The Better Angels: Hearts Touched by Fire, Book 4

by Gina Danna

  “I’m not sure how I can help you. Have you any family?”

  Her cheeks flushed as she stood, shaking her head. Holding tightly to the lead she had on the dog, she gave him a look that penetrated his soul. “This, kind sir, is my family now. My father and brothers went to the army and died. My mother, at a loss without my father, came down ill, and with all the docs at the war, she got no help, died. Then the Yankees came, demanding food and whatever else they could find, only to torch my home afterward. So no, I’ve got nothing.”

  He shifted in the saddle, toying with his next words as he pulled an orange out of the saddlebag. “Here, take this. Brought it here, but I think you need this more than me.” He bent forward and handed it to her, and she grabbed it, instantly yanking at the skin like a soul who hadn’t eaten in days.

  “Look, don’t suppose you’ve seen the Army of North Virginia? Lee’s Army?”

  Her brows furrowed. “You must be mad.”

  “Perhaps. But I just escaped my capture by the Yankees and want to return to the fight and get them out of our land, so people like you can be safe and get your property back.” He gave her a smile, hoping.

  She nodded. “I’d like that. Most disrespectful group I’ve ever seen!”

  He searched his pockets and found a solid silver coin. It was the only one he had. “Here, its real silver. Might get you a trip to Richmond. When you’re there, find my father. He’s a senator, Mr. Pierre Fontaine. Tell him his son, Francois, sent you. You’ll be okay.”

  She held the coin, twisting it one side to the other and even took a bite on it, checking its validity. “I thank you for this. As to the army you seek, I saw them yesterday, traveling that way. With the number in their ranks, you should reach them by nightfall.”

  He peered in the direction she pointed and could see a flurry of hoof prints in the dirt field. He tipped his hat. “Thank you.”

  Chapter 32

  “That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end of the war.”

  —General James Longstreet’s prediction on Union General US Grant

  Washington DC, January 1864

  * * *

  “There, how are you feeling today?”

  The pale young man blinked, swallowing the broth she fed him and managed a weak smile. “Still wishing I could just die, ma’am.”

  Inhaling to build herself stronger, Ada fought not to grimace. The boy was an amputee, missing both legs from the knee down. He’d been a farmer’s boy, one whose whole future had been destroyed by the war.

  “Please, don’t wish that. The Lord has bigger plans for you.” She tucked the blanket in tighter and moved to the next patient, praying for relief from the dismal thoughts that plagued her. Yet the next didn’t, as the man was too ill to do much more than swallow his broth.

  She walked back into the kitchen area and threw the metal cups she’d been using into the washbasin with such force they banged loudly, just like her temper.

  “My, rough day?”

  She gritted her teeth. Will always seemed to show up when she least expected it. She’d returned to duty two weeks ago, after her forced furlough over the holidays, minus her rebel patient. That outcome should have improved her feelings, but alas, it did not, especially on how that came about.

  “No, just normal. Battered and sick men wishing to be anywhere other than here.” She replied, ignoring facing him.

  “Ada,” he said softly, taking her arm and turning her toward him. “I’m sorry but I’m not sorry. You know as well as I do, that man was no good for you. Beneath you, truly.”

  She widened her gaze, laughter forming in her throat. “Which one are you referring to? Or do you mean both?”

  “Ada…”

  She was furious. How dare that Southerner just accuse her of treating him like he did his slaves! If it wasn’t such a turnabout on fair play, she might have laughed, but a slap across his cheek erupted instead. How dare he!

  Her pacing returned, infuriated at the entire evening. Richard had surprised her, showing up unexpectedly, and it was such a surprise. His deep brown eyes sparkled when he smiled, and he’d done a lot of that as they danced. She’d managed to get two out of him before that malcontent she’d been treating stormed over to her, claiming a dance. Shocked, she couldn’t speak fast enough, but Richard conceded, giving her a knowing wink as he walked away. She hadn’t even gotten out of him how long he was in New York or where he was staying.

  Then, Francois’s collapse required them to leave. He’d no doubt injured his foot again, and it made her want to scream. She managed to get them out gracefully, but she was irritated. It shouldn’t have surprised her that the man actually came to her room, but any intimacy between them was dead in the water to her. Oh, her body churned, deep and low, but she squashed that idea as quickly as she could. Her exam on his ankle told her he needed rest and ordered it done. Whatever else he argued, she never heard as she’d blocked him out of her thoughts…

  By the next morning, she’d woken refreshed, her anger dissipating through the night. She went down to breakfast, fully expecting Francois to be there, though with him not, she decided she’d go see him. Wrapping a biscuit in a napkin, she stood, though James came to her side.

  “Is there something wrong, milady?”

  She frowned. “No. I thought I’d take this up to Mr. Fontaine, since he’s not here…”

  “No, ma’am, he won’t be. He left last night.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “I beg your pardon?”

  “He came down, rather late, saying he needed some air.” The butler shrugged.

  Ada stood stock still, her mind racing. A Confederate was on the prowl in New York City. Whatever was he doing? “And he didn’t return?”

  “Uh, no ma’am.”

  “We need to search for him!”

  “No, Ada, we do not.” It was Will. He waved the butler away and took her arm, leading her back to the table. “I told you I’d find a way to get him returned. I have fulfilled my promise.” He stole the biscuit she’d been carrying and took a bite.

  Stunned, she glared at him. “You sent him back to prison?”

  “Ada, please. Let us not go further…”

  The rest of the day was a blur. The longer she mulled in her mind what had happened, an incredible loss swept over her. It was like she missed him. She shook her head. He was a slave-owner! He represented all she hated! But her arguments fell on faint ears, because somehow, along the way, the man had managed to find a way into her heart. Perhaps all the lovemaking might have added to it, and she should’ve stopped that, but how? He had seduced her and she’d devoured him, like a starving woman looking for love.

  That realization only made her mad. In retaliation, she kicked Will out.

  “…don’t be irrational. You knew we needed to be covered for that indiscretion,” Will said softly.

  Wiping her hands, exasperated and tired, she cocked her head. “So you told him to run away in the night, after making sure he’d aggravated me so badly, I wouldn’t notice anything till morning, when I finally cooled down, right?”

  “No, of course not. I’m not that good at orchestrating things and you know that.”

  “Yes, so I’ve noticed in your practice.” The words slipped from her mouth before she could stop it. Her mouth dropped open and she covered it with her hand as the color washed from his face but his eyes inflamed. “Will, I’m so sorry. That’s really not what I meant.”

  Color flooded back into his cheeks. “You knew that was a dangerous game we were playing. I got my end covered at the prison. You left too many threads open, going to balls and rallies with him.”

  “No one knew he was a rebel,” she retorted.

  “Regardless, he is back where he needs to be.”

  “In prison?”

  “No. The South.” And on that note, he wheeled to his right and walked out of the army hospital.

  Ada sank to the chair, all energy sapped. Her heart fell into the pit of
her stomach and she wondered if she’d ever see him again. With a snort, her other half snapped back, “Only if you see him on the battlefield…dead.”

  A flood of emotion slammed into her. Grief, anger, frustration, irritation, lack of sleep and a broken heart, all rolled into one. She bent over and cried for the first time since the war began.

  Virginia

  Clarks Mountain

  Francois shifted in the saddle. His ankle wasn’t hurting, but then, he’d been in the saddle all day. Rose needed a rest from him and he needed to relieve himself. With that in mind, he slowly swung his leg over the saddle and tried to lower himself to the ground without a big impact on his feet. Success was there for a moment, for he wasn’t as cautious when he tried to clear himself of the horse tack. A shot of pain raced up his calf. He did note it wasn’t as sharp as before, or perhaps he was deluding himself. With a snort, he ignored that thought and grabbed the stick he’d adapted as a cane, he steadied himself before he limped to the bushes.

  It was there, right as he readjusted his trousers to close, that he heard the cocking of a gun.

  “Don’t move.”

  He scanned the landscape but it was dead until he saw the gleam off a rifle muzzle. When he remained still, there was a rustle of the winter-dead plants as the soldier revealed himself. Francois hoped for a Confederate, and with the appearance of a mud-covered ragamuffin, with a gingham shirt and beat-up shell jacket, the guardsman fit any regiment in the Confederate Army to a T.

  “Where you be goin’, boy?”

  Francois couldn’t help but chuckle. The soldier was younger than him! “Back to my unit, the 9th Louisiana.”

  “The Tigers?” The boy’s voice held a bit of longing at the edges.

  “Yes. I’m Corporal Fontaine, returned from Yankee capture.”

  “Oh, we heard you all was a comin’!” The boy screamed with glee.

  That intrigued Francois. There was a release from being shot? “Yes, well, sir, perhaps you’ll point me in the right direction?”

  Ada finally could expel the breath she’d been holding for a long time. “It’s affirmed? We are finally leaving?”

  Will laughed. “I find it rather interesting how you get excited to return to the front, when the bulk of the army would rather leave.”

  She grabbed more supplies and put them in the box. “You know me too well. I grow tired of this stagnation. I want to see us win!”

  He grabbed her hand. “You seek that so the bloodshed will stop? Or is it to punish every slave-owner?”

  She shot him a narrow gaze, yanking her captured wrist free.

  “Ah, both, I’d gather.”

  She continued to stare at him before she snapped out of it and returned to packing. How was she to explain the bitterness she held for Francois’s words, and his abandoning her? Thankfully, she wasn’t with child, and for that, she was grateful, but it didn’t cover the loneliness the nights had brought. Nor the driving pain of reporting to work as a nurse to a ward full of men sick and dying and her unable to truly help. She’d been pulled aside once for redressing a wound without the doctor’s permission, which had made her want to scream but to stay, she bit her tongue.

  Her time with Richard was too short as well. He was at that dance, smiling and chatting, but by morning, he, too, was gone. She threw the instrument in her hand into the box a little more forcefully than needed, out of her sheer frustration.

  “I need to stay busy and needed,” she confided, hoping that was enough to quiet him. “Here, I have no say, have minor chores to do and am prohibited from truly helping. At least at the warfront, men like Waxler are too busy with the numbers and commanders drive to win despite the sacrifices, that I have more freedom.”

  Will touched her shoulder, his palm resting there with a slight squeeze. “I understand.” He straightened, tugging his frock coat to even the crease lines from wear. “I, too, am reporting back. Apparently, there’s been a few skirmishes on the Rapidan, so we are needed.” He smiled. “Cheer up. Perhaps that secesh will end up in our ward again.”

  She started. How had he known her thoughts had strayed to that sinner?

  Chapter 33

  “I am almost wild. I do not think that I will ever be fit again to associate with respectable people. I have not spoken to a lady for two years [for] I have been in the woods since I left home.”

  —Soldier, Louisiana Tigers

  Winter 1863-64, Virginia

  March 1864

  Clark Mountain, Virginia

  Francois flexed his foot, finding it remark-able how well it had healed. He could stand now, for longer periods, and no longer needed the makeshift cane. Just as the trees had blossomed and the birds chirped, he found himself reborn.

  “What’s got you grinning like a loon? Thinking of that doc again?” Wiggins prodded.

  “Hardly, outside of gratitude. Just thinking how my ankle isn’t in pain anymore.”

  “Good!” Wiggins punched him in the arm. “But you can’t run too good no more. That’s a problem, I’d say.”

  Francois growled. “Doc Murphy said it was a good thing I found a good surgeon, because most would’ve chopped it off. I’ll walk fast and make it. Can’t think I made it this far only to be killed cause I can’t run.”

  Wiggins laughed. “Yep, that’s how them Yankees fight. Just walking right up to the battleline, waiting. Guess when we turn their asses back to the North, they’ll walk, too.”

  “And tell me again, how’d you get out of that jail?”

  Wiggins stopped his laughing and gave him a stern look. “They exchanged us. Just too important to have locked up, that’s all.”

  “And you didn’t take that oath?”

  Wiggins spat on the ground. “Only oath I took was one to get the hell back here, so I could beat their asses, drive ‘em off our lands!”

  They both laughed, but Francois’s was cut short when he turned his foot the other way without thinking and hit a sore spot that still echoed pain. He inhaled deeply. Doc Murphy had given him a good prognosis, after that attempt of running during the snowball fight.

  Most of the boys hadn’t seen snow, so when it fell on the Virginia countryside last month, the tedium of winter camp cracked. They ran outside, laughing and tried to lap up the falling snow or fell into the minor accumulation, reveling in it. Soon, a snowball zoomed through the air, and before they knew it, the group had split to two sides waging a war with snowballs as bullets and cannonballs.

  Francois jumped in as a participant, ignoring the first signs he was in trouble. A minor ache, a twinge that shot upward was nothing and he continued to play until he arched his back to avoid being hit and tried to run away. At that moment, his ankle finally gave. It took Wiggins and another soldier to haul him to the hospital tent, by then wrapped in pain.

  “Son, you can’t be pushing yourself so,” the doctor scolded him. He put Francois’s foot into a pan of snow, so cold he virtually jumped off the hospital bed, with Murphy pushing him back down. “It will bring the swelling down. Wait.”

  Steeling his shoulders, he did, trying to accustom himself to the icy pain. “Will it need to come off?” It was a fear he couldn’t ignore.

  Murphy frowned. “No, I think you’re still manageable. But I think your days of running are through. I’ll inform your commander you need to be sent home.”

  Home? No! Vague images of Emma with Jack invaded his once cleared mind and he struggled to fight it back. He’d come here to fight and forget her, and almost had when he was with Ada, but even that, too, had ended. Alone, he was in trouble, unless he remained with the Tigers.

  “No, sir. I beg of you no. I’ll find a way to fight. I am a Tiger,” he insisted.

  Murphy stared hard at him, as if deciding, only to break the hardness with a gentle, “Son, while I might regret it, I see it’ll do no good to tell you Tiger boys to not fight. I’ll have your duties changed, so no more damage, all right?”

  It was that decision that changed his rank
to Company First Sergeant and mounted on the very horse he purchased. He still shook his head over it, because now he was with the commanders and issuing orders down the line.

  Wiggins laughed. “Think you can ride and issue orders?”

  He shot his buddy a glare but the smile Wiggins had made him join him with a chuckle.

  “Here, think I got something of yours.” Wiggins handed him his fist and dropped into Francois palm a small object. With a frown and curiosity, he stared at the object. It was his small painting of Emma. His heart skipped a beat, making breathing harder. He clutched it tightly.

  “Where did you get this? I thought I had lost it.”

  “You did,” Wiggins replied. “When those Yanks whipped us off to prison. Remember how that guard kicked your hand? You dropped it but I snagged it. Kept it as you were too fevered and then, you disappeared.” He shrugged. “Now, I get to give it back to you.”

  He stared at the image. She was so pretty and he fondly recalled how he loved her. He still did, but his heart now belonged to Ada.

  “Thank you.” He put it back in the inside breastpocket of his jacket.

  In the distance, the bugle called and both men looked at each other.

  “Time to drill!” Francois prodded his buddy. Wiggins just snorted as he gathered his gear.

  “Yeah. Time for you to act like ya know somethin’.”

  Francois grimaced. During the winter break, the change in his status hadn’t bent Wiggin’s mood. They still were friends, as well as could be, Francois thought. But with the coming spring, as the whole countryside woke from her winter slumbers, he feared that would change.