Glory by Heather Graham Page A

length of his body. He squeezed her wrist and forced her to drop what she held.
    “Let me be!” she pleaded, for she hadn’t the strength to stop him from forcing her clenched fist open. What she held fell to the floor, and as he stopped to retrieve it, he looked quickly back up at her, startled. It was a small, corked vial. Laudanum? Or a truer form of the drug, pure opium.
    He understood the look in her eyes as he rose to his feet, staring at her.
    “Laudanum or pure opium?”
    “None of your business!”
    “You’re an addict.”
    “No!” she protested. “Give it back, no ... I’m not addicted, I just ... sometimes ... please ... I need it!”
    He gritted his teeth. God, yes, laudanum, a legal drug. In times of peace so plentiful! It cured headaches and women’s ills, and yes, of course, it was good for pain.
    And for forgetfulness.
    It could be essential in an operating theater; he knew that because so often he didn’t have any. If not for his cousin Jerome being a blockade runner, he might never have the drugs he needed, especially since the serious fighting took place so far away. He could surely use more of the drug.
    Yet laudanum was also easy to abuse. He’d never forget one of the first corpses he’d worked on in medical school. In life she had been a beautiful young woman with golden blond hair and bright blue eyes. In death, she had lain ashen and gray, naked, displayed for dissection, the victim of her need. She’d been found in a field, and no one had known who she was or where to find her kin. And so she had come to the medical school. It was later discovered that she was the child of a wealthy and prominent family, but she had run away from home after acquiring an irresistible hunger for the drug that had killed her.
    “Colonel, please ...”
    Her voice was husky, low, pleading. He shook his head.
    He was furious. There was so much death and horror in this war! That she could be so careless with something so precious as life ... !
    He gripped her by the shoulders and shook her. She was taking the drug and drinking wine. A potent combination indeed.
    “What is the matter with you?”
    She stiffened against his touch. “You don’t understand—”
    “But I do.”
    “Let me go. I must—” she began to insist angrily.
    “You don’t need this.”
    “I do. Just tonight.”
    “I’m telling you, you don’t.”
    “God damn you! Who are you to tell me anything?”
    She wrenched free from him, backing away, her eyes meeting his with a challenging fire.
    “So you’re free from me,” he said very softly. “You don’t think that I can stop you if I choose?”
    She was alarmed at his determination. “What is it to you what I choose to do with my life?”
    “You won’t have a life!” he assured her.
    “Don’t be absurd, I know what I’m doing—”
    “Do you? You’re fooling yourself. Opium and wine. In large quantities. You don’t think there’s enough death and misery in the world?”
    “This isn’t your affair! Now, please give it to me—”
    “You’ve already had too much.”
    She was dead still for a moment, realizing he knew she’d already been taking the drug. Then she tilted up her chin and stared at him with a cool disinterest. “No, Colonel, I never have enough. And this is not your affair.”
    He took the two steps that brought them back together and reached for her. She cried out in alarm, but he drew her close to him again, determined to get his point across. “I’m a physician, and I can tell you that this is dangerous. Listen to me—”
    “Go to hell! Leave me alone! I repeat—just who do you think you are to come in here and tell me what to do?” she demanded heatedly. Her body was stiff; she struggled again to free herself from his hold. When he refused to grant the least quarter, she brought her fists up between them and slammed them hard against his naked chest.
    He didn’t stop her assault, but stepped closer to her, forcing her against him so that