The Valiant Hearts Romance Collection Read online

  By Dim and Flaring Lamps ©2001 by Colleen L. Reece

  Misprint ©2005 by Kathleen Y’Barbo

  Beauty from Ashes ©2012 by MaryLu Tyndall

  Buttons for Birdie ©2013 by Darlene Franklin

  Dreamlight ©2006 by Janet Spaeth

  Black Widow ©2013 by Jennifer Rogers Spinola

  Birth of a Dream ©2012 by Pamela Griffin

  Home Fires Burning ©2001 by JoAnn A. Grote

  Bayside Bride ©2001 by Kristin Billerbeck

  Print ISBN 978-1-63409-672-0

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-867-0

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-868-7

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, OH 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in Canada.

  Contents

  By Dim and Flaring Lamps by Colleen L. Reece

  Misprint by Kathleen Y’Barbo

  Beauty from Ashes by MaryLu Tyndall

  Buttons for Birdie by Darlene Franklin

  Dreamlight by Janet Spaeth

  Black Widow by Jennifer Rogers Spinola

  Birth of a Dream by Pamela Griffin

  Home Fires Burning by JoAnn A. Grote

  Bayside Bride by Kristin Billerbeck

  Author’s Note

  The Civil War, also called “The War between the States,” divided families and pitted brother against brother. Each side fought for a cause: the North to free the slaves and preserve the Union, and the South to maintain a way of life begun by those who pioneered and won their lands against immeasurable odds.

  Some incidents in By Dim and Flaring Lamps are based on stories handed down in my family for more than a century—legends of boys in their teens and grizzled men who, at day’s end, often laid down their weapons and crossed battle lines. They played cards, swapped tobacco, and told stories about their homes, all the time knowing the next day they would again fight one another.

  Music played an important part in the conflict. Southern Johnny Rebs lustily sang, “Oh, I wish I was in Dixie …”—a song used against Abraham Lincoln when he ran for president in 1860. (Five years later, after the Civil War ended, Lincoln had a band play “Dixie” at the White House.)

  Julia Ward Howe gave the North “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” inspired by visits to military camps near Washington, D.C., shortly after the war started.

  Colleen

  Chapter 1

  Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. PSALM 119:105

  I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps;

  They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

  I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,

  His day is marching on.

  —“Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe; 2nd stanza; 1861

  Hickory Hill, Virginia October 25, 1860

  An inquisitive, late-afternoon sunbeam sneaked between the thin muslin curtains of the upstairs hall’s west window in Dr. Luke Danielson’s modest but spotless home. It roved over plain white walls brightened by occasional watercolor landscapes, and highlighted a cross-stitched sampler that read: How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.1 The sunbeam danced on until it reached a heavy mirror mounted on the wall next to the staircase leading to the ground floor. There it lingered, for all the world as if it had finally found something worthy of its full attention.

  The massive mirror gave the slim, blue-calico-clad figure poised at the top of the staircase an auburn-haired twin, a twin with sparkling blue eyes that often changed to mysterious green, depending on the wearer’s gown. Both image and original displayed a few tiny, gold-dust freckles on their lightly tanned, tip-tilted noses—the result of forgetting to shade creamy skin from the sun by wearing tiresome hats.

  The gleaming glass also reflected Lucy Danielson’s right-hand grasp of the smooth, highly polished banister rail, a definite threat to good intentions. “Young ladies should rest one hand lightly and sweep down the stairs,” she muttered.

  Knowing she should put aside her childish ways on this, her fifteenth birthday, Lucy loosened her grip. She was almost a woman. Why, some of her friends were married and taking on airs. Lucy grimaced. She would never do so. “I may become a woman, but I won’t stop being a girl,” she vowed.

  She sighed, then with a quick change of mood, curved her left hand, smirked, and took a single mincing step forward. The next moment, she made the mistake of allowing her gaze to linger on the tempting banister. Its beautifully grained surface served as a silent reminder of countless journeys made since Lucy first eluded Mammy Roxy’s watchful care and discovered the new, wonderful means of descent. Numerous scoldings and threats (that never materialized) to tell the child’s beloved father, “Daddy Doc,” hadn’t kept Lucy from engaging in the forbidden activity.

  She closed her eyes in order to better fight temptation. A girl who had accompanied her father on his rounds ever since she was old enough to sit in the buggy beside him had no business sliding down banister rails. Lucy laughed. The joyous sound echoed in the quiet hall. How many times had Mammy scolded, “It ain’t fittin’ for you to be takin’ that chile into all kinds of unsav’ry places, Dr. Luke. It just ain’t fittin’!”

  Lucy’s big, blond Scandinavian father always just laughed. He usually listened to Roxy, who had become nurse and substitute mother on the day Dr. Luke’s cherished wife died while birthing their only child. Yet on this one thing he remained firm. “I don’t take Lucy anywhere that will endanger her health,” he patiently explained over and over. “It’s also the only way I can be with my daughter. Hickory Hill folks run me ragged; you know that.” He covered a yawn with the strong hand, which could be gentle as a mother’s touch when needed, and smiled at Roxy.

  “Those same folks is plumb scandalized,” Roxy reminded him. She rolled her dark eyes. “Just last week Miz Tarbell said ’twas plain shockin’ to see a girl-chile sittin’ on the seat of a doctor’s buggy and goin’ into sickrooms.”

  “That was last week.” Dr. Luke grinned like an urchin triumphantly harboring a secret weapon. “A few days later, that same Miz Tarbell admitted Lucy’s small but firm hands ‘do a powerful lot to ease away miz’ry in the head.’”

  Roxy threw her voluminous white apron over her head, and the doctor added, “Don’t worry, Roxy. Lucy has wanted to be a nurse for as long as either of us can remember.” His blue eyes glistened. “She will make a fine one. The child brings light and happiness simply by stepping into a room. She comes by it naturally. Both of our names mean ‘bringer of light.’” His face turned somber. “Would that we could bring even more light into the darkness! Doctors and nurses fight ignorance and superstition as much as actual illness.”

  The distant slam of a door returned Lucy to the present. She blinked moisture from her uselessly long lashes. A rush of love for her father and Ma
mmy Roxy swept through her. Would she ever be as good as they thought she already was?

  Probably not. She had inherited too much of her carefree Irish mother’s bubble and bounce.

  She glanced at the tempting rail again, intending to overcome its silent invitation. Instead, she recalled the exciting whoosh created by her rapid downward progress—her momentary kinship with birds flying wild and free. Most of all, she remembered the satisfying thud of her slippered feet when she landed in the small, sunlit entryway below.

  The memories proved Lucy’s undoing. She glanced to her right. To her left. She looked out the sun-touched window and made sure no one was entering or leaving the adjoining single-story building her father used for his medical and surgical practice. October lay over the land like a benediction, warm and soft as the feather bed in which Lucy slept. Good. No one was in sight. Her father had been called out earlier but refused to take her with him. “Birthday girls need to be home getting beautiful,” he had teased.

  “My stars, who can be beautiful when they have red hair?” Lucy had burst out.

  “Your mother was. Fiona means fair. She was and you are. Inside and out.”

  His words pounded in Lucy’s brain but were soon vanquished by the desire for mischief that surged through her. This time she made no attempt to squelch it. The “almost a woman,” who planned to never cease being a girl, bundled her wide skirts and many petticoats around her. She catapulted down, down, down in a ride more glorious than any she remembered.

  “Honey-chile? Is that you?”

  The rich voice, followed by heavy footsteps, drowned out the sound of Lucy’s landing thud. She set herself to rights and whispered an unrepentant prayer of thanks for not being caught. An irreverent thought followed. Did God have banisters alongside the heavenly golden stairs Roxy and her caretaker husband, Jackson Way, sometimes sang about climbing?

  The door leading to the large Danielson kitchen opened. A massive woman stepped into the hall. The dark face beneath Roxy’s spotless white turban held suspicion. So did the folding of her hands across the familiar white apron that protected her print work dress. “What you up to, Miss Lucy?”

  Oh dear. Mammy seldom called her charge Miss Lucy, except to strangers. Better try to distract her. “Nothing important. Mammy, will you please tell me The Story before it’s time to dress for my birthday dinner? Who is coming, anyway?”

  “Who says birthday dinner?” Roxy planted her hands on her hips and glared, but her twitching lips betrayed excitement at what Lucy knew lay ahead. “If you was havin’ a dinner, and I ain’t sayin’ so, who d’you think would be comin’?”

  Lucy swallowed a grin at the success of her diversionary tactics and tried to suppress the blush she felt creeping up from the soft white collar of her gown. “You ‘ain’t sayin’ ’ not, either,” she mimicked. “Why else did you order me out of the kitchen and dining room today? I’ll wager the table is already set.” She danced across the hall in a whirl of skirts and threw her arms around her nurse and friend.

  She waltzed Roxy across the hall until the older woman protested, “Stop, chile! You’ll be the death of me yet.” She pulled free and rested one hand on Lucy’s shining auburn hair. The corners of her mouth turned down. “Tryin’ to s’prise you’s like tryin’ to put salt on a bird’s tail. And the same folks’ve been comin’ year after year.”

  “I know,” Lucy admitted. She felt a rush of tears crowd behind her eyelids, as they did each time she wheedled Roxy into repeating the tale more romantic to her fifteen-year-old heart than those in any storybook or novel. “Tell me The Story again, Mammy. It’s the best birthday present of all.”

  “I done tol’ you that tale more times than there’s stars in the sky,” Roxy protested. Yet a special look came into her eyes, and she allowed Lucy to lead her into a small, carpeted sitting room, made bright with fall foliage Lucy had gathered and arranged earlier in the day. She plumped heavily down on a settee and smiled at her charge.

  Lucy dropped to a tapestry-covered footstool and leaned against Roxy’s knee, her favorite position for The Story. “Now, Mammy.” She closed her eyes, listening for words she knew by heart.

  The day Laird and Isobel Cunningham’s only son was born, the prosperous Virginia plantation owner devised a plan cunning enough to make his frugal Scottish ancestors chortle with glee. He would begin searching at once for a suitable wife for young Jeremiah, thereby ensuring a large dowry for the Cunningham coffers and expanding Hickory Manor’s wide borders.

  But, alas, his son’s first glimpse of Lucy Danielson dealt a deathblow to Laird Cunningham’s hopes. Jeremiah gazed at Lucy’s fair skin, shining red curls, sometimes blue, sometimes sparkling green eyes—and promptly declared his intentions to marry her!

  At this point in the story, Lucy felt the same thrill she experienced no matter how many times she heard about that fateful day. Her heart pounded, thinking of Jere Cunningham and his daring.

  Roxy’s body shook with mirth when she said, “Honey-chile, you took one look at Master Jere when he come in the room and honed in on him like a bee heads for a flower. When your fingers touched his hand, why, they just tangled themselves ’round and ’round his heartstrings.”

  “Shameless,” Lucy put in from the depths of Roxy’s capacious lap, where she had hidden her burning face. “Why didn’t you teach me better?”

  Roxy’s deep laughter sounded as if it came from her toes, as Dr. Luke wrote that it must. She ignored the question she had heard a hundred times before and continued with The Story. “Folks gathered ’round laughed and laughed, your daddy most of all.”

  “Why, Mammy?” Lucy asked, as usual.

  “You already knows,” Roxy scolded, also as usual. “Master Jere were only six and it were only your first birthday.”

  Lucy wondered if Roxy could hear her wildly thumping heart but remained silent. A gentle hand smoothed the rebellious auburn curls that insisted on going their own wayward way. The older woman’s rich voice went on. “Chile, that were fourteen year ago.” She hesitated, then added significantly, “Folks done stopped their laughin’ a long time ago.”

  Lucy looked up in time to see Roxy nod and to catch the knowing expression that filled the shining face. “You young ’uns ain’t changed a mite. There ain’t nothin’ in this world goin’ to sep’rate you.”

  A feather of fear brushed the listening girl’s heart, which skipped a beat. “Laird Cunningham would, if he could. He didn’t laugh that day.”

  The life-wrinkles at the corners of Roxy’s expressive mouth deepened, and she shook her head. “Hmp-um. I reckon the milk of human kindness done soured in that man. Now Jackson Way heard tell he’s already combin’ the countryside lookin’ for suitors for Miss Jinny.” Roxy rolled her eyes and grunted, “And her not yet fourteen.”

  Lucy sat bolt-upright. “Suitors? Jinny? I never had suitors.”

  Roxy’s laugh rolled out again. “That’s ’cause all the boys know you belongs to Master Jere. Ain’t he been takin’ you ridin’ and sleddin’ and lookin’ after you since you could crawl? Whyfor you want suitors? Hmm?”

  Lucy cocked her head to one side, a habit that signified deep thought. “I didn’t say I wanted suitors, Mammy. Just that I didn’t have any.” She grinned at the answering frown.

  “Don’t you go hankerin’ after brass when you done got pure gold,” Roxy warned. “Ain’t no boy ’round Hick’ry Hill better than Master Jere.”

  Lucy felt warm blood course through her veins. A tantalizing image of the tall young man her childhood playmate had become crept into her mind. “I know,” she whispered.

  The sound of buggy wheels shattered the special moment they had shared and sent Lucy flying to the window. “My stars! Daddy Doc’s home already.” She leaped to her feet and hurled her disheveled self through the hall and out the front door, to enthusiastically welcome home one of the two men most important in her charmed, secure world.

  1 William Shakespeare

  Chapter 2 />
  A war-cry yell like those heard in battles between early Virginia settlers and Indians mingled with the steady drum of hooves beating on the well-traveled road from Hickory Manor to Hickory Hill. The next instant, a magnificent black stallion with a rider bent low over his neck topped a knoll overlooking the plantation. They stopped, turned, and faced the wide valley below, as they always did on their way to and from the village.

  “Good boy.” Jere Cunningham relaxed his set jaw, patted his thoroughbred’s neck, slid from the saddle, and tossed the reins over Ebony’s head. No need to tie the horse taught as a colt to stand with reins hanging. One arm thrown across Ebony’s neck, the strong young man surveyed the land he loved.

  Horse and rider’s vantage point offered an unsurpassed view. The three-story mansion, in all its white-columned glory, crouched amidst manicured lawns, well-cared-for flower beds, and a stand of hickory trees from which the plantation took its name. Late-afternoon sunlight gilded the walls of Jere’s home. It changed glistening white to soft gold, enhancing the beauty. Pride stirred within his heart.

  “Mother’s doing,” he muttered to Ebony, who nickered and nosed him in response. “Father cares far more for land than for buildings. Land and money,” he bitterly added. Yet the familiar sense of permanency emanating from the heart of Hickory Manor swelled within him. Anger over Jere’s recent confrontation with his father lessened. The peace he always experienced in this particular spot gradually stilled his twanging nerves.

  A vision of his lovely patrician mother danced in the still air. Jere drew in an unsteady breath and shot a silent prayer of thanks upward. How much Isobel Cunningham had passed on to her son! From her had come the crisp, golden brown locks that waved across his wide forehead. The ruddy color in his cheeks that even his deep tan couldn’t hide. The farseeing eyes that stole their brightness from Scottish lochs reflecting the bluest heavens.

  Jere had also inherited his mother’s love of books, especially the “Auld Book,” as his Scottish ancestors called the Bible. Most important, she had led Jere to the Lord when he was first old enough to understand God’s infinite love. “If you had been the only person who ever lived, Jesus would still have come, so that you might one day live with Him,” Isobel quietly told her listening son.