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.Without so much as a knock, the door flew open.Virginia cried out and clung tightly to Channing when she saw her father’s huge frame filling the doorway.“Thank God, I’m in time!” he bellowed.Turning a steely glare on the cringing parson, the colonel said, “You can thank your lucky stars for that, Bulwer!”“Father, no!” Virginia wailed.“We’re already married.”“Maybe so, but not bedded.” He strode into the room and pulled Virginia out of Channing’s arms.“Jed, you and the twins take your sister home.Rodney and I have some business with Lieutenant McNeal.”Virginia’s brothers all glared at Channing as they came in, forming a solid, blond wall of husky man-flesh.Jed and the twins took hold of Virginia’s arms.She struggled against them—screaming, clawing, and kicking.It was no use.They simply out-numbered and out-muscled her.Channing tried his best to rescue her, but Colonel Swan and Rodney grabbed him, wrestling him to the floor.“I won’t go! I’m getting married!” Virginia shrieked.“I love him, Father!”Staring at his daughter, his face filled with pain, Jedediah said, in a raspy voice, “If that’s so, then your love will last beyond the war.But I’ll not be meeting my own son-in-law on the field of battle.Now go quietly with your brothers, Virginia.”Her gaze locked with Channing’s for a moment, before the boys led her away.With that one look he promised her love forevermore.His expression held all the pain of the ages, all the longing in his soul.Her spirits badly battered, her heart broken, Virginia turned to the door and left, as her father ordered.That moment seemed the blackest hour of her life.Chapter TenVirginia’s mother was waiting on the dark veranda when her daughter arrived home with her brothers.Melora Swan’s face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed from the scene between her and her husband that had taken place before he rode off to stop the elopement.Someone—some spy—had told the colonel that Channing was back and, even worse, that he intended to remain in the Army of the United States.Jedediah was a hot-tempered man, given to flying off the handle at the slightest provocation.Melora was used to his outbursts, but she had never before seen him in such a fit as he had flung when he realized his daughter was gone from Swan’s Quarter.Even thinking about it now made Melora shudder, as she watched Virginia slide off young Jed’s horse.Virginia stumbled up the front steps and fell into her mother’s arms, sobbing.“He wrecked everything.My life’s over.”“Hush that, dear.Of course it’s not.You and Channing will be married.Someday.” Melora tried to soothe Virginia, though her heart was broken.Pulling away, Virginia accused, “You! You must have told Father.Mother, how could you betray me?”“It wasn’t I, dear,” Melora whispered, her voice quivering with sympathy for her heartbroken daughter.“Your father and the boys knew that Channing was back before they ever got here.He came charging into the house, demanding to talk to you about Channing’s decision to remain loyal to the North—or, as your father put it, ‘to turn his back on the South and all that we Virginians stand for.’ When you weren’t here, he surmised what had happened.He stormed out of the here like a hound on the scent.He and your brothers rode out again at a full gallop.Polly confessed to me that one of her grandsons has been doing some spying for your father.I saw the boy whispering to the colonel the minute he dismounted.Ludlow must have told him then that Channing planned to stay with the Union Army.I have no idea how Ludlow found out, but I don’t think he will ever do anything like this again, after his granny gets through with him.”Still trying to comfort her weeping daughter, Melora watched her three youngest sons ride in silence around toward the barn.“Where are your father and Rodney, Virginia? Why didn’t they come home with you?”The question reduced the girl to pure hysteria.“They’re with Channing.Dear God, Mother, what will they do to him? This wasn’t even his idea.I’m the one they should blame.”“And I,” Melora admitted, grimly.“They’ll do nothing to him.You have my word on that.” Then silently, she added, Not if Jedediah Swan ever hopes to share my bed again.Back in Reverend Bulwer’s parlor, an inquisition was in progress.Mrs.Bulwer had taken to her bedroom and bolted the door, moments after the angry men arrived.Her husband would have accompanied her panicked flight, had he not feared for his parlor furniture and for Channing McNeal’s life.Murder gleamed in the eyes of the Swan men.Quaking with fear, Bulwer placed his thin body strategically, spreading himself as best he could to protect his wife’s beloved rosewood piano from harm, should the men started throwing things—or each other.“Here, now!” he shouted, in a voice as insubstantial as his frame.“I’ll not have fisticuffs under my roof.Might I remind you, Colonel Swan, that God is watching you.He sees your every move.”“Then He will no doubt bless this act, since it is aimed at a traitor.” With that, he took a swing at Channing, hitting a hard but glancing blow off his right cheekbone.Channing staggered under the force of the punch.If any other man had attacked him, he would have beaten him to a bloody pulp.But he refused even to defend himself against Virginia’s father.“Let me at him, Pa!” Rodney clenched his fists, bouncing about on the balls of his feet, as he and Channing had been taught in boxing class at West Point.“I should have given the bastard what for when he refused to come home with me.I might have guessed then that he meant to go against us.And now he’s disgraced my sister, besides.” He glared at his old friend [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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