The Wicked North (Hearts Touched By Fire Book 1) by Gina Danna Page B

would, but he couldn’t. He sighed heavily. It was his duty to care for these ill-begotten ignorant people, but he hated it.
    “Samson, get this,” he pointed to the mess on the floor.
    “Yessum.”
    “Colonel Lee?” A voice from the hallway drifted in.
    Lee turned. “Jeb Stuart! What a pleasure to see you.”
    Jeb tilted his head, the feather from his overly plumed hat hiding the face of his compatriot.
    Coughing loudly through the plume, Jack waved the hat off Stuart’s head. “Pardon me, Beauty.”
    Lee smiled. “Jack Fontaine. To what do I owe this honor, gentlemen? Is there anyone left in Texas, or am I to see the 2 nd here as well?”
    Stuart’s mouth thinned. “No sir, we’ve orders from Washington for you.”
    Lee took the slip and opened it. He inhaled deeply and looked at his two former students. “Gentlemen, I’m to leave immediately, so I beg pardon for the departure.” He grabbed his hat and started for the door.
    Jack stepped next to him. “Sir, we’d like to go with you on this.”
    “Yes, perhaps as your aids,” Jeb offered.
    Lee stopped and gave them an appraising glance. Yes, he remembered them well. Both good Southerners and the type he could use for this. “You gentlemen know what’s afoot?”
    “Yessir,” Jack answered sharply. “Captain John Brown and his group have taken Harper’s Ferry Arsenal. They claim to be willing to arm slaves and help them fight for freedom.”
    Lee caught the distain in Jack’s voice, sounding as if this was a minor incident. “Sir, you do realize he’s stolen federal property.”
    “Yessir, I do.”
    “And his type will bring havoc to the nation over our God-given right?”
    Slavery—a peculiar institution—godsend of the labor-needy South but abhorred by abolitionists in the North. Lee knew he wasn’t alone in hating it, but, without a viable alternative for laborers, slavery remained. It was costly for Lee and most of his fellow Southerners, yet they wouldn’t let the lot go free without some form of compensation, a notion abolitionists refused to address.
    “Yessir.”
    “You realize it is our duty to save these peoples’ souls by helping them through this life and in the ways of the Lord,” Lee pushed. He had to make sure the Louisianan before him, who he knew had some aversion to going home, understood that slavery was God’s answer to the black race.
    Jack swallowed. Slavery. The biggest political nightmare in the United States. He hated it. It held back their great nation from modern thinking. Jack had seen this time and time again. His father was a walking example and worse. To keep everything the way it had always been. Tradition, patriarchy, all the trappings of feudal England gripped the South, and Jack swore it would kill it.
    But men like the Colonel considered it to be righteous. Jack felt the strength of Robert Lee’s beliefs, and who was he to deny the man’s integrity? His respect for the man outweighed the arguments of Northerners who knew nothing of the South. Yet, did Jack want slavery to continue? Tradition?
    Ever since that spring years ago, of himself obeying his father’s command and the look on Fanny’s face, the fear…
    “Yessir, we both do,” Jeb answered for him.
    Jack knew Lee’s eyes remained on him. He had taken too long to answer. It should have come naturally to him to agree. After all, he was a Southerner. A shudder from the past swept over him, of that day behind his home on the Mississippi. After all these years, he prayed that being away from home and his father, the nightmare would fade, but he felt Fanny’s fear invade him again. He hated himself for following his father’s orders, like the good son he was told to be. But the act had destroyed any love he had of family.
    Jeb flicked his hat into Jack’s face. The feather hit his nostrils, and it snapped him back to the present. “Yessir. Always.” His late reply brought a flash to Lee’s eyes. Anger? Distrust?
    “Then gentlemen, we