Spirits of the Heart — Preview

Chapter 1

Ember

Natchez, Mississippi

April 1861

 

            The sultry spring morning, quickly heating up, masqueraded as a summer morning. Maybe a summer afternoon.

            Mississippi was like that. Sometimes summer faded in slowly, the cold of winter slowly morphing into the unbearable heat of summer. This summer, though, it seemed like winter turned to summer, skipping right over spring. Like my little brother skipping a rock out across our little pond.

            Despite the lack of a breeze of any kind, the scent of magnolia blooms on the tree outside my open bedroom window perfumed the room, coming in strong along with the steady buzz of bees. Fortunately we had screens on our windows so the bees couldn’t get inside the house. The screens kept out the pesky mosquitoes, too.

            The three-story plantation house with its twelve foot ceilings helped to pull the heat up toward the ceilings. That and the shade they provided from the full on sun.

            My bedroom was big. It held a large four-poster canopied bed with silk netting for an extra layer of protection from the pesky insects, though in summer it was too hot to keep the netting closed.

            The quilt on my bed was in my favorite lilac color and matched the velvet curtains at the windows.

            My dresser was on one side of the room with a mirror and a little bench where I sat and brushed my hair.

            A vase of little white daisies sat on the dresser, reminding me of my wedding day when the house had fresh flowers everywhere.

            My dresses usually hung in a chifforobe along with my ribbons and shoes. I owned a dozen dresses, the latest, of course, was my wedding gown.

            Only today instead of hanging in the chifforobe, they were packed in a trunk. A trunk that I would be taking with me to my new home.

            One side of my bedroom was a dedicated sitting area with French doors overlooking the back lawn. A little table with the novel I was currently reading and an unlit candle sat next to my settee. Last night was the last night I would sleep here. After the wedding, I would go to my new husband’s home where I would run his plantation.

            My mother had taught me what she could about running a plantation, but at seventeen-years-old, I was not ready.

            Today there were vases of fresh flowers everywhere. On the nightstand. The dresser. The table in my sitting area.

            Already the air was heavy and the heat was cloyingly humid. My new silk dress, in a silvery lilac color with yards of silver underskirts clung to my back like a damp cloth.

            The only thing saving me from swooning in the heat was my ability to sway my wide hoop skirt back and forth, creating a light breeze beneath my heavy skirts. The heavy skirts were more suited to the cool weather of fall than what for all intents and purposes was full on summer.

            My wedding was supposed to be in October. That was the date my Mama and Papa had set for my wedding.

            But… the war.

            The call to arms came yesterday. Yesterday!

            The men, our boys, were leaving tomorrow.

            Today they were boys. Tomorrow they would be soldiers.

            My little brother Shawn at the tender age of nine asked our mother every day if he was old enough now to join the soldiers. Her answer was always the same.

            The soldiers leaving tomorrow included Nathaniel Fontenot. As in Nathaniel, my betrothed.

            Tomorrow he would be donning his new butternut officer’s uniform, mounting his big dapple gray horse, and riding off to war. He was a man today. A soldier tomorrow.

            A friend today. My husband in a few hours.

            “Mister Nathaniel is here,” Sadie, my lady’s maid announced bustling into my bedroom carrying a tray of cheese and fruit. “He is so handsome in his officer’s uniform.” She clasped her hands together. “Just wait until you see him.”

            I smiled. At least I think it was a smile.

            Tomorrow he would be leaving. The thought lodged itself in my mind and began to take root.

            “Sit here,” Sadie said, patting the bench in front of my dresser. “Eat something while I curl your hair.”
            I did as she asked.

            It was expected of a bride even on a non-wedding wedding day.

            I felt numb. I thought I had until October before I married, but yesterday I learned that my wedding would be today.

            I quickly extrapolated that to mean that my wedding night would be tonight.

            A wedding night was something a girl needed time to prepare for.

            I was not prepared.

            Sadie pulled a pair of hot tongs from the hearth and began to work her magic on my hair.

            My father’s hounds set up a ruckus outside. Probably chasing a deer.

            “Have you seen Luna?” I asked.

            “Don’t you worry your head about that little dog of yours. Your sister is watching after him fine.”

            Luna was my big loveable dog, a solid white Great Pyrenees, my parents had given to me on my fifteenth birthday.

            He was the descendant of a long line of dogs my grandparents had brought over from France. Furthermore, he was the only dog that was allowed to live inside the house.

            I sat quietly and mostly still as Sadie wove a lilac silk ribbon through my hair, doing something no doubt amazing with my long brunette hair.

            “I need to see Nathaniel,” I said suddenly.

            “You can’t see him now,” Sadie said with the calmness of years of being my lady’s maid, putting her hands on her hips.

            “Why not?” I turned and looked at her over my shoulder.

            “It ain’t fitting,” she said. “Besides, it’s bad luck.”

            “Bad luck.” I turned back around and Sadie wrapped the hot iron rod around another strand of hair.

            I needed to see Nathaniel. I couldn’t say why I suddenly needed to see him right now, but I felt a compelling urge to talk to my future husband.

            I’d known Nathaniel for most of my life. He and I had been friends, not good friends, but friends nonetheless even though he was five years older than me.

            It had come as quite a surprise when several months ago it had come to my attention that Papa and Nathaniel’s father had struck a deal for us to be married. I had more than a little bit of suspicion that this had been their plan since my birth. It was not unheard of in our southern plantation culture.

            Papa, however, denied that he had betrothed me as a child to the neighbor’s son. Mama refused to answer me, saying she wasn’t privy to such details.

            This, of course, wasn’t true.

            Mama knew everything even if she didn’t admit to it. Father didn’t dare do anything without running it by her first. There would be hell to pay and everyone knew it.

            As Sadie dropped the iron rod back into the flames to heat it up again, I slid off the bench.

            “I have to go outside a moment,” I said, my skirts rustling as I dashed across the room.                             

            Sadie shook her head. I heard her making a disapproving clucking sound as I walked out the door and into the wide hallway.

            Piano music drifted upstairs. My sister played the piano. Preparing to play for the wedding. She would use any excuse to sit at the piano.

            I dashed down the candlelit hallway to the stairs, pausing at the top of the stairs and listening. My sister was at the piano. My father would be in his study. Mama would be in the dining room fussing over flowers.

            If Nathaniel was here, as Sadie had said and Sadie would know, he would either be in the study with my father or he would be on the back veranda.

            His family would be arriving soon. It was like him to arrive early, getting here before everyone else.

            Walking quiet as a mouse, I approached Father’s study, listening for some indication that Nathaniel was inside talking with my father.

            As I reached the door, I knew that all was clear. If Nathaniel was in Father’s study, they would be talking. I heard nothing but silence and smelled the scent of Father’s cigar smoke. I pictured him standing at the window, his back to the door. Either that or he sat at his desk, bent over his ledgers.

            Holding my breath, I slipped past the study, not daring to look inside. I had to walk slowly lest my skirts rustle and give me away.

            Making it past Father’s door without incident, breathing again, I hurried to the back door.

            And there, leaning against the railing, looking out over the back lawn, was Nathaniel.

            Sadie was right. Nathaniel was wearing his new butternut Confederate uniform. Gold braids on his sleeves. A captain’s hat. A long gold sash tied at the waist.

            Pants tucked into tall boots at the knees. A saber in a scabbard on one side. A pistol tucked into his belt on the other.

            Nathaniel looked ready for battle.

            More ready for battle, in fact, than for a wedding.

            My heart skittered in my chest.

            I had known Nathaniel all my life, but he was five years older than me. Too old for us to have played together.

            He was twenty-two now. Although I had always thought he was cute with his dimpled smile and the amused way he looked at me, standing there in his butternut gray uniform, I realized he was no longer cute.

            He was handsome.

            “Hello Ember,” he said, turning so that he leaned against one of the tall columns that graced the back veranda.

            He was tall and lean. So confident.

            Blue eyes. So blue they rivaled those little miniature daisies that sprouted up as the first indication of spring.

            “Hello. Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for the wedding?” There was that amused grin again.
            I swallowed. The knowledge that I was to be married to him within mere hours tied my tongue into knots and I forgot what it was I had come to talk to him about.

            “Yes,” I said, saying the first thing that came to mind. “Sadie said you had arrived early.”

            “I wanted to talk to your father before the wedding.”

            “Oh.” I had hoped he would want to talk with me, but of course he would want to talk to my father.

            “About the war?” I asked.

            “Yes. As a matter of fact.”

            I nodded and my skirts rustled as I turned away. Turning away to hide the disappointment.

            “Wait. Ember.”

            Nathaniel stood next to me now. With him standing this close, I had to look up to meet his gaze.

            “Yes?”
            “You wanted to talk to me?”

            I nodded. Hadn’t I?

            “Yes, but…”

            “Ember,” he said, his voice full of kindness. We’re to be married. You can tell me anything.”

            “You’re leaving tomorrow?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it. To see what he thought about it.

            “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I’d like to discuss with your father.”

            “What do you mean?”
            “The war won’t last long,” he said with certainty. “I’m thinking you should stay here until I get back.”

            A surge of hope shot through me. Stay here!
            “Yes,” I said, keeping my voice purposely steady. “I could stay here.”

            “Good,” he said. “Good. I just have to talk with your father.”

            I nodded. “Okay.”

            “There’s something else,” he said. “I was saving it as a surprise for you on our wedding, but…”

            “But today is our wedding.”

            “Yes.”

            “Nathaniel,” I said. “If I’m to be your wife you can tell me anything.”         

            He laughed. “Yes. You’re right. Come. Sit with me.”

            I followed him to one of the three wooden rocking chairs on the back veranda. He held the rocker while I sat. I straightened my skirts while he pulled a second rocker over next to mine and sat.

            “What is it?” I asked.

            Nathaniel and I had been cordial with each other. We had danced together at balls and we’d made small talk.

            We had not, however, ever had what I would call a serious conversation.

            “Do you remember when I was gone last year?”
            “Of course.” I had been well aware that he had been gone. It had actually been over a year, nearly two, but I didn’t let on that I had noticed.

            “Well.” He was grinning now, looking more like the boyish version of himself that I’d grown up with. “I was in Colorado.”

            “Out west?” I pressed a hand against my brow. How did I not know this? No one had told me where he went and I honestly hadn’t found it the least bit strange.

            “Yes. I bought a ranch.”

            “A ranch.” A sinking feeling settled into my stomach. I’d read some of my brother’s dime novels—novels Mother didn’t know he read, but one of his friends shared them. He was enchanted with what he called the wild west. That was about all I knew about the west.

            “Yes,” he said, still grinning. “It’s right on the edge of the Rocky Mountains near a little town called Georgetown.”

            “I see.” But I didn’t understand why he was telling me this. I was to be his wife, but truly I couldn’t see how it concerned me.

            Men made all sorts of investments. My father had invested in a steamboat of all things.

            He reached over to take my hands.

            “After the war, we’ll move there.”

            “After the war… move… west…”

            “Yes.” He swept a hand in no particular direction. “There’s no heat like there is here.”

            “But… what about the cotton and the indigo?”
            “We’ll be ranchers,” he said. “We’ll raise cattle.”

            I think my mouth must have literally dropped open.

            My father came to the door and Nathaniel released my hand. That struck me as amusing because Nathaniel and I were to be married today.

            And yet propriety took precedence over even that.

            “There you are, Nathaniel,” Father said in his booming voice. “You wanted to talk to me.”

            “Yes, sir,” Nathaniel said, standing up.

            He paused next to my chair. “Think about it. We’ll talk later.”

            “Of course,” I said, watching my betrothed walk in through the back door with my father.

            My stomach felt tight.

            Did he mean I could stay here tonight? If so, would Nathaniel stay here tonight also? I had so many questions.

            But then there was the… ranch. I knew nothing about ranching. Nothing about the west.

            I was about to marry a man who wanted to take me far away from everything I knew.

            I pressed a hand against my stomach. I had to think about this.

            But first I had to go back upstairs and finish getting ready for my wedding.

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