An Unexpected Wife. Cheryl Reavis

saying it.

      Sergeant Major Perkins’s plan to “take care of all this” left a great deal to be desired, in Kate’s opinion. Her opportunity for solitude had completely disappeared when he’d returned with a number of soldiers, two hospital orderlies and Mrs. Kinnard, the indisputable Queen Bee of Salisbury Society. Mrs. Kinnard had an impeccable Southern pedigree, and she had used it to all but appoint herself head of just about everything, including the Confederate military wayside hospital down near the railroad tracks during the war. Mrs. Kinnard’s word was still law in all matters not under the direct supervision of the United States Army, and, Kate suspected, in some of those, as well.

      “Excuse me, Miss Kate,” one of the hospital orderlies said.

      She—and ultimately Mrs. Kinnard—moved out of the way so he could kneel down and assess the man’s condition. It occurred to her that Robert Markham was going to have every bit as much trouble pacifying Mrs. Kinnard as her brother did.

      “Is the doctor coming?” Kate asked the orderly.

      “Just as soon as we can find him, Miss Kate,” he said.

      Kate stood watching as he uncovered the man and began to examine him, looking for a reason why he had fallen to the floor, she supposed.

      “Well, can you do anything helpful?” Mrs. Kinnard said suddenly, and Kate realized she was once again in her sights.

      “I...”

      “Exactly as I thought. You do know where there is pen and paper, I hope.”

      Kate took a quiet breath before she answered. “Yes. I’ll be happy to get it.”

      Kate escaped to Maria’s writing desk in the parlor and returned with a sheet of paper and a short pencil. Mrs. Kinnard eyed the pencil, and Kate thought she was going to refuse to take it.

      “The ink is frozen. I’m sorry,” Kate added, because in a roundabout way, that could be considered her fault. “I assumed you were in a hurry,” she said, still holding out the pencil.

      Mrs. Kinnard gave an impatient sigh, then removed her gloves and bonnet and handed them to Kate in exchange for the pencil and paper. Kate had no idea what to do with them, given the dearth of furnishings in the hall. She held on to them in lieu of throwing them down on the parquet floor, then she opened the dining room door and went inside, ultimately placing the bonnet and gloves carefully on a chair next to the sideboard and nearly colliding with Mrs. Kinnard when she turned around to leave.

      “They should be safe here,” Kate said, because she hadn’t realized the woman had followed her and concern for her finery was the only conclusion Kate could come to as to why she did. She could hear the front door opening and a number of footsteps in the hall. Several more soldiers passed by the dining room door, two of them carrying a stretcher.

      Mrs. Kinnard sat down at the dining table near the oil lamp Kate had lit earlier and began to write—a list, from the looks of it.

      “Mr. Perkins!” she cried when she’d finished, clearly eschewing Perkins’s military title, probably because he belonged to an army she considered of no consequence.

      “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Kinnard!” he called from somewhere at the back of the house.

      “Take this,” she said, when he finally appeared in the doorway. “I want this list filled as soon as possible.”

      He looked at the sheet of paper, then back at her. “Mrs. Russell isn’t going to welcome a knock on the door this time of night from the likes of me, ma’am.”

      “Whether she welcomes it or not isn’t important. Taking care of Robert Markham now that he has returned from the dead, is. I won’t see him hauled off to your military infirmary, and this young woman is of no use whatsoever that I can see.”

      Kate opened her mouth to respond to the remark, but Perkins cleared his throat sharply and gave her a hard look. His sergeant major look. Again. She suddenly understood what he had been trying to tell her earlier. Neither she nor her tender feelings mattered in this situation. Maintaining her brother’s authority and his rapport with the townspeople did.

      Very well, then.

      She stepped around him into the hallway. If she was going to preserve Max’s peace treaties, she’d have to get herself well away from this overbearing woman.

      Honestly! she nearly said aloud. As she recalled, even Maria found the Kinnard woman hard going.

      Robert Markham—if Mrs. Kinnard’s identification could be trusted—still lay on the cold floor. The hospital orderly had lifted him slightly and was pouring brandy down his throat with all the skill of a man who had performed the treatment many times. Robert Markham eventually swallowed, coughed a time or two, but still did not wake.

      “Miss Woodard!” Mrs. Kinnard said sharply behind her, making her jump. She closed her eyes for a moment before she turned around.

      “Yes?” Kate said as politely as she could manage.

      “We will put Robert in his old room,” the woman said. “We have no idea what his mental state will be when he fully awakens. He needs to be in familiar surroundings. The bed must be stripped, new sheets put upon it—I’m sure Maria uses lavender sachet just as her dear mother did and he will no doubt recall that. And then the bed must be warmed and kept warm.”

      “The orderlies here will see to all that. Just tell them what you need, ma’am,” Perkins said on his way out. “His old room is off the upstairs porch, Miss Kate. On the left.”

      And how in the world did Perkins know that? she wondered. It suddenly occurred to her that his room was also the one she was using—not that that would matter to Mrs. Kinnard. The woman had spoken, and Maria’s brother was in need.

      “Flannel,” Mrs. Kinnard said, looking at Kate.

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Flannel. We need flannel to wrap the heated bricks—you are heating bricks?” she said, looking at Kate hard.

      “Yes, ma’am,” one of the orderlies said for her. “The oven’s full of them.”

      Undeterred, Mrs. Kinnard continued to look at Kate, now with raised eyebrows.

      “I’ll...see if I can find...some,” Kate said, heading for the stairs.

      Perkins hadn’t left the house yet.

      “Now try not to undo all your brother’s hard work,” he said quietly so Mrs. Kinnard wouldn’t hear him. “He’s finally got that old bat and her daughter where they don’t set out to cripple everything he tries to do—and that’s saying a lot. She’s a mean old cuss and don’t you go yanking her chain.”

      Kate sighed instead of answering.

      “I’m telling you,” Perkins said.

      “I don’t yank chains, Sergeant Major.”

      “Maybe not, but the Colonel says you are a strong woman, and it’s my experience that strong women don’t put up with much. This time it’s important that you do, Miss Kate.”

      “Yes. All right. I’ll...behave.”

      Easier said than done, she thought as he went out the door, but she was willing to try. She went upstairs and looked through the cedar chests, but there was no flannel in any of them. In an effort not to have to tell Mrs. Kinnard that, she went down the back stairs to the kitchen, hoping that flannel for hot bricks, if she just thought about it logically, might be found there.

      Somewhere.

      She found them at last in the pantry on a top shelf, a whole basketful of double-thickness, hand-sewn flannel bags she concluded were the right size to hold a brick, hot or otherwise. She gave them to the soldier manning the cookstove, then ended up holding the bags open so he could drop a hot brick inside—once he stopped protesting her offer of help.

      “Mrs.