Little Love Affair (Southern Romance 1)

It was when she heard the heavy tread of his boots that she looked up at last.

“Wait!” Her voice rang out louder than she meant it to.

He turned slowly, early morning light glinting in his rich brown hair, a half smile on his face like he knew why she was staring. His eyes when they met hers, were very warm.

“Yes?”

The voice sent a shiver down her spine, and Clara swallowed. For a moment she could not think of a single thing to say, and then inspiration hit her in a flash.

“We need to hire someone to work on the farm.”

They stared at one another, Clara frozen, the man seeming suddenly unsure of himself.

“We could...if you wanted food...” Clara shrugged, trying desperately not to behave as if this mattered to her at all. What was she doing?

A sound business decision, she told herself and tried to ignore the suspicion that this was one part running from Cyrus and one part foolish infatuation. Because it was a good business decision, wasn’t it?

Of course it was.

“I would be happy to work for our keep. I’m afraid Horace—my friend, that is—”

“Horace?”

“Yes.” He stared at her, confused by her interest.

Her father’s name had been Horace. He had hated it but the mention of his name brought a softness to her heart. Clara relaxed slightly, and shook her head to clear it of memory. “You said your friend is ill?”

“Very. Some clean bandages, perhaps and a bit of food. He needs to rest before he can travel.”

He was so earnest, so polite. The sunlight shone in his dark hair.

“I thought you said you were leaving today.” For some reason, she felt herself smiling.

“I would never impose.” But he was smiling, too. “I have forgotten my manners. My name is Jasper Perry.”

“Clara Dalton.” Her voice came out much too softly, but he heard her.

“Clara.” His voice was as low as her own.

With a jolt, she realized she was standing in a field, smiling at a Confederate soldier. Clara shook her head to clear it and raised her chin.

“Very well, then. The men have gone out to the field. We’ll see you for your supper at one o’clock.”

She turned on her heel before he could say one more word, before he could smile again—most certainly before he could say her name again in the way that made her heart do that strange sideways leap—and marched back into the house.

Chapter 5

The midday sun beat down as Jasper swung the scythe rhythmically. He was too exhausted to care he was in Pennsylvania. He might be back home, helping with the harvests he’d witnessed. They had not owned a farm, but there was no getting away from the harvest when the time came. It took over the town, and nearly every family sent men to work.

Jasper never had. This was poorer work than his father thought acceptable for their family. The man would never have approved of Jasper working side by side in the field with a freed slave. Jasper stole a sideways glance. William was a puzzle, a man given to singing as he worked, with a ready smile. He was learning to read over the supper hour, he

said. Miss Cecelia was teaching him.

None of the other men seemed to find it the least bit strange to be working the same job. Clara paid him the same for his work as she paid all the others, and Millicent called a hello to him. The men spoke of their families together, and no one mentioned that this was unnatural, an affront to the order of things.

No, his father would not approve at all. Jasper did not even have to wonder what the man would say. Field work was not for gentlemen, the man would have said, least of all alongside Negroes. Jasper, even a year past, would have ducked his head and accepted his father’s words as an immutable truth. A year ago, missing his father desperately, he wanted nothing more than guidance and wisdom.

Now he no longer believed his father’s words could answer the questions raging in his head. William’s kindness, and the intelligence in his eyes, sparked thoughts he could not understand, and those thoughts were not even the least part of the storm in his mind. Jasper had seen too much since he left his home. The world made a sick sort of sense as he went into battle, so much so that it seemed nothing had changed...until he thought of his home and could no longer fathom how he might live there. How had he never noticed how simply others saw the world? How much they missed, how little they could comprehend of the world’s cruelty?