Over the past two weeks, Lucas had wandered through her rambling home. He imagined visitors admiring the chandeliered parlors with their walls covered with brocaded silk, mantels of imported marble, the lengthy hallway, elegant stairway and polished oak floors. In better days, the plantation boasted a charm of its own with terraced gardens lined with boxwood, and the summerhouse at the edge of the James. Wealth, mingled with superb elegance and class, were suggested everywhere, making it obvious no allowable desire or requirement would be left wanting.
Now, the ornate silver candelabras lay tarnished in the hall, the decorative plaster corbels in the doorframes crumbled like stale gingerbread. The dark, wooden floors no longer polished to a brilliant gleam, lay dull and neglected. Like so many southern plantations at present, sagging forgotten, neglected and abandoned. Why didn’t the home fit the image he had of the mysterious Miss Pierce?
He allowed his thoughts to drift back to when he helped create the Division of Civilian Spying, and where he encouraged iron discipline, shrewd tactics and utmost secrecy. He orchestrated a world populated with scavengers, thieves, and an extensive slave network, abandoning distinction to obtain information of value. Some did it for profit. Others like Rachel, for the cause they believed.
His hand came to rest on the Bible. He opened the well-thumbed book, carefully flipping through the pages. What value did the item hold for her? A paper fell out and floated to his feet. He stooped to pick up the missive.
To Rachel, my beloved daughter, and the many wonderful hours we shared reading.
Of all her grand possessions, Lucas’ instincts identified the Bible as her most cherished. He couldn’t help but picture Rachel in a different light. Conflicting with her guarded, impertinent, worldly-wise manner rose a simple girl with heartfelt compassion. At once he saw through her pretenses—a girl who stood lonely and vulnerable against a world turned upside-down. He tucked the note inside the book and placed it on the table.
Without a doubt, Rachel Pierce was a paradox. In his arms, she had responded to his kiss, the experience incredibly extraordinary. Despite her supposed affairs with the Saint, she didn’t seem to know what she was doing. Lucas felt her innocence in his bones.
Do not get involved.There was nothing on earth more likely to steal a man’s common sense than a woman.
Last night, he stepped over the line. Every coherent thought had gone out of his mind.
In his thirty-two years, he had never felt an unbearable need for someone…just to be in the same proximity as her. Even now, he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her. He was her superior and remained responsible for her.
He stared through the trees as the sun reached its zenith, the towers of Richmond clouded, the smoke, mottling and blotching the capital as if charcoal soup had been dumped on the surface. A mind-numbing disgust rose inside him. There remained one answer to the problem.
He strode to the door. Why the fool woman locked him in at all remained a mystery to him. He picked the lock and moved into the hall.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Stay out of this, Rachel, I’m leaving.”
“You have a predilection for the undertaker? He can bring you back from the place where you caught the bullet as lifelike as if you were asleep. Your casket…rosewood? Pine? Or something in-between?”
How she possessed a terrible knack of unraveling him with her parrying of words. Words tinged with pointed barbs, significant to aggravate the devil.
“I won’t get caught.” Amber pools beneath thick dark lashes stared back at him. There was no denying the gravity and emotion he saw there. She had rescued and cared for him. He owed her his life. His insides twisted, and he chafed at the moral code in which he’d been raised…and too well…the Colt revolver that had been pointed at his heart the evening before.
She stood inches away.
“Unless you can fly, I’d say your chances are like snow in August for I’ve never seen the Confederacy weave a web so tight.”
Did she care about him? God help him.
“I must go.” He dared to graze his knuckles across her cheek. A clock chimed in the hall. He wanted to forget the war, wanted to pretend none of it existed, to erase the reality surrounding them. He dropped his hand.
“If it’s about last night,” she said.
The silence lengthened between them. Never would he forget the softness of her voice. The way she looked at him, the denial in her eyes that said yes. Her magnetism tore through his veins like the moon pulling the tides.
“It’s not about last night, and you know it. It’s about tonight and the next and the next. I can’t make any promises…”
“I’ve asked for no apologies—”
He couldn’t get it out of his head that she didn’t love the Saint—never did. Not in the way a man was meant for a woman. Then what? Did she fear the Saint?
Lucas knew life didn’t work that way.
“Imbibe on my infinite wisdom. Wait ’til things cool down. There’s no sense in getting killed or risking my people.” She caught his hand and drew him away.
He’d vowed not to touch her, and here she was, leading him like a dimwitted child. When he didn’t move, she looked at him, the implications dawning on her innocent gesture. She tugged her hand free, blushing. He liked the color rising in her cheeks.
“I have something vital to share with you, Colonel Rourke. I attempted last night…but you were…difficult.”
