The Seeker (11 page)
“So I’ve been told.” His eyes settled on her face. “But don’t you think we’ve shared enough familiar moments for you to call me Adam?”
Her cheeks warmed and her lips tingled at the memory of some of those moments with him. She fixed her eyes on the blades of grass at her feet and tried to ignore her heart thumping in her chest as she said, “I daresay some familiar moments are best not remembered.”
He stepped closer to her and put his fingers under her chin to tip her face up to look at him. It was a replay of the moments in the garden, except this time the sun was shining brightly and there was no chill in the air to necessitate him offering her his jacket. But he seemed to be offering something more. Understanding, or perhaps compassion. Why, she didn’t know. He couldn’t read her thoughts.
“Don’t say that, Charlotte. I quite enjoyed the moments of which you speak.”
She told herself to step away from him. To look away from the blue gray eyes that were probing her soul. But she stayed still as she said, “And how many times have you enjoyed like moments in other gardens?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I won’t deny there have been other gardens, but no girl so lovely. Or lips so enticing.” He moved his fingers from under her chin to trace her lips.
She pulled herself together and stepped back from his touch. It was colder there but safer. Much safer. “We’re not in a garden now, Mr. Wade.”
“Adam, please.” He kept his hand in the air reaching toward her face for a moment before he dropped it to his side and looked around. “And you’re right. I do have to admit I’ve never enjoyed such a moment in a graveyard.” He nodded toward the stone behind her. “The beautiful first Mrs. Vance, I assume.” “She was very pretty,” Charlotte said as she glanced back at the stone. “I don’t look anything like her.”
“Did you want to?”
His unexpected question brought her eyes back to him. “What?”
“Look like her. Be like her.” His eyes were probing her again.
“No. I always thought her too fragile.” Her words sounded disloyal in her ears, but she didn’t stop talking. “At times she seemed almost afraid to leave her couch. As if she feared the day would be too difficult to face.”
“Are you afraid of your tomorrows?”
She looked at him, not sure how she should answer, but his eyes demanded honesty. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Last week I would have said not, but now if not afraid, then I do admit to being unsure of my future.” She stared straight at him with wanton disregard of proper behavior, but a graveyard seemed a place to pitch aside social conventions and reach for the truth. “What about you?” She hesitated before she added, “Adam.”
The corners of his lips lifted in a brief smile at the sound of his name. Then he grew solemn again as his eyes shifted color to more gray than blue. “I don’t entertain fear. Instead I seek opportune possibilities.”
“But there are oftentimes reasons for fear.”
“Unfortunately you’re speaking truth even not knowing the news that’s come to us this morning.”
“What news?” Dread woke inside her. The news couldn’t be good.
“The Confederates fired on and forced the surrender of Federal forces at Fort Sumter. War is now inevitable.”
“War,” she echoed. She looked away from him out toward the horizon once more and now she couldn’t keep from picturing cannons lining up against cannons. Perhaps even eventually on this very ground.
“The dark war clouds will no longer hang back. The storm is upon us,” he said as if he too was imagining what war would bring to them. “But I didn’t follow you out here just to deliver that unhappy news. I wanted a private moment with you to say goodbye before I left Grayson.”
Her eyes came back to him. “Are you off to fight the South, then?”
“No, I’m not a soldier. I see other possibilities. I will go but only to draw the scenes to break the hearts of those far from the battlefields.”
“Surely there are no battlefields as yet.”
“Battles rage in many places. People will be choosing sides. In the legislatures. Village streets. Drawing rooms.”
His look sharpened on her with the last, but she pretended not to know his meaning. “So Selena’s portrait is finished?”
“I plan to add the final strokes to it this afternoon and be on my way come morning.”
“Then you could have said goodbye in the morning.”
“Perhaps, but you seem to lose a bit of that honesty I find so enchanting when others are in our company.” A smile was back in his eyes.
She let his words slide past her. She had no answer for that. Instead she shifted the subject. “I’m sure Father will be leaving too. Back to Frankfort to be in the middle of the decision making for our state.”
“He was ordering his servant to begin packing when I left the house.”
“I do hope Selena plans to accompany him.” Charlotte mashed her mouth together. She shouldn’t have spoken that aloud.
Adam’s smile reached his lips. “Your father said the same, but in a much different tone of voice.” His smile faded as he peered at her with a good deal of sympathy. “Unfortunately for the happiness of you both, she feels she has too much to do here at Grayson to return to Frankfort at this time.”
“She has many plans.” Charlotte kept her voice as free of expression as she could.
“Many plans,” Adam agreed. “Sometimes all a person can do is get out of the way of a woman like Selena.”
“I can hardly pick up and leave the way you can.” She looked at him with a bit of envy even as she thought of poor dead Richard who had done that and never come home. If there truly was war between the North and the South, how many more gravestones would rise in the family graveyards around them?
“What about your gentleman friend?” Adam’s eyes were sharp on her again.
“The one going to the Shakers?” Something about this man kept her from pretending even to herself.
“I suppose that does present some difficulties.”
“Certainly few of your opportunities.” She wanted to keep her voice strong and sure, but the way his eyes were trying to swallow her was taking her breath away. She stepped back and felt the cold edge of her mother’s gravestone against her legs. “Opportunities can pop up in the most unlikely places, but sometimes you need to know the right opportunity to pursue.” He stepped closer to her. “It’s good Edwin Gilbey is going to the Shakers. That sets you free.”
“Free to do what?” Charlotte’s voice fell almost to a whisper again. She tried to back up and put more distance between them, but the gravestone stopped her.
“Live your life.” Adam softly traced the curve of her cheek with his finger. “Enjoy the moment. This moment.”
A tremble swept through Charlotte at his touch. Not of fear but of desire. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move. His eyes had her mesmerized.
“Seize the opportunity.” His voice deepened and sounded husky as he bent his head down toward her, but he stopped before he touched her lips. She could feel his breath against her face as he went on. “Do you have the courage to do that, my beautiful Charlotte?”
It took all her strength to keep from melting against him and raising her lips to meet his. He was going to be gone from Grayson in the morning. She’d likely never lay eyes on him again. What good purpose could there be in yanking her heart out of her chest to throw at his feet, even if that was what she wanted to do? And yet what could one kiss hurt? A kiss she could remember and treasure no matter what happened in the days ahead.
Surrendering to his embrace would take no courage. The courage was in putting her hands flat against his chest and turning her head away from his lips as she pushed him back from her.
“I don’t think you have honorable intentions, Mr. Wade,” she said as she scooted to the side to put a bit of space between them and immediately wondered if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Even with the sun warm on her shoulders, she felt as cold inside as the gravestone behind her.
A look of regret to match her own flashed across his face before he said, “You surely didn’t expect a proposal for a harmless farewell kiss.”
“I expected nothing. Except the goodbye you claimed to seek me to deliver.”
He shut his eyes for a moment before he made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “Then I suppose your expectations will not be disappointed.” He reached out and touched her cheek. He was smiling again now. “Goodbye, my beautiful Charlotte. If only we had met at a different time with no war on the horizon.”
She didn’t pull away from his touch even as she said, “There would always be those possibilities on the horizon for you.”
“I think my eyes might be feasting on a possibility now. One I may regret turning away from.” His eyes were swallowing her again. “Perhaps our paths will cross again someday.”
“There’s always that possibility.”
“Tonight?” He raised his eyebrows at her. “In the garden?”
“Goodbye, Mr. Wade.” She softened her implied refusal with a smile as she moved away from him. “I will look forward to seeing your illustrations in the news. Stay safe.” She didn’t wait for him to say any more as she turned and began walking in measured strides toward the house. She’d have to come back later to retrieve Aunt Tish’s spoon. But now it was time to remember who she was and not be carried away by a handsome face and smooth words. The only possibility Adam Wade held out to her was the possibility of trouble.
When she got back to the house, Edwin’s return letter was waiting for her on the table in the hallway.
She carried it to the privacy of her room before she pulled the letter free of its envelope.
Dear Charlotte,
You are quite within your rights to demand the truth of my intentions and I am now ready to reveal such to you and to the world. I am going to the Shakers at Harmony Hill for a month’s trial.
Elder Logan thinks that an excellent way to test my determination and spirit. I myself feel no need of a trial period. I have no doubt that at the end of those thirty days I will feel unchanged and will at that time commit completely to the Society’s rules and be ready—nay, not simply ready but eager—to shut away the evils of the world, accept the true salvation they offer, and begin walking the path of the true Believer. I feel such peace in the village as I see the order there and the brotherly love just as the Good Book teaches.
I do realize you had other expectations and
I regret disappointing you by denying you those worldly desires. However we can still join together in a meaningful and spiritual way if you want to join with me in the Society of Believers as a sister.
That is the sort of love more than anything of romantic nature that we have always known for each other. I have spoken of this possibility with Elder Logan and he gives me his assurance the Shakers would welcome you into their midst even as they welcome me. I know we could both attain a level of happiness there that would never be possible in a common marital union as the world knows it.
If you wish to respond to this message, please forward your answer to me at Harmony Hill.
Ever your loving
brother
in Christ, Edwin Gilbey
Charlotte stared at the underlined word
brother
written in Edwin’s neat script for a long moment before she looked up and met her eyes in the mirror. What was it Adam Wade had asked her? Did she have the courage to face the possibilities awaiting her?
She stared at her image in the mirror until it seemed as if she were looking at a girl she’d never met as she considered the possibility Edwin offered her. She didn’t flinch from the truth. Selena was taking control of Grayson. She already had Charlotte’s father dancing to whatever tune she wished to hum into his ear. Hadn’t he already spoken of Charlotte being sent away? Her place here at Grayson and in her father’s heart was being crowded out. At least at the Shaker Village she would be standing on land adjacent to her land and not hundreds of miles away in Virginia.
And she would have thirty days to convince Edwin he was making a mistake. Something she would have no way of doing if he was there and she was here or in faraway Virginia at the home of some unknown relative. Perhaps it might even open her father’s eyes to the truth of his betrayal of her mother’s trust. Of the Grayson trust.
Best of all, she could take Mellie with her. Charlotte reached into her pocket and touched the paper there. Shakers required converts to free their slaves. Did she have the courage to step through the Shaker door long enough to assure Mellie’s freedom?
“Miss Lottie, you has done gone and lost your mind.” Mellie plopped down on the bench at the end of the bed and stared at Charlotte with wide eyes. “You go to those Shakers? That’s crazy talk.”
“Aunt Tish doesn’t think so. She thinks it will work.”
“Then my mammy’s done lost her senses too. Work is a good word for you to think on, Miss Lottie. The’ ain’t no ladies over there in that Shakertown. Just women more like me than you that them preachers put to work makin’ hats and cookin’ jams.” Mellie frowned. “What could Mammy be thinkin’?”
“What’s best for me the way she always has. And for you.”
“Then she’s done mixed up on that. How’s you goin’ to those Shaker people gonna be any kind of good for you or for me? I better go talk sense to her.”
Mellie stood up, but Charlotte put a hand out to stop her. “First you have to listen, Mellie.”
Mellie sank back down on the bench. “All right, Miss Lottie. You tell me what’s got you and Mammy thinkin’ on this crazy stuff.”
Charlotte rubbed her forehead as she looked at Mellie and wondered where to start. “It’s not crazy. Aunt Tish wouldn’t tell us to do anything crazy. But this is the best way. I think it may be the only way.”
