“I prayed for you.” She studied her hands in her lap, too ashamed of what had happened to him to look up. “I prayed you were still alive.”
He stirred, as if uncomfortable with her whispered confession. “Miss Rivers, I promised myself at the end of the War that I would never come north of the Mason-Dixon Line again. I’d had enough of Northern hospitality to last me a lifetime, first the hospital here, then Fort Delaware, then Elmira.”
He’d survived Elmira Prison? No wonder he never wanted to come north again. She couldn’t blame him, and yet here he sat, not two miles from the hospital at Fort Slocum where she had treated his wounds and held his hand as he wandered in delirium, fevered and insensible, injured terribly at Gettysburg and shuffled from one hospital to another as those medical centers closer to the battlefield filled to overflowing.
“What brings you here now, Captain?”
His fine, narrow lips pressed together, the skin taut over his cheekbone. “Miss Rivers, I came all this way to ask you to marry me.”
She couldn’t have been more shocked if he had declared he was going to sprout wings and fly. “What? Why?”
“Because I need to get hitched, quick.”
Had his War injuries addled his brains? She’d heard of that happening to some War veterans.
“Miss Rivers, my pa has got hold of an outlandish notion, and there’s nothing I can do about it. He says if my brothers and I want our inheritance, then we all have to get married, pronto. He gave us until New Year’s, and confound it all, nearly every one of my brothers has up and found a woman to marry.” He fisted his hands on his thighs. “I’m the last holdout.”
Her hands went slack, and she knew her jaw did, too.
“Why come all this way? Are there no women in Texas?”
“The War exacted a high price from me.” He made a vague gesture toward his damaged eye. “The women in Texas are not inclined to look on my face favorably.”
The more fools, them. Captain Hart had more than his fair share of handsome looks, scars and patch notwithstanding. There was a strength and dependability to him, and a vulnerability that called out to her and set her heart to racing. He had courtly manners and an ingrained chivalry she’d found sadly lacking in the men of her acquaintance. Of all the soldiers she had treated throughout the war, Captain Hart was the most memorable.
And now he had rescued her from her uncle’s wrath, at least temporarily. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had stood up on her behalf or shielded her from harm.
He whistled to the dog that had gone out onto the pier. “I remember your kindness in the hospital. During my imprisonment, that memory helped me survive. Most Northerners reserved their hospitality for Union soldiers.”
Her heart warmed. “I was only doing what was right. Injury cares not for allegiances.”
His long fingers curled around his knees, and he glanced at her. “You aren’t married, and from the way your uncle is treating you, you aren’t exactly prospering since the War.”
A blush heated her cheeks. No, she wasn’t prospering. He had probably taken note of her shabby clothes and battered shoes. She stared out over the water, unable to meet his eye.
“I propose a deal. I need a wife, and you need to escape your uncle. Marry me and come to Texas. I’ll get my inheritance; you’ll get freedom from that dumb-as-a-sack-full-of-hammers uncle of yours and the protection of the Hart name.”
My first—and likely only—marriage proposal. She tugged at her lower lip, wanting to laugh, but feeling the prick of tears, too. I am nearly overwhelmed by the romance of it all. A cold gust of wind whipped over the water, and she crossed her arms, hugging herself against the chill.
Then his coat was dropping around her shoulders, warm from his body, surrounding her with comfort and protection. The butter-soft leather smelled of sunshine and hard work and male. It was as if the captain had put his arm around her, so intimate was the jolt to her heart.
Such a protector by nature wouldn’t be a bad risk as a husband, would he?
“You should know,” he spoke as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “This would be a paper marriage. I don’t expect anything of you except for you to say the words in front of the preacher and come live at the 7 Heart. I’ll provide for you, and you can have the running of the house. I won’t put any other demands on you. All I ask is that you keep the terms to yourself. My family doesn’t need to know that ours is anything but a normal marriage.”
She buried her fingers in the fringe on the coat. A loveless marriage, but one of security, and on her part at least, regard and liking.
As opposed to her current existence on sufferance with a cruel relative.
It seemed an easy decision.
But did she have the courage to jettison her girlhood dreams of marrying for love and accept the captain’s offer?
She snuggled into his coat and decided she did.
Chapter Two