She felt Lizzy’s watchful gaze upon her, certain her guilt showed though she’d done nothing wrong. Finally, the work complete, Charlotte stole upstairs to the blue room. She wrote to her mother, read Proverbs 31 three times as penance for her troubled heart, and she prayed. Edgar came home that night, and Charlotte took his return as an answer to her prayers. “You’re tired,” she said, following his limping gait into the study where only this morning she’d met with the captain. She was careful not to look at the chair where Will had sat that very morning talking to her as if she was more than the conquered foe, more than a farm wife who barely knew how to speak to her husband. And wasn’t that what drew her to the handsome captain and loosed her tongue and, God forbid, her heart? Edgar grunted, expression sour. Since the coming of the Yankees, his jowls sagged more and bags pillowed beneath his eyes.
