Miss Ophelia now that we’re here.” Ellie began to pace the path in front of the bench as if in deep thought. Finally she stopped and faced him. “But one thing we have to think about is our arrangement. Susanna could make a lot of trouble, so we have to be more careful. Even when we think nobody’s around, people could be watching us.”
“That’s another reason I didn’t want to fabricate a courtship.”
“We can do it. We have to. If we stop now, neither of us will be able to turn around without enduring a marriage proposal.”
He had to laugh. “You’re the only one who has to worry about that.”
“Don’t be too sure Susanna Martin won’t try to make you propose.”
The thought turned his insides cold. Ellie was right.
“Here’s what we’ll do...”
The chill in his gut now turned to fire. How did this woman manage to keep him in such turmoil? Was this what life was going to be from now on?
No, it was not. She’d helped him out of a jam, that much was true, but it didn’t mean she could control him. He’d been a colonel in the Confederate army, commanding thousands of men, and no woman was going to give him orders.
Especially this woman...
“Whatever your new idea is, you can forget it. I’ll think of something.”
She smiled that smile that used to keep him awake at night—sweet, effortless, with a hint of amusement, as if she was going to let him talk his own neck into a noose. “That’s fine, Graham. What do you want to do?”
“Easy. We’re going to stop this nonsense.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“We’ll go into that ballroom and...” And what? Announce that they weren’t courting after all? While that seemed like a good solution, common sense told him it would make a laughingstock of Ellie. He studied her eyes in the moonlight—clear, unselfish, innocent eyes. Eyes that had kept watch over him in childhood and still looked after him today. Eyes that saw right through him to the man he was inside. Could he do that to her, offend her this way? No Southern gentleman would treat a woman in such a fashion. He looked over her head, to the east, toward Ashland Place.
“What’s your plan?” He ground out the words between clenched teeth.
Ellie took his arm and snuggled against him in a most convincing manner. “To go into the ballroom like a couple in love and let Miss Ophelia draw her own conclusions. She probably wants to honor your service to the Glorious Confederacy, so let her do that. Then just act natural and she’ll spread the word that we’re courting. But you have to make it look more realistic than you are now, or nobody older than little Betsy will believe it.”
At once he realized they’d been ambling back up to the gallery. “Courting doesn’t come naturally to me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Nobody here knows that. Just do as I do.”
Now how in blue blazes did Ellie know how to act “in love”? She’d never treated him like that, and according to Noreen this afternoon, she’d not courted with anyone in all the years he’d been gone.
But as they climbed the steps to the gallery and the gaslight there shone on her face, he saw that she did, indeed, know how to look that way. Those big blue eyes of hers, gazing at him like liquid love—he cleared his throat and swallowed hard to get rid of the lump that somehow formed there.
“That’s it!” Her lowered voice brightened with enthusiasm as they stepped through the window. “Now you look the part.”
Somehow, that didn’t make Graham feel any better. Pretending to be in love with the girl who had once ripped out his heart and then stepped on it—he couldn’t go along with it. “Ellie, we have to talk about this. I can’t— I won’t—”
Ellie’s adoring look vanished for an instant as something like an ache etched itself between her eyes.
She must have thought he found something distasteful about her.
How far from the truth that was. What Southern gentleman went about hurting women that way? And why did this whole situation have to be so complicated?
Holding in the groan that wanted to escape from his gut, Graham clenched his jaw and stepped aside to allow her to enter his aunt’s home. If Ellie and Susanna were right, their friends had many more events planned for him in the near future, and he had to learn to deal with that. He’d give it some thought when he was alone.
If he ever made it out of this house and away from this party.
* * *
Graham wanted to talk about the courtship ruse? Ellie was thinking the exact same thing. It wasn’t going to work unless he agreed to it with his whole heart.
The poor man. Ellie released his slightly trembling arm and stepped through the jib window and into Miss Ophelia’s home. He hadn’t seemed this uncomfortable even at their first “grown-up” party at Susanna’s house years ago. What could frighten this war hero so much—the party itself or the thought of an imaginary courtship with her?
“Colonel Talbot!” Miss Ophelia called in her exaggerated, singsong voice. She sailed across the vaulted-ceilinged ballroom toward them, wearing more yellow ruffles and bows and longer ringlets of red hair than even the debutantes had. Of course, Ellie would never have expected Miss Ophelia to wear mourning clothes for more than six months. And, being Ophelia Prescott Talbot Adams, she got away with it in Natchez.
When she reached Graham’s side, she enveloped him in a hug only a woman who had been like another mother to him could give. “You look stunning in that uniform, Colonel.”
Miss Ophelia’s matronly embrace brought a look of relief to Graham’s eyes, clearly comforting him more than Ellie would have thought possible. When his aunt finally released him, he gave her a peck of a kiss on the cheek. “If you call me Colonel again, I’m going to march right out of here and take all these troops with me.”
“Only in public, Graham,” she said, blinking her long eyelashes as if trying to keep from shedding a tear. “I’m too proud of you to pass up any opportunity to boast about you.” Then she gestured for the orchestra to stop, and she pulled both Graham and Ellie to the front of the room.
“The whole town has been waiting for this day.” Miss Ophelia raised her voice and commanded the room’s attention. “My nephew, Colonel Graham Prescott Talbot, war hero and defender of the great Confederate States of America under the celebrated General Robert E. Lee, has returned to us at last.”
True to form, Miss Ophelia led the crowd in genteel applause. As she’d requested, Graham wore his freshened uniform and polished boots, and Ellie noticed at least a dozen other former soldiers in cadet gray as well. They all carried the hardships of war in their faces, as Graham did, no doubt having seen and endured things they’d never be able to forget. But what about their futures? Were these men’s days to come as uncertain as Graham’s, their prospects as dreary, their responsibilities as heavy? Were their burdens as great as his: no occupation, no potential for marriage and family in the near future, no means to support the stepmother and baby in his care—
And a counterfeit courtship with Ellie, who had once laughed at his proposal?
At once, she understood his discomfort with the courtship arrangement she’d suggested.
Miss Ophelia’s pointed stare snatched Ellie from her thoughts, and she realized the room had gone silent. She nudged Graham in the side. “They’re waiting for you to speak.”
He cleared his throat as if summoning his colonel attitude. “Thank you, Aunt Ophelia, for the kind words. It’s good to get home to Natchez, where the Spanish moss sways in the breeze, the catfish wait for us in the Mississippi River, the grits are always hot and the punch cold. I pray none of us will ever leave her again.”