A Time for Everything (43 page)

“
Who told you
this?”

“
Doesn’t matter. Enjoy
your freedom while it lasts.” No matter how Lydia would take the
news, it felt good to watch the bastard squirm. Beau tipped his hat
and turned for the door.

An all-too-familiar
click, click
spun him
around.

A gun barrel pointed right at his
forehead. Where Oliver had gotten it, Beau had no idea, but he had
no time to go for his Colt. Oliver squeezed the trigger. In one
fluid move he’d learned on the battlefield, Beau deflected Oliver’s
arm and locked it tight against his ribs. A shot exploded inches
from his chest. He butted his body against Oliver’s and flipped him
over his knee. Oliver landed on the floor with a thud. His head
bounced once on floorboards, and he cried out like any wounded man
would.

Except when he went silent, a shrill
scream intercepted the chaos.

“
Lydia! No, no, oh God no…
Lydia!”

Beau turned around, heart plummeting
into his stomach. Polly was hunched over her daughter, screaming
her name. The two of them lay in a heap of fine skirts and crumpled
packages. Polly pressed her palm to Lydia’s chest. Blood soaked
into her white silk glove, climbing up the fabric to her fingers,
until she could hold back the tide no longer. A stream of blood
flowed down Lydia’s side to the floor.

“
No.” Beau hit his knees,
slid his arm under her neck.

She blinked up at him, her pretty lips
parted, gasping for air. “I… love…”

“
You’re gonna be fine.
Just hang on. Polly, go fetch the doctor. Hurry!”

But she didn’t seem to hear him at
all. She lifted her laudanum-dulled face to Oliver. “You… shot… my…
daughter.”

Beau focused on Lydia and cradled her
against his chest. He’d never wanted this, never wanted to hurt
her. Spoiled yes, but her heart beat true. She was not her father’s
daughter. Not like him at all.

“
Stay with me,” he
pleaded, cradling her smooth cheek in his hand.

Tears rolled from her eyes. She lifted
her trembling hand to his face. “…love you.”

Emotion spilled from Polly’s eyes as
she sat upright. All those years of pent-up heartbreak from whores
both willing and forced, innocents killed in his lust for power,
loneliness suppressed in bittersweet liquid addiction. She carried
it all with her and crawled to her husband. He clawed himself off
the floor to his knees just as she reached him.

Polly grabbed his arms and
pulled herself up until they were face to face. Her blood-soaked
gloves curled into fists, and she beat them into his chest.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
“Damn you! Why? Why? You never loved us. You never
loved
me
!”

Lydia’s body trembled. Her hand slid
down Beau’s face to his chest and lingered over his heart. Blood
trickled from the corner of her mouth. She tried to speak, but the
words gurgled in her throat. Her eyes spoke volumes, and he
understood every question in their blue depths.

“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m
so sorry. Claire would be so proud of you.” Though the feeling
didn’t come from the same place hers did, he added, “I do love you,
Lydia. I always have.”

She smiled. Her hand slid down his
chest. Her body went limp, and she died right there in his
arms.

Tears burned his eyes, but he would
not release them yet. He turned to Oliver. “She’s gone, because of
you.”

The man who had once owned so many
regarded his dead daughter with the eyes of a grieving father as
his wife screamed and wailed and beat on his chest. Slack-jawed,
Oliver’s shoulders drooped in surrender.

From downstairs came thundering
footsteps. “Oliver Clemons, surrender now! We have a warrant for
your arrest!”

Justice had arrived a moment too
late.

Awareness sparked in the tyrant’s
eyes. Before the police could reach them and before Beau could stop
him, Oliver swept the gun from the floor and jabbed it to his own
temple. He cocked the hammer.

Men with guns emerged from the
stairwell into the hall.

Oliver closed his eyes and pulled the
trigger.

Sun beat down
on Portia’s back as she tended the graves,
pulling weeds, straightening the flowers in the vases and adding
fresh water. She appreciated Frank’s dedication to keeping the
grass cut, but the finer details were left to the women. Ellen
helped clean the bird droppings and dust from the gravestones. Baby
Jake slept soundly while strapped to her back with a thin cotton
sheet. Jimmy and Louise played tag around the shade trees. Their
laughter brought a smile to Portia’s face while she dug a thistle
from the corner of Abby’s stone.

“
I know Mr. Stanford is
engaged to that rich woman,” Ellen said, “but you’re in love with
him, aren’t you?”

“
Why would you say such a
thing?” Portia’s cheeks grew sunburn hot, though she’d only been
outside for a half hour.

“
You wrote about him in
every letter.”

“
What’s so strange about
that? He was my employer and I was living in his house.”

“
It’s the way you wrote
about him with such reverence and empathy. And you sure didn’t seem
to like his fiancée, either. You know you can be honest with me,
Po.”

Portia lowered herself to the carpet
of grass, staring at Jake’s name. Her voice quivered. “How could I
be in love with someone else, when my husband and child are still
warm in the ground? And how could I love Beau after having known
him for so short a time? He’s getting married in a
week.”

“
So now it’s Beau, and not
Mr. Stanford?” Ellen laughed as she settled on the ground under the
nearest shade tree, and out of sight of the barn builders across
the road. Baby Jake had started fussing, so she took him from his
wrap, unbuttoned her dress, and put him to the breast.

“
That’s… it doesn’t
matter.” Portia wanted to rip handfuls of grass from the ground and
throw them at Ellen, but avoided such desecration and slapped the
ground instead. “And even if I was, it’s not meant to be. I used
the money I had left to book passage on the next stagecoach to
Kentucky. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“
Is that your answer to
everything that doesn’t go your way? Just run from it?”

“
I am doing no such thing.
It’s not like I have a choice in the matter, and he doesn’t
either.”

“
We all have a choice,”
Ellen said. She held baby Jake to her shoulder and patted his back.
He let out a satisfied burp. “He’s in love with you, too, isn’t
he?”

“
Arrrgh,” Portia groaned,
pushing herself to her feet. She walked to her mama’s grave and
back again. “You are so infuriating, Ellen McAllister!”

“
Infuriating or not, you
love that man, and he loves you. If there’s any chance you can be
together, you should take it.”

“
Well, there’s no chance,”
Portia said, and swiped the air with her hand, hoping to cut this
conversation off at the knees.

“
Really?” Ellen
re-buttoned her dress and returned baby Jake, now full and content,
into his wrap. She pointed past Portia to somewhere down the road.
“Then tell
him
.”

Portia spun around and blinked into
the sun. A carriage rattled down the road, drawing closer with
every kicked-up cloud of dust from the Morgans hitched to it. She
would have recognized those horses, that carriage, and that
familiar hat anywhere.

“
Beau…” she whispered.
“Ellen, how did you know?”

Laughing, Ellen stood and came to her
side, putting her arm around Portia’s shoulders. “I didn’t, but I
prayed to God I was right. Besides, I’ve never seen you look at
another man the way you looked at Jake… until now. Talk to him.
Give him a chance. I’ll be at the house, waiting for
you.”

Beau pulled the carriage up to the
cemetery gate. He met Portia’s gaze with one of uncertainty, while
a smile hemmed and hawed on his lips.

He climbed out and took off his hat,
nodding to Ellen as she passed through the gate. “Ma’am, I’m Beau
Stanford. Pleasure to meet you.”

“
I know who you are,”
Ellen said, stopping only long enough to flick her pale green eyes
between Beau and Portia. “And you better make this visit
worthwhile, or you’ll have my husband to contend with.”

Ellen marched on down the road toward
her house, while Beau scratched his head, looking dumbfounded.
Jimmy and Louise caught up with her, casting wary glances at the
dark-haired stranger.

“
That’s Ellen,” Portia
said. “She’s right about her husband. He’d make two of
you.”

“
I hope I don’t disappoint
her, then.” His face lit up with one of those genuine smiles that
made her heart flutter.

She knelt by Jake’s grave to rearrange
the fresh cut gladiolas that didn’t need rearranging. “What are you
doing here?”

Hat held to his chest in reverence, he
knelt beside her. “I have something for you.”

Her back went stiff, as did her voice,
and she dared not take her eyes off the flowers. “Oh? What is
it?”

From the corner of her eye, she could
see him removing a piece of paper from the inner pocket of his
leather vest. He held it out to her, and glancing at his blank
face, she took the folded square. She unfolded it and read the
not-too-sloppy handwriting:

Dear Miss Po,

Thank you for teaching me.
Me and Mama and Daddy are all rite now, and I can still read real
good. I want to be a teacher just like you when I grow
up.

Love,

Sallie Mae
Jenkins

Tears burned the corners of Portia’s
eyes. “They’re all right? Does that mean — ?”

“
They’re free. Should be
well into Kentucky by now.”

Pushing herself to her feet, Portia
smoothed her black skirt and went to stand in the shade of the
nearest oak. “Thank you for telling me, Mr. Stanford. I’m happy
they’re safe and sound.”

He followed and leaned casually
against the tree trunk. “I thought you would be.”

She had no idea what to
say next. Words tickled her tongue, but her mind couldn’t sort them
out. She focused on the fresh timbers of the new tobacco barn and
the steady
tap
,
tap
as
the men pieced it together with hammers and nails. He’d come all
this way to tell her this, but why? He could have sent a letter.
Did this mean he had already married Lydia? Or did it mean
something else, something she had not let herself
imagine?

“
I have something else I
need to tell you,” he said.

So solemn were his words, that she
fell against the tree trunk to stay upright. The rough bark snagged
her black lace gloves and poked uncomfortably into her back. She
tried to look him in the eyes, but couldn’t force her gaze past his
leather vest. His chest expanded and relaxed with each heavy
breath.

“
I hope you and Mrs.
Stanford will be happy,” she blurted, then spring boarded from the
tree and hurried toward the gate.

Don’t cry, don’t let him
see you cry.
She captured each choking sob
before it could escape and swallowed it down.

“
Portia, wait.” Beau
caught her arm.

She tried to pull away, but he held
fast.

“
I can’t!” Her grief came
loose, rushing out with each keening word. “Just let me go.
Please.”

He had her by both arms now, craning
his head this way and that to try to meet her eyes. Finally, he
gave her a little shake, and she snapped to attention.

“
I’m not married,” he
said. “Lydia’s dead.”

His hands fell away from her, and he
removed his hat again, twisting the brim as he plowed through the
horrific story. She tried to catch all the details of how Beau had
found Oliver beating Lucy, and how Oliver had tried to kill him but
shot Lydia instead. Then he said Oliver turned the gun on himself
and something about a pile of money and Amelie Hamilton and an
Irishman named McKee.

She squeezed her eyes shut and waved
her hands to silence him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite follow all of
that, but… Lydia’s dead? And Oliver?”

“
Yes,” he said in one
heavy sigh. “Polly took both of them to be buried back in
Philadelphia. I never meant anyone to get hurt, even if Oliver
deserved it. But Lydia didn’t. I don’t know if I can ever forgive
myself, but… I want you to come back to us.”

Everything around them went silent, as
though the earth itself waited to see what would happen next. She
glanced at the barn builders — three of them, hammers frozen in
mid-air. They quickly focused on their work again and pounded those
nails for all they were worth.

She let her eyes find his once more.
“I’m leaving by stagecoach tomorrow to find work up
north.”

Deep worry lines formed familiar
streaks across his forehead and around his eyes. “If that’s what
you want, I won’t keep you from it, but will you sit and talk with
me awhile? I need you to know something else before you
go.”