“Write to me,” Jesse said before boarding. “I want to know how you’re getting on.”
“You do the same.” She wondered when she had last written or received an actual letter. It would be so much easier if they could text or email. Letters took a long time to arrive and sometimes got lost. At least, without TV, she wouldn’t have to watch coverage of every battle. As a reporter, she had always felt she was helping people by showing them what was happening. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Don’t worry,” Janet said.
“It’s impossible not to worry.” Diamond took a deep breath and moderated her tone. “But I’ll try not to since it doesn’t help.”
“I never thought Jesse would be the first to marry. It’s strange to think of my little brother as a married man.”
“Jesse told me you were seeing someone.”
“I wish we would have married before he left to join the Union Army, but Finn wanted to wait.”
“He’s a damned Northerner and wanted a cash dowry when all I could offer was your share of the yearly proceeds,” Ian said. “I’ll find you a good Southern boy who understands the value of a tangible investment.” They reached the house and Ian let them inside. “However, since you abandoned Hickory Grove who knows what the Yankees are doing to it. Maybe Finn wasn’t such a fool.”
“I didn’t abandon Hickory Grove. The Yankees took it for their headquarters. I had nowhere else to go but here.”
“Well, if I’m to be saddled with the two of you, I expect you to do more than look decorative. Amy and her mother run a group sewing and knitting for the cause. Besides running the house and helping me entertain, I want you to join them.”
Diamond’s heart sank. She’d known she couldn’t avoid Amy but dreaded being thrown constantly in her company. And she didn’t think she would excel at entertaining either. She excused herself and retreated to her bedroom.
Jesse was a generous lover and she couldn’t deny her attraction to him. An attraction that appeared mutual. Relieved they had patched up their quarrel over Amy’s kiss, she had sent him off without anger. But not without hurt.
She rolled over on her back and stared at the fussy, flowered wallpaper that made the room seem even more cramped than it already was. It hurt that he would accept Amy’s embrace even if he hadn’t sought it. Diamond faced the unwelcome truth. She had fallen in love with her husband, the man who had married her for money.
Not that she was free of monetary motivations. She had wanted the dowry every bit as much as he. She had grabbed for security with both hands, needing to feel some measure of safety in a world she didn’t fully understand, a world where her gender gave her a disadvantage. Discovering she could not return home, even after everything she had done to survive and then track down the Pooles, had cast her adrift. If she wasn’t a reporter going after the next big story, then who was she?
She had allowed Jesse and Ari to persuade her that marriage was her best option. She had not wanted to eke out a subsistence existence as a shopgirl. Marriage—and the dowry which came with it—would provide a roof over her head, food to eat, and increased status. Being with Jesse, a kind and wildly attractive young man, had seemed a bonus.
She hadn’t intended to fall in love. Had not realized the risk. Despite her two failed serious relationships, she now knew she had never really been in love. Had she really loved her college sweetheart, she would have changed schools with him or tried harder to make their long-distance romance work. Instead, she’d been content to let it go.
Things grew murkier with Brett. They moved in together and talked about marriage. She enjoyed his company and learned a lot from him. They’d gone on stake-outs together and she had made contacts in the police force. She became the primary reporter at her station for the crime circuit. But when Brett accused her of using him to further her career, their relationship soured. When he turned his temper upon her, it had been the last straw.
Had there been a kernel of truth in his words? His job had been part of her initial attraction to him and she enjoyed the perks of being a policeman’s girlfriend. Still, his accusation was unfair. She has used her contacts but had never snooped for sensitive information. She respected his position as she assumed he respected hers.
She had worried about him working the streets but had never felt the yawning ache of helplessness and fear which now consumed her. Thousands would die in this conflict. She might never see Jesse again, might never hold him in her arms. And even if he came back to her, he might never return her feelings. While reaching for financial stability, she had made herself vulnerable to emotional devastation.
Seeing him with Amy had brought this to the surface. Rage burned through her body when she saw them kiss and she’d blamed it on humiliation, snapping at Jesse like a small yappy dog. But like the dog, she’d only been trying to defend herself, to protect herself from the real source of pain.
She had given her heart to him, something she had never intended to do. Jesse was an honorable man. He felt bad for the pain he’d caused Amy and would regret any pain he caused her, too, but that didn’t make the anguish easier to bear. The thought of losing him to someone else or to the war itself scared her as much as finding herself stranded in this primitive century.
Maybe even more.
She could do nothing about the dangers of war. But she’d fight long and hard before she lost him to Amy or anybody else.
Eighteen
Chapter 18
Diamond spent the first few days after Jesse’s
