Rebel (Civil War Period)

Chapter 14..

"Georgiana, darling!" My mother beamed and embraced me when I rode over for dinner with my family, taking only Felicity with me. Charles was still gone, and Jonathan I had left with Katherine.

"Hello, Mama." I replied pleasantly. I felt so guilty for having wrecked her family. She had been a good mother to me, after all, and had helped me in my time of need.

Father, Mother and I sat together pleasantly at the table, and the two of them were delighting in their grandchild. She was such a pretty baby.

"She looks nothing like her father." Mother said, and I noticed a kind of joy behind it. "But she certainly has your eyes, darling. I wonder about her fair hair, though. You had never been so blonde - like Jonathan you were auburn from the beginning."

"It has probably jumped a generation." I smiled, hiding my discomfort. When people already worried now about Felicity's hair, what would they say when the colour would not change? I would really have to leave Hartville very soon.

"Have you heard? Marianne and Jacob will return next week."

No. They would take my Jonathan. I forced a smile and replied: "Really? How nice." I had to find a way to keep them away. My son was not allowed to ever leave my house again, or, so I feared, I would never get him back.

"Excuse me, I will have to replenish my attire." I said, and my parents did not give me a second glance, but were busy with Felicity. At barely three months, she already displayed the same charm as her father, drawing everyone in.

As soon as I had closed the dinner room door behind me, I rushed down the corridor and entered my father's office. After a quick search, I found what I had been looking for: The lists of soldiers who would be sent to Fort Myers. From Jasper I knew that the Confederate's were as good as invincible there, and I also knew the Union planned an attack on the Fort. Jasper had been certain that it would be a suicidal operation for the Union soldiers to ever attack Fort Myers.

Perfect for my causes. I drew out the lists and skimmed through them, then took a quill and wrote, in perfect imitation of my father's writing, the name Charles Lacey.

He would not notice that he was part of this venture until it was too late for him to change anything.

Smiling grimly to myself, I returned to my parents and my daughter.

"She smiled at me, Richard! I swear that she smiled at me!" My mother screeched in delight and cuddled her granddaughter. If she knew that Felicity was the daughter of the Confederate General Jasper Whitlock...

"She's three months old, wife, she doesn't even know what smiling is." My father replied gruffly, and I laughed at my parents, who might not love each other but certainly were comfortable with one another. It was more than what I could say of Charles and me.

I had agreed with Jasper that we would wait until the operation at Fort Myers was over before I would move to South Carolina, taking Jonathan and Felicity with me. My husband had several things to take care of first, and he wanted to be certain he had fulfilled all his duties before he would leave the Confederates. I began to fear, though, that we did not have so much time.

"How's your marriage going, child?" My father asked, and I thought to detect some worry in his eyes.

"It could be worse." I replied. Of course, I doubted there was a way it could be worse, but the tone of my voice said enough.

Papa looked at his wife, who was standing by the window with Felicity, and then quietly said as he turned to me: "It's not my business to intervene with your marriage, Georgiana. But it is my business to take care that my family's reputation is not ruined any further than it already is with William's drinking, Marianne's madness and Susannah's promiscuous behaviour. I don't want my last daughter, my only child that I had ever had true hopes for, to be shamed by the scandal of having laid a cuckoo's egg in her honourable husband's nest. Now, I am not saying that Charles is a good man." He raised his hand as I wanted to contradict him. "But appearance is all that matters. I would have never believed that you would carry out two illegitimate children, Georgiana, and I hope that they have the same father, at least."