Free Cheryl Reavis by Harrigans Bride

tell one of the cooks I said to feed you,” Thomas said as he took the reins.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And tell Sergeant La Broie where I’ve gone.”
    “Yes, sir,” the boy said again.
    Thomas mounted and wheeled the horse sharply. There was no way he could delay whatever this might be. There was no way he could pretend that there was some urgent military matter that required his invaluable expertise. Even so, he set off at a gallop into the cold night, leaving the message runner who had come to summon him to headquarters trailing far behind.
    But his head start did him no good, and it wasn’t until the pickets refused to let him pass that he realized that, given half the chance, he would have gone “by”the Lacey house in just the manner he’d instructed Bender to do. He would have gone to see about Abiah himself, and Major Gibbons be damned.
    Where are you, Abby?
    The night was starry and sharply cold. He had to wait until the message runner caught up and could vouch for him before the pickets would let him proceed. He made the rest of the ride more sedately, following the lanterns, lit and hung on cedar posts along the way, until he reached Sumner’s headquarters. But even in the dark, the place would have been easily recognizable.
    The house was an incredible hodgepodge of architectural designs. Huge one-story wings had been added to either end of the original two-story structure, and then yet another wing added to those. Nothing was to scale. None of the rooflines matched. The place looked as if it had been the work of someone who had the money to buy the building supplies, but not the blueprints. At this point, nothing could have improved the look of it save burning it to the ground and starting over.
    Thomas was passed through quickly and sent upstairs. He stood in the wide hallway while the messenger approached Major Gibbons, who manned a small table near the turn in the stairs. It appeared to take the major a moment to remember what he had wanted with Thomas, but whatever it was, it didn’t require his personal attention.
    “You are to go down there, sir,” the messenger toldhim. “Down to the last room on the left at the end of the hall.”
    Thomas felt the wind go out of him. This was it then. Something had happened to Abiah and they were going to tell him in private.
    He stood there for a moment, then nodded. He had to force himself to go in the direction the messenger indicated, stepping over sleeping soldiers and unattended weapons and haversacks along the way.
    He took a deep breath and reached to open the door. The room was dimly lit and smelled of cigar smoke. He didn’t see the other man immediately, not until he spoke.
    “All right. What have you got to say for yourself?”
    Thomas looked around sharply. His grandfather stood near the window. It took Thomas a moment to recover, to remember that he was a grown man now and beyond the judge’s intimidation. He had long since resigned himself to the fact that he could never please the old man, and the pain that had caused him as a boy had now translated into a kind of muted sadness at the loss to them both. Thomas still wanted to believe—did believe—that, had he not had to play the scapegoat for his father’s wrongdoing, he and the old man could have at least maintained a mutual and satisfying respect. But it was too late now.
    “Not much,” he said lightly. “Why?”
    “My God! You think this is cause for humor?”
    “Well, hardly, sir, since I don’t even know what ‘this’ is.”
    “Your behavior is an abomination,” the old man said.
    “And what behavior is that? I can assure you the recent misadventures of the Army of the Potomac are not my fault.”
    “You have no regard for this family whatsoever. You are your father’s son. There is no doubt about that!”
    “So you’ve told me many times, Grandfather. Did you miss your favorite sport so much you had to come all this way to say it again?”
    The judge ignored the