Lynda Trent - The Fire Within

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Tell me about your sister. Does she like to sew?”

“Yes, but she prefers to read. Felicity has loved reading all her life. Even before she learned to make out words, she had me read her stories. Mama would have been appalled if she knew half of what we read. Felicity’s head was so filled with pirates and sunken treasures, she had trouble sleeping.”

Against her will, Megan was intrigued. She went to the straight-backed chair and picked up her darning. “Your parents didn’t object to her reading?”

“Of course not. They encouraged it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see how that can be. I know Bridget and I are busy all day with chores and have been ever since I can remember. Mama would never have the time to sit down and read. Neither would Papa, for that matter. How is it that your family has all this spare time?” She expertly dropped the darning egg into the sock and started making the tiny stitches to repair the heel.

“I suppose we just live differently.”

“I suppose. Do you live in a city?”

“Yes. Pollard’s Crossing isn’t as large as, say, Chicago by any means, but it’s still a city.”

“You’ve seen Chicago?” Megan’s fingers stopped momentarily.

“Several times. Have you?”

“No,” she said with a laugh at the idea. “I’ve never been beyond Raintree.” She glanced at him to see if that lowered her in his estimation. He was only looking at the locket he still held in his hand.

“I think you and Felicity would be friends.”

“We have so much in common,” she said wryly.

“Actually you do. She loves Mrs. Radcliffe’s books above all else. She can even quote complete passages from Udolpho.”

“How old is she?”

“Nineteen.”

“We’re almost the same age.”

“I thought you must be.”

“I’m quite close to my sister, Bridget. She doesn’t like to read but she knows I do and she’s helped me hide my books from time to time. She can read,” Megan added quickly, “but she prefers not to.”

“Does she have red hair, too?” he asked with a smile.

Megan automatically reached up and touched her hair. Red hair wasn’t considered a beauty trait in the Hollow. “Yes. Hers is even more red than mine. We get it from Mama.”

“And does Owen also have red hair?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve told you I’m not supposed to talk about him. He’s dead to the family. But his hair is the same color as mine. Dark red.”

“Auburn,” Caleb said. “That’s what I’d call it. It’s beautiful.”

“You shouldn’t say such personal things. We’re stuck here together until you get well. I can’t allow you to be so intimate.”

“We’re only talking about your brother’s and sister’s hair coloring. That’s not too intimate, surely.” He sounded innocent but she caught the teasing sparkle in his eyes. If she were a different person in a different place, she would think he was actually flirting with her.

“Are you forgetting I’m promised to Seth?”

“Not for a single minute.”

She laid her darning in her lap and looked at him. “You confuse me. You’re not like any man I know. Not at all.”

“Yes, I’m certain that’s true. In my family we don’t believe in working a woman from sunup to sundown.”

With a frown she said, “That’s not fair. You don’t know my family or what we’re like.”

“That’s true. I apologize.” But he was smiling as if he were enjoying teasing her.

Megan put her darning back into her workbasket. “I have other chores to do while it’s daylight. You’ll have to amuse yourself. Memorize Udolpho while I’m gone.”

He opened it to the back. “All seven hundred pages?” he asked with a grin.

“I have a lot of chores. You’ll have time.” She left him and went into the other room.

For a minute she leaned against the wall, feeling its bumpy sturdiness and trying to remember who she was and, more important, who he was. This was her enemy. She couldn’t indulge in a flirtation with him even if she wasn’t engaged to Seth. She felt unfaithful as it was. What had she been thinking of to sit in the bedroom with him and do her needlework, just as if he were a family member? Megan pressed her fingers to her forehead and closed her eyes. After this she would be more careful.

She went out onto the porch. A cold wind had blown in the night before and the air had a snap of winter in it. She pulled her knitted shawl closer about her shoulders. There was kindling to chop and corn to be shelled. A shutter had worked loose during the night’s wind and she tried to put it back into place. It dropped at an angle again. She would have to go out to the shed beside the smokehouse and find a hammer and one of the square nails Patrick made for the settlement. It was hard for one person to keep up a house.

She frowned at the window set in the bedroom wall. How had she believed even for a moment that Caleb’s womenfolk had time to sit around and read? Even in a city there must be shutters to mend and fire to be fed and corn to be shelled. These things didn’t tend to themselves. He must have been teasing, thinking she was as green as grass in the spring. With an angry movement, Megan knotted her shawl more securely and went down the steps.

The woodpile was at the side of the house nearest the settlement. She bent and put a pine log on the large stump she used as a chopping block. With her hatchet, she slivered the pine into long splinters that would easily catch fire and ignite the heavy oak logs in the fireplace. The pine was from an old tree that had been felled during a storm the winter before and had rotted to the point of exposing its core. Heart of pine was the best kindling to be found.

As she chopped, she noticed a flash of yellow coming through the woods and looked up to see Bridget crossing the clearing. Megan waved to keep her sister from going into the house. Bridget veered to join her.

“Mama wants to know if you need any of the meat we’re smoking? She put by a sizable amount and you can have some if you want it.”

“No, but tell her I appreciate the offer. I brought up all my smokehouse can hold so I have plenty to see me through the winter. Assuming the soldiers don’t find it.”

Bridget nodded. “I can’t help but think of Patrick when I see them passing. Our boys look so hungry and so poorly clothed. It’s all I can do not to send them off with all our food and extra wraps. Patrick must look just like them.”

“I know. I share stew with them whenever I can. But we don’t know that all the states are like this. Maybe in Georgia things are better. News never reaches us until it’s old. Patrick may have plenty to eat and warm clothes as well.” They both knew this wasn’t the case, but Bridget needed to hear it.

“This is true. I pray for him every night. Maybe some Confederate mother or sister is taking care of him for me.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“We’ve hidden our smoked meat. Have you done that? If you haven’t, Papa says he’ll come over tomorrow and help you.”

“I’m doing it today. I wanted to smoke it as long as possible.” Megan stacked the irregular sticks of kindling in the box she stored them in. “It’s so different from curing hogs. I hope it tastes all right. There was no time to let it age in salt. I just rubbed it with black pepper and borax to keep the skippers out and hung it up.”

“So did we. It might be tough, but we can boil it tender, I guess. Nobody ever handed down a recipe for horse meat that I know of.”

“I sure never thought I’d be reduced to eating a horse.” Megan picked up the kindling box and paused. She couldn’t take it into the house and risk Bridget finding Caleb. Bridget would try to keep the secret, but her mouth sometimes out-raced her mind. Megan put the box back down on the ground and started splitting more kindling.