Always (16 page)

Emily had to close her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s very impressive, but it’s not your nose bump I meant to discuss.”

“Oh?”

“After I left for Baltimore, there were some rumors.”

“Oh,” he said disparagingly, “
those
.”

Emily’s eyes flew open. “You heard?”

He shrugged. “Of course, but what’s new? If every rumor that’s ever gone around about me in this town were true, I’d have sired half the illegitimate children in the county.”

Emily gaped at him.

Karl bent down to look her in the eye. “I’m bad, Miss Emily, but I’m not that bad. Nobody’s that bad, even if they aspire to be. So, tell me, what is it that’s on your mind about it?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

“You’ve done that already. For the nose. And you didn’t have anything to do with that, either. Is there anything else you’d like to apologize for this morning? The Union defeats at Bull Run, perhaps?”

He was joking of course, trying to make light of this horribly awkward moment, but Emily couldn’t bring herself to smile for him. She felt instead an unexpected lump in her throat. At least one old burden had just been lifted from her shoulders, and she wondered how things might have turned out if she could have brought herself to fall in love with Karl all those years ago instead of—

Emily banished the thought. “I only take partial responsibility for Bull Run.”

“Perhaps we can work on that over time,” Karl said with a wink. “You have much too active a conscience, Miss Emily.”

“Some might argue with you,” she replied, remembering how Ross had caught her searching through Davenport’s print orders.

“Good day for now.” Karl tipped his hat. “Do keep in mind my job offer, and I hope you get your watch fixed.”

Emily gave him a little smile. “Indeed, Mr. Becker. If I find a competent jeweler, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

*

Ross tugged at his collar, wishing he could loosen his tie just a bit. He was on his way to town, though, and it wouldn’t do to show up at the paper looking as if he were ready to call it a day before the week even got started.

He turned off the dirt lane from the Hockstetter place and walked along the side of the pike. He had another mile ahead on foot, but he didn’t mind. On a morning like this, with fields of young corn and tobacco spreading for as far as the eye could see, pleasant memories of past summers were strong and compelling. It was only his stiff collar and tailored trousers that reminded him that he was no longer the thirteen-year-old boy in worn denims and a homespun shirt who had knocked his way along this same road to school. He was a grown man with a responsible job, a bright future, and one very bloody war behind him.

The rattling sounds of a wagon approaching from behind didn’t immediately take his attention. The pike was always busy at this time of day. Soon, the wagon drew even with him and groaned to a stop.

“Here now, Ross. Thought that was you. All fancied up like you are. Couldn’t be anybody else. Need a ride to town?”

Ross’s young landlord, Phares Hockstetter, leaned a brawny, suntanned forearm on one knee and peered down at him from beneath the brim of a broad straw hat. Only a few years older than Ross, Phares already wore the sun-wrinkles of a man a decade his senior. If he was aware of them, though, he no doubt wore them with pride. Being one of the stoic, hardworking breed of Pennsylvania Germans that had built Lancaster County into one of the most productive agricultural areas in the nation, Phares made no secret that he considered Ross’s choice to make a living with his pen rather than the strength of his back very peculiar.

Ross hesitated. “A ride?” He glanced in the direction of town where brick buildings huddled on the horizon and smoke stacks puffed steam into the sky.

On a morning like this, Ross preferred to walk. It was a simple pleasure, to bask in the openness and beauty of the farmland, to revel in the smell of newborn country air untainted by the stench of unwashed bodies and human disease. A simple pleasure.

Like being able to eat his fill of golden roast chicken or loaf cake with apple butter and to feel his body growing strong and healthy again as each new day passed. A simple pleasure.

Like lying between clean sheets at night and being able to close his eyes without worrying that another prisoner, one out of his mind with cold and starvation, might murder him in his sleep for a half ration of weevily cornmeal or the tattered remains of his blanket. These were simple pleasures Ross still savored and hoped he would never fail to appreciate again.

Remembering his manners, Ross offered Phares a smile and climbed up into the ladder wagon. He doubted the farmer would understand his very personal reasons for wanting to leg it to town, and it wouldn’t do to spurn a neighborly offer.

Phares released the hand brake and snapped the reins, commanding his old mule, Wilma, into sluggardly forward motion once again. “Phoebe was by the house day before last. She sure does like what you done to the old place,” Phares said.

“It’s not that much, just some paint on the porch and a few flowers out front. The vegetable garden’s coming along pretty well, though, and I finally got a chance to fix the door on the springhouse this past Saturday.”

Phares nodded. “
Ach
, yes. The place started to run down soon after Mother died. Kept after it best I could, but what with planting and Phoebe expecting a new little one and all, I just couldn’t keep it up.”

Ross knew the story. When he answered the young farmer’s advertisement for a tenant, he learned that the family farmhouse had been empty for months following Mrs. Hockstetter’s death. Prior to that, the couple had sold off most of their farmland when Mr. Hockstetter grew too ill to work. As for Phares, he’d married the only child of a land-wealthy farm family and now owned a hundred-acre farm of his own.

“I expect to fix the handrail on the front staircase this week,” Ross said.

“Ain’t now? Well, that’s good. Appreciate it.”

As Wilma towed the clattering wagon along the rutted pike, they fell into a comfortable silence. Ross liked Phares. He was the kind of man one could sit with and not feel awkward as the quiet stretched out between them.

Ross also liked his weekends and evenings spent alone in the old stone farmhouse. While it was true that he would live and die by his pen, he took a certain visceral satisfaction from effecting routine repairs and restoring Mrs. Hockstetter’s yard and gardens to their once well-tended state. He liked working with his hands. He liked seeing the results of his efforts, clear and unarguable and tangible.

“Still looking to sell, you know.”

Ross looked up. “Sell what?”

“The house,” Phares said, not taking his eyes from the road. “Ain’t much land that comes along with it. Only the woodlot and that patch around back of the springhouse. No farmer will want it, but it sure does seem like just the thing for a man with a town job to support him.”

Phares had made this offer once before, and Ross had been sorely tempted to take him up on it. “I’d like to, but Johanna has her heart set on living in town.”

“Hmm. Miz Davenport.”

“Uh, Butler, you mean.”

Phares just chuckled. “Sorry. I keep forgetting she married that horse’s ass before the war.”

Ross absorbed this dryly, deciding that it wouldn’t be good form to speak ill of the dead. Still, he could think of a few other less-than-flattering descriptions of Johanna’s late first husband.

Phares left him off at the corner of King and Queen Streets with a half hour to spare. There was plenty of time to stop by the bank and take care of the problem that had nagged at him all weekend. Ever since Emily had stopped by the house.

Ross hurried past the Davenport building, then crossed the street to the national bank. As he waited for a teller, he had time to ponder the question Emily had asked him on Saturday.
Can’t you just trust me?

It was a question that had needled at his conscience all weekend. He had vowed to make amends for the past, to win back her friendship, and trust was an important element of that friendship.

Ten minutes later, when Ross entered the Davenport building, a banker’s envelope plumped an inside pocket of his coat. The wall clock read nine-ten. Emily would already be at work in the second-floor business office.

Waving to one of the job pressmen, he passed through the printing department and took the stairs. The last thing he wanted was to run smack-dab into Malcolm. His future father-in-law came barreling down the hall with all the delicacy of a charging bull.

“Ross!” he boomed, stopping to pluck a Corona Ducal cigar from his mouth. “I left this morning’s wires on your desk. You can dole them out however you like, but Governor Curtin has the list of Pennsylvania soldiers who died at Andersonville. I thought you’d want to handle that one yourself.”

Impatient to keep moving, Ross nodded. “Thanks, I do.”

Malcolm pointed with his smoking cigar. “And there’s that city council meeting this afternoon.”

“Got it.” Ross said, growing irritated. They both knew that as assistant editor it was Ross’s responsibility to cover city government—even if he didn’t like it. Most of the men on the city council were still old-style Democrats. Of all the subjects Ross had been assigned to cover since coming to work for the
Herald
, he found city council meetings not only the most dull but also the most difficult to write about without offending Malcolm’s political sensibilities. His articles inevitably came out sounding like meeting minutes.

But that was beside the point. If it was his job, Ross would make sure it got done. He resented that Malcolm apparently felt it necessary to remind him of his duty.

“I’ve got a meeting with my lawyer and some other business to attend to,” Malcolm said, pulling out his pocket watch. “I’ll be back after one. You can man the ship until then.”

“Will do,” Ross said.

As usual, Malcolm was too self-absorbed to take notice of a subordinate’s discontent. He clapped Ross on the back. “Good! Looking forward to supper tonight!”

Supper
. At that moment, Ross couldn’t imagine a more tedious way to pass the evening. As he watched Malcolm vanish around the corner, he struggled against a flare of resentment.

More and more often, it seemed, he had to remind himself that it was Malcolm who held his future in the palm of his hand, that it was Malcolm who even now still dangled his lovely daughter like a carrot before Ross’s hungry eyes.

“You will, of course, be married in the Episcopal church.”
Malcolm had said this two months ago, the evening Ross came to discuss the idea of marriage to his daughter.

“I see no problem with that,” Ross had replied, sitting forward in a richly upholstered wing chair. It was perhaps ironic that he’d survived hair-raising battles and the horrors of Andersonville only to be experiencing a rush of nerves at a time like this. It seemed incredible to him that he was sitting in Malcolm Davenport’s plushly furnished study, that he was actually having this conversation with the man who, four years before, had unilaterally cut off his relationship with Johanna when it had threatened to become more than casual flirtation.

“Have you considered joining the congregation?”

Ross was caught off guard by this question. He’d assumed the religion issue had been dealt with. “What?”

“Ross, let me be candid.” The older man rose from a leather armchair and moved to a side table to pour himself a second shot of bourbon. “You acquitted yourself well during the war, rising to the rank of sergeant in three years, and you already show exceptionally bright promise as a writer and a journalist. You’re a fine young man with a bright future ahead, but,”—Malcolm turned to face him—“I won’t stand for any grandchildren of mine being raised Catholic.”

Ross didn’t flinch beneath the older man’s steel gaze, but he was nevertheless temporarily caught short of words. He hadn’t set foot in a Catholic church in years, not since he’d left the orphanage in New York to come live with the Brenners, yet something inside him dug in its heels. He had to fight an almost overwhelming impulse to tell Malcolm Davenport that he could take his assistant editor’s job and his beautiful daughter and go straight to hell.

“That will be... fine.”

Malcolm’s lips spread in a slow smile of satisfaction. He raised his glass. “Then an Episcopalian wedding it is.”

Left alone in the hallway, Ross had to take a moment to rein in his prideful emotions, to call on his more pragmatic side to remind him that he was much too close to attaining his goals to chance messing things up now. How many years had he dreamed of success? Of gaining respect? Of possessing the elusive Johanna? Too long to throw it all away for the fleeting, admittedly sweet satisfaction of telling Malcolm what he could do with his job.

Ross reached up to massage the stress-corded muscles in the back of his neck. It wasn’t even nine-thirty, and he wanted to go home. Ever since Emily had come back to town, it seemed he couldn’t think straight anymore. He was being constantly bombarded by memories of the past, of where he’d come from rather than where he intended to go, and that was no good for his career. No good at all.

He took a deep breath. The sooner he took care of the money matter, the sooner he could get his head straight and get to work.

Continuing down the hall to the business office, he paused in the open archway to make sure Oberholtzer’s office door was safely closed. The business manager had been vehemently opposed when Malcolm had hired Ross and still made no bones about his feelings on the subject.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Ross scanned the room. Like the clerks and the pressmen downstairs, the advertising and accounting department was busy. Emily sat at her desk writing copy, her head bent in concentration.

A shaft of morning sunlight played off the sleek ebony lines of her hair, and Ross found his eyes tracing not only the delicate, graceful line of her neck but also the soft, undeniably feminine nips and curves of breasts, waist, and hips beneath her clothing.