Dearest Enemy

Disengaging himself, he held Suzanna at arm's length and told her, “We'll be back before you know it, sweetheart.”

She nodded, smiled, took an early blooming rose from her hair and tucked it into his lapel. “Kiss me,” she challenged.

Ty's handsome face flushed. He had never dared kiss her in front of her family. He glanced over her head at Mrs. LeGrande and Matthew. Then, realizing it might be weeks before he could kiss her again, he tossed caution to the wind. Ty lowered his head and soundly kissed Suzanna.

Then he stepped back from her and was gone.

Suzanna stayed on the veranda long after Ty and Matthew had disappeared. Chilly despite the warmth of the sunny spring day, she fought one of those “disturbing feelings” that sometimes came over her, a strong premonition of danger.

She had never discussed those inexplicable sensations with anyone other than the understanding Cynthia Ann. Sharing such unexplainable anguish with her levelheaded brother would have brought only mild scorn and a swift reassurance that such feelings meant nothing. Had she confided in her mother, it would have further upset the older woman. And Suzanna tried never to needlessly worry the fragile Emile.

Lost in troubled thought, Suzanna blinked and came back to the present when she heard Cynthia Ann calling her name. The Grayson brougham had rolled to a stop in the driveway and Cynthia Ann was rushing up the walk. Heartened, Suzanna hurried to meet her.

As the two young women embraced, Suzanna said, “Oh, Cyn, I'm so glad you came because—”

“I know,” Cynthia Ann interrupted. “We passed Ty and Matthew riding away at a gallop. I knew you'd be upset, but they'll soon be back and…”

“It's more than their leaving, Cyn. It's…I'm experiencing one of those eerie, awful feelings. Like something really terrible is going to happen.”

Cynthia Ann squeezed Suzanna's narrow waist. “Suz, I'm so sorry. Let me stay here with you until it passes.”

“Would you? I'm frightened and I can't worry Mother.” She pulled back, looked at the shorter girl, and was startled to see bright tears shining in Cynthia Ann's eyes. “What is it? Has something dreadful already happened? Is that what I sense?”

“We're going away, Suz.”

“Going away? But…why? Where?”

“Boston. Father is sending Mother and me to stay with my maiden aunt in Boston until this is over.”

“Oh, Cyn, must you?”

“Father says there's sure to be bloody battles right here in and around Washington.” She swallowed hard and added, “Dearest friend, you and I are to be on opposite sides in this war. Father's pledged allegiance to the Union Army and so has my darling Davy.”

“Dear Lord, I hadn't thought of that,” Suzanna said, realizing with horror that scenes such as this were taking place all over the city. The war was tearing apart lifelong friends, even families.

“It isn't my fault, Suz,” said the now weeping Cynthia Ann. “Please don't hold it against me.”

Tears spilling down her own cheeks, Suzanna said, “Darling Cyn, nothing could ever change the way I feel about you. You're the sister I never had, and I shall love you always. None of this is your fault, nor mine. It changes nothing between us.”

“I knew you'd understand.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Mother and the servants are busy packing now and…Tomorrow. Early tomorrow morning.”

“So soon? It's like a knife through my breast,” Suzanna said honestly. “This—your leaving me—must be responsible for the terrible feeling I have.” She looked hopefully at Cynthia Ann. “That's it, isn't it, Cyn? That's the bad thing I perceived was going to happen.”

“I'm sure it is, dear. And I'm so sorry to be deserting you when you need me most.”

“I'll be all right, truly I will. And you will write me often and I will answer. And when this conflict ends, you will come home and we will be just as we always were.”

“Yes. Yes, we will. Nothing can ever damage our friendship.”

“Absolutely not. Now come on inside and let's enjoy our last afternoon together.”

Six

July 1861

Creamy white flowers covered the rosebushes that grew just outside the open floor-to-ceiling windows. The fragile blossoms undulated in a gentle breeze blowing out of the south. The rhythmic shimmering stirred the flowers' seductive fragrance, sending the subtle scent wafting through the windows and into the spacious ground floor bedchamber.

“Umm, smell that,” purred a voluptuous naked woman lying stretched out on the silk-sheeted bed, arms flung above her head, midnight hair spilling across the lace-trimmed pillows. “Like the sweetest of honey.”

“I smell you,” said the man who, shedding the last of his clothes, came down onto the bed beside the woman.

“And how do I smell?” she asked, turning on her side and raking long fingernails through the coal-black hair covering his broad, muscled chest.

“Hot. Pungent. Like a highly aroused female in need of immediate sex,” he said, unworried that she might take offense.

No chance of that. Mitch Longley knew her too well. Mrs. Dawn Bell Thompson Bond Merriweather, a wealthy and beautiful twice-widowed, once-divorced brunette who was accepted in Washington society mainly because she was extremely wealthy, had let him know the night they met exactly what she wanted from him.

As they had danced in the ballroom of this very mansion—one of three grand residences she owned—she'd wasted no time in explaining why Mitch had been invited to the evening's glittering soiree.

“Admiral Longley,” she had said, “since the afternoon when I was walking past the War Department with a good friend and you and I very nearly collided, I have thought of little else but you.”

“Madam,” Mitch had reminded her, “the incident happened only yesterday afternoon.”

She'd laughed gaily and said, “Well, you can't very well expect a lady to live in torture forever, now can you, Admiral?”

“I'm afraid I don't quite follow.”

“Don't you?” she said, and none-too-subtly insinuated her chiffon-gowned knee between his. Her gloved hand firmly urging his head down, she'd put her lips against his ear and whispered, “I want you to make love to me. Tonight. Here in my home. In my bed. After my guests leave. Or before. It's up to you. We can go to my suite right now if you like. It's just down the hall.” She pulled back to judge his reaction.

Mitch Longley was unfazed. Hers was not the first, nor would it be the last, decidedly unladylike proposition he had received from a spoiled, desirable woman. He made no misstep. His handsome face did not change. She might have been commenting on the weather for all that registered in his continuing calm demeanor.

Taken aback, Dawn said, “Perhaps you still don't fully understand me, Admiral. I am suggesting that—”

“I'm not titillated by the prospect of making love to a woman while she's entertaining a houseful of people.” He smoothly danced his brash hostess to the edge of the floor and deposited her there. Speaking loudly enough for others to hear, he thanked her for the dance and for the evening. Dawn Merriweather's face fell with disappointment.

Then Mitch leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Get rid of them. I'll be back at midnight. If you're not alone, don't expect me to stay.”

Without another word, Mitchell B. Longley, wealthy Maryland native, Union naval officer, graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, class of '48, turned and left, with Dawn Merriweather staring after him.

When Mitch returned to the mansion at the stroke of midnight, a uniformed butler admitted him into the silent house and directed him to a set of closed double doors at the end of the wide downstairs corridor.

Pausing before those doors, Mitch raised his hand, then lowered it without knocking. He walked into the white-and-blue-decorated suite and closed the door behind him. She was not in the spacious sitting room, where huge white sofas and overstuffed blue easy chairs rested before a white marble fireplace. Mitch crossed the room. He went directly to the open connecting doors, stepped inside the candlelit bedroom and saw her.

The beautiful Dawn Merriweather, in a virginal white dressing gown, with her lustrous black hair falling loose around her shoulders, stood beside the big feather bed.