Beloved Enemy by Mary Schaller

Author:Mary Schaller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2004-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

When Julia disappeared inside the Chandler house, Rob felt as if a light had been snuffed out in his soul. Closing the garden gate behind him, he shoved his good hand deep into his pocket and headed back to the City Hotel where he had engaged a bed for the night. His boot heels tapped out a mournful staccato on the icy paving stones, “tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.”

Tomorrow, by first light, he would return to Washington and buy that gilt-edged edition of Shakespeare from the hotel’s stationers. Tomorrow would be his last day of freedom for a long time to come. Tomorrow he would pay his lodging bill at Ebbitt’s and leave his few possessions in the safekeeping of his landlord. Tomorrow, he would give Colonel Lawrence the letters he had written for his parents and Julia, to be posted in case of his death. Tomorrow he would not think of death.

Tomorrow he would throw himself headlong into the most exciting adventure of his life. Tomorrow night, he would see Julia one last time as he betrayed her gentle trust. He would hate himself for doing it. Perhaps, in the years beyond tomorrow night, she would finally understand and forgive him.

In the City Hotel, war’s necessity forced him to share his room with several other snoring occupants. Rob tried to settle himself into a state of repose. Tonight would be his last time in a comfortable bed for many months. He knew his body needed rest for tomorrow’s events, but sleep eluded him. As the little city’s church bells tolled away the early morning hours, Rob stared out the small window while thoughts of his mission unwound like a spool of thread. Every detail that he had memorized over the past two days returned in vivid clarity.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the floor plans of Libby Prison that the clever Lizzie Van Lew had pieced together from her many visits to that dreadful place. The map of Richmond’s city streets scrolled through his brain. The back roads that paralleled the James River down to Williamsburg and Newport News marched in cadence with his heartbeat. Once Rob got the escapees beyond Williamsburg, they would be safe behind their own lines. Food and medical attention awaited them at City Point.

Once at City Point…Rob must get them there…as many men as possible…safely to City Point.

Julia! Her beautiful face replaced Rob’s nightmares of Confederate gunfire, rats crawling over him in a prison cell, thin gruel to eat instead of the creamy oyster stew that he had enjoyed earlier that evening. Julia’s sad eyes reproached him in silence. He didn’t want to hear her musical voice ask him why he had betrayed her trust for her enemy’s benefit. He expected that his conscience would ask him that question a million times over during his incarceration in Libby.

After the war—it was bound to end soon—Rob promised himself to seek her out. By then she would be Mrs. Payton Norwood. He would knock at

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