by Leigh Lee
Rules of Decorum
A Civil War Romance
By Leigh Lee
GENRE: HISTORICAL ROMANCE
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered servicemarks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. The publisher does not have any control over or assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.
RULES OF DECORUM
Copyright © 2017 by Leigh Lee
Cover Design by Winter Bayne
First Publication: July 2017
Sinclaire Ridge Press ~ United States of America
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank Winter Bayne for her excellent cover design, Nola at New Resonance Publishing for her editing services, and April and Terri who beta-read Rules of Decorum.
DEDICATION
~In loving memory of Patricia Hudson~
A dear friend I shall forever miss.
He Compareth Love With War
THY lover is a soldier, and Cupid hath his camp. “Aye, believe me, Atticus, every lover is a soldier. The age which suiteth war is also favourable to Venus. A fig for an elderly soldier! A fig for an elderly lover!
The age which generals demand in a brave soldier is the age which a fair young woman demands in the possessor of her charms.
Soldier and lover have, each, their vigil to keep; both couch upon the hard ground; both have their watch to keep, the one at the door of his mistress the other at the door of his general.
What a weary way the soldier hath to march! And the lover, when his mistress is exiled, will follow her, with a stout heart, to the uttermost limits of the world.
He will fare over the loftiest mountains and over rivers swollen with rains; he will cleave his way through the snowdrifts.”
The Love Books of Ovid, Book I, Elegy IX:, trans. J. Louis May Privately Printed for Rarity Press, New York, 1930 (No Copyright), p19
Prologue
Tioga County, Pennsylvania
March 1860
T
he new year of 1860 brought much discord between the northern and southern states of America. The name “The United States of America” no longer applied as political passions raged and the states began taking sides. Deemed a way of life for the South, slavery left a bitter taste in the mouth of the North. The conflict had been a heated debate since the birth of the nation, and like a spreading wildfire had grown wrathful, threatening to lay waste to the proud nation, not yet a century old.
To the young woman who cautiously traversed a dense forest of the Appalachian Mountains, the dissonance held special meaning. This year marked the fifteenth in which her home in Tioga County had served as a link in the Underground Railroad. Her father, a fierce Abolitionist, offered a safe haven where the fleeing slaves could stop to rest on their way to freedom in Canada. His belief that every man had the right to be free had forged her own unyielding views.
These convictions drove her doggedly forward this day. So consumed with her thoughts she failed to notice the darkening sky. Only minutes ago, sunlight had filtered through the tall timbers. Now the wind whistled in the treetops, and the sound of booming thunder echoed across the mountains, alerting her to the impending storm.
Halting her horse, she paused to calculate the distance to a cabin her father built to stay at while hunting. Streaks of lightning ripped across the sky, making her move in that direction with haste.
Upon entering the cabin, she looked around for signs of occupancy. Ragged pieces of cloth hung from the only window, and the low ceiling was laced with cobwebs. The rickety wooden cot, large trunk, and a stack of wood by the fireplace remained unchanged since her last visit there with her father.
Daylight was dwindling, and she shivered in her wet clothing. Wasting no time, she laid logs in the fireplace and retrieved a precious match from her satchel. Soon blazing flames warmed the small space. Opening the trunk, she withdrew an oversized woolen coat and other garments, quickly discarding her drenched items in exchange for the dry ones.
Still in shock over the horrors she had witnessed earlier in the day, she squatted next to the fire, staring into the roaring flames, struggling to understand the heinous events. Macabre visions filled her mind as she relived her father’s brutal murder. She blamed herself. If she had arrived sooner, surely she could have done something to save him.
Slowly reason returned. The brutal killer who murdered her father and burned their home would have killed her too had he seen her. The realization did little to ease the ache in her heart, for at the tender age of fifteen, she was now homeless and very much alone. Since her mother’s death a few years before, her father had been all the family she had left.
Opening her palm, she stared down at her father’s pocket watch, her only remaining possession besides her horse and the clothes on her back. As she stared at the glittering gold item, the desperateness of her situation began to penetrate her grief with terrifying clarity. She threw herself upon the cot, her body shaking with anguished weeping.
An explosive sound reverberated through the small cabin as the door burst open, slamming against the wall. Startled, she fell from the bed to her knees. Standing in the doorway was a man, his body outlined by lightening zigging through the sky behind him. Shrouded in black, his rain-soaked slicker flapped wildly in the wind like the wings of a gargoyle ascending from hell. He called her by name and instantly she recognized the voice of one she now hated more than Satan himself.
Gripping the knife she had found buried in her father’s dead body, she pressed her fingertips into the intricate carvings of its handle. The feel of the cool bone in her hand steeled her resolve and fueled her contempt for this man. Never had she thought she would face her father’s killer so soon.
With deadly calm, she rose and waited as he approached. She had never felt more alive or alert. Her heart slammed in her chest and blood churned through her vessels making every nerve taut and ready.
As the man stopped in front of her, he spoke her name and smiled. He reached out as if she should be pleased to see him and welcome his touch. Stepping into his arms, she stiffened as the acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils. Any doubt as to the identity of her father’s killer fled her mind. Vowing upon her dead father’s soul that only one of them would leave the cabin this night, she plunged the blade into his body.
Chapter 1
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863
The war between the northern and the southern states of America had been raging for over three years. Both sides had entered the conflict with the certainty that the fighting would last a few months and be over in time for fall harvests. Yet that had not happened. The Union had suffered a long series of defeats, which angered and shook the confidence of the North. Few had taken the rebel leaders seriously, and many had underestimated their tenacity.
Sergeant Eugene Adams, a medical steward for the Union Army, lowered his hat over his brow to shade his eyes from the bright July sun. He looked out over the neat rows of tents that covered the grounds of the army field hospital, located only a short distance from the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. As he scanned the fields and the su
rrounding hills of the hospital encampment, his heart ached. The Union surgeons and medical personnel were just beginning to make sense of the chaos, which had reigned since that first day of July.
The battle had ended almost two weeks ago, and the burial crews had just finished burying the dead. The bodies had lain in fields, slumped against trees, or in streams, hidden in thickets or between crevices of rock. The stench of decaying flesh lingered upon fields of trampled crops. Cannonballs had scarred the landscape leaving upturned soil, ruined trees, and broken fences. The town fared only slightly better with homes and buildings pitted by rifle shots and cannon fire.
The battle had been a victory for the Union, but one sorely won, as some fifty thousand casualties from both sides began pouring into makeshift hospitals springing up all over Gettysburg. Every possible structure was used, and when space ran out, the wounded men were lined up outside on the ground to await treatment. Many of the townspeople had opened their homes, taking in injured soldiers while the Union worked to organize an official Army field hospital on a farmer’s empty field.
What remained of the two opposing armies moved out on July 4th, Independence Day, leaving the Union Army to tend to the tens of thousands of maimed and dead soldiers left behind. Already the newspapers were calling the carnage the bloodiest battle of the war. Some went so far as to speculate this engagement might be a turning point in favor of the Union. However, as the young sergeant scanned the rows of freshly dug graves, he had to wonder at the sense of it all.
An orderly rushed up to Eugene, interrupting his thoughts to remind him of an appointment he had missed an hour ago. Eugene was supposed to meet with the new ward surgeon who was replacing his former commander, Surgeon Benton, who had deserted just after the fighting in Gettysburg began.
Eugene hurried back into the “dead house,” a large tented enclosure where men who were not expected to survive were placed to await death. During his duty there, an endless number of critically wounded patients had moved into Eugene’s care only to end up in the morgue a short while later. Trying to ignore the moans and horrific sights, he passed into a small draped area that separated his sleeping quarters from the rest of the ward. He pulled the curtain closed, discarded his bloody shirt, and donned the only other one he owned. He hardly recognized his haggard reflection in the cracked piece of mirror hanging above his washstand. Large green eyes stared back from puffy, red-rimmed lids, and jagged self-cut auburn hair hung limp, damp with perspiration. Overwork and lack of sleep had done him little good.
Splashing water on his face, he did his best to tuck the hair under his cap. He would need a haircut soon, but for now, this would have to do. After slipping weary arms into an ill-fitting blue wool jacket, he took a last critical look at his reflection and exited the tent. He trudged across the compound toward the officer’s quarters his eyes ever wary.
At not much more than five feet tall, Eugene was the smallest soldier at camp. His green eyes and short, turned-up, freckled nose bespoke of his Irish heritage and gave him the look of a leprechaun. However, his quick reflexes and good working knowledge of medicine were what kept him alive and respected by the men in his regiment.
Eugene tensed as he entered the new surgeon’s tent and found it empty. Since Benton assigned him to the death house, he had avoided this area of the camp. His trouble with Captain Benton began when he had caught Captain Benton, liquored up, ready to make a grave error that would surely have killed a wounded soldier. Not able to let a man die needlessly, he had stepped in risking Benton’s condemnation. For his staunch adherence to protocol, he had had to suffer Benton’s abuse. He was hoping to begin on a different footing with this new commander. But being late for their first meeting would do nothing to help his cause.
Eugene was pondering whether to wait or go, when a deep voice from behind startled him. “Ah. Are you Sergeant Adams?”
Eugene swung around to find the entire mouth of the tent filled with a large man. Sporting the insignia of surgeon and rank of captain, the man’s blood-spattered face was further marred by a dark scowl.
Trying not to stare, Eugene almost forgot to answer the question. He snapped to a crisp salute. “Yes, Captain.”
The confirmation seemed to surprise the surgeon, and his gaze remained fixed on Eugene for a moment longer. He then shrugged and walked in with an air of arrogance that made the tent seem overly small. “I am Captain Jeffery Bradford, the new Surgeon-in-Charge of this ward,” he informed Eugene as he whipped off his bloodstained apron. “As you know, I am replacing Surgeon Benton. I run a tighter ship, so next time I summon you, I expect you to be on time!”
Eugene saluted again. “Y-yes, sir,”
Offering a grunt and a cold glare, Captain Jeffery Alexander Bradford removed his Union frock coat. Irritation over Eugene’s tardiness remained clear on his face as he unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it from his sweaty torso. Then he dipped his hands into a washbasin and splashed water on his face.
Eugene stepped back, intent on giving the officer more space, and failed to notice the proximity of a trunk located behind him. Before he could catch himself, he stumbled backward over the large wooden article, landing hard on his backside, his legs sprawled across the humped lid. With his bottom wedged between the trunk and a book-filled crate just behind it, he was trapped tighter than a cork in a bottle. Embarrassed and feeling the idiot, Eugene flailed about in a frenzied effort to free himself with the hope he would be back on feet before the captain noticed his calamity.
The captain turned his face in the towel. “At ease, Sergeant, I will be right with—” He lowered the towel and stopped mid-sentence. Momentary confusion flickering over his features until he located Eugene. Seeing the lad’s predicament, he shook with laughter. “I should like to hear sometime how you achieved the rank of sergeant,” he chuckled, toweling his hands dry.
Eugene ceased his desperate attempts and frowned, silently cursed the surgeon’s mockery. He was on the verge of sharing a piece of his mind when Captain Bradford dropped the towel and advanced toward him.
Terror shot through him when the captain’s large hands encircled his waist and lifted him from his trap. Once upon his feet, Eugene regained his composure and struggled out of the uncomfortable hold.
Captain Bradford did not seem to notice his fright, bent to retrieve Eugene’s cap, and slapped the frayed thing on his head. “Are you always this clumsy, lad?”
Eugene gritted his teeth, his eyes riveted to the commander’s face. He shifted his weight from his sore right leg. “No, sir.”
“I trust you are not injured?”
“No, sir,” Eugene was quick to answer.
Captain Bradford studied him a moment and reached for his medical bag. “Perhaps I should have a look at you.”
Eugene staggered back, his green eyes concealing none of his fright. “No sir. It is likely nothing more than a bruise.”
The surgeon shot him a quizzical glance and snickered. “As you are in the medical corps, son, surely you do not have an aversion to doctors?”
“Don’t mind ‘em, as long as I am not the patient,” Eugene replied, fighting the urge to rub his sore posterior.
Captain Bradford shrugged. “Have it your way. I have more important things to do than chasing down some scared boy for an examination.”
“I am a man, full grown, sir.”
Reaching for a clean shirt, the captain snorted. “I have my doubts about you being full grown. Just how old are you?”
Bristling, Eugene forgot his soreness. “I am nineteen, sir.”
That gained Eugene a squinty-eyed glare and, cocking of the captain’s brow. “With nothing but that peach fuzz, you look far younger.” Buttoning his shirt, he stepped past Eugene to sit at his desk.
“Just to be clear, I am well trained, sir,” Eugene argued with a biting edge to his words.
This time the captain faced him full on and cast Eugene a blistering look. “Have a care, son, how you speak to me, or you will find
your clumsy behind in the guardhouse. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good,” the captain said, shuffling through the paperwork on his desk.
Eugene remained at attention, his mouth drawn into a tight white line. When Captain Bradford looked up, his lips twitched with amusement. “Be at ease, Sergeant. And try not to trample my belongings again in the process.”
Eugene lowered his hand but could not relax until those piercing eyes had refocused on the paperwork.
With the captain’s attention no longer on him, Eugene took the opportunity to study his new commander. Never had he seen eyes such an intense color of blue. Their penetrating glare gave him the willies, as if all of his secrets lay unveiled to the man. Sheer strength of muscle rippled at the slightest of movements and never had he seen a man so tall—easily over six feet in height. Unlike the fashion of the time to sport long beards, the captain was clean-shaven and wore his black hair short and neatly trimmed. Despite a gray strand or two at his temples, there were few lines on the chiseled features, which led Eugene to believe the captain was in his mid-thirties.
So intent on his observations, Eugene had not noticed he had regained the captain’s attention. Crisp blue eyes suddenly bore into his. “Sergeant, did I slip with the razor and nick myself?”
Rather than endure the cold glare, Eugene’s eyes found his boots. “I—I didn’t mean to stare, sir.”
Captain Bradford grunted officiously. “Sergeant Adams, I have just finished reading a rather detailed accounting written by my predecessor that has me alarmed. I had in mind to put you in charge of medical supply, but after this—” Holding up a page, he swatted it with the back of his hand. “How in tarnation did you make it to sergeant with a record like this?”