Free One Wore Blue by Heather Graham

that Kiernan had somehow driven him away when he had promised to stay for breakfast. “I felt so much safer with the captain in the house!” she said nervously, sitting at the breakfast table. There was still a great commotion in the streets. But the events now taking place were happening far down by the armory and firehouse, so they couldn’t see terribly much. They heard shots being fired, and still there were many shouts. The drama unfolding seemed to put an almost tangible tension in the air—Kiernan could feel it, even in the house.
    “He wouldn’t have left us if he felt that we’d be in any danger, Lacey,” Kiernan assured her.
    Lacey clapped her hands together. “How delightfully romantic! You mean, he would have defied duty to stay with two ladies?”
    “No, not Jesse,” Kiernan said wryly. “He would have packed up the two ladies and dragged them along with him.” She wished he had dragged her along with him. She couldn’t bear sitting still when so very much was going on. The town was at war! She didn’t know what she could do, but she felt she should be doing something.
    “Oh, dear,” Lacey said with a sigh. “Just how well do you know this young man?”
    “I’ve known him all my life,” Kiernan admitted. “We grew up together over in the Tidewater.” She was eating her third stack of griddle cakes. She wasn’t the least bit hungry, but she had eaten and eaten, exclaiming over the deliciousness of the food, to assuage Lacey. After all, Lacey blamed Kiernan for the fact that the captain was not wolfing down a good portion of the meal.
    “What will happen when Anthony returns?” Lacey asked worriedly.
    “What do you mean, what will happen?” Kiernan asked her.
    “Well, he’s—he’s very much in love with you, dear! When he sees Jesse Cameron—”
    “He knows Jesse Cameron, Lacey. You know Jesse, Lacey!” She counted on her fingers. “You met him at my coming-out ball, the barbecue at the Stacys’ in Richmond, and oh, yes! I believe you both were at Anthony’s sister’s birthday party two years ago up at Montemarte.”
    “Yes, I met him. But you know him so well.”
    “Anthony knows him very well,” Kiernan asserted with an amused smile. “They’re all good friends—Jesse, his brother Daniel, Anthony, and a number of others who were at West Point during the same years. And they’ve met socially time and time again, both at Cameron Hall and out here at Montemarte.”
    Lacey was disgruntled. “How amazing that the captain stumbled upon you in the nick of time.”
    “I don’t think he stumbled on me,” Kiernan assured her. “He must have known that I was up here. I wrote to Daniel Cameron recently, so Jesse knew that I’d be in Harpers Ferry with you while Papa and your husband and Anthony and his father were on their business trip. He heard about the attack in Washington after John Brown’s men let that night train come through. He was ordered down to tend to the wounded. Despite appearances, he does have his own peculiar sense of honor. He would have felt he owed it to my father to see to my welfare.”
    “Hmph!” Lacey stated.
    “And what does that mean?”
    “It means that there’s no fool like an old fool, but I’m not an old fool, Kiernan Mackay. That man came here for a great deal more than a sense of obligation to your father.”
    Kiernan’s heart was beating too hard, and a flush was warming her cheek. She chewed her griddle cake and sipped her coffee quickly. “We fight like cats and dogs, Lacey. Surely you noticed.”
    “I noticed a great deal,” Lacey said sagely.
    Kiernan shrugged. She didn’t know how to explain to Lacey that maybe, just maybe, she was in love with Jesse. Or that if she was, it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t because Jesse didn’t care about her—she was sure that he did. She had felt it in his kiss. Jesse knew women—his was a practiced, arrogant, masterful kiss. He could elicit emotion from a woman even if he himself