Free The Loyal Heart by Shelley Shepard Gray

was nothing I could do and she was terribly agitated. I decided to err on the side of caution. After all, Mrs. Markham had already been upset by her husband’s imprisonment and death. She was barely out of mourning. No reason to make her suffer more.”
    Though Robert wasn’t sure he would have given her the same advice, he wasn’t exactly sure he would have said anything much different either.
    “If you weren’t worried about her, then why are you so concerned about her now?”
    “She hasn’t seemed well. Actually, it looks to me like she’s fallen into melancholia. She looks like she’s lost weight and she hardly leaves her house now.”
    “I am not sure why you sought me out.”
    “I heard about your walk with her yesterday. I heard that you stood up for her with that weasel Winter.” Kern turned his head and stared at Robert directly. “Beg your pardon, but those actions are not things a man who just happened to be in Galveston would do.”
    “They might be.”
    “No, I don’t think so. Mr. Truax, I’m going to be honest with you. Mrs. Markham knows I served in the war; everyone in town knows that.”
    “But?” Robert pressed.
    “But I’ve never told anyone I was on Johnson’s Island when Phillip Markham was, not even his wife.”
    “It seems to me that news might have eased her in some way.”
    “I don’t think so.” He shifted, his expression pensive. “Fact is, I didn’t want to add to her pain when I didn’t really know anything about what happened to the lieutenant. I don’t have any proof to refute the rumors about him.” Before Robert could comment on that, Kern turned his head to stare at him directly. “Say what you want, but I don’t think it’s by chance that you’re here. I think you knew her husband because you both served under Devin Monroe.”
    “I did know Phillip Markham. Furthermore, I sat by his side in his last hours.”
    Kern relaxed. “Was he actually the kind of man Mrs. Markham believes him to be?”
    “Yes. We talked a lot, you see.” Actually, there hadn’t been much else to do. But every time they’d complained about their lack of activity, of their inability to help their comrades still battling across frozen fields, Captain Monroe had chastised them. All they needed to concentrate on was living. Survival—that was the key to life in a prison camp. Nothing else mattered.
    They’d known it, and the soldiers guarding them had known it too. As the battles became even more one sided and rumors flew about Lee’s eventual surrender, even the guards had lost their interest in keeping a vigilant guard. All of them were missing their sweethearts and families.
    Why, they’d even all shared stories about their homes one long snowy evening, all of them huddled around their meager stove, burning scraps of wood and one soiled blanket.
    Of them all, Phillip had spoken the most lovingly of his wife. He’d talked about her beauty. About how strong she was, how she’d never even led him on a merry chase when they’d been courting. She’d simply gazed at him with her blue eyes and asked if she could trust him.
    They’d all gazed at him with mixed emotions. For Robert, jealousy combined with a healthy amount of incredulousness had filled him. He had never heard of a woman so well regarded. Actually, he’d been more of a fool than that. He, in all his inept naiveté, had doubted their lieutenant’s word. He’d also been resentful of a man who had been so blessed, not only with good looks but property and an adoring wife.
    It had seemed like too much. Too much when he’d had so little.
    Two days after they’d all sat around the fire and listened to Captain proclaim they needed to look out for each other after the war, Phillip’s wound took a sudden turn for the worse. His arm began to swell.
    Twenty-four hours after that, he’d spiked a fever and his injury became visibly infected. Then, unfortunately for all of them, he lingered. For weeks. Gangrene settled