Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance Series, #2)
Siege of the Heart
Southern Romance Series, Volume 2
Lexy Timms
Published by Dark Shadow Publishing, 2015.
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The Recruiting Trip
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Siege of the Heart
Southern Romance Series
Book 2
By
Lexy Timms
Copyright 2015 by Lexy Timms
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Copyright 2015 by Lexy Timms
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Southern Romance Series
Little Love Affair
Book 1
Siege of the Heart
Book 2
Freedom Forever
Book 3
Description
Siege of the Heart, Book 2 in the Southern Romance series, by bestselling author Lexy Timms
Knox Township, August 1863.
Jasper Perry has a home, a family—everything he thought was lost to him forever after war broke out. With Clara’s love, Jasper believes he has everything he has ever wanted. As he awaits marriage to Clara, he finds himself overcome with homesickness.
When a Confederate militia kidnaps him, determined to punish him for his defection, Jasper has a choice: to give up the loyalty he once held to the Confederacy and fight to get back to Clara; or leave his new home behind, and return to all that is familiar. To make things more complicated, the militia has mistaken Cecelia for Jasper’s wife, and kidnapped her as well.
Reunited with his family, Solomon Dalton attempts to return to his old life as if nothing had ever happened. But when Jasper and Cecelia are kidnapped, Solomon must return to Confederate territory to save those he loves. However, he is not alone, a strange man is following him, and Solomon has heard in quiet whispers that Union spies are looking for those who have betrayed the cause...
Contents
Find Lexy Timms:
Southern Romance Series
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
FREEDOM FOREVER
More by Lexy Timms:
COMING SOON:
Southern Romance Series:
Chapter 1
The wagon hitch slipped out of his hands and thudded to the ground with a dull boom, and Jasper swore. One of the barn cats yowled, and Beauty, back in her stall, whinnied at him. Whether it was genuine concern or amusement, Jasper did not know, but he was unamused nonetheless. He sucked at his banged fingers, muttered another oath, and decided he would finish the task later. He strode out of the barn at high speed, not wanting to admit to himself that he was really worried Clara would come out of the kitchen and ask what was wrong.
He did not want to see Clara just now.
Besides, it was beautiful outside. That, he could appreciate. The fall colors were a thing of beauty in his hometown of Osceola, Missouri, but Jasper had never experienced autumn in Pennsylvania. The air carried a genuine chill to it, the barest hint of the winters he so feared about the north—he had heard stories from Solomon. Oddly, the fear of that cold was stirring in his blood, making the riot of reds and oranges and yellows in the hills somehow more beautiful, lending an unearthly quality to the sunflowers bobbing gently to the swaying fields of late crops. At night, when Clara had poured them some cider, it was more wonderful to huddle around the fire. A welcomed break from the August heat.
Jasper should feel at home here. Indeed, at times he did feel at home. There was the easy camaraderie of a farm, where everyone went to bed in the evenings exhausted by the plain, honest work of turning the earth for crops and wrangling the animals into their pens, picking apples, and planting seeds to winter. Jasper bagged potatoes, Clara spun and managed the business of the farm with Solomon at her side, and Cecelia fought with the goats. Stubborn creatures; Jasper didn’t see how she could love them, but Cecelia loved everyone.
He should be happy.
Sometimes when he looked at Clara, he thought his heart would burst with love. She was slim and golden and as lovely a woman as any he’d seen, and she refused to hide behind myths of feminine incompetence as she struggled to keep the farm running. With Solomon alive, and more help for the farm, she had blossomed into hope.
Yet, Jasper could not help feeling like an outsider. Clara was to be his wife soon, sometime after the harvest. They should have rushed it, and yet they did not, and Jasper could not bring himself to insist on it.
He should.
He knew that. He did not know why he failed to do so.
He did know that not even the easy good humor of the men and their grudging respect for saving Solomon did not absolve him entirely in their eyes. He knew that sometimes he saw them looking, and knew they were remembering who he had fought for. After all, he was not a person who had defected out of conscience, and never fought for the Confederacy. Even though Jasper swore to himself that he would not take up arms in their defense again, even when he accepted that he had fought for something he could no longer condone, he struggled with a furious pride. How dare they look down on him?
It did not help that he was the man who had taken the bride from Cyrus Dupont. The town loved that
man. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, half-defiant, that he was a fine man, a man who helped his own. They said it sometimes when they needn’t have said anything more than hello, and even knowing that he was credited as Solomon Dalton’s savior, Jasper knew he was still the Confederate to them.
Solomon’s own history was never disclosed. That Jasper had saved him on the battlefield and brought him home was known. No one seemed to put two and two together. They were all just so happy to see him.
Solomon, who was the one person that Jasper should have been able to confide in, was suddenly withdrawn. The past days he had been fidgety, heading out into the countryside or town for reasons he would not disclose. Millicent remarked acidly that she had never seen a young man in love look so miserable, and Solomon had only shaken his head curtly. He was not in love, then. So what was it?
Jasper strode out into the fields with an oath, making for the forests. He understood why Clara ran here when she was overwhelmed, why Solomon came to walk among the trees. In the swaying of branches and the rustle of leaves, there was a peace unlike any in a human area. Cecelia might take comfort strolling in the orchard, but for Jasper, the woods could be anywhere. He could be home again.
Home.
He was never going to see it again. His pace quickened. Lord knew there was nothing there anymore. Perhaps when he did not come home from the war, someone would take his family’s ruined homestead and build there again. There would be children toddling in the new house, and plants growing green where he had left ashes. He liked that thought. He did not want to go back to the memories and the grief.
It was one thing not to want to, and another not to be able to, and in any case, when he thought of the homestead, he wanted to lash out at the rest of them and ask if they thought everything the Union did had been so wonderful then. People had died. Civilians had died, had starved—not only those who took up arms, but children too. Mothers and grandfathers and youngest sons, trying desperately to keep the farms and shops running when the fields were burned and the goods no longer came down from the north. What good did cotton do when there were no factories?
They would not understand. They had not seen the innocents caught up in it.
If Jasper went back, he knew what would happen. They had lost, and they would have precious little sympathy for deserters. Any valor he had earned would be gone at once. He was no longer someone who could march home a hero and ask for Daisy’s hand in marriage. He wondered if she expected him to do so. Maybe she would think him dead, and perhaps that was kinder.
“Jasper?” The voice stopped him in his tracks just before he broke into a run.
He turned. “Cecelia.”
Though the day was still warm, she stood with a cloak wrapped around her. Cecelia had been withdrawn the past few days, wearing shawls and walking around pale and quiet. No one else noticed, but Jasper did—he knew misery when he saw it. He knew how easy it was to stop talking and let others continue chattering away while you sat in quiet agony. He could not fault the others for not understanding. He should have spoken to her sooner.
“Is something wrong?” She spoke before he could find the words for his own question.
“Nothing,” he said, forcing a smile, and she studied him with her brown eyes. Solomon’s eyes. Where Solomon and Clara had golden hair, Cecelia was all in shades of golden-brown, even her skin bronzing more easily in the sun. It made her pallor all the more noteworthy.
“You’ve been upset,” she said now. It was not like Cecelia to contradict people, but she was blossoming into a woman of opinions. She had once been timid. Not anymore.
“You know about that?”
“Why does everyone assume I’m stupid?” Cecelia asked, exasperated. “I’m not, you know. I see things. You’ve been miserable.”
“I wouldn’t say miserable,” Jasper said, nettled. He sighed and rubbed his head. “I’m sorry, Cee.”
“You all think I’m still a child,” Cecelia said. She had folded her arms over her chest and she was rigid with anger. “Well, I’m not.”
“I don’t think you’re a child,” Jasper said. “You saved my life, Cecelia. I can’t forget that.” He had a vivid memory of Cecelia with the branch in her hand, panting, and Cyrus on the ground at her feet, and he smiled at the thought. Clara’s shock had been quite amusing. The mighty Cyrus felled by a tiny slip of a girl.
“I suppose I did,” Cecelia said. She looked away, and then back, her brow furrowed. “Is it you and Clara? Is that why you’re so upset? I see you looking at her sometimes and it’s like you don’t know how to feel about her. Do you not love her anymore?”
The question was far more direct than anything Jasper had expected. He gawped for a moment before recovering his wits. “Cecelia...”
“Don’t just keep saying my name like that. Did you expect me to say something polite and timid? She’s my sister, Jasper. She protected me while Solomon was gone. She loves you. She finally feels like her life is safe again. If you don’t love her...”
“I do love her,” Jasper said gently, not sure he wanted to know the end of Cecelia’s ultimatum. “I love her with all my heart.”
“Then what is it?” Cecelia demanded of him. “Jasper, you’re going away more and more often now. I see you at dinner. You don’t speak. What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” As much as Cecelia would be glad it wasn’t a fading love for her sister, Jasper wasn’t sure she would take homesickness on his part any better.
“Can I...help?” she asked cautiously.
“No,” Jasper answered after a moment. “I don’t think you can.” He took the opportunity to study her profile as she looked away. “What’s been troubling you, then?”
She looked back at him, wide-eyed.
“I’ve noticed,” he said simply. “It takes one to see one, Cee. You don’t talk either. You look miserable too. So what is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it either,” she said after a moment. She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, as if she thought of confiding in him and then thought better of it.
“Are you not going to tell anyone?” he asked her. “Does Clara know?”
“Don’t mention it to Clara!” Her voice was emphatic, slightly panicked. “Please don’t.”
“I won’t. But why—”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Cecelia.” Jasper studied her face, and her brown eyes met his defiantly. She was terrified. What on earth could have gotten into her? “You know I will help you with anything. I’m going to be your brother.”
She relaxed fractionally as the importance of his words sank in. If only, he thought, he could take as much pure joy in the thought of marriage as she did. The thought of living here in the face of muted spite all his life was enough to...
He shook his head slightly to clear it and looked away.
“What’s that?” Cecelia asked, and Jasper did not look back at once.
“Hmmm?”
“Jasper.” The panic was back, but sharper. “There are men in the forest.”
His attention snapped back to her at once.
“There are what?” As he saw what she had been looking at, his heart twisted.
There were men in the trees: some burly, some taller. None of them wore uniforms, but all of them had rifles strapped to their backs. Jasper had seen the Union soldiers come home, resplendent in their blue, marching proudly to the cheers of the townsfolk. If these weren’t Union soldiers, then...
Oh, no.
“Run,” he told Cecelia, and when she looked over at him sharply, he knew she saw his sickening fear.
If these were not Union, they were Confederate. And if they were Confederate, they were here for a raid, or...
Or to track down a missing soldier. A soldier who had defected. They were here for revenge. Jasper’s breath caught. He’d just gotten Cecelia caught in the middle of it.
Chapter 2
Solomon banged his way o
ut of the house. He was in a very bad mood indeed. It had been a bitch of a morning, and there was no one—no one—he could tell what was wrong. They would think he was crazy, and if they did not, they would be terrified. He could not do that to his family.
Someone was following him.
He knew they would call him crazy, and still he could not help believing it. Even he thought he was crazy sometimes, but he knew, deep down, that he was not. That it was real. It was little things he caught out of the corner of his eye, glimpses of movement on the street that didn’t seem normal, and he could never catch a glimpse of who it was.
It was maddening, which was refreshing as an emotion because it was also damned well terrifying.
Who would be tailing him? He knew the answer to that, and he did not like it. Those in the taverns in town mentioned it without any reserve, none of them suspecting the truth about him—that the Union army was tracking down defectors, traitors, spies. That now the business of the war was done for civilians, but it was not over yet for the army. Some people, they confided, had betrayed the Union. They deserved to hang, some said. Other said a great deal more violent things, and Solomon would always swallow and look down into his beer.
They thought he was quiet because of Jasper, and sometimes they took the time to clap him on the shoulder and say quietly that Jasper seemed a good man, that maybe some southerners weren’t so bad. But not all of them had met Solomon, they said. Not all of them had seen the light. And those in the Union who had not supported the cause...
He did not know who would come for him, but he had been sure from the start that someone would. It would all come tumbling down to him being hauled away and his family disgraced, because it wouldn’t take too many questions before someone noticed a very large gap between when Solomon had disappeared and when he’d re-emerged, rescued. It wouldn’t take very much for people to begin to piece the story together, particularly when Cyrus clearly knew more than he was saying. Cyrus, who people were curious about, who had held his tongue in the wake of his broken engagement, but how long might that last?