Free The Colonel's Lady by Clifton Adams

has cavalry and infantry massed to hit Sheridan's left flank at the same time. It would never work, though, unless we disrupt Yankee communications by an attack on their headquarters.”
    “Do you mean General Lee is to begin an offensive in the valley?”
    “Not exactly. But, by throwing the Union armies into confusion, Lee gains time to regroup his scattered forces around Petersburg.” Then I said, vainly and foolishly, “I'm a captain now, Caroline. Our commander was killed on the James last month.”
    “Two nights from now...” she said thoughtfully.
    “You've got to come with me, Caroline.”
    “I'm safe here, Matt. Safer than I would be trying to get through the Yankee lines.”
    She wouldn't come. She said again that it would be foolish to leave all her fine china and silver and linens for the soldiers to ruin or steal.
    “Matt, if General Early's attack is a success, this land will be in Confederate hands again.”
    “Yes, that's possible.”
    “Then, don't you see, it would be better for me to stay.”

    “There was nothing I could say to change your mind,” I said. “You stayed.”
    “What?” Caroline said, surprised, and I guessed that I had been speaking my thoughts. Outside, on the Larrymoor parade, the high-pitched cavalry bugle sounded insignificant and lost in the vastness of the desert.
    “I was just thinking of something,” I said. “I was thinking of Three Fork Road. I've known for a long time that you told the Yankees we were gathered there, but I didn't know until the other day why you did it, Caroline.”
    Her mouth was thin-pressed, determined. She was going to face it out.
    “You picked Weyland for some reason,” I said. “He was young, ambitious, came from a good family, probably. Sweetbriar was lost, so there was nothing I could give you. Nothing the South could give you. So you told Weyland about our gathering at Three Fork and he made the charge that wiped my company out. And Early's attack was broken up before it got started.”
    She paled slightly, that was all.
    “Weyland was a great hero after that,” I went on, “just as you had known he would be. Promotions came fast for him. It would seem that Weyland was a very fortunate man, except for one thing. He was in love with you, Caroline.” The wine I held suddenly became bitter and I put it down. “I just wanted to see if you would deny it,” I said. “That, I guess, is the reason I came to Larrymoor.”
    She stood up then, perfectly composed. She smiled suddenly and without warning. “That's not the real reason, Matt,” she said. “You came to Larrymoor because you're still in love with me.”
    I had known it all along, and so had she, but still it was a shock hearing the words spoken in the silent room. Then—I don't know how it happened—I was holding her.
    She walked to me and my arms went out and closed around her. Her head went back for a moment and I looked into those deep blue eyes of hers, as deep as an ocean, as the sky, and then I crushed my mouth against hers with a viciousness and fury that I had never known before. For a moment I imagined that there was the scent of honeysuckle in the room and that I could hear Captain Fitzhugh Dunham's orchestra playing:
    It matters little now, Lorena;
The past is in the eternal past....
    “Matt.”
    “Yes.”
    “It's true. Everything you said is true. But, don't you see, I couldn't stay in Virginia and watch the South die, the South I had loved so much. I couldn't stand it, Matt, I had to get away.”
    “Did you have to betray it because you loved it? Did you have to inform against me? Twenty-eight men died that day because of you, Caroline.”
    “They would have died anyway, most of them. The entire South was dying. That day or some other day, what difference did it make?” Her hands went behind my head and pulled my face down to hers. “Do you still love me, Matt?”
    “I don't know. God help me if I do.”
    I kissed her again and she said, “Yes, you