Love's Awakening (The Ballantyne Legacy Book #2): A Novel

  You deserve far more than I could ever hope to give you. I’ll not disgrace you with my name or my family’s reputation.

  Cold. Terse. Typically Turlock. He scrawled his signature and sat back, letting the ink dry, then fisted the letter into a ball. He held it over the candle flame till it caught fire before tossing it into a nearby bucket, where it curled to ashes.

  He couldn’t hurt her. Better to say nothing and never return. She’d soon grow tired of waiting. Daniel Cameron or someone else would woo and win her, holding her close as Jack had done in the hallowed breathlessness of a late summer afternoon, daring to imagine she might be his.

  Sleep finally relieved him—restless, dreamless sleep—and then a sudden crashing outside his cabin jarred him awake. Yanking open the door, he expected chaos, only to find that a crew member had slipped on the rain-slicked deck and dropped Jack’s supper tray.

  “I’m not hungry anyway,” he told the apologetic lad with a shrug.

  The wind had shifted and grown stronger, bumping up against him, ruffling his coat and hair as he stood at the prow, the rowers behind him as twilight encroached. He wondered what Chloe was doing. If the rain was coming through the roof at River Hill or the carpenters had mended the leak. Whether or not Sol would give Cicero to Ben as Jack had requested or keep him at River Hill in hopes Jack would return. And Ellie . . .

  Thoughts of her raced down like rain, pelting him. Was she thinking of him? Trying hard not to? Loving him at a distance? Praying?

  He faced the storm, feet widespread as the keelboat listed a bit. He felt soulless. Bereft. Without anchor. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew George Whitefield’s old journal and turned to a random page.

  The weather was cold, and the wind blew very hard; but when the heart is full of God, outward things affect it little.

  31

  They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.

  WILLIAM PENN

  She had to tell Daniel. But now wasn’t the time. The trouble was there never seemed to be a proper time. Heartbreak was best dispensed in small doses, if at all. But since Daniel didn’t love her, perhaps the sting of her refusal wouldn’t be so great. Still, her dread went deep. Wedged between Daniel and Mina in the Market Street Theater, Ellie paid little attention to what was happening on the stage, preoccupied with what she must say. The truth—all of it.

  I cannot marry you, Daniel.

  You are, and ever will be, my friend.

  I’m in love with Jack Turlock.

  The cold of early November seeped along the floor, chilling her leather slippers and linen-clad legs despite her froth of petticoats. If she was shivering amidst an overflowing theater crowd, what must it be like for Jack in the West? Winter was hurtling ever nearer, every day that passed a bleak reminder of how much time and distance was between them. Had it merely been two months since he’d left?

  A burst of laughter returned her eyes to the stage, to the comedy performed by a traveling theatrical group from New York. The irony of the play’s name didn’t escape her. The Thwarted Suitor. Try as she might, she couldn’t follow the storyline, able actors though they were. Their exaggerated antics and painted faces both fascinated and repelled her, though Peyton seemed to find them amusing, and even Ansel and Daniel were laughing. Andra and Mina were absolutely rapt, as was Elspeth, hardly blinking as the drama unfolded. It was Elspeth who had talked them into going, despite Da’s quiet disapproval and Mama sending her regrets.

  As her shivering increased, Ellie turned her thoughts toward warming up at Benedict’s afterward with steaming cups of chocolate and late-night chatter, something to take her mind off of Jack and Chloe.

  She’d sent two letters addressed to Broad Oak since Jack’s leaving. Likely Isabel had intercepted them, as there’d been no reply. Ellie longed to know what Chloe was doing, if she was happy. She and Ben would have retired their fishing poles till spring. As for Jack, she’d been unable to put her thoughts to paper, unsure of where to send a letter. And she’d received no word from him . . .

  A standing ovation soon freed the group from their balcony box, and they went out into the frosty night, Daniel taking her arm. Just down the street, Benedict’s was as crowded as the theater, but they were soon seated and served. Distracted by customers coming and going, Ellie sipped her chocolate and listened as everyone discussed the play’s highlights.

  “Once I had dreams of being on the stage,” Elspeth told them, her smile almost wistful. “Your mother had gone to Philadelphia to work at the foundling hospital. I wanted to join her in the city and audition. But when I arrived, the only thing I met with was yellow fever.”

  “It’s not too late to further your ambitions, is it?” Peyton studied her in the flickering lamplight. “You’re lovelier than any actress I saw tonight and just as entertaining.”

  “You flatter me—something I’ve always enjoyed.” She winked and everyone chuckled. “I’ve since decided that all of life is one grand drama. Who needs a stage? Besides, I don’t like the idea of traveling round with a company. I want to settle down.”

  “Are you thinking of returning to York?” Daniel broached the question they all seemed to be pondering.

  “I’m afraid the smithy in York was getting a mite crowded. My sister-in-law Felicity and I never quite saw eye to eye.”

  “Ah, Felicity,” Andra murmured as she and Elspeth exchanged a glance. “A more high-strung soul there never was.”

  “Pittsburgh is more to my liking.” Elspeth toyed with her cup, slanting a glance about the crowded room. “I’ve made inquiries and have found work at a millinery on Broad Street.”

  “Are you fond of needlework, then?” Ellie asked.

  “I’m not as gifted as your mother, but I do what I can.”

  “I’d be glad to help you find lodging,” Peyton told her. “There’s a genteel boardinghouse on Liberty Street that might suit, with a view of the river.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow. I’m anxious to settle in, attend church.”

  Church? Ellie nearly choked on her chocolate. Since when was her aunt interested in spiritual matters? Could it be their prayers for Elspeth were being answered?

  “You’re more than welcome at First Presbyterian.” Ansel, silent until now, extended an invitation.

  Elspeth smiled—that lovely, evasive smile that made Ellie wonder what was really at work in her head and heart. “I used to attend church in York . . . with your father. I’m not entirely the sinner one might think.”

  There was a breathless pause.

  “I hardly think that,” Peyton replied. “Father and Mother rarely talk of York.”

  “Well, I don’t blame them. ’Twas so long ago.”

  Ellie leaned back in her chair, trying to sort through the threads of conversation. Elspeth had been in Pittsburgh for months now, living at the hotel, dining nearly daily with Peyton. Ellie suspected she’d depleted all her funds. They’d expected her to return to York weeks ago.

  Lost in thought, she let her gaze drift about the crowded room, past ladies’ elaborate winter bonnets and gentlemen’s top hats to a man rising from a corner table. Her heart tripped. Jack? Same wide-set shoulders, same formidable stature.

  Jack’s father.

  He turned around and looked their way, making Ellie want to slink beneath the table. But Henry Turlock wasn’t focused on her. His gaze fastened on Elspeth and stayed fast. Andra and Peyton were sparring over something. Daniel and Ansel and Mina were talking of the glassworks. No one else witnessed the spark of recognition in Henry’s face—or the answering flicker in Elspeth’s. Ellie felt a bewildering dismay.

  The woman on Henry’s arm was not his wife. Clad in an ermine-lined cape and hat, jewels about her throat, she didn’t remotely resemble Isabel.

  “My, my,” Elspeth remarked, unfolding a lace-tipped fan and smiling benignly at Ellie. “Benedict’s is a touch crowded tonight. I was like ice in the theater and now I’m practically on f
ire.”

  Ellie lowered her eyes as Henry Turlock passed by their table. Heartsick, she resisted the urge to watch his exit. He even walked like Jack.

  Ansel opened the boatyard office at dawn, feeling more rested than he had in days after a sound night’s sleep. Dr. Brunot had transported the last of the fugitives two nights prior, and the attic was now empty save the maids readying it in anticipation of the next need.

  Tunneling a hand through his hair, he surveyed the latest shipbuilding plans, ignoring the new copy of the Pittsburgh Gazette that lay folded on his father’s desk. They usually read the headlines before the day began, but lately there seemed little news of note, aside from rising grain prices and an oil embargo . . . and a sudden flurry of wedding announcements. None of which were his or Ellie’s.

  He sensed Daniel was becoming as frustrated as Mina. No pending engagement. No wedding date. Time ticked on, and neither he nor Ellie, it seemed, had the heart to settle matters.

  “Mornin’, Mister Ansel.”

  Ansel looked up to see a dark-headed lad in the doorway, fetching in wood for the stove crackling in a far corner.

  “Morning, James. You’ve begun a fine fire.”

  “Thank ye, sir.” He heaved his load across the room and dumped it in the wood box. “I’ll confess my mind ain’t on fires and such this mornin’ but the dim news wingin’ about town.”

  “Oh?” Ansel replied absently, sharpening a stylus with a penknife.

  “Aye, sir. I s’pose the paper there on the master’s desk is full of it, though I ain’t had time to read it myself.”

  Curious, Ansel flipped the Gazette over, then turned it around to better eye the headline.

  KEELBOAT SINKS IN MISSOURI STORM.

  “I never figured the river would claim as fine a man as Captain Maxwell. Don’t seem fair somehow.” The apprentice was watching him, awaiting his reaction. “But those Turlocks, guess they got what they deserve. One of ’em, anyway.”

  One . . . The stylus fell from Ansel’s hand and clattered across the desktop. Though his eyes remained locked on the newsprint, he wanted to fling it into the fire. A line in boldface seemed to shout the tragic story.

  ALL LOST.

  Stunned, he scanned the names of casualties, the little breakfast he’d eaten starting to churn. Listed below Captain Maxwell and crew was Jack Turlock. The sole passenger.

  Och, Ellie.

  He shut his eyes as if doing so could staunch the pain he felt for her, for Jack. All lost. Lost in the icy water. Lost eternally.

  “Everything all right?” His father stood in the open doorway, asking a question he couldn’t answer.

  James gave a somber greeting and finished tending the stove. Ansel swallowed, tried to speak. His father shrugged off his greatcoat and hung it from a peg by the door. When the lad went out, Ansel passed him the paper.

  For just a moment Da’s stoicism slipped. There was a flash of disbelief followed by barefaced sadness. He murmured something in Gaelic that sounded like a prayer.

  Sitting down, Ansel sank his head in his hands as his father reached for his coat again.

  “I need to tell Ellie. I may or may not be back.”

  The stone chapel wore a mantle of ivy and moss, the waning November sunlight casting a pale halo about the stone foundation. Ellie pushed open the wooden door and felt immediately at peace. Here her parents had been wed, each baby christened in the Scots tradition. She’d recently confided to Mama that she’d like to marry here as well. Mama had smiled and nodded, probably thinking she meant Daniel.

  Taking a seat on the first bench, she pushed her hands deeper into her fur-lined muff, feeling the cold stone beneath her. She didn’t mind the chill. It lent itself to clarity of thought, whereas her bedchamber fire lulled her to sleep. Here she could pray unhindered, without interruption. Andra never thought to look for her, and Mama never intruded on her private time.

  She daydreamed as much as she prayed, dressing the little kirk with ribbons and roses as if it were her wedding day. At long last she’d wear Mama’s silk dress and veil. Chloe would be best maid along with Andra, if Andra didn’t protest her Turlock groom. There would be a bride’s cake, a honeymoon. But none of it mattered, truly. If no one came—if there was only a small celebration—nothing could take away the joy she felt in Jack’s presence.

  Bending her head, she tried to quell her longing, the mere memory of his embrace making her woozy. Her every prayer was that he’d come back to her again. She felt bewildered that she didn’t know just where he was. As the days passed, she fought the perplexing feeling he’d somehow moved beyond the reach of her caring. Her prayers.

  Footfalls made her look up. Da? His beloved form filled the doorway, seeming strangely out of place. He rarely came here. Her smile waned at the look on his face, the grieved green of his eyes.

  She stood, her muff falling to the bench as her thoughts began a wild dance. “Are you all right? Is Mama?”

  He came nearer, all too silent, his arms closing about her. He rested his cheek against her loosely pinned hair. In that instant she sensed his desperate struggle, his anguished reluctance to say what he must.

  “Ellie . . . there’s been an accident downriver.”

  “An accident?” The frantic lilt of her pulse filled her ears.

  “On the keelboat your Jack was traveling on.”

  Your Jack.

  She went completely still. In the silence of her heart, she knew.

  “The paper reports the sinking happened a fortnight ago. I confirmed it with port authorities before leaving town.”

  The words washed over her, stormy and frightening and strange. She listened to them as if from a distance. As if she were drowning too.

  “The boat was caught in a storm at the headwaters of the Missouri. The cargo was too heavy and it capsized.”

  “All . . . lost?” Her voice broke.

  “Aye, ’tis said.”

  Lost. What a world of hurt lay within the smallness of that word.

  She felt herself fade as a tide of anguish rose inside her. Jack! Jack! Jack!

  Her sobs filled the chapel, rebounding off cold stone walls, bringing her to her knees. If not for the hard arms around her, she’d have sunk to the stones at her feet. They stood a long time amidst her weeping, oblivious to the cold and Andra’s distant call and the winter darkness pressing in on them.

  Regret rushed in. She should have gone with him. Should have been there at the last. She far preferred a watery grave to life without him.

  They were being so careful of her. In the days to come, everyone at New Hope seemed to tiptoe around her. Broken, numbed by a chasm of lost, she’d finally told Daniel the reason she couldn’t wed him.

  “But Elinor . . .” He looked down at her, his conundrum playing out across his face. “With all respect to Jack Turlock and his passing, there’s no longer any impediment to us . . . once you’ve finished mourning, that is.”

  “And you would still have me, knowing I love another.” Even the suggestion seemed a compromise, a betrayal.

  “I would still have you, knowing you’d stop loving him in time.”

  In time. Did such heartache ever ease? Or did it only deepen? Her prayers for Jack, for their future, had gone unanswered. She felt haunted. Had Jack cried out to God in the storm? Had his last thoughts been of her? She would live with the gnawing uncertainty the rest of her days.

  Her tangled thoughts swung to Chloe. Who had told Chloe the terrible news? Had they done so gently? Had there been anyone at Broad Oak to hold her and bear the brunt of her hurt? Chloe loved Jack so, and he, in his own gruff way, had loved her. He’d tried to do right by Chloe, tried to give her something beyond Broad Oak’s coldness and deceit.

  She went through the motions of each day, trying to keep sudden, stubborn reminders at bay, but they were everywhere. The rivers turned stormy, tormenting her anew. Ansel donned a swallowtail coat, a replica of Jack’s the night of the ball. A message came from Broad Oak,
hand delivered by Sol, casting her back to Chloe’s first note saying Jack would allow lessons.

  She took the paper from Sol’s wrinkled hand warily, her emotions as raw and reddened as her eyes.

  “Ben asked me to bring this to you real quiet-like.” His voice was low, as if sharing a secret.

  Ellie thanked him, his sorrowful expression weighting her long after he’d left. She tore open the paper in the privacy of her room, her fingers trembling.

  Pleez cum. Cloe sic.

  Heartsick, no doubt. Had Chloe taught Ben to write, to read? It could be nothing else. With a purpose she’d not felt in days, Ellie wrapped herself in a dark cloak and bonnet and hurried to the stables. As the coach rolled away, she wondered if Andra and the maids watched her going, mystified. She’d forgotten to tell anyone she was leaving.

  She’d never been to Broad Oak, daunting prospect as it was. Consumed by Jack’s passing, she gave little thought to her mission, the fear she felt over arriving unannounced and uninvited buried deep. She prayed Henry Turlock wasn’t at home. He frightened her in ways she couldn’t fathom. Even now she recalled seeing him at Benedict’s and felt a latent chill.

  A dour-faced housekeeper let her in and grudgingly went to fetch the mistress. Ellie’s gaze climbed the ornate staircase after her, lingering on the angelic mural overshadowing the foyer. Heaven . . . harps . . . plump, smiling cherubs. Harps aside, she didn’t believe in that kind of eternity. Stilted. Shallow. The scene resurrected her deepest fear. She craved the comfort, the reassurance, that she’d see Jack again. In a place far removed from Broad Oak’s stairwell ceiling.

  The house was all too hushed. She latched on to the hope that Chloe wasn’t truly sick but heartsick, and would come running down the steps into her arms. Her courage almost faltered when Isabel Turlock appeared instead. Clad in black, she descended the staircase slowly, without a single gem of the jewelry she was known for except an elaborate mourning ring. At the bottom, she squared her shoulders, and the enmity in her eyes erected a wall.