you’d better watch what you say.”
She smiled slightly. “I used to hide and listen to you and Guire discuss…philosophy. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Isn’t that the way it goes? Whoever said it is right, you know…” She said something else he didn’t understand.
“What?” he said again. He sat down on the edge of the bed, with no thought as to the propriety of such a gesture. She turned her head to look at him.
“I said, God is…good.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, because he was sure now that she was delirious.
“I don’t mind…dying so much…now.”
“Abby—”
“It’s a…gift, you see? It gives me such…joy…to see you one last…time. I—” She broke off and gave a sharp sigh. “I’m going to cry…and I don’t want to. I don’t want you to…think I’m sad.” Her dark eyes searched his. “I wanted to marry you, Thomas, did you…know that? I told Guire. He said you were…too…wild for…me.”
Wild? Thomas thought. If he remembered correctly, that word was synonymous with the name Guire.
“He told me about…those places…the two of you went to…in New Orleans. Those ‘houses’ with the red velvet…draperies and the crystal…chandeliers and those strangely colored birds in golden…cages all along the verandas. He said all the fancy women there…adored you.”
“Now, why in God’s name would he tell you something like that?” Thomas asked, more than a little annoyed at the direction this conversation had taken.
She smiled. “Did he…lie?’
Thomas didn’t answer her.
“That’s what I…thought,” she said.
“Sometimes the truth is not required, Abiah.”
“And sometimes it is. He said if I had my…heart set on you…then…I should know these, things. I should know the real…man is not the same as a schoolgirl’s…idea of him. But I didn’t…care about the fancy women. Or about the trouble with your father and grandfather…or anything else. I only cared about you. I was going to trap you the next time you came here to visit…so you’d have to marry me. I was going to wait until everyone had gone to sleep…and I was going to…come into your bed—”
“Abiah!” he said, because he was indeed shocked now.
“You needed me, Thomas…even if you didn’t know it. You were so…serious. I could have helped you with that,” she said, completely undeterred. “So now you know. I was prepared to be shameless where you’re concerned. Aren’t you lucky the war came along to save you—”
“Cap,” La Broie said from the doorway, and Thomas had no idea how long he’d been standing there. He held up his hand to keep La Broie from advancing. He didn’t want Abiah any more distressed than she already was, and he didn’t want La Broie to hear her confessions—if he hadn’t already.
Thomas got up and walked to the door. “What?”
“There’s a little garden on the south side of the house. The sun shines there most of the day, I reckon. The ground ain’t froze. I’m about to put the lady under. Is she all right?” he asked, looking past him to where Abiah lay.
“No.”
“We ain’t got much time, Cap,” La Broie said unnecessarily.
Thomas drew a quiet breath and looked back at Abiah. She was lying very still now, and he didn’t want to disturb her. He didn’t want her to be afraid if she woke up alone, either.
He walked to the bedside. “Abby?”
She opened her eyes.
“I’ll be back.”
She shook her head, the tears once again sliding out of the corners of her eyes. “No. Go from…here, Thomas—”
“I’ll be back,” he said again.
“Please! I want you to go—”
“Try to sleep.”
“She understands how things are, Cap,” La Broie said on the way downstairs, but Thomas made no reply.
He carried Miss Emma out of the house himself. La Broie had gotten the grave dug quickly, a skill Thomas supposed he had had to learn as a professional soldier. And it was La Broie who spoke over the grave.
“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,” he said. “And there no torment shall find them. Amen.”
Thomas stood looking at the raw mound of earth. “Amen,” he said, earnestly hoping that that was the case for Miss Emma. And his mind was already working on the problem at hand. He had to get Abiah out of here—and he had no place to take her.
“You don’t have to wait for me, Sergeant,” he said.
“Yes, sir, Cap,” La Broie answered, but he made no attempt to leave.
“I want you to go back and tell the major you couldn’t find me.”
“You want me to lie to Major Gibbons?” La Broie said, as if such a thing would never, ever have crossed his mind.
“I do,” Thomas said. “And try to make it as good as the one you told him when you came out here.”
“You’re going to stay here with the lady upstairs, Cap?”
“No, I’m taking her with me,” Thomas said, stepping around his sergeant to get back into the house.
“Moving her might kill her, Cap,” La Broie said. “If she’s in a bad way.”
“What do you think leaving her here alone will do?”
“You planning on riding back to our lines with her, just like that, sir?” La Broie said. “That is, if you can get her back across the river.”
“In lieu of a better plan, yes.”
“Ain’t there somebody you could get to stay with her?”
“Yes,” Thomas said. “Only I don’t know who it would be at the moment. I’ll have to worry about that when I get to Falmouth.”
“If you get to Falmouth,” La Broie said. “Reb patrols are out, sir.”
“There’s a truce long enough to bury the dead. I’m going to have to rely on that. Well, go on, man. You have your orders.”
“Begging your pardon, Cap,” La Broie said, still following along. “But we ain’t exactly on the battlefield at the moment, now are we? If we run into one of them Reb patrols, they’re going to think we’re ransacking the place and then there’s going to be hell to pay. And besides that, I have put in a lot of hard work breaking
