Among the Fair Magnolias Read online

  But the one thing she’d wanted to find most still remained hidden. She’d looked everywhere she could possibly think of for the box. It simply wasn’t here. She would’ve found it if it was.

  “Is it strange, Savannah?” Freddie asked, packing up his tools, folding up his ladder. “Being back here?”

  “Yes,” she answered readily. “A little. But . . . it’s also been very nice.”

  He nodded.

  “Freddie.”

  The boy turned at the door.

  “Thank you for keeping this—my working here—between us for now. I’ll tell Andrew and Carolyne after the job is finished.”

  He looked around the room, his features sobering. “It’s been kind of sad for me. Being back in the house, ma’am. Makes me think of your brothers. And your papa.”

  “I know.”

  He sighed, then smiled in parting.

  Savannah saw him to the door, then closed it behind him and turned and stared at the house. The house that would soon belong to Miss Priscilla Sinclair . . . Bedford. She sighed, feeling in the act a loosening inside herself. She’d surrendered this house to the Lord so many times. How many would it take before her heart finally let go?

  She didn’t know. She just prayed the Lord would give her a peace about it. Someday.

  The grandfather clock chimed on the hour, four long-lasting strokes, each echoing throughout the home as the comforting timbre had for years past and likely would for many years to come. Unexpected tears rose at the sound and the thought. The clock had passed from her maternal grandfather to her mother, and even though he and her mother had never reconciled that Savannah knew of, she thought it said something that her mother had kept the clock in the main foyer all those years, faithfully wound, its large brass pendulum swinging back and forth over the wide base, its movement sustained by weights as it marked the passage of time.

  She followed the pendulum’s sway. Slowly, her gaze moved downward to the ornately carved base where her grandfather, a gifted craftsman in his day, had sculpted magnolias, her grandmother’s favorite flower, in the wood along the bottom.

  And as the last note of the chimes faded, Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “But know that this was far more than a simple gesture on your father’s part. It was an olive branch intended to heal, and I pray its roots spread deep and wide through our family.”

  The beat of her heart bumping up a notch, she recalled the words her father had written, and she crossed the foyer, knelt, and ran a hand along the base of the clock.

  The piece was so heavy. There was no moving it.

  She reached underneath but felt only cobwebs. She quickly withdrew her hand, thinking of Aidan and how he’d made her laugh that day he’d caught her snooping in her old bedroom.

  She peered inside through the glass front, then stood and reached for the key on top where they’d always kept it. Her fingertips first to deliver the good news, she grasped the key and, hands trembling, unlocked the door. She knelt again and felt along the inside bottom of the clock. Then she rapped on the wood.

  The hollow echo caused her pulse to race.

  Quickly she retrieved her sewing scissors from the central parlor and slid a narrow point down along the inside edge . . . and felt the wood along the bottom give way. Her breath coming in short, shallow gasps, she pried open the false bottom and there—her throat ached at the sight of it—was a cigar box, her father’s favorite brand.

  She took out the wooden box and reverently opened the lid, thinking of how one of her parents had been the last one to close it. The first thing she saw was her maternal grandfather’s pocketknife, its handle inlaid with ivory. Then her grandmother’s wedding ring, a simple gold band, one side nearly worn clean through. But the band with the companion diamond was gone, no doubt having been sold to help pay the taxes as they’d slipped further into debt.

  She fingered an old money clip she remembered from her paternal grandfather. A poor excuse for one—she smiled—as the clip had obviously failed to do a very good job.

  No money was left in the box. But sundry other treasures were. Among them lay a thimble she recognized as her mother’s, a hair clip she thought had belonged to her maternal grandmother but couldn’t be sure, and a tiny pearl button, all on its lonesome, perfectly lovely, but whose story was likely forever lost. There was also a sketched likeness of her mother’s mother and father, very much like them too. Or at least as Savannah remembered them.

  She turned the drawing over, hoping there might be a date. And there was: April sixth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, and a scripture reference below it: Deuteronomy 29:29.

  Savannah frowned. The date made no sense since it was nearly seven years after her grandparents’ deaths. And the scripture reference . . . She hated to admit, if only to the Lord and herself, that Deuteronomy was not a book of the Bible to which she often went for comfort or daily reading. So she had no idea what the scripture said. She’d have to look it up.

  Beneath that picture was a photograph that took her breath away. She hadn’t seen it in years. It was one of the family taken just before the war. She remembered her mother insisting they have it done. A photographer had set up a studio in town, so they’d all dressed in their Sunday best and sat for the photograph. How hard it had been for Andrew, a toddler at the time, to stay motionless for so long. And how tiny Carolyne had been, just a baby. Savannah smiled, remembering how Jake had bribed Andrew with the promise of candy and one of his stories.

  Her gaze moved over the faces of her precious family. Jake and Adam looked so young. So handsome. She took a deep breath. Nearly a decade ago now. And what change the decade had brought.

  She continued looking through the box. And there, at the bottom, was a slip of paper.

  She carefully withdrew it, noting its heavier feel—like fine stationery, only without the deckled edge. The set type bleeding through from the other side of the page lent resemblance to a legal document, but even as she unfolded it, she knew whatever it said was too little, too late. Everything had already been legally sold at auction. The land, the house, the belongings.

  And yet . . . Her gaze scanned the page, and she felt a frown forming. A deed. From her maternal grandfather.

  The sunlight faded, and she moved the page toward the light. But just as quickly, the sun shifted again. And she realized . . .

  It wasn’t the sun. It was Aidan’s shadow, and he was staring down at her, a most quizzical look on his handsome face.

  “And what have we here . . . Miss Darby?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MISS DARBY?

  Savannah scrambled to her feet, nearly dropping the cigar box and sending its contents racing for cover. Heart pounding, she took a cautious step backward. “H-how long have you known?”

  His smile came slowly, deliberately. “I first suspected two weeks ago when I met your younger brother.”

  She nearly choked. “You . . . met Andrew?”

  “I did. Nice young man. Hard worker too. A few discreet inquiries later . . .” He gave a one-shouldered shrug that was definitely male. “And my suspicions were confirmed.”

  Andrew hadn’t said a word to her about meeting Mr. Bedford. But then, why would he? Andrew didn’t know she was working for the man.

  Mr. Bedford looked at the box in her hands, then at the clock and back at her again.

  “I can explain,” she said quickly, hoping she could do so to his satisfaction. “But first . . . I didn’t tell you who I was because I feared it would make the situation uncomfortable and then I might lose the assignment. And I need this job, Mr. Bedford.” Reading questions in his features, she rushed to continue. “On that first morning, I did try to tell you and your fiancée, Miss Sinclair, that my coworker had taken ill and that—”

  “I believe you mean my former fiancée, Miss Darby.”

  Caught midsentence and completely off guard, Savannah moved her mouth, but no words came. And then, “I-I don’t understand.”

  The smile
in his gray eyes deepened. “Miss Sinclair and I are no longer engaged, Miss Darby. It was a . . . mutual parting of the ways. When she left for Boston.”

  The gleam that moved in behind his eyes did anything but set her at ease. On the contrary, it set her pulse racing, as did the meaning of what he was telling her. She shook her head. “So . . . you’re not—”

  “No. I most certainly am not.”

  She took a quick breath and felt the tug of a smile, then just as quickly banished it, realizing how inappropriate the reaction was. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Bedford.”

  “Are you?”

  His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth, and her heart vaulted from her chest to her throat. She smiled again. She couldn’t help it. And the telling flicker of his response, similar to hers, only encouraged it. The subtlety of the exchange was potent. Even intoxicating.

  “Now . . .” He glanced at the box. “Might you explain what you have here?”

  Having all but forgotten about it, she nodded. “Of course. And please know that I realize everything in this box belongs to you now. You are, after all, the rightful owner of Darby Farm.”

  “Your home,” he said softly.

  “My former home,” she whispered, then looked at the box and the pieces of her life it held. “Before my father died, he wrote my mother a letter and referenced something he’d hidden here in the house.”

  She explained it all to him, sharing parts of the letter from memory, even sharing how she and her friend, Maggie, had tried to find a way to sneak into the house last summer. “But there were no open doors or windows. No way to get inside without breaking something. Which . . . I knew was wrong.”

  As she spoke, she watched the curiosity in his expression give way to disbelief and surprise, then—as she told him about the items in the box—to an emotion that moved her so deeply she could barely finish her story. “I realized, again, that this isn’t my home anymore. And that I needed to accept it.”

  “So . . .” He looked at her with a knowing gaze. “Those times I walked in and found you cleaning . . .”

  She blushed and glanced away. “I was searching for this.” She relinquished the box, their hands touching briefly in the exchange. The warmth of his felt so familiar somehow. “And there are treasures inside. Though none of great monetary value, I’m afraid.”

  He said nothing for a moment, then lifted the piece of paper. “And this?”

  “It’s a deed. From my grandfather. But it’s obsolete now. Everything that belonged to the farm—my family’s land, the house, what belongings remained—was included in the auction to cover the taxes.”

  As he read the document, his eyes narrowed. “And you found this just now?”

  She nodded. “In the bottom of the clock.” She laughed softly. “No telling how many times I’ve passed right by it. Both before we lost the house and again since I’ve been here. I was standing here in the hallway awhile ago and the clock chimed and . . . I don’t know. It drew me somehow. Almost as if the box wanted to be found.”

  He looked at her again, but this time his expression was absent the gleam from before, yet held an intensity all the same. “Are you the oldest living child of Merle and Melna Darby?”

  Authority edged his voice, and she could well imagine him in a court of law. “Yes,” she whispered, “I am.”

  He smiled as though recalling a joke, though not an altogether funny one. “Then you, Miss Darby, are the legal owner of a portion of land on this farm. If this deed proves valid, which I have every reason to believe it will.”

  She searched his expression, then the deed when he handed it back to her, not following. Her gaze went to the description of the property. “The original land purchased by Wesley Tripp . . .” She looked up.

  “The meadow,” he said softly. “And the cabin. That’s the plot of land that belonged to your grandparents. Isn’t it?”

  She briefly closed her eyes. “Yes, but . . . This can’t be right. Everything was sold in the—”

  “Property can only be sold by the legal owner. Which appears to be you, Miss Darby. This deed, dated September nineteenth, eighteen hundred fifty-four, supersedes the one I have. So it seems you own a portion of my land. Or what was my land.”

  Contrary to what she would have thought, his voice held a warmth that hinted at pleasure. And the smile she’d felt before returned, but not to her face. She felt it solely on the inside this time, as though the veil between this world and the next lifted ever so slightly, and Eternity whispered to her that she wasn’t alone. God heard her. He saw her. He was leading her, every step of the way.

  Still, she couldn’t fathom that a part of Darby Farm was hers. Then it occurred to her. “The oldest living child,” she said, voice weak. Jake. Her grandfather had intended for that land to go to him.

  Aidan Bedford lifted a hand to her face and wiped away a tear she hadn’t realized she’d shed, and his fingers lingered there, cradling her cheek. Her breath quickened, and she didn’t know whether she moved closer or he did, but suddenly there was very little space between them. And she liked it that way.

  “That land is what led me to Darby Farm.” He fingered a strand of her hair. “It’s what led me to you.”

  “Led you to me?” she whispered, again trying to follow and yet not. She didn’t know how it was possible, but staring at his mouth, she could almost feel his lips on hers. “That land has always been my . . . favorite place.” Her voice caught. “That’s why you saw me there that day. Being there helps me to feel my family’s love and . . . to remember I’m not alone.”

  “Savannah Darby,” he whispered, tipping her chin upward. “It’s nice to finally, formally, make your acquaintance.”

  “Likewise, Aidan Bed—”

  He kissed her full on the mouth, a touch of mint on his breath. His lips were gentle at the start, then gained insistence. His hand moved to cradle the nape of her neck, and he deepened the kiss. She felt the delicious sensation all the way to the tips of her toes and back. But too soon, he broke the kiss and drew back slightly.

  “Since I’m assuming you won’t be open to selling your land, Miss Darby, I’m wondering if we might work out another arrangement.”

  All the warm places inside her warmed even more. Remembering how Jake had held a straight face longer than anyone she knew, she did her best to keep her humor in check. “And just what kind of arrangement are you referring to, Counselor?”

  He smiled, then set aside the box and deed and took her in his arms. He kissed her again and cradled her face in his hands. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve thought about you? How much I’ve wanted to be with you? Ever since that day I saw you in the meadow. Ever since you said that to me.” He briefly closed his eyes. “ ‘But if everything in the world were such as this, where would the longing for heaven be?’ ” He kissed her again, slower this time, as though savoring her as she was him. “I’ll do my best to make this house your home again, Savannah. The same for Andrew and Carolyne.”

  She peered up, eyeing him. “You know about Carolyne too?”

  “I’ve been doing my homework.” He broke into a grin. “We’re already well on our way to filling this house with children, Savannah.”

  Her cheeks flamed, but she smiled. “I’m afraid we Southerners don’t speak so openly of such matters . . . Aidan.” She spoke his given name softly, and his eyes warmed.

  “I’ll do my best to remember that.” He reached for her hand and entwined his fingers through hers. “And I’ll do my best to make you happy.”

  “No need to worry on that count. I’m finer than a frog’s hair split four ways.” Seeing the surprise on his face, then how his smile faltered, she laughed. “That’s something Jake, my oldest brother, used to say. He was always making us laugh.” She briefly bowed her head. “He was killed in the war.”

  “Your brother,” he whispered.

  An urgency in his voice brought her head up. His eyes had gained a sheen—and a seriousness that l
eveled the emotion in the room.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “Only one other person I’ve known has ever used that phrase.” He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening. “Where did your brother die, Savannah?”

  She searched his eyes. “Near Charlotte, North Carolina. Why?”

  He exhaled.

  When he didn’t answer, she retrieved the family photograph from the box and pointed to Jake. “You would have liked him, Aidan. And he, you.”

  He took the picture from her, his hand shaking, and stared at it for the longest time, then looked at her. “I knew him, Savannah,” he whispered, voice hoarse with emotion. “I knew your brother. We—” He took a breath. “We met in a field one day. Between battles.” He stared at the picture. “He spoke with such love of his home and family. It made me want what he had. He’s why I’m here. We were on opposite sides of a bitter war, but . . . we were friends. However briefly.”

  Her chest aching, Savannah gripped his hand, unable to speak.

  “I saw him get shot. I ran to him, but”—he shook his head—“there was nothing I could do. He died right there . . . in my arms. I closed his eyes, but . . . I swear I saw heaven in those eyes before he passed. Along with a peace I knew I wanted in my own life. And found . . . soon after.”

  As Aidan stared at the image of her brother’s face in the photograph, all she could picture was Jake’s sparkling smile, his laughter. And him lying there on the battlefield in those final moments. “He didn’t die alone,” she whispered, searching Aidan’s eyes, remembering how many times she’d prayed for that very thing. For both her brothers and her father. “You were with him.” She smiled through tears. “At the very last . . . he wasn’t alone.”

  A faint smile tipped Aidan’s mouth. “ ‘Finer than a frog’s hair split four ways.’ Your brother had a unique way of phrasing things. And his love for his family and this land . . . it’s what brought me here.”