Chapter 4: Losing the Script—and Myself

Before she entered, she glanced back at me.

Everyone praised her poise, refusing to argue with me.

But inside, Nora’s mind was so loud it gave me a headache.

“Delaney cares so much about my dress—she must really care about me.”

“Maybe she likes me in this dress. I’ll wear it again tomorrow.”

“And the next day.”

I rolled my eyes. Used to it.

I followed the other ladies into the ballroom.

The party was in full swing. Politicians and officers toasted each other on the left, the ladies sat fanning themselves behind velvet ropes on the right, all pearls and diamonds.

The air was thick with perfume and the clink of champagne glasses. The band played jazz standards, and the governor’s wife held court from a velvet chaise.

Halfway through, the governor and his wife toasted Carter and Colonel Fleming.

Through the crowd, I spotted Colonel Fleming—tall, ramrod straight, a scar running down his cheek, hair going gray at the temples.

He looked every bit the war hero, his uniform pressed, medals shining. There was a haunted look in his eyes, though, like he’d seen too much.

He raised his glass, hand trembling from old frostbite.

Everyone echoed the governor, bragging that under Fleming’s command, the North would be retaken.

Reading their thoughts, most were fake or indifferent.

Only Nora kept watching her father, hands clenched tight under her shawl.

Her knuckles were white. Her lips moved in silent prayer. She looked so young and fragile, standing among all those polished strangers.

“Dad, please come home safe.”

“If I were a son, could I help you?”

“Dad, after the Fourth of July, I’ll come see you.”

I looked down, sipping my peach wine.

The sweetness was suddenly cloying. I felt the weight of the story pressing down on me, the inevitability of what was coming.

She wouldn’t get the chance.

I’d read the book. I knew how this ended.

Over a hundred thousand soldiers would die at Red Bluff Gorge, not one would come back.

And it was Carter who secretly cut off their supplies, leaving them to starve in the freezing cold for days.

That night, the enemy attacked. The rest was history.

Carter did it to seize power.

He needed to control the army to take the governor’s seat.

He’d tried to win Fleming over, but when that failed, he took another route.

When I read that part, I sighed, but it’s just a story.

I wouldn’t change the ending. I had to keep things on script.

—

Sure enough, a few days later Carter went south, and I set up another romance plot for Nora.

As a tragic heroine, Nora needed a devoted second lead.

In the original, that was Delaney’s second brother, Dean Grant.