An Unexpected Wife

“Whether she welcomes it or not isn’t important. Taking care of Robert Markham now that he has returned from the dead, is. I won’t see him hauled off to your military infirmary, and this young woman is of no use whatsoever that I can see.”

Kate opened her mouth to respond to the remark, but Perkins cleared his throat sharply and gave her a hard look. His sergeant major look. Again. She suddenly understood what he had been trying to tell her earlier. Neither she nor her tender feelings mattered in this situation. Maintaining her brother’s authority and his rapport with the townspeople did.

Very well, then.

She stepped around him into the hallway. If she was going to preserve Max’s peace treaties, she’d have to get herself well away from this overbearing woman.

Honestly! she nearly said aloud. As she recalled, even Maria found the Kinnard woman hard going.

Robert Markham—if Mrs. Kinnard’s identification could be trusted—still lay on the cold floor. The hospital orderly had lifted him slightly and was pouring brandy down his throat with all the skill of a man who had performed the treatment many times. Robert Markham eventually swallowed, coughed a time or two, but still did not wake.

“Miss Woodard!” Mrs. Kinnard said sharply behind her, making her jump. She closed her eyes for a moment before she turned around.

“Yes?” Kate said as politely as she could manage.

“We will put Robert in his old room,” the woman said. “We have no idea what his mental state will be when he fully awakens. He needs to be in familiar surroundings. The bed must be stripped, new sheets put upon it—I’m sure Maria uses lavender sachet just as her dear mother did and he will no doubt recall that. And then the bed must be warmed and kept warm.”

“The orderlies here will see to all that. Just tell them what you need, ma’am,” Perkins said on his way out. “His old room is off the upstairs porch, Miss Kate. On the left.”

And how in the world did Perkins know that? she wondered. It suddenly occurred to her that his room was also the one she was using—not that that would matter to Mrs. Kinnard. The woman had spoken, and Maria’s brother was in need.

“Flannel,” Mrs. Kinnard said, looking at Kate.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Flannel. We need flannel to wrap the heated bricks—you are heating bricks?” she said, looking at Kate hard.

“Yes, ma’am,” one of the orderlies said for her. “The oven’s full of them.”

Undeterred, Mrs. Kinnard continued to look at Kate, now with raised eyebrows.

“I’ll...see if I can find...some,” Kate said, heading for the stairs.

Perkins hadn’t left the house yet.

“Now try not to undo all your brother’s hard work,” he said quietly so Mrs. Kinnard wouldn’t hear him. “He’s finally got that old bat and her daughter where they don’t set out to cripple everything he tries to do—and that’s saying a lot. She’s a mean old cuss and don’t you go yanking her chain.”

Kate sighed instead of answering.

“I’m telling you,” Perkins said.

“I don’t yank chains, Sergeant Major.”

“Maybe not, but the Colonel says you are a strong woman, and it’s my experience that strong women don’t put up with much. This time it’s important that you do, Miss Kate.”

“Yes. All right. I’ll...behave.”

Easier said than done, she thought as he went out the door, but she was willing to try. She went upstairs and looked through the cedar chests, but there was no flannel in any of them. In an effort not to have to tell Mrs. Kinnard that, she went down the back stairs to the kitchen, hoping that flannel for hot bricks, if she just thought about it logically, might be found there.

Somewhere.

She found them at last in the pantry on a top shelf, a whole basketful of double-thickness, hand-sewn flannel bags she concluded were the right size to hold a brick, hot or otherwise. She gave them to the soldier manning the cookstove, then ended up holding the bags open so he could drop a hot brick inside—once he stopped protesting her offer of help.

“Mrs. Kinnard,” she said simply, and he immediately acquiesced.

When the job was done, there was nothing else required of her beyond standing around and letting the Kinnard woman use her for target practice. She had intended to get the bed linens for what had only moments before been her bed, but apparently one of the hospital orderlies—Bruno—knew more about where the sheets and bedding were kept than she did.

She went upstairs again, intending to remove what few belongings she still had in the room—yet another consideration that had escaped her attention when she’d made her bold decision to miss the train and stay behind. Most of her clothes had been packed up in her travel trunk and were by now well on their way to Philadelphia.

But she couldn’t get into the room. It was full of soldiers trying to stay ahead of Mrs. Kinnard.

“There’s a fire in old Mr. Markham’s sitting room, Miss Woodard,” one of them said. “You might be more comfortable in there.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said, more than grateful for any suggestion that would keep her out of Mrs. Kinnard’s way—for a while at least. But she could already hear the woman coming up the stairs, and she hurried away.

“The things I do for you, Max Woodard,” she said under her breath. She was as intimidated as that young lieutenant who was supposed to see her safely to Philadelphia.

She slipped inside the sitting room and firmly closed the door, then thought better of it and left it slightly ajar. She didn’t want Mrs. Kinnard sneaking up on her—not that the woman was given to anything resembling stealth. She was much more the charge-the-front-gates type.

A fire in the fireplace was indeed burning brightly. She savored the warmth for a moment, then moved to the nearest window and looked out. It was too dark to see anything but her reflection in the wavy glass.

Is that what a “strong woman” looks like?

She couldn’t believe Max had described her in that way. She didn’t feel strong. If anything, she felt...unfinished. What am I supposed to be doing? she wondered, the question stark and real in her mind and intended for no one. Clearly it wasn’t going to be spending time alone thinking of her lost child.

Brooding.

Is that what she had actually planned to do? Perhaps, she thought, but she had never inflicted her unhappiness on anyone else, at least not consciously. To do so would have resulted in the decision to send her away—for her own good—and as a result, she would have had no contact with her son at all. She had worked hard to seem at least content with her life, so much so that she had nothing left over to nurture her better self. She always went to church, here and in Philadelphia, but the gesture was empty somehow. She felt so far away from anything spiritual and had for a long time. She still prayed for the people she loved, especially for Harrison. She had asked for God’s blessing on him every night since he’d been born. But she never prayed for herself, and she had never asked for forgiveness. When she looked at Harrison, at what a fine young man he was becoming, she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it. She might be a sinner, but he wasn’t a sin.

Perhaps this was what living a lie did to a person—kept them feeling unworthy to speak to God. The best that could be said of her was that she had endured. Day after day. Year after year. In that context, she supposed Max was right. She was a strong woman.

She could hear the soft whisper of the snow against the windowpane. How much more pleasant the sound was when there was a warm fire crackling on the hearth behind her.

Is it snowing where you are, my dear Harrison? Are you warm and safe?

No, she thought again. She wasn’t going to think about him now. She would wait until later. Until...

She couldn’t say when. She gave a heavy sigh and looked around the room. It was no longer a combination sickroom, sitting room and library, but more a place to escape the domestic chaos of a household full of little boys. Even when Maria’s ailing father had occupied it, it had been a pleasant place to be, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, comfortable upholstered rocking chairs and windows that looked out over the flower and herb garden. She’d come in here often the first time she’d visited Max, shortly before he married Maria. Then the room had been a kind of special sanctuary, a place where old Mr. Markham had held court for the community and the conquering army alike, despite his doctor’s orders. He’d been a witty and delightful man who’d enjoyed company—her company in particular, it had seemed—and she’d liked him very much. He’d been quite cunning, as well. He’d done his best to recruit her to bring him some forbidden cigars, and failing at that, it still hadn’t taken him long to steer her into revealing all her misgivings about her brother’s upcoming marriage to Mr. Markham’s only daughter—some of which he harbored, as well.

She suddenly smiled to herself, thinking of Max and Maria and how suited they were to each other. “We were wrong to worry so, weren’t we, Mr. Markham?” she whispered.

Or so she hoped. The chaos in Max’s house tonight was of a completely different kind, the kind that had precipitated heavy footsteps and loud men’s voices, Mrs. Kinnard barking orders like a sergeant major and some kind of commotion involving pots and pans in the kitchen. The house was annoyingly alive, and all because of the man who had collapsed in the downstairs hallway. If he was indeed Maria’s brother, then it was no wonder he’d questioned Kate’s presence here. He must have believed the house was still his home.

Where has he been? she wondered. And why did he stay away? She tried to imagine how she would have felt if Max had left her and their parents believing he was dead and grieving for him for years.

Kate suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone. A woman carrying a heavy-laden tray stood tentatively at the doorway.

“I— Am I interrupting?” the woman asked.