Counterfeit Courtship

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He swung around in the saddle. “What for? I’m starving.”

“We need to talk.”

“Magnolia Grove is a twenty-minute ride. We’ll have plenty of time to talk.”

Ellie looked to Lilah May for help, but she merely shooed them away with a wave of her hand and headed back inside the house.

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” If you’re courting. If you’re married...

He looked at her as if she’d suddenly lost all her senses. “I said I wanted some chicken.”

“But the picnic—we don’t have to. You can take the chicken home.”

He didn’t understand. That she could tell by the way he gazed into the sky as if asking for divine guidance.

Finally he lowered his head. “Look, you invited me to a picnic.” His voice dropped and he spoke each word slowly, as if she were too simple to understand normal speech. “Let’s ride out to the country, and if you want to talk on the way, we will. I just want to get there and get something to eat.”

Fine. He just wanted to eat. She tapped Buttercup’s flank and they took off toward the street.

Within five awkward minutes, they were out of town. Graham reined in Dixie a bit, trotting next to Buttercup. “Ellie, I’m confused. First you ask me to a picnic, and then you don’t want to go.” He paused. “Did you intend to invite me? Perhaps I misunderstood the invitation.”

“No, I’m the one who misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood what? Ellie, if we’re going to spend all this courting time together, you’re going to have to start making some sense. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Afraid to speak, afraid her frustration would come out in her voice, she blurted her concern anyway. “It’s about girls.”

“What girls? Susanna and her mob? They don’t know we’re going out there, do they?”

“No! How can such a smart man be so dumb? I’m talking about girls and you. Do you have one?”

He looked at her as if she’d asked if he had a bale of cotton in his pocket. “Unless we’re talking about you, and I assume we’re not, then no.”

“You’re not courting anyone? Not married?”

He laughed the laugh of mockery, his handsome features clouded. “Not courting, not married. No opportunity for either. I’ve been at war, remember? And before that, military school. I’ve hardly been around women since I left Natchez.”

Well, now, didn’t she feel silly?

“Why do you ask such a thing? And why did you wait until now to ask it?”

“I didn’t think of it until now.”

“Well, think of it no more, because you’re all I have along those lines.”

And he hardly sounded pleased about that.

* * *

Where had Ellie come up with that foolish notion? Courtship—true courtship—was the furthest thing from Graham’s mind. At this point, he was less interested in girls than he was in the basket of fried chicken he carried in front of him.

He glanced over at her, riding on the other side of the weedy road. Her hair shone like gold in the bright sunlight. He was wrong—the chicken wasn’t as interesting as Ellie. But it would give him a lot less trouble.

He shifted his gaze, along with his thoughts, toward the plantation they passed on the left. The fields of Mansfield Manor, once as productive as those at Ashland Place and Magnolia Grove, now lay fallow. The charred ruins of its big house stood crumbling at the end of an overgrown lane, and when they passed the run-down Mansfield chapel, Ellie let out a sigh.

“I sometimes attended that little church with Amy Mansfield when we were girls. With more and more plantations confiscated and abandoned, these little chapels will soon fall into disrepair and eventually blow down in a hard wind.” The crease between her eyes suggested that Ellie was thinking of Magnolia Grove.

“Have you been able to maintain your chapel?”

“It needs a new roof, but that will have to wait.” She turned from the chapel and toward the road ahead of them as if pushing aside morose thoughts of her own future. “When we’ve finished our dinner and the search in the study, I thought we could ride the fields. I’d like your opinion on the condition of the cotton.”

She was worried about more than just a chapel—Graham could tell it from the tone of her voice. “You suspect Fitzwald might be telling the truth after all?”

“He’s changed since I last saw him. He seems more...callous. Harder.”

They rounded a bend in the river road, Ellie’s horse picking up the pace as they neared Magnolia Grove. How much should Graham reveal to her about the weasel? He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, determined to say no more than necessary. “He’s always been that way. Selfish, greedy, cruel—you name the bad quality, he’s got it.”

“Don’t be silly. He’s not the beau of Natchez, but he’s not that bad.”

Ellie never could see the evil in a skunk. “You’re going to have to take my word for it, unless you want me to tell you some sordid stories. I’ll merely say I’ve had to intervene when he was on his way to mistreat a lady. I’ve also stepped in when he was cheating a man who couldn’t afford to lose what the weasel was trying to take from him.”

“Leonard behaved that way?” She turned those blue eyes on him, their innocence shining as brightly as her golden hair.

At her silence, Graham gave her time to think, to remember.

“I never felt completely comfortable in his presence,” she said after several moments. “He was often disrespectful to Lilah May. Sugar doesn’t like him either.”

“This time, I agree with Sugar.”

As they approached Magnolia Grove’s lane, Ellie slowed her horse. “What did you mean when you told Leonard that you haven’t forgotten how to fight? At first, I thought you were speaking of the war. But the surrender was only two months ago, and that’s not long enough for a soldier to have forgotten how to do battle.”

“You’re better off not knowing.”

“Have you ever fought with Leonard?”

“Fought hard and won.”

“You were defending someone else?”

He hesitated. “Someone much like you,” he said in a low voice.

They turned into the Magnolia Grove lane and stopped by the cypress bog. The still-magnificent big house hadn’t changed, at least not that he could tell from this distance. But the weedy drive, the unmown lawns, the sticks and magnolia limbs in the yard, had turned the plantation shabby.

Graham worked to keep his dismay off his face. Magnolia Grove was Ellie’s real home, where she and her uncle had spent the springs, Graham visiting nearly every day. This sprawling plantation was where she felt safe.

Now it looked less like a grand, productive estate and more like an abandoned, run-down farm. The fact nearly tore his heart from his chest, so how must Ellie feel?

She winced as if seeing Magnolia Grove through Graham’s eyes. “I’m ashamed to show you how much it’s changed. We haven’t even been able to keep up with the weeds in the fields, so we haven’t done anything with the drive, the lawns, or the formal gardens.”