“Well…may I offer my happiest felicitations to both of them.” Chest aching, Rachel turned to General Grant, and pasted on a brilliant smile. “I’ll need a pass from you and transportation arrangements made to Washington immediately. Time is critical.” To put as much distance between her and Lucas as possible.
“Done. Anything else you require, Miss Pierce, see my quartermaster. And thank you, young lady, for all you have accomplished.”
“General Grant.” She looked to him. “I need to ask a favor.”
He nodded in understanding. “Gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned.”
She waited for the men to file out and took a deep breath. “Colonel Rourke, at times, is a trying man and tends to get in the way—” She felt like a juggler given one ball too many. “You must keep him in this camp for at least seventy-two hours after I depart. He has a tendency to overthink a situation and it is imperative more than ever that no one knows I am the Saint or my whereabouts. I can further the Union’s cause operating with anonymity.”
“Including Colonel Rourke?”
“Especially Lucas—I mean, Colonel Rourke.” Grant’s eyes widened. He had not been picked as Commander of the Union forces because he was stupid.
“I imagine there will be some discussion on Colonel Rourke’s part, but I have my work cut out for me. You must trust me on this,” she said in a vain attempt to smooth over her mistake. Grant remained too much of a gentleman to comment.
“What you’re attempting to do with the Copperheads is dangerous.”
“I’ll make do,” she said in a strained voice. “If I may borrow your secretary’s desk, I wish to pen Colonel Rourke a note.”
Beyond the horizon, the sun plummeted, and so did her heart. She was leaving for Washington within the hour and she might never see Lucas again. Sitting at the desk, she picked up the nib pen and stared at the day’s last scarlet rays, tamping back her tears. So much for faithful platitudes. If he couldn’t remain loyal to a woman he was betrothed to, then what did that mean for her?
Maybe all this time, she’d been deceiving herself. She’d fallen in love with Lucas. He was attracted to her, and she held no illusions that he might love her with his endearing words, claiming she belonged to him, but he had a fiancée!
Did his declaration to her mean nothing? Deep down, she must have known there was no hope of a future with him. Her mind raced. How could he return to the arms of another woman? Was he forced to marry Susan? Did he love her?
Whether he desired Rachel, it did not matter. Against a world turned upside down with war and hate, she had fallen in love. So complete was her love that she would rather sacrifice her own life than his, and she’d do it willingly, without hope of his love in return.
No way did she desire any of his explanations. To hear the truth would hurt too much.Be practical.Their idyll here had ended. He’d return to the woman he’d planned to marry, and she, Rachel, would be forgotten. She dipped her pen in the inkwell.
Dear Lucas,
There are some roads that can never be revisited. Our marriage was a temporary pact made in undue haste and for our safety. Soon you will see our relationship as an alchemy of opposites. I release you from our vows and further obligations. We’d only bring misery and torment to each other. As I have work to do, I ask you not to interfere.
Sincerely,
Rachel Pierce
Chapter Twenty-One
Lucas pounded the door and shouted at the guards for the thousandth time. “Where is she? Why are you keeping me locked up?”
For two whole days Lucas cooled his heels to the point of exploding. No answers or explanation to her disappearance. He had paced his prison until he could count every crack in the wood, every cobweb on the ceiling. Something was wrong, very wrong. Then he saw it. An envelope addressed to him. Must have been placed there by the guards when he fell asleep. He ripped it open.
“Releasing me from obligation! Who in the hell does she think she is?” Lucas hammered the door with his fists, and if it wasn’t made of stiff oak would have crashed through it. “I demand to see General Grant.”
It was a blooming of madness. He’d foolishly drunk from the nectar of the forbidden fruit intoxicated with the idea that love, only love would be permanent. How he’d emerged the sentimental fool.
She wanted to annul the marriage. No way was he going to allow her to. The marriage stood. Yes, they were polar opposites, and it was their challenging natures that drew them together.
The irascible Colonel Crawford had visited him with all the deference of a praising pope, yet stayed behind the locked door, apologizing to Lucas that they were to hold him until General Grant was ready to see him.
So, he sat like a caged animal, held prisoner by his own country for upholding his honor and performing his duty, and there was nothing he could do about it. He raged like a madman, the guards shuffling away in case he broke free. He needed to throw his fist into someone’s face. Something to take the edge off the tightening in his gut.
Finally, the cell door banged open. Three soldiers had come to call. Lucas smiled and rolled up his sleeves. No longer did he have to wait to relieve his frustration…he’d get out of his prison if it was the last thing he did.
“General Grant wishes to see you, Colonel Rourke,” said one soldier. Before the man could salute, Lucas knocked two of them out cold and shoved the other one out of the way.
“It’ll be worth the court-martial.” He stepped over them. “I’ll escort myself to General Grant.”
