Free Hearts Under Siege (Civil War Collection) by Kathryn Kelly Page A

shift of his face, he could kiss her.
    He held his breath. She tossed her hands about inside his bag.
    “Here it is.” She withdrew her hand, her fingers wrapped around the small, almost full bottle of whiskey. He sighed with disappointment as the moment passed.
    Her face flushed, and she stiffened her spine.
    You’re embarrassed, my dear. He smiled.
    She didn’t meet his gaze but poured whiskey into the wound.
    He flinched. She saturated a cloth from her saddlebag and squeezed it deeper into the wound. Reaching behind him, she did the same to the exit wound. She pulled back and smiled.
    “What?” he asked.
    “You deserve credit for not fainting. Most men would have.”
    This warmed him inside. Using a fresh strip of cloth she took from his bag, she asked him to lift his arms. He accommodated her, and she twirled the bandage around his chest.
    “You’re good at that,” Thomas said, his voice gruff from the pain.
    “My mother taught me to tend basic wounds. It’s expected of women on the plantations.”
    “Ah, yes,” he said. “The life of plantation leisure is merely a myth for the southern belle.”
    Frowning, she tied the ends of the cloth together.
    “Not really,” she said. “We have slaves to help us.”
    “Yes, but you have to watch their every movement.”
    “You have an unusual perspective, Captain Munroe. One can only wonder which uniform you wear with your heart.”
    “Even if I told you, what reason would you have to believe me?”
    She sighed. “Are we circling back around toward Vicksburg?” she asked as if to distract him.
    “No.”
    She studied him. He clenched his teeth. His shoulder throbbed.
    “Then what do you have planned?” she asked, more gently.
    “I’m taking you home.”
    “No!” she cried, too quickly.
    Thomas glanced at her, skeptical. With the supplies gone, what need could she possibly have to go on to Vicksburg?
    “I um…I have a letter I must deliver to my aunt,” she said with a quivering voice.
    “An aunt? Where? In Vicksburg?”
    “Yes. My Aunt Maggie, my father’s sister, lives there,” she said.
    You’re lying.
    “My grandfather handed me the letter just before I left.” She reached up and placed her hand over her blouse, and her eyes misted over.
    What saddens you? He frowned, not voicing his concerns.
    ****
    A prisoner in his own home, Ernest Dumon’s beaten down spirit left him defeated. What kind of man was he to allow his granddaughter to traipse across the country with a company of soldiers? His own hands had shoved her into that company. He handed her the message and told her his life depended on it. Of course she would go. She trusted him. He placed her life in danger.
    Wrought with guilt, Ernest wrenched himself from the settee, returned to his bedroom window, and looked at the two soldiers lounging on the steps of his home. He knew that two more had taken up vigil at the back door. Even now, their bawdy laughter drifted up the stairs.
    After they had questioned him for seven hours straight and even resorted to threats of torture, the soldiers gave up and locked him in the house. Ernest was surprised that they followed the orders not to harm him. That Captain Thomas must carry quite a bit of weight with his men. Any other soldiers would have succumbed to the temptation to at least poke him a little with a knife.
    The cook fed him well on the meager supplies left. Most everything disappeared on those wagons to Vicksburg. Since the soldiers took his weapons, he wasn’t able to indulge in cleaning them as he liked to do to pass the time. He did, however, have his books. Even if for only a few minutes at a time, he could lose himself in the world of Camelot.
    It wasn’t so bad really, he decided. They could have thrown him in the smokehouse or even in the privy hole. He shuddered. Even worse, they could have marched him off to Rock Island. No, he determined, if he had to be in prison, his home was by far the best place.
    Perhaps he could slip