Little Love Affair (Southern Romance 1)

Prologue

His legs were close to giving out. Jasper gasped with effort. His friend’s arm dangled uselessly around the back of Jasper’s neck, and his feet stumbled over the roots and underbrush. His head lolled on Jasper’s shoulder, breath dragging into his lungs in gasps, and his skin was burning.

Sweat trickled down Jasper’s forehead in the August heat. He had long ago unbuttoned his coat, heedless of manners, but it hardly made a difference. He was hauling a wounded soldier over rough terrain, and exertion plastered his shirt to his chest with sweat. He was so tired now that he did not even bother to swat away the flies that raised welts on his skin.

“Wh-Where...” His friend’s voice came out reedy.

“Just a little farther,” Jasper managed. It was all he had said for days now as Horace’s condition deteriorated and the man slipped ever further into delirium. He did not tell Horace his own strength was fading, and that he had not eaten in far too long. He did not share the terror which kept him awake at night.

Even here in the forests, far gone from the battlefields, the war followed them in the stink of Horace’s wound, in the raving words he spoke to the darkness, “Let me go. Let me die.”

“Just a little farther,” Jasper would plead with him.

“I failed them,” Horace whispered.

Jasper knelt between the trees and prayed as his friend slept: for the wound to heal, for water the next day, for what food they could scavenge, for safety in these northern woods. It was a circuitous path they took, skirting forests and fields, and the delay was killing Horace.

Gagging caught his attention. Jasper thudded to the ground, his knees buckling as Horace retched. All of the water he had managed to get the man to drink an hour ago was gone and Horace’s face had gone a waxy color.

“Horace. Stay with me.”

But the man’s head lolled to the side. His breath wheezed faintly in his lungs. Pus seeped from the dressing at his shoulder.

Jasper looked around desperately. If he could only get Horace home...

If Japser waited for that, Horace would die. Japser’s eyes caught a ruined little cottage through the trees, tumbling-down walls and a half roof dappled with shadows by the forest canopy. Tracing down the hill, he caught the glint of wheat fields. There was nothing for it now. He was half-dead himself. He would take his courage in his hands, hide his coat and bury his pride, and he would ask for the medicine and food they needed.

He slipped his arm under Horace’s shoulders and hauled himself upright, the man’s body held in shaking arms. Only a few steps more.

“Hold on,” Jasper whispered to his friend. “Just a few more minutes. Just hold on a little longer.”

Chapter 1

Her own sobs echoed in her ears as Clara ran, dress snagging on brambles and her blonde hair straggling out of its bun to tumble down her back. She could hardly breathe for the stitch in her side and her feet were aching, but she could not stop running. The cliff was ahead, a promise of wind and birdsong away from the oppressive August heat. A place where she could be alone, where she could let her sadness pour out of her without scaring Cecelia, without sparking her mother’s own quiet grief.

She stumbled onto the ledge, eyes closed with exhaustion, and felt the bite of granite on her palms, her knees. Her breath was dragging into her lungs, the bodice of her dress constricting painfully, and her legs were shaking. Would she be able to get back up? She almost did not care. Trying to steady herself, she looked up at last, and felt something release deep in her chest.

The vista spread before her was like nothing else in the world: great trees dwarfed by the massive swells of the land, the scent of wildflowers on the breeze and the shadows of clouds scudding across the earth. God’s creation in all its glory, reminding Cl

ara how much remained of the world she had once believed in.

And yet, looking out at the sea of green, with the rush of the river below in her ears, she could feel tears streaming down her cheeks. Solomon had brought her here even when she was too little to make the climb himself, carrying her on his back, and she had thought him the bravest, wisest, strongest older brother a girl could have. A brother who would never, ever leave her.

A sob burst out of her, a whimper even her bit lip and clenched hands could not keep in. It was childish to be so undone by this, when Knox Township was full of women who carried on with their heads held high, young children in their arms. Everyone had lost someone. Every family had buried a son, or a father, or cousin—and the rest of them carried on with dignity, even if their eyes were shadowed with pain.

Even at home, Cecelia wept softly sometimes at night, and their mother had taken to staring into the fire at night without words, as if her soul had fled her body. But come daylight, they swallowed their grief and went on as if...as if everything was moving on, with or without Solomon. As if they had managed to accept that they might never know what had happened to him, whether he was alive or dead, whether he was a prisoner, whether he would ever come home. As if not knowing did not destroy them.

On the days when it overwhelmed her, when Clara was driven up into the forest to hide away and cry, washing her face in the stream before she returned home, what she envied most was the uncomplicated nature of her family’s sadness. For their mother, it was the loss of a child. For Cecelia, it was Confederate treachery and the loss of a brother who had been kind, who had been dependable. When had Solomon ever disappointed them? Never.

However, he had disappointed Clara. He had brought her to this overlook before he left, grave and quiet, and he had taken both of her hands in his and made her promise that she would look after them.

“The farm’s the most important thing,” he said gravely. “It’ll keep our family forever if we can make it strong again, you and I.”

“You’re not afraid to leave it all to your little sister?” she had asked mischievously, trying to lighten his mood, but his fingers only tightened around hers.

“You’re stronger than you know.” He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “And clever, and brave.” He drew a deep breath. “Sometimes, I think, too independent for your own good. You know you don’t have to run the farm alone while I’m gone.”

“Solomon...” She had known where this was going.

“Cyrus would make a good husband,” Solomon said fiercely. His face always softened when he spoke of his friend, and she knew the look of hope in his eyes. Cyrus was a good man, successful, and for Solomon, it was the perfect solution: his little sister married to a good man, a trusted friend. He would never force her, but he hoped. “I’ve spoken to him.”

“You didn’t!” She wanted to melt through the stone. “Oh, Solomon...”

“Just to ask him to look after you while I’m gone. I don’t want to leave you without seeing you settled.”

“I am settled,” she said simply. “I’m only nineteen, Sol. I have Cee, and Mother. You’ll come back to us soon, won’t you?”

“I can’t promise that.” His face was anguished. “You know I can’t. Cyrus would be kind to you, and where there is kindness, love may grow. Clara,” he said and sighed. “Think on it.”

“I will,” she said because it was the only thing that would make his fear go away, and because his smile of relief was like dawn breaking. She wrapped her arms around her brother’s shoulders and held tight. “Promise me you’ll come back, Solomon.”

“I promise,” he told her, words stirring her hair.

But he hadn’t.

One shouldn’t speak ill of the lost, Clara knew that, and when she thought of her brother cut down at twenty-five, it was all she could do to keep herself from losing herself in memory, just to avoid the present. It was beyond foolish to keep hoping. It had been months. No word was as good as any letter now.