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country with his artist pencils and brushes so that those who never left the stuffy confines of their sitting rooms could feel the majesty of the country’s wide-open spaces. He considered himself more than an artist. He was a reporter.
    Still, it might be interesting to get to know the senator’s daughter better. She seemed to be as much a contradiction of feelings as her state of Kentucky. Speaking of marrying one man while quite willingly surrendering her lips to another. The strong lift of her chin contrasting to the soft line of her cheek. Her determination in the face of the impossibility of her dream of marriage if the young man fleeing her was serious about joining with the Shakers.
    Adam rubbed his fingertips and thumb together in anticipation at the thought of the Shakers. Their village just a few miles from where he stood in the senator’s garden—another reason he was not sorry to be in Mercer County. Sam Johnson, the editor at Harper’s Weekly , was eager to see sketches of their buildings and the graceful winding staircases that so amazed all visitors.
    While Adam was ready to supply whatever illustrations the editor requested, he was more curious about the peculiar people who would choose such a life. Men and women who had turned against all that was natural between a man and woman as if they believed the Lord had changed his mind about his initial command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply.
    With a reputation as peaceful, honest, and industrious, the Shakers nevertheless were generally depicted as being dour and exceedingly plain in appearance. Especially the sisters whose uniform white caps and shapeless dresses obscured any hint of feminine charm.
    Adam had once visited a Shaker village in the East, but had not been free to wander among the Believers, as they called themselves. Here in Kentucky, he’d heard the public road went straight through the village so a man could surely see much of the Shakers’ way of life without being invited into their midst. He wanted to see them when they weren’t presenting a face to the world they took such pains to shut away. He wanted to watch the children and see if they looked glad to be in the village or if they were uneasy captives. He wanted to sketch their likenesses when they weren’t aware of his pencil strokes, perhaps even sketch them whirling in their worship dances. He liked the challenge of capturing the illusion of movement in a drawing.
    Perhaps this Edwin Gilbey who had fled from the beautiful Charlotte could be his ticket into the village. Adam left the quiet of the garden behind with a bit of regret. Parties could be tiresome with too many young ladies concocting ploys to get his attention. Then as he climbed up the veranda steps, he thought of the senator’s daughter and how even now he could taste her sweet innocence on his lips. He knew which young lady his eyes would be seeking as the music continued to play into the night.
    His time in Kentucky stretched before him with much promise. In spite of the threat of a civil confrontation. Or perhaps because of it. What better place to be than in the middle of a divided state where it would be easy to sketch the faces of both sides.
    On the veranda, he paused where Charlotte had stood so motionless, but all he could see was the graceful lift of tree limbs not yet bedecked with leaves as they cast moonlit shadows over the long lane up to the house. His gaze lingered on the road as he wondered if her yearning had been to follow that road away from the life she knew. If so, she shared kinship with him. He’d never seen a road he wasn’t eager to travel.

4
    It was past midnight when the last guests finally called for their carriages and the door shut behind them. Charlotte was left alone in the entryway with her father and his new wife.
    The silence that fell over them beat against Charlotte’s eardrums, but she didn’t trot out any polite words to ease the tension as she faced this woman