Free Assassin by Anna Myers

slightly.
    I reached across the table to take her hand. “Do not waste your sympathy, my darling,” I said. “I’ve no doubt the man appeared sorry. I’ve never said he was a fool, but let me assure you his heart is too hard to be touched by the death of a mere child.”
    “No,” she protested, her voice strong. “I know Robert Lincoln. He was shaken by his brother’s death, and told me that his father would never be the same.”
    I saw a way out of the discussion. Any talk of Lincoln in real human terms distressed me. “You know Robert Lincoln?” We had never talked of young Lincoln, and I had never told her that it was seeing her with the man that had first sparked my interest in her. The idea would have made her angry. I adopted a teasing tone. “How well do you know the president’s son?”
    Lucy smiled. “He was my escort on several occasions, nothing more.”
    “Ah,” I said, remembering how young Lincoln looked at her, “I’d wager there was something more on his part.”
    Lucy shrugged. “Perhaps for a time, but I could never be interested in him. He looks more like his mother than his father.”
    I laughed. “Don’t tell me you would ever have been seen in public with him if he looked like his father!”
    Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Looks, Wilkes, are not everything, and yes, had I seen anything of the father in Robert Lincoln, you might have had a harder time winning my affection.”
    How could I disagree? Had I not thought Lucy plain that first night? Now I found her wildly attractive, more pleasing than all the other women in my life. “Marry me, Lucy,” I said. “Marry me now, no matter what your father thinks.”
    “I cannot marry you now, Wilkes, and my father is only one reason.” She slipped a ring from her finger and put it on my smallest finger. “Wear this ring to remind you of me. I have not told you yet, but Father has been appointed the ambassador to Spain. We leave in the spring. I will stay there one year, and if during all that time you have been faithful only to me, I will return and marry you no matter what my father says.”
    I was too overcome to speak. I lifted my hand, kissed the ring. Next I lifted her hand and pressed it to my lips. We were engaged! Of course we were not able to make the fact public knowledge, but I knew, and my heart almost burst with joy.
    My personal happiness, though, could not outweigh my distress over what was happening to the South and over Lincoln’s reelection. No president in my lifetime had been elected to a second term. “He will make himself king now,” I told Asia. My sister would listen to my concerns, even though she did not believe in the Southern cause.
    We were in her home in Philadelphia, where I had gone to star in a play. Asia had made a small supper for me, and her husband playing out of town gave us a chance to talk. “I feel I should do something,” I told her. “I really do.”
    Asia got up from her chair and came to stand beside mine. She put her arm around my shoulders and leaned her head down to rest on mine. “Don’t fret so, Wilkes. I worry about you. Sometimes you seem to worry almost to thepoint of breaking. ‘Let us be happy.’ Remember that is what you told me once. You have such a fire, my sweet boy. Don’t let this war burn you out.”
    I tried to heed my sister’s words. I even agreed to perform with my brothers. My mother was pleased. At last she had the chance to see her three actor sons on the stage together. June came in from California, and it was arranged that he, Edwin, and I should appear together in New York in a benefit performance to raise money for a wonderful bronze statue of William Shakespeare to be placed in Central Park.
    I did not like the idea. Edwin actually supported Lincoln, admitted out loud that he voted for the man, and wanted to hear nothing of my love for the South. We were sitting in the living room of his New York home. I jumped to my feet. “You’ve turned your back on