The Memory House

“I beg to differ, considering I have two sisters with sharp minds and sharper tongues and a mother who runs the local temperance league and is an outspoken abolitionist. Father has given up trying to contain them.”

At last, she smiled, and Will realized he’d been waiting for that glimpse of sunshine. “My father is a vicar, an ardent student of both philosophy and scripture. Unfortunately, my mother showed no interest in his rather lengthy dissertations on the human condition. I, on the other hand, enjoyed them and was allowed to read widely and speak my mind. Perhaps too much, as I have learned since coming to America.”

Ah, that explained a great deal. “How did a British vicar’s daughter come to marry a Tennessee farmer?”

He was going too far, asking questions that pushed into her private affairs, and yet for the life of him he could not stop. He wanted to know everything about her. If he told himself his reasons were for the good of his army, there was truth in the lie. Until he knew her well, he could not be assured of his men’s safety. But the rest was pure self-interest. He admired Charlotte Portland.

If his question offended her, she gave no indication. Rather, she laughed. “In the usual manner, I’m sure. Tell me, Captain, are you a married man?”

“No woman will have me,” he said in jest, and yet the stab of betrayal was anything but amusing. A man who’d loved and lost did not take such things lightly.

“Doubtful, sir.”

“And why is that?” he asked, amused, intrigued, interested.

She smiled again, the light merry in her eyes. She was enjoying their little spar, as was he. “Are you fishing for a compliment, Captain?”

“Do you have one for me?”

One pretty eyebrow twitched upward as she tilted her head, moving a smidgen closer, enough that he felt the rise in his pulse.

Voice light and teasing, she said, “Perhaps, I do.”

How charming, he thought. Charming, lovely and good.

Will leaned forward, tempted to touch the feminine fingers that draped over the edge of the desk and eager to know what she thought of him as a man. To feel the softness of womanly skin, something he hadn’t touched in so long the void was an ache as strong as hunger. Charlotte was all the good things he appreciated in a woman. Edgar Portland was a very fortunate man.

Suddenly, he caught himself.

He had no right sharing such a lively and intimate conversation with a married woman. He had less right to touch her—even if that woman’s husband had embarrassed and abandoned her.

Abruptly, he stood. “Begging your pardon, Mrs. Portland. I’ve overstayed. I must see to my duties.”

“Is something wrong?” She stood with him, bewildered by his sudden change in behavior, for she couldn’t know the turmoil churning beneath his rib cage. And he certainly couldn’t tell her that he was attracted to her, man to woman, and would like nothing better than to take the weight of worry off her shoulders. Indeed, to wrap those slender shoulders in his arms and draw her close to his heart with a promise that all would be well.

“Thank you for the coffee.” He refrained from taking her hand though he wanted to badly. A touch might prove too dangerous. “I’ve enjoyed our discussion.”

“I hope I didn’t offend you with my outspoken opinions.”

“You couldn’t. I treasure them.” Again he fought the urge to touch her, only this time he longed to touch her cheek. Just to trace his fingertips over her dewy skin. “Charlotte—”

“Captain?”

“Will,” he said, though he shouldn’t have.

The tension left her shoulders. “Will.”

Heart thudding in his throat, Will strode to the door and turned the knob. He looked over one shoulder and said, “Eat breakfast before Lizzy has my head.”

Buoyed by her merry laugh, he made his exit. Standing in the dim hallway was the red-haired woman they called Josie. She glared at him.

“Good morning, Miss Portland.”

Arms crossed tight over her chest, she tossed her head with a sniff.

Will gave a nod, but he felt the pinpricks of her animosity stab him in the back as he strode away.

11 (#ulink_4fb2459b-8f94-5fc9-93b2-a853a14cac2f)

Peach Orchard Inn

Present Day

A honeybee orchestra serenaded the rhododendron as Julia led Eli Donovan out the back way across the plank-board porch and down the steps toward the carriage house. Bingo ambled around the corner of the inn to sniff the newcomer’s pant leg. A shadow of his former self, the old dog had once been as hyper as a kindergarten class on red Kool-Aid. Oh, the wonderful times he and Mikey had enjoyed. She wondered if Mikey remembered the dog who adored him, who had looked for him and refused to eat when Mikey didn’t come home.

“That’s Bingo,” she said simply. “He’s friendly.”

Eli scratched Bingo’s floppy ear and ruffled the neck fur, all the while looking toward the ramshackle carriage house. Julia winced, seeing it from a stranger’s perspective.

“The previous owner, maybe even the one before that, didn’t do anything with it, either. The rooms are piled with old junk.”

The tired two-story building with the sagging upper balcony sported a boarded-up bottom where carriages and later cars had been parked. At one end, near a tangled mass of wild roses Julia hadn’t had the heart or time to cut down, was an entrance door with a dirty upper window. The top floor would have been the living quarters for the driver and his family, though now the dormer windows were obscured by cardboard boxes and other stored items.

“What’s in there?” Eli asked.

“Odds and ends. Junk. A few ragged antiques. A bit of everything, I think. When Valery and I bought the house, we added to the collection. Anything we didn’t immediately toss was stuffed in here or down in the cellar.” And both had already been packed.

He paused a few feet out from the building and looked up. He had a quiet about him, a deep reserve. She couldn’t decide if he was thoughtful or hiding something. The latter troubled her slightly. She knew nothing about this man who was willing to work for little beyond a roof over his head. What kind of man did that?

A desperate man. A man down on his luck. A man with nowhere else to turn.

But why? He seemed intelligent, well-spoken with the soft drawl of a well-bred Southerner. He was sad, an emotion that circled him like an aura. That alone had kept Julia from rejecting his strange offer outright. She understood bone-deep, unshakable sorrow.

“A lot of work,” he said.

“Too much?” She watched him in profile as he perused the derelict building.

He was taller than her by several inches, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms that had seen work. But he was too thin and the bones of his face were too prominent, as if he didn’t eat enough. Neither detracted from his dark and rugged good looks, though noticing men was Valery’s pastime, not hers. Yet, there was mystery about Eli, perhaps due to his tendency toward silence. Not that silence was a bad thing.

“No.”

Terse, to the point and a little uncertain, as though he expected her to send him down the road in that jalopy of a car he drove. He intrigued her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Thanks a lot, Val.

She’d never hired anyone for help around the inn other than Dylan Winfeld, a teenager who cut the grass when she or Valery grew overwhelmed. But she’d known Dylan forever. His family lived next door to her on Sage Street. Eli Donovan was a stranger.

They’d reached the weathered entrance into the carriage house.