Once in a Blue Moon Read online

  Once in a Blue Moon

  Once Upon a Time Book 3

  Kathryn Kelly

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Kathryn Kelly

  Beyond Enemy Lines Excerpt

  Beyond Enemy Lines

  The last known surviving Civil War Confederate veteran died in 1951. His name was Pleasant Crump. The last known Civil War Union veteran died in 1956. His name was Albert Woolson – a drummer boy. One of the last known slaves was Peters Mills who died in 1972.

  The American Civil War happened. Here. On American soil. It ripped this country apart from stem to stern. Some of you reading this may remember someone who lived through the War Between the States. Whatever we call it, this war happened. Men and women bled and died on our soil. They died for their beliefs. They died protecting their homes and loved ones. Others even died protecting strangers.

  Confederate and Union. Brother against brother. This book is a tribute to all those who lived and died fighting for their country.

  If we had walked in their shoes, wouldn’t it be likely that we would have done the same?

  I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?

  -- Robert E. Lee

  Prologue

  As Arabella Becquerel unfolded the letter in her hands, the faded parchment paper crinkled beneath her fingertips. She slid her toes out of her black pumps. Then glancing at the attorney watching her as he finished up a phone call at his wide uncluttered desk across the room, slid her foot back into her shoe.

  She was confused by the formality of her great-grandmother Vaughn’s estate attorney. When her great-grandfather Jonathan died fourteen months ago, the estate had seamlessly passed to her great-grandmother. That was when Arabella learned that Jonathan had put everything he owned in Vaughn’s name before they were even married – before his last deployment to Vietnam.

  After Jonathan had died peacefully in his sleep at the age of eighty-four, the light had gone out of her great-grandmother’s eyes. Arabella was convinced that Vaughn had died of a broken heart. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

  Arabella’s cell phone blinked with a text message. She glanced at her phone resting next to her on the plush dark brown sofa.

  How much longer?

  Her fiancé, Matthew Caldwell Jennings, III, had been miffed when she’d asked him to wait in the lobby. Even though she was engaged to be married to him and he was an attorney to boot, it hadn’t felt right to have him there when the attorney went over Vaughn’s estate.

  It was something Arabella wanted – needed – to do alone.

  Ignoring Matthew’s impatience, she opened the letter and blinked back a fresh wave of tears as she recognized her great-grandmother’s handwriting.

  My dearest Arabella,

  Right about now, you’re going to be wondering at the mystery surrounding my estate.

  Arabella would have smiled under other circumstances. Instead, she swallowed the lump in her throat. Taking a deep breath, she continued reading.

  There are things – so many things – I haven’t told you. As you read this letter, you’ll have a better understanding about why I worked so hard to instill a love of history in you. Why history is so interwoven in our shared blood.

  Arabella’s eyes blurred with moisture and she put a hand over her eyes. Her throat burned as a sob escaped her fragile self-control. Her tears fell on the paper and smudged the ink of Vaughn’s signature at the bottom of letter. Arabella gasped when she noticed her tears on the paper. She wiped at the letter, but only succeeded in smudging the ink and blurring Vaughn’s words.

  Chapter 1

  Turn right in one hundred feet.

  Arabella grasped the leather steering wheel of her 2018 Acura platinum white sedan and turned the car onto what looked more like a muddy walking trail than a road. “Seriously?” She muttered to herself.

  It was nothing like the paved streets and highways of Baton Rouge, Louisiana that she’d learned to drive on. It was baffling that her great-grandmother had lived here in the countryside outside of Natchez until taking Arabella to raise thirty years ago. It was only more baffling that Arabella didn’t know this until after her great-grandmother’s death.

  She pulled up in front of the white antebellum mansion with two empty black rockers on the porch and turned off the motor. Just like the quintessential plantation houses lining the River Road of the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, huge pillars lined the veranda that wrapped around the house like a moat around a castle. French doors and windows opened the house up from floor to ceiling. The fresh white paint was highlighted by vibrant pink azaleas around the veranda. Unbeknownst
to Arabella until three weeks ago, her grandparents had paid a neighbor to keep the house up.

  For thirty years.

  Her great-grandmother, it seemed, had a surreptitious talent in financial matters.

  Her heart ached as she walked up the steps to stand at the front door. She was pretty sure she was the reason her grandparents had moved from here to Baton Rouge, though the reason was lost somewhere within the smudged words of Vaughn’s letter to her.

  Holding the key in her hand, she hesitated. It was surreal that this house now belonged to her.

  She gasped as the door opened, her feet frozen as she fought the urge to run back to the safety of her car. Who could be here in this abandoned house?

  A man, maybe mid-sixties, opened the door and grinned at her. “You must be Arabella.”

  “Yes.” She managed to keep her feet planted securely in place. And put what she hoped passed for a smile on her face.

  “I’m Jerry.”

  Ah. The caretaker. “You live here then?”

  His eyes widened sheepishly. “Only temporarily. My house flooded out and I needed a place to stay while I basically rebuilt it. My wife is staying with her sister in Jackson. It didn’t seem right for us both to be living here.”

  “It’s quite alright,” Arabella assured him. “A house breathes better with someone inside.”

  He sighed with relief. “I didn’t get a chance to run it by your great-grandmother on account of her taking sick and all.” He lowered his eyes. “I sure am sorry to hear of her passing.”

  Arabella swallowed the lump in her throat and said the words that were expected. By now they were automatic. “Thank you. It means a lot to me for you to say so.”

  “Come on in here.” Jerry opened the door wide for her to follow him inside.

  She stepped into the foyer onto the polished mahogany floor reflecting light from the chandelier above. An odd sense of familiarity swept through her.

  She walked to a nearly black rosewood grandfather clock standing next to the staircase and studied its faded dial. The case was decorated with ornate columns. The clock’s face wore a jagged rip between the Roman numerals six and seven.

  She opened the little glass door and ran her fingertips along the rip.

  “I apologize. What?” She realized Jerry was talking, but instead of turning toward him, she kept her gaze on the clock. It was silent. “Is it broken?”

  “Oh no. That scar’s been there since the Civil War.”

  “No. The clock. It isn’t ticking.”

  “It’s over two hundred years old, but I don’t think it’s broken. It needs winding, but I don’t know where the key is.”

  Arabella tugged on a platinum chain she wore around her neck and pulled a key from beneath her sweater. She swept the chain over her head, inserted the key, and wound the clock.

  “How did you…?” Jerry stopped talking and stood silently as she closed the glass door and the clock began to tick.

  “Much better.” She said, looking around now. “You were saying?”

  “Never mind. If you’re going to be staying for awhile, I can make other arrangements.”

  She turned and met his gaze. “There’s no need for that. It’s a big house. You’ll hardly even know I’m here.”

  She went up the stairs and stopped on the landing to look out the wavy glass of the eight-foot-high window. The evening sun drifted over the tall pine trees that started a few yards past the lawn. Someone, probably Jerry, kept the lawn manicured. She placed one hand on the thick indigo French brocade draperies tied back on either side. Leaning her forehead against the smooth wooden frame, she rested her eyes.

  Her great-grandmother Vaughn had always been prone to flights of fancy. Since Arabella was a child, she had told her tales of the south when the south was in its prime. When men and their ladies attended grand balls, waltzing beneath the moonlight.

  What she hadn’t told Arabella was that she owned a southern antebellum home. This was no doubt where Jonathan had come when he’d gone on hunting trips. Hunting trips that didn’t seem to involve any hunting.

  Yet her great-grandmother stayed away from here and went to extremes to keep Arabella away.

  Jerry followed her up the stairs. “Miss Arabella. There’s something else.”

  Turning, she looked at Jerry who was rubbing the beard on his chin. “What is it?” She smiled. He seemed like a nice man, but he was a nervous sort. “What is it Jerry?”

  “Before my house flooded, I’d started renovating the bedrooms. About the time I got everything pulled out, my house flooded, so I haven’t gotten back to it. I have some neighbors willing to help if need be, but the renovations are taking longer than I expected. So I’m sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs.”

  “Okay,” Arabella said and continued upstairs.

  “So there really isn’t any place for you to sleep.”

  She stopped, looking down the stairs at him. “It’s okay. I’ll make do.” She went upstairs and peeked into each bedroom, one by one. Just as Jerry had warned, the bedrooms were in disarray. All the furniture and art work had been moved into one room. One daybed had been left accessible and the bedding had been left thrown back and a little 12-inch television sat balanced on a chair next to the bed. This was obviously where Jerry was sleeping.

  In the remaining rooms, the floors and light fixtures were covered in plastic, the windows and wall outlets were lined with painter’s tape, and all the doors had been removed. One room had a set of sawhorses set up and a table saw and other tools as well as planks of wood to replace sections that were damaged.

  “These are serious renovations.” Without turning, she knew he was behind her, waiting in the hallway.

  “I know.” His voice held notes of apology. “Miss Vaughn met me in town before she took ill. She wouldn’t come near the house, but I showed her pictures of what needed to be done. She knew every inch of this house.”

  “It’s a travesty she didn’t come back here.”

  “Yeah, do you know what happened?”

  “I wish I did,” Arabella said. “Would you be a dear and find me some bedding? I’ll sleep in the parlor.”

  When he went off to search for bedding, she blew out her breath and walked through the master bedroom. She fervently wished that she could have spent time here with her great-grandparents, Jonathan and Vaughn. The true reason of why they never brought her here and why Vaughn never came near the house may forever be a mystery.

  This was her house now and she intended to live here. Eventually.

  But… there was much to be done first.

  As she turned from the room, she noticed a storm brewing in the distance. The dark clouds were banked among the tips of the tall oak trees.

  A flash of lightening was followed seconds later by a rumble of thunder. She shivered.

  Chapter 2

  Colonel Augustus Townsend stood on the veranda of the plantation house and watched as his men turned what had been immaculate grounds into a Confederate camp replete with tents, fires, and horses everywhere.

  They’d ridden hard for three days. The horses needed to rest. The Union forces were tightening their ranks around Vicksburg. Augustus needed to get his men there before the fighting started, but they were still a full four day’s march out.

  Augustus was Southern through and through. He’d grown up in the South and with the exception of three years at West Point, he’d lived his entire life in the south. His job as a soldier was to protect the people of the south – his people. As far as he was concerned, that was the whole point of this damnable war.

  Behind the house looked like a refugee camp. As they passed through small towns and farms on their northern trek from New Orleans to Vicksburg, he saw it as his duty to warn the people that the war was coming to their doorstep.

  Most of the war was to their east - Atlanta, West Virginia - he’d give them that, but the war was here, too. Without soldiers to protect them, the people would be exposed. He encour
aged them to follow his troops to Vicksburg. Once they were safely there, he and General Pemberton’s men together, could defeat the enemy. On the ground of their choosing.

  In the hour since their arrival, Augustus had determined that this house belonged to Charles and Erika Becquerel. Charles was fighting – somewhere - and his wife had gone to stay for the duration of the war in New Orleans with her sister-in-law.

  Nonetheless, the house was teaming with people. The Becquerels appeared to be his kindred spirits. They turned no one away from their door, including the servants that they had set free.