When Morning Comes

When Morning Comes

Lori Handeland

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

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Chapter 1

Several moments passed before Seth Torrance realized a pounding on his bedroom door echoed the pounding in his head. Groaning, he turned away from the sound, only to get a face full of blazing sunlight. What time was it?

Major? The voice on the other side of the door was familiar. Nevertheless, four years away from home, combined with at least four glasses of whiskey, made Seth’s mind a muddle.

Sir? Your mother requests your presence at the dinner table.

Dinner? Damn. He’d slept through breakfast—again. His mother would not be amused. But she so rarely was.

Honoria Simons Torrance found precious little to laugh about in this world. Once, Seth had wondered why his mother never smiled. The war had changed that. Now he found precious little to smile about, either.

Major?

The identity of the speaker came to Seth with such blinding clarity he winced, or maybe that was just the sun in his eyes.

Beckworth. The butler.

Seth had known the man for years. Why couldn’t he recall anything clearly from the time before he’d put on the Union Blue? Perhaps because the four years he’d spent at war were so much more vivid to him than anything the present had to offer. The shouting, the shooting, the crying, the dying still lived in his mind and in his dreams. Seth had hoped to recover at home, in a place that he knew, surrounded by those who cared about him. Instead, he’d only gotten worse.

There’s a letter for you, sir, Beckworth continued as if Seth had answered. From Virginia.

Virginia? The only person he knew in Virginia was—

Seth sat up. The room spun. The cannons boomed inside his head. He wanted to lie down and stay there forever. But Beckworth had at last lit on the one thing that would get him out of bed so early in the afternoon.

Henry. His best friend from their days at West Point.

When they’d graduated twelve years ago, Seth had returned to the North, Henry to the South. By then the tensions that would lead to the war had already begun to rear their ugly heads. Seth hadn’t seen or heard from Henry since. He’d often thought of him, wondered where he was, how he was.

Now the war was over and Henry had contacted him. For the first time in years, Seth looked forward to something—opening that letter.

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his head, Seth stumbled across the room and opened the door. Hand it over.

Beckworth’s long nose twitched and his nearly nonexistent lips tightened. But he said nothing.

Seth hadn’t shaved for several days; he hadn’t bathed either. He’d slept in his clothes and fed his nightmares with whiskey. He must look as awful as he felt, and that wasn’t easy.

When Beckworth continued to stare at him without moving, Seth snatched the missive from the gold tray perched on the butler’s gloved hand. He wanted to sneer at the uselessness of it all, but he’d discovered one thing in the last four years. Sometimes honor and tradition were all that kept a man from becoming a monster.

Funny, but at times they were what made a man into a monster, as well.

Seth glanced at the envelope and frowned. The letter wasn’t from Henry, after all, but from an attorney named Arthur Blair. Seth didn’t know him. He had a feeling he didn’t want to.

Ignoring Beckworth, who hovered in the hall waiting for... Seth wasn’t sure what, he tore open the envelope and withdrew the paper.

May 1,1865

Dear Major Torrance:

I regret to inform you of the death of your friend, Henry Elliot, at Saylor’s Creek. However, I would not be writing you this letter had not his wife, Georgina, followed him to our Lord yesterday following the birth of his child.

Mr. Elliot’s final wish was that you, Major, become the guardian of all that was his. His will and testament in this regard are in my keeping.

Please come posthaste to the Elliot farm outside of Winchester in Frederick County, Virginia.

Sincerely,

Arthur Blair, Attorney at Law

Seth began to tremble.

Major? Sir? Bad news? Shall I—

Seth slammed the door on Beckworth’s questions. Blessed silence filled the room. Too bad his head still pounded with the force of Confederate artillery.

Henry was gone. Seth found the tidings hard to believe, despite the hundreds of thousands of casualties. But then his friend had always been so much more alive than anyone else. Henry laughed louder, rode harder, shot straighter. At West Point, he’d been near the top of their class, while Seth had wallowed near the middle.

Of course, when the call came to war, it hadn’t mattered where they’d placed on the list. Hell, look at Custer. Autie had finished at the bottom of the pile and it hadn’t hurt him any.

But to lose Henry at Saylor’s Creek—a horrible battle so near the end of a horrible war.

Seth crossed the room and reached for the whiskey again. But instead of drinking, he peered out the window, ignoring the pain in his eyes and his head. He stared at the loud and boisterous streets of Boston; he didn’t really see them.

He had been at Saylor’s Creek, too. Had one of his bullets ended Henry’s life?

He thought back to the glory days before the war, when everything had been simple, when honor and duty didn’t get men killed. He and Henry had been as different as two friends could be—one a Boston-bred, wealthy Yankee, the other a Virginia-born, land-rich, money-poor farmer—but they had agreed on two things: Duty raised men above the beasts and honor elevated mere men to heroes.

Did he still believe that? Seth wasn’t sure. But there was something he did believe.

True friends were forever.

Seth placed the bottle back on his nightstand untasted, then called for a bath. He couldn’t very well go to Virginia like this.

Seth, I forbid you to leave. Honoria Simons Torrance spoke with the confidence of one used to having her orders obeyed without argument, probably because they always were. It’s time you took the helm of this family and the business.

Seth’s father had died when he was ten, and his mother had taken control of the munitions plant that had been in her family for generations. She’d done well. But now she wanted Seth to assume her position, and he didn’t think that he could.

Not because he didn’t know the business. He’d spent several years learning it when he’d returned from his extended tour of Europe, which had followed his graduation from West Point. But four years spent seeing what a bullet could do to a person had cured Seth of any desire to make them. Not to mention that the first time he’d set foot in the plant upon his return, the sheer volume of the noise had left him pale and shaking. He’d excused himself as ill, and he hadn’t been back since.

You’ve been doing fine, Mother.

Of course I have, but what will people think? You come home, hide in your room, then abscond to Virginia. I can just imagine what they’re saying about us.

His mother had always cared more for what people thought than what he needed. Seth couldn’t really fault her for it. She’d been raised to look lovely, pour tea, and have children—then turn them over to others. Once his father had died, she’d had a business to run, and she’d done so with the same determination she did everything else.

Now she’d determined that it was time for Seth to assume his responsibilities. She’d even chosen him the perfect wife in the form of Sophie Beck, a Boston-bred heiress he’d had occasion to meet only once. He could barely recall Sophie’s face, which didn’t endear him to the prospect. He ought to remember the single meeting he’d had with the woman he was expected to marry.

It’s far too dangerous in the South, his mother continued. Wait a few years until the army gets things straightened out. Then it’ll be a fine place for a holiday. She returned her attention to the list of wedding guests.

With the war officially over but a month and certain Confederate stragglers continuing their lost fight in far reaches of the