Excerpt: Defiance

Prologue

Boston, 1860

Hans Selberg parried and countered with the finesse of a master, but his opponent was younger, more agile, and trained by the best sword master to be found this side of Atlantic. That he was the master didn’t speak of arrogance so much as ignorance on the behalf of the barbaric Americans who had been mere colonials less than a century ago. They had no sense of cultural, of history and honor, nor respect for the art of the sword.
Thank God for Charles Morgan.
After losing his British wife, Hans’ cousin, Charles had left his company interests in the North to Hans so he could raise his children in the milder clime of the South, some place called Alabama. That had been two decade ago. Charles had married again, had a large family now. The two of them lived productive lives in their separate worlds, and then Charles had sent them to him. The twins.
He had sent them for education in the finer arts. He wanted them to understand his business interests in the North, as they would inherit it someday. The younger of the two proved to be a brilliant scholar, mad about numbers, and business. He would do well in the North, though Hans had been careful to cultivate the concepts of the Southern gentleman in the boy. As for the other twin…
Deadlocked. Metal ground against metal. Hans glared down at his opponent, but his student gave no quarter. The other twin reveled in the finer arts and had become the best fencer Hans had ever had the pleasure to teach. The student stepped back now, keeping the deadlock close. In a few simple lightning steps, the student drew back, setting him off balance and parried, sending Hans’ foil flying.
Hans listened for the sound of the foil clattering on the ground. He felt the blunt tip of the foil pressed into the padding of his suit. He chuckled and straightened.
“Well done,” Hans said, with a bow.
His student returned his bow, and withdrew to take care of the equipment. Hans watched his student depart then retreated toward the pallor doors as was his habit. He’d had the twins on and off for four years, but he reveled in the elder’s capabilities. Thinking back over their years together, he called for tea. They always had tea after fencing. Coffee was for breaking one’s fast, and a good brandy came at the close of the day. Hans bit back a smile, he’d always found it unusual that the oldest had an appreciation for liquor that younger had never grasped.
“It’s done,” the student said from the doorway.
Hans turned and nodded. “Excellent, I’ve called for tea.”
The student nodded and walked to the cabinet. “Cheroot?”
“None for me,” he replied, shaking his head as his student removed one from a box in the cabinet and lit up. “Truly, I don’t know why I let you indulge that habit.”
“Because you know Father’d only laugh.”
“And your mother would skewer me.”
“Abby would,” the student said taking a puff, “but from what you’ve told me of Mother, I’d like to think she’d find it amusing like Father.”
Hans snorted. “Odd pair the both of them,” he said, and let the matter go. He glanced at the paper. “Have you heard the latest news?”
“More talk of secession, no doubt. If he gets elected, Lincoln and his Republicans will want to press the slave issue and it will tear the Nation apart. The South won’t give up free labor.”
“You don’t believe in slavery.”
“Slavery is a thing of the past in Europe, illegal in most civilized nations. My family pays its laborers a fair wage, and we’re frowned on by the other Southerners already. If this secession happens...” His student swallowed hard. “I’m not fool enough to think money will save my family if war breaks out.”
Hans knew his student was right, knew it was something both twins worried about with the turmoil of politics in the air. Even Charles had sensed in the dissention in the letters. He and Charles had debated on whether or not the twins should stay in the North or return South, or maybe even be sent across the Ocean to live with their British cousins.
Tea arrived and Hans turned the conversation to other things. Politics, art, history, the elder’s memory was astounding. That the elder could also sit a horse as if they were one, fire a gun with deadly accuracy, and wield a sword as though it were no more than an extension of the hand was even more remarkable. Listening to the elder twin debate the vagaries of the upcoming election, Hans found himself wishing that the world were different, more accepting as he and Charles were. The elder twin was truly gifted.
It was a pity the world would never know.

Chapter 1

Alabama, 1862

Hooves bit into the rich loamy earth, as the horse and rider raced through the hay-bale scattered field. The rider raised the rifle, aimed and fired. The horse swerved around one hay-bale. The rifle fired, hitting target after target. Then miss. The rider slipped one leg back over the saddle, leaned back, aimed, and fired. The shot struck home.
The boys along the barn fencing cheered as the rider put the horse through its paces. Christopher, Kit to his friends and family, leaned against barn door with his hat turned low. He sat a horse as well as any of his siblings, but after a morning of hard work, he enjoyed watching the show his twin put on for the rest of the family. His twin was coming back around now, returning the rifle to its holster in the saddle, and raising twin pistols to fire off at the final targets.
More cheers and laughter came from his younger brothers. Kit didn’t have to look to know the shots had hit their mark, or come close to them. His twin never missed. It was almost irritating, that perfection. Or near perfection, at least, for while his twin was gifted in many things, his elder had two left feet, no head for numbers, and only a passable hand when it came to music. He on the other hand could play with stocks all day long, dance all night, and play the piano better than any of his sisters, much to their dismay.
His father stepped forward and clapped his hands as Kit’s twin brought the stallion to a halt right in front of the barn. No gelding for his twin. No. His twin had to have a way with animals too.
“That’s my girl,” Charles Morgan said, “my Kat.”
Dressed no different from any of her brothers, Katarina Morgan dismounted from the stallion with ease. She slid her hand up along the stallion’s neck to settle him down, murmuring nonsense all of them had long since given up trying to understand.
“Goliath’s a little restless today, Papa,” Katarina said.
“Probably itching to mount Gabby’s fine little mare,” Ben chuckled.
“Benjamin,” Christopher growled, jabbing his fifteen-year-old brother in the side. “Watch your mouth.”
“Hey,” Ben yowled, turning on him. “It ain’t like she hadn’t heard it before.”
“But Abby’d have your head if she knew you talked that way in front of a lady,” Christopher said.
“Kat ain’t a lady,” John, all of nine years old, said.
“That’s right,” Mark, only a year younger, said. “She’s just a sister.”
“Boys,” Charles Morgan’s sharp command called the bickering to a halt.
Kat’s laughter broke the silence. She put a hand on her father’s arm, and his stern feature’s melted away. It was truly amazing the gentling affect, Kat had on their father. She was oldest and obvious favorite, but then why wouldn’t she be. She was the image of their mother, Evangeline, but she could do almost anything he and the rest of her brothers could do and sometimes she could do it better.
“It’s alright, Papa. We all know I’ve heard it before,” she said, “and besides, Ben’s probably right.”
Their father colored a bit, but only chuckled, while the other boys belted out full-throated laughter. Christopher even grinned, enjoying the pleasure Kat was feeling. For all their differences, they shared an unnatural connection of the heart and soul. If one was sad, the other was sad. If one was injured, the other felt pain. Needless to say, if gallivanting about made Kat happy, Kit preferred it so. If what he felt watching her from a distance was a fraction of what she felt, well, he knew it was one of the few times she felt free.
“Kat!”
Christopher glanced toward the house to see a wild haired blonde racing through the high grass with her dress hiked up about her knees. Gabriella Morgan, Gabby for short, was blossoming in quite the Southern belle at fourteen. Where he and his sister had auburn haired like their mother, their younger siblings like Gabby, all had blonde hair like Abby. Also like Abby, the younger siblings tended to be more prim and proper, than he and Kat, if only under Abby’s watchful eyes. Seeing the Gabby in a tizzy was quite a sight in deed.
“Gabby, whatever is the matter,” Katarina asked, chuckling as she helped straighten the girl’s skirt’s upon arrival. “Surely, it’s nothing to rush about.”
“But we’re supposed to go to town today,” Gabby said, between gasps for breath. “For your fitting, don’t you remember?”
Kat blinked. She could remember any number of things from books, but she’d never seemed able to keep track of the simple day to day plans Abby set for her. Still it wasn’t laughable, by any means. Worse, Christopher had to sit and watch as the previous joy drained out of her face.
“Of course, yes, I’d forgotten,” Kat murmured, managing a weak smile. “Thank you for reminding me, Gabby.” She turned to their father and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you this evening, Papa.”
“Enjoy yourself, Kat,” he replied, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You too, Gabby.”
Gabby giggled and waved to them all before turning back toward the house, chattering like a magpie. Kat would have to listen to that senseless chatter all afternoon. He didn’t envy her. Daniel, a strapping eleven-year-old, shoved away from the fence, saying something about needing a new book. Unlike his more rough and tumble brothers, Daniel liked nothing better than delving into his studies. Christopher had often wondered when their father would send Daniel up to study with Uncle Hans. For the moment, however, he just was glad Kat would have some intelligent company for the trip to town.
“So when’s the wedding supposed to be again?” Ben asked.
“A month from now, I suppose,” John said, “maybe a few weeks.”
Christopher glared over at Ben then glanced toward their father. Father was still watching Kat’s retreat to the house. Andrew Sherrington owned the plantation on the opposite side of town from the Morgans. No one, not even Kat had opposed the match when he’d first proposed over a year ago. Then the war had started and his father had died, and Andrew had had to go into mourning, putting the wedding on hold. With the year of mourning almost over, Andrew had given them every reason to assume that he still wanted to marry Katarina. But the year had changed Kat. Kit knew, and so did his father. Yet she had never tried to object to the engagement, whenever Abby brought it up in conversation, thus the reason for the trips to town and various fittings.
“Two weeks,” their father said, never taking his eyes off Kat. “I’m to give her away in two weeks.”
And to a man, who will never know what a jewel, he’s won, Christopher thought.

- - - - - - - - - -

Katarina sighed as she perused the shelves in the town’s quaint bookstore. Abby was at the General store ordering supplies plantation, so she was left to listen to the incessant chatter of Gabby and their city friends. She smiled and nodded, but she didn’t much care for their mode of conversation. If the incessant chatter wasn’t bad enough there wasn’t any new reading material coming South with the war in full swing, and she felt like a pin cushion after her dress fitting.
No matter.
She would have to snatch the local paper for the read back to the plantation. Some news about the war just might be enough to drown out Gabby’s chatter about dresses, boys, and fashion. Perhaps if she buried her head deep enough in the paper, she could ignore questions about the wedding. The latest fitting was over, and the dress would be waiting at the dress makers for the final fitting on the day before the wedding.
Her wedding.
“The soldier was a woman!” one of the girls shrieked, turning Katarina’s head.
“Oh yes, it was a terrible scandal,” another of Gabby’s friends murmured.
“How could she have gotten in to begin with,” another said. “It’s all well and good to learn how to shoot and ride a horse…we need do need to be able to protect ourselves with all the boys going off to fight those nasty Yanks…but to join the army and…”
“Horrible,” the youngest squeaked.
“But can you imagine what she’d seen,” Gabby said.
“Scandalous.”
“Brave, very brave,” Katarina murmured.
“Did you say something, Kat?” one of the older ones asked.
Kat parted her lips. “Oh, uh…it was nothing,” she said, turning back to the books, and closed her eyes hoping they’d leave it at that.
Foolish, foolish thoughts. She wanted to get a hold of that paper and read every word of it. Of course, the story would be written by a man and degrade the girl into the ground. A woman couldn’t be brave, couldn’t do anything astonishing. It was all well and good for a man to fight, but not a woman. No, if a woman did anything apart from house chores, letter writing and embroidery, it was a scandal.
She felt color rising to her cheeks as she remembered putting Goliath through his paces, while practicing with the rifle. It was all well and good for the boys to know how to shoot, but her father wanted to make sure his girls could protect themselves. Kat loved it, thrilled to it, and if the rest of the town knew that she dressed like a man, rode like a man, could out shoot half the town, best any man in the South with a sword…well, she’d be the scandal then.
“And what would Andrew think of me then,” she said, smiling at the thought.
“What would I think of you when, Kat?” a rich voice tickled her ear.
She turned around, blushing furiously. Andrew Sherrington. Her heart skipped a little beat as she took in the clean cut of his coat and breeches, the mark of a gentleman. His golden hair was cropped short to curl near his ears, and his grass green eyes seemed to laugh when they met hers. Her blush deepened. At six feet and two, he was one of the few men in Alabama apart from her family that stood taller the she did, even if it was only an inch.
With a curling mustache, a dimple in his cheek and sun kissed skin, darker than most of the pasty gentlemen she’d met in the North, but not as richly tanned as her own, Andrew was a borne charmer and an easy friend. They’d been childhood friends, along with Kit, back when it was much more acceptable for a girl to indulge in tomboyish tendencies. Later, she and Kit had gone to Boston to study with Uncle Hans for a few glorious wonderful years. They’d come back to the plantation, of course, but her friendship with Andrew wasn’t the same.
Andrew looked at her differently now. They didn’t go on adventures anymore, but they spent time together, talking about the old years and the changes in the world. He respected her intelligence, as he always had, and she enjoyed his company. Too many men up north balked at her interests in topics strictly labeled male domain, and while they’d talked of many things, she’d never dared share her private passion for riding, shooting and fencing. She’d made that mistake too many times up North to repeat it with Andrew. After all, she liked Andrew quite a lot, and more than that she liked the way he made her feel. Desired. Loved.
It was Gabby, of all people, who had explained the difference in her relationship with Andrew. Before she had been his friend, a playmate and nothing more, but now all this talking and spending time together had a name. Courting. Andrew courted her for several weeks before proposing, and she’d said yes, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. She’d looked forward to the wedding, not thinking of anything else, until the dreaded secession occurred and the war broke out. Then Andrew’s father had died, and he’d had to go into mourning for a year, but that year was almost up.
Two weeks. Two weeks and she would belong to this man with his golden hair, dimpled grin, and laughing green eyes. Two weeks and she’d be a bride, become Andrew’s wife, and maybe, just maybe, she feared, something less than she was now. She banished the thought, and smiled up at him.
“When I walk down the aisle in my wedding dress,” she said, and found herself laughing. “It’s truly stunning, Andrew. Mrs. Pierce has truly out down herself this time.”
“One would hope so given a year to concoct such perfection,” he said, drawing close to whisper in her ear. “Though I’m rather more interested in seeing the perfection she’s performed on your delightful trousseau.”
Katarina felt the heat rising to her cheeks, even as pure mirth bubbled up inside her, washing her worries away. At one and twenty, she was well on the shelf, but this man wanted her. No matter their differences, he’d accept her once he knew her secrets and respect her enough to let her open her wings as her father had done. He whispered promises of secret kisses and stolen moments, pleasures she couldn’t begin to imagine.
She was no ignorant miss like most of the southern belles in Gabby’s giggly gang. They chattered about love and romance ripped from the pages of lurid novels, running the gamut from the mundane to the outrageous. Kat’s knowledge came from the ancients, the philosophers of Greece and Rome, sacred texts from exotic places, and even the Bible, a solid masculine copy given to her by Uncle Hans rather than a woman’s bible, which was still being watered-down with edits so the texts would not offend their delicate sensibilities. In these texts, the writers gloried in their sexuality, prized it, and cherished it for the gift God ordained it.
Added to that was the small fact that Katarina could not ignore the facts of life one encountered on the plantation, nor the often risqué knowledge acquired through stealth when one had loose lipped brothers. And Kat liked to think, Andrew admired her for that as well.
“Soon,” Andrew whispered, when he’d finished exciting her with words that left too much to the imagination though his tone could not.
Kat felt herself short of breath, and licked her lip, which made a strange light flare in Andrew’s eyes. Andrew grinned; mischief and daring rolled into one, and stole a quick, chaste kiss from her lips. He lingered a moment, far too long for propriety, then pulled away.
“But not nearly soon enough,” he murmured, and cursed something under his breath.
Kat shared his sentiment. She sank against the bookcase, glad for its sturdy strength. God knew, her legs wouldn’t hold her up much longer. He’d have to understand her need to be free. They loved each other. There was obviously passion between them, but too often she worried it wouldn’t be enough. She hoped she was wrong. She wanted to experience all the things he teased her about. She wanted him to know everything about her, and she wanted to know all about him. She was tired of secrets, tired of wearing masks. She wanted the deed done.
“Two weeks,” she whispered.
Andrew tensed against her. Kat arched a brow. “We need to talk about…”
“Mr. Sherrington!”
Gabby. Leave it to Gabriella Morgan to announce their presence to the world at large and ruin and perfectly poignant private conversation. Still, her bubbly intrusion made Andrew relax as he turned to meet her sister.
“Good afternoon, Miss Gabriella, are you enjoying today’s shopping excursion?”
“Oh, greatly, Mr. Sherrington, though I fear you missed the best part.”
“And what would that be?”
“The dress makers, of course, Kat looked so fine in her wedding dress, all done up in white taffeta and lace. Just like a princess, you should have seen her.”
“I believe its bad form to see the bride in her dress before the wedding.”
“Of course, of course, but it’s so terribly funny to see her at Mrs. Pierce’s mercy. All done up like a little China doll, white head to toe, such a pretty princess and then she goes and ruins the effect when Mrs. Pierce missed the fabric and stabbed her right in the—”
“Gabriella Morgan!”
Gabby stared blank faced a moment, then grinned and dashed around the corner, impertinent chit. Really the child was the absolute most irritating mischief maker in the lot. And for a family with boys out numbering girls two to one, that was saying quite a lot. Kat didn’t realize she’d raised her hand already curled into a fist until Andrew’s hand covered hers and gently pried her fingers free.
“Easy, Kat,” he whispered, coming up beside her and guiding her over to pair of chairs in the corner. “For a woman with such a steady temper, it’s a delight to see you get angry.”
Kat sighed and sat down. “The chit knows just how to rile me, even delights in it, I think.”
“What else are sisters good for?” Andrew chuckled.
Kat grinned, letting her frustration with Gabby role off her back. She settled into her chair and Andrew took the seat catty corner to her. Heavy scent of printed paper and good binding permeated the room, relaxing her nerves. She could still hear Gabby and her friends gushing about some such nonsense. Hearing Andrew’s name more than once left no doubt of the topic of their conversation. Kat shook her head, wearily.
“Silly chits.”
“I must agree,” Andrew said gravely. “Perhaps the South should start recruiting women. There’d be no more deaths as the chits would simply talk the Yanks into submission.”
Kat found herself smiling. “Do you think the army would ever permit it?” She murmured more to herself than to him, but realized he was listening by the tilt of his head. “Recruiting women, I mean.”
“No,” he said. “It was a joke, Kat, you know that.” He glanced over at the girls a few aisle’s over. “It’s a hard life from what I’ve heard. These women need to be protected, and it’s a gentleman’s duty to do the protecting, not the other way around.” He chuckled. “Besides, all that chatter would drive the men in their regiment mad before they ever encountered combat.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Kat said, managing a smile, though it reminded her again, that she wasn’t one of those women. She didn’t like idle chatter that wended about in listless patterns of utter nonsense with no direction. She was different. She shook her head, and pushed those thoughts away. She cleared her throat. “What were you going to say before my sister’s rude interruption?”
Andrew colored a bit and glanced down. Kat frowned. It obviously wasn’t good news.
“I wanted to call on you this afternoon,” he said, but it struck her as a half-truth. “Since you’re here in town, I’d like to take you over to the plantation, we could go riding and you can see how those improvements you recommended are faring.”
“Andy,” she whispered. While he still called her Kat, as he had when they were children, she rarely used his boyhood nickname.
Andrew’s eyes darkened. “Just a few hours Kat, that’s all I ask.”
“Okay,” she said then rose and went to tell Gabby about their change in plans.

Chapter 2

Alabama, 1862

Kat raced through the fields atop Celeste, the mare Andrew kept for her use at his stables on the plantation. She rode astride when she and Andrew were alone as they were now. It was one of her secrets she’d told him early on, and he’d quickly brushed away traditional conventions for her, saying riding astride was the safer style.
They checked on the improvements she’d suggested first, greeting the hands and slaves in turn. The hands were friendly, but she understood the hope in the slaves’ eyes. They knew about her father’s beliefs and were hoping she’d bring those same beliefs to the Sherrington plantation once she married the Master. The outbreak of war had turned that searching hope of theirs into a form of anxiety that ate at Kat as surely as it did them. It wasn’t that the Sherrington’s were cruel. Quite the contrary, they were one of the kinder task masters in the area, but that still didn’t make slavery right. Kat had to remember that slavery was a way of life in the South. It was such a terrible issue that it had literally divided their great nation and started a war. She was glad when they left the working fields for open pasture land.
She rode through the pasture at break neck pace, only a head and half a neck ahead of Andrew on his gelding. She’d lost her bonnet early in the ride, and the wind tore through the neat bun Abby had so carefully fashioned allowing the wild red curls free to ride the breeze. She loved riding, loved the freedom it gave her, if only for a short time.
“This way, Kat,” Andrew shouted, turning into the woods.
Kat laughed, slowing Celeste down to a steadier pace before following him into the woods. It was an up hill path, and the foliage was deep, slowing the pace of their mounts. They hadn’t come up here in ages, not since Andrew had brought her here to propose. They breached the forest and found the glen with the waterfall, with its snake like stream moving down the mountain. Near the waterfall stood a shabby wooden shack built from fallen trees and hacked off limbs, a secluded retreat three children had put together over a decade ago. The memories of this place were pleasant, enduring, and yet a sadness lingered here as well…for those days of childish fun were well over and done.
But why would Andrew bring me here, she thought, dismounting without his help and moving to tether Celeste to one of three ancient posts they’d driven into the ground all those years ago for that very purpose.
“Katarina?”
Kat looked up, and turned to face Andrew. He was rather perfect in the afternoon light, with the birds singing in the trees all about them and sound of the water splashing into the pool. Andrew could easily be a hero from one of those novels Gabby so enjoyed, coming to rescue her from some ill fate. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry.
“Yes, Andy?”
Andrew chuckled, and glanced toward the glen. “It’s enchanting, isn’t it?”
“Very,” she said, coming to stand beside him.
The stood there together a long moment, alone with their thoughts. Kat wondered if he was recalling the past as she was, the days when they’d been children and everything was so much less complicated than it was now. The war flickered through her mind. Yes, things weren’t so simple anymore, but what could she do about it. No one cared what a woman thought of such a masculine thing called war.
“Andrew, why did you want to come here today?”
Andrew sighed beside her, his shoulders slumped and there was a shadow in his eyes. Her heart skipped a warning beat. No it wasn’t good news at all. What now?
“Is it the wedding?” she asked without thinking. Stupid, stupid, stupid thoughts, remembering the heated description he’d whispered in her ear at the bookstore.
“No,” he said, immediately, turning to her. “I want to marry you, Kat, you know I do…” Doubt flickered in his eyes.
“Andy,” she whispered, taking hold of his hand, when he would have turned away.
There was a deep sadness in him now. He brought her hand up with his and kissed her palm, then shook his head. “Katarina, I can’t in good conscience make you a widow when you’ve just become my wife.”
He’s dying, the question roared through her, with the obvious answer. “No!” She clenched her hand around his. “No, you promised me you wouldn’t go.”
“The Confederacy needs men Kat, men who can ride and shoot, not the boys that are pouring into the army everyday.”
“It’s senseless, you agreed with me,” she said. Then cursed which made Andrew blink, but she didn’t care. The very idea that he wanted to risk his life… She ran a hand through her wind ravaged hair. “We discussed this Andrew, you agreed that the Confederacy is doomed…we don’t have the ammunition reserves to compete with the Yanks and their blocking more ports every week.”
“But General Lee is gaining in the west, the Confederacy is moving east like a well oiled machine. Those stuffy city-folk Yanks can’t out last rough and tumble farmers that know the land.”
“All of which does the Confederacy no good if they can’t lay claim to any of the major cities,” Kat fired back, but there was no arguing with Andrew when he’d made up his mind.
She sighed, and looked across the glen, remembering her childhood. She wasn’t getting married, it should have been a relief with all the doubts that had been creeping up in her mind, but some how it just felt like another shattered dream. She turned back to Andrew.
“What changed your mind?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Kat.”
“No, what changed your mind about the army?” She asked. “We both know slavery is a way of life for the South, but we’ve also agreed that it can’t last much longer…not in a world changing as fast as ours. So why go to fight in a cause your own conscience won’t allow you to fully support?”
Andrew seemed to shrink, his features shuttered for a moment. Silence fell between them for a long while before he spoke. “Jimmy’s dead.”
Jimmy was the Sherrington’s housekeeper’s son, and another playmate from their childhood, though he was much younger than them. He’d run around with them, always at their heels with treats from the kitchen and an easy laugh. The Confederacy needs men Kat, men who can ride and shoot, not the boys that are pouring into the army everyday, Andrew’s words from moments before echoed through her mind.
“How?”
“He joined up as a drummer boy for one of the regiments in the Alabama Brigade. It was just for the adventure, he said. He’d never seen anything of the world beyond town and this plantation. I didn’t think,” Andrew clenched his fists, squeezing his eyes tight, as he let out an explicative of his own. “He was thirteen years old, Kat.”
No older than, Daniel, she thought, bringing her hand up to over her mouth.
“Do you understand, Kat,” he asked, and the eyes her turned on her then cut her to her heart. They tore at her soul. “Do you understand why I have to go?”
Kat closed her eyes for a moment, but nodded. “Yes,” she said, moving into his arms. “You must realize you won’t be saving anyone, but if you feel you must…” His arms wrapped around her, crushing her close. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “Just promise me you won’t die.”
“You’ll wait for me?”
Kat smiled through the tears. “I’m one and twenty, firmly on the shelf by Southern standards,” she teased. “No one else will have me, so you must promise to come back and save me from my dreaded spinsterhood.”
Andrew chuckled, and dropped a kiss in her hair. “You sell yourself short, Kat. You’re a prize, and any man would be ten times a fool not to love you as I do.”
Kat hugged him back, but smothered doubts rose again. If a man was ten times a fool not to love her, what did it say of the man who was leaving her to fight a war? A war that might kill him? Kat shuddered, as all the doubts she’d been brushing beneath ghosts rose to the forefront of her mind. There was always the worry that he wouldn’t be able to except her habits of riding and shooting and fencing in the same way her brain enchanted him. They were compatible, could be witty together…but that level of comfort came from years of friendship, and developed into courting, which led to marriage and more interesting things.
And breathing in his clean scent, Kat pondered once again, the seriousness of their relationship. What it true passion and love like her parents had, or were they merely moving from one kind of friendship to another far more intimate kind. She bit her lip, wishing that Andrew wouldn’t go, but a selfish part of her heart was glad of it. She needed time away from him to straighten out her feelings.