Dearest Penelope,

It has been nearly seven months since I have seen you last and I have written you thrice now. I will never admit to missing your ornery morning temper or the way you insist upon leaving your music sheets all over my writing desk but I will admit to thinking on them enough to commit the memories to ink and paper.

My life is all but unrecognizable now to what it was only a short time ago and it seems time has altered in some way. The calendar tells me it is approaching Thanksgiving time but it feels as though I have only slipped into the following week. The core of who I am has reshaped itself, I feel. I am no longer struggling against an ill-fitting form but instead have exhaled into a place and time I was meant to exist in.

I always thought fate to be a fanciful idea if not altogether absurd. The idea that some unseen force nudges you onto a veranda or pulls illogical replies from your lips to strangers as it propels you blindly toward some determined future was preposterous.

I no longer think the notion fantastical. He is that fate for me. Complete and unquestionably.

I wish there were more words to explain what I now know but I fear what would spill out of me would never quite match the enormity of what it has become. I only hope you find that same fate someday.

I have news but wish to wait until I know for certain. That is a wretched thing for me to do, but I trust that once I can share my suspicions with you, you will understand my caution.

Give Mother my love.

Pamela

_____________________________________

I always knew what my life would look like.

It was all written out for me, each chapter clearly defined in the ultimate novel of fulfilling my purpose. I would be an obedient daughter. Focus on my studies—not too much, no one wants a truly learned woman—keep my eyes down and my skirts clean. When I was old enough, I would marry Roy Anderson. It had been arranged since childhood. We would live in Asheville and he would inherit my father's business. I would be his delicate ornament and bear him many sons. That was my lot in life and my worth. Nothing more, nothing less.

No one asked me. Not once did anyone look in my direction and inquire 'Is this what you want, Pamela?' Even if they had I would not be truthful in my response. Truth for a woman was not often what society wanted to hear. I knew my role well and it would be a shock and dishonor to my family to dispel with honesty: I want to paint, I want to live in a city somewhere and I want to love my husband, not merely tolerate him and out of that love perhaps some children. God has a funny way of laughing at your plans.

Penny breezed through the parlor buzzing with unseen energy. It always seemed to radiate off of her like the rays on the big yellow sun I would put in the top corner of drawings as a child.

"I saw Mr. Anderson today as Mother and I were leaving the quilting circle. He is such a handsome and delightful man," she glanced over her shoulder as she put her sewing kit neatly in the basket near the chair.

"You should marry him then."

She had the decency to look mildly scandalized even though we had had this same exchange many times."Pam, many girls would be delighted to have the circumstances you find yourself in. There are no men left, not here anyway, and you have one of the best willing to take your hand in marriage."

He would prefer Penny. I knew it, she knew it, and she pretended to ignore it out of some sense of sisterly kindness. She was taller and more graceful. Her fair flawless skin and her yellow hair that shined in long loose locks down her back, always made her seem so perfectly put together men could not help but stare. She attracted light when she entered a room and even though she was fourteen months younger than I was, she outshined me in every way. I was shorter, my hair was an unruly mop of curls that never seemed to look quite right in the humid Carolina air and my dressing gowns, unlike hers, always dragged on the ground.

"Willing and eagerly are two entirely different things. It is not me he wants in any case. It is Enfield."

When my father brought his Irish bride from Savannah to the Carolina wilderness with the promise of a land grant he also met a young blacksmith named Joseph Anderson. In a turn of fate one evening, he won an old Needham rifle in a poker game and my father, always one to see a way to make money, asked Anderson to help him replicate the clever loading gate. It took them several years before they refined the manufacturing process enough to turn a profit, but eventually, it became successful in the years leading up to the war. Joseph was always envious of my father's larger stake and capital in the company and under the guise of placating him, I was offered to his son.

"Is that not enough for you? Honestly, you act so anguished that you have an arrangement and a birthright that you forget some of us are not as fortunate. A man willing to support you is as much as we can expect in the terrible results of this war."

I hummed in a non-committed fashion, in an attempt to drop the subject as I closed the book I had been reading. Most days I could almost completely ignore the subject of my future husband and pretend he didn't exist. Roy had always regarded me with obligated sufferance and I detested being alone with him as he was far too liberal with his hands than was appropriate. I had mentioned it to Mother once, only to feel the shame of her condemnation.

"He is a man, dear, you mustn't tempt him," she had admonished that sweltering afternoon in the parlor.

"I do not believe I was tempting. I was merely sitting on the bench in the garden. He told me to stop talking so perhaps I was talking too much. I did not like the way he was...touching me," I said, waving my fan faster out of embarrassment.

She had set down her needlework then with annoyance as she made her way to the large mahogany parlor doors, "Well, you must have done something to encourage him. You have to accept the responsibilities of your actions, Pamela. Pleasantly. You do not want to offend him."

My mother's advice was always more confusing than helpful.

Penny sat at the piano, her right hand absently playing the G clef notes on the piece in front of her, making a cheerful baroque background to her words and pulling me back into the present, "Father wants us to take dinner at Madison's tonight and then we are going to be at the Morgan's tomorrow evening."

I groaned audibly. I enjoyed a full social calendar but not filled with my mother's friends. And while the war had tampered that down considerably I still did not look forward to dry conversation and stiff uncomfortable dresses for the few occasions someone in Asheville society was in the mood for entertaining. My father knew what being seen about town, parading his fully frocked daughters around for others to see, would do. Even though one was spoken for it still multiplied his chances of finding a husband for the other. Our stock value increased the more desired we were and he had always been a scrupulous businessman.

_____________________________________

Glancing uninterestedly around the room of the upscale dining hall that I had dined in for years, I realized my life was stagnant, a numbing parade of dinner parties and teas in the same boring drawing rooms and salons. It was times like this, fleeting and momentary, that the desire to see the world outside of western North Carolina felt particularly strong. We had traveled, of course, as any wealthy family had, but those glimpses didn't satisfy but instead had made the thirst stronger.

I noticed a stranger alone at a table along the edge of the room as strangers stood out boldly against the dull grey sea of faces I had seen for years. He was a Union soldier, even rarer still. Most of the Union soldiers I had met were either cold and indifferent or cruel and malicious. When Stoneman's troops were camped outside the town, they were like vultures, with an air of conquerors, looking upon us as something to take if so inclined. Three of them cornered Penny and me in the General Store one afternoon, their eyes predatory, all while whispering things I had only read about in my aunt's illicit dime novels until a high-ranking officer stepped into the shop and they scattered like vermin.

This Union soldier seemed different. The way he sat in his chair, unassuming, his long legs tucked in an unruly tangle beneath him. Haunted and forlorn, there were a thousand stories contained in the way he glanced around the room and particularly the way his graceful tanned hands wrapped around the crystal glass before he tipped it back quickly. I studied him surreptitiously between braised lamb and the soufflé, for if nothing else he was a novel form of entertainment for yet another monotonous dinner. He looked weary, after what was likely a long, hard journey into the mountains, the skin beneath his collar slightly cleaner and paler. He glanced over at me once, our eyes meeting for a second, and my cheeks flushed in shame at being caught. Embarrassment burning in my chest, I didn't turn in his direction for the rest of our meal, and when it was time to leave I chanced one final furtive look only to find his table empty and the mysterious Union soldier gone.

_____________________________________

"Why does it take you nearly twice as long to pin your hair as it does me?"

"Perhaps it is because I am the Cocker Spaniel, remember?" I huffed and pushed away from my vanity. "I'm not sure why you are in such a fevered rush, it is only dinner at the Morgans. There will not be anyone of interest, I assure you."

"Yes, but we get to witness the thinly veiled insults Mrs. Morgan hurls at mother and that always proves entertaining."

Samuel and Nancy Morgan had lived on Montford Avenue for as long as I could remember and were one of the most influential families in Asheville. It had been the town gossip over tea for years that Mrs. Morgan had lost several babies, one surviving only a few months, before they had Emerson. He was delicate, not brawny, despite Mr. Morgan's efforts to send him away to boarding schools to toughen him up. Mother had often been the only society lady visiting Mrs. Morgan during her periods of absence but their relationship had always had an undercurrent of competitiveness; their friendship laced with hints of animosity but only so far as politeness would allow.

I smoothed fine silk gloves up my forearms as Penny pulled open the large doors to our wing of the house, sending two startled servant girls scrambling.

"Did you see that a letter came today?" She glanced back over her shoulder at me to the swishing of our skirts down the long hallway. "It was from Aunt Mable. She says I am more than welcome to visit next month and stay as long as I like. The balls in St. Louis, Pam! There will be Parisian dresses and dashing men nearly everywhere I turn."

I was happy for her, truly. I would flee the limitations of the mountains for the unending promise of the frontier in a blink if I could. I had always been fascinated by the cities but there was something mysterious and alluring about carving out a life in the unblemished plains. The dime novels painted a picture of heroic men and fearless women conquering the wilds on the sea of grass and I had been swept away by them many an uneventful afternoon.

One story, in particular, had caused me to reread it so many times that the edges of the pages tattered and the corners well creased. It was a story of a young widow named Margaret who had been destitute only to meet a handsome and dangerous man out west. She shaped a life of love and adventure out for herself in the endless waves of golden grasses. She was courageous and I wanted to be her. I wanted to seize control of my life and plot its course instead of drifting wherever the current of family and society's expectations for me pulled me along.

But she was fictional and I was very real; sweeping romance and excitement was only something found on ink and paper.

"I want you to be on your best behavior tonight, girls," father had scolded as the carriage door shut behind us with a jolting thump. I always found it amusing that we would take the carriage when the Morgan's home was only a few houses down from ours. It was all for appearances, of course.

"There will be a Union Colonel joining us this evening and we want to make our best impression don't we?"

"Why father? It's not like I would marry a rotten Yankee," Penny looked horrified in the dim light of the carriage and I shook my head in annoyance. I often wondered how we were of the same stock as her taste in men seemed so foreign from mine.

"Not all the Yankees are rotten, dear," mother's soft voice corrected from the opposing darkened corner.

I immediately thought of the soldier from the previous evening, and as I wiped my nervous palms against the silk stripes of my skirt wondered if perhaps they were the same.

They were the same.

He stood across the Morgan's receiving room, nearly transformed from the bedraggled man I had seen the previous evening: his boots now polished and his shirt clean, the short beard he had had was now completely gone, and so much taller than he had seemed sitting down. He looked-well, I suppose I should not be assessing the appearance of a man who was not my betrothed. I definitely shouldn't be noticing the way he laughed into his glass of brandy or the way he kept looking in my direction. He could not possibly be looking in my direction, he must be looking at Penny. They always look at Penny.

What would I even say to a man who fought against so many of my neighbors, whether I happen to likely agree with his ideology or not? Mercifully, I was placed on the same side of the table at dinner so all I had to navigate was Mrs. Morgan's terrible sherry and Penny's occasional elbow.

"The Colonel is rather handsome don't you think?" Penny's whispered question pushing the curls off my neck. The party, mostly distracted by conversations at the other end of the table, enabled our hushed exchange.

"I thought he was a rotten Yankee?"

"Why are you so course tonight? I can appreciate a gentleman despite his unfortunate place of origin. Did you see the way he was looking at me?" she pressed on.

For a moment I swore his eyes were meeting mine but he also seemed irritated, the very idea frustrating. I imagine the handsome Northerner had a dozen more interesting ways to occupy his time than in the parlor of a backwoods aristocrat.

"Colonel Halpert, Mrs. Morgan tells me you are to marry upon your return to Philadelphia."

I suppose he was not looking at either one of us then.

Mother's question brought the attention of the entire room and I leaned forward to catch a glimpse of his profile.

"Yes, Ma'am. Her family, the Moores, are quite prominent in Philadelphia. They have been planning furiously, I am sure."

His voice, hearing it so uninterrupted now, made my heart strum slightly harder in my chest. A ridiculous reaction, I scolded myself. He was just a man. A man with a fiancée. In Philadelphia.

"I trust they will be pleased to see you home and in good health," mother continued to prod and I cut my eyes at Penny with a slight look of exasperation. Mother was often relentless in pursuit of any unmarried man of the right age in her presence. They were all potential prospects and she dug for information like a crazy old man looking for lines of gold in the rocks of a cave.

"Yes Ma'am, I am certain they will."

I sat back rebelliously against the plush stuffing of the chair, an act that would surely earn me a pinch on the arm from my mother for impropriety if she wasn't so distracted by trying to politely criticize Mrs. Morgan's choice of centerpiece. As the servant placed the fourth course in front of me with practiced ease, I imagined what kind of woman would be waiting for him. Beautiful and cultured, no doubt, in grand Philadelphia society. And tall, I imagine she was quite tall to match him perfectly.

Not short with a mop unruly curly hair that her sister teased looked like a Cocker Spaniel when it was clean. Not a woman that had hardly been out the South. Certainly not someone like her.

I blinked, startled at the way my mind had so effortlessly betrayed me, and discreetly pushed the mostly finished glass of sherry away from my place setting. That was certainly enough for me.

The evening pressed forward with mother and Mrs. Morgan continuing their usual friendly game of who knew the most gossip in the parlor. The men retreated to the study for cigars and Mr. Morgan's newest brandy, their deep voices echoing across the marbled hall, with one exception.

I noticed his tall frame in relief against the deep black of the mountain forest. An outsider that had sequestered himself to the cool night air, the moonlight making a shimmering rim around the shape of him and glistening off the polished sword hanging from his hip.

A mysterious impetus compelled me to join him. Curiosity and a desperate pull of the stars it seemed wanted me to speak with a man I had only just met and I felt powerless to stop the inevitable. I thought of Margaret and of courage and of choices, inhaling as deep as my corset would allow, and stepped out onto the veranda.

"Are you trying to escape my mother's poor humor or one of Mr. Morgan's political rants?"

He looked startled for a moment like I had just appeared as an apparition and began speaking but then smiled easily and I suddenly felt a rush of heat as if he was warming the very night around us.

"Neither, just enjoying the cool air."

He was doing both, the slight pull on his lips giving away his true intention and his voice was warm and rich like the amber liquid he swirled in his glass. The light from inside made the gold buttons on his dark blue coat glimmer slightly.

"You are not very good at deception, Colonel Halpert."

His voice dropped low, his northeastern accent more pronounced, "No Colonel. The war is over." There was a wash of relief and pain over his expression for the briefest second and I saw that he was not a man that reveled in the tragedy of war but was also the sort of man who did not run from it.

"Thank the heavens above. I've never understood why a country would be so eager to send its boys and young men off to slaughter."

"That is quite a strong opinion for a lady."

He looked at me then, something akin to amused interest shone through the soft glow from the dining hall that illuminated half of his face. I had never had a man regard me with genuine intrigue the way he was instead of the patronizing tolerance men do when they care very little about what a woman was saying or that she was even saying it. My father told Penny and me that a marriageable woman was beautiful and silent, that what she brought to the world was a pleasant gaze for her husband and lovely children to fill his home. I remember imagining an empty vessel, sublime and delicate; a dull shape waiting to be filled by whatever a man wanted, like a hand-painted vase on a mantle. I rippled with indignation at the memory, wishing I had the bravery then to say the rebellious words that longed to fall from my lips, to tip that vase and send it shattering.

Something about this particular man emboldened me, the contemplative expression he wore called from deep within me, setting me alight.

"Well, I do have my own mind, Mr. Halpert."

"Indeed."

_____________________________________

There were defining moments in a person's life. Moments, where there was a decision to be made, or an event that propels someone to change.

I suppose my father's death in the Morgan's study should have been one of those moments. The truth of it was far from any sense of a deep life-changing significance but instead felt as though an inevitability had come to pass. I did not pretend to be fond of my father. He had at times been cold and unloving as many men were but his episodes of violence had switched a part of me, like a key in a lock, blocking my heart away forever out of self-preservation. He could not hurt me like he had hurt Mother if he could not reach me and that part of me was beyond his grasp.

The recent days had been filled with polite words and sympathetic expressions all wrapped in low whispers and black crepe and wool. There had been many funerals in recent years, too many to count if I had to be honest. Every day the women from Asheville would gather at the towering wooden doors of the large church on Valley Street to search the tintype photographs of soldiers that had been sent back from the battlefields. I would often stop to study them, not waiting for a lost lover, but instead to search for childhood friends or acquaintances. The faces that would stare back at me, with their pre-war courage on display, would haunt my dreams knowing that those faces no longer existed but their likeness was forever frozen on a thin piece of tin. Sometimes it was just a list of names scratched on thin parchment and it was hard to ignore that the lists would get longer as the suffocating clouds of the war covered everything, stormy and dark.

The entire first floor of our home was filled with the quiet rumble of hushed voices and the occasional muffled sob behind a black handkerchief. Faces I had known my entire life and many that I had never seen before nodded in condolence as I passed through the clusters of mourners.

I noticed him then at the edge of the room looking out of place and yet stoic all the same. I had almost forgotten about our conversation on the veranda and the way our simple words had caused my stomach to fall slightly, the way the fullness of his eyelashes had briefly interrupted the intensity of his gaze and made me hold my breath. It had all disappeared like a morning mist in the harsh sunlight of day when the pleasantness of the evening had turned to tragedy.

As I watched him study the titles on the spines of the books on the shelves behind where he stood I felt a wave of frustration at the dichotomy he created in my mind. This betrothed stranger stirred more in me than the man I was supposed to marry and it was suddenly unfair. He was charming and mysterious and would surely make a wife very happy and instead I was being forced into a life with a man who had been known to liken me to breeding stock. A man that never considered my words so thoughtfully or smiled so warmly.

I had unfairly questioned James's presence instead of being grateful at his kindness, a lame attempt to push him away, to just leave me alone in my bitter fate. But instead of being deterred by my rudeness, he stayed, and almost seemed amused at my unladylike defiance. Roy appeared, driven by obligation not concern or grief, simply fulfilling what was expected publicly. When James stood in such genuine contrast to Roy's patronizing condescension all I could do was return his smile.

"You do not have to indulge his demands."

He ducked his head and glanced in my direction with a small agreeing nod.

"If you leave in the morning he will likely forget he even asked you to join him in his drunken state." I continued, trying to ignore the way the corner of his mouth lifted slightly in a wry grin.

"I will go tonight and let him buy me a whiskey or two. It is no trouble, truly. And I will stay another day," his eyes lingered a little longer before they fell away and he added, "to rest my horse, and if any other needs should arise, of course."

A strange feeling of contradiction, of needing him to go so I could forget about him and desperately wanting him to stay a little longer, made a tightness in my chest that I could not explain.

"Of course."

_____________________________________

One by one the servants had drifted away as they completed the last of their tasks for the evening leaving the house still and quiet for the first time in days. The drawing room mantle clock ticked softly as the last log of the fire gave up its battle against the inevitable and collapsed into ash and embers.

I looked down at my book again, realizing I was still on the same paragraph for the third time before shutting it with a sigh.

"Pam, are you not weary? The hour is late." Penny stopped in the doorway, her dressing gown wrapped tightly around her and her hair in a braid, tied with ribbon matching the braid in mine.

"I was just finishing up," I commented as I rose to place the book on my desk and I noticed her hesitation.

"Is it terrible that I'm not all that sad?" Her voice sounded small echoing the thoughts that had crept on the edges of my mind over the previous days and I sighed at the heaviness of it.

"No," I sat back down on the small plush chaise lounge and she joined me. "No, it is not terrible. Father was cold and cruel and ill-tempered."

She twisted the tasseled end of the silk sash of the gown between her fingers as she spoke, "If I am honest it is more relief I am feeling, even though I do feel dreadful about it."

I nodded and placed a hand over her fidgeting ones in her lap, stilling them.

"It is imperative that we are here for Mother over the coming days she will need us."

She whispered a quiet 'yes' in agreement and we both turned to the amber glow of the fireplace as if it held all the answers for the nagging weight of our conflicted emotions.

"I saw Colonel Halpert at the wake today and he seemed to be lingering quite a bit around you," she said with more spirit and a suspicious sidelong glance.

"Penelope Beesly, you watch your tongue!" I scoffed and stood, feeling exposed suddenly as if all of my secrets had been read aloud. "He is just a gentleman with concerns about our well-being and I am an engaged woman." I needlessly rearranged the items on my desk to pretend my abrupt motion from the lounger had a purpose. "And he prefers to not be called Colonel."

I could feel her eyes on my back so turned to give her an aggrieved look to reinforce my words only to catch her knowing smile.

"He seems to be concerned about someone's well-being that is for certain."

"You have been reading far too many of those silly dime novels. It has made you ridiculous."

"You read those silly novels too might I remind you, and I know what I saw." She stood, making her way to the large oak doors of the drawing room as Ms. Rebecca entered quietly. "Just enjoy a handsome man's attention for once instead of pretending to be scandalized at the very thought."

"I...I am not pretending," I stammered as she turned on her heel and left the room just as Ms. Rebecca spoke, drawing my attention.

"Are you done with the fire ma'am? I can put it out before I go on to bed for the evening."

"Yes, of course, thank you."

As I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my anger at Penny still simmering, I attempted to replay the events of the day and what could have possibly led her to believe there was anything but pleasantries exchanged between me and Mr. Halpert.

I had a fiancé and he also had a fiancée. That was all there was.

There were no lingering glances or smiles that made an unfamiliar flutter in my chest. There had been not been the same warmth and comfort I had felt on the veranda. Nothing in the way he leaned in slightly to speak to me.

There was not be any of that because it was not something that could happen, I nearly convinced myself.

"Miss Pamela! Miss Pamela!" Came hissed in the darkness and I sat up in my bedclothes straining to see the darkened shape in the doorway.

"Rebecca?"

"Mr. Anderson is at the kitchen door and he insists on seeing you at once."

"Mr. Anderson? Is something the matter? This is a rather unsociable hour."

I smelled liquor and the tang of horse sweat before I had even entered the kitchen. Ms. Rebecca's abandoned candle stand, still set haphazardly on the counter near the door, causing inhuman shapes to dance on the walls with its yellow light. Roy stood leaning against the wooden table with an indiscernible expression, and a rather disheveled appearance, top buttons undone and half of his shirt pulled from his trousers.

He reached for his watch, realizing he had no vest pocket or watch, and dropped his hand sheepishly.

"Is it? I had not realized. I only wanted to speak to you."

An unsteady step brought him nearer and I noticed a faint remnant of what reminded me of the ladies section of the General Store. I pulled the edges of my gown tighter and crossed my arms out of instinct.

"Would you like some tea? I shall put on water to boil for us both."

He was drunk clearly and I nervously wanted something to do with my hands. I pulled a small log from the pile in the corner and added it to the glowing embers in the stove. His eyes silently followed me around the room and I became aware of how inappropriately dressed I was in just my shift and heavy silk dressing gown.

"What did you want to speak about?"

He swayed slightly then swallowed hard. "Your father," he paused as if forming his thoughts. "He was a great man."

"So you said," I replied cooly. I was not particularly interested in discussing my late father in the middle of the night in my bedclothes. There were far more appropriate times for polite conversation and uneasiness was creeping up my spine.

"I would like to continue what he has begun. Hand in hand with my father, of course. We should marry. I can have the arrangements made this week."

"But his wake was only today? Perhaps time would be prudent-"

"There has been enough time!" he countered harshly, his voice rising in volume and I stepped back slightly in shock. He had always been dismissive of me, often talking over me and ignoring my wishes but he had never been harsh.

Seeing my expression, he lowered his voice again, regaining his composure with some difficulty as he walked to the other side of the worktable in the middle of our kitchen. I mirrored his movement keeping the distance between us.

"I have been patient," he gripped the edge of the butcher block so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Out of respect for your father I have tolerated every excuse. My brother married several years ago and has two sons by now. I will not wait any longer on your frivolous campaign to keep me from what is mine."

A panicked feeling washed over me as the waters of the inevitability of my life were swirling around causing me to gasp for air in desperation. My mind scrambled for a reason, any reason, to delay it only if for a matter of days.

"That is too soon. I would need time to plan. Guests would need to travel," I turned to the stove pretending to check the water to hide my trepidation from him.

"It is no longer up for discussion. See to it that you are ready."

I faced him, forgetting my calmness for indignation as he dismissed my desires once again, "I will not be ready. Should I not be party to the planning of my own wedding?"

His expression changed and darkness rolled in behind his eyes, threatening. He took a step in my direction and I edged backward until the counter ceased my movement. "You are drunk. Perhaps this is a discussion better held tomorrow," I offered lightly.

"What are you implying?" He squinted and shook his head exaggeratedly in disbelief. "It is not a woman's place to question a man and you should really learn some manners."

He was suddenly in front of me, large and frighteningly looming. He kissed me then, the same way he always did when he wanted his hands to roam except this time he was more sloppy and I tasted whiskey and cigar smoke on his lips.

He pulled me tightly against him as his mouth then moved down my neck and I closed my eyes, passively waiting for him to be satisfied and let me go. He reached around to my behind me, taking advantage of my lack of corset and skirts and that uncomfortable uneasiness sank into my stomach.

"Mr. Anderson this is not appropriate, we are not married," I pleaded but he only responded with a shhhh under his breath.

He pressed his body against mine, the edge of the counter biting into my back and something hard and terrifying against my front as his hand reached down and began gathering my shift and gown, seeking what was underneath it. Something instinctive inside of me snapped and frantically I began to push him away but his bulky frame did not even notice my attempts.

"No, please," I choked out as one of my hands escaped the pinning of his arms and pushed against his face drawing his attention.

He did not release his hold on me even as my displeasure was now clear but instead, he replied matter-of-factly, "You would be far more desirable if you were obedient."

"Miss Pamela would you like some more logs brought up for your fire? I can wake Mr. Morely and have him fetch them," Ms. Rebecca had appeared nervously, nearly shouting her ridiculous question at them from the doorway of the large kitchen. She had always been a somewhat meddlesome young woman, conveniently arriving when the gossip might prove fruitful, but I was for once relieved to see her unbidden. Servants had always been adept at ignoring obvious deviance while they performed their duties and Rebecca looked at us as if we were there casually sipping tea across the room despite the way she twisted her hands tightly in the worn cotton apron protecting her simple grey dress.

Roy loosened his grip, dropping his hand from underneath my bedclothes with a frustrated grunt but his arms remained braced on the counter behind me trapping me still. I ducked under his arm, shakily moving away from him while smoothing and tucking my hair back into my braid.

"Yes, that would be wonderful. It is drafty tonight," I replied, my voice still audibly trembling.

She caught my affirming glance as we both silently acknowledged that Mr. Anderson remained.

"Let me finish making that tea for you then, ma'am," and she moved to the stove, removing the small boiling pot of water.

Roy moved then with a loud huff of exasperation, haphazardly tucking in his errant shirttail and buttoning the top of his trousers that I hadn't even realized had been undone. He wrenched open the back door violently before turning to look at me for the first time since Ms. Rebecca had joined us.

"I question if you are even worth it."

The door slammed behind him and I slumped against the table suddenly exhausted. Ms. Rebecca was still and quiet and I could hear the soft ticking of the kitchen clock like a passive observer.

"Are you all right then, Miss Pamela?" her tone had changed from false pleasantness with her pointed question to concern, heavy on each word.

I met her eyes, a small tear rolling down my cheek and I could only bring myself to shake my head affirmatively. She held her gaze for a long moment before nodding in quiet female solidarity and damping the stove once again.

"I will take my leave then," and I heard the kitchen door close softly behind her.

_____________________________________

My hands were black.

I had never recalled them being quite so soiled before in all of my days but it was somehow emblematic of the dark turn my life had taken.

I stared at my reflection in the simple oval mirror of the wash table at The Chateau. My hair was undone, barely contained in what was left of my braid, the edges of my cover singed and tattered, smudges of black soot on my face with tear streaks through them. I would be mortified at my appearance if I was not weary to my very bone.

The nearly unbearable water of the basin slipped effortlessly over the surface of my hands dripping into the porcelain below tainting ebony like everything else. There sat another one next to it, clear and unused, tiny wisps of steam rising from it, an obvious and very thoughtful instruction from Mr. Halpert to ensure I could adequately clean.

There was a simple blue silk dress, undergarments, and worn boots laid out for me on the bed, generously left by some ladies of the Methodist church. I quietly dressed listening to the murmur of voices through the thin wall as Penny was helping our despondent mother change and clean.

Sitting on the edge of the springy feather and straw mattress, my body feeling as though it might sink into the floorboards, my eyelids fluttered closed fighting off exhaustion. In the depthless darkness of my weary mind I saw the dirt covering my father's coffin one handful at a time, I felt the sharp pain of Mr. Anderson's rough touch when he grabbed my breast, I heard the echoing crack of timbers collapsing as my childhood home disappeared forever.

I sighed, pressing my palms against my eyes until the grittiness of the smoke was replaced by stinging pressure and bright white. Perhaps I should be productive instead of rest.

_____________________________________

"Good afternoon."

Priscilla McNab looked up startled from her ledger, carefully marking certain columns for a particular guest. She was a slight of woman, much shorter than I, a rather foreign experience, but she held a presence of authority. I imagine it was partly due to the six boys she had raised into manhood, taking a formidable woman to handle so many men in one house. Her husband owned The Château and she and one of her daughters-in-law ran the front desk and dining room

"Oh, Pamela. You poor dear. How's your momma holding up?" Her heavy mountain accent welcomed me.

"She is resting. I need to make sure a meal is sent to her room. She will likely not have the strength to come down to the dining room this evening. Can you just place it on our bill? I will reconcile it after I reach out to my father's lawyer and have him release some money."

"Oh, darlin' your bill has been covered. The young man left instructions that you receive anything you require."

"Mr. Anderson?"

"The Union soldier. He's a tall drink of water that one, and he sure fancies you," she closed the large leather-bound ledger with a thump and a conspiratorial grin. "If you've been 'round as long as me, there are just some things you see plain. He insisted on takin' care of everything, even smiling at an ol' bird like me. Charmer he is. I'll have that meal for your Ma sent up shortly."

I nearly gave into the temptation to ask what she had meant when she said he fancies me. I'm certain a man had never fancied me before and was unsure what that even looked like. I had not even known him for a fortnight and yet this stranger had slipped into my life as if he had always been there, looking after me and my family as though he were beholden. Curiously he was not beholden in any to us—especially to me—and yet he remained, cautious and thoughtful around the edges of my crumbling life.

There was a pointless breeze pushing hot air from one end of the dusty street to the other as I contemplated the peculiarness of the male species while I walked. The heels of my slightly pinching second-hand boots made a rhythmic announcement of my path on the wooden covered sidewalk of Main Street until I reached the small brick facade building at the end.

Ambrose knew everything. At least that was always what I had assumed. Every single correspondence in and out of Asheville went through his telegraph office and up until a couple of years before the war, the stagecoaches dropped their mailbags there for delivery. He was an outrageously tall man, almost awkward in his stature, and grim in his countenance. Years of announcements of births and tragic notifications of deaths and every facet of life in between the two likely caused him great affliction as a lonely unmarried man, his expression always reflecting displeasure.

His face was ambiguous, however, as he slid the freshly written reply from Father's lawyer across the wooden counter.

I read the entire message twice before looking up and thanking him politely, blinking back tears.

It was all gone.

_____________________________________

"And now?"

"I choose you."

The three words, simple yet profound, made me feel as though I had missed the last step on the staircase; a couple of seconds of complete loss of control before the ground returned. There was only the blood pounding in my ears, the steady whoosh that seemed to drown out everything else except the look on the face of the man standing before me. The question was not flippant, I could see the hopeful fear etched in the firm set of his jaw. He was scared but he was offering something no one had ever offered me before. Mr. Anderson had never proposed. It was a business arrangement that was not even made in my presence, not a romantic ideal and while this also was not idyllic, flowery words in a picturesque setting, there was something honest and pure about the way the light from the setting sun caused the edges of his eyes to slightly crinkle and the hot breeze pushed the hair gently off his forehead.

A horse whinnied in the distance as the seconds ticked by and he studied me carefully as if my features might give him the answer he sought. He stood there before me; a tall, handsome representation of a life that suddenly somehow was tantalizingly within my grasp. The words responsibility and reasonableness ricocheted around me, pulling my mind back from imagining a life far from here, far from the pain and hopelessness that seemed unrelenting, reaching up from the red clay in an attempt to pull me under.

He was so close I could feel the vibration of him and the stirring mix of whiskey and man that caused something unfamiliar to ache deep inside me. His hands, large and warm wrapped around mine, was consuming and as my finger stroked the edge of his palm, I wondered what his touch would be like elsewhere. I let them slip from mine reluctantly as I heard my mother's condemning voice in my mind.

"I must go. I must see to my mother and Penny." My words were involuntary, as though I rehearsed them like the catechisms the preacher taught on Sunday. It was not what I wanted to say at all and somehow they fell from my lips.

"Of course," he replied politely, resuming the restraints that had slipped between us.

I moved away from the pull of him to the open door that was nothing more than a large window opened to the terrace, repurposed in the smoldering late summer heat. Taking a few steps I stopped, balancing on a precipice, willing courage, I turned back to see if fate would push me in a direction.

"I... I don't know what..." my words floated uselessly around me on the heavy mountain air.

I dared to consider, as he shifted his weight, ducking his head and looking at me, that the stranger in him was no stranger at all; the stirring in my blood I felt when he held my gaze was a glimpse into a part of me that knew him already, that recognized his soul.

He studied me again, silently taking measure as his eyes skittered around my face before settling intensely on mine, and what I saw there made that courage I sought swell up and overtake me.

"Yes."

_____________________________________

"That lovely woman from downstairs brought me this. She is too kind." My mother immediately informed me upon entering their room without greeting. The space was simply furnished, quality pieces but not ornate. Lace doilies centered on the tables with tin and glass accouterments were likely the finest items the McNabs owned and it made me both appreciative and welcomed. There was economic practicality, however, of which my family was not accustomed. Penny and I were not troubled-clean and useful was truly all I required-but it was clear that our mother was struggling to view it as a positive.

"The dress shop left these. They are few dresses that were never picked up. She would not tell me the reason and I was too afraid to press her for fear she might rescind the offer." Penny added tiredly, gesturing towards the unceremonious pile of black silk and crinoline on the wooden chest at the end of the bed.

I moved to the window, brushing back the cream fabric and summoning the courage to have yet another uncomfortable conversation. The street below was busy as the sun began to retreat behind the mountains making movement somewhat tolerable again. I noticed a woman, finely dressed by Asheville's standards, examining the shoes of a street vendor. Her school-age daughter stood dutifully next to her dressed in all white, an ankle length skirt with yellow bows and a yellow bonnet, a vision of propriety and upbringing. She reached for a trinket only to have her gloved hand smacked sharply by her mother and the young girl then resigned herself to watching with a wistful expression the stagecoach arrive on the opposite side of the street. I knew that expression well.

"Mother, I sent a telegram to Mr. Garnett. He was Father's lawyer in Richmond, if you recall? We need him to release father's will. We need money and Mr. Humphries at the bank refuses."

"Oh Pamela, I am tired and my head aches. I do not wish to be troubled with business matters."

"You must be troubled, Mother!" My raised voice caused her and Penny to startle from where they sat at opposing ends of the room. "There is no money. Father has been living on loans these many months. He has been borrowing against the house and his good name; a house that now sits in ash a mile from here." The information rolled out of me like a steam engine of its own volition. I was too drained to attempt to be delicate with my mother's sensibilities. "We have nothing."

There was a painful silence in the room as though all of the hard realities of the previous days had somehow decided to display themselves at once with horrifying clarity.

Penny's quiet voice pierced the silence, "We have Enfield, do we not?"

"Enfield is Pamela's dowry," my mother added miserably, the weight of everything in the inflection of her voice. "It is no more ours than that table. It belongs to the Andersons."

"It is not my dowry, Mother, in a truthful sense, but it is inconsequential."

"I think Mr. Anderson might take issue with-"

"It is inconsequential," I continued, my voice slightly raised again over her interruption, "because I am not marrying Mr. Anderson."

Penny groaned from the other side of the room and mother's shoulders uncharacteristically slumped. "Pamela, I do not have the temper presently to deal with your childish fantasies."

I inhaled deeply, a peaceful calm pressing me into taking the final step towards the unknown fate beckoning me, "I am not marrying Mr. Anderson because I am marrying Mr. Halpert."

Penny's resulting gasp made me smile unexpectedly.

"He has offered and I have accepted."

Forgoing my corset, I hastily buttoned the first dress I could find in the dark, managing the well-worn buttonholes of the second-hand dress efficiently. 

Of course, Mr. Anderson was angry. He stood to lose the one thing that ensured his family would manage the entirety of Enfield. He stood to lose a wife as well, but I imagine that was not his primary concern. The sound of his angry shouts caused me to jump again, and my heart raced with a frightening sense of dread. I could not let Mr. Halpert do what I should have done myself, even though it seemed he wanted me to. 

I suppose I would see how he would handle my blatant disregard for his instruction. Miss Biddable, indeed. 

I moved quietly down the darkened hallway, slowing and walking on my toes as I approached to avoid the alerting sounds of my boot heels on the floorboards. I peered around the corner, taking in the sight on the street in front of The Chateau: Mr. Halpert’s rigid back, his suspenders hanging forgotten and dangling past his untucked shirttail. Past him were the shadowed and golden yellow faces of Mr. Anderson and his brother Kenneth, along with two other men I had seen before in his company but did not know the names of. 

“Mr. Anderson, you are awfully loud for such a late hour. Do you mean to wake the entire town and embarrass yourself?”

I recognized the voice as Robert Vance; a long-time alderman and businessman in the community, making his fortune in the ice trade from Charleston. He had gone to the Confederate line the last I had seen him. More gray in his beard and the lines around his eyes deeper. The war had aged him, as it seemed to do to all the men I had seen return from it.

I listened as Mr. Halpert and Mr. Vance exchanged pleasantries, all while Mr. Anderson’s horse danced as if frustrated by the entire affair. Mr. Anderson added an unprovoked insult, revealing his opinion of me that I imagine he had held long before that night. I noticed Mr. Halpert’s hand twitch, the muscles in his back tighten in response and all thoughts of guilt at the current predicament suddenly dissipated. If there had been any doubt in my mind before that evening of my choice, it was all but vanished. The man with his back to me was visibly bothered by the question of my honor, and the man facing him relished in it. There was suddenly no choice at all. 

__________________

“Be safe, Miss Beesly, and please keep your door locked.”

The threat gone and after bidding Mr. Vance good evening; we retreated back down the quiet hallway of the hotel. I was thankful that none of the other hotel patrons seemed concerned at the commotion, and the peaceful calm of the late hour surrounded them again. 

“Thank you, Mr. Halpert, for your assistance,” I wanted to say more. I wanted to confess that I never desired him to leave my side again and that the world was a little less uncertain when he was near. 

He lingered for a heartbeat, a mix of longing and fear seemed to swirl around him. “Perhaps I should retrieve a chair and stay here for the remainder of the night, in case he should return.”

The idea was tempting, even if it was entirely unnecessary. That he even considered it—that he placed such a high price on my safety—made the pull to him seem almost unbearable. For a brief moment, I considered the unthinkable: inviting him in to stay, thanking him for his devotion in a way that went far beyond words. We were hours away from being wed, my treacherous mind reasoned. No one would know but us.  

No. Doubt, and if I was honest, fear at the unknown of the entire affair kept those thoughts from being spoken. He would likely be horrified at such a forward suggestion, certainly, and would most certainly rescind his offer of marriage to such a loose woman. 

Although the way he was looking at me made a small part of me think he wouldn’t be horrified by the invitation at all. 

“He won’t return, Mr. Halpert. He is halfway through a bottle by now and has likely forgotten about me.” 

“It is impossible to forget about you, Miss Beesly,” he replied, barely above a whisper. 

I trembled and suddenly felt drawn to the lips that had uttered those words in a way that I had never experienced. I wanted to know what they felt like pressed to mine. I wanted to know what he felt like pressed against me. 

I was tired and overwhelmed and needed to get a handle on myself before I embarrassed us both. 

“Goodnight,” I murmured as I turned to the door and I heard his reply before he ducked is his head slightly and retreated back down the hallway to his room, glancing one last time back in my direction as the space between the door and the frame disappeared. 

“Pamela Morgan Beesly, don’t you dare close that door. I just heard everything and I insist that you come share the details immediately.” Penny’s harsh whisper came from the cracked door next to mine. I could see her blue eyes and her blonde hair escaping her braid in the gap of space, seeming to materialize out of the dark room behind her. 

“What in heaven’s name happened?” 

I tucked in beside her in the bed, having removed my dress that I had so hastily put on earlier, returning to the comfort of my chemise and gown. Our mother slept soundly on the other side of Penny, her rhythmic deep breathing like a metronome. 

“I heard yelling, then I heard your door open. I nearly called for help thinking the worst,” she hissed, barely containing her excitement. 

“Mr. Anderson decided the middle of the night would be an appropriate time to discuss Mr. Halpert’s proposition. That seems to be a pattern with him,” I mumbled as I adjusted the blanket to cover myself more against the cool mountain breeze coming through the open window. “It is my fault, I suppose. I should have gone to him and told him directly, but I was afraid of his response. Rightly so, it would seem.”

“Mr. Anderson is a reasonable man. I’m sure he is deeply hurt at your decision and only wants a explanation,” she replied and I shook my head in the darkness at her naivety. 

“Thank goodness Mr. Halpert was unhurt. I would have never forgiven myself if Mr. Anderson had done something dreadful.”

“It sounds like Mr. Halpert is quite taken with you. It is impossible to forget about you, Miss Beesly,” she mimicked in a false, deep monotone. “What it must be like to have two gentlemen fighting over you? I would have never imagined that you would experience that, Pam.”

I turned to her in the darkness, even though I could barely see the rim of her face outlined in the moonlight. “Thank you so much.” I replied indignantly, annoyed at her implication and intrusion. “It is rude to eavesdrop Penny… and only one of them is a gentleman.”

Silence stretched between us for a moment and I focused on the sound of the whippoorwills outside the window and the strangely satisfying vision of Mr. Halpert raising his pistol in Mr. Anderson’s direction. 

“Aren't you absolutely terrified you're getting married tomorrow? Pam, it is tomorrow!”

I paused before I responded. It did seem slightly surreal that such a life-changing event was only hours away and somehow I was at peace about it. “Mr. Halpert is a good man.”

“Oh, he's a delightful man. Tall and handsome and apparently his family is of some importance. I am not sure why he would not disclose that upon our first meeting him.” I felt her roll and face me. “I’m talking about the wedding night. You must be petrified.”

It was something I only briefly considered in the whirlwind of events. I would be expected to perform my wifely duties by that time tomorrow, most likely. Although I had no idea what those duties included beyond my body and his. 

“I’m not petrified. Should I be?” 

I was suddenly uncertain. My mother’s brief explanation was not comforting, but I couldn’t imagine Mr. Halpert wanting to hurt me. I felt safer with him than I did with anyone, as irrational as that might be, considering I hardly knew him. 

Penny prodded further at my question, her voice edged with excitement. “Do you have any idea what's going to happen?”

“Shh, you will wake mother,” I scolded. The last thing I needed was mother chiding me about my illicit thoughts. Her answers never lent any insight, and I always sensed that she despised the entire thing; that she just wanted to keep us from the secret disappointment of it all for as long as possible. Perhaps that was why fine society pretended it did not exist. The sin of fallen women and the temptation of men. Something so horrendous that would scare young women into nunneries if they knew the truth.

“Do you have any idea what's going to happen?”, she repeated, a harsh whisper now. 

“No, do you? What did mother tell you?”

“She didn't tell me anything. What did she tell you?”

I was the older sister and I should know more, so I offered the only information I had. “She just told me it would be painful and to be quiet,” I whispered to the ceiling. Visions suddenly swam before me of tears and skin. Lying still while something happened to me and I was powerless to stop it. 

“I saw a horse once.” Penny’s quiet voice broke through my thoughts. “I went with father to purchase a horse in Weaverville and they were breeding a mare when we arrived. It was horrible. The poor horse was wailing. You don't imagine it's like that, do you? Like a horse?”

“I don’t think it is like a horse.” In truth, I had no idea if it was like a horse, but I didn’t want to scare her. 

She added after several beats of silence, “A man does not look like a horse, so I can’t imagine it is the same.”

A wash of relief swept over me before I realized what she had implied. “How do you know what a man looks like?”

I had never seen a man nude. I had a basic understanding that they did not have breasts, of course. The fact that they did not nurse babies and the shirtless workers building the roof of the buildings had dispelled that assumption. The difference beneath the trousers, although I knew it existed, was a mystery. 

“I saw Samuel Graham once changing in the barn,” she supplied.

I smiled in the darkness, suddenly envious, “By accident, I'm sure.”

“It was by accident, Pamela, thank you. And it did not look like that horse,” she huffed, but I could hear the humor in her voice. 

Trying to push any imaginings about what my soon-to-be husband looked like while changing out of my mind, I focused on what I did know. “Well, Mr. Halpert is very kind. I can't imagine him otherwise.” He was. That I was certain of. I felt it in my bones. “Some married people have a dozen children, so it can’t be that awful. Right?”

She didn’t answer my question and instead asked another, “Remember Aunt Mabel’s stories? The ones she hides in the back of the bottom drawer?” 

“Yes, I remember, but I don’t think those are real.” I lifted my head to look over her body and ensure mother was still asleep. They were delightfully sordid dime novels belonging to my mother’s sister Mabel, who was by far the most entertaining woman in the family. A never-married spinster, she performed theater since I could remember. Her house was often filled with equally fascinating people. Although mother’s definition of them was less flattering. 

“What do you mean? Of course, they are real and very romantic,” she replied wistfully.

They were romantic; dashing heroic men rescuing women from a perilous demise. I remembered the descriptive language in them stirred something when I read them that had bordered on shameful. The women were taken and possessed, but they seemed to encourage it.

“There wasn’t any practical information in them, though, about the wedding night. The women are described like flowers. I’m not a flower to be plucked, Penny.” 

With a huff, I rolled away from her, now frustrated. I had no idea what to expect and was now even more confused. It was maddening to be expected to perform some important duty without knowing what that duty was. Would he instruct me or just assume I know? Would he be angry with me for being ignorant?

Girls were not expected to imagine of or know of such things. Close your eyes and think of England, I had heard once. Or my aunt, who was a little uncouth when no one was around and she had had too much sherry, had once said, a man will say he loves anything he is buried deep inside of, so don’t fall for it.

I had no idea of what either of those things meant, but knowing Aunt Mabel, I’m sure it was scandalous. 

___________________

Mother woke the next morning blessedly unaware of the previous evening and unfortunately, on a mission to find me a suitable dress for my simple ceremony. 

“There are two dressmakers in this town and I refuse to accept that at least one of them won’t have something suitable available for a trade,” mother remarked as she barreled down the hallway of the hotel.

Her words took a moment to connect in my mind as I trailed behind her. “Wait, mother, what are you trading?” 

She stopped suddenly, and Penny and I stumbled into her slightly. She pulled from the worn second-hand carpet bag she was carrying a silver candlestick. “These were your great-grandmother’s from Ireland. They are a little charred, but they should fetch a handsome price.” Her words sounded strangled and moisture lined her eyes suddenly. 

It pained me deeply to see my once proud mother in such desperation as to sell one of the few things she had ever held from her family.

“No, mother, I refuse. You will keep those candlesticks and put them on the mantle in your home in St. Louis.”

She shook her head adamantly as a tear fell quickly down her cheek before she could catch it; the scandal of showing emotion of any kind, and particularly in public. “Pamela, it is your wedding. And while I still object to your marrying a stranger, what sort of mother would I be to send you off in rags?”

“The sort that just lost her husband and home,” I reminded her. “I insist, mother, please. Mr. Halpert has no expectations for my dress or any formality and neither do I.”

She straightened, returning the candlestick to her bag and smoothing her hands down her skirt and tucking an errant strand of blonde hair behind her ear; regaining the poise and posture I had always known her to possess. 

“Let me secure this in our room then and enjoy our breakfast downstairs before we have to meet Mr. Halpert at noon.”

___________________

“Robert! I had heard rumors of your return, but it does my heart well to see you in such good health.” I heard my mother’s voice exclaim as we returned to the modest foyer of the Chateau and I grabbed Penny’s arm, pulling her back around the corner to listen undetected. We sat abruptly on the small wooden bench near the doorway and smiled at the curious look Mrs. McNab gave us. It was the second time I had seen Mr. Vance in less than a day.

“Well, the look of health can be deceiving, but I manage,” he returned with a warm chuckle, and I glanced in Penny’s direction. There was a familiarity in their voices that went beyond the nearly two decades they had known each other. I suppose the idea of my mother entertaining the attention of a man besides my father should be revolting, but instead, I smiled at the thought of her happiness and traced the stitched lace at the bottom of my bodice with my fingernail. 

“I just want to express my sincere condolences for all you have endured in recent days. If there is anything I can do, please do not hesitate to bring it to my attention.”

“You are too kind, Robert, fresh from war, worrying over an old widow and her girls.”

“Ah yes, I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Pamela just last evening on my way home from the Morgans. She has grown into such a lovely young woman, Helene. I was thankful I had happened upon them. It was a rather unpleasant exchange between Joseph Anderson’s boy and a young colonel.” 

I winced, feeling my mother’s embarrassment and displeasure through the plastered wall between us. I had hoped she would never learn of my late night meeting on the wooden sidewalk in front of the Château.

“Yes, well, as if I did not have enough vexing me at the moment Pamela has agreed to marry this man she hardly knows; a Yankee that has just blown into town and somehow robbed her of her senses.” 

“Helene, I know this is not my place, and I’m sure William would not want me speaking on matters of his family,” I heard the hesitation in his voice and I peered around the wooden door frame just enough to see the outer edge of his profile. “But this Union soldier seems like a good match.”

I heard my mother huff, then reply tersely, “He is a Northerner and a stranger. We know nothing about him and he could very well be a swindler. She was promised to Mr. Anderson. My husband was very confident in that union.”

I heard the creaking of the floorboards and imagined that Mr. Vance had moved to the window, and after a long moment he spoke again pensively, “There is a lot of evil in this world. A lot of it. I’ve known men on both sides of the battlefield that have honor and valor that I would share a drink with and even call a friend. The measure of a man is plain enough in the way he carries himself and treats those that are weaker or deserving of mercy and that has very little to do with the color of the wool stretched across his back. This Colonel Halpert has that honor. I’ve seen it. I would give him a chance.”

____________________

It was not what I had envisioned this day to be. Quite honestly, I had never actually thought about my wedding day with anything other than dread. My fate had been sealed at such an early age that the dreams of young womanhood—romance, chivalry, the beginnings of a life—had never been true for me. My father, cursed with no sons, reminded us frequently that we were only as valuable as the marriage transaction that was made. Penny and I would never show up in genealogies with the Beesly name, and would be sent off to build another man’s family.

This was not merely another transactional arrangement by a different name. While my circumstances were not ideal, I did not feel forced to marry the man that now stood in front of me, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. It was my choice. The first one I had ever been afforded and even though it was rash and ill-advised and with a stranger, every part of me felt a gravitational force propelling me in the direction of being this man’s wife. A man that now contemplated me, bold and unguarded, in a way that made me tremble with the significance of it. 

I tried to be attentive, but the minister had said something and it had surprised us both; lost in the undercurrent of the unspoken. James smiled shyly and, before I could respond, his mouth had claimed mine. He was warm and alive and it flowed through me with a pulse; my fingertips, my lips, my womb. My body drew to his as naturally as a flower tilting towards the sun. His hand touched my face and his lips requested more and I wanted to give it. I wanted to give him everything. 

This was what kissing a man felt like. Roy Anderson faded into the blackness of memory and James slipped through time and became the light. 

And with the minister’s uncomfortable cough, we separated, and all at once I realized. 

I was a married woman. 

My mother was wrong. 

Wonderfully, delightfully, enchantingly wrong.

My eyes opened slowly in the pre-dawn light. His breathing was soft and steady against my neck and his arm was a warm, comforting weight draped over the dip of my waist. So much had changed for me in a matter of hours. It almost seemed impossible to process it all. 

I was not quite sure what I had imagined it to be, despite what I had discussed with Penny, but it was not that. I had expected it to be merely physical, an act to be endured, nothing more. What I had experienced that previous night—twice—was far more visceral, a convergence of more than just bodies. He had reached places in me so deep that it was as if no room remained for anything else, but instead of feeling consumed, there was a feeling of completeness. 

I had never felt safe. The world was full of dangers and of predators and part of who I was longed to fortify barriers around myself. I suppose my home should have been a refuge against that threat, but my father had brought that threat inside its walls and it was always off balance; I always felt as though I might slip off the edge into peril.

I felt safe now. I exhaled at the realization and he shifted behind me, pulling me tighter against him in his sleep. The novel idea of allowing those fortifications down and allowing him, and only him, to see my mind and spirit filled me with an unfamiliar calm. He would never willingly hurt me. He was a man, fallible for certain, but something in the way he looked at me as though I were a mirage he was desperate to memorize made me recognize that truth in my bones.

I retreated back behind those walls that shielded the outside world, except this time I brought him with me. And with a hum of satisfaction, I drifted back to sleep.

________________

I ran my hand over the bottom of the bodice of the navy blue riding habit that had been hastily hemmed to accommodate my lack of wardrobe. I wanted to be pregnant. While not entirely sure of the timeline of how it worked, but it seemed as though I could be. I pressed my palm against my belly and tried to imagine if it had already begun. I wanted to have his children; a house full of brown-haired and strong lanky boys and pretty clever-minded girls with curly hair. 

“Are you ready? I think the horses will lie down and refuse to get up if I let them rest any longer.” 

He ambled slowly towards me in the midday sun. The heat had caused him to unbutton his shirt in search of relief and there was a dampness to the tan skin at his hairline. He tilted his head slightly and smiled at my non-response.

“This shade tree is lovely. You should join me for just a spell.” I stretched out my legs and was reminded of the novel sensation of soreness beneath my skirts. Delicate memories flooded my senses and suddenly everything about his hands and the way they held the reins of his horse seemed fascinating. 

He reached up and tied the ebony beast to a long branch and was suddenly hovering over me, large and wonderfully imposing, with a self-satisfied smirk. We had been in the wagon since we had left Morganton early and it seemed more desolate and the land more saddened as the hours dragged on. The quiet creek and valley we had come upon seemed isolated from the world. 

“Why, Mrs. Halpert, what would you propose we do to occupy our time during this rest?” His voice was rich and velvet, laden with intention. 

“I surely do not know what you are insinuating, sir,” I replied demurely, with a small smile. “The grass is cool, and the breeze is pleasant.” And I would like you to pluck me like a flower, my mind supplied silently, and I bit my lip to hold back a laugh. 

He leaned in closer and his mouth met mine, the heat of his lips drawing me in. The entire idea of intimacy with a man was foreign, as I had been hidden away from them for most of my life. Only to be suddenly, and in the most delightful way possible, completely available to one. I felt him glide along my jaw until he reached my neck and he kissed there with a quiet growl. My entire body felt liquid warmth at his touch, deep in my belly and through my fingertips that reached for his shirt. This was what it was to be loved by a man and it felt like a tragedy that it had been kept a secret from me.  

His hand moved over my breast, his fingers slipping between the skin and fabric, and I felt bold and daring as I glanced up at the tree canopy above us. There was a gathering of my skirts and I let my knees relax open, pulling his weight towards me with a sigh. 

A snap of twig and an unfamiliar horse's snort that caused James to suddenly turn and reach for his pistol in the grass next to us, aiming it at the sound. 

Thirty yards away, a group of men faced us; one on horseback and a half-a-dozen stretched behind him in chains. 

“Don’t stop the lady there on our account,” the man on the horse commented with a heavy accent before spitting on the ground beneath him. I pulled my skirts down to my ankles, quickly checking my bodice and tucking the loose curls behind my ears to regain some semblance of propriety. My cheeks were hot with embarrassment.

“You should move along,” James replied low and slightly threatening as he stood to full height. The man did not seem bothered and instead dismounted. The men in chains took the movement as a sign they could rest and several sat in the red clay dirt beneath them. 

The man spat again before speaking over a wad of tobacco, “You’re lucky I didn’t off and shoot you’ns while you was getting familiar with the skirt there.” He looked back at me sitting still in the grass and then returned to James. “I’ssa been tracking a man for a few days now. Thought you mighta been him but I don’t reckon he’d be taking a lady… and you’d be a might taller.”

James had deemed the situation less volatile and lowered his weapon, reaching behind him for my hand to help me up. 

“I haven’t seen anyone all day and we are only passing through to Lynchburg.” 

The bounty hunter smiled, revealing several missing teeth. “Yankee. Should’ve figured,” he spit again. “You best be careful ‘round here. These hills are full of criminals that would kill you and take the woman there for themselves.”

I moved closer to him at the veiled threat and I could tell he sensed me. 

“She is my bride and they will only try.” 

The thought had never occurred to me at the lawlessness surrounding the civility of the towns, as much of the south was in shambles. There were likely thousands of former soldiers traveling by foot back to where they started now that the war was over. Bitter and damaged, it was for certain not all of them were honorable. We had been fairly sheltered from the brutality of those realities on the edges of the wilderness of the mountains, and I had taken that for granted.

“You’d done forgotten you’re still in Virginia.” he pulled several canteens from the saddlebags and tossed them at the chained dirty men and there was immediately shoving and grabbing for a turn. Several turned a looked in our direction again and there was a hopelessness there that made me wonder what story had brought them to these circumstances. I had understood that many such bounty hunters made a fortune returning deserters towards the end of the war, but now that the fighting was over, I could only imagine what these men were being hunted for. 

“We’ll be on our way then.” James took his horse and led me in the direction of the wagon. 

_____________________

Philadelphia was dark when we arrived and I was only able to observe her grandeur to the extent that was lit by street lanterns. His home was far more impressive than he had led on. The brick facade had a fairly grand entrance with a manicured lawn and a matching carriage house. He helped me out of the carriage and I watched as he and the cab driver carried our trunks and set them on the center of the intricate pattern on the hardwood that reminded me of a starburst. 

The hall was carefully designed, austere and comfortable, but lacking a woman’s touch. While I trusted him implicitly, it still felt calming to have pieces of information continue to match who he claimed to be. 

He watched me nervously, but the truth settled into my soul as I smiled at him and he took my hand. 

I was home.