Chapter One

The sun had set over Lake Mason, painting the water with glorious shades of orange, yellow and red in a way that only a North Carolina sunset could. On that night, the last thing on the minds of the finest ladies and gentlemen of Warrenton was the war that had not yet touched their little piece of heaven.

Of course they all knew that North Carolina would more than likely be seceding from the Union at any time. With that occasion many of their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers would be going away to march with the already established Southern armies. Nobody expected the war to last any longer than a few months, though - a year at the most. Yes, if it came to the point where the men of the village had to leave to fight the Yankees they’d be back home, safe and sound, in practically no time.

On that night, all that the people of Warrenton were concerned with was sporting their finest attire, getting into their freshly washed carriages, and going to the Townsend home for what was sure to be the most enchanting event of the year’s social season. Charles Townsend had recently found himself the recipient of ten times the admiration that he had always received. Word had spread around town like white lightning when Charles had been granted with a visit from Stephen Mansfield several months earlier. Despite the fact that he was a Yankee businessman from Boston, there wasn’t a man or woman in the whole United States who didn’t know the name Mansfield. He was the man behind Mansfield Industries, and all one had to do to see the influence that name held was look at the label stitched into their socks, stockings, long johns, petticoats, or any number of other store bought garments that were in their wardrobes. Nine times out of ten, it was guaranteed that they came from Mansfield Industries. The company was gargantuan.

Soon after Mansfield’s visit to the Townsend plantation, word had spread once again that he had been forced to cut ties with several of his previous suppliers of cotton due to their stubborn unwillingness to deal with any businesses who were based north of the Mason Dixon line. Not only had Charles welcomed Mansfield to his home with all of the courtesy and respect that he granted any other guest, he also impressed him greatly with the efficiency of the plantation and the quality of his crop. Several weeks after his return to Boston Mansfield, he sent a letter to Charles offering to buy the entire year‘s harvest at a staggeringly high price.

The excitement doubled as it was discovered that Mansfield had personally invited the entire Townsend family to spend a few days at his home in Boston while he and Charles completed the legalities that would make the deal final.

When the fine families of the community received invitations for a party which would take place at the Townsend home on the eve of their departure to Boston, everyone knew that it would be a truly splendid gathering. Victoria Townsend, the lady of the house, was known across the county for her great pleasure in throwing some of the more legendary festivities that Warrenton had ever seen. Victoria had personally overseen the extensive cleaning of the already immaculately tidy house, chosen a lavish menu of food and had supervised its preparation in its entirety, and had even bought new uniforms for the house help to wear during the party. She was a fine woman, but Victoria lived under the adage that image was everything and where you stood in society dictated who you were in life. After this trip to Boston they would be the most prosperous family in the county by far, and Victoria had to be absolutely certain that this party articulated that fact in a way that would be impolite to express with words. It had to be absolutely perfect.

To the guests, it was beyond perfect. Every time a new family entered the doors into the house all of their mouths would drop and they’d stare agape at the state of the massive parlor for a few moments. The enormous table of food resembled the feast that one would imagine being presented with after dying and entering the gates of Heaven. Everyone was smiling, dancing and gossiping in the way that the rich and privileged of their time had perfected, and as the evening drew to a close everyone would go home positively raving about what a success Victoria’s gathering had been.

That is, everyone except Victoria herself.

Of course, she was beaming from ear to ear and greeting her guests like the charming and legendary hostess that she was. To someone who knew her extremely well, namely her husband, it was obvious that she wasn’t feeling the dazzling smile that she had etched across her face. As Charles Townsend stood next to the food table and sipped a glass of punch, he studied his wife of twenty-three years and wondered what it was that was making her so tense.

It obviously had nothing to do with the way she looked. Victoria was very picky about her appearance, but on this night she looked more ravishing than she did the first time he saw her as a fresh faced seventeen year old girl when he was on furlough from the army in Charleston. Her almost white-blonde hair was swept back into a perfectly formed bun with little ringlets of curls falling onto her pale, bare shoulders. The deep purple gown that she had bought especially for the party and for the trip to Boston was the finest gown in the room, and accentuated her still tiny waist and shapely figure.

Charles honestly couldn’t think of anything else that could possibly be bothering his wife on a night like this. That was until he noticed where her eyes were darting back and forth to from time to time. First she would glance toward their daughters, nineteen year old Sarah and seventeen year old Madeline. The girls were surrounded by the young men of the town, most of whom would have done practically anything to win the hand of either of them. Sarah and Madeline were ultimately miniature versions of their mother with their white-blonde hair, light blue eyes and permanently etched smiles on their faces, and he shuddered to think of what was going through the minds of those boys as he remembered some of his own thoughts when he first met Victoria.

Next his wife would glance at their eldest, twenty-one year old James. It was almost unsettling how much the young man looked like a younger version of himself. He was unusually tall at around six feet two inches, and was so lanky that he looked as though a strong breeze could knock him over. James even had Charles’s messy dark blond hair, dark green eyes, and more importantly his biting sense of humor that annoyed Victoria to no end.

At that moment, James was standing at the other end of the food table talking to old Burt and Byron Roberts. The Roberts brothers were a pair of elderly fellows who lived together in a massive house at the other end of Lake Mason. Neither of them had ever married, and people in the community always said that fact didn’t surprise them because no woman would want to marry a man who was as dull, humorless and plain grouchy as both Burt and Byron were known to be. James appeared to be telling the men a story about God knows what, and the Roberts brothers were laughing so hard that they both had to put their hands on the food table to steady themselves. The boy was nothing short of amazing.

Lastly, Victoria would glance at the staircase behind her that led to the children’s rooms. As always there was nothing there except for the stairs themselves, Victoria’s eyes would narrow a bit, she’d tense up even more, and she’d direct her attention back to the guests.

Charles glanced around the room once more himself, and then the problem that was causing Victoria so much anxiety hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Oh dear.” That was all he could mutter to himself under his breath. Charles knew that he had to take care of this problem right away or the house would be a very unpleasant place to be after the guests left.

He hated to interrupt whatever James was telling the Roberts brothers that was making them laugh so hard, but the boy was probably the only person in the house who could resolve the predicament at hand without causing a scene. “Excuse me, Byron…Burt…I’m glad to see that you’re having a good time.”

Burt slapped James on the shoulder as he continued to chuckle, “I swear Charles, your boy here knows how to tell a story.”

“That he does, that he does. I regretfully must steal him from you for a few minutes though, if I may.” Charles placed his arm around his son’s shoulders and led him away from Burt and Byron. Victoria would be furious if any of the guests heard the conversation that they were about to have.

“What is it, father?” The look on James’s face told Charles that the boy didn’t know whether or not to be amused or concerned.

“Where’s Charlie?”

James immediately looked away from his father and glanced over at his mother for a moment. “Oh, I see. You’re trying to keep the war from starting in our house tonight.” With a smirk he brought his eyes back to Charles. “Charlie’s out there being Charlie. You know that.”

“Yes, I know. But will you please go out there and at least attempt to bring the child back before your mother throws a hissy fit and embarrasses herself?”

James didn’t want to be the bearer of the bad news that Charlie was being summonsed back to the house, but he was like his father in his great desire to avoid yet another shouting match between Charlie and his mother after the party. He quickly left the party via the back door of the house, before stopping long enough to compliment the Negro ladies in the kitchen for their fine cooking, and made his way toward the slave quarters at the other end of one of the many cotton fields. Before the small, rickety houses that had been built for the slaves years earlier even came into view, James heard the faint sound of laughing and singing coming from their direction.

When he made it to the door that all of the noise was coming from, James was almost tempted to knock on the door and join in on whatever they were celebrating. It sounded as though they were having a lot more fun than the stuffy aristocrats at his mother’s party that were doing nothing but trying to out-class each other and prove who had the most social standing in the community. All of that was a bunch of nonsense that James had almost the same amount of loathing for that Charlie did.

He knocked on the door and it was almost immediately answered by Adam, one of the young male slaves, who was known as the hardest worker on the plantation by far. James thought that he and Adam could have been friends if he had the same amount of tenacity Charlie did when it came to breaking the rules and going against what was expected of him.

“Hello Adam. Is Charlie here by any chance?”

“Good evenin’ Mister James. Yes, Charlie…I mean Miss Charlotte is here.”

Adam opened the door so James could enter, and he was met with the absolutely mortified face of his sixteen year old sister Charlotte. Years earlier when his mother had found out that she was going to be giving birth to one more child not long after Madeline was born, his father had desperately wanted that fourth and final child to be a boy that he could pass his first name on to. James would have been named Charles himself if it wasn’t for his mother’s insistence that her firstborn son be named after her own father.

His parents had been so sure that the child would be a boy that they prepared the nursery with very masculine furnishings and colors, bought male baby clothes, bought toys that were made for boys, and even had an expensive leather-bound baby book made that had Charles Townsend, Jr. etched on the cover with gold lettering.

As Victoria enjoyed telling Charlotte at every available moment, on the night that she went into labor she was convinced that she was going to die. Her first three experiences with giving birth had turned out to be very easy, quick, and not too terribly painful at all. When Charlotte came along though, she was in bed for two days trying to deliver the child because the baby had turned while inside of Victoria and had began to come out of her as a breach birth. The town doctor worked with Victoria constantly during Charlie's birth and though she nearly bled to death, he was able to save both Victoria and the baby at the end of the ordeal two days later. One of his mother’s favorite things to say to his sister was that she had been the bane of her existence even before she was born.

James thought it cruel of his mother to say so, but she had been disappointed at first that her new baby had turned out to be a little girl. Perhaps she thought that she had cheated her husband out of having one more son, or perhaps she was simply upset that they had wasted a rather large amount of money preparing for a boy.

His father, on the other hand, had been ecstatic to see his new little daughter. They named her Charlotte because it was the closest female name to Charles that they could think of, and he had immediately given her the nickname Charlie. His mother thought that the silly nickname would soon fade away, but over sixteen years later it was still what nearly everyone called her.

“James, you are such a tattletale!” Charlie was tiny at five feet three inches, but when she looked at someone the way she was glaring at James, with her hands on her hips, she was almost terrifying. He also thought it was funny that she had curled her hair and had gotten all dolled up in her pale blue ball gown to come to a party at the slave quarters, but he knew that if he teased her about it right then she’d probably give him a black eye.

“Charlie, can we take this outside?”

“I don’t want to go outside. It’s Nancy’s birthday, and I want to be here with my friends.”

James glanced at the slave girl Nancy, who had been one of Charlie’s closest friends from the time they were both old enough to walk. Nancy was standing in the corner with her head down, looking as though she had done something that would get her in trouble. “Oh, I didn’t know that, Nancy. How old are you today?”

“Sixteen, sir.” The girl’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Well, happy birthday. But I mean it, Charlie. Come on.” James turned to walk out onto the porch, hoping and praying that Charlie would cooperate. He didn’t like to be around the slaves for extended periods of time because they all looked at him as their master. The idea of being another human being’s master made him enormously uncomfortable.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Charlie, huffing and puffing, followed him out on the porch and closed the door of the small house behind her. James began to walk toward the house, and smiled down at his sister when she appeared next to him.

“Did mother send you to get me?”

“No, actually father did.”

“What? Why?” All Charlie had to do was look into James’s eyes to know the answer to that question. They were so alike that they could have entire conversations without speaking a single word. “Oh, he needs to learn to stand up to her.”

“I know he does. But you need to remember that we’re all going to be on a train together for a long time tomorrow and it’s probably a good idea to keep things peaceful.”

“Oh, why did you have to bring the Boston trip up?” Charlie took her brother’s arm and leaned her head against him. “I don’t want to go.”

“I thought you’d be excited to see a big city like that.”

Charlie looked up at James and rolled her eyes at him with the signature Townsend smirk spread across her face. “Of course I want to see Boston, silly. I just don’t want to be around even more of those harebrained high class types. They bore me.”

“You never know. You could meet someone that you learn to like up there.”

“Ha, not likely.”

They turned the corner which gave them a full view of the massive house where they had both grown up. Charlie often commented that it looked like a big, lavish prison with its gleaming white exterior walls, enormous columns, and its immense oak door that people often commented was so heavy that it was difficult to open if it was windy outside.

James released his arm from his sister’s grasp and wrapped it around her bare shoulders. “Do you want to go in through the back door?”

Charlie studied the house for a moment and grinned up at James. “You know, normally I would. Tonight though, I want to be a little bit daring. Let’s make our grand entrance right up there through the front door like everyone else.”

“When are you not daring?”

“When I’m sick, asleep, or listening to mother yell at me and sometimes any combination of the three.”

Laughing, James gently squeezed the back of his sister‘s neck and held out his arm for her to take once more. “That sounds about right. Come on.”

For the first few years of Charlie Townsend’s life, she was absolutely convinced that her parents had found her on the doorsteps of the Warrenton church after her real family had abandoned her there. Charlie would lie in the hammock between the big Red Maple trees behind the house and daydream about what she imagined her real family would be like. Perhaps they were in a band of wandering gypsies who didn‘t want to submit their child to a life of danger and uncertainty or perhaps they were intellectuals, too busy touring the great libraries and universities of the world to take care of a child. Whatever they were, she just knew that they were undeniably and inexplicably more interesting than the ones that fate placed her with.

Even after Charlie was old enough to know better, she still had days where she had to stand back and ask herself is this really my family?

Realistically though, all she had to do to know that she was a true Townsend was look into a mirror. People always commented about how amazing it was that Sarah and Madeline looked so much like mother and James looked so much like father. The thing that made Charlie unique was that she was given a perfect mixture of both of her parent’s most striking features. She had her mother’s petite stature, annoying curvaceous figure, and delicately featured face framed by thick hair that would only lie down and look somewhat orderly after being curled. She also had her father’s dark blonde hair, enormous green eyes, and full lips that could curl into a smile that could light up the darkest and most vast room one could imagine.

The only thing that kept Charlie from going insane and running away to join the circus during the often trying times of her first sixteen years was her sweet James. It was difficult to imagine that there was ever a time when they weren’t the best of friends. When Charlie was a small child and James was a little boy trying to live in a world where he was severely outnumbered by girls, they would constantly bicker and argue and cause all sorts of trouble for themselves with their mother. Thankfully, there came a day when they recognized that they were just alike, understood one another like nobody else in the family, could make each other laugh until their sides hurt, and simply felt at ease with themselves when the other was around.

“So, how do you want to do this?” James looked down at Charlie, and she was thrilled to see the mischievous gleam in his green eyes that she knew was identical to the glimmer that was surely glowing in her own. “Do you want me to knock so we can go in all proper-like, or should you knock?”

“Hmm, I can’t decide if I want to shock mother or annoy her.”

“Well, you’ll have all week to annoy her up in Boston. Why don’t you try the shocking angle this time?”

That being said, Charlie flashed another huge smile up at James, stepped back so she was standing one step behind him, wrapped her fingers around the crook of his elbow, and gave him a slight nod that told him she was ready to go inside.

As they were both trying to suppress their laughter over the utter ridiculousness of what they were doing, James knocked on the door four times. He placed his free hand over Charlie’s, and they both displayed their most brilliant smiles as Joseph, a house slave, answered the door wearing the fine butler’s tuxedo that had been bought for him. He had been on the plantation since well before James was born, he was well aware of what the eldest and youngest Townsend were capable of when they were together.

“Ah, good evenin’ Mr. James…Miss Charlie.” Though not even a hint of a smile passed across his lips, Charlie could see his face immediately light up. “Come on in.”

“Thank you, Joseph.” James, with all of the chivalry that he had ever been taught by his father, gallantly led Charlie inside the house. When they both felt their mother’s icy gaze lock onto them, Charlie released her hand from her brother’s arm and stood in front of him.

Charlie had never been one to yield to an adversary, and the pure spite that she saw on her mother’s face at that moment told her that she was looking at a woman who was aching to pick a fight with her. The opportunity was far too great to pass up.

“Good evening, mother!” Charlie practically floated to the spot where her mother was standing with two of her exasperating, gossiping, hen-like friends. “I must say, this is quite a remarkable event that you arranged. Our home simply reeks of elegance, aristocracy, beauty, grace, and all of those other pretty words that you use all the time.”

“Charlotte, what do you think you’re doing?” Victoria glanced at both of her friends with that pitiful look of apology that Charlie had accepted as a part of her life years earlier. Every time Charlie was in the presence of someone that her mother was trying to impress she saw it at least once.

“Why mother, I’m simply enjoying your fine festivities. Isn’t that the point of this little party of yours? To show everyone a pleasant time while throwing it in their faces that we’re now wealthier than everyone else?”

If looks could kill, there would have been a dagger in Charlie’s heart at that moment.

“Victoria, I think I should get back to my son. It looks as though he’s become quite sweet on your darling Sarah. It must be nice to have such a charming daughter who presents herself like a fine young lady as Sarah does.” Frances Huff looked at Charlie the same way that she would look at an enormous pile of horse manure, and pranced over to her mouse-like son George. He was a part of the crowd of boys surrounding Sarah and Madeline. Victoria’s friend Betty Henderson quickly followed suit, leaving Charlie and her mother to wage the latest of many verbal wars they often inflicted upon each other.

“Why do you live to embarrass me?” Victoria’s voice was low enough so that only Charlie could hear her, but her tone was venomous.

“Why do you insist on worrying so much about what those silly women think of you? Mrs. Huff is an incessant snob, and Mrs. Henderson has the personality of a plate of mashed potatoes.”

“Those women, Charlotte, are two of the finest women in this community. And yes, their opinion matters very much to me. You should know by now that if these people don’t care for you, nobody will.”

The conversation was already becoming tiring. Charlie threw her head back, let out a weary sigh, and continued the battle. “And you, mother, should know by now that if you feel as though you have to act like someone that you’re not to gain favor and friends, all of the esteem in society that you gain doesn’t mean much of anything. I don’t care if any of these people, or anyone at all for that matter, are fond of me. I know that I’ll never become the woman that you want me to be. I’ll never get married, I’ll never have children, I’ll never move into a plantation across the river and give you a bunch of grandchildren, and I’ll certainly never become one of these boring, stuffy, disgusting, high-brow pigs that you admire so much. Either accept it, or continue to regret that I turned out the way I did and waste your time waiting for me to change. Now if you’ll excuse me, this party is already boring me and I would much rather go up to my room, get out of this uncomfortable dress, and read in bed. I made an appearance, I entered the room like a proper young lady, and that’s all you’re going to get from me. Goodnight mother.”

With that, Charlie left her speechless mother and slowly walked up the stairs to her room. The only person that she bothered to look at was James, who was standing next to the balustrade looking up at her in awe. The night hadn’t ended precisely the way she wanted it to, but Charlie was content in the fact that she may have brought her mother down a few notches. It would probably only last for the evening, but it was better than nothing.

When Charlie managed to leave her mother flabbergasted, she always left the encounter with a triumphant sensation in the pit of her stomach. If Charlie was ever asked to list her top three favorite things in the entire world, number one would have been reading, number two would have been dancing, and number three would have been arguing with her mother. Dear old Victoria had always been the center of Charlie’s distaste for a lot of things that her family represented and stood for in the world, but ever since she was twelve or so they had fought like two rabid dogs at any convenient moment.

Oh, she knew that Victoria wasn’t entirely to blame for their inability to get along with each other. Charlie was well aware of the fact that she could be an intolerable brat at times, and that if she ever decided to stop egging her mother on all the time things would be a bit more pleasant between them. On the other hand, Victoria had always been disgusted by Charlie’s desire to be different, the fact that she had no problem expressing her sometimes radical opinions at any situation, and her wild nature that was only barely locked up inside of her.

Their tumultuous relationship seemed to be one that would never be anywhere near as loving as the one that her mother had with Sarah and Madeline. Charlie knew, though, that as long as the old woman had her dear, perfect girls to keep her busy Victoria didn’t really care about her. If Victoria wanted to continue to treat her like pond scum, Charlie would throw the exact same thing back at her.

After her too early exit from the party (she had wanted to have a dance or two with James and her father), Charlie went to her room and shut the door behind her so as to drown out the quiet, tiresome music that was coming from the parlor. She stopped for a moment next to the door, as she always did, to examine the decorations that her mother had insisted she display in her bedroom years earlier. Her huge, white four-poster bed was covered with a thick blanket that was decorated with tiny blue and white flowers. There were so many lacy pillows on it that she had to throw most of them on the floor next to her every night before going to sleep.

The walls were plastered with wallpaper that matched her bedding, and in every available nook and cranny there was some sort of lace, flowers, dolls, and other fineries that were supposed to make up the perfect bedroom for a fine young Southern lady.

It made Charlie sick to look at it.

Relieved to have finally been able to get out of her dress, which matched her walls and bedding, Charlie removed her corset and slipped on her softest nightgown. Her mother would have been positively scandalized to know that her youngest was prancing around her bedroom wearing nothing but a thin, white gown over her naked body, but the evenings when she could be alone in her room were some of the only times that Charlie could be herself. She got to be released from the chest crushing corsets, the stuffy gowns that always made her sweat like a stuck pig, and oh…the rules. Always curtsy when you stand before a gentleman. Don’t speak in a voice above a whisper. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Don’t laugh so loud. Those were just a few of the absurd conventions that practically everyone in their little society found to be so important and vital to everyday life.

So yes, Charlie always intended on snubbing the rules when she could and walked around her bedroom half naked all the time.

She also got a lot of satisfaction out of reading things that a proper young Southern lady wasn’t supposed to be reading. After plopping onto her bed and throwing at least a dozen pillows on the floor, Charlie reached under her mattress and pulled out a book that she had found in her father’s library. It was James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, and it was by far the greatest thing that she had ever read. The dazzling adventure of war, death, Indians, love and courage always made her heart race, and even after at least ten readings it still wasn’t old to her.

Charlie opened the book to chapter twelve, got lost in the story, and read until she was startled by a light knock on her door.

After leaping from the bed, sliding her book under the covers and wrapping her robe around her barely dressed body, Charlie answered the door and was surprised to see her sister Sarah waiting on the other side.

Sarah was almost heartbreakingly beautiful. She had skin like a porcelain doll, her hair was the color of a perfect North Carolina summer sun, and in her pale pink gown she looked like an angel. Practically every young man in town of a suitable age wanted to be Sarah’s beau, and Charlie found it unfortunate that she was obviously feeling highly pressured to choose one of them. When her sister was in school she was one of the top students in her class, and Sarah was often pressured to downplay the fact that she had quite a brain in that pretty little head. The fine young men of their little town didn’t want a wife who was smarter than they were.

“Hello Charlie. I hate that I missed you at the party.”

Charlie could imagine how badly her mother had talked about her with the guests after her departure. “So how bad was it?”

“How bad was what?”

“How much rubbish was mother telling everyone about me? You know, all of those lovely things that she always says about how I’m a disgrace and an embarrassment to the family.”

Sarah crinkled the piece of paper that Charlie noticed was in her hand and laughed for a moment. “Oh, I didn’t hear much from her. I did overhear her telling George’s mother that she shouldn’t have allowed you to warp your mind with all of those books that she allowed you to read as a child. She said that it made your vocabulary too large and offensive. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You know how she is.”

“Ha, I’m not worried.” It was actually quite funny.

“I know…I know. Here.” Sarah held the piece of paper out to her sister, and Charlie winced when she saw that it was covered with her mother’s graceful handwriting.

“What is it?”

“After the guests left mother sat us all down and gave us all a long talking to about the Mansfield family. She basically told us their names and what they’re like so we’ll be better prepared to meet them. Mother said that she didn‘t have the strength to walk up here and talk to you, so she just wrote it all down for you to read.”

Charlie took the letter and looked at her sister with a smirk. “Ahh, I see. Mother wants us to prepare ourselves so we can be as pleasing and charming and as phony as possible. Right?”

“Charlie, it’s not just mother. Father wants it to go well too. You have to remember that we‘re going up into Yankee country, and those people aren‘t like us.”

“North Carolina hasn’t seceded yet, Sarah. I know we probably will, but right now we’re just as much a part of the United States as Massachusetts is.”

“You know what I mean. Just read through the letter, try to be civil next week, and…Goodnight.”

Always the genteel young lady, Sarah curtsied, turned toward her room, and was gone in an instant.

Reluctant to read what her mother had written, Charlie sat on her bed, stared at the letter for a moment, and began to read.

“Well, I love you too.” Charlie crushed the letter into a ball, threw it across the room, and thought for a moment. She would certainly do everything she could to keep her father’s business deal intact. Even as the old lady said, Charlie had been extraordinarily polite to Mr. Mansfield when he visited months earlier. There was no reason to show the more colorful side to her personality when he was around because Charlie found him to be a pleasant man.

But no, she didn’t care one way or the other about her mother’s possible new social ties or the fact that she was, once again, going to try to push another spoiled young rich-boy onto Madeline.

Thinking for a moment that she should just hide in the woods tomorrow so they would have to leave without her, Charlie remembered that she was going to see Boston. That city had some of the finest museums and libraries in the country, and she hoped that she would be able to go see an opera. Charlie also had an odd wish to see the darker, more sordid side of the city but she knew that would never happen. She had read books that included stories about dangerous brothels and pubs in the back alleys of big cities, and just to see either of those would be a thrill that she’d remember for the rest of her life.

“But no Charlie, that would be dangerous. And we all know that sweet little Southern girls and danger don’t mix.”

Rolling her eyes and feeling a unnerved about how much she sounded like her mother just then, Charlie took off her robe and scooted under the covers. She expected to lie awake for hours with all that was on her mind, but she thankfully slipped off into a sweet, dreamless sleep almost instantly.