest thing she’d had to a bridal veil. He’d stuffed the ribbon into an inside pocket in his uniform. “Now, don’t go and forget me,” he whispered in that teasing way he had. It had made her want to laugh and cry all at the same time. And then she’d given him the only cherished possession she had—a small Bible that had belonged to her mother.

“I can’t take this,” he said, clearly moved that she wanted him to have it.

“It’s so you’ll know,” she whispered.

“Know what?”

“Know I won’t go and forget you.”

No, she thought now. She would never forget him. It was only his face she had trouble remembering. She knew in her heart that she might not have survived her illness if not for God’s grace in the form of the gift Thomas Henry Garth had offered her. Marriage to him had given her a sincere hope for a better life. It was true that so far that life had been hard, but she thanked God every day for it. Thomas Henry had left for a seemingly unending war, and she had remained in the mountains, never regretting for a moment that she hadn’t returned to Salisbury with Uncle John and Aunt Cecelia on the train. She looked toward the cabin. Both of Thomas Henry’s sisters were dancing around trying to stay warm while they poured limewater into the pans of shelled corn to make hominy. Hopefully, some of it would actually hit the corn.

Amity was eight, and Beatrice was ten, and they both had the Garth brown eyes and curling honey-blond hair. Since Thomas Henry’s mother had died, they had been both a great responsibility and a great help. Sayer went out of her way to make sure they were aware only of the latter. She didn’t want them to ever feel the way she had felt in her uncle’s house. Her real worry was that she was neither brave enough nor strong enough to keep them safe. She believed she might have long since given up trying to hang on to Thomas Henry’s land if not for them. They were the true Garth family legacy until Thomas Henry came home again, and she hoped desperately that she wouldn’t fail them.

The winters had been particularly hard, and she had no doubt that they would have starved if it hadn’t been for old Rorie Conley, who lived atop the ridge on the other side of Deep Hollow. It was a short distance to Rorie’s cabin as the crow flies, but a hard trek down into the hollow and back up again to the other side on foot. The big sack of shelled corn she’d brought them on the back of a mule would last them for a while, and Sayer had taken great pains to make sure both girls understood that they were not to tell anyone—anyone—where the corn had come from, lest Rorie begin to suffer the same mishaps and accidents Sayer had: crops decimated by deer and other wild animals because of mysteriously downed fences; chickens and pigs stolen, supposedly by deserters from both armies hiding in the mountains; her one milk cow inexplicably shot.

The only clue Sayer had as to the cause of these troubles was Halbert Garth’s overconfident smile. Thomas Henry’s uncle constantly urged her—in the face of all her “bad luck” and her ignorance of farming—to write to Thomas Henry about the supposedly generous offer he had made to buy the Garth land. Surely, he kept telling her, Thomas Henry would want her and the girls to go live “somewhere safe,” though the Lord only knew where that might be. He had already written to Thomas Henry himself, of course, but he thought that it would be better for him to hear the truth from her. Halbert Garth didn’t realize how much of the “truth” Sayer was actually privy to. She knew that he had expected to inherit all the Garth land when his father died and that he considered the acreage Sayer and the girls were living on his birthright, to claim and to dispose of as he pleased, despite the fact that old Mr. Garth had made it plain in his unbreakable will that he intended the land to be a family legacy for all the Garths who followed after him and not the ante in some high-stakes Louisville poker game.

* * *

“Sayer! Sayer!” the girls suddenly called to her, and she began walking in their direction.

“Will you read to us after supper?” Beatrice wanted to know, twirling again around and around the pan of corn. Sayer suddenly imagined her all grown-up and dressed in a white gown with gardenias in her hair, dancing the evening away at the Harvest Moon Ball in Salisbury, the event Sayer had heard so much about when she still lived in her uncle’s house, the one she had known even then that she’d never be allowed to attend.

Poor Cinderella, Sayer thought a little sadly, thinking of them both. No white dresses and gardenias for us.

“What shall I read to you?” she abruptly asked, putting her fanciful notions about the social events in Salisbury aside. She smiled, because she already knew their answer. She had diligently tried to make sure that neither of them forgot their brother, despite the lost daguerreotype and the years that had passed, especially Amity, who had been only four when he left.

“Read us a letter from Thomas Henry!” they both cried.

Chapter Two

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked. There were too many of his comrades still awake. All of them should have been lying exhausted on the ground save the two on watch, but it looked as if the entire group was alert and waiting—for him, apparently.

“Nothing,” Little Ike said after a silence that went on too long.

Jack sat down on the ground close to his blanket and haversack. He was emotionally and physically spent. He’d managed to get the dead Rebel wrapped in his blanket and more or less buried. Jack impulsively kept the man’s letters and personal belongings and stuck them inside his jacket. He took them out now and began looking at them. Not a single man asked him what he had or what he was planning to do with whatever it was.

He glanced in Little Ike’s direction. “You get your letter read?”

“Oh! Well—” Ike said. “I— It was—” He stopped. He took his battered cap off and twirled it in his hands. Then, as if suddenly wondering how it had gotten there, popped it back on his head again.

“You know,” Jack said after a long moment, “I didn’t think the question was all that hard.”

“We got the canteens filled,” Ike said, clearly hoping to move Jack along to some other topic of interest.

“Did you get the letter read?” Jack asked again. He looked at the soldiers closest to him—Boone. Donoho. Weatherly. James. All of them looked elsewhere.

“Are we the Orphans’ Guild or not?” he asked. It was the name that had been given to them the first day the company mustered, one they’d taken for their own with a fierce kind of pride. They looked out for each other and they didn’t keep secrets, especially not from him.

“Tell him, Ike,” Boone said finally.

But Little Ike was fiddling with his hat again.

“Tell him!”

“It was in the letter,” Ike said in a rush. Most of the words went down his jacket front.

Jack waited, but that seemed to be the only information Ike was willing to impart. He didn’t suggest that he continue, however. Jack had learned early on, from his days in the orphanage, that the quickest way to a revelation was not to demand it. He went back to looking through the dead Reb’s personal effects: a Bible, a clay pipe bowl, an empty leather tobacco pouch, a daguerreotype he couldn’t see in the erratic moonlight, a packet of letters tied up with a ribbon, the color of which he also couldn’t determine. He could feel the watchful attention of every man around him, but he didn’t look up. He pulled one of the letters free and tried to decipher the address. He could only make out part of the handwriting: Co. G Highland Guards. He had heard of the Highland Guards, but that was after what was left of the Orphans’ Guild had been shifted from the Army of the Ohio into an equally decimated company in the Army of the Potomac. Jack had been half convinced that the Guild soldiers had been the ante in some kind of high-stakes poker game. A general from the Army of the Ohio folded, and off the orphans went. Even so, he and the rest of them still thought of themselves as soldiers of the Kentucky regiment they’d volunteered for, regardless of what the generals said.

He turned the letter over in his hands, but he made no attempt to read it. The Highland Guards had been at Sharpsburg and at Malvern Hill, just as he and the newly reassigned Orphans’ Guild survivors had.

Sharpsburg.

Malvern Hill.

One thing he had learned in this war. Nothing qualified for cannon fodder more than a company with a true majority of bona fide orphans.

“Jack?”

He looked up.

“She went and got married, Jack,” Ike said.

“Are you going to tell me who ‘she’ is or do I have to guess?”

“Miss Elrissa Barden,” Ike said, his voice full of misery. “My cousin...she says he’s rich,” he added helpfully.

Jack reached for his haversack, rearranging the contents so that he could add the dead Rebel’s belongings. He might find a way to mail the letters, and then again, he might not. “His name?” he asked.

“It’s...Vance.”

Jack looked at him. “Farrell Vance?” he said, surprised by his response to the information. He should have been intensely disturbed, at the very least, but he wasn’t. After a short moment, it seemed...only logical. Farrell Vance had money—a lot of money—more money than good old Jeremiah “Jack” Murphy would ever have, even if a marriage to a wealthy store owner’s daughter had happened. Vance was a store owner, as well—among other things—but his real money came from the war, from army contracts. There was plenty of profit to be made there, especially if a supplier was willing to cut corners. He had no doubt that Farrell Vance fell into that camp.

“That’s him,” Ike said. “My cousin, she wrote it was a really big wedding. Nobody ever seen anything like it in Lexington before, I can tell you that. Her wedding dress come all the way from Paris somehow or other. Must have been hard, what with the war and everything. It had all these...rosettes or some such thing. What do you reckon a rosette is— Ow!” he said, his report interrupted by his nearest comrade’s elbow. “What did you do that for, Boone!”

“I did it hoping you might start using that head of yours for something besides parking your hat!”

“Well, you said to tell him!”

The argument, peppered with insults, continued, but Jack was no longer listening. Elrissa Suzanne Barden...Vance.

Jack had never formally asked her father for her hand. She had wanted him to wait until he came home again, and he had agreed, thinking that Mr. Barden would be more apt to remember how important Jack had been to his business if he was standing right in front of him. He hadn’t really considered that Mr. Barden would say no. The man had set the precedent that his beloved Elrissa could have whatever she wanted a long time before Jack Murphy came along.

But clearly Elrissa had changed her mind. It occurred to Jack that no one in her circle likely knew anything about his marriage proposal much less that she’d accepted him. And when this greater matrimonial opportunity arose, she must have realized she could marry Farrell Vance without consequence. With any luck at all, Jack Murphy would end up like all too many of his fellow orphans and wouldn’t be coming back from the war at all. Or if he did survive, he wouldn’t likely go around telling people he’d been taken for a fool. It occurred to him, too, that it must require many months to put together a wedding that included a dress from Paris with “rosettes,” and Elrissa must have continued writing to him until she was absolutely sure the better marriage was a certainty.

“That’s that, then,” he said, realizing too late that he’d said it out loud.

“That’s right, Jack,” Ike said. “Ain’t no use worrying about it.”

“Whose turn is it to take watch?” Jack asked, ignoring Ike’s comment.

“Fred’s,” somebody volunteered. “And Jacob’s...” The sentence faded away into a different kind of silence.

“Mine, then,” Ike said after a moment. “And Boone’s.”

“Well, don’t the two of you be squabbling like a couple of old women,” Jack said despite the fact that two more of the Orphans’ Guild were dead and gone. He was glad it was Ike’s turn. Ike couldn’t tell when he was putting a foot wrong and stumbling all over something socially, but he had finely honed senses when it came to anticipating danger, probably because of the years he’d spent hiding from his violent drunkard of a father.

“No, Jack,” Ike said earnestly. “We won’t. I ain’t letting them Rebs sneak up on us.”

“That’s good to know, our situation being what it is,” Jack said. “What’s that?” he asked because of a sound in the distance he couldn’t identify.

“Sounds like singing,” Boone said.

And so it was, but Jack couldn’t make out the song. It was something wistful; he could tell that much. A farewell for a fallen comrade, he decided, as more voices joined in, perhaps for the man whose letters he still held. He felt a burning in his eyes suddenly, an ache in his throat. He stuffed the letters into his haversack. His hands were beginning to tremble again. This time he wrapped himself in his blanket to hide them and turned his back to the others. He lay down on the ground and closed his eyes, but he had little hope of sleep. His body ached with fatigue, but his thoughts swirled around and around in his head so fast he couldn’t dwell on any of them. He tried to find some sound to concentrate on—the whip-poor-will, the singing, anything—so that he could shut out everything else, but it didn’t help. The more he struggled, the more his mind raced. Eventually, though, as it had more than once, the sound he so needed turned out to be one inside his own head. After a moment, it rose out of the chaos: Father Bartholomew reading aloud to them on the cool upstairs porch on Saturday afternoons after their chores and their Saturday baths were finally done. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It had been a favorite of the younger boys and, he thought, of Father Bartholomew. The ancient mariner. The man who could not pray.

Jack concentrated on the poem, word by word, line by line, not caring if they were out of sequence or not. After a time he began to whisper random phrases to himself. “‘The praise be given...the gentle sleep from heaven...slid into my soul….’”

But there was no chance of that happening this night.

“Jack,” Boone said, shaking him hard.

“What!” he snapped because he hadn’t been asleep.

“They’re not singing now, Jack. Maybe you better come listen.”

He sat up and struggled to his feet, wishing for the second time tonight that he associated with men who could speak in specifics. He looked toward the battlefield, keeping his fists clenched because the second episode of shaking hadn’t yet subsided. The soldiers he couldn’t see had stopped singing, just as Boone said, but what they were doing instead, Jack couldn’t tell.

“You see anything, Ike?” Jack called.

“Nothing!” Ike called from some distance away. “Whatever it is, it’s coming this way.”

“Us or them?”

“Don’t know!”

“At the ready!” Jack shouted, and they all scrambled to grab up their gear. Then they waited, muskets resting on whatever prop they could find, all of them straining to see in the darkness. Every now and then Jack could hear the whip-poor-will in the tall pine at the edge of the field.

“Jack!” Ike suddenly cried. “Did you hear that! Lee surrendered!”

“Stay down!” Jack said sharply, before the rest of his charges forgot where they were in the excitement of Ike’s announcement. He’d been at this too long to trust a voice shouting in the night. And if it was true, he had enough sense to know that the war would be over for the Rebs, not for them.

The shouting grew louder as the news came down the line. He could hear the men clearly now, again and again. “Lee surrendered!”

So.

Just like that. This morning they were at war and now they weren’t. How could it be over? he thought. And they had won. After all this time and all this killing and dying, they had won. But what exactly was the prize, he wondered, and at what cost?

Unable to contain their joy any longer, the men around him sent up a rousing cheer. He tried to feel their elation, but he was too worn down by the events of the day to feel anything.

“Where are the tin cups?” he asked abruptly, not really addressing anyone in particular.

“What tin cups, Jack?”

“Fred’s! Jacob’s! Where are they!” He needed them. Whenever an orphan fell, he sent their army-issue tin cup to Father Bartholomew. He scratched their names and when and where they died on them. He didn’t know what Father Bartholomew did with them. All he knew was that he, Jack Murphy, needed to send them.

“It’s all right, Jack,” Boone said, grasping him by the arm. “Ike took care of it. He wrapped them up good and tagged them to go to the orphanage. The hospital wagon was picking up the wounded, so he sent them back on it. Somebody will see they get there.”

“The names— Did he—”

“He scratched the names. He did all of it. You don’t have to worry.”

“Good,” Jack said. “That’s good.”

He could feel Boone staring at him. He pulled his arm free and sat down on the ground again. He had to pull himself together.

Elrissa’s marriage, he thought, wiping the sweat from his brow with a shaking hand. Her betrayal had laid him lower than he had been willing to admit.

Lee surrendered.

Lee surrendered...

And that was the thing that bothered him so, he suddenly realized. General Robert E. Lee had surrendered.

Too late for Frederick and Jacob and the rest of Father Bartholomew’s dead orphans. Too late for Thomas Henry Garth and for a young woman called Sayer.

Chapter Three

It took the Orphans’ Guild nearly three months to get back to Lexington, though to Jack it seemed hardly any time at all. He’d long ago lost the need to mark the passage of time when it had so little bearing on what he did. Not meals. Not sleep. Nothing. For four years, he had been dedicated only to going where he was told to go and doing what he was told to do—and staying alive while he did it. He’d learned early on to let the passing of the minutes and hours and days take care of themselves. They had nothing to do with him, at least until he returned to Lexington. It was only then that clocks and calendars became important again, because he needed to decide on what day and at what time he might be able to see the new Mrs.Vance face-to-face, and he had no one he wanted to ask for guidance in the matter. He already had too many unsolicited opinions regarding his situation with Elrissa.

His best guess was early afternoon. Elrissa should be at home then and Farrell Vance should not. And with that simple conclusion, he took pains to shave and to wear a freshly starched and ironed white store-clerk shirt and the best suit a sizable chunk of his army pay could buy. It was a long walk from the orphanage, where he was staying in the visitors’ quarters, to Farrell Vance’s impressive new stone residence. The walk itself was pleasant enough, given his recent history of ambulating from battlefield to battlefield over more of this country than he cared to think about. It eventually took him to a cool, shaded street lined with several newly built houses—or new to him at any rate. It rather surprised him that Vance hadn’t acquired a place near Mary Todd Lincoln’s house, and it was just Jack’s luck that his destination turned out to be the biggest house of them all.

Jack recognized the Vances’ new maid the moment she opened the front door, despite the cap covering most of her wild red hair. The freckles were still visible, however, as was the ever-present wariness in the clear blue eyes. She had learned before she could walk not to trust people, and she wasn’t about to let go of the lesson just for Jack Murphy.

“Hello, Mary,” he said easily. “I’m here to see Mrs. Vance—if she’s at home to visitors.”

“Jack, are you crazy!” Mary stepped out onto the huge porch and pulled the door to behind her, her heavily starched, pink-and-white uniform rustling in the process. Clearly, even the maids in Farrell Vance’s house dressed better than the girls at the orphanage ever would. “You can’t come to the front door like this!”

“I can’t? Why not?”

“You’re the hired help. You work for Mr. Barden.”

“I haven’t worked for Mr. Barden for four years,” Jack reminded her. “Nice house,” he added, looking around the front porch at the potted ferns and assorted flowers.

“Mr. Vance won’t like this,” Mary said.

“I’m not here to see Mr. Vance. I’m here to see Elrissa.”

“Why?”

“I want to thank her for her...kindness while I was away—in person, if you don’t mind. All you have to do is ask her if she’ll see me. You can’t be blamed for what happens after that.”

“You’d be surprised what a body can be blamed for in this house. Besides that, you are such a liar. She’s married now. You’ve got no good reason to see her and plenty reasons not to.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, Mary.”

Mary looked at him for a long moment—while Jack struggled to hold on to his impatience. He’d come a long way to stand on Elrissa’s front porch—or was it a veranda?—and he’d done it against the advice of practically every orphan he knew. Only Little Ike had opined that Elrissa needed to own up to her poor treatment of one Jack Murphy. And, in this rare instance, Jack heartily agreed. Now all he needed was to get past Mary.

“I heard she didn’t even send you a letter to tell you she was marrying somebody else,” Mary said, reminding Jack that while the mail wagon for the Army of the Potomac might not have come as often as he and the rest of the Orphans’ Guild would have liked, it did run in both directions. He didn’t need reminding that what one orphan knew, they all knew.

“And that is none of your business,” he said anyway. “I want to see her. The whole rebel army couldn’t stop me from getting what I want, Mary, so I’m not really worried about you.”

She exhaled sharply. “Jack, if you do something to make me lose this job—”

He smiled his best smile, rusty though it might be, and that was all it took.

“Oh, all right, then,” Mary said. “And stop smiling at me. Kissing the girls and making them cry—that’s all you’re good for.”

His smile broadened. “They don’t always cry, Mary. You know that.”

She shook her head at his blatant teasing. “I’ll...go ask her. You stay right here. Right here. And I mean it.” She reached behind her and opened the door. “I mean it!”

“Yes, Mary,” he said dutifully. “I’ll stay right here.”

“See that you do,” she said, determined to have the last word. She backed into the house and made a point of closing the door as firmly as was possible. He waited, listening to the sparrows chirping from their nests under the eaves, looking around the wide front porch again, wondering idly if Elrissa had decorated the stone pillars with red, white and blue bunting for the anniversary of national independence. He thought she might have, even though he’d never known her to care much about the Fourth of July celebration. Her husband would, of course. It would be bad for his business, given the country’s recent victory, if he didn’t participate as noticeably as possible.

A large yellow cat wandered up from somewhere behind the spirea bushes and made several passes against his legs. He reached down and scratched its ear for a moment and wondered what was taking Mary so long. The cat walked away and there was nothing to do but inspect the porch again. There was a swing and two comfortable-looking chairs a few feet away, and he was tempted to go sit in one of them. He had always wanted a porch like this, a place where he could bide his time and drink lemonade and read the newspaper on a quiet Sunday afternoon. He had never been able to see Elrissa sitting in a rocking chair beside him when he imagined this idyllic setting, however.

The front door opened, and Mary stuck her head out. “Well, come on, then,” she said. “She says she’ll see you. I still say you’re crazy, and I’m beginning to think she is, too.”

“You may be right about that, Mary. Lead the way.”

He followed her into the dark coolness of the wide center hallway. He could immediately feel the strong draft created by the opening and closing of certain windows and transoms. It was a tribute to how well the house was built that, even on a hot summer day like this one, there was a steady breeze blowing on the inside.

The inner breeze carried the scent of lemon and beeswax Mary had likely spent hours applying to every wood surface in the place. He had no doubt that she would have learned the ins and outs of furniture polishing at the orphanage, and to such a degree that she could make her living doing it. He couldn’t smell any food cooking. It was likely that there was a big summer kitchen detached from the main house somewhere out back.

“Don’t you stay long,” Mary whispered before she let him into the room where Elrissa must be. “He’ll be home to check on her in a little while.”

“Check on her? For what?” It occurred to him even as he said it that Elrissa must already be having a child.

“None of your business. Just do as I say.”

He smiled at her again, giving her a wink. She swatted the air in exasperation, then opened the door.

“Mr. Murphy, ma’am,” she said, standing back so he could enter.

Elrissa waited on the far side of the room, and she was even more stunning than he remembered. Her pale blond hair had been twisted into ringlets and intricate rolls and braiding. Her hands were clasped at her waist as if she needed to hide their trembling. He might feel a small pang of sympathy if that was so, though trembling hands wouldn’t be in keeping with Elrissa’s headstrong personality at all. She was much more likely to cause the affliction rather than suffer it.

“Mrs. Vance,” he said with a quiet calmness he must have learned on the battlefield. His voice didn’t reflect his inner turmoil in the least, and he was glad of that.

She stood looking back at him, leaving him nowhere to go and nothing to say. He knew very little about women’s clothes, but even he could see that when it came to afternoon dresses and maids’ uniforms, Mary’s was not the only wardrobe that had been significantly enhanced.

“It’s good to see you, Jack. It’s taken you a long time to get home,” Elrissa said, smiling.

“Not that long. We were lucky. Some companies aren’t being discharged at all. The ones that came to the party late or didn’t see much fighting. It’s only fair, in my opinion.”

“Oh. Well. It seems a long time to me. I’ve been wondering if you’d even come back to Lexington at all. No one seemed to know.”

“You asked about my return?”

“Well, about the regiments,” she said. “We’re all very proud of the Kentuckians. Papa and Farrell and I traveled down to Washington in May for the Grand Review. It was...thrilling. Two days for the army to pass. I looked for you in the parades, but I didn’t see you. Were you there?”

“Yes. All the orphans were there—what’s left of us.”

She was looking at him so intently, as if she expected him to make some comment about her having witnessed the Grand Review. He had no idea what she expected him to say—that he’d looked for her among the throng of spectators? He hadn’t. The truth was that it never occurred to him that she might be there.

“Why are you here, Jack?” she asked abruptly.

He looked at her in surprise. “Why? Well, I thought we’d start with an explanation—yours. I think I deserve that much—and then we could conclude with an apology—also yours.”

“Apology? My goodness.” Clearly such a thing had never occurred to her.

“You said you’d marry me, Elrissa.”

“Yes, well, that was never really...official, now, was it?”

“It was official to me. Why did you do that? Say you’d marry me if you had no intention of doing so?”

She waved one hand in the air. “I was very young, Jack. To tell you the truth, I just didn’t think. You were leaving. The train was coming—I had no time to think. Later I realized my father would never have agreed. You’re not...”

“Not what?” he asked when she didn’t continue.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said airily, moving to the sofa—carved rosewood likely from Massachusetts, he noted, because he’d been a very able clerk in a dry goods store that could special-order coffins or fine furniture, and it had been his business to know such things—before it was his business to kill men wearing the wrong uniform.

She sat down carefully so as not to rumple the dark green silk of her dress. It was a becoming color for her, he decided. He had never seen her wear anything like it before, and he supposed that such colors must be a privilege that came with marriage.

“You’re looking very well, Elrissa,” he said after a moment, and she gave him a brief but stricken look.

“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, moving closer to get a better look at her face.

“You look very well, too, Jack,” she said instead of answering. She kept picking at a fold in her skirt. “Now, what were we talking about?”

“You decided not to marry me because I’m not good enough for you. No connections. No money to speak of.” He didn’t point out that his management had likely kept Barden’s Dry Goods from going bankrupt.

“I didn’t say that.”

“I don’t believe you needed to. Your recent behavior has been eloquent enough. It would have been a kindness to have received a letter telling me of your new plans, Elrissa—instead of hearing about them after the fact and secondhand.”

“It didn’t seem important,” she said, and she actually smiled.

“No. I don’t suppose it was. To you.”

“Oh, Jack, I haven’t broken your heart, have I?”

“My heart, no. My pride has taken quite a beating, I will admit. I suppose your father never knew about the marriage proposal. Mine, that is.”

“No,” she said, but Of course not was what he heard.

“I am sorry, Jeremiah. Truly.”

“About what exactly?”

“Well, that you...misunderstood.”

“I certainly did do that—misunderstand. I’m not sure why. I know that yes and no can mean anything other than what they’re designed to mean. Orphans find that out very early. But in this instance, my...admiration and respect for you led me to forget my early lessons. I suppose I should thank you. I won’t ever make the mistake of trusting someone so far above my station again, especially that she actually means what she says.”

“Don’t be cruel, Jack. There’s really no need—”

“I don’t think I’m the cruel one here. I’m only stating the truth. According to Father Bartholomew and the Sisters, I’m supposed to learn at least a little something from every situation, good or bad. And truly, I have.”

“He came to see me, you know,” Elrissa said, glancing at him and then away. “Your Father Bartholomew. When the engagement—Farrell’s and mine—was announced in the newspapers. He was really quite cross with me. I couldn’t imagine what you must have told him.”

“I told him if I was killed, I wanted him to give you what money I had put by. It wouldn’t have been a lot by your standards—especially now. But it was all I had in this world, and I thought you might buy yourself a little something with it—a keepsake. Or you might have wanted to give it to charity as a memorial gift. Knowing Father Bartholomew, it’s likely he would have suggested it go to the orphanage.”

“Well, luckily, you can use the money for yourself.”

“Yes. Luckily.”

“What are your plans now that the war is over, Jack?” she asked, actually looking at him directly now and not at other, more interesting aspects of the room.

“Well, coming back to work for your father isn’t very likely. Do you think Farrell has any job vacancies?”

“No, seriously,” she said, smiling slightly when she realized the grim humor in his comment. He had always been able to do that at least—make her smile.

“I thought maybe I’d...go out West,” he said, as if the notion to migrate beyond the Mississippi River weren’t something he’d just made up on the spot. Still, it seemed as good a plan as any.

“Go back into the army, you mean?”

He gave a short laugh. “No. I’ve had enough of armies.”

She started to say something, then didn’t, lapsing into a quiet sigh instead. “Don’t stare at me so, Jack,” she said after a moment.

“I don’t mean to. It’s just that I’d...forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?”

“How very pretty you are. I used to think about that—on the march or when our situation was...bad.”

“You mustn’t say things like that. My husband won’t like it.”

“Won’t he?”

“Farrell is very...protective of me. He will be home soon,” she said, glancing at the quietly ticking clock on the mantel. “You must leave before then. Now, actually.”

He made no move toward the door.

“Please,” she said. “I want you to leave now—and go out the back way. Mary will show you. You should never have come to the front door.”

“My mistake,” he said. “It won’t happen again. Goodbye, Elrissa. I hope you’ll be happy.”

“Jack,” she said, as he was about to open the door.

He looked back at her.

“When will you go? Out West, I mean.”

“I...haven’t decided.”

She got up from the rosewood sofa and came toward him, guiding her dress around a table in the effort to get to him.

“Jack, you were right. Something is wrong—terribly wrong. It’s been so— He—Farrell—he isn’t at all obliging like Papa. Truly he isn’t. I— It’s so difficult. I don’t know that I can abide it much longer, this...penchant he has to tame me. No, I’m certain I can’t abide it. I want you to take me with you when you go.”

“What?” Jack said, despite the fact that he’d heard her clearly. She was very close now and once again he was struck by her prettiness. He was also struck by her familiar expression, one he’d seen many times when he worked in her father’s dry goods store, one that meant she wanted something unsuitable and she intended to have it—or else.

“I’ll meet you someplace. We can leave here together—whenever you say—the sooner the better.”

“No, we cannot,” he said, trying to remove her hand from his arm.

But she kept reaching for him, trying to hang on to him. “Yes! Yes! You and I—we can go where nobody knows us. We’d be happy, Jack. Truly, we would—”

“Elrissa, stop this!” he said sharply, and she suddenly put her face in her hands.

“You’re upset. Let me find Mary,” he said, because it was the only thing he could think of.

“No! I don’t need Mary! I need you to say you’ll help me!”

“I can’t help you.”

“But you have to. Who else can I turn to?” she said.

“Your father. He won’t see you unhappy.”

“You don’t understand!” she cried, but Jack was very much afraid that he did. Marriage proposals weren’t the only things Elrissa Barden refused to take seriously. She clearly thought she could ignore her marriage vows, as well.

“I’m going now,” he said firmly, still holding her at bay. “Everything will be all right—”

Someone knocked urgently on the door behind him.

“Jack!” Mary said on the other side. “Come on, come on—you have to get out of here!”

Elrissa finally let go of him and stepped away. He gave her a moment to compose herself, then opened the door.

“Goodbye,” she said, her voice cold and controlled now, as if they hadn’t just been in an inexplicable tussle by the door. He started to say something more to her, then didn’t. He turned and followed Mary down the wide hallway toward the back of the house.

“He’s coming up the walk,” Mary said over her shoulder. “Hurry!”

“I’m not afraid of him, Mary.”

“Well, I’m afraid enough for the both of us. I can’t lose this job, Jack. He’ll put something about so nobody else will hire me. Hurry!”

He let Mary lead him through a breakfast room and out a side door, checking first to make sure no one would see him when he stepped into the manicured garden.

“The gate is over there—down that path,” she said, pointing the way.

“Next time maybe I’ll listen to you,” he said, making her give a small laugh despite her worry.

“You’re well rid of that one. You know that, don’t you?” She suddenly reached up and touched his cheek. “What happened to you? Your face is the same, but you’ve got the eyes of an old man, Jack.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Go!” she said, giving him a push. “And take care of yourself. And don’t you be coming back here!”

For the second time that day she closed the door firmly and left him standing.

* * *

“Jack! What are you doing here!” Little Ike cried as Jack came through the back hedge at the orphanage.

“Delivering fish,” he said, holding up the large string of catfish he intended for the orphanage kitchen. “See? Good fishing down at the creek today. I thought the sun was too high, but the catfish didn’t. What are you doing here?” he countered because he’d always enjoyed teasing Ike when he was overly excited about something and because Ike actually had a distant cousin who was letting him stay in a converted storage room at her house—now that he was grown and useful—the same cousin who had given him such a detailed account of Elrissa’s wedding.

“You’ve been fishing?” Ike said incredulously, his voice giving a little squeak they way it always did whenever he was really excited.

“You can see I have, Ike.”

“Father Bartholomew said you didn’t stay here last night.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, where were you!” Ike cried, and Jack gave him a look to let him know he was dangerously close to crossing the line.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jack. You should be long gone—”

“Why?”

“Why? The watchmen! They’re looking for you!”

Jack was still not alarmed. “I’ve got to deliver these fish,” he said, trying to get past him so he could take his catch to the kitchen door.

“Forget the fish! They’re going to arrest you, Jack. Elrissa told her husband you were at the house. Her husband wants you arrested and charged.”

“What are you talking about? Charged for what?”

“She says...you put your hands on her. You tried to hurt her.”

“That’s crazy. Mary was there. I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“You’ve got a lot to worry about! They’ve already been here once looking for you. Father Bartholomew sent me to see if I could find you—we didn’t think you’d be coming back here. Farrell Vance aims to have your head, and he’ll get it, too. You’ve got to get away!”

“I’m not running when I didn’t do anything—”

“And how are you going to prove that? If Elrissa says you did—that’s all it’ll take. You don’t have any money. You don’t have any connections. There’s nobody to vouch for what really happened.”

“I told you Mary was there.”

“Who’s going to believe her, even if you could get her to tell the truth—which I doubt would happen if they came after her. She’s going to be too scared to go against whatever Elrissa claims you did. And even if she does, Jack, Vance’s lawyers will say us orphans always stick together—”

“Well, we do.”

“Jack! Listen to me. I think if Vance gets half a chance, he’ll kill you. It’ll be like when General Sickles killed his wife’s lover. He’ll get off, just like Dan Sickles did, and you’ll be in a pine box. Ain’t that many of us left, Jack! You got to go! You got to live for the ones we had to bury down South. You got to live for all of us! You hear me!”

“Jeremiah,” a quiet voice said behind them.

“Father Bartholomew,” Jack said. “It’s not—”

“Come inside,” the priest said. “Ike, you take those fish to the kitchen. Don’t say anything about Jeremiah being here.”

“Yes, Father,” Ike said, taking the string of fish out of Jack’s hand.

Jack followed Father Bartholomew inside the building through a side door and down the quiet hallway to his office. They had to pass several classrooms along the way, and he thought idly that he could have identified where he was blindfolded because of the smell of chalk and India ink. One of the classes was singing today—“The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Another group struggled with multiplication table rotes.

“Nine-times-one-is-nine!”

“Nine-times-two-is-eight-teen!”

Father Bartholomew looked inside the office before he allowed Jack to enter.

“Close the door, Jeremiah,” he said when they were inside. He indicated that he wanted Jack to sit in the one chair—the “scamp seat,” as Jack and the rest of the boys at the orphanage had called it—the one directly in front of the desk, where it was impossible to escape Father Bartholomew’s all-seeing gaze. Father Bartholomew took his usual place on the other side. It was a scene reminiscent of many Jack had experienced in this room, times when the young Jeremiah Murphy had let his foolhardy nature get the better of him and he’d had to be taken to task for it. The desk had seemed much bigger then, and so had Father Bartholomew.

Jack waited for the priest to say something—because that was the way it had always been done. Father Bartholomew sat quietly for a moment, tapping his fingertips together, perhaps praying. Jack couldn’t tell for sure. Motes of dust floated in the shaft of sunlight that came in through the high windows. He could hear the distant sounds of orphan life going on around them, and he felt such a sudden pang of homesickness and longing that it made him catch his breath.

Father Bartholomew looked up at him. “I believe Ike is correct in his assessment of this situation,” he said.

“Father, I—”

The priest held up his hand. “You have been in difficult circumstances before, ones which must have led you to rely on the Scriptures you were taught—”

“No, Father, I didn’t rely on them,” Jack said. He expected the priest to react, but Father Bartholomew merely let him twist in the wind after his remark and waited for him to continue.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Jack said finally. “I would think about...being on the upstairs porch after the Saturday chores were done. I would think about it so hard, I could hear your voice reading the poem. It...helped.”

“A story of sin and redemption. God’s messages appear in many places. And I know for certain that when we need Him, He often chooses to speak to us in a way that we will accept and understand, and we have only to pay attention.

“I have known you since you were a small boy starving on the streets of Lexington, Jeremiah. Since then, you and I have had to address a number of sins and punishments—but I do not believe you are guilty of this accusation. I want you to stay in here out of sight until dark. I don’t believe the watchmen will be back looking for you until then. In the meantime, I have some arrangements to make. Will you do that? Stay here until I get back?”

“I’d rather talk to the police.”

“No,” Father Bartholomew said firmly. “I’m told that the watchmen looking for you are also in Farrell Vance’s employ, and they will prevent you from doing that.”

“Prevent—why?”

“Farrell Vance is a vain and arrogant man. He also has considerable authority regarding the enforcement of the law in this city. I believe he takes unnatural pleasure in perceiving insult where there is none so that he can inflict his own retribution. Your seeking out his wife without his knowledge is no small matter in his eyes. I don’t believe he will allow you to challenge the veracity of her accusations in court or anywhere else—whether he believes them or not. In his mind, you have crossed a line, and the man now wants you dead. You’ve come through a hard time, Jeremiah. You’ve lost many of your orphanage family and you’ve survived the horrors of war by the grace of God and...by your own ingenuity.” He paused, perhaps giving Jack the time to understand that he was referring to his unorthodox use for a poem about an ancient mariner.

“But all that hasn’t made you immune to the harm this man intends to do you. This is not a situation you can handle alone. You must trust in God and in the people who care about you. You must wait here.”

But Jack was unwilling to do that. He abruptly stood.

“This isn’t right, Father.”

“No, Jeremiah, it isn’t. But it’s not you or I who are the wrongdoers.”

“I don’t want to hide here, and I don’t want to run away.”

“You haven’t been home in a long time. The war has changed things here and not for the better. Farrell Vance was—is—a profiteer. You don’t understand how far this man’s influence can reach. It is absolutely necessary for you to leave Lexington. I don’t think you can stay alive otherwise. It’s either be murdered by his henchmen or be hanged for defending yourself,” the priest said, slowly getting to his feet, as well.

They stared at each other, and Father Bartholomew gave a quiet sigh. “I don’t want to lose another one of my boys, Jeremiah.”

“I’m not a boy, Father.”

“No. But you still need to trust my judgment. I will return as soon as I can. Don’t let any of the others see you. We want them to be telling the truth if they have to say they haven’t seen you and don’t know where you are.” He walked to the door and opened it, and Jack realized that the old man was trying not to limp. The past four years hadn’t been kind to him.

“There are apples in the cupboard there,” Father Bartholomew said. “Eat one if you’re hungry. Put the rest in your pockets. And move over there—into that corner. If anyone opens the door looking for me, I don’t want them to see you.”

“Father, I don’t understand why you’re doing this—”

“I told you. I don’t want to lose another one of my boys, especially if there is something I can do to prevent it. You are innocent and you belong to all of us here,” he said. “That is enough for me.”

“Are you that sure I’m not guilty of what Elrissa accuses me of?”

The old priest gave a slight smile. “Guilty men don’t risk being caught in order to bring a fine catch of catfish to an orphanage kitchen, Jeremiah. At least not in my experience. Rest now while you can. I fear you will need it.”

Jack stood for a long moment after Father Bartholomew had gone. Then, despite the fact that he was no longer one of the elderly priest’s charges, he did as he was told. He ate an apple. He filled his pockets with some of the ones left in the basket. He sat on the floor behind the door so that no one who opened it would see him. He was so tired suddenly, and there was nothing to do but wait. He kept trying to sort out what must have happened after he left Elrissa, and he couldn’t. Despite her earlier comments and his struggle to keep her at bay, Elrissa didn’t in any way seem distraught when Mary saw her—and couldn’t Mary say that?

No. Ike was right. No one would take Mary’s word, not when she would be contradicting the wife of Farrell Vance. Whether he’d been here these past four years or not, he knew enough about the power of wealth to know that. He’d seen it every day in the dry goods store.

It was nearly dark when Father Bartholomew returned. He came in carrying a large basket, and he had Ike in tow. He immediately sent Ike to keep watch along the hallway and outside the building while he apprised Jack of the escape plan.

“The money you left in my keeping,” Father Bartholomew said, giving him a leather pouch. “I wouldn’t carry all of it in that, though. Times are hard and I imagine the roads are full of desperate and misguided souls who will try to take it from you.”

The priest had brought the haversack Jack had carried for the duration of the war, and he handed it to him. Jack had left it and the rest of what remained of his army equipment in the storage room in the visitors’ quarters at the back of the orphanage until he had need of it again. He hadn’t expected to require it quite so soon.

“The knapsack will be too conspicuous,” Father Bartholomew said as he took boiled eggs from the basket and handed them to him. And there was hardtack and beef jerky among the numerous small wrapped packets. The boiled eggs must have come from the orphanage kitchen, but Jack had no idea how the priest would have come by the army rations.

“One last thing,” Father Bartholomew said. “I seem to remember you had a great fondness for these.” Incredibly, he handed Jack several sticks of peppermint candy. “You do still like them?” he asked with the barest of smiles.

“I...don’t know,” Jack said truthfully. “It’s been a long time.”

“All the more enjoyable, then,” the priest said.

Jack shook his head. He was just short of being amused that Father Bartholomew would think peppermint sticks could make him feel better. Even so, he put the candy into his pocket.

“I don’t think you should head west,” Father Bartholomew said. “I believe Vance’s assassins will be expecting you to try for Louisville. Going south into Tennessee will be a better choice. Get to Knoxville and then head east into the mountains. It will be easier for you to get lost there and it is not a likely route since you’ve so soon come from the war. Farrell Vance is not going to think you would want to go back into that troubled land. Then, later, after he tires of looking for you, you might head farther south and by some circuitous route eventually make your way to St. Louis.”

“Father—”

“It would be better if we didn’t argue about this, Jeremiah. You haven’t the time.”

“I was only wondering,” Jack said. “You seem well versed in how to make a man disappear.”

“You aren’t my first fugitive, Jeremiah, and I sincerely doubt you’ll be my last. Now. I want to give you this, but don’t open it,” he said, handing Jack an envelope. “I’ve written down some things I want you to know, but this...wisdom, if you will, won’t be helpful to you now. You are still too raw. From the war. From your association with Elrissa Vance. I want you to wait before you read it. Wait until you are...content.”

“Content?” Jack said, thinking he hadn’t heard right.

“Contentment is one of life’s finer accomplishments, Jeremiah. You won’t understand what I’ve said unless you have it. Now. Ike is going to go with you to the edge of town. He’s hidden a horse for you in the cemetery. If you’re stopped, Ike will seem very drunk, and you will react to his inebriation accordingly.”

“Little Ike has never had a drop of liquor in his life,” Jack said.

“But he’s wearing a good dose of it on his clothing and he’s very good at mimicking its effects. I’m sorry to say it was something he saw in his own home far too often when he was a small boy. Once you’re out of the town, travel mostly at night and stay to yourself. And don’t look like you’re on the run. People are going to remember a horseman riding fast no matter what time of day it is. Now, you must hurry. I expect the watchmen to come and search the premises again tonight and I expect they will prevail upon the smaller children to tell what they know. I need to be on hand to calm them.”

Jack looked at him. Elrissa’s lie was more far-reaching than he had realized. “I’m sorry for all this, Father.”

“We must concern ourselves with what is, Jeremiah, and not become entangled in regrets, especially those over which we have no control. And we must keep a firm grasp on our hopes. My hope for you is a good, new life, one that begins this very minute.”

Father Bartholomew opened the door quietly and looked in both directions before he stepped out into the dark hallway. They moved quietly through the building toward the side door, cutting through the main dining hall as they went. Several votive candles in red holders burned on the mantelpiece, and Jack could see a long row of tin cups behind them. Thirty-seven of them; he knew how many without counting.

Thirty-seven.

“It was a great kindness to send us those, Jeremiah,” Father Bartholomew said when Jack stopped to look at them. “We keep them in a place of honor, and I believe our boys know we are remembering them.”

Did they? Jack thought. He had no idea. At the moment he had other things to worry about. If he were caught, his attempt to escape would only underline his already-presumed guilt.

He would just have to see to it that he wasn’t caught.

Ike waited by the side door, reeking of the O Be Joyful just as Father Bartholomew had said. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a sound they both mistook for cannonading for a brief moment. The wind was picking up and the trees on the grounds of the orphanage began to sway.

“A good storm will give you cover,” Father Bartholomew said. “Be watchful and Godspeed to you both.”

“Thank you, Father,” Jack said, offering the old man his hand. “This is twice now you’ve given me my life.”

“I believe it to be worth the effort,” Father Bartholomew said. “You’re a good man, Jeremiah. Sometimes in spite of yourself. Now go! Hurry!”

The rain came only moments after they’d left the grounds. Ike led the way, alert as he always was whenever the Orphans’ Guild—or one of its members—was in danger. He zigzagged through back lots and alleys Jack had never even seen before or didn’t recognize. It was taking twice the time it ordinarily would have to reach the old cemetery where the horse was supposed to be. As the thunder grew louder, Jack began to lose hope that it would still be there. Tied securely or not, horses didn’t wait well in a thunderstorm without a human in attendance, and even then it could be difficult.

“Wait,” Ike whispered when they were about to cross a street. His warning was well-timed. Two of the city’s watchmen were coming out of the narrow lane they intended to travel. They waited in the shadows until the men had passed.

“Now!” Ike whispered, and they began to run, the noise of their passing hidden in the sound of the rain and wind. “Not much farther—”

It took only minutes to reach the iron gates. Ike pulled one of them ajar. It creaked loudly, and they hurriedly took refuge behind an ornate but eroded angel-covered tombstone until they could be certain that no one had heard the sound.

“That way,” Ike said after a moment, and Jack followed him as best he could in the dark, stumbling several times over footstones along the way.

“I don’t see the horse,” Jack said.

“Over there—”

Jack still didn’t see it—and then he realized that Ike meant inside a nearby mausoleum, one he immediately recognized.

Ike laughed and slapped him on the back. “I knew you’d be thinking that horse was long gone. Ain’t, though, is it?”

“I’ll tell you after we actually find it,” Jack said, making Ike laugh harder.

But the horse was where Ike had left it. Dry and out of sight inside an ostentatious marble structure dedicated to the erstwhile Horne-Windham family. Jack remembered playing in the mausoleum when he was a boy. It was a good place to hide—except that Father Bartholomew always found him.

“Don’t reckon the Horne-Windhams ever expected a horse to be in here,” Ike said as he lit a candle stub he had in his pocket. He let some hot wax drip onto a narrow ledge and planted the candle firmly into it. The rain was barely audible inside the thick marble structure and the candle flickered in the draft from the entrance.

“They’re not the only ones,” Jack said, wiping the rain from his face and attempting to calm the horse because it had become unsettled by their sudden appearance.

Despite the animal, there was still enough room to get around. He looked at the many bronze plaques placed one above the other on the opposite marble wall and appearing to reach well above his head. “It’s a good thing there were so many of them.”

“Biggest marble box in the place. Here,” Ike said, bringing a small bundle out from under his coat.

“What is—?” Jack began, but then he recognized the weight and the feel of it.

“Things must be bad if Father Bartholomew is giving me a sidearm.” He turned the bundle over in his hands.

“He ain’t,” Ike said. “I am. It’s loaded so don’t go throwing it around and shoot the horse or something. Now all we got to do is get you out of here.”

Ike moved to the entranceway, alert and watchful as Jack led the horse forward.

“Ike,” Jack said. “I...don’t know how to thank you. I can’t ever repay you—”

“There ain’t but one way, Jack,” Ike said without looking at him. “Die in your own bed when you’re ninety—and don’t you ever come back here.”

“Ike, if—”

“Shh!” Ike said sharply. “Watchmen—I think it’s the same two.”

The horse, alarmed by the sudden tension in both men, began to toss its head and shift about.

“Easy,” Jack whispered, hanging on to the bridle. “Whoa! Easy!”

“Out the candle. I’m going to draw them away,” Ike said, slipping outside before Jack could stop him. Incredibly, as his footsteps faded into the darkness, Ike began to sing, a rousing song about a little chicken that wouldn’t lay an egg, the one he used to sing on the march to make the Orphans’ Guild perk up and laugh.

“O, I had a little chicky and he wouldn’t lay an egg...”

Jack waited, listening hard, but the storm was nearly overhead and the walls too thick for him to hear whatever it was Ike had heard. All he could do was stay put and try to keep the horse from bolting. His hands were beginning to shake, but he didn’t let go of the bridle. He leaned his head close to the animal’s nose and breathed evenly, quietly, until he could loosen his grip. Then he reached into his pocket and gave it a piece of the peppermint candy.

“All right,” he said to the horse after what seemed a long time. “In for a penny, in for whatever’s in that leather pouch.”

He moved to the doorway and stood for a moment, then led the horse outside. It was still raining, but the worst of the storm had passed. He couldn’t see or hear any activity in the cemetery.

He made sure his haversack was secure, then he mounted the horse and let it find its own way among the tombstones until he reached the road leading out of town. He knew better than to take it. He cut through more back lots and alleyways instead, hoping the watchmen would be more interested in staying dry than in obeying Farrell Vance. Eventually he found a part of the town he could still recognize even in a downpour. He cut across a field, careful to stay between the rows of corn and not leave an irate farmer in his wake. Heading into the mountains was a better plan than Father Bartholomew had realized. Jack had impulsively told Elrissa that he was heading out West, and it seemed likely that she would have told her husband.

In a very short time and through any number of plowed and planted fields, Jack had ridden beyond the Lexington town limits, but he stayed off the main road until he was certain he was beyond any watchmen assigned to monitor the comings and goings of nighttime travelers. It was still raining, and he stopped for a moment and listened to get his bearings. Then he crossed into yet another field and ultimately came out onto the road again. He headed for London, and he didn’t look back.

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