PROMISING HEARTS


by

RADCLYfFE


2006


What Reviewers Say About Radclyffe'S Books

"...well-plotted...lovely romance...I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!"--Ann Bannon, author of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles

"The author's brisk mix of political intrigue, fast-paced action, and frequent interludes of lesbian sex and love...in Honor Reclaimed...sure does make for great escapist reading."--Richard Labonte, Q Syndicate

"If you're looking for a well-written police procedural make sure you get a copy of Shield of Justice. Most assuredly worth it."--Lynne Jamneck, author of Down the Rabbit Hole and reviewer for The L Life.

"Radclyffe has once again pulled together all the ingredients of a genuine page-turner, this time adding some new spices into the mix. Whatever one's personal take on the subject matter, shadowland is sure to please--in part because Radclyffe never loses sight of the fact that she is telling a love story, and a compelling one at that."--Cameron Abbott, author of To The Edge and An Inexpressible State of Grace.

"Stolen Moments...edited by Radclyffe & Stacia Seaman...is a collection of steamy stories about women who just couldn't wait. It's sex when desire overrides reason, and it's incredibly hot!"--Suzanne Corson, On Our Backs.

"With ample angst, realistic and exciting medical emergencies, winsome secondary characters, and a sprinkling of humor, Fated Love turns out to be a terrific romance. It's one of the best I have read in the last three years. Run--do not walk--right out and get this one. You'll be hooked by yet another of Radclyffe's wonderful stories. Highly recommended."--Author Lori L. Lake, Midwest Book Review.

"Radclyffe, through her moving text...in Innocent Hearts...illustrates that our struggles for acceptance of women loving women is as old as time - only the setting changes. The romance is sweet, sensual, and touching."--Kathi Isserman, reviewer for Just About Write.


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PROMISING HEARTS by RADCLYfFE 2006


PROMISING HEARTS


Š 2006 BY RADCLYFFE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ISBN 1-933110-44-9

THIS TRADE PAPERBACK ORIGINAL IS PUBLISHED BY


BOLD STROKES BOOKS, INC.,


NEW YORK, USA

FIRST PRINTING MAY 2006


THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF, MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION.


CREDITS

EDITORS: RUTH STERNGLANTZ AND STACIA SEAMAN


PRODUCTION DESIGN: STACIA SEAMAN


COVER DESIGN BY SHERI (GRAPHICARTIST2020@HOTMAIL.COM)


By the Author

Romances

Safe Harbor


Passion's Bright Fury


Beyond the Breakwater


Love's Masquerade


Innocent Hearts


Shadowland


Love's Melody Lost


Fated Love


Love's Tender Warriors


Distant Shores, Silent Thunder


Tomorrow's Promise


Turn Back Time

Honor Series


Above All, Honor


Honor Bound


Love & Honor


Honor Guards


Honor Reclaimed

Justice Series


A Matter of Trust (prequel)


Shield of Justice


In Pursuit of Justice


Justice in the Shadows


Justice Served

Change Of Pace:Erotic Interludes


(A Short Story Collection)

Stolen Moments:Erotic Interludes 2


Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.

Lessons in Love:Erotic Interludes 3


Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.



Acknowledgments

Innocent Hearts was among the very first "full-length" works I wrote, and I had no aspirations to publish my stories at the time. The characters and I were all "innocent"--I because I had no real concept of what it really took to write a book, and the characters because they lived in a time when there were no words for who they were and how they loved.

Over the years I have come to understand that the story is the heart of any work, but the craft that brings that story to true life is plain old hard work. It can be exhilarating and frustrating from one second to the next. It is always rewarding. I was fortunate to be able to publish a second edition of Innocent Hearts (2005) in preparation for the continuation of the story of these brave, passionate women of New Hope. It was a real pleasure to revisit that work and add the subtle nuances I had missed the first time around.

While Promising Hearts happens to be set in a particular time in American history, romance and love are universal and eternal. It was a joy for me to write this book, and I believe the love and passion between these women will transcend place and time. I admit, however, to being a lifelong fan of the "Western," so this one was doubly fun to do.

Thanks to my tireless beta readers--Connie, Diane, Eva, Jane, Paula, RB, and Tomboy, my editors Ruth and Stacia, and Sheri, artist extraordinaire. And to Lee, for all the promises of the heart. Amo te.

Radclyffe 2006



Dedication

For Lee


From the Heart


PROMISING HEARTS


CHAPTER ONE

Appomattox Court House, Virginia


April 9, 1865

The morning of the battle dawned gray and cold. Dr. Vance Phelps surveyed the low rise extending southwest from Appomattox Court House where Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant had deployed the Army of the Potomac after forcing General Robert E.

Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to abandon Richmond. Only a few hundred yards away, 30,000 rebel troops, all that remained of Lee's war-weary forces, prepared to mount their assault. Nearby, the assistant surgeons milled in a restless knot, awaiting orders as to where to establish the regimental field hospital. Vance was the senior surgeon by virtue of having served for nearly three years in the Pennsylvania 155th Volunteers--longer than any of the other medical personnel--and by being the only formally trained surgeon in the division. Many of the others had a few weeks of apprenticeship or no medical training at all.

They'd learned the rudiments of their trade under fire.

"There." Vance pointed to a dense copse of trees on a knoll directly behind the close rows of muzzle-loading howitzers manned by Ord's 24th Corps. From long experience in skirmishes and battles too numerous to count, Vance knew that before long the air would roil with the clouds of lung-singeing black smoke spewed out from artillery and small arms fire. The walking wounded and stretcher bearers would have a hard time finding the aid station unless it was close to the battle line and clearly visible. "Set up the tents in front of that hedgerow."

"Gonna make a mighty fine target up there, Doc," noted Milton Cox, the sergeant who served as her chief hospital steward. In his mismatched uniform of regulation Union blue trousers and a frayed, faded yellow shirt of homespun cotton that he'd most likely stolen off the clothesline of some unsuspecting Southern housewife, he looked more like a vagabond than a seasoned veteran.

"Might be," Vance agreed, her black eyes holding just a glint of humor, "if Lee's men are so unmannerly as to fire upon the hospital.

But I figure we'll have the strongest section of the Union line in front of us, and just maybe the ambulance corps will be able to find us once the shooting starts."

The sergeant grinned, showing an uneven row of tobacco-stained teeth. "Well, you've been right more times than not."

Just lucky, Vance thought, swiping the sleeve of her loose blue officer's coat across the icy sweat on her forehead. Sometime during the night, when she'd lain awake on a thin blanket in the back of one of the medical supply wagons contemplating the upcoming battle, the congestion in her chest had relented enough for her to breathe without the stabbing pain that had been present for the last week. The cough and chills persisted, a remnant of the pneumonia she had been fighting since February. Now, her once long and slender form verged on gaunt, though her skin was tanned and roughened by sun and wind, her muscles sinewy from constant labor. As Grant's forces had cut deep into the South, the warm April days and the humid air of Virginia had helped ease the constriction in her lungs. She counted herself lucky not to have succumbed to consumption or dysentery or some of the other diseases that had taken so many on both sides of the war.

Not for the first time, she was bone-grateful for the good health and regular food she'd enjoyed before disguising her sex and enlisting in the newly formed U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1862. After so many losses at the Battle of Bull Run, when thousands died from lack of access to medical treatment and the general dearth of physicians among the regiments, recruiters accepted anyone with the vaguest sort of medical training. No one looked carefully at the credentials, or the gender, of the inductees.

"We're low on chloroform," Milton said.

Vance nodded, considering herself fortunate that they had any of the fairly new substance at all. Rumor had it that the Southern surgeons had been making do with ether for months, a far less reliable anesthetic. "We've plenty of morphine and laudanum if we run out of the anesthesia."

"Well, if I need any cuttin' done, I want you to be the one doin' it."

Milton turned his head and spat a stream of dark brown tobacco juice.

"Ain't none of the others as quick and clean as you."

"Thank you, Milton," Vance said, having long since lost count of the hundreds of limbs she had removed. "Make sure you keep the basin of carbolic full and close by today."

"Yep. Don't suppose we'll be runnin' out of that real soon, seein' how you're the only one usin' it."

Vance knew that Milton, along with her fellow surgeons, thought the practice of dipping her hands into the caustic liquid between surgeries was not only time consuming, but foolish superstition. Nevertheless, Dr. Lister's theories about sanitation made sense to her. She thought of how many soldiers she had lost, not to injury, but to gangrene. Far more than she had saved. Her face, thinned down to bone from subsisting on little more than hardtack and salt-pork for months, grew grimmer still. "There's little enough we can do for them. I don't see that it will hurt."

"Right enough." As if recognizing Vance's dark mood, Milton said quietly, "This war can't last much longer. Not with Lee's forces split and us between 'em."

"I hope you're right. There's been far too much death." With a sigh, Vance straightened her shoulders and turned to check the progress of the soldiers assigned to the ambulance corps who were erecting the hospital tent and bringing up the supply wagons. Her operating table consisted of a wooden door removed from a grand plantation house balanced across two empty ammunition barrels. Her instruments were her own, brought from Philadelphia when she'd left her post at the hospital to take her skills where they were most needed. Those she cleaned and cared for herself, carrying them in an engraved wooden case that had been presented to her by her father the day she graduated from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. That day in 1861, she'd imagined a life very different than this. But since then, everything had changed.