One
The smoke had not yet lifted.
It clung to the trees in low, ghostly ribbons, drifting over the bodies strewn across the field like discarded uniforms. Julia Bennet pressed a hand to her mouth as she guided her horse through the wreckage, ignoring her father’s instructions forbidding her to go, but she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. The battlefield was so close to home, and the wounded cried louder than her fear. As she rode through the field, the lantern swinging from her saddle cast a light over faces she tried not to recognize. So many lives. So many men. But a soft groan cut through the stillness, Captain Alexander Hawthorne, blinked his eyes open. Julia froze. Another groan. She dismounted her horse, boots sinking into the mud as she lifted her lantern higher. The light skimmed over a motionless arm, a blood-soaked sleeve. A man was lying half-turned in the dirt, his bare chest streaked with ash and bruises. He had been stripped of his coat. His shirt was torn open. Whoever had robbed him, had left him for dead.
Julia knelt beside him. “Sir?” she whispered.
His eyelids fluttered. Hazel eyes, dazed and unfocused, met hers for a single heartbeat before rolling back. He was alive.
“God help me,” she breathed.
She pressed her hand to the wound at his side. Warm blood seeped through her fingers. Her heart pounded in her chest. It was far too much blood.
“You’re not dying here,” she said. “Not like this. No one should have to die like this.”
The man tried to move, but he let out a low, broken sound that made her chest tighten.
“Save your strength,” she said.
She slid her arms beneath him, bracing her legs, and heaved. He was heavier than he looked, all muscle and dead weight. But desperation lent her strength, and inch by inch, she dragged him toward her horse.
“Help me,” she whispered, though she knew he couldn’t.
But he tried. His fingers curled weakly into her sleeve, knees buckling again. Julia caught him with a gasp, her shoulder taking the full weight of his collapsing body.
“Please,” she begged, “Just a little more.”
Somehow, by miracle or stubbornness, they got him upright. She guided his hand to the saddle horn. He clung to it, though barely conscious.
“Come on. Just one more push. I won’t leave you here,” she said.
He lifted his foot and fell forward onto her. He tried again. Julia held his ankle, guiding it into the stirrup. He groaned.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know it hurts. It’ll all be better soon.”
With a final, shuddering effort, he hauled himself onto the horse, slumped forward with his cheek pressed to the mane.
Julia climbed onto the horse behind him, wrapping one arm around his waist to keep him from falling.
“Stay with me,” she said. “Just until we get home.”
“Home,” he echoed.
“Yes,” she said softly. “My home.”
He went limp.
Julia tightened her grip as she rode carefully but swiftly through the trees to her father’s house, unaware that the man she had just saved was Captain Alexander Hawthorne of the Confederate Army.
Nothing in her life would ever be the same.
When the horse approached her family’s home, she slowed its pace to lighten the hooves against the dirt. Though the candles in the house were no longer lit, and no one stirred, she quieted as she approached. Her father was still at the front, thankfully.
She guided the horse behind the barn; her arms locked around the unconscious man slumped against her. His weight became frighteningly limp, and she whispered, “Stay with me,” though he did not hear her.
The lantern’s flame flickered wildly as she slid off the horse, her legs nearly giving out. She dragged him off the horse, catching him in her arms with a grunt that tore through her ribs.
They hit the ground, and Julia gasped, checking him for signs of life.
He was alive, barely.
She hooked her arms beneath the man’s and hauled him toward the barn. She was halfway there when she heard her mother’s voice.
“Julia,” she whispered. “What on earth?”
Her mother stood several feet away with a shawl around her shoulders, her face pale in the moonlight. She held a candle that trembled in her hand.
“Mother,” Julia whispered.
Mrs. Bennett stepped forward, her breath catching. Her eyes wandered over the wounded man’s chest, the blood, the bruises, the unmistakable horror of what Julia had done by bringing him into their home.
“Julia Bennett,” her mother whispered, “Tell me you did not bring a dying soldier to our home.”
Julia swallowed hard. “I couldn’t leave him.”
“You disobeyed your father and went to the battlefield? Julia, do you understand what he will do when he finds out?”
“If… Mother, if he finds out,” Julia said and continued dragging him across the ground to the barn.
Her mother pressed a hand to her mouth, staring as if he were a lit fuse.
“Is he…union?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Julia admitted. “He had been stripped of his uniform.”
“Good God, child.” Her mother’s face drained of color. “Julia, what if he’s a confederate?”
Julia looked down at him, at the man she had dragged from death, the man whose name she didn’t know.
“I couldn’t leave him there to die,” she whispered, as if confessing a sin.
Her mother closed her eyes, fighting tears.
“Let us pray he is on the right side.”
Julia’s mother stood frozen for a heartbeat, candle in her hand as she stared at the wounded man. Then something in her expression shifted, not approval, not acceptance, but understanding of what Julia had done.
“Help me get him inside,” Mrs. Bennett said. “Quickly, before anyone wakes.”
“You’ll help?”
“He’s a human being, Julia, and he’s dying. I won’t have that on my soul when I die.”
She paused.
“But your father must never know. For he would never forgive this kind of betrayal if he turned out to be Confederate.”
Together, they got him into the barn and onto a hay pile. Mrs. Bennett knelt beside him, pressing her palm to his forehead.
“He’s fevered already. We need water, cloths, and something to bind that wound.”
Julia ran. She fetched the basins, linens, and pumped water from the well. Her hands shook so badly, she nearly dropped the water.
When she returned, her mother had torn open the man’s shirt further, revealing the angry, swollen gash along his ribs.
Mrs. Bennett gasped, lifting her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Julia, this is no small injury.”
Julia knelt beside her, dipping a cloth into the cool water and pressing it gently to his skin. He flinched, and a low moan escaped him.
Mrs. Bennett worked quickly, binding the wound with practiced hands. “We cannot keep him here. If your father returns…”
Her mother hesitated, then called toward the barn door. “Thomas!”
A moment later, the stable boy appeared. He was no more than fifteen, lanky and wide-eyed. He froze when he saw the man.
“Ma’am?” he said.
“He’s alive but barely. Thomas, we need your help. We are taking him to the storehouse,” Mrs. Bennett said. “The old one behind the orchard. No one goes there.”
Thomas nodded, though fear flickered in his eyes, and the three of them lifted the wounded man. Julia was at this shoulders, Thomas at his legs, and Mrs. Bennett steadying his middle. He groaned once, a sound so raw it made Julia’s throat tighten.
They carried him through the night, the orchard trees looming like dark sentinels, the storehouse at the edge of the property, half-forgotten.
The door hung slightly crooked and the air smelled of dust and mildew.
They laid him on a Mrs. Bennet dragged from the corner. Julia covered him with a blanket, brushing the bloody, damp hair from his forehead. She hadn’t noticed before, but he had a handsome face. Not a gentle handsomeness as were the suitors her father lined up at every ball she attended, but more of a rugged handsomeness.
Mrs. Bennett placed a hand on Julia’s shoulder. “There’s nothing more we can do for now. Thomas, you saw nothing tonight.”
Thomas nodded quickly. “Of course, Ma’am.”
He slipped out and into the night.
Her mother lingered a moment longer, her eyes softening as she watched Julia sit with him.
“Come now, Julia. There’s nothing more we can do for him. It’s in God’s hands.”
