The Better Angels: Hearts Touched by Fire, Book 4

holding metal plates in their hands. The smell of burnt pork fat and cornmeal wafted around him and his stomach growled. He needed food, badly enough he’d take a hard cracker if they had one. The closer he got, the sounds of the music increased and the expression on the soldiers’ faces were not so hard.
He stopped and snorted. “Nothing like hunger makin’ even burnt bad food smell appetizing.”
Morris laughed, scooping a ladle from the bottom of the stew pot and dumping the remains on a plate. “Here, then, join us in this repast.”
The hunk of black, smoldering food looked anything but appealing. “Merci. And your chef this evening?”
“Moi!” Morris bowed.
Francois raised his brows as he steadied the dish level with one hand, trying to avoid jostling the wounded one, and sat on the stump next to his friend.
“We heard Hayes was hurt worse than you,” Morris told him. “They’ll like reassign us to another commander.”
“It ain’t right,” muttered one of the other men.
“We’re Hayes’ men!” the Creole sitting on the ground added.
The one off to the left eyed Francois with a narrow gaze. It was the one Francois recalled from earlier, Wiggins.
Finishing the mess on the plate, a grueling task only a starving man could do, Francois put the tin ware down. His temper flared, no doubt added to with the sharp pain in his wound. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
“I’m just trying to figure out why a rich planter, like you, would care to throw down managing a homestead, free, apparently, from service, to ride halfway across this nation to fight Yankees?”
“Ronnie, that’s not a viable question to—” Morris started.
“That’s a fairly reasonable question,” Francois interrupted. “One, I believe I shall answer. You are correct. I could avoid the bloodshed, the shower of bullets and so forth. Under the law, my family owns over the required limit of twenty slaves that would keep me safe at home, but circumstances beyond my control, pushed me to enter the army.”
“Whatever could drive a man into this madness?” a young lad, Francois guessed no older than twenty, piped in. Peter Perlotti, he recalled, was one of the few Italian dockworkers who signed on to the military. Better pay than the docks of a now occupied New Orleans, Francois decided.
Francois sat for a moment, chewing the inside of his lip, teetering on how to put this. He could lie but the truth, for once, seemed the correct choice. “A lady.”
The men all grumbled, nodding their heads.
“She push you to enlist for the favor of her company?” one asked.
“Or she tell you, you’d have her love if you fought?” another questioned.
Francois snorted, swallowing hard. “She married my brother.”
“What?” Wiggins jumped up. “What a snake!”
“Wait,” Perlotti said. “Ain’t he Jack Fontaine? A Yankee officer that took over after Beast Butler and his like left?”
Francois warmed. General Benjamin Butler was commanding general during the beginning of the occupation of New Orleans and his presence wasn’t welcomed, particularly by the rebellious ladies of the town, who dumped their chamber pots, among many signs of protest, on his troops. When he issued the order to have anyone participating in such acts arrested as if they were a lady of the night, the citizens referred to him as Beast Butler. Francois heard that Lajoyce had been one of those ladies, which made him chuckle, since she was one of those types of damsels.
“Yes, he did, though Jack is hardly a beast.” No, he was the man Emma loved, and he felt her slipping away the moment his brother arrived. The look in her eyes tore his own heart to pieces. Fighting him barehanded would never win her back…he shook his head to make the memory vanish.
“But that land be yours and your pappy’s, the senator for the South!”
“Yes, it is, though at the moment, it sits under Jack’s control. I could not stay under such circumstances, as you might imagine.”
The group nodded.
“Ain’t right to lose a southern belle to a Yankee,” one of them muttered. “You done the right thing. Us Tigers will help Marse Robert win, then you can win her heart back.”
That statement they all agreed on and with that issue resolved, they turned back to the war in their talk. Somehow, confessing his reason with that story got him over the hurdle of being accepted. As to winning Emma back, he knew that was a lost cause.
Ada had a wave of exhaustion sweep over her with a rush that made her balance teeter. She blinked furiously as she steadied herself, grabbing the top rail of the wooden strait-back chair next to her. Suddenly, a strong male arm encircled her, the man giving her support as he slowly turned her so she could sit.
“Ada, are you all right?” Will. She should’ve known he’d be there. He always was when she needed him the most.
Swallowing the lump that lodged in her throat, one made of dust and dirt that left a sour taste in her mouth, she nodded. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired.”
“You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.” He shoved a cup of tepid water to her. “When was the last time you ate?”
She tried to think, but found her thoughts fuzzy. A blur of Will reached for the basket on the table and yanked a slice of bread out, lacing the top of it was honey from a pot he suddenly had.
“Here, eat this.”
His command surprised her. “This bread is for the wounded, too.”
“Which, at this moment, includes you. Eat.”
Scowling at him, she took a bite. The guilt at partaking of some of the food for the patients evaporated when her stomach growled and the piece she tore off tasted like heaven dripped in honey.
“I feel like a thief,” she complained right before she took another bite.
Will gave her half a snort as he shook his head. “I know they hardly pay you a pittance for what you lady nurses do. And I’m also aware you often times don’t