Introduction

“A definite can’t-put-it-down book.”--Suzanne Woods Fisher, author of The Choice

Charlotte Vance is a young woman who knows what she wants. But when the man she planned to marry joins the Shakers—a religious group that does not marry—she is left dumbfounded. With the country—and her own household—on the brink of civil war, this pampered gentlewoman hatches a plan to avoid her family and win back her man by joining the Shaker community at Harmony Hill. Little does she know that this decision will lead her down a road toward unforeseen peace—and a very unexpected love.

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Excerpt

“The Shakers! Have you taken leave of your senses, Edwin?
You can’t seriously be considering joining the Shakers?” The
words came out harsher than Charlotte Vance intended,
and Edwin Gilbey stepped back from her until the budding
branches of the lilac bush behind him had to be poking holes
in his dinner jacket.

“Please, Charlotte. Calm yourself. You know I can’t abide
a scene.” He sounded alarmed as he shifted his eyes away
from her face to look longingly over her shoulder toward
the veranda door.

Charlotte’s irritation grew as she stared at Edwin in the
light of the nearly full moon. He didn’t even like social gatherings.
Behind her the door opened, and laughter mixed with
the music of the string ensemble she’d hired from Lexington
flowed out into the garden. The party seemed to be proceeding
well in spite of the charged emotions in the air.

When her father first sent word from Frankfort that he
wanted her to arrange a grand gala for his return home to
Grayson Farm after completing his business in the capital
city, she’d doubted his sanity. Surely as a senator in the state
legislature he was more than aware the country was teetering
on the brink of destruction after Mr. Lincoln had taken the
oath of office and moved into the White House last month.
Half a dozen Southern states had already followed South
Carolina out of the Union. That’s all anybody was talking
about. Whether they could do that. Whether the government
should allow them to do that. Whether there would be armed
conflict to preserve the Union.

How in the world did her father expect them to have a
civil party with half the guests waving the Union flag and
the other half shouting states’ rights and favoring secession?
She’d sent a message back to him saying they might as well
lay the dueling pistols on the table in the front hall and let
the men take turns out on Grayson’s front lawn. But he had
made light of her worries and on return post had insisted he
had news to announce that required the finest party she’d
ever arranged. Astounding news.

Charlotte had surmised he was bringing word back to
Grayson that the Constitutional Union Party had pegged
him as their next candidate for governor. Certainly reason
enough to dare entertaining in spite of the political climate.
But no, that hadn’t been his news. Instead he had handed a
woman dressed to the nines in silk and jewels down out of
the carriage and introduced her as his wife.

Not wife-to-be. Wife. A woman from the North. Selena
Harley Black. A widow with a young son somewhere still in
the North, or so Betty Jamison had whispered in Charlotte’s
ear while her father escorted his bride from group to group
to introduce her. Of course, after the death of Charlotte’s
mother, Betty had entertained the improbable notion that
she might eventually catch Charlotte’s father’s eye.

When the veranda door closed again and muffled the sound
of the party, Charlotte was relieved. She couldn’t think about
her father and that woman right now. Not with Edwin talking
this ridiculous Shaker talk. One problem at a time. She
turned her attention back to the man pinned against her
mother’s favorite lilac bush. He shifted uneasily on his feet
and glanced over his shoulder as though considering an escape
under the lilac’s branches, even if it meant spoiling the
knees of his trousers.

“But Edwin,” she said as sweetly as she could under the
circumstances. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, the Shakers
have a ban on matrimony.”

Edwin straightened his shoulders and almost looked at her
face again before he let his eyes slide down to the ground at
their feet. “You are not mistaken. It is one of their strongest
tenets. The avoidance of such unions allows them to live in
peace and harmony. Hence the name of their village, Harmony
Hill.”

“I am well aware of the name of their village.” The irritation
in her voice sounded a bit strident even to Charlotte’s
ears. Not the way to win arguments. She attempted to pull
in a deep, steadying breath, but with the tight lacings of
her corset constricting her breathing, she simply ended up
light-headed. She fought the feeling. She refused to have
the vapors. She could control this. She could control Edwin.
Hadn’t she done so ever since they were toddlers playing
together in the nursery?

He threw up his hand to ward off her anger as he hurried
out his words. “Yes, yes, of course you are. At any rate, I have
become well acquainted with an Elder Logan in their village.
He has found great peace among the Believers there. A peace
I envy.” Edwin peeked up at her and went on in a tremulous
voice. “You know yourself how unsettled I’ve felt ever since
my dear grandmother departed this world last spring.”

“I do understand how difficult the loss has been for you. For
all of us. She was a fine lady.” It took effort, but she managed
to sound sympathetic as she spoke the oft-repeated words.
What she actually wanted to tell Edwin was that Faustine
Hastings had been well along in years and that no one could
live forever. Or grieve forever. Charlotte had resigned herself
to a year of mourning before their marriage, even though that
would make her nearly twenty when they spoke their vows
in May. A mere month from now.

Edwin knew they were to marry in May. He had agreed
to the date. Charlotte’s dressmaker was putting the finishing
touches on her wedding dress. The last time she had tried
it on, it had taken Mellie almost a half hour just to fasten its
many pearl buttons down the back and from the elbows on
the sleeves. Of course part of the reason for that was Mellie
had something unfavorable to say about Edwin with every
button she fastened.

Charlotte’s familiar words of sympathy seemed to allay
Edwin’s apprehension, and he eased a bit away from the bush
closer to her as he said, “Elder Logan thinks Grandmother
would have understood and approved of my search for peace
in my life.”

“Does he? And how can he know that? Did he get a vision
as he was doing his worship dances?”

Edwin frowned at her mocking tone. “You needn’t try to
disparage Elder Logan. He’s a fine man and their worship
dances are often very sedate and orderly. At least the ones I
have witnessed.”

“But isn’t it so that they spin and at times fall prostrate on
the floor in odd fits? That hardly sounds sedate to me.” Charlotte’s
head was spinning every bit as wildly as she’d heard
the Shakers did in their worship dances. How could both of
the men in her life lose their senses at the same time? First
her father and now Edwin.

She tried to block from her mind the vision of her father’s
beaming face as he presented that woman as the new mistress
of Grayson. He hadn’t even glanced toward Charlotte,
who had been running Grayson with Aunt Tish’s help even
before her mother’s untimely death four years ago. He had
without a doubt lost his mind. Proof was surely in how he
had sounded almost proud when he said he’d met the woman
only six weeks earlier. Charlotte would be surprised if he
had even checked into her family lineage. Or given the first
thought to why a woman her age would consider marrying
a man his. She had to be twenty years younger than him.
Perhaps thirty to his fifty.

Charlotte reached up to smooth out the furrows of a
frown forming between her eyes. A lady could not chance
developing grimace lines to mar her appearance. It was bad
enough that she had a too-generous sprinkling of freckles
across her nose which no amount of cream could fade. Her
mother had laid the fault of that on Charlotte’s red hair and
her Grandmother Vance back in Virginia, who neither she
nor her mother had ever laid eyes on. But her father said his
mother’s hair was the color of new bricks, and while Charlotte’s
was lighter than that, more like ginger spice, nobody
in the Grayson family line had ever been born with such a
flamboyant hair color.

“You have to be among them to truly understand,” Edwin
was saying. “When the spirit comes down on the Believers, it
takes control of their bodies and demonstrates its ecstasy in
myriad ways. Not always by shaking as is commonly believed
by those of the world.”

“Those of the world,” Charlotte echoed softly. This was
more serious than she had thought. He already sounded like
one of them.

Of course Charlotte knew Edwin had been visiting the
Shaker village. Aunt Tish had heard as much through the
servant grapevine that delivered news between their adjoining
plantations faster than a crow could fly between the two
great houses. But who would have ever thought Edwin would
seriously consider joining with them?

Even Mellie, who held Edwin in considerable disdain, had
never suggested that. Just last week while she’d been pinning
up Charlotte’s hair, Mellie had told her, “That Mr. Edwin, you
best stop countin’ on him comin’ courtin’ you any time soon,
Miss Lottie.”

“He doesn’t have to court me, Mellie. We’ve known we were
marrying ever since we were six,” Charlotte told her.

“You might be knowin’ it, Miss Lottie, but that Mr. Edwin
ain’t a knowin’ it. If ever I did see a man afraid of lovin’, it’s
him.” Mellie had twisted Charlotte’s hair in a tight roll and
jabbed a pin in it as she added, “And you ain’t no way lovin’
him neither.”

“What do you know about loving?” Charlotte spoke shortly
as she stared at Mellie’s face in the mirror.

“Enough to know it’s something a slave like me had best
avoid like the plague. ’Fore I find myself on the auction block
like my mammy and pappy with me goin’ one way and whoever
I was fool enough to fall in love with goin’ the other.”

Charlotte turned on the dressing stool to touch Mellie’s
arm. “You know I’d never let Father put you on the block.
Never. You and Aunt Tish are family.”

“I know you wouldn’t want to. And I know we as close to
sisters as a black slave girl and a rich white girl can be, seein’
as how we took turns suckling at my mammy’s breast, but
things change. That’s somethin’ we can count on, and if we
ain’t ready for it, we’re gonna get knocked down and trampled
into the dirt. Mammy warns me about that all the time, and
she knows about them kind of changes.”

Mellie mashed her lips together and shook her head a
little as she placed her long slender hand over Charlotte’s
and went on. “And I guess as how you know about them too,
what with your mama dyin’ how she did. Just steppin’ out in
her garden and fallin’ down there by her red rosebush. I can
still see her layin’ there with that rose in her hand like as how
she’d pricked her finger and fell asleep like some princess in
one of them fairy tales.”

Charlotte slowly shut her eyes and pulled in a breath. She
would never forget the sound of her mother’s gasp as she
collapsed on the garden path and how she had run to kneel
by her mother’s side, but it was already too late. Her mother
was gone. Charlotte blinked her eyes to keep back her tears
as she said, “Except she wasn’t asleep.”

“Except that,” Mellie agreed sadly as she squeezed Charlotte’s
hand, then pulled it away to start pinning up Charlotte’s hair
again. “Things changed then and things is sure to change
again.”

Charlotte had turned back to the mirror and said, “Some
things won’t.” She hadn’t looked at Mellie’s reflection in the
mirror but instead had stared into her own eyes as if making
the promise to herself. She would see that no changes upset
their lives at Grayson.

Now she studied Edwin’s face as he went on and on about
what this man, Elder Logan, had told him. How a person
needed to pick up the cross of purity and bear it no matter
how heavy it might be in order to find that peace he needed.
How at the Shaker village, men and women lived as sisters
and brothers without the thorn of marital relationships to
disturb their peace. How they owned everything in common,
and how, when he joined with them, he would turn his land,
Hastings Farm, over to the Ministry there at Harmony Hill.
With each word his voice got stronger and bolder until he
didn’t even sound like the Edwin she knew. The Edwin who
had always done whatever she said.

“But, Edwin,” she interrupted him. “We are to wed next
month.”

He did have the grace to look uncomfortable, but he didn’t
back away from her. “That was more your decision than mine,
Charlotte. While I regret disappointing you, Elder Logan assures
me a man should not allow himself to be pulled into an
unwanted and sinful union simply to avoid a bit of embarrassment.
Not when his eternal salvation is at stake.”

“Marriage is not sinful,” Charlotte said. “I fear you have
been listening to bad advice from those who simply want to
gather your land in with theirs.”

Edwin stiffened at her words, and in the moonlight, the
lines of his face looked chiseled out of stone as he stared down
at her. The man in front of her little resembled the Edwin
she had grown up with. That Edwin had hidden behind his
grandmother’s skirts until he was well out of knickers. That
Edwin had been afraid of his shadow when she pulled him out
into the garden to play hide-and-seek. That Edwin listened
without argument to her plans for their lives.

When he finally spoke, his voice was harsh. “And why have
you always said we must wed, Charlotte? Isn’t it to join our
properties? Hasn’t that always been your primary purpose?
To do your father’s bidding and make his holdings the largest
in Mercer County.”

“Not his holdings, Edwin. Ours. Grayson and Hastings
farms together.” She pushed the words at him. “We’ve talked
of nothing else for years.”

“You’ve talked of nothing else. Perhaps it is time you listened
for a change,” he said shortly.

Then without waiting for her to say more, he stepped off
the path to go around her as if even the touch of the ruffles
on her hooped skirt must be avoided. She stared after him,
astounded by his rudeness. And by the determined set of his
shoulders. That old Shaker elder with his insidious words of
peace was the cause of this, but she wouldn’t let it be the end.
Edwin would marry her. Of course he would. He’d come to his
senses and crawl back to her, begging to carry out the plans
they had made. She’d find a way to see that he did.

When he opened the veranda door, the noise of the party
drifted out. He stepped inside and snapped the door closed
behind him, clipping off the sound, but through the glass
door and window she could see the guests milling about. Her
guests. She was neglecting her hostess duties. Edwin could
wait. She touched the pile of hair elaborately styled on top
of her head to be sure no strand had escaped its pins and
started back toward the house.

A man’s deep voice stopped her before she had gone a
dozen steps. “He must be an extremely foolish man to turn
his back and run from such beauty.”
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. At the beginning of the story, Charlotte Vance has her life all planned out. Do you think her life was better or worse because her plans didn’t work out? Have you ever made life plans that fell apart and later realized that better things happened?

2. Adam Wade shuns attachments because he doesn’t want anything to get in the way of his art. Do you think falling in love would cause him to lose his creative fire? Do creative people have to live different lives from most other people in order to practice their art?

3. Adam hates doing formal portraits and yet he agrees to paint Selena Vance because his sister asks him to. Why didn’t he just tell his sister no? Do you have difficulty saying no to family and friends?

4. At the start of the conflict between the North and the South, Kentucky is determined to maintain a neutral policy. Why do you think this turned out to be such an impossible stance for the state to take? Do you think many of the families in the state mirrored the same confusion as their government when the armies began recruiting men?

5. When Adam meets Redmon, the slave tells him “Ever’ man is a prayin’ man if times is bad enough.” Do you think this is true? Did it turn out to be true for Adam?

6. Charlotte feels a strong attachment to her Grayson family land. At one time, nothing seemed as important as holding onto her heritage. What changed that for Charlotte?

7. When Charlotte and Mellie rode into the Shaker village, Mellie said she felt like Jonah getting swallowed by the whale. Was that an apt description of what was about to happen to them, how their life was going to change?

8. One of the Shaker sayings is “Hands to work and hearts to God.” The Shakers believed all who lived among them should work if able and do their share of the labor. Why did they think this might be difficult for Charlotte? Why do you think Charlotte found she liked working with her hands?

9. The Shakers wanted no part of war, yet the war came to their doorstep anyway. They fed hundreds of Confederate and Union soldiers. Do you think this generosity of spirit was the reason the armies—for the most part—refrained from confiscating the Shakers’ horses and wagons and destroying their crops and fences?

10. Sister Martha tells Charlotte that the foundations of happiness must reside in one’s soul. Do you believe this Shaker saying is true? Do you think Charlotte ever found that sort of happiness?

11. Adam is profoundly affected by what he sees on the battlefields. His brother once told Adam he was an observer, someone who stayed on the sidelines and didn’t get involved. And yet Adam went down into the field of battle to save the foolish young reporter. Why do you think he risked his life to save a man he barely knew?

12. Even though Charlotte never felt drawn toward the Shaker way, she was changed by her time among the Shakers. What things did she learn from the Shakers that made her life better and richer?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Ann H. Gabhart's web site

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