Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance 2)

He closed his eyes briefly, the only distraction he could allow while guiding a horse at high speed through a forest. They were heading south. Of course they were. As the day waned, Solomon managed to slowly gain on them.

The guilt had wormed in his gut since before he left, easing only slightly as he urged Beauty to a trot, and finally a canter. She was covered in sweat now, she rarely rode so far at once, but he could not let her stop to rest. He would need to tail them for a day or so, allowing her to rest while he planned the rescue, and then send Jasper and Cecelia on her back if he could wrestle another horse free from one of the abductors.

They would have been looking for him too. Solomon understood that. He knew they would have asked for a Horace, and found no one. It had never been them he had expected to evade with this, and it made his guilt all the worse—that Jasper would pay the price for both of their defections. Jasper would be furious now, and rightly so.

Or did Jasper feel guilty as well? Solomon’s brows drew together. Any diversion would help him feel less like he was betraying his people, less like a guilty little worm of a person.

What if Jasper had been so quiet lately because he was feeling the slow, cold worm of guilt inside his own soul? He swore he believed in the Union beliefs now, and no one in the household challenged him on the fact that his family had suffered at Union hands. They had only to look at the two soldiers in their midst for one thing, to know what war did to a person but they could never understand what had driven Jasper to take up arms and march, and of all people, only Solomon knew what it was to regret turning his back on former comrades. He knew well why perhaps Jasper had said nothing of it to anyone.

A thought-provoking idea, but one that made Solomon’s stomach turn cold. For he, after all, had not stayed with the Confederate cause after defecting. He had strayed back to the Union, and what if Jasper did the same? Atoned for his crimes, confessed, offered penance? Would he abandon Clara for his life?

Solomon did not know. On his own he believed Jasper would not. But if he was made to feel guilty for leaving his people? What might Jasper’s guilty conscience guide him to do then?

Oh, no.

Of course, he might not get that chance at all. Everyone knew the soldiers would not take kindly to those who had abandoned a losing side, when others fought so desperately.

What would they do to Cecelia then?

In fact, why take her at all? Solomon’s brow furrowed, and he leaned over the horse’s neck, trying to make sense of it. Even if she had seen them, it was just as risky to take her and set off a manhunt as it was to let her spread stories of what she’d seen. The men of the town no longer threatened Jasper’s life, but if he were taken, if he were strung up, Solomon knew they wouldn’t much care. No one was going to risk their life for a Confederate soldier, traitor or no. For all they knew, he had killed their brothers.

None of it made sense.

It was then he saw a movement in the forest beside him—and a movement that was not ahead of him, but behind. It took all of Solomon’s willpower not to turn his head to look, to let his pursuers know he had noticed them. He thought perhaps these soldiers were the pursuit he had felt time and time again, but he realized now that it was an incredibly stupid idea. They would never have been in town. Strange men with southern accents would have been noticed, especially if they had shown up for weeks.

So who was it then?

He knew.

It was one of the Union spies. It had to be. They had seen him leave his homestead and go into the wilderness alone, and they sensed their chance. He was going to be killed here and now, unless he could convince this stranger he needed to save his sister.

That meant turning the tables, getting out of the man’s sight.

Which was difficult, when riding a massive black horse through a fall forest. Solomon uttered a heartfelt oath and tried to think of a plan. He knew the lay of the land better than this man, or at least it was likely. There was a gully coming up, and a stream with a strange set of banks in the forest after it. The bank did not slope up gently, and so all must be funneled through a small opening near the crossing.

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sp; He might wait for the man there, and trap him long enough to agree to bring Solomon back only after finding the two he needed to rescue.

He huffed, wanting to turn around but refusing to. What was the man waiting for? They had been hours in the forest by now, running their horses ragged, and Solomon knew he was beginning to tire. Was the man so good a horseman that he believed he could still have a clear advantage after an afternoon’s hard riding?

He was a spy.

Of course he might. Solomon swore again.

The gully was coming up, and he led Beauty to a canter, bargaining that the spy would drop his speed to avoid being seen, if he had not yet realized he’d been caught. The short rest would give Beauty the chance she needed to recover before Solomon urged her across the stream and up the embankment, bargaining on the other rider’s wish to stay hidden.

It was not the best plan he had ever come up with, but it was the only one he had at present. He pulled water from his saddlebags and drank a mouthful, wincing at the warmth. Only a month back at the farm, and he was already accustomed to well-made food and cold water again. How quickly one became soft.

His mind exploded into a riot of guilt and shame as he rode. He was trying to escape what he had done again, was he not? Was that not his goal? He squeezed his eyes shut and straightened his shoulders. He would not deny what he had done, he decided at last. He would tell the truth, and hope that his honesty convinced his captor that he intended, truly, to stand trial for what he had done. He would ask if they could try him quietly. He would ask for Clara’s sake. Surely the man would understand.

Surely not even the Union was so cruel as to make his family stand trial alongside him, dragged through the mud and vilified by the press at every turn as having raised and harbored a traitor. Solomon resolved he would go to his very death, swearing they had not known.

Cyrus was the only one who knew, and he would stay silent for love of Clara.

But it would destroy Jasper. He knew that.

There was no other option. No way back.