Little Love Affair (Southern Romance 1)

“Cecelia—”

“They left him to die alone! How could they do that?” Cecelia pulled away from her mother’s embrace. “It isn’t right, you know it isn’t. How dare they come back without him?”

“You’re right.” Cyrus’s voice was deep, surprisingly forceful. His hands squeezed around Clara’s, and then he left her to go kneel with Millicent at Cecelia’s side. “Your brother deserved more than that, Cecelia. He deserved a burial here next to your father.”

“And he’s not even going to get a funeral.” Cecelia’s face screwed up.

“He will,” Cyrus promised her. “There’s nothing that will make this right, Cecelia, but we will give him a funeral.” He chafed her hands in his own. “Your love gave him great comfort, you know that.”

“It did?” Cecelia’s voice was small.

“It did,” Cyrus promised her. “Solomon was proud to have sisters so honorable and kind. He was proud to be a Dalton, and proud of your mother. He knew he might give his life when he marched, but he did it for love, do you see?”

“No,” Cecelia whispered. She looked lost. Clara put her hand over her own mouth to stifle the sobs. Cecelia should not have to bear this. None of them should. “It wasn’t worth his life.”

“No,” Clara agreed. “It wasn’t.” She made it to a chair before she collapsed, and Millicent’s hands came down on her shoulders.

The room swam in Clara’s vision. She did not know how they might go on. Only now, after months of furious resentment, did she realize the others had held out hope as well. She watched dully as Cyrus led Millicent to a chair and bent low to speak with her. Tears were tracing their way down the woman’s cheeks, and she grasped Cyrus’s hand as thought she might keep herself from drowning.

The world was going dark and too bright by turns. Clara bent her head and clenched her fingers in her lap. It was unreal that she could still be alive, and yet she was breathing and moving.

No. It wasn’t real. Solomon could not be dead. She remembered him lifting her into trees and running with her in the fields. There was the shy smile when he told her how he fancied one of his schoolmates, Eliza. She remembered him swinging a scythe, and saying prayers with her over their father’s grave. How could he be dead now?

“Clara.” Cyrus knelt at her side, and reached out to take her hand. “I have no wish to intrude. I’ll go now, but know that I am here.” His voice was low and warm. “If you wish, send one of the men for me, and I’ll come. Rest now.” He kissed her forehead.

“That’s very kind of you.” His smile was so kind, so familiar, that Clara felt something release deep in her chest. She smiled back at him, catching her breath on a half-sob when his thumb brushed a tear away from her cheek. “Why did you come today?”

“To see you,” he said gently. His fingers curled around hers. “There’s the Millers’ party, do you remember? I thought...” He shook his head. “It isn’t important. Clara, you need rest.” He drew away.

“No.” Her voice was soft, but it stopped him in his tracks. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” The thought of sitting in her study by the light of a single candle, alone in the darkness with her grief, was too much to bear.

“Truly?” The leap of hope in his eyes nearly made her back away, but she shoved away her discomfort. Cyrus loved her, she told herself. He would never leave her. Had her mother not said that a kind man was worth more than gold? She was more correct than she knew.

“Truly.” She found a smile somewhere, and held his eyes. She swallowed. “I would like to go with you tonight.”

Chapter 13

&nbs

p; I wish... What had possessed him to say that? What had made him choose his friend’s foolish fear over Clara’s loyalty? In his mind’s eye, Jasper could still see the hurt in her face as she turned away. The shadows under her eyes spoke to more than simple tiredness. She was carrying the weight of the farm on those slim shoulders, and the burden of telling her mother of her brother’s death. Horace was one more burden, one Jasper had begged her to take on, only to push her away when she came to him wracked by grief.

He did not go back to the fields. He could not take the chance of seeing her. As the daylight faded, Jasper walked to the tumbled down wall a dozen times. He looked between the lazily waving trees to the glimpse of the red farmhouse and did not dare approach. What would he say? He had always known that he would need to move onwards when Horace recovered. There could be no future for a Confederate soldier and a Yankee woman, not while the war raged—and so there was no purpose to saying the pretty speech he was building up in his head, begging Clara to forgive him.

He leaned against the remains of the doorframe and watched as the first glimpses of golden light showed in the farmhouse windows. A lazy wind swept over the remains of the wheat, and Jasper felt bone weary to think of the work that must still be done.

Weary, and at the same time panicked to think how little was left. Three days of hard labor meant three days of employment. Only three days left in Clara’s company. Jasper sank his face into his hands with a groan; he should not be thinking this. He could not go speak to her. What would he say? He went back to their makeshift seats and turned his face resolutely from the fields, resting his forehead on his folded hands. For one of the first times in his life, he wanted to get blind drunk.

He thought he had resolved himself to stay quietly in the cottage, but when Horace slipped into a fitful sleep at last, Jasper could take it no more. He must at least make amends. He must tell this woman the truth: that no good could come of their friendship. He must tell her that he thought her the most admirable woman he had ever met, and he would bite his tongue not to tell her that he would remember her always.

He must not think of her marrying another, or he would go mad.

Leaves rustled under his feet as he strode down the hill to the farmhouse. Cicadas hummed in the fields, and a few fireflies winked in the darkness. He could see why Clara loved this place, why she had never thought of leaving. This was the first place he had felt at home in two long years. He raised his hand, hesitated, and knocked on the heavy door. He tried not to show his disappointment when Clara’s mother answered it.

“Good evening.” The woman looked him up and down with a measuring gaze, neither unfriendly nor warm. As every time Jasper saw her, he felt the faint thrum of fear. This woman, no matter how frail with grief, was watchful of her daughters. And it would take little to discover Jasper’s secret.

“Ma’am.” Jasper ducked his head respectfully, hat clutched in his hands. “May I speak to Clara?”

“She’s not here,” Millicent said. “I think you’d best come in anyway.”