The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn Read online

  He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes now. He stared at his hands, sun-browned and clenched. That he’d fallen head over heels for Tamsen at sight of her, had his head filled with notions of the Almighty meaning her for him, didn’t seem a piece of news liable to aid their cause. More likely to color every action he’d taken since—and not in a becoming shade. “Our marrying now is part and parcel of me assuring her safety.” And his own, he might’ve added.

  “I see,” said Reverend Teague, leaving Jesse wondering how much the man did see. “Does Cade give his blessing to this union?”

  Jesse chose his words carefully. He hadn’t told Cade about the marrying. “Cade knows about Tamsen and the need to keep her safe. He’s in agreement with me on that.”

  The preacher seemed to weigh Jesse’s answer with equal care. “Wouldn’t you rather wait, so Cade can be here to stand up with you?”

  “With respect, Reverend, I’m well over my majority and don’t need any by-your-leave for this, from Cade or anyone.”

  Reverend Teague blinked. “I meant his blessing, Jesse. Not his permission.”

  This wasn’t starting well. Jesse knew it by the guarded look stealing over Molly’s pleasant face, the set of the preacher’s mouth. He was digging them a hole he might never climb out of if he didn’t hit on the right words, and quick. He drew breath, hoping they’d be there when he opened his mouth.

  “It was me,” Tamsen blurted. “I asked Mr. Bird—Jesse—to marry me.”

  Jesse risked a glance at her. The strain on her face was anything but reassuring. “She did, Reverend, for a fact. But it’s my choosing too. And if you’d consider marrying us today, without reading the banns—”

  “Jesse?” Reverend Teague stood from the table. “Might I ask you to step outside? If Miss Littlejohn is agreeable, I’d like to speak with her and Molly. Alone.”

  Jesse froze, then looked at Tamsen. Her eyes held trepidation, but she nodded. “You sure?” he asked her, not at all certain this turn was for the best.

  She looked at the preacher and his wife, then reached across the table and touched his hand. “It’s all right, Jesse.”

  Luther Teague waited, no telling from his face whether he meant to talk Tamsen out of the whole idea of marrying, urge her to wait, or something else entirely. But the jolt that went through him at her touch left him so befuddled that he found himself outside the cabin without knowing quite how he’d gotten there.

  Beside the door was a bench. He sat on it, leaned over his knees, and put his head in his hands. He scrubbed his fingers back through his hair, pulling it free from the whang he’d tied it with that morning—a morning that seemed weeks ago. He captured the bit of leather and picked at the knot. Above him stretched a sky half-clouded in mare’s tails beginning to pink with sunset. Would he and Tamsen be married come nightfall? Or would she bid him leave her with the Teagues and go his way?

  It shook him to the core, how much it mattered. What he’d seen in her that day in Morganton when she stumbled into Cade, again during that first encounter in the stable—determination, yearning, fragile hope—it was coming back to her again, though he knew she still had grieving to do.

  What was it she hoped for? What did she want for herself? Apart from keeping shed of her stepfather. She had courage to have come this far. And, he dared believe, some small faith in him.

  Enough to convince the preacher they did no wrong in marrying?

  The murmur of voices wafted from the cabin like a teasing aroma. Banished from the conversation, unable to settle within hearing of it, he stood. Across the clearing the meetinghouse door stood ajar. It was almost always left so, for anyone to enter.

  He was striding across the clearing before he knew he meant to do so, lips moving on a soundless prayer.

  Within moments of Jesse’s leaving, Tamsen had poured out her tale, from the portrait’s commissioning, to Ambrose Kincaid, to her mother’s death and the flight from Morganton, including the charge of abduction that hung over Jesse.

  “That’s why I asked him to marry me. To protect him, like he’s protected me.”

  The Teagues had listened, asked a few questions to clarify matters, then bowed their heads as if by mutual consent. The reverend prayed aloud to the Almighty for comfort for Tamsen, protection for her and Jesse, finally for guidance. At last Luther Teague raised his deep-set eyes and smiled in a way that made Tamsen weep again. Silent, cleansing tears.

  He reached out his hand, covering both of hers clasped tight on her knees. Rather than addressing any of the things she’d told him, he said, “Tell me, my dear. What do you make of our Jesse Bird?”

  Tears still wet on her cheeks, she glanced toward the cabin door. “He’s a good man. And a God-fearing man, I think.”

  “He is that. Is it important to you that he be both?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you don’t love him?” It was Molly who asked the gentle, probing question.

  Flustered, Tamsen managed a strained whisper. “He’s been kind and brave, but … I barely know him.”

  “Molly and I have known Jesse a good many years,” the reverend said. “What has he told you of his history?”

  “That he was raised by the Shawnees. And by Cade.” Tamsen frowned. “If you think I should be concerned about that, I’m not. We were alone in the mountains for days and not once did he misbehave toward me. He’s been a perfect gentleman in all the ways that matter. More than my stepfather ever was—and him I wish never to see again, or give any right to me whatsoever. I will never again live under the roof of the man who killed my mother. Not for an hour.”

  While her words rang in the quiet cabin, Tamsen straightened her shoulders, drew back her hands from the reverend’s clasp, and waited.

  “And yet you might have stayed,” Molly said. “Married the man your stepfather chose for you, and escaped him just as well.”

  Tamsen shook her head. “Mr. Kincaid was no better than my stepfather. I saw him commit violence against one of his slaves. My mother taught me to treat our slaves with kindness. She—” Tamsen met their gazes, hands fisted in her lap. “Jesse told me not to speak of this, but I see he trusts you, and maybe you can tell me whether our marriage would even be legal. We’d need it to be legal, you see.”

  Their puzzlement was plain. “Legal in what way?” Molly asked.

  Taking a deep breath, Tamsen explained. “My mother was born a slave. I don’t know how she and my father met, but he obtained her freedom, and he married her—or pretended to. I was born after her manumission, but … I don’t know what I am.”

  Nor did she know what her mother’s having been a slave meant to her, or should mean. Perhaps, eventually, it wouldn’t matter, but right now it did. Very much.

  “Mama looked white, you see.”

  “And you wish to know how white a woman need be to marry a white man?” Molly asked.

  “Yes.” She waited what seemed an interminable pause, while Luther Teague considered.

  “As I understand the laws of North Carolina,” he said, “if a person is known to have one great-grandparent of the African race, then that person is considered of mixed blood.”

  “One eighth,” Tamsen whispered.

  Molly took her hand in hers, gripping it gently. “Is marrying Jesse that important to you?”

  Tamsen looked down at the hand gripping hers. An older hand, not smooth or firm. Yet there was no difference in the color of their skin, hand to hand, aside from Molly’s having a spattering of brown spots. It was the blood beneath that mattered to those who made and kept the laws. “What’s important is that he not suffer for helping me. I’d thought if we married, there would be no grounds for an abduction charge.”

  “That’s as may be,” the reverend said. “But have you considered what you might feel a year from now? In five years? Or twenty?”

  Twenty years? She hadn’t yet dared look beyond that day.

  Molly squeezed her hand. “What Luther means is, have you thought that one
day you might regret not marrying for love? That’s something most young women hope for, is it not?”

  She was fighting tears again. She was so weary of tears. “But I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “Perhaps you do.”

  She looked at the reverend, who’d made the statement. “What do you mean?” An idea struck her. “Oh … that maybe I can stay here? With you and Mrs. Teague?”

  The couple exchanged a glance heavy with unspoken words. Tamsen felt the hope the idea had kindled flicker. It was Molly who quenched it, though she did so kindly. “Luther and I would certainly not object, but from what you’ve told us thus far, it seems to me that staying here, where our meeting gathers, would place you in great danger of discovery.”

  Tamsen bowed her head, staring at the tea gone tepid in her cup. “What, then, should I do? I won’t go back.”

  “No one is saying you should,” the reverend assured her. “What we’re saying is this: Don’t make a decision now that you cannot undo, though you spend the rest of your life regretting it. Take the time you need to be certain—which I don’t think you are just now.”

  Tamsen had been leaning forward, listening with all her might. At this pronouncement, she sat back in her chair. She tried to force her mind ahead that twenty years the reverend mentioned, tried to see herself with Jesse Bird … and knew that Luther Teague was right. She was far from sure about anything, except not wishing to be found by the men who pursued her.

  She’d wished for freedom, yet the reality of it was proving more complicated than she’d ever imagined.

  Reverend Teague’s gaze was gentle in its scrutiny of her—but thorough. “Do you remember what Molly said, before we sent Jesse out to bide his soul in patience?”

  She almost smiled at the twinkle in his eyes. “Something about everything turning out all right.”

  “Do you know why I said that?”

  She looked at Molly. “To make me feel better?”

  Molly chuckled. “That’s one reason. But they weren’t empty words. Our Father in heaven works all things for good, for those who love Him and want to see His will done in their lives. Do you believe this?”

  Tamsen chewed her lip. Dared she be honest?

  “I want to believe, but … how can what happened to my mother be good?”

  Compassion filled the reverend’s eyes. “Not everything that happens to us in this life will bring us joy. Certainly not the grievous death of your mother. But in time God will work even the worst things men do to us for our lasting good. Eternal good. Trust in the Almighty, in His love for you, and you’ll have no need to dread anything He allows to befall you. For with a test, a trial, He gives an equal measure of grace to bear it and the comfort of His fellowship as He strengthens us. He is acquainted with suffering.”

  Tamsen dropped her gaze to the reverend’s empty sleeve, mute testimony to his own suffering. “Would you tell me …?” She put a hand to her mouth, appalled at her forwardness, but Luther Teague showed no sign he felt himself intruded upon.

  “It was during the war for our independence, at a place called Kings Mountain. Our Overmountain militia—including Jesse and Cade—took prisoner a whole company under British Major Ferguson. It was quite the victory, but we had our losses. I took a musket ball in the elbow, and my arm couldn’t be saved.”

  “I’m sorry for it,” Tamsen said, meaning it.

  “We also lost a son. Mine and Molly’s only child.”

  Tamsen felt her heart squeeze tight. She looked at Molly, whose eyes were moist. This loss went beyond frail words of condolence, but it seemed none were needed. Peace dwelled in both their faces. Sorrow too, even after all these years, but the peace was stronger.

  “We’ll see Liam again,” Luther Teague said. “As I’m sure you shall one day see your mother, if I judge anything about her trust in the Almighty after talking with her daughter.”

  Tears were a fountain, hot and stinging. Tamsen wondered if they would ever stop. “Yes,” she choked out. “Mama’s in heaven. With Papa. I think … I think she saw him in the end. Waiting for her.”

  They let her cry, unflinching in the face of her emotion, and when she had control of herself, the reverend took her other hand in his. “Have faith that God has you right where you need to be, though all around seems bewildering. Have faith that He sent you help when you needed it, that He will guide you on from this moment too. One step at a time. You don’t have to figure it all out now.”

  She wanted such faith. She wanted to believe that in the same hour the Almighty allowed her mother to be taken away, He’d given her Jesse Bird to deliver her from her stepfather and Mr. Kincaid. But delivered unto what?

  “I will try,” she said.

  “Good.” The reverend’s eyes held hers, steadying. “Now, there’s a young man out there waiting to know what it is you truly need from him. Tell me what that is, and I’ll go have a talk with him about it.”

  You know my heart better’n I do. If this is all for me—my wants—then turn her path another way. Don’t let her yoke herself to me if it’ll bring her nothing but regret … Jesse hadn’t approached the front of the church, where the simple wooden pulpit stood. He’d done his talking to the Almighty from a back pew, forearms on his knees, the hardwood seat pressing into his thighs, the building’s musty scent filling his nose. Cover her. That’s all I’m asking now. If not through me, then some other way. But if it can be me …

  After a stretch of praying in circles, he could bear it no longer. He stood, thinking they had to have gotten something sorted between them by now. Opening the meetinghouse door wide, he found himself face to face with Reverend Teague.

  “Jesse. Thought I’d find you here. Walk with me?” Luther Teague’s face was relaxed, welcoming, which told Jesse nothing since that’s how the man most always looked.

  In silence they strode toward Molly’s garden, where the sunflowers stood like spindly women in yellow bonnets, heads bent. The finches took flight at their coming. Jesse’s heart fluttered in his chest. “Well, Reverend?”

  “I’m going to explain why I won’t be marrying you and Tamsen today.”

  Jesse didn’t know if he was more dismayed or—and this was odd—relieved. “Reverend,” he started in knee-jerk protest but checked at a lifting of the older man’s brows.

  “Hear me out first, Jesse. Please. Tamsen has told us everything, and there’s nothing you’ve done that strikes me as misguided, as best I understand this situation.”

  That sounded good, but there was one thing the preacher couldn’t know. “With respect, sir, Tamsen didn’t tell you everything because she don’t know everything.” Though they were a distance from the cabin, he lowered his voice. “There’s more’n just a kidnapping charge hanging over me on account of all this. I’m accused of murdering her ma—by the man who actually did the violence that killed her.”

  If he’d thought this might shock the preacher or convince him to reconsider his decision, Jesse was disappointed. “That only confirms to me that allowing Tamsen to make this sacrifice for you is something I’m not prepared to do.”

  Jesse started to speak, then clenched his jaw and pleaded silently with the man who’d been his and Cade’s preacher for years, had put him under the waters of baptism when he was still a boy.

  Reverend Teague smiled, in sympathy rather than amusement. “Jesse, too much has happened to her in too short a time. Time—maybe a lot of it—is what Tamsen needs.”

  “And protection.”

  “True. But you can give her that without the pair of you committing yourselves until death do you part. Besides, this is her choice.”

  Jesse sucked hard on his lip to keep from saying anything too hasty. Where had that fleeting sense of relief gone? He wished it back. “What does she want to do, then? Stay here with you?”

  “As I explained to Tamsen, that won’t do. She’d be too easily found.” The preacher fell silent. Still thinking this through. Or maybe listening for the path to be
shown him. Jesse reined in his impatience, let the man gaze at his wife’s sunflowers, and waited.

  “Here’s my suggestion,” his preacher said at last. “Take her home. She’ll last longer in anonymity with you and Cade than she would here.” He gestured at the church, deserted now, but it wouldn’t always be.

  Jesse thought of Tamsen sleeping in his cabin, sharing meals, seeing her day to day but forbidden to touch her. Not married. Cade would be by. They wouldn’t be alone all the time … but there were limits to a man’s strength.

  Luther Teague was watching him close. “Do you feel more for that young woman than the need to protect her?”

  What was the point in denying the obvious?

  “Aye sir. I do. A heap more. Reckon I’m more’n halfway to being in love with her, to tell the plain truth.”

  “If that’s the case, wouldn’t you rather marry knowing she loves you in return? She trusts you and seems to care a great deal that you not pay a price for coming to her aid.”

  “But that ain’t love.” Jesse looked away, coming to terms. “Back in the mountains, when she came up with this scheme, part of me knew it wasn’t right. Not like this. I just …”

  “Couldn’t say no.” Luther laughed softly when Jesse looked sharp at him. “I remember how it felt, meeting Molly.” His gaze grew sober again. “You’ll be called on to say no to yourself, many times over, if you take her home. My feeling is she’s lived a sheltered, probably restricted life till now. Though she’s of an age to have done so, she’s yet to learn who she is, what she wants in life.”

  The words were ringing true, though Jesse didn’t like their tune.

  “Can you give her that time, Jesse? Can you lay down your desires and be for her the friend, the brother, she needs, and no more?”

  “I want to, sir,” he said hoarsely, then cleared his throat and said with force, “And I will. I’ll do all in my power to protect and provide for her, long as she needs me to. And I’ll ask nothing of her in return. I vow it, Reverend—God and you as my witnesses.”