Triumph by Heather Graham Page A

so.”
    “Do you plan a Yankee torture?”
    “I plan to have the truth.”
    “Then you explain yourself, and quit playing games. What do you intend to do once we have retrieved my clothing?”
    “Why, remove you from the war. Take you into custody. Find out more about you. Perhaps in St. Augustine we’ll discover that dozens of men have been lured to their doom by the wiles of the Lady Godiva.”
    “No!” she protested in horror. St. Augustine! She had kin throughout the city, some there permanently, some coming and going, her oldest brother being the worst of them. She would not, could not, be dragged to St. Augustine. Oh, God, Ian would ...
    She didn’t even want to imagine what Ian would say and do. And her father would find out, and her mother ...
    “You have to let me go.”
    “No.”
    “But—”
    “You will remain in my custody until I can give you over to the proper authorities, and that is that. You should thank me, you little fool! Keep up a lifestyle like this and you are sure to be ravaged if not slain. It’s my fondest hope that your father is a good, stern Southern fellow who will quite simply find a good hickory stick and a wood shed and leave such an impression on your—dare we say bare?—flesh that you never think of such foolhardy behavior again.”
    She lowered her head slightly. Her father had one hell of a temper, for sure, but he had never raised a hand against any of them in anger. What would he do now? It wasn’t his violence she feared. It was his disappointment. She adored him, had always adored him, as she did her mother. She’d been a normal child, she thought, angry and rebellious at times, but the last years had shown her time and time again that she’d been blessed, and she never, ever wanted to cause her parents harm. Or shame. They had all chosen their ways; they had even been encouraged to know their own hearts. Her father had never called anyone a traitor, though the name was thrown at him often enough because he refused to say that he had come to terms with secession.
    “Don’t you think you’ve chastised me quite enough for any father?”
    “Not in the least.”
    “I did what I had to do.”
    “And I’m doing what I have to do.”
    “So I should be repentant—and grateful? Well, you bastard, I’m not sorry!” she proclaimed suddenly, tossing her hair back. “There were injured men who would not survive your dragging them to St. Augustine!”
    “Oh, we’ll find them,” he assured her in such a way that she was chilled.
    She shook her head again. This time, with her hair playing havoc beneath his nose, he sneezed.
    “If you don’t mind ...” he began.
    “I do mind! You must leave those men alone. They are just children, just boys, too young to be in the service, don’t you see? But the state is so desperate, so many men are dead, rotting in Southern states that are actually far north of us! There is no militia left—” She broke off, realizing that she was telling a Yankee in just what horrible a condition the state’s defenses were in. “Well, of course, troops will be sent back. There is an action that will surely go on to the north, there are so many troops, North and South accumulating ... in that arena, of course, we have thousands of men—”
    “Madam, neither of us is a fool.”
    “You must make no attempt on those boys! And you must leave me alone. I’ll escape, you know, and if I have to, I’ll kill you—”
    “Thank you. I’ll be forewarned. I believe we have now come back to where we began. In fact, I think that pile there might be your clothing.”
    Yes, they had come back to where they had begun. Where she had been such a fool, delighting in the feel of being really clean after so much blood and dirt ...
    There lay her clothing. Dried out over the log where she had laid it.
    He leapt down from the horse, reaching up to her. With little choice, she accepted his arms. Yet, before he would lift her down, he asked her, “What is your