Ursula's Inheritance

Ursula’s Inheritance

American Civil War Brides Book 3

By Eileen Charbonneau

Digital ISBNs

EPUB 978-0-2286-1982-6

Kindle 978-0-2286-1983-3

PDF 978-0-2286-1984-0

Print ISBNs

Amazon Print 978-0-2286-1986-4

LSI Print 978-0-2286-1987-1

B&N Print 978-0-2286-1985-7

Copyright 2021 by Eileen Charbonneau

Cover art by Michelle Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book

Dedication

For my fellow Scribe Sisters, Juilene Osborne-McKnight, Eileen O’Finlan, and Jane Willan who helped immeasurably to get me into the writing harness for this one.

And with deep thanks to all the readers of Mercies of the Fallen who said, What happens next?

Chapter One ~ Rowan

April 1864, Gramercy Park, Manhattan

Even with the one eye the war had left him, Rowan Buckley knew the wee one pilfering from the garden was a girl, despite her trousers. He frowned at the canvas bag at her feet.

So it is not a squirrel with an interest in our angelica, then? he asked quietly.

The urchin turned, startled eyes narrowing. Better me than an Irish thug! She spat.

The girl took advantage of his hesitation and his limited depth perception. She grabbed the sack and raced toward the iron garden gate. But after three hard years of soldiering, there was nothing wrong with Rowan’s reflexes. He caught up, took her wrist, and, when she resisted, her waist. She had a waist. So she was a little older than her small size had first impressed upon him.

Please let me go, sir, an even smaller voice came out of her.

Am I ‘sir’ then, now that you’re caught?

You are a black Irish scoundrel to hold me against my will!

She kicked him. Hard enough to throw off his stance. He maintained his temper and light grip as he steered her toward the tradesman’s door of Ursula’s house.

You’ve nothing to fear from me, lass. He sent her through the entrance with a nudge at her back. Now hush up your caterwauling, the baby’s asleep.

Jonathan was stretched out at the hearth, his stockinged foot rocking the cradle. His eyebrow arched.

Company? The kettle’s on, my fine fellow.

Your fellow is a girl, and there’s nothing fine about her, Rowan corrected, lifting the cap off his captive’s head. Fair-haired braids descended. May I present our angelica and camomile thief?

Jonathan smiled. Ah. Mystery solved.

The girl’s eyes fired. I planted that garden!

Did you? Jonathan asked in his most charming southern tone. Fetch the young horticulturist a chair, brother.

She kicks, Rowan warned.

The girl’s light brown eyes narrowed as she looked from one to the other. You’re not brothers.

And you neglected to pay for your trousers, Rowan observed, yanking off and reading the dry goods store tag. The proprietor might want a word with you about that.

The proprietor is my father. His name is Selby, see?

A rustling of nightclothes and Ursula stood in the back doorway. Mr. Thomas Selby?

Rowan saw something familiar in the girl’s trapped look, the tears stubbornly held back.

You are so confusing! All of you! She shouted loud enough to startle wee Henry to wailing.

Aw, there now then, fledgling, Rowan soothed, lifting the baby from the cradle and into his arms. You’ve had enough of the lot of us, have you?

Ursula kept her eyes fixed on the girl.

What is your name?

Penina.

She glanced in the sack, Thank you, Penina. A little camomile is exactly what we need for our Henry’s teething gums. Take the rest home. Will you not join us for breakfast first?

Rowan sighed. His wife had found another stray. He rubbed his sore shin, then fetched the frying pan. This little one might enjoy some of his oatcakes, he supposed.

Chapter Two ~ Penina

Penina sat quietly in the kitchen of what used to be her own home. Everything was different, save this rough-hewn worktable and the old, sturdy yoke back chairs. The hearth hung with bunches of familiar herbs, but the brick walls were now whitewashed, and her mother’s corner cupboard displayed teapots and crockery ware of a fine quality. There was a new dry sink, and a cookstove that was a gleaming replacement of the cranky Franklin stove. Penina had thought of the widow as her enemy, wicked and old, like stepmothers in fairy tales. Not this quiet, beautiful woman putting a robust baby to her breast as two young, beardless men bustled about the kitchen looking after her and serving breakfast, the most delicious breakfast Penina had ever eaten.

Why does this taste sweet? she asked.

That would be from his relatives, the light-haired man said, wiggling his thumb at the other, the dark, bigger Irish one working at the stove. He douses bacon in maple syrup. Now, I prefer honey cured myself. Back in Maryland, we had—

Penina dropped her fork. This is bacon?

Yes. In that peculiar Canadian cut of it, he told her, taking up the carving knife. Would you care for some more?

No!

All of them stopped moving. Even the baby lifted his head from his mother’s breast and stared at her. Penina felt her throat constrict. Tears threatened. Not their fault, she heard her father’s voice. Do not blame the Christians. Yes, Papa. She should have asked. She should have asked.

A fresh plate for Miss Selby’s new oat cakes, if you would, Rowan dear, the widow said quietly before lifting the left part of her bodice transferring the rooting baby to that side.

Of course, my love.

The steaming cakes went from his spatula to a spotless piece of blue and white import china ware, before switching it for her own, the one with only morsels of its pork remaining.

The smaller, light-haired man put down his knife and quietly poured tea for her and the widow, fresh coffee for himself and the cook. Penina noticed the men’s trousers now, blue wool with a red stripe down the side. They were soldiers.

The cook threw a towel over his broad shoulder and thumped a heavy glass pitcher with amber liquid before her. Try more maple syrup, lass.

She ventured a look at him. Thank you, sir. But I am not hungry.

No wonder, the light-haired man observed. You ate enough for—

Jonathan, the widow silenced him with a gentle, scolding look before she turned back to Penina. You miss the garden? she asked.

My father said we must be grateful, because our house is now large and comfortable, and so close to the shop.

That is what my property agent Mr. Gardner assured me last year, that the tenants were happy with our arrangement. But he never asked you or your mother, did he?

Papa speaks for the family.

She was in trouble now. For letting out a resentful tone.

But the widow only said, I see, in that soft way, before looking up at her companions. Miss Selby and her parents rented this house before me, my darlings, she told them. This was her home.

The light-haired man frowned, but his companion put another heavenly smelling pancake on her plate. Try one with the peach butter, lass, he urged, if you don’t fancy the maple.

You and your peaches, the other groused. They did act like Penina had seen brothers act toward each other.

The baby released, sat up, then patted his mother’s breast and belched.

They all laughed. The man who had captured her in the garden appeared most pleased. Well, eaglet, he said, caressing the baby’s head, You have enjoyed your breakfast!

Another frown from the light-haired man. He has his father’s manners.

The widow’s eyes darted between the two before she held the baby out to the dark one.

Who was this woman? And these men, her darling soldiers, cooking for her, eating with her in their open vests and rolled up shirtsleeves? There were rumors. Of Mrs. Major flouting every decency as she consorted with actors and artists. And now soldiers. How did a war widow live as comfortably as she did, people asked, with both negro and Irish servants waiting on her?

So far, no servants had appeared in the kitchen, only these two men, laughing and teasing each other, doting on the widow and her baby. Say something, Penina admonished herself. Years of working with her parents in the shop had made it easy for her to talk to strangers.

But not these strangers. Our new place has no room for a garden, she finally offered. We tried to grow herbals at the windowsill, for my father’s health, but they did not take.

Well, the widow said, putting a graceful finger to her cheek. We will have another key made for the garden gate.

What? the flaxen-haired man objected.

But she silenced him with that fierce look before her voice turned sweet again. You may come whenever you like, Penina. Keep us company. Help me plant and harvest, if you’d like. And take whatever you need home. Your father is ailing?

Since the riots. He had the store barricaded, we were all inside, quiet and safe, but he left us to help our last customer, a negro sailor man. The mob and their pikes and guns came inside, screaming at the man. They wanted to hang him, burn him. Papa sent him out the back way, and down an alley. So those Irish, she cast a glance around, they beat my father instead. And wrecked and burned our store.

Dia ár sábháil! came from the man at the stove.

Do not you curse us!

The slender man rose. He is not cursing you, Miss Selby. Rowan, he commanded. Translate.

God save us, the big man said softly. It was a prayer, Miss.

Penina stared at her hands, tried to blink the tears from her eyes.

The woman’s long, beautiful fingers covered hers. Perhaps you men might take our Henry for a walk in the morning air, and leave us ladies be for a few moments?

They reached for their coats like obedient children, swaddled the contented baby, and were out the tradesman’s door before Penina knew what was happening.

Penina. I am so sorry to have caused you pain, however inadvertently.

You have not done that, Ma’am.

Inconvenience, then. Are there friends here in Gramercy Park of your acquaintance?

No, Ma’am, no friends. We worked long hours at the shop.

We? Tell me about your life, Penina. Do you attend school?

I have completed my schooling, Mrs. Major.

Surely not, child.

I am not a child! I am fourteen!

Oh, I beg your pardon.

I am small for my age, always taken for years younger. It is not your fault. Why was she excusing the woman? Because she looked so mightily sorry, instead of the insults that usually came with discovery. ‘Fourteen is it? You must eat more, girl!’ or ‘Don’t your parents feed you?’

The widow smiled. Your disguise was most clever for keeping yourself safer on these city streets before daybreak. But I hope you will allow my Rowan or Jonathan to accompany you on your return home.

Who are those men?

Oh, I beg your pardon again, for their rudeness in not introducing themselves. They are used to camp life, across the river on Rikers Island. Sometimes I fear they forget their manners. They are my dearest friends, Captain Rowan Buckley and Sergeant Jonathan Kingsley. My family. And they would not hurt you for the world, Penina.

Penina tried to remember the widow’s words as she walked beside Sergeant Kingsley, now in his full military gear, up Broadway. One gloved hand balanced the carefully packed container of spring herbal seedlings, but he rested the other on his sword’s hilt, as if wondering if she would snatch it out of its fancy scabbard. Still, he did not hurry her along, as many longer-limbed people did, but matched his pace to hers. And she was dragging her feet, hoping her mother had not checked her bedroom yet and discovered her gone again.

Caroline Selby stood in their doorway, scanning the street, looking careworn and worried. Penina should not have stayed for breakfast, even if it meant she now had a full box of Captain Buckley’s oatcakes under her arm. And how was she going to explain the trousers she wore, snatched from the boxes of ready-made clothes salvaged after the fire?

Mother, may I present Sergeant Kingsley, who—

Hopes these plants might prove useful, Ma’am, he finished, stepping forward. I bear a note of introduction from my— from Mrs. Major, who welcomes your family to the bounty of Gramercy Parks’s herb garden, which we understand was begun by way of your own efforts.

Caroline Selby took the note, but her eyes stayed on Sergeant Kingsley. Penina. You have gone back there again.

Yes, Mama.

Her mother’s grip crushed Mrs. Major’s note. Please dress. The hospital has sent for us. Papa …has taken a turn.

A turn? Mama, what does that mean? He was doing so well. They said he could come home!

Might I accompany you, Ma’am? Penina heard the sergeant ask as she slipped past them, dread circling her heart.

Chapter Three ~ Jonathan

Jonathan Kingsley was used to hospitals, and this was a finely appointed one, with clean linens and many of what his sister had once been, dedicated nursing nuns, floating from bed to bed, easing men out of their suffering or their lives. He did not want to be here. These were not soldiers, but civilians, victims of the summer’s Draft Riots, a week of barbarity unlike anything Jonathan had ever seen, even in battle. Without his more war-hardened brother-in-law commanding him, without his sister and little Henry to look after over the birth and confinement, he wondered if he could have made it through those days fueled by hatred and fear. This hospital still housed the aftermath, as sure as those bloodied floors under the doctors’ feet after Gettysburg. They were twin horrors that haunted his dreams.

He and Rowan had helped bring down the burning rope still blowing on the summer wind from lampposts where men had swung. They had served guard duty among the burnt-out buildings, the broken storefronts in the first months after the riots. Did the mob find the sailor who Penina’s father had sent down the alleyway? Or had he and Rowan buried the man’s charred remains? Too late. Why were they too late to save more lives?

He did not have to be here in this hospital, now, amidst this continued suffering. Still, there was something in Mrs. Selby’s desperate, lost expression that prompted the offer to abide with the little thief’s family a while longer. Or maybe it was the little thief herself, bravely bearing a burden she should not have.

Thomas Selby’s nose had been broken, most likely, from the sound of his labored breathing. It had not healed correctly from the time of the riots, Jonathan suspected. And what