Glory by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

cousin. Rhiannon watches out for me ... Come on now, sir. You do look haggard.”
    He arched a brow.
    “Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude—you don’t look bad. You’re a very handsome man. Oh, dear, I guess it’s quite forward for me to say such a thing ...”
    He started to laugh. “I’m not offended, but rather, Miss Rachel, I am deeply flattered. And I am tired, and I’m sure, quite haggard. Thank you for your kindness. Lead away.”
    She brought him upstairs to a large pleasant room with a big bed, French doors leading to a balcony, and something even more inviting—a hip tub filled with steaming water.
    “Like it?” she asked him, delighted by his expression.
    He caught her hand and gallantly kissed it. “This might be the nicest gift I’ve received in years.”
    She blushed. “I’ll get out of your way, then. There are towels on the chair, there, and some soap. We still have decent soap, by the way. From France. But it’s not perfumed or anything—it just isn’t that awful lye everyone seems to be using these days. I promise, you won’t smell funny tomorrow or anything.”
    “Good. It’s terrible when your men think you smell too pretty,” he told her gravely.
    She laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning, Colonel.”
    “It’s a wonderful room. Thank you.”
    She shrugged. “I think it was a nursery once, attached to the master’s chambers. I’m not really sure. Rhiannon inherited this property from her parents, so there haven’t been any little children around for a long time. Sleep well, sir. I’ll see you in the morning.”
    She left him, and when she did so, he couldn’t get his clothes off fast enough. A bath and a change of clothing had gotten to be a luxury. At his base camp they were, in one way, lucky. The river ran cool, fresh, and beautiful quite near them, and due to the constant heat, men were drawn to the river. It wasn’t that often that he went without bathing.
    He plunged into the tub, feeling a deep comfort as the steaming water soaked into him. Then, before lethargy could steal over him, he grabbed the soap—heedless of what it smelled like—and scrubbed himself energetically from head to toe. He’d already had lice twice during the war and he washed furiously at every opportunity. Thoroughly scrubbed, he leaned his head back and relaxed.
    God, but the hot water felt good. And the wine had been potent—just as Mammy Nor had warned. It seemed to steal through his body, warming him, relaxing him. He felt lazy, redolent, good. Pictures of the sick and injured—soldiers writhing in pain from fever, gunshot, knife wounds, and amputations—which so often slipped into his mind, faded. He felt as if he had gone back in time. He might have been home, at Cimarron, listening to the night, feeling the air. A breeze against the heat could be so wonderful. And tonight there was a soft, cool breeze. While he lounged there, he could just hear leaves rustling, brushing against the house. It was all lulling. He hadn’t felt so relaxed in a very long time.
    After a while he began to hear more than the whisper of the night. He heard a soft, muffled sobbing sound. Quiet, so wrenching that it tugged upon the heart.
    He was in the old nursery, next to the master’s chambers. That meant his hostess’s room was next to his own.
    It was terrible to listen to her grief. In the course of war he’d seen many men die. He’d never accustomed himself to death. He had learned, though, that he had to keep moving, steel himself to continue working mechanically, even when it went against the very fiber of his being to see a young life fade on the operating table beneath his very hands. He knew that for every man he lost, a widow grieved, a mother sobbed, or a child was left fatherless. War was brutal and cruel. He knew that. He knew the pain. He lived with it, fought it, day after day.
    And still ...
    The soft, muffled sobbing seemed to steal into him. He tried not to listen, to