Sara Mitchell - Legacy of Secrets

“Yessir.”

The man patted his shoulder, then walked on.

The longing boiled up, fast and ferocious, as it always did. He watched the stranger stride down the street, wishing so fiercely it made his teeth hurt that he had a father who cared whether or not he loitered alone on a city street. Who tried to shield him from the brutality of war. Before the fear could take hold again, he darted across the street and ducked inside the hotel while the doorman was busy handing some ladies down out of a dark green brougham.

The lobby was a maze of gleaming oak columns and red-cushioned chairs scattered between huge urns of potted plants. Mindful that his clothes were rumpled and dirt stained, he slipped from urn to urn, behind columns, making his way toward the dining room. The scullery maid at his uncle’s imposing town house on Grace Avenue had been easily persuaded to provide directions to the hotel; ever since he’d been a toddler he’d perfected the art of pleasing females.

Heart thumping, as a large grandfather clock dolefully bonged nine times, he slipped inside the dining room—and saw them. Even when seated, his uncle was a commanding presence in his swallow-tail coat and blinding-white shirt, where a diamond stickpin winked with every motion he made. Next to him sat a pretty plump woman dressed in a deep red gown. Jet earrings and necklace decorated her ears and throat. That would be his aunt, and the two little boys dandified up in revolting little suits his cousins.

Everybody was smiling and talking, including the boys. He watched, still and silent as one of the wooden columns, while his uncle leaned over to hear something his wife was saying, a tender expression on his face the boy had never witnessed on another man’s countenance, not in his entire thirteen years.

The longing intensified until it was a monster, biting into him in chunks of indescribable jealousy and pain.

Suddenly one of the sons, the one barely a toddler, knocked over a glass. His older brother laughed.

Across the room, the boy tensed, not breathing, while he waited for the father to reprimand his son, to perhaps even backhand him. Waited for the mother to deliver a shrill scolding, to lecture the hapless child on proper deportment.

Instead, the father calmly signaled for the waiter, righted the glass himself. Then he ruffled his son’s hair, the expression of indulgence on his face visible all the way across the room.

Something snapped inside the boy.

That little boy should be him. He should have been part of a well-to-do family who dined in fancy hotels. His mother should be dressed in fancy lace and velvet, seated next to her husband. His father. His home should be the immense stone town house with the neatly manicured yard.

For years his mother and grandmother had filled his head with stories and promises of a grand Mission that someday he would undertake, to right a Grievous Wrong. Now, unnoticed and invisible to the family that should have been his, he made a vow of his own.

Charlottesville, Virginia

Spring 1889

The funeral service was over, the mourners dispersed. A light breeze carried the faint scent of spring hyacinths, and the sound of the church bell, tolling its doleful message. Six blocks away, Neala Shaw followed her brother Adrian up the front steps, into a house devoid of light and life. Silently they hung coat and cloak on the hall tree, then just as silently wandered into the parlor. Unable to bear the shadowed gloom, Neala made her way to the windows to pull back the curtains before confronting her brother.

“Adrian…what you said, about leaving?” The silken threads of the tassels holding the curtains were tangled; she concentrated on combing through each strand with her fingers. “Tell me you didn’t mean it.”

“I did mean it. Every word.” He tugged at his tie, yanking it off with quick, jerky movements. The stiff shirt collar followed. “Mother and Father are gone. Even if I wanted to, there’s no reason to stay here.”

Neala dropped the tassel and turned to stare blindly out the window, wishing just once her temperament would allow her the satisfaction of retaliating with equally hurtful words. How could Adrian behave so, when less than an hour earlier they had buried both parents?

She could still hear the sound of the shovels, still see the clumps of dirt pouring onto the coffins, signaling with brutal finality that, while Edward and Cora Shaw’s souls were with God, their lifeless bodies were forever consigned to the earth. Until she herself died, Neala would never see them again, never hear their voices, never inhale the scent of Mother’s honeysuckle toilet water or Father’s sandalwood hair tonic. Never feel the warmth of their hugs.

All because of an accident. A tragic, deadly accident that shocked the community and devastated the few members left in the Neal Shaw family.

“Adrian, this is our home. I don’t—”

“Was our home. The house and all its contents go on the auction block tomorrow, remember? Father may have been a respected university professor, but he knew as much about providing for his family as a squirrel finding nuts in a snowstorm.”

Neala winced. “Where will you go?”

He shrugged, abruptly looking much younger than his twenty years. “I bought a train ticket for Newport News yesterday. Always wanted to see the ocean.”

Curiosity overpowered caution. “Adrian, how on earth did you pay for the ticket?”

He avoided her gaze. “Sold Father’s watch,” he muttered after a minute. “I didn’t have anything else.” His voice rose in the face of Neala’s silence. “It’s not as though Father’s here to care one way or the other. Besides, it’s his fault we’re in this mess. You could always sell Grandfather’s legacy. I doubt if it’s worth more than a few dollars, but that’s more than Father left.”

He could have slapped her face and not wounded her so deeply. “I will never part with the clan crest badge. Perhaps that’s why Grandfather left it to me, instead of you.” Neala watched her brother’s face close up, but she was beyond placating him. “That crest has been part of the Shaw family for over three hundred years. Now it’s the only legacy we have left. It’s a shame I’m the only one who appreciates it.”

“What did you expect? They named you after him, not me. He left the crest badge to you, not me. Not his only surviving grandson.”

Silence gathered in the room, hanging like a damp fog. “I need to finish packing,” Adrian finally muttered. “You’ll be all right, won’t you, sis? With the auction, I mean?”

“I’ll manage just fine, Adrian.”

“Um…do you know what you’re going to do? Where will you live? The Johnsons’?”

“No, they don’t really have room, especially with Hannah in the family way.”

“Oh. What about the Marsdens?”

“Mr. Marsden suffers from sciatica. They’re moving to Thomasville, Georgia, this fall.”

Adrian hunched his shoulders, his expression sheepish but defiant. “Well, what about one of the boardinghouses where some of the teachers live?”

Neala folded her handkerchief into a neat square to give herself time to collect her sluggish thoughts. “Too expensive, I’m afraid, my dear.” She managed with Herculean effort to produce a matter-of-fact smile. “Mrs. Hobbs told me about a school for women,” she shared, the words dragging. “It’s farther north, somewhere up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I believe. She suggested I apply for residency there. I hadn’t considered it because you were here, and this school is apparently only for women who have lost all their family connections. Mrs. Hobbs says tuition is paid through donations or trusts or something, since the only applicants accepted are those who find themselves without any resources.” Carefully she kept her voice stripped of any hint of censure, but Adrian’s cheeks turned a dusky red.