Counterfeit Courtship. Christina Miller

Chapter One

      Natchez, Mississippi

      June, 1865

      Colonel Graham Talbot slid from his mare and eased the reins over a live oak branch, the need for stealth and silence driving him. He crouched low to the ground and prayed that Dixie wouldn’t whinny and give away his position.

      As he surveyed the surrounding area, a gang of five appeared from behind the stable. How had they gotten there without him seeing them? And how had they known when he would arrive?

      Crossing toward the imposing structure in the open air would make him vulnerable, but if he stayed where he was, they’d be on him in moments. He had to take the chance that they wouldn’t look his way. Staying low, he rushed for the next oak. Just a hundred more yards and he’d make it—

      “Colonel Talbot, is that you? Sneaking through your own backyard?” The shrill, syrupy voice brought him to a halt. “We’ve been waiting for you for days.”

      He stood and raised his hands in surrender. Just as he’d feared, he’d been captured by a force he dreaded more than a platoon of Yankees: a mob of husband-hunting Natchez girls.

      As the gaggle of simpering females emerged from the side yard of his stepmother’s town house, Graham held in a groan. Their exaggerated giggles and faded finery didn’t improve his mood.

      The girl who reached him first snapped shut her yellow-fringed parasol and leaned in close, taking possession of his arm in a way that made him want to head back to the army camp. She was pretty, even charming in her own way, but when had the hometown girls become so bold?

      And why couldn’t they have stayed away until he got a bath and a shave?

      He sneaked a glance at the Greek Revival manor next door and caught a glimpse of Ellie Anderson waving out an upstairs window. Her honey-blond hair gleamed in the sun as brightly as her mischievous grin.

      Ellie. His childhood chum, the instigator of most of his youthful calamities—and the reason he’d entered West Point, leaving behind his rejected heart. Even at this distance, the belle of Natchez brought back memories he’d worked hard to forget.

      He stopped the thought cold. That had been eight years and a war ago. He’d been only seventeen at the time and still more boy than man. Things had been different in those days...

      Ellie continued to smile in that maddening way of hers, a sweet, guileless smile, nothing like the cloying grins of the misguided maidens surrounding him—

      “Our own war hero is home at last.” The girl next to him interrupted his thoughts, and that was probably good since, as he now realized, he’d been staring at Ellie with his big mouth open. “You remember me, don’t you, Colonel? I’m Susanna Martin, but an old friend like you can call me Susie.”

      “We’ve heard all about your war exploits,” the redhead next to Susanna said. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place her. Then again, after eight years, he probably looked different too.

      “What is General Robert E. Lee like? Is he as handsome as they say?”

      Handsome?

      “General Lee is a brilliant soldier and a fine Christian man. I was proud to serve under him.” He started toward the house, wanting nothing more than a hot bath and a long visit with his stepmother.

      But they sailed along with him, their giant hoopskirts swaying as the women jostled into each other, vying for position next to him. He was surprised they wanted to get that close. Having ridden all day yesterday and all night last night, he was bound to smell as ripe as fresh manure.

      This sure wasn’t the homecoming he’d looked forward to, but he extended an arm to each girl closest to him and let them carry him along. The South may have lost the war, and Andrew Johnson, the Yankee president, may have stripped Graham of his citizenship, his plantation and all his property, but he was still a Southern gentleman. And a gentleman didn’t offend a lady. Not even five ladies who’d disrupted his plans and wearied his already-troubled mind with their chattering.

      And with the war’s end, being a gentleman was all he had left.

      Climbing the stone steps to the breezy front gallery with its white columns and comfortable outdoor rockers, Graham hesitated. Surely these girls didn’t expect him to invite them in—not in his filthy condition. But Noreen, like the lady she was, would welcome them into her home—his childhood home—and so should he.

      “We haven’t had many parties this year, so we can’t wait for tonight. Miss Ophelia started planning your homecoming when Lee met with Grant.” Susanna spoke in low, intimate tones, as if four other women weren’t hovering about her, taking in every word.

      “A party—tonight?” How was he going to get out of that without hurting Aunt Ophelia’s feelings? Now that she was a war widow, she’d likely mother—and smother—Graham more than ever. Starting tonight, apparently. “Would you care to come in and tell me about it?”

      Say no, say no...

      “We’d rather hear about the war. All of Natchez knows about the hundreds of Yankees you captured.” Susanna’s drab green eyes turned hard as an artillery shell. “Although I don’t see why you didn’t just shoot them.”

      “I spared as many lives as I could.” They reached the front door, and he saw it was shut. He hesitated. As hot as it was, why would Noreen not have all the doors and jib windows flung wide open to catch a breeze?

      He grasped the brass doorknob. Surely his stepmother would entertain these girls and let him escape upstairs to a bath. Graham opened wide the cypress door painted to look like mahogany, and followed them inside the too-quiet center hall. He gestured toward the parlor. “Please be seated while I find my stepmother.”

      He barely had them in the parlor before he took off down the hall to the library. The room was empty. Where was she? It wasn’t like her to leave the house unattended. Anybody could have walked in that door...

      Something seemed amiss in the room, but he couldn’t discern what. He ventured farther inside, toward the collection of poetry Noreen kept on the shelves between the windows on the east wall, and then he saw it. A nearly full teacup and a half-eaten slice of bread and butter sat on the table next to his stepmother’s favorite fireside wing chair.

      Food and dirty dishes sitting out—in Noreen Talbot’s home? Something had gone wrong. He could sense it, just as he always could in battle.

      Graham turned from the library and checked the dining room. He stepped through the breezeway to the kitchen dependency—nothing. He charged up the stairs. “Noreen?” Upstairs, he headed for her room at the end of the hall.

      As he’d suspected, it was empty too, with both bed pillows fluffed and in place, Noreen’s hairbrush and mirror at perfect right angles to each other as always—and the third drawer of Father’s lowboy flung open.

      The drawer where he hid his revolver.

      Graham hastened to search the drawer. As he’d feared, Father’s Colt Dragoon was gone, and the lid lay beside the open box of bullets.

      What could this mean? He glanced down at his dirt-caked boots and the clumps of dried mud he’d left on the Persian silk and wool carpet. Noreen could have moved the gun, but she didn’t leave drawers and ammo boxes open.

      A wave of soprano giggles pierced the air around him, interrupting his thoughts. The girls.

      He dashed into the hallway and toward his own room. He had to find out what had happened to Noreen, a mother to him since shortly after Mama and Graham’s baby sister died in childbirth. But first he had to get rid of those girls. The thought of doing that made his stomach sick.

      He could think of only one way to get them out.

      * * *

      Ellie Anderson pulled her head