Praise for ROSEMARY ROGERS
“The queen of historical romance.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Returning to her roots with a story filled with family secrets, politics, adventure and simmering passion, Rosemary Rogers delivers what fans have been waiting for.”
—Romantic Times on An Honorable Man
“Her novels are filled with adventure, excitement, and always, wildly tempestuous romance.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“This is exactly what her many fans crave, and
Rogers serves it up with a polished flair.”
—Booklist on A Reckless Encounter
“Ms. Rogers writes exciting, romantic stories…with strong-willed characters, explosive sexual situations, tenderness and love.”
—Dayton News
“Her name brings smiles to all who love love.”
—Ocala Star-Banner
Also available from ROSEMARY ROGERS and MIRA Books
SURRENDER TO LOVE
AN HONORABLE MAN
WICKED LOVING LIES
A RECKLESS ENCOUNTER
SWEET SAVAGE LOVE
SAVAGE DESIRE
ROSEMARY ROGERS
Return to Me
To my readers, old and new, with thanks.
Contents
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
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
1
Washington, D.C.
June, 1865
The summer night was warm and humid, reminding Cameron of her home in Mississippi, as her stylish horse-drawn carriage slowed to a halt on the brick-paved drive in front of the Rowe-James Hotel in Washington, D.C. She gathered the skirts of her blue-and-white Pekins silk evening gown and grasped the white-gloved hand offered by a red-liveried footman, allowing him to assist her onto the lamp-lit walk. The slight breeze from the Potomac ruffled the mass of rich red curls that fell down her back, revealing cascading diamond-and-sapphire earrings sparkling to her bare shoulders.
Cameron’s heartbeat quickened. The elegant Rowe-James Hotel held only happy memories for her. It was here that her husband had first proposed marriage almost four years and what now seemed a lifetime ago. Here, on their wedding night, they’d danced in their luxurious suite, drunk champagne and made love until the dawn cast a golden light on their silken pillows.
Approaching the columned doorway, she glanced up at the black bunting that garlanded the entry, a stark reminder that only two months had passed since President Lincoln’s assassination. The fragile country was still in mourning, in shock, as of yet unable to accept that their beloved leader, who had freed the slaves, saved the Union and vowed to heal the young nation’s wounds, had been so foully murdered.
“Good evening, Mrs. Logan.” A uniformed doorman swung open the imposing brass doors.
“Good evening.” She offered a kind smile as she swept into the magnificent Greek-columned lobby, a vast, high chamber bustling with men in dark frock coats and women in elegant evening attire.
“Mrs. Logan!” A distinguished gentleman with a plump, dark-haired lady on his arm, bowed. “So glad to see you. I hear Captain Logan is back in Washington.”
“He is indeed, Senator.” Cameron smiled, but did not linger in conversation.
“Mrs. Logan, good to have you with us.” The formally dressed maître d’ bowed, then escorted her through the dining room. “Your usual table?”
She nodded, lifting her dark lashes and smiling graciously. “The captain will be joining me as soon as his business is complete. I expect him any moment.”
The maître d’ beamed as he escorted her through a labyrinth of white-linen covered, candle-lit tables. The elegant dining room hummed with the sound of hushed voices in polite dinner conversation underscored by the discreet notes of a grand piano.
“Your favorite table, Mrs. Logan, perfect for a homecoming.” Mr. Douglas pulled the damask-upholstered chair from the table near the window. The dark blue velvet drapes had been drawn back. Cameron could see the sparkling gaslights of the city all the way to the distant curve of the Potomac River in the distance, where ships sat in anchor, their lanterns glowing against the encroaching darkness.
“Thank you, Mr. Douglas. The captain will be pleased.”
“Something to refresh you while you wait?”
She plucked off her elbow-length, white silk gloves and laid them on the table beside her beaded reticule. “Champagne.”
“Of course. Albert!” He snapped his fingers at the nearest waiter. “Champagne for Mrs. Logan. A bottle of Mo¨t & Chandon’s best cuvée from Captain Logan’s private wine closet.”
“Look at her,” Alma Meriwether whispered from behind the cover of her fan. “Flirting shamelessly with the maître d’. My, but she thinks she’s everything and a cup of tea, doesn’t she?”
“Who is she?” breathed her niece. Noreen Meriwether had only arrived in the nation’s capital a week earlier and this was her first night to see and be seen in such a public arena. She was so excited that she could barely draw breath.
“Oh, my dear heavens! You’ve so much to learn.” Aunt Alma worked her heavy jowls, using her fan to shield her conversation from those around her. “That, my dear, is Mrs. Jackson Logan, wife of Captain Logan.”
Noreen blinked and then gulped. She may have led a sheltered life in her father’s Methodist home, but not so sheltered that she had not heard of the dashing war hero, rumored to be the most successful spy in all the Union army during the war. “The famous Captain Logan?” She spoke in a hushed voice, as if she kneeled before the altar of God.
“Some might say infamous,” her aunt replied.
Mr. Meriwether tipped his menu and stared at his wife through oval spectacles. “Mrs. Meriwether, lower your voice before someone hears you.”
“It wouldn’t be any news they don’t already know,” she half whispered, reaching for her niece’s gloved hand on the linen-covered table. “My sweet, Mrs. Logan isn’t just Captain Logan’s wife, she is the daughter of the deceased Senator Campbell from Mississippi.” She leaned closer to Noreen, fluttering her carved ivory fan. “They say that the senator’s sudden death was no accident at all, but that he was murdered by his own son.”
Noreen’s eyes bulged. “Murdered by his own son?”
“Oh, you don’t know what this young man was like,” Aunt Alma continued, flustered with excitement.
“You knew him?”
“Goodness, of course not. But they say he was a sexual deviant, my dear sweet child.”
Noreen gulped once. Twice. She didn’t know who they were, nor did she have any earthly idea what a sexual deviant was, but just the implication made her want to fall to her knees in prayer for the damned soul.
“They say that Grant Campbell, that woman’s brother—” she nodded toward Mrs. Logan “—tried to sel
l his sister’s virtue on an auction block in Baton Rouge, just after the war began.”
Light-headed, Noreen reached for her own fan. One never heard such lewd tales in her hometown of Dover, Delaware. Such sinfulness simply did not exist. She wanted to turn away, to cover her ears to her aunt’s scandalous gossip, for she knew it, too, was sinful, but she simply could not help herself. “Heavens, his own sister…an auction block? Whatever…” She panted, suddenly feeling overheated. The lace collar of her new blue taffeta evening gown rubbed against her throat and she tugged at it.
“You don’t know the half of it,” her aunt murmured, pulling Noreen’s hand from her collar. “The sister in question is a n-e-g-r-a.” Aunt Alma lowered her lashes as if to apologize for having to make that confession, even by spelling it out. “As black as tar.”
“Mrs. Meriwether!”
Noreen had never seen her uncle’s face so red. When her aunt glanced up, Uncle Ralph knowingly eyed the black waiter discreetly setting the next table.
Aunt Alma gave her husband a wave of dismissal, as if the servant’s presence meant nothing to her. “I jest not,” she told Noreen from behind her fan.
“No!” Noreen whispered. Her pale blue eyes widened, then narrowed as she glanced at the ivory-skinned, auburn-haired young woman seated at the windows. The young woman appeared too beautiful to her to be real. The sister of a negra woman? “But how—”
“Her father consorted with his slaves, of course.” Aunt Alma rolled her eyes heavenward. “You know these Southerners.”
Noreen nodded slowly as if she understood perfectly. She didn’t. She didn’t know any Southerners; she had no idea what her aunt meant, but she didn’t dare ask. Her gaze slipped past her uncle’s shoulder to the gloriously beautiful Mrs. Logan again.
“At some point, the senator had legally claimed this so-called n-e-g-r-a daughter,” Aunt Alma went on, catching Noreen’s arm, forcing her to peer into her aunt’s face. “And he left her a king’s ransom in precious emeralds and diamonds!”
For some reason, that bit of gossip shocked Noreen more than anything else her aunt had said. Perhaps because her own father saw such little worth in his daughters. “A daughter born out of wedlock to a slave woman made rich by her white father? That cannot possibly be true,” Noreen breathed, knowing she damned her own self by participating in such hearsay, but unable to help herself. “How do you know?”
“Well!” her aunt huffed. “My sister heard that bit of news only last month. The girl was living in New York City for the duration of the war. With family friends, they say. Since she was born a slave and still considered a n-e-g-r-a, it wasn’t safe for her to live in Baltimore. You had to be above the Mason-Dixon line, you know. The sister ordered a broach to be made for Mrs. Logan at Tiffany’s in New York. My sister Mabel’s jeweler at Tiffany’s told her that it was one of the most perfect emeralds he had ever seen. You simply can’t fathom the cost.”
“Heavens,” Noreen said, almost tongue-tied. Her gaze strayed to Mrs. Logan again, looking at her in a new light.
“And what of the rumors of the captain’s philandering?” came a female whisper from the table beside them. “You mustn’t forget the Marie LeLaurie scandal. They say she’s a spy, too, and that she worked closely with the captain. He and Mrs. Logan have been wed four years, but he’s been on secret missions all that time. I hear they haven’t laid eyes upon each other in more than a year.”
“Oh, my, you are absolutely right, Mrs. Connor.” Aunt Alma leaned back in her chair to speak to an overly plump woman in a satin gown with thinning hair held beneath a mop of a lace bonnet who could have been her twin. “Mrs. Connor, Mr. Meriwether’s niece, Miss Noreen Meriwether,” she introduced. “Noreen, Mrs. Connor, a dear old friend.”
Noreen cut her eyes to the woman at the table behind them and gave a quick nod, unsure of proper etiquette under the circumstances. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” she muttered. She looked back at her aunt, fascinated by the whole shocking tale. She had never imagined a trip to her aunt and uncle’s would be so exciting.
“But what of Mrs. Logan?” Noreen dared. “Surely she cannot be held responsible for—”
“Horses,” Aunt Meriwether interrupted.
“Horses?” Noreen breathed.
“She—” Mrs. Connor cleared her throat “—breeds them.”
“No!”
“Yes,” the woman behind them hissed. “Arabians. She stables them in a farm outside of Baltimore and actually conducts business with male buyers. And she rides astride, through Baltimore, unescorted,” she added quickly, as if her first statement was not scandalous enough.
Noreen covered her mouth with her gloved hand. “Oh, my!”
“And what of that jaunt to Europe last year with her sister, the n-e-g-r-a.” Aunt Alma spelled the word out yet again. “The newspapers touted them the toast of Paris!”
“Mrs. Meriwether,” Uncle Ralph groaned.
“Unescorted,” Aunt Alma whispered.
“Shocking,” Mrs. Connor reflected.
“Shocking,” Aunt Alma echoed. “I don’t know how she shows her—”
“Mrs. Meriwether,” Uncle Ralph whispered loudly, slapping his menu on the table.
Mrs. Connor snapped around in her chair as if a puppeteer had yanked her strings and she pretended to fuss with her napkin.
Noreen clasped her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead across the table at her uncle, mortified. If he sent her home for her ill behavior, her father might well put her out of the house.
“I believe that will be enough stinging gossip for one evening, Mrs. Meriwether.” Uncle Ralph leaned as far forward across the table as his rounded middle would allow him. “You should not be filling my impressionable niece’s head full of such malarkey.”
“But Mr. Meriwether—” Aunt Alma drew herself up indignantly. “It’s all true.”
“I don’t care if it’s true or not, you old biddy.”
“Oh.” Aunt Alma sucked in a breath of air but did not exhale.
“Mrs. Logan’s husband is a war hero and they both deserve our undying respect.” His mouth turned up in a half smile. “Besides, she’s too damned lovely to deserve such an attack on her character. Now place your orders, ladies, or I will escort you home without your supper.”
Cameron was so anxious to see Jackson that her stomach tumbled beneath her tight corset, although sipping the chilled champagne seemed to be calming her. Her husband had returned to Baltimore for a stolen night whenever he could, but it had been too long since they’d truly been together, and she missed him more than she’d thought possible. She wanted him home so that she would have a companion, a friend, a partner. She had high hopes for this marriage that seemed to be just beginning tonight.
Knowing Jackson always appreciated the latest fashion, Cameron had carefully chosen her attire this evening, a blue-and-white silk evening gown that bared her pale shoulders and décolleté. And though current mode considered it risqué, she wore her rich auburn hair trailing down her back in a coiffure of simple yet elegant curls. Jackson had always loved her hair. It was her hair, he said, that first caught his eye the summer she was seventeen when he first visited Elmwood, her father’s plantation. Her auburn hair and her amber eyes.
“Pardon me, madam, for disturbing you, but I believe the maître d’ has made an error.”
Cameron glanced over the rim of her crystal etched champagne glass to see a dashing gentleman in an azure blue coat standing beside the table. He was well over six feet tall, lithe and muscular, with a head of dark hair pulled back in a neat queue and tied with a black silken cord. The hair was completely out of fashion and yet, on him, seemed ideal. It made him appear enigmatic, even dangerous. Men like this could easily lead a lonely woman such as herself astray.
She lifted her lashes, taking in his arrogant stance and swaggering grin. Not only was he was strikingly handsome, but he obviously knew it.
“An error? What sort of error, sir?”
“I believe Mr. Douglas has inadvertently given you my table.”
She smiled, setting down her champagne flute. “Sir, I believe it’s you who are in error, as this is my table. It has always been my table whenever I happen to come to Washington.”
He sighed, slightly bored. “No. This is my table. It’s the only one I ever sit at when I have business in Washington.”
She leaned back, amused by the repartee with the insolent rogue. Unlike most women of her age and class, she rarely sought the companionship of other women, finding them dull and frivolous. Her father had always said she should have been born a man; perhaps he was right.
“And what are we to do, sir? As you can see—” she opened her arms, narrowing her eyes “—I’m already seated and there are rules which govern possession of such public properties.”
“Well, as I see it, we’ve no choice, madam, but to share the table.” He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down before she could utter a word in protest.
“Sir, you cannot sit there. I await my husband.” Cameron’s amber eyes lit with shock and annoyance.
He shrugged extraordinarily broad shoulders. “His loss. He should not have left such a stunning woman unescorted and unprotected from gentlemen of such dubious reputations as myself. Waiter.” He motioned to the table. “Another champagne flute, if you would.”
“Sir, I did not invite you to partake of my champagne.” Cameron leaned forward to look him in those gray eyes. “I should have the maître d’ called to see you escorted out of here for your insolence.”
When waiter brought the flute, the handsome intruder arrogantly poured himself a healthy portion, sitting back casually in his chair to sample it. “Now, now, you wouldn’t cause a scene and disturb all of these fine ladies and gentlemen, would you?”
Cameron glanced surreptitiously at the tables surrounding them. From the glances and the occasional outright stares, she could see that people had noticed her handsome visitor. “Sir, again, I must ask you to leave. You will cause a scandal. My reputation will be destroyed.”
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