Dearest Enemy. Nan Ryan

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      Then weeks.

      Yearning to taste her soft, full lips, Ty had begun to wonder if he would ever be allowed to kiss the woman with whom he was falling deeply in love.

      And then, when he least expected it, when it was the dead of winter and the trees were bare and a blanket of snow covered the ground and Christmas and New Year's had come and gone, the unpredictable Suzanna surprised him.

      On a bitterly cold February evening, as he waited with Matthew and Mrs. LeGrande in the library before a blazing fire, Suzanna, looking especially lovely in a high-necked, long-sleeved dress of rich brown velveteen, suddenly appeared. Ty and Matthew came to their feet and while Matthew mildly scolded his sister for making their dinner guest wait, Ty felt his chest tighten.

      On this freezing winter's night, Suzanna wore a fragile ivory gardenia in her blazing red hair. Would she place it in his lapel? If so, he knew what that meant. He would, at long last—if he could figure out how to get her alone for a few precious moments—be allowed to finally kiss his adored sweetheart.

      Suzanna caught the look in Ty's eyes and knew what was running through her beau's mind. She would, she decided, let the expectation build awhile longer. She didn't immediately place the blossom in his lapel. She made him wait. Made him wait all through a leisurely five-course dinner. Made him wait while she and her mother sipped their coffee in the library and Ty and Matthew shared a brandy. Made him wait until the tall cased clock in the foyer struck the hour of ten and Ty said he should be going. Made him wait until she saw him to the front door and he had taken his heavy caped cloak down from the coat tree, but had not yet swirled it around his shoulders.

      “Good night, Ty,” Suzanna said sweetly as they stood facing each other in the foyer.

      “Suzanna, I…”

      She smiled as she took the gardenia from her hair and carefully tucked it into the lapel of his dark frock coat. And before he knew what was happening, Suzanna put her arms around his neck and lifted her lips for his kiss. Nervous, afraid Matthew or Mrs. LeGrande might decide to come out of the library, he nonetheless couldn't resist. He bent his head and kissed Suzanna squarely on the lips.

      It was the sweetest of kisses, a kiss he would never forget. When their lips separated, Suzanna rested her forehead against his chin for an instant.

      “Promise you'll never again kiss anyone but me,” she said.

      “I promise.”

      

      Ty waited a full year.

      He formally proposed to Suzanna on October 12, 1860, the anniversary of the night they had first met. Suzanna eagerly accepted.

      “You'll take me to Paris for our honeymoon?”

      “I will, darling girl,” he promised.

      Suzanna immediately expressed the strong desire to be a June bride. Ty hated to wait, especially since he was all too aware of the troubling unrest sweeping the country. But he could deny her nothing, so he agreed.

      The date was set. Elaborate wedding plans were put in motion. Engraved invitations were ordered. Suzanna settled on a wedding dress of snow-white satin trimmed with thousands of tiny, hand-sewn crystal beads. Months in advance, wedding gifts began pouring into Whitehall.

      Happy as only the very young can be, Suzanna looked eagerly forward to becoming the bride of Ty Bellinggrath, and Ty was anxiously counting the days.

      But on April 12, 1861, two months before the big day was to take place, Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor was fired on from a Confederate artillery battery. The next day the fort surrendered to Southern forces. War Between the States was unavoidable.

      When Suzanna heard the disturbing news, she knew that her wedding plans might be postponed indefinitely. She suggested to Ty that they elope, marry quickly before the coming conflict got under way.

      Ty talked her out of it, reasoning that it wouldn't be fair to her. She wanted a big church wedding and she deserved to have one. He assured her that even with the worst happening—the Confederacy going to war against the Union—the hostility wouldn't last. It would be over in a few short weeks and they could get married just as planned.

      On the 15th of April, President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand militia to serve for ninety days to put down “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary mechanism of the government.” The proclamation infuriated the South and spurred the uncommitted states into action.

      On April 17, Virginia seceded from the Union, along with North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee. On the twentieth, Robert E. Lee resigned his command as colonel of the First Regiment of Cavalry in the United States Army. Word spread that the decision broke Lee's heart and that he had stated, in a missive to General Winfield Scott, “Save in defense of my native state, I never desire to again draw my sword.”

      The news all over Washington was of Colonel Lee's resignation. When Ty came to Whitehall that evening, Suzanna met him at the door and threw her arms around his neck. “Don't go, Ty. Please don't go.”

      “He has to go, Suzanna,” Matthew said, stepping into the foyer with their mother at his side. “Just as I must go.”

      On April 25 Virginia joined the Confederate States, and both Ty and Matthew warned Suzanna and Mrs. LeGrande that the two of them should quickly move to a place of safety. War was now inevitable and could explode around them at any minute.

      “No! This is our home. We are not leaving Whitehall,” stated the usually gentle Emile LeGrande, demonstrating a surprising flash of mettle.

      “Mrs. LeGrande,” Ty said, with respect. “Won't you please consider closing up the house and going to New Orleans until this is over? I've cousins there who will be more than happy to—”

      Interrupting, Suzanna said, “Mother is right, Ty. We are going nowhere.”

      No amount of reasoning could change the women's minds. Ty and Matthew prepared to ride to Richmond to join Colonel Lee's Virginia Provisional Army.

      Two short weeks after the capture of Fort Sumter, the dashing young men stood on the broad veranda of Whitehall saying goodbye. Mrs. LeGrande cupped her son's dear face in her hands and fought back tears. Suzanna stood in Ty's embrace and admonished him to write every day. He promised he would.

      “It's time,” said Matthew, and Ty nodded without looking up.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ