Love, Come to Me(10)

“The Register was a big paper, wasn’t it? You must have gotten published often.”

“Often enough.”

“Do you have any copies of what you’ve written?”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“That’s too bad. I’d like to read something of yours. Did you use your initials or—”

“Rebel. That was my pseudonym. I couldn’t use my initials, since I occasionally took unpopular stands. My . . . associates . . . wouldn’t have appreciated the fact that I could never see angels and golden banners flying over the battlefield. All I could see were wounds and indignity. Even when we won the battle, I couldn’t see triumph in all that wretchedness . . . but then, maybe I lacked imagination.”

Wearing a stricken expression, she stared at him. “Your pseudonym wasn’t really Rebel, was it?”

“You don’t like it?”

“That’s not what . . . I mean . . . I have read something of yours. They reprinted them in some of the newspapers up here. You wrote about the fall of Atlanta better than anyone—”

“Well, I really was walking down the center of the road if something I wrote was printed in a Yankee paper.”

“Don’t make light of it. I read what Rebel—what you wrote, over and over again . . . the refugees, and the children in the street, and the deserters. You’re not teasing me, are you? I would never, never forgive you if you weren’t telling me the truth about this—”

“I’m not teasing you, Lucy.” Suddenly Heath’s face was grave and hard.

“You wrote a book about the war after it ended . . . or at least someone using the name Rebel did—”

“I wrote it.”

“Everyone’s read it . . . well, I haven’t yet—but I will.”

“Please do. My royalties have been diminishing lately.”

Lucy didn’t smile. She sat there, staring down at the paper in her hands without seeing a word. That article about Atlanta was one of her few vivid memories of the war. Concord had been so far away from the actual fighting that she had felt removed from all of it, reminded of it mostly by the fact of Daniel’s absence and her own work in the Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society. And then, the reporter named Rebel had written about the battles in Georgia, the people fleeing Marietta in droves, the weariness and desperation of the besieged city of Atlanta. His words had been so bleak and dismal that she had finally understood just a little of the horror it had been for all those people to see their world being torn up. It was difficult to believe that the man in front of her was that reporter.

“We all looked for more articles by you,” she said. “We were sure that whatever you wrote about the surrender would be printed. But there wasn’t anything.”

“I wasn’t at the surrender. Wounded at Harpeth Creek. We were sent on a suicidal charge. A noble, lastditch effort to win the war. At that time, we figured there wasn’t much to lose. Most of the regiment was killed.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t,” Lucy said, her eyes moistening with tears despite her will to hold them off. He looked up in surprise at the quaver in her tone, then shook his head and smiled ruefully.

“You’re too softhearted.”

“I know. Daniel says I shouldn’t cry so easily, but sometimes I—”

“Daniel again. I don’t believe I’ve ever known a man so well and disliked him so much without ever having met him.”

She chuckled at that and swallowed hard against the biting tears.

His hand slid over hers, enclosing her fingers in the warmth and strength of his. Though she did nothing to encourage him, not even daring to look at him, her pulse became light and rapid, and an almost pleasant sensation of nervousness took hold of her. Slowly, she turned her palm up to meet his, and their fingers laced together. A strange and unfamiliar sweetness seemed to drift through her body. There’s nothing wrong in holding hands, she told herself defensively. Yet somehow, this felt disloyal to Daniel, finding such pleasure in the touch of another man. The gentle clasp tightened briefly; then, Heath pulled away, leaving Lucy with a feeling of deprivation.

“I’m going to see about splitting some wood,” he said, and she nodded silently, suddenly confused and eager to be away from him, and reluctant to let him go.

Chapter 2

The dunking in the river had been even more of a disaster for Lucy’s walking dress than for Lucy. The garment was shrunken in some places and oddly misshapen in others. Futilely she fussed with the velvet plaits that looped the sides of the overskirt up. She retied the brown satin ribbons several times, but it was impossible to disguise the damage. She was thankful that her cloak would cover everything until she could find a way to dispose of the clothes secretly. Even though her father was meticulous about the details of his store, he was absentminded about most matters concerning his daughter, and he would never notice the absence of a few garments.

This morning there was a thoughtful silence between Lucy and Heath, a silence that was puzzling in light of the easiness of their earlier conversations. He took her to the village in a small carriage drawn by a dappled gray gelding, and as they neared Concord green, the pace of the horse seemed to slow down.

“Almost there,” Lucy said reluctantly, realizing that her strange adventure of the past two days was coming to an end. Suddenly it occurred to her that there were things she had not talked about with him, things that should have been discussed. “Heath, wait. Could you stop the carriage?” His eyes, shining cool and blue-green in the daylight, flickered to her as he pulled on the reins, easing the horse to a halt. “There is something we have to decide,” Lucy continued, her voice subdued. “About how we’re going to behave if we see each other in public. I don’t want to treat you as if you’re a stranger to me, not after what you’ve done for me . . . but I can’t let on that I know you!”