gaiety. Kick up your heels—just once. I dare you.”
Carolyn’s challenge struck home. Julia was tired of living behind curtains drawn against the prying eyes of the insolent Yankee soldiers who daily sauntered past the Chandlers’ house on Prince Street. She was tired of the plain fare that nightly graced the family’s supper table because Mother refused to patronize vendors who courted the Yankee trade—and most of Alexandria’s merchants did.
Julia was sick of wearing dark clothes in perpetual mourning for distant relatives who had been killed at Fredericksburg, Winchester and Gettysburg. She touched the locket that hung from a black ribbon around her neck. Most of all, she wanted to heal the wound in her heart left by Frank’s death. The curl of his brown hair inside the silver heart was all that remained of the charming boy with poetry on his lips and a song in his heart. Frank had taught her how to polka and encouraged her dreams of becoming a teacher.
But that was back in 1861. A lifetime ago. The guilty truth was that Julia could barely recall what Frank Shaffer looked like, even though she had promised to be his sweetheart when he marched off to join the 17th Virginia Infantry. Carolyn was right. Julia had allowed the Yankees to steal the joy of living from her soul. Enough was enough!
She looked down at the sixteen-year-old’s upturned face and smiled. “All right, lady-bird, you have won me over with your Jezebel tongue. I’ll go to this ball, but only to keep you out of trouble. I have no intention to touch a Yankee, much less dance with one.”
Leaping to her feet with a flurry of petticoats, Carolyn gave her sister a loud, wet kiss on the cheek. “Pooh! You’re going for the music and the caramels; I knew they would turn your head. I can read you like a book.”
She certainly hoped not, Julia thought with an inward sigh. Carolyn would be shocked if she knew of the passionate dreams that Julia locked within her imagination.
“Begging the major’s pardon, but may I take the liberty of asking what are the major’s plans for celebrating the turning of the year?” Behind his clipped brown mustache, Lieutenant Benjamin Johnson grinned down at his somber first cousin.
Robert Montgomery, condemned to a desk job in the Office of Military Intelligence since his return from medical leave, looked up from the sheaf of field reports that he held. His irrepressible relative snapped a salute. Rob was not amused.
“You take too many liberties, Lieutenant,” Rob muttered, hoping this mild reprimand would send the youngster scurrying back to his own paper-littered desktop. Ben exercised far too much familiarity during working hours.
His cousin only grinned wider. “Indeed, so I was often told when we attended dear old Yale. But the question still remains. Are you planning to visit the family or stay in Washington to ring in the New Year?”
Rob shuddered inside his blue uniform frock coat. His last trip home to Rhinebeck, New York, following his release from the hospital, had been an unmitigated disaster. Mama had done nothing but stare with open pity at his smashed right hand, while sighing with melodramatic fervor and moaning over her “poor baby boy.” Meanwhile his father had used Rob’s every waking moment to harangue his recuperating son into switching from the army to politics. “There’s a new wind blowing through this great land,” Jubel Montgomery had reiterated ad nauseam. “And the Republican Party will lead the way.”
“No,” Rob snapped at Ben. “I shall remain in Washington.” Where it would be peaceful. He pretended to return to his papers.
Instead of retreating, Ben leaned closer. “As I thought. Therefore, would the major care to join a company of bright young bloods on December the thirty-first?” He patted his breast pocket with satisfaction. “In here, I hold the key to a night of music and frivolity among the prettiest flowers that grow in Alexandria. That’s Virginia, sir. Virginia, where the girls are sweet as cream—and…and as pure as wholesome milk,” he added swiftly when Rob glared at him.
Rob narrowed his brown eyes. “Need I remind you that we are, at this precise moment, on the soil of Virginia, fighting those damned Virginians? Are you suggesting that we feast with our enemies? I find that idea a highly—” he groped for the right word “—treasonable notion. We are speaking of Southerners, Lieutenant, a breed of pig-headed, uncouth Rebels. I detest them all.”
Ben’s maddening good humor only increased. “You speak the truth in general, but these particular Virginian posies are fine, true and loyal to the Union. They are the delightful daughters and sisters of many of our fellow soldiers. They come from families who had the good sense to ignore the rabble cry of states’ rights—whatever that notion may be. Now they give aid and succor to us poor, homesick fellows.” His brown eyes twinkled. “Lord knows, we do need aid and succor from these most delightful ladies.”
“Join their company then, and may they give you—” Rob paused, banished the lusty thought that rose unbidden in his love-starved brain, then continued “—some of what you desire. I intend to stay in my rooms at Ebbitt’s and read something edifying. I am no fit company for ladies.” He covered over his paralyzed hand with his good one, then turned back to decipher the hen-scratching written by a female undercover agent operating in St. Louis.
Ben had the audacity to remain in front of Rob’s desk. Leaning over the stacks of reports, he said in a low voice, “Not all women are like your recent fiancée. You would find the truth of that, Rob, if you would deign to return to civilized society once again. You were once a lion among the ladies in New Haven. Word of your former exploits among the petticoats has preceded you here, sir.” His voice sank to a whisper. “It was your arm the Rebels shot up, not your charm.”
Rob gritted his teeth. He had a good mind to plant his polished boot squarely in his cousin’s backside. He dropped his mangled hand below the level of the desktop, and thrust it into his coat pocket. Out of sight, out of mind. How dare this upstart puppy speak on the one subject that Rob never mentioned in public? Lucy Van Tassel’s scathing “I will not marry half a man” screamed in Rob’s nightmares and reverberated down the black tunnels of his memory.
He sneered at Ben. “You have no idea of women, Lieutenant. Underneath all those pretty smiles and lilting words, they are vicious, selfish creatures, vain and greedy. They are interested in a man only if he is young, handsome, wealthy—and whole.”
Ben opened his mouth to protest but another voice cut him off. Colonel James Lawrence strode out of the doorway that led to his inner office. “Nor, it seems, do you know women, Major Montgomery.”
Rob rose to his feet in the presence of his commanding officer. The colonel regarded him from under white bushy eyebrows. He blew through his large walrus mustache. “Lieutenant Johnson may be wet behind his ears, Major, but in this case, he makes a good point. You have stayed away from society for too long. It’s high time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself, and start living among your fellow human beings again.”
Hot blood rose up Rob’s neck. A vein throbbed in his temple, though he held his anger in check. “I will take the colonel’s opinion under advisement, sir.”
Lawrence tapped the side of his nose. “Indeed, you shall, and sooner than you think. On the thirty-first of December, you will accompany the lieutenant and whomever else goes with him to this…this… Where is it you are going, Johnson?”
Ben suppressed his grin. “A ball, sir. A masked ball, given at the gracious home of Mr. George Winstead.”
The colonel cocked his head. “Winstead? The railroad man?”
Ben nodded. “I do believe the gentleman
