Olivia wiped her face with the linen towel she’d tucked into her apron strings. The Gentry household was finishing the last of the canning for the season. Today was her favorite day of all since she was a young girl, even knowing it would be a long, hot day making jar after jar of apple butter. Mabel and Eleanor were in charge of the stoves, while Annie, Olivia, Beatrice, and Jenny cleaned and cored bushels of apples. The kitchen smelled wonderful, certainly better than the last two days when they’d put up pickles and beets, and the women talked about every imaginable subject, making the day go faster. Teddy had just woken from his nap in the cradle Matt had carried in, and Annie picked him up and took him out of the hot kitchen to feed him.

“Go now,” Eleanor Gentry said to Mabel. “You’re exhausted and were up half the night after hearing the news about your brother. Beatrice and Jenny can be excused, too, to do a quick cleanup of the bedrooms. There is little left to do, and Olivia and I can manage.”

“Thank you so much,” Mabel said as she pulled her apron over her head. “I’m near ready to fall asleep on my feet.”

“We’ve all worked very hard this week. Beatrice, when you and Jenny are done upstairs heat water for Mabel to bathe. Olivia and I will need a bath, too. Tomorrow, you may both work a few hours in the morning and then the rest of the day is yours. You’ve all done a very good job. I thank you.”

Jenny and Beatrice thanked Eleanor and hurried out of the kitchen, chattering about what they would do and where they would go tomorrow afternoon. Olivia dumped the last of the apple skins and cores into two buckets that she sat near the open door. Eleanor dipped the apple butter into the few remaining mismatched jars and poured the end of the melted paraffin on top.

“I’m out of wax. We’ll have to eat these last two jars up now instead of putting them in the cellar.”

“That is fine with me. I’m hungry for some of Mabel’s biscuits and this apple butter. It smells delicious and makes the whole house smell good, as it has for as long as I can remember,” Olivia said.

“You always liked this day, even when you were a little girl. I used to have to chase you down to help with the pickling but not when we make applesauce or apple butter. Someday, you’ll have a little girl to help you in your kitchen when you’re putting up.”

Olivia walked away from the long, planked work table of the summer kitchen to an open window. She propped her elbows on the sill and looked out toward the house. She could see Jenny filling buckets of water at the pump at the sink. She didn’t want to think about a child of her own. She didn’t want to think about what was required of her to get that child. Like courtship and marriage and intimacy.

Her plans to marry with a purpose had not worked out in reality as they had in her head. In her ridiculous daydreams. How could she have been so naïve? She’d been thinking that she might have been at the beginning of a satisfying courtship where like minds and compatible persons could forge a life together based on respect and similar goals. She was even willing to forgive Armsworth for his earlier missteps, believing that two people would need time to adjust and understand each other.

Armsworth, however, had planned a marriage with a purpose of his own. His own satisfaction and goals. She wasn’t silly enough to believe he’d fallen in love with her. More likely he’d planned his campaign, brief as it was, long before ever meeting her. She was a prize to him, perhaps able to impress the governor with her connections, and he felt no compunction to honor or even notice her true feelings or gauge her regard for him. He wasn’t intent upon or even interested in understanding her. Why had she continued thinking he might? Why had she invited him to sit with her at the meal before the dance? She had already been skeptical of his worthiness at that time, and his behavior only confirmed her worst fears about him that night.

What am I about?

“Olivia?”

She turned to her mother.

“I’ve been talking to you for these last five minutes and you haven’t answered me once.”

“I’m sorry, Mother. I must have been lost in thought. I’ll take these apple skins to the barns and see if George would like to give them to the foals, although he must have too many pails already since Beatrice and Jenny have carried so many out already.”

“Put the buckets down, dear. Won’t you sit down with me and have a cup of coffee? I’ve just fixed myself some.”

Olivia obediently sat the apple skins and cores by the door. She sat down at the table without looking up and took a sip of the coffee her mother had fixed her. She looked up when Eleanor squeezed her hand.

“You have been upset since the dance, Olivia. Did something happen between you and Mr. Armsworth?”

Olivia could feel the rise of heat up her neck, even more so than the warm kitchen accounted for. She’d always been close to her mother, but it had been quite a while since she’d said much of anything to her past the normal conversations of living in the same house. She looked up at her but saw only a blurry image through her tears.

“Sometimes I don’t understand myself,” she said finally after wiping her eyes.

“What don’t you understand?”

“What I want for myself.”

She sipped her coffee and glanced at her mother. The woman that had been, and continued to be, the rock and the solid ground that the Gentry family was built on. Olivia loved her with every ounce of herself and missed her father desperately. The thought of him brought an ache to her chest that didn’t seem to lessen with time. Why had she closed herself off from her mother’s wisdom and love?

“I guess it began with Mr. Dunderage,” she said finally and looked up. “How did I not know what he was about? How was I so blind? I’m not stupid, Mother. You’ve given me an education many young women only dream about. I’ve studied Latin and philosophies and astronomy and classic literature even above the lessons you and Daddy taught us here at home. How was it that I was unable to discern Mr. Dunderage’s intentions were not honorable?”

Eleanor shook her head. “Olivia! You are still concerned about him?”

“No! I’m not concerned about him at all. I’m concerned about myself. Apparently, I’ve learned nothing from that experience, contrary to what I’ve stated adamantly.”

“Listen to me,” Eleanor said and waited until she looked up. “You are equating your intelligence and your knowledge with your emotions. They are distinctly separate.”

“Even if they are separate, I am able to look back at Mr. Dunderage’s actions and know that he was insincere.”

“Of course, you can now. Your emotions aren’t engaged. We’re always able to see things rationally when our emotions aren’t involved.”

“I suppose.”

“Has it been the same with Mr. Armsworth?”

Olivia nodded. “He is handsome and charming, but he isn’t interested in me. He is interested in marriage but not with me as a person. It’s humiliating to find myself in this predicament again. I should have never asked him to join us at the church dance.”

“Olivia, darling! You are much too hard on yourself! Nothing so horrible has happened, has it? You have been in his company a few times and determined that he isn’t worthy of your regard. That’s all.”

“That’s all, isn’t it?” Olivia asked, although her lip trembled. “I’ve made myself miserable. I cannot blame that on Mr. Armsworth, can I?”

“Let me tell you something I’ve never shared with you before. You are an adult woman now and perhaps you will learn something from your mother’s mistakes.” She held up her hands in protest when Olivia began to speak. “I was a young, impressionable woman once, too, although it was a very long time ago. Did you know I was engaged to be married when our family set out from Allentown to go to my father’s new church?”

Olivia shook her head. “To Daddy?”

“No. I was engaged to a young minister who was planning on joining our procession to western Virginia and help my father fulfill his dream of starting a church there. His name was William Dodgekins.”

Eleanor stood and leaned against the stove behind her. She stared out the window for a few moments, remembering, Olivia imagined, those horrible days after her family, Olivia’s grandparents and aunts, were murdered.

“I escaped that night,” Eleanor said and looked at her. “I’ve told you some of this, and I’m sure you’ve heard bits and pieces of the rest. I escaped in my nightgown and coat. I could hear my mother’s screams and gunshots. I knew they were all dead and I was terrified the men were after me. I kept running in the direction of Winchester, at least what I thought was the direction, but didn’t arrive in town until the next morning. I went directly to the church to find William.”

“He was to stay and finish his ministerial education with Reverend Buckland within the month and then he would join us at our new church. I’d corresponded with William for close to a year at that point and was very satisfied with how my life would continue on when I left my mother and father. I would marry William and be a minister’s wife just as my mother had done.

“When I found William that morning, I was completely hysterical and still terrified that someone had followed me.” She looked up at Olivia and smiled softly. “William was most concerned that I’d appeared in town in my nightgown and that my hair was not pinned up.”

“He was concerned about your clothing? Your mother and father and my aunts had just been murdered,” Olivia whispered and swallowed. “What could he have been thinking?”

“Ah,” Eleanor replied. “There is the crux of the story. He was not thinking of me. He was thinking of appearances and his own self-worth. He was a self-righteous ass.”

Olivia’s eyes rounded and she smiled slowly. “Mother. I have never once known you to say such a word.”

Eleanor chuckled. “If there is anyone who deserves it more, I do not know.”

“What happened then?”

“I wanted William to come with me back to our wagon and help me bury my family and say the prayers. He wouldn’t go with me. He said it would have been unseemly for us to travel to the wagon without a chaperone as we were not married. I think he was afraid the bandits were still there. Ultimately, he was right.”

“Unseemly? What a silly notion to be concerned about in that situation.”

“Yes. And then I made the dreadful mistake of going myself. I had no shovel or anything to properly bury them with, but I went anyway. I was not quite in my right mind at the time. I was crying, sobbing really, when I actually saw all their dead bodies and had climbed into the wagon just to touch my mother’s shawl and that’s when a horrible man found me and stole me away. Eleven days I was with him. Eleven long days. I was lucky to live and to hang on to my virtue until your father rescued me.”

Olivia wondered if she would have the wherewithal and the courage to survive what her mother had. She’d not been tested in that way, and she thanked the dear Lord that she hadn’t been. Was she being petty by continuing to dwell on what was to come in her life? After all, Mr. Armsworth had done her no real harm, had he? He had scared her certainly and acted disrespectfully, but she’d been able to get away from him.

“Did you ever see him again? Mr. Dodgekins, that is?”

“I did. After your father killed all of the bandits and I was able to travel, he brought me back to Winchester. I went directly to the church after leaving your father and found William there. He told me that he wanted nothing to do with me. That I was no longer fit to be his wife,” Eleanor said and continued in a whisper. “I told him I had no one. That I was completely alone. I begged him to reconsider since we’d corresponded for so long.”

“How horrible!” Olivia said.

Eleanor nodded, looking across the room, lost in thought. She turned back to Olivia with a wry smile. “That is when your father arrived and punched him in the nose. It was glorious!”

Olivia laughed.

“Beauregard had followed me and listened to our conversation. He punched him in the stomach several times, too, before William dropped to his knees. Your father held his bloody face in his hands and told him he was going straight to hell. Then he turned to me and told me he would take me to wherever I needed to go. I didn’t realize it then, but that moment was when I fell in love with him.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Olivia said as tears sprang in her eyes and she looked up at her mother. “I miss him terribly, but you must miss him so much more.”

“I do, darling. I miss him desperately,” she said as she sat down beside her. “He told me many years ago that he would love me into the evermore and I believed him then and I believe he loves me still. I believe his love for us all is quite real.”

“I have been a ninny, I think,” Olivia said and stood to refill their cups. “I had decided to marry and was trying to be practical about it. But there is nothing practical about it at all, is there?”

Eleanor shook her head. “No. There is not. The point of me telling you this story, though, is that I thought William Dodgekins was my whole world. Sometimes it takes time to sort out our feelings, and sometimes we see how others act and know then that they are not who we thought or dreamed they were. We must be courageous enough to walk away from our dreams sometimes.”

“I hate the idea, I just hate it . . . that I may never . . . fall in love. If I decide to wait for love I may be too old for children or unwilling to change my life so drastically. I always thought I’d marry someday.”

Eleanor stood, gathered her recipe book and her apron from the table before walking to the door. “I’m going to wash myself and read a book, I think. It’s been a long week.” She stopped at the door and turned. She stared at Olivia and smiled. “Are you quite certain you are not already in love?”

“No, Mother. I’m not in love with Mr. Armsworth.”

Eleanor tilted her head and smiled softly. “I never thought you were in love with Armsworth, dear.”

She watched her mother walk out the door. Who else could I possibly be in love with? She swallowed and hurried from the summer kitchen, hurried away from the face from her dreams.

* * *

Jim Somerset stood in the entrance of the mercantile, his hand on the knob of the door. She was standing there, her back to him, and he couldn’t drag his eyes from her hair, loosely pulled up with a few strands escaping to the long white column of her neck. It was as though he’d just run his hands in those tresses starting to tumble from their confines. The red, brown, and gold highlights were sparkling in the sunlight coming through the window as she laughed at something Marabelle said. He closed the door and walked to the counter.

“Hello, Marabelle,” he said.

“Oh, hello, Jim. You’re probably here for the items you ordered. They’re in the back. I’ll get them now.”

He watched Marabelle walk toward the door where he could see shelves and stacks of inventory. She stopped and talked to a young child looking at the candy in the glass jars on the counter.

Olivia turned to him, and he swallowed and turned his hat in his hand. It was painful seeing her. He’d decided his heart couldn’t take it any longer and hadn’t been out in public much at all over the last month or so, even to church, willing to bear his mother’s wrath for those missed services. But here she was before him in a moss-colored wool coat that matched her eyes. She was beautiful. He stared at her, feeling as if he was falling, falling into the green depths of her eyes.

“Hello, Jim,” she said and looked up at him.

“H-hello.”

He’d dreamed of seeing her, talking to her, waiting for her to smile at him, but none of the interesting conversation he’d spoken in his dream state was coming to mind. Maybe he was going to have to move away. He didn’t think he could live his life out and still cling to his dignity if he was tongue-tied every time he saw her and relived the meeting for days and weeks afterwards. Maybe he was going to have to move to another town. Then she smiled up at him, and his sanity slipped away.

“You’ve shaved your beard some. I don’t know if I recall ever seeing your cheeks before,” she said.

Her eyes were gay and mischievous, and he thought he might die just to have her look at him thus. He’d gotten worse, he could tell. Before the harvest dinner, he’d been able to control his feelings about her, but now he was unable to be rational about the emotions she summoned in him. He loved her. He loved everything about her. He wanted her far beyond normal male urgings when seeing a beautiful and desirable woman. Her smile was fading as he continued to stare at her silently, still turning his hat.

“Well,” she said. “Tell your mother and sisters I said hello. I’ll be going now.”

She walked past him, and he heard the tinkle of the bell above the door as she opened it. He looked up to see Marabelle staring at him and shaking her head. It was pity in her eyes, he could see. He was pitiful. He turned and hurried to the door, leaving everything on the counter that he’d come to pick up.

“Olivia,” he said as he opened the door.

“Yes, Jim?” she said when she turned.

He could swear there was hope in her eyes even though she wasn’t smiling. She was looking up at him, and he watched her swallow.

“Have you,” he began and cleared his throat. “Have you had your noonday meal?”

She shook her head. “No, I haven’t. I’ve just done some ordering with Marabelle and was going back to Paradise.”

Jim nodded. “Well, then, I’ll let you go on your way.”

They stood a few feet apart, she holding her little beaded bag at her waist, and he twirling his hat. She looked down at her leather-gloved hands and then out to the street where buggies were passing. She finally looked at him.

“Why did you ask me if I’d had my noonday meal?”

“I was going over to Martha’s. I thought maybe you’d like to join me,” he said and held his breath.

Her smile was slow and breathtaking to behold. It was as if every scrap of joy he’d ever felt burst in his chest at the sight of that smile.

“I’d like that, Jim. Very much,” she said and grinned.

He held out his arm, hoping she couldn’t see his tremors, and escorted her across the busy street to Martha’s. He opened the door for her to enter, and every patron turned toward them. He wanted to beat on his chest and howl at the moon. This woman chose him, he thought with triumph. At least for an hour or so, she had. He hung her coat and his on the hooks by the door and rubbed his hands together to get the coldness out of them, whether because he was nervous or because the November weather had turned decidedly chilly.

Martha walked over to their table. “I have beef stew with biscuits or cold ham on bread with chowchow or anything on the menu. There’s stewed apples for dessert.”

They ordered their meals, and Martha brought him coffee and Olivia warmed chocolate. She wrapped her hands around the mug and looked up at him. He couldn’t stop staring at her as she gazed about the room, her eyes coming to rest on his every now and again, before looking away or at her hands. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the silence between them, although he wondered if she was.

“You can see them now,” he said finally.

Olivia looked at Jim across the table from her. She thought she’d die in the mercantile, just shrivel up and drop to the floor, when he didn’t speak to her. But she didn’t have any idea what he was talking about now.

“See what?” she said.

“My cheeks.”

“Oh, yes,” she said and smiled. “You’ve always worn your beard very thick, and you’ve trimmed it up some. It looks well on you.”

He nodded and sipped his coffee while staring at her over the rim of his cup.

“How is Emmaline? She didn’t attend the last Ladies Hospital Aid and Recovery meeting at Barrett House. Your mother said she was under the weather.”

“She’s fine.”

“That’s good to hear,” she said and folded her hands in her lap. She wondered if he talked much to Matt when they were together. She’d ask her brother but then she’d have to listen to his teases.

Jim cleared his throat. “She, um, she wasn’t sick.”

“Oh?”

Jim shook his head.

“Emmaline hates those meetings. I’m not surprised she didn’t want to go,” Olivia said.

Their food arrived, and she watched him snap open his napkin and place it on his lap. He waited for her to begin and then took small bites, chewing slowly with all the decorum Eleanor Gentry would have expected at her table. To this day her mother chided Matt on his manners, but she would have nothing to say about Jim Somerset’s. It struck her then that he reminded her of Adam. Controlled and gentlemanly and aware of the proprieties.

“You’re right—she didn’t want to go. Was Mr. Armsworth at Barrett House during your meeting?” he asked as he slathered butter on his biscuit without looking at her.

She watched him spread the butter from one side of the biscuit to the other and back again as if it hadn’t worked correctly the first time he’d done it. He finally stopped and placed his knife on the table. He was waiting for her answer.

“No. He wasn’t there,” she said. His eyes met hers. “I’m not privy to or interested in his schedule.”

He took a bite of his stew, a very small grin visible. “I’m glad to hear that.”

She couldn’t stop a blush from climbing her cheeks. She applied herself to her meal and risked a look at him occasionally, only to find him looking at her and quickly looking back down to his plate.

“We’re having a dinner for a friend of Adam’s and his sister on Saturday evening. They are arriving by train from Washington and will be staying with us for a few days. We’ll just be having cards and a game or two after dinner unless we can persuade Aunt Brigid to play the piano for us,” Olivia said.

Jim wiped his mouth with his napkin and raised his brows. “Adam’s friend?”

“A friend from Franklin College in Pennsylvania, which he attended before the war broke out. Darien Wright is his name, and his sister is Josephine.”

“Ah.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Will you come? To dinner, that is?” She knew her face was hot. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so forward. Perhaps he would think she was still the immature younger sister. She should have never said anything and had Mother invite him and Mrs. Somerset together.

“Yes,” he said. “I will use my best manners and try not to embarrass you or your brothers.”

She took a deep breath and smiled. “Embarrass Matt? I don’t believe that’s possible!”