“Why did you come then, if it distressed you so much? Why not write to me about your reservations? And…that doesn’t really explain…” I was hesitant to bring up the way he startled at a sudden noise, the way his hands shook, or that he appeared to have lost thirty pounds in a few months. It seemed we were already on unsteady ground. Knowing how worried I was would only add to his troubles.
He shrugged and broke off a dead tree branch as if the cracking sound were some sort of answer. I followed him down a narrow trail, then over rocks to cross a small stream. The chirping of cardinals and chickadees and the crunch of our shoes on fallen leaves soon replaced the echoes of our conversation.
He stopped so abruptly, I almost stumbled into him.
“Because I wanted to see you.” His back still toward me, he tilted his head this way and that, searching for something.
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” I said softly. “It seemed otherwise.”
He turned to me, his face an unreadable mix of emotions. “It will never be otherwise.”
The heaviness in his demeanor rasped at my desire for a pleasant if all too brief visit. Yearning for his playful side, I pushed in another direction. “It seems you’ve been in these woods before. Am I one of a series of women brought into your lair?”
A smile slowly broke across his face. “A gentleman never tells.”
* * *
After that rendezvous, I wrote Wash nearly every day but received only one letter in three months. I was beside myself with worry, all my worst fears hammering in my head. One morning before Christmas, a messenger in Union uniform appeared at our door. I had to grab the doorjamb as my knees gave way beneath me. I took a deep breath before opening the sealed envelope, my address hastily scrawled upon it in an unfamiliar hand. “A fine man,” the Irish-accented messenger said, tipping his hat and turning back to the street.
Slipping out the letter, with relief, I recognized Wash’s own handwriting. The short note said only:
My lips have fully recovered from your attacks and are in good fighting trim to receive you.
Your devoted Wash
Soon after, a note from GK provided at once a sense of relief and a nagging in my gut.
My dearest Emily,
With a happy heart, I tell you that I am releasing my true and faithful assistant to your attention. Although our battle is not yet done, the end is near enough that we can allow some of our best soldiers the rest they so sorely need and deserve. I assure you he is as strong and hale as could be expected after so great an effort.
After nearly four years at war, Wash left the service shortly after being promoted to colonel. He returned with his physical parts intact, although hollowness rounded his eyes, and I sensed a distance between him and the present world. It was the worst feeling to be unable to help the one you love, with no power to heal when it is the mind itself that is wounded. So I went about my business, filling journals with notes of wedding guests and party schedules, giving details to a man who feigned interest, then crept away to an empty room when no one was looking. All the while, I worried if the man who had returned from the war was the same man with whom I had fallen in love.
Four
1865
Wash and I married in Cold Spring in January 1865, eager for our new life together. Mr. Roebling softened toward me, never repeating the accusations he had made at Ringwood. Indeed, it seemed Wash was becoming more able to keep his bearings or at least better at hiding it when he couldn’t.
Mother conspired with Mr. Roebling—who insisted I call him Papa—to have two separate wedding cakes, one for each of us. They were connected by a sugar sculpture of what Wash described as a “remarkably accurate scale bridge.” Lemon tickled our noses and buttercream coated our lips as we demolished every last bite, blissfully unaware of the prophecy held in the delicate spun sugar.
* * *
A few weeks after the wedding, we left for a weekend in Maine to be followed by a visit with the Roebling clan. At the train station, Mother adjusted my wrap, more out of parental habit than any real need. “Well, off you two go. My last baby to leave the nest.” She erased an imaginary smudge from my cheek, then blew a kiss as we boarded the train.
I eyed the rows of seats crowded with chatty passengers. Wash bumped behind me, slowed by armloads of hand luggage he refused to let the porter carry.
“It’s a long ride. You won’t mind if I lay my head in your lap to get a bit of sleep?” I asked him.
His eyes twinkled. “Even better. Here we are.”
At the rear of the railcar, thin sliding doors hung on either side of the aisle. Wash dropped the luggage and checked his ticket. “This one.” He slid the door on the right, revealing a small compartment with a pull-down bed.
“How wonderful!” Relief at gaining a bit of space and privacy buoyed my spirits.
Giggling like ten-year-olds, we climbed in the berth and secured the door and a velvet curtain behind us. We weren’t in there two minutes before he was unbuttoning my dress.
“Wash, they’ll hear.”
“Shh.” He pulled off his trousers and shirt and slipped under the sheet. “Come here.”
I leaned close.
He whispered in my ear. “We’ll be very quiet.” He slipped my dress down and kissed my shoulder. He placed a finger gently on my lips. “Can you do that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
His hands pulled up my skirts and found my bottom. He kissed my neck, ran his tongue toward my breast.
I moaned.
“Control,” he said.
“I’m trying.” I laughed as I scooted under the sheet with him. It felt wicked, but I pressed my lips together while his lips and hands wandered. My skin sensed his touch more intensely through our enforced silence, his body warm against me, his scent of anise and cinnamon enveloping me like morning fog. He kissed me, deeply, hungrily, across to my ears and down my neck, tenderly cupping my breasts and making me shudder.
I ran my fingers over the powerful muscles of his chest and arms, skimming past his hips and scraping down his thighs. Yearning to be filled by him, I could wait no longer. I slipped my hands to his buttocks and drew him to me.
Wash glanced at the curtain. “We need to—”
“Shh.” I closed my eyes, tilted my hips for him. With each rock of the train, we rode higher, his skin hot against my flesh. I rose up, up, up until I feared I would burst. We were as one—not two lovers on a train but a single spirit, bound for a destination that was ours alone. I bit his shoulder so my cries wouldn’t give us away. With sweet release, we tumbled back to earth in each other’s arms.
“Tickets.” The conductor’s voice seeped through our protective curtain as he made his way through the car. “Tickets.”