Carolina Gold Read online

  Acclaim for Dorothy Love

  “Carolina Gold is a beautifully written story of love rising from the ashes of war. Readers will instantly warm to Charlotte, a courageous young woman set on restoring her family’s rice plantation after the ravages of the Civil War, and they will marvel at Love’s unerring eye for detail as she brings the historical lowcountry—with all of its wonder and mystery—to life.

  —BETH WEBB HART, BEST-SELLING

  AUTHOR OF MOON OVER EDISTO

  “Lovers of historical fiction and the South Carolina lowcountry will enjoy the world of Carolina Gold. Dorothy Love’s well-researched tale reflects of one woman’s steadfast determination to rebuild a life among the ashes of the post-war South.”

  —LISA WINGATE, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF

  THE PRAYER BOX AND THE SEA GLASS SISTERS

  “With well-drawn characters and just enough suspense to keep the pages turning, this winning debut will be a hit with fans of Gilbert Morris and Lauraine Snelling.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL STARRED REVIEW

  OF BEYOND ALL MEASURE

  “You’ll adore this book from beginning to end. The story will capture your heart from the first line.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES, 4 ½ STAR REVIEW

  OF BEYOND ALL MEASURE

  “[Every Perfect Gift] is certainly a gift to readers.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “Beautifully written and with descriptions so rich I’m still certain I caught a whiff of magnolia blossoms as I read. Beyond All Measure is pure Southern delight! Dorothy Love weaves a stirring romance that’s both gloriously detailed with Tennessee history and that uplifts and inspires the heart.”

  —TAMERA ALEXANDER, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

  OF THE INHERITANCE AND WITHIN MY HEART

  “Soft as a breeze from the Old South and as gentle as the haze hovering over the Great Smokies, the gifted flow of Dorothy Love’s pen casts a spell of love, hate, and hope in post–Civil War Tennessee. With rich, fluid prose, characters who breathe onto the page, and a wealth of historical imagery, Beyond All Measure will steal both your heart and your sleep well beyond the last page.”

  —JULIE LESSMAN, BEST-SELLING

  AUTHOR OF A HOPE UNDAUNTED

  “Find a porch swing, pour yourself a tall glass of lemonade: [Beyond All Measure] is the perfect summer read!”

  —SIRI MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF A HEART MOST WORTHY

  “Dorothy Love captures all the romance, charm, and uncertainties of the postbellum South, delighting readers with her endearing characters, historical details, and vivid writing style.”

  —MARGARET BROWNLEY, AUTHOR OF A LADY

  LIKE SARAH, REGARDING BEYOND ALL MEASURE

  “Beauty for Ashes is a touching story about finding joy and healing in the midst of heartache. Set in the small town of Hickory Ridge, Dorothy Love takes readers on a beautifully written journey into the heart of the South during the years that followed the Civil War. As her characters search for healing, they must choose to either cling to the past or trade the bitterness in their hearts for love.”

  —MELANIE DOBSON, AWARD-WINNING

  AUTHOR OF THE SILENT ORDER AND LOVE

  FINDS YOU IN LIBERTY, INDIANA

  “Dorothy Love paints a vivid picture of the post–Civil War South [and] the need to rebuild hope. And she does it beautifully . . .”

  —CATHY GOHLKE, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF

  PROMISE ME THIS, REGARDING BEAUTY FOR ASHES

  Also by Dorothy Love

  The Hickory Ridge novels

  Beyond All Measure

  Beauty for Ashes

  Every Perfect Gift

  © 2013 by Dorothy Love

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Scripture quoted in chapter 4 is Psalm 71:19, quoted from the Psalter of the 1728 Book of Common Prayer (in use at the time this book was set). Text can be found at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/Psalms2.htm.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Love, Dorothy, 1949-

  Carolina gold / Dorothy Love.

  pages cm

  Summary: “The war is over, but at Fairhaven Plantation, Charlotte’s struggle has just begun. Charlotte Fraser returns to her late father’s once-flourishing rice plantation on the Waccamaw River, determined to continue his tradition of growing the special kind of rice known as Carolina Gold. But Fairhaven Plantation is in ruins, the bondsmen are free, and money is scarce.To make ends meet, Charlotte reluctantly accepts a position as tutor to the young daughters of Nicholas Betancourt, heir to the neighboring Willowood Plantation. Then Nick’s quest to prove his ownership of Fairhaven sends Charlotte on a dangerous journey that uncovers a family mystery. and threatens all that she holds dear. Inspired by historical events, Carolina Gold weaves together mystery, romance, and rich historical detail, bringing to life the story of one young woman’s struggle to restore her ruined world”-- Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-8761-8 (pbk.)

  1. Women plantation owners—Fiction. 2. Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)—South Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3562.O8387C37 2013

  813'.54—dc23

  2013025299

  Printed in the United States of America

  13 14 15 16 17 18 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  From the collections of the South Carolina Historical Society

  Dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Waties Allston Pringle (1845–1921), whose remarkable life and work inspired this novel

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Author’s Note

  Reading Group Guide

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire . . . which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

  WASHINGTON IRVING

  One

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  3 March 1868

  In a quiet alcove off the hotel lobby, Charlotte Fraser perched on a worn horsehair chair, nursing a cup of lukewarm tea. A wind-driven freshet lashed the windows and roiled the bruise-colored sky, sending the pedestrians along Chalmers Street scurrying for shelter, jostling one another amid a sea
of black umbrellas.

  She glanced at the clock mounted on the wall above the polished mahogany reception desk and pressed a hand to her midsection to quell her nerves. An hour remained before her appointment with her father’s lawyer. She had anticipated the meeting for weeks with equal measures of hope and dread, her happiness at the prospect of returning home to the river tempered by fear of what she would find waiting for her. In the war’s crushing aftermath, Fortune had cast her powerful eye upon all of the Lowcountry and passed on by.

  A black carriage shiny with rain executed a wide turn onto Meeting Street, the harness rattling as the conveyance halted beneath the porte cochere. The hotel door opened on a gust of wind and rain that guttered the lamps still burning against the afternoon gloom. A young man wearing a rain-splotched cape escorted his lady to the reception desk. He signed the register, then bent to his companion and whispered into her ear. An endearment perhaps. Or a secret.

  “Every family has its secrets. And its regrets.” Charlotte set down her cup. Such strange words from Papa, who had been widely respected for his forthright manner. At the time, she’d had a strong feeling he was trying to tell her something important. Now the memory pinged inside her head like a knife against glass, prickling her skin. But perhaps such talk was merely the product of the laudanum clouding his brain during his final hours.

  For weeks following his funeral, Charlotte’s natural optimism lay trapped beneath a cloak of sorrow and she could feel little but the jagged edges of her grief. Now it had softened into something less painful. Acceptance, if not yet peace. And, as the indignities brought on by Reconstruction multiplied, gratitude that death had spared him yet another cruel irony. As former slaves wrestled with the implications of their freedom, their masters were mired in poverty that made their own futures just as uncertain.

  Despite her personal hardships, Charlotte was relieved that slavery had ended. At twenty-three she was too young and too inexperienced to assume responsibility for the welfare of so many others. During long nights when sleep eluded her and her problems crowded in, she sometimes doubted whether she could look after herself.

  When the clock chimed the three-quarter hour, she gathered her cloak, reticule, and umbrella and crossed the hotel lobby, the sound of her footfalls lost in the thick carpet.

  The doorman, a stocky red-haired man of uncertain years, touched the brim of his hat. “Shall I find a carriage for you, Miss Fraser?”

  “Thank you, but it isn’t necessary. I’m going to my lawyer’s office just down the street.”

  He peered through the leaded-glass door. “Rain’s slacking off some, but the walk will feel like miles in this damp.”

  She fished a coin from her bag. “Will you see that my trunks are delivered to the steamship office right away?”

  “Certainly.” He pocketed the coin and held the door open for her. “Take care you don’t get a chill, miss.”

  She threw her cloak over her stiff crepe mourning dress, stepped from beneath the hotel’s protective awning, and hurried down the street, rain thumping onto the stretched silk of her umbrella. Meeting Street hummed with carriages and drays, freight wagons and pedestrians headed in a dozen different directions. A buggy carrying a dark-skinned woman in a pink-plumed hat raced past, the wheels splashing dirty water onto the sidewalk. At the corner of Meeting and Broad, a Yankee officer stood chatting with two burly Negro men smoking cheroots. Charlotte picked her way along the slick cobblestones, past the remnants of burned-out buildings and the rubble of crumbled chimneys, feeling estranged from a city she knew like the back of her hand.

  As long as Papa was alive, she’d felt connected to every street and lane, every shop and church spire, every secret garden beckoning from the narrow shadowed alleys. Now everything had been upended. Nobody was where they were supposed to be and she was floating, adrift in a strange new world with no one to guide her.

  She dodged a group of noisy boys emerging from a bookshop and gathered her skirts to avoid the dirty water splashing from the wheels of another passing carriage. Beneath the sheltering awning of a confectioner’s shop, two women watched her progress along the street, their faces drawn into identical disapproving frowns. No doubt they thought it inappropriate for a young woman to walk on the street unescorted. She lifted her chin and met the older women’s gazes as she passed. If they knew the purpose of her visit to the lawyer, perhaps they’d be even further scandalized.

  At the law office, she made her way up the steps and rang the bell.

  Mr. Crowley, a wizened man with a bulbous nose and a fringe of white hair, opened the door. “Miss Fraser. Right on time, I see. Do come in.”

  She left her dripping umbrella in the brass stand in the anteroom, crossed the bare wooden floor, and took the seat he indicated. She folded her hands in her lap and waited while he settled himself and thumbed through the pile of documents littering his desk.

  Through the window she watched people and conveyances making their way along the street, ghostlike in the oyster-colored light of the waning afternoon. Down the block a lantern struggled against the gloom, casting a shining path on the rain-varnished cobblestones. Music from a partially opened window across the street filtered into the chilly office. Somebody practicing Chopin.

  She felt a prick of loss. According to their neighbors, the Federals had destroyed her piano on one of their wartime raids up the Waccamaw River. Probably everything else as well. Since the war’s end, the difficulties of travel and her father’s prolonged illness had prevented her from learning firsthand whether anything was left of Fairhaven Plantation.

  “Well, Mr. Crowley?” Charlotte consulted the ornate wall clock behind his desk. Captain Arthur’s steamship, Resolute, traveled from Charleston to Georgetown only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. She meant to be aboard for tomorrow morning’s departure. If she could ever get an answer from the lawyer. “What about my father’s will?”

  Without looking up, he raised one finger. Wait.

  She tamped down her growing impatience. Waiting was about all she had been able to do since Papa’s death. That and worrying about how she would make her way in the world alone. Now that the war was lost and all the bondsmen were free, the rice trade that had provided her with a comfortable life was in danger of disappearing altogether. She was trained for nothing else.

  At last Mr. Crowley looked up, wire spectacles sliding down his nose. “The will has been entered into the record and duly recognized by the court.” He paged through a file, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “But?”

  “I’d feel much better if your father had provided a copy of the grant to his barony.” He studied her over the top of his spectacles. “You’re certain he left no other papers behind?”

  “No, none.” She felt a jolt of panic. “Does that pose a problem?”

  “I hope not. There’s a new law on the books that provides for testimony regarding lost wills and deeds and such, but if you’ve never seen such a document, then you can hardly swear to its existence in court.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Now that the Yankees have taken over, they can seize whatever they want in the name of Reconstruction.” He snorted. “Reconstruction, my eye. Theft is more like it.” He leaned forward, both palms pressed to his desk, and blew out a long breath. “Lacking proof of your father’s grant just makes it that much easier for them. Frankly I’m surprised he left no record behind. He seemed like a man who left little to chance. But I suppose we all have our shortcomings.”

  Charlotte toyed with the clasp on her reticule. As a small child she had thought Papa the perfect embodiment of wisdom, intelligence, and prudence. A man without shortcomings. Only occasionally had she glimpsed moments in which he seemed lost to time and place, standing apart and alone, an unreadable expression in his dark eyes. She still revered him as the finest man in Carolina, the only man in the world in whom she had absolute faith and confidence. Learning of such a grave oversight had come as a shock.

>   She met the lawyer’s calm gaze. “I don’t know why the Yankees would want my land now. According to everything I’ve heard, they just about destroyed every plantation on the Waccamaw—and the Pee Dee too.”

  “Exactly. And sentiment aside, I can’t fathom what a lovely young woman such as yourself would want with such a ruin.”

  “You’ve seen it, then? You’ve been to Fairhaven?”

  “No, but all I’ve done since the war ended is work with the other rice planters, and the story is the same all over. I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that the Yankees and the freed slaves have stolen everything. Right down to the linens off the beds at Mrs. Allston’s place.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. Papa said it was a blessing Governor Allston passed on before that sad day came. Chicora Wood meant so much to him.”

  Mr. Crowley nodded. “I can’t imagine that your plantation has fared any better.”

  She swallowed the knot in her throat. In his last months, Papa had spoken of little else but the bewildering loss that had stunned the entire Confederacy. Following General Lee’s surrender, everyone hoped the worst was over. No one realized that the future under Yankee occupation would become a tragedy all its own.

  Mr. Crowley leaned back in his chair, causing it to squeak. “While I was looking into your father’s will, Gabriel Titus over at the bank told me you’d applied for credit.”

  “That’s right. To buy rice seeds. And whatever else I need to make Fairhaven profitable again.”

  He shook his head. “Forgive me, Miss Fraser, but if an experienced planter like Ben Allston can’t make a go of it, what makes you think you can?”

  “Because I have no choice. The plantation and our summer cottage on Pawley’s Island are all I have left in the world.”

  “You’d be better off to sell both of them and get yourself a nice little room here in town. Or better yet, find yourself a stable gentleman and settle down.”

  Charlotte bit back a tart reply. More than a quarter million Southern men had been lost to the war, and many who survived had come home maimed in body or spirit or both, missing limbs and their fortunes. Just who in the world did Mr. Crowley think she could marry? “Mr. Titus told me that no one is interested in paying a fair price for Fairhaven or for Pelican Cottage. It would be quite impossible to sell even if I wanted to.”