Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance 2)

Chapter 1

The wagon hitch slipped out of his hands and thudded to the ground with a dull boom, and Jasper swore. One of the barn cats yowled, and Beauty, back in her stall, whinnied at him. Whether it was genuine concern or amusement, Jasper did not know, but he was unamused nonetheless. He sucked at his banged fingers, muttered another oath, and decided he would finish the task later. He strode out of the barn at high speed, not wanting to admit to himself that he was really worried Clara would come out of the kitchen and ask what was wrong.

He did not want to see Clara just now.

Besides, it was beautiful outside. That, he could appreciate. The fall colors were a thing of beauty in his hometown of Osceola, Missouri, but Jasper had never experienced autumn in Pennsylvania. The air carried a genuine chill to it, the barest hint of the winters he so feared about the north—he had heard stories from Solomon. Oddly, the fear of that cold was stirring in his blood, making the riot of reds and oranges and yellows in the hills somehow more beautiful, lending an unearthly quality to the sunflowers bobbing gently to the swaying fields of late crops. At night, when Clara had poured them some cider, it was more wonderful to huddle around the fire. A welcomed break from the August heat.

Jasper should feel at home here. Indeed, at times he did feel at home. There was the easy camaraderie of a farm, where everyone went to bed in the evenings exhausted by the plain, honest work of turning the earth for crops and wrangling the animals into their pens, picking apples, and planting seeds to winter. Jasper bagged potatoes, Clara spun and managed the business of the farm with Solomon at her side, and Cecelia fought with the goats. Stubborn creatures; Jasper didn’t see how she could love them, but Cecelia loved everyone.

He should be happy.

Sometimes when he looked at Clara, he thought his heart would burst with love. She was slim and golden and as lovely a woman as any he’d seen, and she refused to hide behind myths of feminine incompetence as she struggled to keep the farm running. With Solomon alive, and more help for the farm, she had blossomed into hope.

Yet, Jasper could not help feeling like an outsider. Clara was to be his wife soon, sometime after the harvest. They should have rushed it, and yet they did not, and Jasper could not bring himself to insist on it.

He should.

He knew that. He did not know why he failed to do so.

He did know that not even the easy good humor of the men and their grudging respect for saving Solomon did not absolve him entirely in their eyes. He knew that sometimes he saw them looking, and knew they were remembering who he had fought for. After all, he was not a person who had defected out of conscience, and never fought for the Confederacy. Even though Jasper swore to himself that he would not take up arms in their defense again, even when he accepted that he had fought for something he could no longer condone, he struggled with a furious pride. How dare they look down on him?

It did not help that he was the man who had taken the bride from Cyrus Dupont. The town loved that

man. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, half-defiant, that he was a fine man, a man who helped his own. They said it sometimes when they needn’t have said anything more than hello, and even knowing that he was credited as Solomon Dalton’s savior, Jasper knew he was still the Confederate to them.

Solomon’s own history was never disclosed. That Jasper had saved him on the battlefield and brought him home was known. No one seemed to put two and two together. They were all just so happy to see him.

Solomon, who was the one person that Jasper should have been able to confide in, was suddenly withdrawn. The past days he had been fidgety, heading out into the countryside or town for reasons he would not disclose. Millicent remarked acidly that she had never seen a young man in love look so miserable, and Solomon had only shaken his head curtly. He was not in love, then. So what was it?

Jasper strode out into the fields with an oath, making for the forests. He understood why Clara ran here when she was overwhelmed, why Solomon came to walk among the trees. In the swaying of branches and the rustle of leaves, there was a peace unlike any in a human area. Cecelia might take comfort strolling in the orchard, but for Jasper, the woods could be anywhere. He could be home again.

Home.

He was never going to see it again. His pace quickened. Lord knew there was nothing there anymore. Perhaps when he did not come home from the war, someone would take his family’s ruined homestead and build there again. There would be children toddling in the new house, and plants growing green where he had left ashes. He liked that thought. He did not want to go back to the memories and the grief.

It was one thing not to want to, and another not to be able to, and in any case, when he thought of the homestead, he wanted to lash out at the rest of them and ask if they thought everything the Union did had been so wonderful then. People had died. Civilians had died, had starved—not only those who took up arms, but children too. Mothers and grandfathers and youngest sons, trying desperately to keep the farms and shops running when the fields were burned and the goods no longer came down from the north. What good did cotton do when there were no factories?

They would not understand. They had not seen the innocents caught up in it.

If Jasper went back, he knew what would happen. They had lost, and they would have precious little sympathy for deserters. Any valor he had earned would be gone at once. He was no longer someone who could march home a hero and ask for Daisy’s hand in marriage. He wondered if she expected him to do so. Maybe she would think him dead, and perhaps that was kinder.

“Jasper?” The voice stopped him in his tracks just before he broke into a run.

He turned. “Cecelia.”

Though the day was still warm, she stood with a cloak wrapped around her. Cecelia had been withdrawn the past few days, wearing shawls and walking around pale and quiet. No one else noticed, but Jasper did—he knew misery when he saw it. He knew how easy it was to stop talking and let others continue chattering away while you sat in quiet agony. He could not fault the others for not understanding. He should have spoken to her sooner.

“Is something wrong?” She spoke before he could find the words for his own question.

“Nothing,” he said, forcing a smile, and she studied him with her brown eyes. Solomon’s eyes. Where Solomon and Clara had golden hair, Cecelia was all in shades of golden-brown, even her skin bronzing more easily in the sun. It made her pallor all the more noteworthy.

“You’ve been upset,” she said now. It was not like Cecelia to contradict people, but she was blossoming into a woman of opinions. She had once been timid. Not anymore.

“You know about that?”

“Why does everyone assume I’m stupid?” Cecelia asked, exasperated. “I’m not, you know. I see things. You’ve been miserable.”