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Vallequette Manor, near Savannah, Georgia, December 1864

She froze. Voices.

She inched over to one of the front windows and peeked out. There was no mistaking the uniforms.

Yankee Blue.

General Sherman's troops were cutting a swath through Georgia, burning everything in sight. If anything remained to steal, they took it, particularly edibles. And unless she talked them out of it, they'd burn the house down around her and her cousins' ears.

Screwing up her courage, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the verandah as the patrol rode up. She held her hands away from her to show she was unarmed.

Without dismounting, the young officer leading the troop glared down at her. "We've orders to confiscate any livestock and other comestibles."

Jenny Clarkson looked at the three men mounted behind him then back at the officer. "We have nothing. We've been living on squirrel and stream-caught fish."

"I'll give you until sundown to gather blankets and whatever personal items you'll need, because I'll be burning the house."

Cold sweat covered her. "Please, don't burn the house. My cousins are ill and will die if forced to live out of doors."

"Orders are orders."

Jenny touched his arm. "Please, I'll do anything. Isn't there something I can do, something I can trade?"

"Do you sleep upstairs?"

"No, by the kit..." Realization slowly spread through her. Stiffly she nodded. "You promise you'll leave the house be?"

"If you'll do it with my men after I'm done."

She nodded again. "This way." As she turned, she began unbuttoning her bodice.

* * *

Eight days later

"Why couldn't you have died nine days ago?"

Jenny glared at her cousins lying side by side in the three-foot-deep hole. She swallowed her rage, grabbed the spade from the wheelbarrow, and ignoring the freezing rain as she had all day, began shoveling oozing mud over the bodies.

A shiver ripped through her. God she was cold, and not because of the freezing rain. She hadn't been able to get warm since that day with the soldiers.

She wiped the dripping water from her eyes and returned to her task. "You're lucky you got three feet," she muttered. After tossing a last scoop of mud on the grave, the spade dropped from her nerveless fingers. "The last Vallequette slave has been freed."

Pivoting, she started back toward the mansion, then stopped, frozen, immobile as the ground shook and the sound of thundering hoofs broke the stillness. "Oh, my God, not again." She collapsed behind the tombstone beside her and curled into a ball. She couldn't let them find her. She could endure anything but that.

Sometime later, as the laughter drifted away, she smelled rather than heard the fire. Pushing herself upright, she glanced over her shoulder at the new burial mound.

"It was for nothing."

Eight days ago, her soul had died.

All that was left cowering in the graveyard was her body, breathing but not alive.

Loomis, Missouri, August 1866

The hammering had been going on for three days now. Funny, Jenny Clarkson thought, I always thought it took less time to build a gallows.

It then occurred to Jenny that she had never given the time necessary to build a gallows any thought at all.

But then, she had never considered that a gallows would be built to hang her.

Sheriff Clayton, none too courteously, had assured Jenny that the scaffold would definitely be finished before dusk today and that they would hang her at noon tomorrow.

"Oughtta be quite a shindig," the lawman smirked. "It's not every day the town sees a woman hung."

Jenny sighed. "Hanged," she said more audibly. "A picture is hung. A person is hanged." Not a person--me. She shuddered, suddenly cold despite the heat of the day.

Clayton spit out a wad of chewing tobacco and removed his hat solemnly. "Why, thank you, teacher," he said with a mocking bow. "Hanged or hung, you'll be just as dead." He clapped his hat back on his macassared brown hair. "By the way, whaddaya want for your last meal?"

Jenny turned away from the barred window and leaned back against the wall of the cell, folding her arms across her bosom. Don't let him see how scared you are. "Lobster bisque, clams on the half shell, sole Florentine with capers, artichokes with drawn butter, a French baguette, followed up by fresh strawberries with sweetened whipped cream and a nice sauternes."

"Huh?" responded the primitive lawman. "Whatever all that damned stuff is, we couldn't get it for you in a hundred years."

Jenny shrugged. "I'm willing to wait."

It took a full minute for Sheriff Clayton to get the joke. He laughed in that horse neigh of his and said, "Yeah, I just bet you are."

Jenny smiled and closed her eyes for a moment. "Could I have a rare steak, carrots, fried potatoes and a slice of pie with coffee?"

"That we can do for you."

Jenny was sure that she would have little appetite this last night of her life. She walked over to the barred door of her cell. Wrapping her hands around the bars so he wouldn't see them tremble, she called out, "Sheriff Clayton, do you think my mysterious benefactor could arrange for a bath for me tomorrow morning before the hanging."

"Why? You had a bath just four days ago."

Four days ago. The morning of her conviction and sentencing on bank robbery charges.

Jenny sighed. "If I'm to meet my Maker, I'd prefer to do so with a clean body and a clean soul. You know I've made no attempt to escape or do anything else to abuse the privilege."

"You think I don't think Danny Clarkson and his gang won't try to come bust you out at the last minute?"

"Sheriff," Jenny responded with conviction, "I've been sweating in this jail cell for over a month since you arrested me and the gang escaped. My brother has given me up for dead or he'd have tried to bust me out before I stood trial."

"And your lover?"

"Lover? What lover?"

He laughed. "You're joking again. Like with the food." He glared at Jenny Clarkson. She stood against the jail cell door. She was nearly five feet nine inches tall and reed slender. Her chestnut hair was chopped off mannishly, framing an oval, high cheekboned, slightly suntanned face with dark brown eyes and a broad slash of a mouth. She wore a plaid cotton man's shirt tucked into worn black men's trousers with scuffed boots covered by the trouser legs. She was pretty in an understated way when she wore the Quakerish gray dress that hung on a peg in the cell. She had worn that dress every day of her trial and planned to wear it on the scaffold tomorrow. She was so small bosomed that in man's apparel she looked neither male nor female, but a combination of the two. The rumors that she had slept with every member of the Clarkson gang were unfathomable.

Jenny cocked her head noncommittally. "If you say so. But to answer the question I think you intended, I don't think Jesse Coltrane or any other members of the gang will be back for me. They saw my horse go down and me unseated. It's safe to guess they believe I'm dead already. By tomorrow it won't matter much. Could you please talk to someone about the bath?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sheriff Clayton said dismissively.

Jenny walked back to the cot and sat down, drawing her knees up and resting her chin on them as she wrapped her arms around her folded legs. She'd put up a good fight to save her life, but she'd lost. If her life wasn't going to pass before her eyes, certainly the events of the last month would...

- - -

July 1866

She had a feeling about the bank robbery in Loomis. A premonition of disaster, she would call it. She glanced around the outlaw camp. Her brother Danny and his partner, Jesse Coltrane, were huddled together, again discussing last minute details.

They had gone over it numerous times. The gang would ride into town separately, "coincidentally" all finding themselves in the bank at one o'clock. As the clock stuck one, they would take out their guns and hold any customers still while Danny and Jesse would force the tellers to clear out the cash drawers and safe. Then they would ride off in different directions to elude the posse and meet back at their hideout in three days to divide the loot.

Jenny held up the coffeepot. "Anyone want more coffee before I douse the fire?"

It had been a little over a year since Danny found her living in the remnants of a slave shack on the burned out Vallequette plantation. He didn't like his sister being part of the gang, but after what had happened to her, Jenny hardly cared what he thought. She wasn't his virginal baby sister anymore. Besides, there was nowhere else for her to go.

Jenny doused and buried the campfire until it was cool enough to touch. She ran her fingers through her chopped-off hair. She'd cut her formerly hip-length hair with Danny's knife when she began to ride with them so she wouldn't be as easily identified as a woman and because it was easier to take care of in uncertain living conditions. She clapped her wide-brimmed man's hat over the shorn tresses and walked over to retrieve her gunbelt from her bedroll. She checked the pistol to make sure it was cleaned and loaded and then buckled the belt around her slim hips. She checked her horse's cinch and bridle and mounted astride. The other members of the gang were doing likewise.

Danny rode over to her, Jesse on his tail.

"You don't have to do this."

Jenny sighed. "You say that every time. I won't sit here in this hole and wait for word that you're dead."

"They won't kill me, Jen. These stupid farmers won't know what hit them."

"There are no guarantees, Danny. But I'm either a member of the Clarkson gang or I'm just a camp follower."

Danny's face reddened with rage. "Don't say that!"

Jenny's eyes narrowed. "Face it, Danny. It doesn't much matter whether I am or not, everyone will think it's true."

Danny raised his arm as if to strike her.

"Lay a hand on her and--brother or not--I'll kill you where you sit," said Jesse Coltrane in his gravelly voice.

Danny lowered his arm. "Just remember, be careful. We can't stop for you if you get wounded or captured."

Jenny nodded. "I understand."

Danny rode away. Jesse maneuvered his horse until he was parallel with Jenny's.

In a low voice, he said, "When the job is over, whaddaya say you follow me out of town? I can show you a good time."

Jenny peered from beneath her brim. Jesse was a big man, strong as an ox and neither gentle nor careful. His black hair was prematurely grizzled and he always seemed to have a couple days growth of salt-and-pepper beard stubble on his square, tanned face. She turned her horse's head to go.

He grabbed her upper arm harshly. "You're my girl, Jenny Clarkson."

She yanked out of his grasp. "I'm nobody's girl. I've told you before...Now, we've got a job to do." She rode off to join her brother as they rode out of camp.

- - -

The robbery itself was more or less a blur. Jenny remembered holding her gun on bank customers who trembled with raised hands while Danny and Jesse went behind the tellers' cages. Then she heard the cry and the gunshot, followed by Danny's voice saying, "Shit, Jesse, what'd you do that for?" and the panicked rush out of the bank.

Shoving her unfired pistol back into the holster she ran outside of the bank and mounted up. She heard shots fired behind her, then felt her horse crumple to the road, throwing her free. Without hesitation, Jenny lay face down in the road, her arms stretched over her head as far away from her gun as she could until a deputy sheriff forcefully yanked her upright and trotted her off to the jail at gunpoint.

The jail had been her home ever since--the last home she would ever know.

* * *

Micah Peterman rode into town on his buckboard that afternoon. He nodded or tipped his hat politely in greeting to those that greeted him, but said little. Beneath the shadow of his felt hat he observed far more than he let on.

He could not fail to notice the progress on the scaffold. He drove his wagon beside the platform and called up to the carpenter who was industriously performing his task.

"Almost finished," Micah remarked.

The carpenter gestured with his hammer. "Near to it. Looks like we'll be hanging the little whore tomorrow noon. Should be quite a show," he added before returning to his work.

Micah veered the horse towards the end of the main street to a two-story frame house with a short white picket fence surrounding a small garden. A sign on the fence read: Claudius Plascove, Circuit Judge.

Micah braked his wagon and climbed down from the seat. He headed up to the front porch, climbed up the steps and knocked on the Judge's door. A black woman in a dark gray dress and white apron answered the door and soon ushered Micah into Judge Plascove's private office.

"Judge Plascove," Micah said quietly in greeting.

The white-haired, ruddy-faced jurist held out his hand and took Micah's thin, long-fingered one in his for a shake. "I don't believe we've met, Mr. ah..."

"Peterman. Micah Peterman."

"Ah yes, Mr. Peterman. What can I do for you this fine day?"

Micah looked down at his feet. "I wanted to ask you about the interpretation of an ordinance, Your Honor."

"Is this on a pending case?" the judge asked cautiously.

"No, sir," Micah responded. "It has to do with the Marital Parole Law."

Judge Plascove raised one white eyebrow. "The Marital Parole Law has only been in effect since a few months after the War ended."

"Actually, sir, it isn't the law I have a question about, it's an understanding of its wording."

"Its wording?" the judge echoed. "Come to the point, my boy."

At thirty-two years old it had been a long time since anyone had called him "boy." Micah continued, "I understand when male gender is used in wording a law it's supposed to apply to either men or women unless the law states otherwise."

"That is correct," Judge Plascove replied. "The grammatical albeit somewhat suggestive truism 'he embraces she' applies in the Missouri statute books."

"This law uses male gender. Would you say the 'he's' in that law refer to women as well as men."

The jurist frowned. "I never considered it before. The ordinance was passed to alleviate the shortage of farmhands due to war casualties, but its intent is not specifically given in the statute."

"So then it might apply?"

"Have you something in mind, Mr. Peterman?"

Micah smiled peculiarly. "I do indeed."

* * *

Some raucous music floated through the air from the saloon. Its rowdy cadences filtered in through the barred window of the jail where Jenny sat waiting for the dawn.

If there was ever a time to feel sorry for oneself, it was now. Jenny had cried at intervals ever since night fell. All she knew was that she was going to die. Tomorrow morning she was going to put on that ill-fitting gray gown and climb up the freshly-built scaffold steps. The sheriff would put a noose around her neck and someone would pull a handle that would drop her through the floor. If she was lucky, she would die instantly. Otherwise she would dangle, choking and frightened, until finally her air was cut off and she ceased to be.

It was hard to stay within herself. It was hard not to curse Jesse for shooting Leon Purdy. It was harder still not to curse Danny for abandoning her to this fate without a second thought.

The local preacher had been by earlier in the evening. Jenny had never been particularly religious, but she was willing to listen to him until she realized that his words were not those of comfort but of censure. She asked him politely to leave, saying she would pray for God's forgiveness in her own way.

Right now, sitting wrapped in the thin blanket, clad in one of the chemises and drawers given her by her mysterious benefactor, Jenny tried to pray.

"God, I've always believed in you. I've done what I've had to do to survive and it hasn't always been right. I could have stayed in camp but I chose to ride with the gang...

"God, I don't want to die. I'm not going to make any bargains with You because I have nothing to bargain with, but if You could see Your way clear to letting me live past tomorrow, I'd be eternally grateful. I'm only twenty-five. Surely You have some task I can do on Earth more important than anything I could possibly do in Heaven. Please think about it, God."

* * *

Well after midnight, the door between the sheriff's office and the jail opened and Deputy Filer stepped in.

"You asleep, Clarkson?"

A gravelly voice answered, "If I was I wouldn't be now."

"Someone to see you."

"Not the preacher again."

"Nah."

Filer unlocked the cell door and allowed the visitor in. He hooked a lantern on a rail and exited, locking the door behind him. Jenny looked up from her crouched position on the cot.

Into the eyes of a thin man.

Those dark, blue-violet eyes were deep set in a face so gaunt and pallid as to seem skeletal. The man had a strong aquiline nose and equally strong jaw surrounding a mouth that looked surprisingly soft for someone so lean. His hair was a dark blond, short, limp and lifeless. His mouth was framed by a tawny, drooping mustache.

He was very tall, well over six feet, but appeared to be as thin below the shoulders as his face was. His clothes--a blue chambray work shirt, brown wool trousers, a brown buckskin jacket--all seemed too large for his frame, as though he had been heavier but had never bought new clothes to accommodate his present build.

It seemed to Jenny that he might have been a reasonably handsome man at some time in his life, but now he was too emaciated for her to tell. She reckoned his age to be in his early to middle thirties.

For a while the man stood there, a look of vulnerable anxiety on his lean features. She had never seen a man show emotion so plainly on his face.

"Welcome to my parlor," Jenny finally said, spreading her arms to indicate the expanse of her cell. "Please forgive its somewhat disordered state. I have something of a journey facing me tomorrow and I wasn't exactly expecting a gentleman caller."

He loved the way her educated speech was gentled by her soft Georgia accent. He glanced down at the slim, blanket-wrapped body. She was beautiful, not in the fashionable way his late wife Melissa had been, but in her intelligence and dignity. Even with her tear-streaked features she was beautiful.

"I saw you at the back of the courtroom every day during my trial. You were the only person in the gallery courageous enough to look me in the face. Sometimes I thought you were the only one in the courtroom who wanted me to be acquitted."

"Maybe I was. He and I were only passing acquaintances, but Leon Purdy was a popular fellow."

"I'm sorry he's dead. I got the jury to believe it wasn't my doing--for all the good it did me."

"Well, maybe it did do you some good."

"Look," Jenny said impatiently, "even though I saw you every day and feel a little like I know you, we've never been formally introduced." She held out her hand. "My name is Genevieve Louise Clarkson, but they call me Jenny."

He took her hand and held it for a moment. His was a large, long-fingered hand; callused from hard work but as fleshless as the rest of him. She also noticed his hand was cold. Whether from nervousness or thinness, Jenny didn't know.

"My name is Micah Peterman," the thin man said. "I own a small horse farm just outside Loomis." He noticed a book lying open beside her. "What are you reading?"

Jenny picked up the book. "Hamlet," she said, quoting "'To die, to sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, that's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause...'" She looked up. "Strangely philosophical reading for the last night of my life, but I do enjoy Shakespeare."

"I was impressed by your performance in the courtroom."

Jenny snorted. "Thanks, but a rare lot of good it did me."

"You beat the murder charge."

"And I'm still going to die tomorrow."

"Maybe not, Miss Clarkson."

Jenny's head shot up. "What do you mean?"

"Have you ever heard of the Marital Parole Law?"

Jenny shook her head. "I haven't exactly had time to thoroughly study the Missouri Statutes."

He fought a smile. "No, I imagine not. Anyway, it was enacted about a year ago because of the shortage of men in the state since the War. It says if a condemned felon not convicted of rape or murder agrees to marry an unmarried landowner and remain married for a minimum of seven years, the death sentence is suspended and then commuted completely at the end of seven years whether the marriage continues or not."

"You said this law was designed to alleviate a shortage of men?" Jenny splayed fingers through her ragged waves. "Despite my short hair, I haven't exactly been considered a man."

Micah smiled warmly. "Indeed not. But I did a little checking. The intent of the law is not written into the statute and only uses the word 'he' in reference to the felon. In Missouri, the use of 'he' also means 'she' unless the law specifically states otherwise."

Jenny blinked, connecting the logic of his statements. "Are you saying because I was acquitted of the murder charge I might be eligible for parole under this law."

"That's exactly what I'm saying. I even checked it out with Judge Plascove to make sure I understood it before I came here."

"So all I have to do is find some landowner in this county to marry me and I don't have to be hanged." Jenny laughed bitterly. "Who'd marry me?"

"I would."

Jenny looked in those dark eyes. Sincerity was etched in his lean features.

"Why? Why would you want to marry a convicted felon and hold yourself out to ridicule and scorn from your fellow citizens, not to mention how they're going to feel about you cheating them out of my hanging?"

"Miss Clarkson, can you cook and sew and keep house?"

"Of course. I kept house for my father after my mother died and for my cousins during the War. It's been a while, though."

"The truth is, Miss Clarkson, I need a housekeeper more than I need a wife. I have four wranglers who work for me who need a cook and a large house that needs taking care of."

"Then why marry me? Why not hire a housekeeper?"

"Call it a woman shortage. Unmarried women are hesitant to risk their reputations to take on a live-in position in a household with five unmarried men."

Of course, I have no reputation left to harm. "I should tell you, Mr. Peterman, that I'm not a virgin."

Micah blushed. Jenny found that endearing. She had never seen a man blush. Even her late fiancé J.C. Vallequette had never gone red in the face except with anger.

In a quiet voice Jenny felt reverberating to her soul when Micah answered, "Meaning no disrespect, Miss Clarkson, but I reckon I'd be more surprised to find out that you were than that you aren't. But that means little. I don't expect you to endure the intimate duties of a wife."

Endure? Jenny remembered how J.C. had fumed when she suggested he bed her than continue to bed slave women. J.C. had made it very clear he considered her a lady, capable only of doing her duty after marriage. Thus, they'd never been lovers before he was killed in the War. No, it had taken a patrol of Yankee soldiers to initiate her. And she never wanted to endure that kind of intimate duty again. But for a man to decline sex! She had never heard of that.

"Why marry me, Mr. Peterman, if the thought of touching me disgusts you? Seven years is a long time to bear the company of a repulsive woman."

Suddenly, Micah took her hands in his. "No, Miss Clarkson, don't think for a moment that I don't find you attractive."

"Under this law, must the marriage remain unconsummated to be dissolved, then?"

Micah shook his head. "No, that's not it."

"Are you one of those men who would rather bed other men?"

Micah paled and his eyes widened in a moment of terror before calming. "No, Miss Clarkson, I'm not. I've been married before. My wife and son died of typhus fever in 1864. It's that...how do I tell you this?" He inhaled and exhaled deeply several times, his face drawn with indecision about what he was going to tell her. Finally, a little bit coldly, he said, "Miss Clarkson, I need a housekeeper, but I can't find one. You need a reprieve from the noose, and I'm the only one you're going to find at this late date. That ought to be enough."

"I'm going to die tomorrow. I reckon I shouldn't be so particular. Surely there are a host of widows in this town who would jump at the chance to marry you."

"Right," Micah said sarcastically. "I was captured by the Rebs in '62 and spent the remainder of the War in an assortment of Confederate prison camps. We spent that time hovering on the brink of starvation, wracked by dysentery and disease, dying by the hundreds..."

That's why you're so thin, Jenny realized, though it had been more than a year since the surrender.

"Anyway, when they brought me home I was more dead than alive. I came home to find that my wife and son died on the same day while I was languishing in prison."

Jenny saw the surprisingly broad but thin shoulders slump. She had been too busy trying to survive to worry about losing anyone she loved. And Danny had survived the War.

She found herself wanting to run her fingers through the strands of his tawny blond hair. A small voice told her it was absurd that with her life on the line she was actually considering comforting him. Jenny had never felt this kind of sensation. Where they had come for this sad husk of a man she would never know.

"So you don't really want to get married again."

She saw Micah's jaw tighten beneath his sunken cheeks. "No," he said dully as he put some distance between them. "I can't just contract for your services like mill owners can with convicts. Marriage is the only solution that solves both of our needs. I get a housekeeper; you get a parole. The law only allows the commutation if the felon marries the landowner. Once we're married, nobody is going to question or care if it's a marriage in name only as long as we stay married for the required seven years."

"Mr. Peterman, I have nothing left. I have two complete outfits: The gray gown I've been wearing in court and the men's clothing I was wearing when I was arrested. My gun and grip were confiscated by the County to pay for my keep. And my saddle was falling apart, so I doubt it was worth much. You'll need to buy me clothing and basic necessities. They needn't be expensive, but they will cost money."

"Money is tight right now, but I have enough to buy you what you need."

"What I'm saying is this: I have nothing to offer you in exchange for this unbelievable thing you're doing for me. All I have to offer are my industry and my fidelity. If you marry me, I promise I'll do nothing to cause you shame. If you want a marriage with no sex..."

"It's not..."

"You're saving my life. You're the answer to a prayer. During the last year of the War and since then I did what I had to do to survive. I'm not proud of it. But I promise you, if I'm your wife, I'll have no man in my bed excepting yourself. I'll likely be called a whore regardless, but you deserve that respect."

"Were you one?"

Jenny smiled ruefully. "It depends on how you define the word. You can get pretty cold and hungry standing on principle. What does it matter anyway? You need a housekeeper and I don't want to be executed. You're willing to offer me marriage to give us each what we need. I will be happy to marry you, right now, tonight, if you want."

Micah smiled. It lit up his melancholy face. He walked back to stand in front of Jenny, but before he could do anything else, Jenny placed her hands on both sides of his face, stood on her toes and kissed him tenderly on the cheek.

"What was that for?" His heart pounded at her touch.

"To thank you for saving my life."

"You saved your own life, Miss Clarkson."

"Jenny."

"Micah."

"Micah," she repeated and kissed his cheek again.

Micah stepped back and turned toward the cell door. He turned back to face her. The look in his eyes seemed strangely like longing, but mixed with melancholy. "Jenny, would you object to letting your hair grow out again?"

She shook her head, surprised he would care. "Not at all. It's only been short a year."

"Why wear your hair short?"

The day Danny and Jesse found her in the slave shack near the burned out Vallequette plantation she hacked off her hip-length hair with her brother's bayonet. If she was going to be riding with men she wanted no obvious reminders of her womanhood. "Why is yours short?"

Micah shrugged. "Easier to take care of, I suppose."

"That's as good a reason as any. Micah, who were you planning to have marry us?"

"I hadn't thought. Preacher Edwards, I suppose."

Jenny frowned. "I'd prefer not. Do you think you could ask Judge Plascove?"

Micah raised an eyebrow. "He's the man who sentenced you to death."

"And the one who gave you the means to avoid it."

"Jenny, do you think you got a fair trial?"

She nodded. "Actually, I do. The judge could have been far less accommodating to me than he was. A bad judge can tear apart a defendant representing himself if he wants to."

"Sometimes you sounded like a real lawyer."

"My father was a lawyer--a good one. Sometimes I helped him research cases. He always said that if I had been a man, perhaps I could have been a lawyer, too. Of course, if I had been a man, I probably would have ended up dead on some battlefield."

"I'm glad you're not a man."

"So am I," Jenny responded with a grin. "So am I."

Jenny watched Micah walk into the darkness before sitting on her cot. He had promised to be back with the judge just before dawn. She felt the first ray of hope since her conviction.

She could bear seven years as this man's wife. There was a gentle guilelessness to Micah Peterman. Jenny sensed that there was a considerable amount of hidden pain in the man. She wondered if his feelings about wanting a marriage of convenience stemmed from the recent death of his family or because of her shabby reputation.

It was really too bad, she mused, because despite his extreme thinness, she was more than a little drawn to his long-legged grace and sympathetic eyes. She could well imagine herself lying with him, touching him, drawing his pain out of him with her love...

Her love? She jerked herself upright. That was ridiculous! She could not love a man she had only just met a few moments ago. It was gratitude. That was all. Gratitude for his saving her life. Why would she ever want to lie in the same bed with a man again after what happened to her?

He had said so himself, he did not want a wife. He wanted a housekeeper. He was willing to marry Jenny to prevent her execution and in exchange she would cook, sew and clean for him and his farmhands. It was more than a fair tradeoff. In seven years she could leave if she wanted.

If she wanted. After all, where would she go when the time was elapsed? The chances of Danny still being alive seven years from now were remote. She was sure that bank robbers were not long-lived. If she could convince him to keep her, maybe she could stay on beyond the seven years. Maybe she could not replace his departed wife in his heart, but maybe he could accept her as more than just the equivalent of hired help. Experience had shown her that men seldom abstain from sex long when there is a woman handy. She had learned the hard way.

But could there be that kind of hunger in this man? Jenny suspected that there was. She suspected that Micah Peterman was a man on the brink of starvation in more ways than one.

He said he found her attractive--or at least not repulsive. It was something.

* * *

Micah Peterman spent the night in a bedroll in the back of his buckboard. He would need to conserve his funds if he wanted to survive until his farm started to show a profit again. It would be spring before his crop of horses was salable at the Louisville Horse Fair. There was still some stud value in his old stallion, but war's aftermath caused a recession. Though better off than the decimated South, times were hard in Loomis.

When Jenny told him she would need clothes, he knew immediately it was not vanity or greed. He had paid for the gray gown and underwear she had worn to court, as well as her trips to the bathhouse, though, as far as he knew, she didn't know it.

Jenny: Calm, intelligent and unpretentious, but with a cynical streak that challenged his mind. Melissa had never been cynical. Oh, she had pouted and complained and sometimes nagged, anything to turn attention toward her. Jenny must have been in Sherman's path during the War. Maybe war made cynics of people. Micah felt the same ironies Jenny spoke aloud.

By God, she was bold! He would enjoy having her around the house. She would blow the cobwebs away. Maybe she could even chase the pall of Melissa's ghost out of the house. Her reaction when he used the word endure in describing a wife's duty surprised him. If her reputation was as painted, the marriage bed might not be a test of endurance for Jenny Clarkson. It was too bad he couldn't make love to her.

Micah stiffened. No, he had to stop thinking about such things. His loss just had to be accepted. He had to remain physically aloof from her. If she discovered the truth about why he insisted on a chaste marriage it would drive him mad and make her hate him. When she got her pardon after seven years as his wife, she would undoubtedly find herself a man who would be able to love her in both body and soul.

Yet Micah already felt that if she left him he would not want to go on living.

He pulled from his pocket the rings he had bought the previous afternoon at the mercantile. He tried them on. One fit his left ring finger; the other fit to the second knuckle.

He had never worn a wedding band when he married Melissa. Why did he want to wear one now? For this wife who was not a wife?

He was heading back to the jail when he passed the office of Adam Caldwell M.D. Dr. Caldwell and Micah had grown up together in Hannibal. It was he who wrote to Adam to come to Loomis when the previous doctor died.

Adam leaned against the doorsill, fluid and casual despite his ubiquitous black frock coat. The doctor was a notoriously early riser.

"Micah," he called out to his old friend.

Micah turned. "Adam."

Adam swept his eyes up and down Micah's skeletal frame in his baggy clothes. A frown creased his handsome brow. "Come in here," he commanded, straightening up and gesturing at his friend.

Reluctantly, he followed the doctor into the cool confines of his medical office, past the waiting room into the surgery.

"Get on the scale, Micah," Adam commanded, gesturing toward the counterweight doctor's scale standing along the far wall.

"I haven't got time for this, Adam." He stood on the scale.

Adam moved the counterweights until they read out their sorry total. "For God's sake, Micah, you've lost five pounds since the last time. You're six foot three and there are five foot tall women in this town who weigh more than you do!"

Micah shrugged. They had gone around and around on this subject since he came home on a litter the end of the war.

"Do you want to die, Micah?"

Micah shrugged again.

"Did you eat breakfast this morning?"

"No."

"Micah!"

"I wasn't hungry."

"We've been through this before. Your body doesn't know when it's hungry anymore. You lived at the edge of starvation for so long your metabolism is ruined. You've come a long way since you came home, but if you don't eat more and put some more meat on your bones you are going to die...Wait here."

"I don't have..." Micah began to protest, but Adam was gone. He returned with a hunk of cheese, a large square of cornbread and a couple of peaches. He handed them to Micah and commanded, "Eat!"

"Adam..."

"Eat. Doctor's orders."

With a sigh, Micah forced himself to eat. He never had any appetite. Food had taste and texture, but little interest and after a few bites he always felt full.

"Lots of excitement in town today," Adam said. "A lot of bloodthirsty savages out for the blood of that girl."

"A hanging has always been a civic event," Micah said between bites. "Are you planning to go?"

The doctor shrugged. "I have to. As the town's only doctor, it's my job to pronounce her dead after the hanging." He sighed. "God, I hate the idea."

"What, pronouncing her dead, or hanging her?"

"Both, I suppose."

"Can you keep a secret?"

Adam frowned. "You know I can."

"There isn't going to be a hanging."

Adam started, intrigued. "You aren't one for gossip. How do you know it isn't going forward?"

"Because I found a way to prevent it. There's a law in this county that if she marries a landowner and stays married for seven years her sentence is commuted."

"So?"

"So, I'm going to marry her just as soon as I leave here."

Adam's eyes widened. "You're going to marry a convicted bank robber? Why?"

"I need a housekeeper."

"But a convict? Aren't you afraid she'll rob you blind and light out the moment you get her to your farm?"

"It's a calculated risk. If she leaves before seven years, she would be a fugitive with a death sentence hanging over her. If she stays seven years, she's free. I suspect she'll be motivated to stay around."

"But is marrying her the only way?"

"It's the way the law is written. She either marries me today or she hangs."

Adam let that sink in as he watched his friend finish the impromptu breakfast.

"Micah," he began, "does she know about..."

"She knows that I don't require marital duties from her, just cooking and cleaning," Micah cut him off. "She'd rather live than worry about such unimportant things. You know most women prefer not to be pawed."

"Don't judge all women by one, but most well-bred women spend their lives fighting their bodies' needs. I saw Miss Clarkson in court a couple of times. They say she's lost count of how many men she's slept with."

"Like all gossip, exaggerated I'm sure."

"Even in that frowsy gray gown she emitted sexuality. She wasn't even trying. Do you think a woman like that is going to remain chaste for seven years?"

"She promised me fidelity."

"You believe her?"

"I could just let her hang and she knows it."

"What if you don't last seven years? The way you neglect yourself, you might not last another year."

"If I die of natural causes before seven years, she's free." Under Adam's watchful eye, Micah forced himself to take the last bite of peach and swallowed it. "I have to leave now. We've got to be married and out of town in the next hour or so if we've got any hope of beating the mob."

Micah turned to leave.

"Good luck, old friend," Adam said.

Micah smiled. "Thanks, Doc."

* * *

Jenny stared out of the cell window as people were beginning to mill around the gallows. The sky was beginning to turn pink. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute.

"Jenny," a soft voice startled her. She turned to see Micah. He was wearing a dark brown frock coat that hung sadly oversized on his wasted frame, likewise a matching vest. His shirt was white with a stiff collar and he wore a square bow tie.

"I was afraid you'd changed your mind."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't do that...The judge will be here in a few minutes." He stuffed a package through the bars. "Here, put these on."

She opened the parcel to find a dark blue, sprigged calico gown, another petticoat and a lightweight, cream-colored shawl.

"You were very sure I'd say yes."

"You're a smart woman. I counted on that. I'm sorry it can't be more bridelike, but since we have to hightail it as soon as we're married, I figured at least you might want to get married in a dress everyone in town can't identify. I have a bonnet out here with ribbons about the same color."

She looked up with tears shining in her amber eyes. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

He blushed. "You're going to be my wife, at least in name. We're going to have to live together for seven years. It can be pleasant or unpleasant. I'd prefer pleasant...Now, hurry up and change. We have to be out of town before everyone realizes you're gone."

Jenny mumbled thanks with a voice thick with emotion. Micah left her to some privacy.

As she unbuttoned the gray gown and pulled it over her head, she remembered the ivory satin confection with its full hoop crinoline and yards of lace that was being made for her wedding to J.C. Vallequette back in 1861. Even though she was only the daughter of a successful attorney, she was marrying into one of the county's most respected families. The Clarksons were distant cousins of the Vallequettes, so the engagement between J.C. and herself was not so outlandish. The Confederates were going to lick those damned Yankees in a matter of months. There was no need to change the August tenth date for their wedding. He would come home a hero long before that.

He came home two months later in a coffin. He died of pneumonia after getting caught in a sudden rainstorm. Some hero! The ivory satin gown was given to another girl to wear for her wedding and Jenny never saw it again. She assumed it had been cut up for flags thereafter. J.C.'s mother Virginia and his spinster sister Charlotte were so distraught they took to their beds and seldom ventured downstairs, leaving Jenny to manage the household and its rapidly shrinking larder and staff.

J.C. had a photograph taken in his uniform. It burned when the Yankees torched the house in December 1864. Jenny closed her eyes. She could barely remember what her erstwhile fiancé looked like, except that he had dark blond hair and expressionless brown eyes.

She folded the gray gown and put on the dark blue one and the extra petticoat. It fit a little better than the gray. If Micah had a sewing basket in his house she would be able to fix both gowns to fit properly. If not, she would make him a list of what she needed so he could get her the notions the next time he went to town.

When was the last time she had really cared how she looked?

She combed through her hair, which had become mussed in changing clothes. She put the gray gown and her comb in a pile with her men's clothes, wrapped them in the brown paper and tied them with string. She draped the shawl over her elbows and sat down to wait.

A few moments later Sheriff Clayton entered and unlocked the door to the cell.

"Well, Clarkson, it looks like you beat the rope."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Sheriff."

"I just bet you are...Now you listen here. You're gettin' away with it account of some stupid law. I'll have my eye on you. You do anything suspicious and I'll string you up before you can say Jack Robinson."

"I'll remember that."

Jenny preceded Clayton out of the jail into the sheriff's office. Micah stood next to Judge Plascove, who looked just as imposing in his black frock coat as he had in his judicial robes. An open hatbox sat on the desk. Micah stepped away from the judge and picked up a plainly-trimmed, chip straw bonnet. He exchanged the bonnet for Jenny's package of clothes.

"You look very nice," he said as she tied the ribbons of the bonnet under her chin. As gaunt as he was, he looked almost handsome when he smiled.

"Thank you." Micah held out his hand to her and she took it. There was a look almost akin to pride in his violet eyes as he led her to face the judge. The witnesses were Sheriff Clayton and Deputy Filer.

She wondered why he would feel pride. She was no prize.

Judge Plascove looked sternly at her. "Miss Clarkson, do you understand what is about to happen?"

"I understand. If I stay married to Mr. Peterman for seven years and don't do anything that would be considered a violation of parole, my sentence for the robbery will be considered served. If I break my parole, you can go ahead and hang me. Does that about sum it up, Your Honor?"

"That about covers it. I take it you're willing to marry Mr. Peterman here."

"Your Honor, Mr. Peterman is being very nice to offer to marry me and save my life, but I'd have married the devil himself if it meant not hanging today."

She felt Micah stiffen. She was immediately sorry for her cynical outburst. She had hurt his feelings.

"I'm sorry. I'm very grateful to Mr. Peterman. I'll do everything possible to make him a good wife. It's the least I can do to pay my debt to him."

The judge nodded and--opening his book--began to read the civil marriage ceremony. Afterwards, Jenny, Micah and the two lawmen signed the marriage license and certificate. The judge took the license to file with the clerk as Micah folded the certificate into the inside pocket of his frock coat.

The judge handed Micah another document. "Miss Clarkson, excuse me, Mrs. Peterman. That paper is your parole. You are technically in Mr. Peterman's custody, and it is probably not a good idea for you to come into town, at least for a while. You cannot leave this county without permission of the court and without being accompanied by your husband. If you have met the conditions of your parole, on August 10, 1873, you return to town and I'll give you your commutation certificate."

Jenny's head shot up. "Today is August tenth?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

She shook her head. "No particular reason."

August 10, 1861, she was supposed to have married J.C. Vallequette. August 10, 1866, exactly five years later, she married Micah Peterman.

Life was funny, sometimes.

They left town by six in the morning. Jenny pulled the brim of her new bonnet forward and down as much as possible to hide her face. Likewise, Micah lowered his hat brim to shadow his features. There was almost nobody on the street to pay any attention to the anonymous buckboard, its cargo covered with a canvas tarpaulin, as it pulled away from the jail at a leisurely pace. No crowds were gathered in front of the scaffold as they drove past, but since the hanging was scheduled for noon, no one was paying any attention to either Judge Plascove or the simply dressed man and woman who preceded him out the door.

Still, they were a good half-hour down the road before Jenny could draw a comfortable breath. Even though she was legally out of jail, she felt as nervous as if she had busted out. She worried if the boundaries of Micah's land would be enough to protect her.

She looked down at the plain gold ring she wore on her left hand. She had been quite surprised when he handed her an identical ring to put on his finger. For a marriage in name only, it seemed strange to have a man choose to wear a wedding ring.

She twisted the ring nervously around her finger.

"Does it fit?" Micah asked. For all its deep resonance, Jenny had never known so quiet a man. It was as if starvation had robbed him of his voice as well as his physique.

"Fit?"

"The ring."

"Oh, yeah," she mumbled. "Yes, it fits fine, thank you."

"Good."

A tense silence resumed between them as the wagon rumbled down the road away from town.

"How much further?"

"We'll be home about a half hour before everyone figures out there isn't going to be an execution. If Clayton, Filer and the town clerk keep their mouths shut, it may be days before anyone realizes where you've gone."

"And if they don't?"

Micah reached out as if to clasp Jenny's hand, then pulled his hand away abruptly, rewrapping it around the reins. "You're my wife now. I'll protect you."

She wrapped her arms about herself. "I was always pretty good at protecting myself."

"And look where it got you. Married to a scarecrow, with a death sentence hanging over your head."

Jenny's head snapped over to glare at Micah's profile. Her new husband just stared straight ahead and guided the horse.

It was too bad he was not interested in a real marriage. She might have been able to bear it with him. He was not that hard to look at. In profile, he was actually sort of handsome. There was strength in his jaw. It took a great amount of inner strength to survive three years in Confederate prison camps.

Morning was nearly gone when Micah turned the buckboard off the main road onto a dirt path through a split rail fence. A faded sign read "Peterman Horse Farm." A wide expanse of emerald pasture was visible on both sides of the driveway. Another split rail fence separated a small herd of mares and their foals from a few colts. The foals galloped around the pasture full of the enthusiasm of the children they were. Jenny knew enough about horses to know that none of the youngsters would be salable until they were yearlings. Doubtless this was his first crop of foals since returning from the War. It would be a couple of lean years for Micah Peterman now.

Seeing his wife's eyes follow the scampering horselings, Micah slowed the buckboard to a stop. Setting the brake, he climbed down and offered her his hand.

Jenny took the proffered hand and jumped down. Immediately she let go of her husband's hand because of the warm feeling holding it sent through her.

It's just lightheadedness because I haven't eaten anything today.

She approached the rail fence and climbed onto the bottom rail. A couple of curious colts trotted over. The braver of the two poked his velvet muzzle through the rails, almost pushing Jenny off the rail.

Immediately, Micah was behind her, his hands on her waist to steady her. Even through her gown and chemise she could feel the warmth of his touch. All too soon he released her and stepped away, leaving her strangely empty.

Before she could ruminate further on it, the little bay horse nudged her again. Laughing, she stroked his muzzle, scratching him lovingly between his pricked-up ears.

"You're a beauty, aren't you, boy?" she said in a sing song voice. Without looking at Micah, she asked, "Does he have a name?"

"We leave that for the buyers. He's listed in our studbook as 1865 Bay Colt Number Three. He's a thoroughbred. There are rumors circulating that the New York financier August Belmont may be inaugurating a stakes race for two-year- olds in the next year or so. This little fellow will be old enough by next year to be a contender. Any kind of good finish in a race like that could bring this place back to where we were before the War."

She turned her head in amazement. It was the most she had heard him say at one time. His angular face glowed with hope. She could tell it meant a lot to him. For a long moment they just looked at each other, until the moment was interrupted by Jenny's stomach growling.

She blushed. "Excuse me. The condemned ate her last meal, what I could of it, around eight last night."

"We better get to the house then. I'm sorry, I didn't think about it."

"It's all right. I'll improvise something from your larder when we get to the house. You must be hungry, too."

He shook his head. "No. Not really."

He handed her up onto the buckboard seat and climbed up beside her. Releasing the brake, he took up the reins and drove the rest of the way to the house.

They drove quite a way through the lush green landscape. "You have a lot of land, Micah. Nearly as much as some of the plantations near where I lived."

He nodded. "Wedding present to my wife from my in-laws."

She heard the dull tone of his voice. He must miss his first wife terribly.

As they came nearer to the house, Jenny saw a shady oak tree. A small white picket fence encompassed the tree and two granite headstones. She assumed it must be Micah's wife and son buried there. She thought briefly about the carved headstone over J.C.'s grave and mound of earth that marked Virginia and Charlotte Vallequette's graves. By the time the women died there wasn't even money for food. That was the difference between being on the winning side and the losing side of a war.

Jenny forced herself to look away. Micah saw the gesture.

"My in-laws commandeered that tree to shade the graves. They tore up the circular bench that surrounded the tree when they decided to turn the best shade on the property into a monument to Melissa and Ethan."

"What would you have done?"

"Bought graves in the churchyard, where they belong," Micah said through gritted teeth. "I haven't gotten around to asking the undertaker to exhume the coffins and move them. I'd also have to deal with my mother-in-law when she found out."

"That I can understand. My late fiancé's mother vexed me something fierce after I went to live with her when my father died." She paused, then could not help laughing.

"What's so funny?"

Through her laughter, she answered, "The first thing to be glad about marrying me."

"Huh?"

Jenny raised her hands, palms up as she shrugged her shoulders. "No in- laws."

Micah found himself laughing, too. It felt good. He had not laughed in a long time.

Finally, they approached the house. It was a rambling, two-story, frame affair with a front verandah in serious need of painting and a shake roof. Off to the side and back, she could see an outbuilding he identified as the bunkhouse for the hands and the birthing barn and carriage house a bit further back near the paddocks.

He drove the buckboard around behind the house to the back door. In one of the paddocks, Jenny could see four men working with one of the horses.

At the sound of the wagon, the men turned, climbed the corral fence and sprinted toward the house as Micah handed her down from the seat.

Well, three of them sprinted. The fourth followed behind, limping noticeably.

A more motley group of wranglers Jenny had never seen. The apparent leader of the foursome appeared to be in his early forties. Wiry of build, he was less than five feet in height. His skin was almost ivory in tone; his tightly curly hair was black with coppery highlights and liberal threads of white.

"How do, Boss," the tiny man remarked. "You found us a housekeeper?"

Micah grinned. "More or less. This is the new Mrs. Peterman. I suppose you could all call her Miz Jenny."

The lame man whistled through his teeth in surprise. "Married? No kidding."

Jenny looked at this man. He was without a doubt the most beautiful man she could ever imagine God creating. His face was a sculpted, burnished bronze, his eyes sky blue, his hair dark brown with just a hint of wave, his mouth full, like a Renaissance angel. She wondered how he came by the limp.

"Jenny, let me introduce you to the boys," Micah said. For the first time, Jenny saw the melancholy leave her husband's thin face. Gesturing to the Adonis, he said, "This is Tom Allen. He worked for me before the War and came back after losing his leg at Fredericksburg."

"Fortunately," Tom remarked, tipping his hat, "what's left is enough to control a horse."

Micah then pointed out a swarthy young man barely out of his teens. The boy had olive skin, black hair in looping curls and nearly black eyes framed with lush eyelashes. "This is Louis Friedman."

Louis saluted at his brim. "Everyone calls me Luigi Boccherini."

Her brow wrinkled. "Why Luigi?"

"Nobody in Missouri wanted to hire a Jewish boy, so I became Italian. Knowing the truth doesn't seem to bother the Boss, though."

Jenny's respect for her husband grew in leaps and bounds.

Micah then introduced another tall man whose long, straight raven hair, high cheekbones and copper skin tone bespoke Indian blood.

"This is Collis Redhawk. His father was full blood Shawnee and his mother part Cherokee. He can break a horse to saddle by just talking to it."

Collis nodded. "I just speak their language."

Micah continued, "Now, saving the best for last..." He pointed to the last man. "This fellow, what there is of him, is Hal Ostrow. He was a jockey in his youth and he's the best horse trainer in the country. He's been working on this farm fourteen years, since I started. He kept the place going during the War and I couldn't run it without him."

"Where did you find someone with those kind of qualifications?"

"He won me in a poker game," Hal said.

Jenny's eyes widened. "You mean he won your contract."

Hal shook his head. "You're from the South, ma'am. I mean he won me. He owned me for about ten hours and that's only because he had to wait until morning to find a lawyer to draw up freedman's papers."

"You're colored?"

"By State Law."

There was a tense moment, then Jenny reached out her ungloved right hand and said, "I'm very glad to meet you, Hal." Hal took her hand in his and shook it and the tension was broken. "I'm so glad to meet all of you. As soon as I get settled in I'll get supper started."

"Thank God," Luigi said.

"Why thank God?"

"No more suffering through my cooking. I can sure tell you how glad I am you married the boss."

Micah gave instructions for the horse and wagon to be unloaded, unhitched and put away. As they stood before the kitchen door, he quickly touched Jenny on the arm to get her attention.

"Jenny, we have to talk."

She turned. "Of course."

He looked a bit uncomfortable. "It's about the men."

"I promised you fidelity. I meant it."

He shook his head. "No, that's not it. My wranglers--they and I--well, we've been eating our meals all of us around the kitchen table since I got back home."

"So?"

"Well, you're from the South..."

She nodded. "Go on."

"I meant that we eat together. The hands don't eat in the bunkhouse."

Jenny's eyes widened in understanding. "You figure because I'm from Georgia that I'm going to refuse to eat at the same table with a colored man?"

Micah looked dubious.

"These men are your trusted employees and friends. I'm just a paroled bank robber, a convicted felon with a bad reputation. I think your men are more to be praised if they're willing to sit at the same table with me than the other way around."

"I'm sorry. I misjudged you."

She shrugged. "You hardly know me. But don't worry, we've got seven years to figure each other out. We don't have to do it right away...Now, let's go in and see what's available for supper."

On entering the kitchen, Jenny did not know whether to swear or cheer. The kitchen was the best equipped she had ever seen. There was a large wood- burning stove and oven with a warm water reservoir, shelf upon shelf of pots, pans, bowls, utensils and good, and serviceable china dishes. The sink had an indoor pump. The large walk-in pantry had a good selection of spices and staples. There were bins for potatoes and onions. Micah had told her there was a smokehouse for keeping meat and a springhouse for keeping things cool in the summer as well as a cool box just outside to use during the winter. A large, pale wooden trestle table--big enough to sit eight if necessary--dominated the kitchen.

But the kitchen was a study in disorder. There were dishes piled in the sink and on the table, a skillet left over from breakfast was coated with burned bacon from being left on the stove for hours. There did not appear to be a clean dishrag and the floor needed sweeping badly, if not a good scrubbing.

Jenny sighed and folded her arms across her bosom. "I can see why you need a housekeeper."

Micah blushed. "We try, but sometimes it just gets out of hand."

"What does the rest of the house look like?" she asked with trepidation.

"The hands don't go in the rest of the house. Just me. But I don't think anyone's dusted since my wife--my first wife died."

"And she died...?"

"Two years ago."

"Two...years...ago."

She looked around the kitchen again. As messy as it was it was sunny and spacious. Considering she could be lying in a coffin now, it was not too bad at all. Jenny nodded and smiled.

"Why don't you show me where to put my things and I'll get started on the kitchen."

Micah actually found himself breathing again. He told himself that it should make no difference whether she liked it or not, she was bound to him for at least seven years or she would hang. But he had observed her attitude toward his men and toward Number Three. At times she seemed forthright and bold; at others as demure as a well-bred Southern belle. He wondered what had turned Jenny Clarkson to ride with outlaws and give over her body to strange men.

Well, as she had said, they had seven years to learn all about each other.

Micah led Jenny through the kitchen door to the spacious, darkly furnished, formal dining room. She glanced at the badly tarnished silver hollowware, the dusty curtains and table as she mentally began to take inventory of what needed to be done.

The dining room led into a formal parlor that had an uncomfortable-looking horsehair love seat and equally uncomfortable-looking upholstered chairs with piecrust tables. One end of the parlor had been appropriated for use as an office. A desk was piled with papers and ledgers and a bookcase with ledgers, a few books and a small safe sat behind it.

She was surprised to see what resembled a small organ against one wall. She walked over to view it more thoroughly. Like everything else, it was dusty and dull looking.

"An organ?"

"A harmonium."

"You don't play?"

He shook his head.

"Did Mrs. Peterman--what was her first name--play?"

"Melissa. And no, she just decided that a civilized home required a piano or organ and ordered it. Do you play?"

Jenny thought of the friendly little spinet in her childhood home and the beautiful grand piano at Vallequette Park, long ago burned to ashes along with the rest of the house.

"A little, and not for years. Do you mind if I play of an evening?"

"You'd be the first in years to go anywhere near the thing. Luigi plays his fiddle and Collis has one of those eerie Indian flutes."

"Thank you, Micah. It'll be nice to play again." Her sweet smile warmed him clear to his gut.

Stiffening his resolve, he suggested they go upstairs.

At the top of the stairs was a hallway with several doors. He showed her the linen closet, then led her to the next to last door in the hall. Opening the door, he stretched out his arm and said, "You can sleep in here."

She walked over to where the sun peeked in through closed curtains in the stuffy room. A medicinal smell lingered in the air. She pulled open the curtains, sneezing as dust floated into her nose. She unlatched the window and pushed it open, then turned around to look at the room.

The room contained a canopy bed covered with a lacy coverlet. The curtains were edged with the same frilly lace. A pale area rug covered the floor from the bed almost to the door. White furniture: an armoire, bureau, dressing table, night table and two chairs completed the ensemble. Like the rest of the house, this room looked like nobody had dusted since Melissa Peterman died.

But this room had the look of a shrine despite its dust. On top of the dressing table, brush, comb, mirror and cologne bottles stood as if their owner had only just vacated. She opened the armoire to find it still filled with the dead woman's gowns and shoes.

"This was Melissa's room?"

"Yes."

"But not yours."

"My room is the next one down." His voice was suddenly sharp.

"Will it disturb you too much if I put her clothes and things away somewhere? I'll be careful with them, I promise."

He visibly stiffened. "I'll have a trunk brought down from the attic. Do what you want with the room. It's yours now."

Before he could say more, Luigi appeared carrying some parcels. Micah directed the youth to put them on the bed. Luigi did, then quickly left to return to his work.

Micah excused himself to let Jenny change clothes.

Jenny grabbed a gown and a pair of shoes from the armoire. The gown was lacy and pale, designed for a blonde. It was also designed for a woman of far shorter stature. In a million years, she could never wear the style or size. The shoes, too, were far too small when she compared them to her booted feet.

She wondered if there had been a housekeeper before. The clothes in the armoire were far too fragile for chores. Even had they fit Jenny, they were decidedly too impractical for every day use. About the only thing she would be able to do with them was store them away until Micah could face the prospect of donating them to charity.

In the bureau were undergarments, handkerchiefs and shawls. The silken underclothes would just have to go into the trunk with the fancy dresses and the monogrammed handkerchiefs. The shawls were about the only things she might be able to use for herself.

Jenny opened the first parcel and took out her men's clothes and the gray dress. Clearing out a drawer in the bureau, she folded the cambric shirt and woolen trousers and her second chemise and drawers and put them away. She took Melissa's toiletry articles and put them in a drawer to deal with later and put her own comb on the dressing table. She changed out of the dark blue calico and put on the gray dress, rolling the sleeves up past her elbows.

Then she opened the other parcels. She smiled when she saw the other dress, the lisle stockings, the wooden-handled, boar's bristle hair and tooth brushes, the long-sleeved, high-necked, white muslin nightgown and sprigged muslin wrapper. She put the stockings, nightgown and wrapper in the drawer she had cleared for herself and hung her two new dresses in the armoire. They had to be squeezed in for now.

She squealed with delight when she opened the second parcel and found the fabric and sewing notions. She realized that she had not made a garment for herself, in fact, not done more than mend anything since the early days of the War. After the blockade cut off supplies there was no fabric to make new gowns. As the War dragged on, there was no money to buy fabric even if there had been any to buy.

"Oh, Micah, you're so good to me," she exclaimed to the air. Although nothing he had purchased was fancy, he had bought her far more than she had any right to expect in her station. She was his wife in name only. She could have been clothed in missionary barrel castoffs and it would have been sufficient. Instead she had all new clothes.

It was a little like being reborn.

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