Among the Fair Magnolias Read online

  The housekeeper entered and set a tray containing a silver service and a plate of biscuits on a side table, then served each of them. The silver service was similar to what Savannah’s family had owned, but it wasn’t theirs. She and her mother had sold all of those niceties during the war and in the months following, to keep food on the table.

  “Thank you,” Savannah said softly when the housekeeper came to her. Famished, she helped herself to two biscuits. She had heard of the dry, tasteless fare served by their Northern neighbors, yet after taking a bite of a biscuit, she wished she could sit down to the entire plate. She ate the second and finished her tea.

  “Is this your first assignment, Miss Anderson?”

  Noting skepticism in Mr. Bedford’s voice, Savannah saw it in his face as well and gradually realized why he’d stayed. He’d mistaken her behavior upon first arriving for nervousness.

  The man thought her a novice.

  “No, sir.” She lifted her chin, taking more pleasure than she should have in setting him straight. “I’ve been employed at Miss Hattie’s for several years. I’m actually a master seamstress. I’m pleased to say that my draperies hang in some of the finest homes in Nashville, and I’ve also served as dressmaker to many of the mistresses of those homes. Should you require references, I’ll happily provide them.”

  He said nothing, only nodded. But his eyes hinted at a smile.

  “How long have you been in the home, Mr. Bedford?” Savannah asked, surprising herself. And him, too, judging by the furrow of his brow.

  “About a month now. Though I purchased the property last year.”

  She remembered hearing the painful news of that sale as though it were yesterday. “Why the delay in moving, sir?”

  He sipped his tea, eyeing her over the rim of the cup. “I had business to conclude in Boston. And upon first seeing the property and the house, I knew if I waited it would be gone.”

  “But what he apparently didn’t know”—Miss Sinclair rose from her place on the settee and walked to the front window—“was how dreadfully dated his new home was and how much it needed a sophisticated woman’s touch. Just look at these draperies.”

  Savannah did, and remembered sewing them with her mother before the war, nearly a decade ago now. They’d had such fun choosing the fabric together—a heavy rust brocade with flecks of silver that caught the light. Savannah had added the black piping and customized the elegant tie sash herself. Her first attempt on her own. Her mother had praised her for weeks.

  “Honestly.” Miss Sinclair scoffed, grasping the leading edge of the curtain between her thumb and forefinger as though it were the tail of a rat. She quickly let go and gave a shudder. “Who among us with a shred of taste would choose such a drab color?”

  “I like them.”

  Savannah’s gaze swung to Mr. Bedford. Guarded challenge lined his expression, and though she told herself not to allow it, she felt her opinion of the man softening the slightest bit.

  “You like them?” Miss Sinclair laughed. “Oh, my dear. You really must reserve your opinions for your clients and the courtroom and leave the redecorating to me.”

  “Which I will agree to do.” He returned his cup and saucer to the tray and reached for the portfolio on the table beside him. “With one repeated exception. Not the slightest alteration to my study.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AIDAN CRESTED THE HILL AND REINED IN THE STALLION, HIS breath coming hard. The thoroughbred pawed at the dirt, still wanting to run, but a firm hand persuaded him otherwise.

  Morning mist still ghosted the trees in breathy white, the delicate haze draped from the branches like Spanish moss. Aidan looked out over the countryside at the endless rise and fall of meadows and hills, so green and lush, then to the city of Nashville laying a handful of miles east. A world away from Boston.

  And a world he’d swiftly grown to love.

  He’d asked Priscilla last night to rise early and go riding with him, but she’d declined. She wasn’t overly fond of horses. Or of nature, come to think of it. He hadn’t asked twice. So . . .

  He stroked the thoroughbred’s neck. It was just him and Rondy.

  Aidan spotted his foreman in the field below. Just about that time Colter raised an arm in greeting, and Aidan returned the gesture. He felt fortunate to have found such an experienced man to run things. Because as knowledgeable as he was personally about the law, that’s how inexperienced he was with farming. His education at Harvard had prepared him for many things. But farming wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t Harvard’s fault; he’d chosen to concentrate on the law. But he was determined to learn now.

  Most of the attorneys he’d practiced with in Boston—and the attorneys here too—had their eyes on someday becoming a judge. He’d shared that aspiration at one time. But this was what he wanted now. Darby Farm, and to continue to practice law.

  No judgeship for him. Not anymore.

  He clucked his tongue, and the stallion set off at a trot. Aidan guided him down the hill and up another embankment. Their destination: his favorite spot on Darby Farm, just beyond the apple grove, and the reason he was all but certain this was the farm he’d been meant to find. He went to the meadow every chance he could to think and—

  Movement through the woods caught his eye, and he reined in. He leaned down to peer through the trees. Miss Anderson, hurrying along the road to the house. She was starting bright and early this morning, and only her third day on the job. She managed a pretty fair pace too.

  “She’d give you a run for your money, Rondy.” The stallion tossed his head.

  Upon first meeting the young woman, Aidan had gotten the distinct impression she didn’t care for him‚ which was fine. He wouldn’t have expected her to. After learning where he was from, most Southerners viewed him as death incarnate—only with greater dread and animosity.

  Smiling, he urged the blood horse on, hoping Priscilla wasn’t still abed. Then again, Mrs. Pruitt’s day was well underway. She would see Miss Anderson inside.

  He dismounted before reaching the meadow and looped Rondy’s reins around a branch. He stood for a moment, drinking in the hushed tranquility of the place, the beauty of the magnolias and the stalwart majesty of the oak and cedar standing guard. To his knowledge, this field had never been tilled, and he planned to keep it that way.

  An old cabin sat tucked among the trees a short distance away, and he set a path for it, the timeworn shanty already feeling like a trusted friend. As well it should, considering how he’d come to know about it.

  He’d learned a little about the Darby family since moving here. One of the founding families of Nashville, the Darbys were well respected—or had been. The latest Mr. Darby, the former owner, had been killed in the war. As had happened to so many of these properties following emancipation, the farm went bankrupt and was auctioned.

  That’s when he’d come along.

  He’d struggled at first with buying someone else’s land and home at auction, imagining what heartache had preceded that event. And yet, someone would buy the place. And he’d paid a fair price as foreclosure and auction prices went.

  He might well be pulling the wool over his own eyes, thinking his situation was any different, but he really did want to restore the place—the farm, the house—to what it had been. Only better this time.

  Because they were on this side of the war.

  The cabin lay just ahead, leaning slightly to one side as though resting on its elbow, and the trickling melody of the stream, just a stone’s throw beyond, worked to soothe the restlessness that was his near constant companion these days.

  He peered through the window opening and caught sight of a squirrel scurrying across the remnants of the old stone hearth. What must it have been like to be in this very place when Nashville was founded nearly a hundred years ago? And what would this spot be like a hundred years hence? He’d be long gone by then. And what would he have left behind? What would he and Priscilla have left behind?

&
nbsp; There were times, like now, when he wondered why he’d asked her to marry him. And—though this did little for his ego—why she’d said yes.

  These questions, and others, stirred inside him. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the split-log sill of the window, and found his thoughts drawn back to that field in North Carolina so many years ago. The soldier’s voice was as clear in his memory as was the warble of the mockingbird in the tree above.

  “If you’ve never seen the sun rise over the Tennessee hills, the city set off to the east, with the fog still clinging to the trees and the air so fresh from heaven . . . then you’ve never seen a sunrise. And my mama’s peach cobbler? Oh, sweet Jesus, let me live to taste that again. That’s the best stuff around, Boston. Better than anything you bluecoats got up there where you live.”

  He’d known the Confederate soldier only as “Nashville.” That was one of the rules. No names exchanged. They went by their hometowns instead and talked about everything but the war. They traded newspapers and childhoods, shared pictures of sweethearts, and the rebels always wanted to barter for tobacco. Either that or shoes.

  If someone had told him when he’d first put on his uniform that, come one summer afternoon, as opposing generals met on opposite hills to decide how best to kill Johnny Rebs and bluecoats, he’d lay down his rifle, kick back in a field, and “jaw” with the enemy, as Nashville had called it, he wouldn’t have believed it. But that afternoon, as well as what happened a handful of hours later, had changed his life in ways the Confederate soldier couldn’t have known. And that he himself had never dreamed.

  Nashville had painted a picture of this setting that still resonated within him.

  “There’s a meadow a ways from the house, where my grandparents first lived. It’s everything that’s best about this world, Boston. The trees, the stream, the way the sun falls across the land. Such a peacefulness to it. Not like the upside-downness of the world we’re in right now.” Nashville had smiled, a gesture that seemed to come as easily to him as breathing. “Sometimes I go there in my mind . . . and I feel finer than a frog’s hair split four ways.”

  The snap of a twig brought Aidan’s head up, and—the memory settling back inside him—he saw her again through the window on the other side of the cabin. Miss Anderson was picking her way through the trees, headed straight for him. But he didn’t think she’d spotted him yet.

  Curious as to how she’d found this place, he was surprised to discover he was glad she had. He waited until she got closer.

  “Miss Anderson,” he said softly. But despite his best intentions, she sucked in a breath.

  “Mr. Bedford.” She looked around. “W-what are you doing here?”

  He laughed, finding her question a bit odd, considering the place was his. And by the blush that crept into her cheeks, he could tell she swiftly came to a similar conclusion.

  “I come here quite often, Miss Anderson.” His gaze traveled to the meadow, then the stream, then wove a path through the pines back to her. “It’s a sort of . . . haven, I guess you could say.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she frowned. “A haven. From what?”

  The thinnest sliver of incredulity slipped past her polite tone, and from her perspective he couldn’t say he blamed her. He didn’t know her personal circumstances, but what he did know was that, compared to the majority of people in this city who were still putting their lives back together even five years after the war had ended, he had so much more than most. So through this woman’s eyes, what did he have to complain about? Much less seek a haven from?

  Yet he’d learned long ago that a man could have everything he needed to be considered successful while still feeling as though he lacked what was most important and precious.

  Because . . . that described him.

  How much he’d like to honestly answer her question, to talk to someone about all that was on his mind, including the frustrations roiling inside him. But he took present company into account and knew that was impossible. Not only did he not know this woman, but she was, in effect, working for him. At least temporarily. In addition, he was betrothed.

  He should be sharing all these things with Priscilla. Only, hard as it was to admit, she was perhaps his greatest frustration. And even with all the other concerns he could discuss with Priscilla, he didn’t completely trust her to understand them, much less be interested enough to listen.

  Which was a rather disturbing realization, considering he’d be spending the rest of his life with her.

  Aware of Miss Anderson awaiting his response, he took in the beauty and peacefulness of their surroundings and settled upon one he could safely give her. “A haven from everything in the world that is not this.”

  She held his gaze, and he could see her mind working, weighing, trying to decide whether he be friend or foe. Then the tiniest smile tipped one side of her mouth, shy, though not coy in the least. Nothing about this woman seemed false.

  On the contrary, even on first impression, she seemed authentic and kindhearted—and so much like a young woman Nashville had described as his sweetheart.

  “But if everything in the world were such as this,” she said softly, “where would the longing for heaven be?”

  The words left her lips like a feather on the breeze, and Aidan found it impossible not to stare at her. The woman was a mystery. Master seamstress, fluent in French, patient beyond what any creature without wings should be, and now this. Wisdom and humility wrapped up in all that beauty.

  The moment he’d opened the door and seen her standing there that first day, he’d thought her lovely. It hadn’t been a consciously formed opinion, rather something he’d simply known upon looking at her. Which he was doing now, likely in a manner he oughtn’t.

  For though he’d thought her attractive before, he’d not seen her lips as so kissable. Or the slender column of her throat so inviting. She had a quiet strength about her, a strength wrapped in softness, that—

  She blinked and looked away, and the moment shuddered and skipped like a pendulum jarred mid-swing.

  “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I need to be—”

  “Miss Anderson,” Aidan said quickly, not wanting her to go, yet knowing it was best if she did. He also knew he was responsible for this, even as he told himself this had been nothing. He’d only been appreciating her beauty. But seeing how she was looking at him now—gaze wide, watchful—and feeling the pounding of his pulse, even he couldn’t believe his own lie. “Thank you . . . for sharing what you did.”

  He grappled with what to say next that might somehow make the moment less awkward, or—

  “Thank you, Mr. Bedford.” Uncertainty faded from her gaze and warmth took its place. “For reminding me of why, at least in part, this world is the way it is.”

  Aidan watched her go, the gentle sway of her hips drawing his eye. Finally, with a sigh—both regretting and enjoying her retreat—he purposefully dragged his gaze back to the meadow.

  He’d been so certain, when first seeing this place, that he’d found Nashville’s farm, that he’d bought it. But since moving to this city he’d seen at least a dozen other arthritic, old cabins situated just beyond the setting of a farmhouse similar to this one, each staring back at him as though mocking his unaccustomed sentimentality. Though none of the settings was quite so beautiful as this one.

  He ran a hand over a hewn log of the cabin and felt the roughness of time beneath his palm, almost as if the passage of lives lived out day by day within these walls had left a physical mark on the place. One he could feel both with his hand and his heart.

  He’d likely never be certain where Nashville had lived, but he was determined to live with more of the gratitude and zest for life that Nashville had shown him. Even in so brief a time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NOTHING HAD HAPPENED. NOTHING HAD HAPPENED.

  The phrase echoing in her head, Savannah gathered the swatches along with her notebook and hurried from the central parlor to the sitting room
where Miss Sinclair waited. But no matter how many times she tried to convince herself, it didn’t change the intimate turn her thoughts had taken yesterday as she’d stood there staring at Aidan Bedford.

  This woman’s future husband.

  She didn’t know what had come over her. Embarrassing didn’t begin to describe it. Yes, the man was attractive, but she’d seen attractive men before. No, there was something else about him. Something unexpected, deeper than she’d first thought was there. And kinder. And it had drawn her in.

  The way he’d gazed upon the land reflected her own love for its beauty and—

  “Miss Anderson.”

  Savannah’s head came up. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Miss Sinclair frowned. “Are you well? You seem . . . preoccupied today.”

  “No, Miss Sinclair. I mean, yes. I’m feeling quite well.” Or had been until she remembered how Mr. Bedford had done his best to try to set her at ease after she’d stood there practically ogling the man. Reliving the moment sent heat coursing through her. Though not warmth of a pleasurable nature—like yesterday.

  Thankfully, she hadn’t seen him since.

  Now if she could only manage to sew every new set of draperies in the house and install them before he got home today, she could leave here, never come back, and everything would be fine.

  But everything wouldn’t be fine. Because she was no closer to fulfilling her main reason for being here: finding the box her father had hidden. So she’d simply make it a point to see him as little as possible, which could prove to be a challenge since this was his—

  “Miss Anderson.”

  Savannah refocused and swiftly gathered from Miss Sinclair’s irritated expression that the woman had asked her a question. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Would you mind saying that again, please?”

  Miss Sinclair sighed, then repeated the question slowly, as though addressing a halfwit. “What do you think about my newest purchase?”

  Only then did Savannah see the very interesting portrait by which the woman stood. The hopeful anticipation in Miss Sinclair’s features clearly conveyed what she wanted Savannah to say. Although Savannah was at a loss as to how to exile thoughts of kissing the woman’s fiancée, she did know how to handle this particular question. And with complete honesty. Years of experience decorating for eccentric personalities had prepared her well.