Chapter 14
Celia glared at him when he walked through the door without missing one stir of the soup. She opened her mouth then clamped it shut, no doubt employing her very last scrap of restraint not to vent her spleen.
She’d never brought it up to him, how she’d heard him jabber on about Caroline during the war then arrived to find him married to Amanda.
Celia was no one’s slave anymore, but, just as in her years of bondage, she kept her ears open and her mouth shut.
She knew far more than those she served would ever fathom.
“Where is Caroline?”
“She went upstairs to lie down,” Celia said, casting him one last disappointed look before turning back to her soup.
Jackson didn’t stand for putting children in the middle of adult dissension, but the situation was dire, and he had little hope of a truce. Just as in battle, sometimes the end justified the means.
He squatted down next to his son. “If you can persuade Aunt Caroline to come downstairs, I’ll try to talk her into staying.”
“All right.”
Jackson watched Noah go until he was out of sight, then he paced the floor.
“You’re gonna wear grooves in the wood,” Celia grumbled.
He finished the current lap and walked to one of the windows.
What felt like an eternity later, Noah’s footsteps came down the stairs followed by Caroline’s.
Jackson fortified himself and turned around.
Caroline’s face was blotchy, and her eyes were rimmed in red. But she drew herself up and put on a stoic mask. “Noah says you wish to speak with me.”
“I do.”
Her gaze flicked to the boy then lifted and trained in Jackson’s general direction. “I doubt there’s anything more to say.”
He needed to speak with her someplace more private, but he doubted she’d indulge him so much as a walk across the room. Jewel, who was sitting on the floor, playing with her doll, wouldn’t understand what was said, nor would she repeat it. Noah, however, was growing sharper by the week.
“Take Jewel out and play with the kittens until Miss Celia calls you in for lunch,” Jackson told him, then gave Noah a pointed look and put a stop to any protest before it could be voiced.
With a sigh, Noah went and collected his sister.
Once they’d gone outside, Jackson went to the sitting room and prayed Caroline would follow him.
She made him wait a full minute before she acquiesced.
“Thank you,” he said as she sat.
He chose a chair that was on the other side of the lamp from hers—far enough not to crowd her, but near enough that he could keep his voice low. Now the only thing left was choosing his words.
“Noah told me you’re leaving.”
She stared mutely at him, her only response a slow blink.
“There’s something else I need to tell you, but it’s not something I can express in a mere few minutes. Celia will be leaving as soon as she puts lunch on the table. If you go with her, there won’t be enough time.”
She didn’t look convinced. In fact, she looked ready to gouge out his eyes.
“It’s a conversation we’d need to have in private, after the children are asleep.” Jackson lowered his voice and added, “Ross... He... There’s more to the story.” That earned him a glimmer of interest.
Caroline’s chest rose and fell with a measured breath. Her resolve was wavering.
“You can send word to Mr. Ames to retrieve you tomorrow, or I’ll drive you into town, myself. But, please, stay one more night.”
Wan winter sunlight slanted through the kitchen window, despite the midday hour, catching the steam that rose from the pot on the stove. Caroline flipped the dishtowel over her shoulder and stirred the soup Celia had made, unsure if she was more unsettled by the quiet or by her decision to stay.
Jackson wouldn’t have stood in her way if she’d insisted on leaving. But he knew her, knew how she would respond to the secret he’d dangled.
She’d fallen for it. But she’d also been drawn to something she’d seen in his eyes. Not pleading, exactly. More like surrender. And hope worn thin at the edges.
Caroline glanced back at Amanda’s chair in the sitting room, to check on Jewel, and smiled at her angelic little face. She had played with the kittens so much that she’d tired herself out and fallen asleep.
Noah strode in, smiling. “Papa said you're staying till tomorrow.”
“Just for the night. Will you set the table for me?”
At his enthusiastic nod, Caroline handed him a stack of bowls and watched.
He carried them to the table with careful steps, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. Then he placed them all around and came back for the spoons and napkins.
“You did a good job, Noah. You were very careful with those bowls.”
“Papa makes me carry them one at a time, but I can manage all four,” he remarked in solemn seriousness. “I’m trying to show I can be responsible, so he’ll let me have a puppy”
“A puppy?”
“Mm hm. A mongrel. Mr. Green, who works at the sawmill, has a whole litter, and he’s giving them away. Papa said mongrels make good pets. He worries a dog might eat too much of our food, but he said he’d think about it.
“Maybe, when we take you to town tomorrow,” he added, looking hopeful, “we can get one.”
“Puppies require a lot of care,” Caroline cautioned, trying not to get Noah’s hopes up, in case Jackson said no.
“I know, but I’m old enough. It’s almost December, and I’ll be five in February.”
‘Count the months, Caroline.’
Jackson had told the truth.
“Finish setting the table then go get your Papa.”
Jackson stole glances at Caroline throughout the noon and evening meals, wondering if he’d made the right decision. She’d agreed to stay on his promise to reveal a secret he’d sworn he’d carry all the way to his grave. And now he was having second thoughts.
She was still furious at him, as well as hurt—beneath her quiet demeanor, a slurry of potent emotions churned—and hurt people lashed out.
But she was also pragmatic and wise. He’d just have to trust that, even if she felt no loyalty toward him anymore, she wouldn’t stigmatize the memory of her sister.
Noah had recruited Caroline to read the bedtime story, so Jackson sat at the table and waited patiently, though his insides twitched as if someone had sounded a battle call. He closed his eyes and drew a slow breath when the floorboards creaked overhead, then watched as she descended the stairs.
Just as at supper, her posture was perfect, and her face gave little away. She stopped when she reached the bottom, and he stood.
“Are the children asleep?”
“Yes.”
Between that and the wind howling through the cracks, the kitchen would be private enough.
Jackson held out a hand, indicating she should join him at the table, then circled around and helped her with her chair. “I’d take you for a walk if it wasn’t so cold and trying to snow,” he remarked as he returned to his, partly stalling, but also hoping to ease some of the tension.
A shuttered gaze met his. Caroline’s jaw was set, and the tilt of her chin said she was listening, but only because she’d agreed to.
“Thank you for staying,” he said sincerely. “I hadn’t realized until today how much my actions had hurt you. I don’t know if what I tell you tonight will make any difference, but it’s something I feel you should know.”
Her rigid posture eased, and her eyes softened some.
“I don’t have a right to ask you for anything, either,” Jackson went on, “but I will. I need you to give me your word that you won’t repeat what I’m about to say to anyone, ever.”
A slight crease appeared between her brows then smoothed. “All right,” she said in a quiet voice. “I promise.”
He felt as if he was about to plunge headlong off a cliff, and at the same time, a weight was lifted. He’d forgotten how freeing it was to share his burdens and confide in his best friend.
“When Amanda came to me for help,” Jackson said, bracing his forearms on the table, “she told me Ross had paid calls on her and led her to believe he was a serious suitor. He used that to seduce her, then he abandoned her. I know you believe some of the blame is hers, but I don’t.
It belongs squarely on my brother. He should have behaved honorably. Instead, he coerced an innocent girl.”
The mental image made Jackson want to snarl.
Ross had a way of compelling behavior from others, like a current nudging a fallen tree loose until it was washed downriver.
He didn’t use threats or force. He’d convince them with a series of unrelenting prods to disregard their scruples and join in his misconduct, smiling the entire time.
“Your sister was distraught, and she feared bringing shame on your family. I promised to help, thinking I would track Ross down and make him take responsibility. But when I went to town, to ask his friends as to his whereabouts, there was a letter from the army waiting at the post.”
Jackson paused. Once he spoke the words aloud, he couldn’t take them back.
“The letter was intended for my parents,” he went on, unable to keep the shame from invading his tone, “but I recognized the address where it originated, so I opened it. It stated Ross had been captured and executed for desertion.”
Caroline gasped, and her hand came up to cover her mouth. She blinked several times as her hand fell away, the curve of her brow shifting from shock to sadness to confusion. “But when he returned to Greenvale, the war was over.”
“He’d already been on the run for weeks,” Jackson said, frowning at his own gullibility.
“He showed up at my camp and told me he’d been discharged.
Then he lied again when he asked me to help him escape.
He said he was fleeing a group of men, because he’d cheated them at cards.
I was disappointed, but, after all he’d been through, I didn’t see the point of turning him in for something so petty. If I’d known his true crimes…”
Ross had blurred the lines between right and wrong from the time he was a boy, but his youthful transgressions had all been mild.
Jackson stared at his hands, his shoulders slumped under the weight of his guilt.
If he’d listened to his better judgment and not made excuses for his brother's poor behavior all these years, Ross might’ve grown to be a better man.
He lifted his head to see Caroline looking at him with the one thing his soul longed for, short of her love. Compassion.
He swallowed around a lump in his throat.
“After reading that letter,” he said in a rough voice, “I realized the gravity of Amanda's situation. With Ross gone, there was no one to take responsibility for her and her unborn child. So, I did the only thing I could—told her I was unable to find him and offered marriage, knowing it meant sacrificing my future with you.”
“Amanda didn’t know?” Caroline asked, barely able to get the words out.
He shook his head. “You’re the only person I’ve told.”
“What about your family?”
“The shame would devastate my parents. My father, especially. I sent a reply in his place that ensured they would get no further correspondence on the matter, nor delivery of the body.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Desertion was a worse scandal than an unwed pregnancy, but it could eventually be overcome. “Wouldn’t they want to mourn their son and see him properly buried?”
“Ross doesn’t deserve it,” Jackson growled. “Regardless, a funeral would raise questions about the circumstances of his death. My parents have already lost two sons to the war. They think Ross hared off to sew some wild oats, and—as long as they draw breath—that’s what I’ll let them believe.”
Caroline sat mute, digesting it all.
She reached across the table and touched Jackson’s hand as he shoved his chair back and moved to rise. “Thank you for telling me.”
He gave a curt nod then stood and put on his coat. He muttered something about ‘horses’’ and ‘extra feed’ in a gravelly voice as he went out the door.
Jackson wasn’t a traitor. He was an honorable man, hardened by loss and constrained by responsibility.