Rebel Rose

by Debra Glass

At once, Rose slid under the blankets, careful not to touch his wounded chest. “Do you require anything?” she asked.

  “Just you, Rose. Just you.”

  Rose nuzzled her face against his shoulder.

  “I’m…so sorry…” he began.

  Rose’s heart felt as if it were suddenly trying to drum its way out of her chest. “It’s all right. I know what you did for Rueben.”

  His hand seized her wrist and he squeezed. “No. For what happened…to you.”

  A tumult of black memories swept over her and she blinked, forcing them away. “Don’t speak of it.”

  She had thought about Eric’s reasons for turning her in. But she only had Pike’s word to go on and she didn’t trust him. “Is it true what Pike told me?” she blurted, unable to stop herself.

  “What did he tell you?” Eric coughed and winced.

  “That you were sent to arrest me,” she said, sensing him tense in her arms. She continued. “That soldiers had died because of a spy you’d…known.”

  His fingertips caressed her wrist. “Yes, Rose. It’s true.”

  She stilled, stunned. She didn’t know what bothered her worse. The fact that he had been with another woman—a whore—or that he had thought she was a spy and had come here to trap her.

  “I should explain,” he said.

  Although she was dying to know, she pressed a finger to his lips. “Not now. Be still and rest.”

  “Rose…I—”

  “Not now,” she said firmly.

  “No. I have something to tell you,” he said.

  His eyes glittered in the lamplight. “Pike shot me. He intended to kill me and when I thought I was dying…I realized… Damn Rose, I’m in love with you.”

  Rose’s lips parted. She gaped.

  “After I heal—after this war—I intend to marry you.”

  Rose couldn’t believe her ears. Love? He loved her? He couldn’t possibly love her. She couldn’t possibly love him.

  Could she?

  What she’d felt for him was lust. Nothing more. She’d been lonely. She’d been weak. She’d given in to carnal desires.

  But love? The knowledge washed over her like a warm, comforting breeze. She did love him. She had loved him all along. She’d loved him from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

  Words threatened to gush forth but she couldn’t utter them. Acceptance was on her lips but still, she hesitated.

  “You don’t forgive me,” he said and brushed his fingers along her neck.

  Rose shuddered at the memories she had tried to block.

  “I don’t blame you,” he continued.

  She wanted so badly to tell him that she loved him, too, but she knew she couldn’t do that. She’d lost her brother and her husband and her child. Their deaths had broken her and not even her passion for Eric could heal that. She struggled to remember the coldness in Eric’s eyes when he had summoned the sergeant at arms to arrest her.

  Calm washed over her, replacing the panic that the idea of loving him had caused. Briefly, she shut her eyes and took a breath, desperately wanting everything to return to normal. This was the control she needed. She’d only been weak. Lonely. No man’s love could mend her wounds. They were too many and far too deep.

  Eric grimaced. His heart ached. Rose had not done anything to assure him of her innocence the day he’d had her arrested. In fact, she had stated plainly that she was the one who had gone through his pockets. But he would not remind of her that. Not now. Not ever.

  Rose was an intelligent woman. If she realized her part in the tragic events that had transpired, then there was another reason for her reticence.

  A reason he could not comprehend.

  Perhaps she had used him merely to procure supplies. Perhaps he had been duped. Again.

  But he didn’t think that was the case.

  “Miss Rose,” Rueben’s voice came from the foyers. His usually dark face had gone ghostly pale. “It’s Queenie’s time,” he said.

  * * * * *

  Rose was exhausted when she returned to the parlor a day later. She was surprised to find Eric awake and looking much better than he had earlier. She smiled. “Queenie had a boy. They named him Billy.”

  “She and the baby are both healthy?” Eric asked, propping on two thick pillows.

  Rose nodded. “He came into this world hungry.”

  Eric smiled. Rose wanted to close her eyes, to look away. She did neither. But he had no right to be so devastatingly handsome. During Queenie’s labor, Rose had been able to push aside her own tension and concentrate on helping Queenie deliver a thriving baby.

  Rose pushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear. Looking at Eric caused their earlier conversation to rush back over her in a sickening wave. Her heart told her to throw herself into his arms and accept his proposal. Her head told her to remain cool and calm and explain to him that she’d traded her body for the supplies he could give her. Their relationship had meant nothing more to her than that.

  She sighed. That would be lying.

  And yet, this war was not over. As soon as Eric healed, the Confederates would be sending him to the prison camp at Andersonville. There was no one left who would intervene for him. Dr. Rivers might but Rose doubted that Eric’s kindness to her and to Rueben would prevent them from carting him off to prison.

  Already word of a bloody battle in Franklin with high casualties on both sides had reached Florence. The Confederates were pushing toward Nashville but Sherman had caught up to Scofield and the Union Army far outnumbered the Southerners. It would only be a matter of time before Hood’s Confederates surrendered or retreated.

  Would they never realize this cause was lost?

  Rose felt hopeless.

  “Eric…”

  “Come, sit next to me,” he said, patting the mattress.

  She could not resist. Gathering her skirts, she slid onto the makeshift bed beside him. His cool fingers caressed her cheek and she resisted the urge to turn her face into his palm.

  “You’re a strong woman, Rose,” he said softly.

  She blurted a laugh. “Strong? Are you mad?”

  “I know now why you did the things you did,” he said. “I know why you felt you had no other choice than to offer me your body for supplies.”

  A tear welled in her eye. No he didn’t. He had no idea.

  “Your love of Rueben and Queenie and that little baby. Your love of this town and its people. Your love for your husband and what he stood for,” Eric explained.

  Rose couldn’t look into his eyes. My love for you, Eric…

  She hadn’t seen this coming. Her emotions had blindsided her. She’d been wrong to think she could welcome this handsome, thoughtful man into her bed night after night and not develop affection for him. She’d tried to resist.

  She had failed.

  She hadn’t been strong at all.

  “Why are you crying, Rose?” he asked.

  She swatted the tear away. “I’m not.”

  He titled her face up so that she was looking into his eyes. “I know your body. I know your eyes. And I know you,” he said. “You’re crying.”

  She started to shake. She wanted to run, to lunge out the front door and not stop until she fell to her knees. But she knew she couldn’t run from him. From this.

  “Have I upset you?” he prodded.

  “No,” she snapped, jerking away from him to stand once more. She began to pace. Finally, she whirled and stared at him, clenching her fists at her sides. “Yes. Yes you have upset me. Greatly.”

  He remained calm. “How so?”

  Her voice was still so hoarse she could scarcely form the words. “You came here and…and you wouldn’t even look at me when I first came to your office. I needed those supplies. I knew the Confederates were coming. First you…you Yankees took off everything I owned and then the Confederates came through ragged and begging for anything that was left. What could I do? I’d lost my brother, my husband, my…my child…�
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  A sob choked her. Her shoulders shook with grief she’d withheld for years. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has been…had been ripped away from me,” she managed. “And I…I can’t let that happen to you.”

  Eric’s lips parted. “Rose,” he said opening his arms.

  She rushed into them, taking care not to hurt his wounds as she sought his comfort.

  “That won’t happen to me,” he cooed into her hair.

  “Yes. The Confederates have already taken you prisoner. You’ll be shipped off to Andersonville and—” she said, unable to finish her sentence.

  He held her close. “If I am, then I will come back to you. I will always come back to you, Rose. Say you’ll marry me. Give me a something to come back for.” His words were perilous. His embrace was insidious, lulling her into believing his well-intentioned promises.

  “I’m…barren,” she sobbed into his bare chest.

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “I traded my body to you for…for salt.”

  “I know.”

  “I lied to you. I confessed I was a spy to…to protect—”

  “To protect Rueben.” He finished her sentence. “I know.”

  She raised her head and leveled her teary gaze on him. “I’m a Southerner.”

  He scoffed. “A Southerner who took the oath of allegiance to the Union. And besides, that doesn’t matter to me. I love you, Rose. I love your spirit and your determination and your passion.”

  No one had ever made such declarations to her. Even Billy, whom she’d dearly loved, had approached marriage in a very traditional sense. If his parents had done it, then he was set to do it, too. With Eric, Rose felt she could be herself. She could be free to explore her sexuality and to enjoy being a woman without feeling she was less than her other female counterparts because she could not carry a child to term.

  “You were made for me,” he continued. “Your body was made to fit mine. Your heart was made to match mine.”

  Yes it was.

  Her resistance melted.

  He lifted her chin again and this time, his lips sought hers. His kiss was tender and yet possessive, filled with promise. His tongue entreated her response, teasing and receding until she returned his kisses with reckless abandon. “Say you’ll marry me,” he said between kisses. “Say yes, Rose.”

  She swallowed. Hard. “I—”

  He groaned. “If it weren’t for this damn wound, I would fuck you into submission. Say yes. Say it, Rose.”

  Desire raged between her legs but it was desire she could do little about. Eric was wounded. He was still slightly feverish. But oh God, he could kiss…

  His mouth found hers again. His tongue coaxed its way between her lips, enticing her to open for him. Her head swam. She felt intoxicated. And when he took her hand and guided it to the bulge underneath his nightshirt, Rose’s pulse accelerated. Still fondling him through the soft fabric, she dragged her mouth from his. “Eric. Stop this. You can’t. You’re hurt.”

  “Ride me.”

  In spite of his wounds, he drew her across him so that she straddled him. She wanted it more than anything. She wanted him—for the rest of her life. His fingers wrenched her skirts out of the way and slipped through the slit in her drawers.

  Rose’s lashes fluttered shut as he explored her already damp folds. “Stop…”

  “Your body betrays you,” he whispered. His words sent chills racing up and down her arms.

  She opened her eyes and their gazes collided. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.” But Eric was a man who would either tolerate the pain or ask her to stop. Rose feared hurting herself far more than injuring him.

  “Shh,” he murmured as he enticed her onto his cock.

  The head nudged at her opening. How long had she dreamed of this moment happening again? Of his body taking her to impossible heights of ecstasy? In vain, she tried to shake off her desire, to protest. She failed.

  “Fuck me, Rose.”

  She sank and sighed with pleasure as he filled her. Eyes still locked with Eric’s, she laced her fingers with his as she began to gently undulate her hips. Slowly in. Slowly out.

  “I missed you,” she confessed. Why—and how—did he always render her unable to resist him?

  His fingers tightened around hers. “Say yes, Rose.”

  She stared, still riding his phallus. Could she say no and never experience this again? No. She could not. Acceptance was on her lips but she bit her tongue to keep from blurting the word yes. Instead, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to spiral inward. To simply feel and enjoy.

  Grinding her pubis against his left her mindless to anything except physical sensation. The last time, he’d been rough. Demanding. He’d committed unspeakable acts with her and although she’d enjoyed it immensely, it hadn’t been like this. Now, his movements were gentle, almost imperceptible.

  The realization that she controlled her own pleasure stunned her. She loosed her fingers and planted her palms on either side of his head as she braced herself to ride him. His hands found her hips through the voluminous fabric of her skirts and he held tightly as she fucked him. Groin slapped groin. With each thrust of her hips, she expelled a rough breath. The intent to find pleasure obliterated the emotions roiling within her. Desire. Love.

  Fear.

  His fingers clenched. His body convulsed beneath her and Rose opened her eyes just in time to watch bliss claim his features.

  “Rose…” he muttered, his voice but a husky plea. “Don’t stop.”

  She had no intentions of stopping until…

  “Oh Eric!” she cried as ecstasy budded and then burst sending wild tendrils of intense pleasure winding through her body, her limbs, reaching to her scalp, her fingertips and her toes. She dropped onto his chest, burying her face in his neck. “I love you,” she mewled.

  His fingers threaded into the thick hair at her nape and caressed. “Then marry me.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the traitorous tears that seeped through her lashes and disappeared into the shoulder of his nightshirt. Yes! Yes! “I-I…can’t,” she blurted. “I can’t get my hopes up and then let you be taken away from me, too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Over the next few days, Eric grew stronger and stronger. Queenie and Rueben were thrilled with parenthood. Christmas was coming and Rose felt as if everything were right with the world.

  But she knew the lull was temporary.

  Word had trickled back to Florence that the Confederates had suffered a terrible defeat at Nashville and Hood was pushing what was left of his army on the retreat south as fast as the war-weary soldiers could march.

  Rose had been sad to learn the Twentieth Tennessee’s handsome boy general and been grievously wounded at Nashville and shipped north to a Yankee prison. His captain, Tod Carter, had tragically fallen within sight of his home in Franklin. So many of the faces she’d seen on the march north, she knew would be missing from the ranks as they retreated south.

  Rose also knew the Confederates would be militant and angry. They would not leave Eric in Florence but would instead drag him off to certain death at Andersonville prison.

  Mrs. O’Neal’s husband, Edward, had been commandant at the camp early in the war. Conditions had been horrid then but now that the Confederates were starving and shoeless, conditions at the prison were deadly.

  After seeing to Eric and Queenie, Rose donned her coat and walked in the spitting snow to the roadhouse to where the ladies of the town nursed the injured being brought back from the battles in Tennessee.

  As she walked, she breathed in the cold, fresh air, knowing that when she arrived at the hospital, she’d be assailed with the stench of rot and death and the coppery tang of blood that lingered in her nostrils hours after her shift as a nurse was done.

  “Good mo’nin’, Miss Rose,” Euphrates called, raking his hat off his head as she neared him.

  “Good morning,” she said and smiled. “How’s Captain Martin?”
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  “He’s a sight better but he sho do miss his leg. He say he got one foot in Georgia and that make everybody laugh. But Miss Rose, I don’t care what them other folks says about how you got that Yankee to let Mistah James stay home. I ’preciate what you done,” he said and nodded for emphasis.

  Rose’s stomach knotted. So there was already gossip in town about her relationship with Eric. What did it matter anymore? “You’re welcome, Euphrates. Colonel Skaarsberg only did what was right by Captain Martin.” She reached up and patted his cheek with her gloved hand. “Your tears didn’t hurt in persuading him, either.”

  Suddenly bashful, Euphrates shuffled his feet.

  Hoofbeats captured their attention and Rose looked away from Euphrates to discover several Confederates approaching on horseback. A wagon lumbered along behind them.

  Panic flooded her when she noticed the rig was a prison wagon. She rushed to the first Confederate lieutenant who dismounted. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Why are you here?”

  “We’re collecting the wounded prisoners to take them to Andersonville before the army comes back through,” he said.

  “All of them?” she asked.

  He turned to his men. “Get a list of Federals in houses and go round ‘em up.”

  Rose staggered alongside the lieutenant. “All of them?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said annoyed. “All of them.”

  “Some of these men aren’t fit to travel. They’ll die on the road,” she argued.

  “I have my orders,” he said tersely.

  Horses wheeled around as soldiers spurred them and rode away with their lists. Rose felt as if she were caught in a whirlwind. They would take Eric. Her heart raced. She leaned against one of the posts on the porch in an attempt to catch her breath. There had to be something she could do.

  They couldn’t take Eric.

  Even now, litter bearers hauled out the wounded who were incapable of walking on their own. Other Federal soldiers marched out the door at gunpoint and were summarily clapped in manacles. Rose gaped unable to move. What could she do?

  She pushed past the men herding out the door. “Dr. McVay!”

  Mrs. O’Neal stood from where she’d been nursing a wounded soldier. “He’s in the surgery.”