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  HALFWAY HOME

  After coming into an unexpected inheritance, Sara is desperate to flee her greedy step-brother. To that end she mails a proposal to a traveling peddler who has shyly courted her, arranging to meet him at Halfway House. Located on the border between North Carolina and Virginia, the hotel is known for quick marriages, duels, and as a refuge for criminals from both states.

  Grieving the tragic death of his young sister, Jericho sells his ship and comes to the dueling grounds, determined to bring her murderer to justice. There, surrounded by a wildly divergent cast of characters, Sara and Jericho are brought together as each of their stories plays out.

  Halfway Home

  By

  Bronwyn Williams

  Halfway Home

  Originally published by the Penguin Group, Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, NY,

  as a Topaz romance, an imprint of Dutton, NAL.

  Copyright © Dixie Browning and Mary Williams, 1996

  All rights reserved

  Cover Art © romancenovelcovers.com

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

  Chapter One

  Norfolk County, Virginia, 1833

  Sara Young folded her shawl and tucked it away on the shelf over her washstand. Carefully, she removed her Sunday-go-to-meeting hat, which differed little from her Monday-go-to-market hat except for the feather.

  The snow had started on the way home from church, and before she’d gone the first mile, her stockings had been soaked, thanks to the cracks in her good patent-leather boots. They had belonged to her mother, and Sara wore them only on Sundays, but they were nearly ten years old, after all. Nothing lasted forever.

  It wasn’t supposed to snow in March, not here in southeastern Virginia. Sara had a bad feeling about seeing snow this late in the season. It had snowed the year her mother had died. Sara had been eleven years old at the time.

  It had snowed the following March, too, when her father had brought home a new bride and a half-grown son. Noreen and Titus had joined forces to make her life miserable from the moment they’d set foot over the doorsill, not that her father had ever known.

  Not that she would have wanted him to know, poor man.

  It had been snowing that morning in March two years later when James Young had set out to go to a cockfight at the Lake Drummond Hotel, drunk too much and on the way home wandered off into the swamp, where he’d frozen to death.

  Since then, it hadn’t snowed once during March, but goodness knows, things had been about as bad as they could be. Between them, Noreen and Titus had managed to run the farm right smack dab into the ground. They were both spendthrifts. Titus gambled. Neither one of them knew doodley-squat about farming. They had sold off most of the land, the best of the furniture, and all the lovely paintings. Her father’s field hands had gone along with the land, and now the only servants left were two free blacks, Maulsie and Big Simon, who had come south with Sara’s mother and stayed on after her death to look after Sara.

  Before heading down to help Maulsie serve dinner, Sara carefully removed her good gown, hung it on the peg, and then changed into her other one. After pulling on a dry pair of stockings, the reluctantly slid her feet into the ugly boots Titus had outgrown years ago. She would sooner have gone barefoot, even on cold floors, because her feet hurt something fierce, but Noreen would pitch a conniption fit, and Sara had had about all of her stepmother’s tantrums she could take in one day.

  Dinner was neither better nor worse than usual, the food being excellent, the company deplorable. Sara carried platters and bowls in to the dining room table, trying not to look at the bare places on the walls where her mother’s portrait and a lovely landscape had once hung. That done, she rang the bell, removed her apron, and waited silently for Noreen to take her place at the head of the table before sliding unobtrusively into her own chair.

  Titus was once more favoring them with his absence. He’d lit out courting again nearly two weeks ago, after wheedling another bit of pawnable jewelry from his mother. As much as Sara despised the man—for man he was—no longer the hateful boy who had tormented her for so long—at least his presence would have deflected some of Noreen’s spiteful attention.

  “I don’t see why you have to be so stubborn about going to church every time the doors are thrown open,” the older woman complained, helping herself to a big, fat sweet potato. The menu might be skimpy, but Maulsie did roast the best sweet potatoes in Norfolk County, cooking them real slow to bring out all the sugar.

  “I’ve always gone to church,” Sara said quietly. “It’s the only way I get to see my friends.” What few she had left.

  “Well, it was downright embarrassing, watching you come traipsing up the hill all dusty and red in the face, like some cheap little peddler.”

  With Titus off courting in their only transport, Noreen enjoyed being driven to church by a widower who lived a few miles down the road. Even if she’d been invited to ride with them, Sara would have declined. Her fondest hope was that Noreen would remarry and move away, taking her lickspittle son with her.

  Refusing to be drawn into another argument, she forked off what little meat she could find on the chicken back on her plate. What should she say? That if those two hadn’t sold her father’s perfectly good trap to buy that fancy new runabout, which Titus was using in his courting, why then, she wouldn’t be forced to walk everywhere she went?

  Noreen had never cottoned to criticism. Especially not from Sara. And most particularly not when it concerned her son.

  More than once Sara had wondered where her father had found the woman and what had prompted him to marry her. For all she was still pretty, there was a coarseness about her that never failed to grate on Sara’s nerves, and as for Titus . . .

  Well. The less said, the better.

  *

  By midafternoon, the snow had dwindled to a random flake or two. By supper time, a few scraps of sunshine where actually beginning to break through the clouds. The afternoon had passed uneventfully, with Noreen snoring in the front parlor, having had one too many glasses of Big Simon’s blackberry wine.

  And then, like a noxious weed cropping up in the middle of the early peas, Titus came home. “Come give big brother a kiss,” he taunted, catching Sara from behind.

  She twisted out of his arms and glared at him. “Big stepbrother needs a bath. He smells like chicken droppings.”

  Titus laughed, but the laughter didn’t carry to his eyes. “Ah, but I won this time. Now, don’t you wish you’d given me that kiss?”

  Sara didn’t. She’d sooner kiss the rooster on which he had placed his money. She managed to stay out of his way by helping out in the kitchen with supper preparations, which was expected of her anyway. She slipped off her apron and slid quietly into her chair just as Titus was telling his mother about his latest efforts to find himself a rich wife.

  “The James girl’s got a tongue like a knife blade. Don’t matter how much money her old man has, I’d sooner marry a fish crow.”

  From which evidence Sara surmised that the girl had the good sense to refuse his proposal. It was all she could do not to smile.

  It was undeniably true that her stepbrother was just about the handsomest man in the entire county, what with his shiny yellow curls, his pale blue eyes and his small, perfect features. Sara happened to know that he rolled his hair every night in rags to produce those fashionable curls. She had once made the mistake of remarking on his efforts, and had quickly come to regret it. Since then she had learned to duck and dodge. Titus was stronger, but she was quicker. And Sara was nothing if not sensible.

  But no amount of sensibility could rein in her stepfamily’s insatiable appetite for fancy clothes and expensive geegaws, or Titus’s ruinous habit of gambling on every card, horse, dog, or chicken in the commonwealth of Virginia. Between them they had managed in five years to go through every cent her father had left. The house and the small portion of land that remained were deeply mortgaged. They had only the small vegetable plot Sara maintained with Big Simon’s help, but that would soon have to be sold along with everything else unless a miracle happened. Where once dozens of hands had worked her father’s fields and her mother’s staff had looked after the house, only Maulsie and Big Simon remained, and those two couldn’t go on forever. There were days when it was all Rig Simon could do to get around, his joints were that swollen, and Maulsie’s hearing was failing her. They were too old to find work if they were turned off. Their only security lay in the fact that Noreen couldn’t afford anyone else to take their place. There was simply no more money. She had sold everything of any value except for the few pieces of jewelry she doled out to placate her son. The sad truth was that unless Titus could find a rich wife, they would all end up in the poorhouse.

  As for Maulsie and Big Simon, being free, they would likely starve. Norfolk had a large community of free blacks, but most folks, black and white alike, resented freed slaves.

  It never occurred to Sara that she might find herself a husband and move into a home of her own, taking her two old friends with her. She wasn’t a beauty. On the puny side, she had plain brown hair and plain brown eyes, and her skin was unfashionably tanned from working outdoors all year-round. She had no pretty clothes, havi
ng either worn out or outgrown most of her gowns long ago. The last time she’d been to a social had been four years ago, when she was only fifteen.

  Since then, she’d been ashamed to go, aware that everyone knew of her situation and felt sorry for her. After a while, as her friends married and moved away or started families of their own, the invitations had stopped coming. The only man who still remained friendly was Archibald Ricketts, who came by every month or so peddling his wares from the back of his drummer’s wagon. Although more than twice her age, Archibald, at least, enjoyed her company.

  Rather more than enjoyed it, if his shyly flirtatious looks were any indication. Lately he had taken to writing her to let her know when he would be coming through so that she would be sure to be there.

  Of course, Noreen read any letter that came addressed to Sara if Maulsie didn’t get to it first. Not that she received all that many, for mail was dear, but she treasured the rare letters from her best friend Carrie, who had married and had moved to Illinois. And, of course, the notes from Archibald.

  Impatiently she waited for Noreen and Titus to finish eating so that she could clear away the supper dishes. Noreen was enjoying a third glass of blackberry wine while Titus devoured the last of the chicken, spearing it off the platter with the wicked knife he used to pare his fingernails, and then fastidiously licking the blade when he was done.

  “Careful,” she said sweetly. “They say splitting a crow’s tongue will make him talk, but I’ve never heard what it does to buzzards.”

  Glaring at her, he flashed the blade threateningly. He might look like a china doll, but she knew to her sorrow that he was a good deal more dangerous. No wonder every single woman in Norfolk County had turned him down. They must know him for the scoundrel he was, which was why he’d had to go so far afield to do his courting. All the way down into North Carolina, according to Big Simon.

  Just as if he’d been following her train of thought, Titus said, “Mama, I’ll be riding down to Pasquotank County again come morning. I’ll need the runabout for a few more days.”

  “A few more days! You’ve already had it for nearly two weeks! I’ll not be stranded out here in the middle of nowhere another day! No sirree bob. This time, you’ll just have to make other arrangements.”

  Titus leaned back in his chair, a smug smile on his grease-polished lips. “You know that big white house set back in the trees, with the two-story front porch on the road from New Lebanon to Elizabeth City? I was down in that neck of woods at a house party back last fall, and I met the woman that owns it. She’s some older than me and nothing much to look at, but I’ve been sparking her up for a while.” He punctuated the statement with a loud belch, and Sara wondered how on earth such an angelic-looking creature could be so utterly vile.

  “How many acres? How many rooms in the house?” Noreen’s small eyes narrowed speculatively.

  “I’ve not seen the inside yet, but I reckon it’s big enough to make this dump look like a two-hole privy.”

  Sara bridled at that, but bit back the retort that nearly jumped off the tip of her tongue. If only he would marry and move down to Carolina, and take his precious mother with him! She would go down on her knees and give thanks every night of her life if only she could be rid of the pair.

  “Her folks is all dead except for a brother, and he’s gone all the time. A sailor, I think she said. She’s not got a lick of style, but she’s grateful for the least little attention. If I was to ask her to walk to the moon, she’d bust her bustle trying.”

  “You going to marry her? How much you think she’s worth?”

  “Well, Mama, I can’t hardly ask her that yet, but I reckon she’d jump at the chance to marry me. Like I said, she’s not much to look at,” Titus said with a smirk that made Sara want to shove his face into a gravy bowl and hold it there.

  *

  March went out like a lamb. April entered with seven days of rain, which made it impossible for Sara to get her rows hoed up for planting beans and sweet potatoes. Noreen whined and drank and argued over the use of the runabout whenever Titus came home.

  April passed into May. Noreen complained constantly of a windy bowel and refused to eat any more sweet potatoes, beans or cabbage, which didn’t leave much to choose from unless they slaughtered their only remaining pig or killed another of the laying hens.

  In a rare streak of good luck, Big Simon acquired a neighbor’s discarded two-wheel cart and managed to repair the broken wheel, which gave them another vehicle, even though all they had to pull it was old Blossom, the plow mule.

  Titus was still courting, mostly down in Pasquotank County so far as Sara could tell. Lately he hadn’t seemed quite so cocksure. From something she’d overheard, she rather thought he was running with a fast crowd and had piled up more gambling debts.

  Lordy! If that wasn’t just what they needed.

  Archibald came by one morning in early June just as Sara was hanging out the wash, her hands reddened by the harsh lye soap. They both knew that she lacked the money to purchase any of his wares, yet he never failed to stop. They visited, and he lingered long enough to enjoy a tumbler full of water and a few of Maulsie’s cold biscuits while he cast sheep’s eyes at Sara. Life on the road, he told her, not for the first time, surely did get powerful wearisome for a man traveling alone.

  “Couldn’t your wife ride with you?” she asked, and he blushed so hard she was afraid he was going to lapse into an apopleptic fit.

  From which she gathered that, just as she’d suspected, the poor man was single. And too bashful, even at his age, ever to do anything about it.

  Sara felt sorry for him, for he was one of the gentlest, most thoughtful men she had ever known, despite the fact that he was rather homely and frequently smelled of rum, even in the middle of the day. He talked often of the neat little cottage he owned near Portsmouth, and about the flowers his mother used to grow in the garden there. Oh, yes, indeed, he did enjoy gardening, he said, although Sara didn’t know when he found time.

  But he was kind and hardworking. And generous. As often as not, he left her with some small gift—a length of ribbon or a jar of cream for her hands—saying it was only a sample he had left over. Which, unless Sara was both quick and clever, Noreen usually managed to claim.

  Watching him drive off in his gaudy peddler’s wagon, she sighed, almost wishing she could go with him. It would be heaven simply to climb aboard and not look back.

  Instead she turned to go back inside with her empty clothes basket, consoling herself that at least she still had a roof over her head. Although the way things were going, there was no telling how long that would hold true.

  There wasn’t a single one of her mother’s old gowns that Sara hadn’t made over so many times she had memorized each stitch in every seam. She was down to two wearable gowns—one for Sundays, one for every other day of the week.

  The first and only time Sara had asked her .stepmother for a new gown had been shortly after her father had died. Noreen had flown into such a rage poor Maulsie had to come between them.

  “Don’t you raise you’ hand to my po’ baby!”

  “How dare you speak to me that way!” Noreen had to yell to be heard, for Maulsie pretended not to be able to hear a word the widow said. “I swear I’m going to sell you to the first fool who comes down that road. You see if I don’t!”

  Maulsie had huffed up like a cat in a dog pound. “Ain’t nobody gonna sell Maulsie, on account of I got me my freedom papers. My blessed lamb’s grandpapa done seen to that ‘fore I lef’ Boston town, which was ‘bout the onliest smart thing that old man done. Ain’t nobody own old Maulsie ‘ceptin’ God Hisself, and He ain’t ‘bout to sell me!”

  Which made Sara wonder all over again about the man who was her grandfather—the man who had disowned his only daughter for marrying beneath her and then freed two slaves to come south to look after her.

  If she had the slightest idea where he lived, or even if he was still alive, she might be tempted to use a few of her hard-earned pennies on postage and write him a letter.