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Chapter Six
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2021-08-31 10:26:49Tara was so absorbed in her reading that she didn’t hear Brandon climb the stairs. Assuming he was in bed she’d taken the servant’s stairs to the kitchen and hadn’t bothered to check the rest of the house before heading back to the den with tea in hand.
“You’re up late,” Brandon drawled lazily as he leaned his tall muscular body against the door frame.
“Did I wake you?” Tara asked in a voice just above a whisper as she gently closed the book and carefully set it on the antique side table next to her winged back chair.
“I’m a little big for that fainting sofa. I thought I’d try a bed instead,” he said while rubbing and flexing his neck for emphasis. “What were you reading?” he nodded his head toward the book
she’d just set down.
“I was seeing if I could find anything in this book about the shadow people,” she replied hesitantly.
A
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She’d awoken in the comforts of the colonel’s tent in their camp about three miles east of where she fainted. Disorientated at first, the sight of Brandon sitting trussed in a chair nearby quickly brought her to her senses. Tara cautiously sought out signs of any soldiers before crawling as quietly as she could to his side and seeing what she could do about the ropes binding him.“Leave it,” he whispered. “It isn’t worth angering them. The colonel seems like an amiable fellow. I’m hoping to talk him into releasing us.”She stopped pulling at the ropes, totally confused. Here they were alone and, in a position, to escape and he talked about chatting his way to freedom. Had he lost his mind? They knew nothing of these people. The colonel spared her a horrendous ordeal, but does that mean that he’d allow them their freedom? Brandon was clearly a Southerner, after all. She didn’t want to take that chance. Shaking
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Tara observed her dinner companions while she sat at the long, elegantly set table and waited for dinner to be served. The view before her was amazing. Having come to the conclusion that she and Brandon were not in Shadow Land, but had stayed in the same area, but gone back to the time of the civil war, she watched in wonderment and listened with fascination almost forgetting the reason they came.Dining in the original magnificence of her home -mixed with a potent wine and candle light- caused headiness for Tara that carried on throughout the meal. She was seated opposite Brandon with Aidan between them at the head. Although he watched her every move from the corner of his eyes, Brandon’s focus never left the colonel, nor did his conversation. If Tara hadn’t known better she would have thought the two well acquainted.She fidgeted in her chair as her suspicions arose. Why would Brandon be so calm and relaxed in the presence of their Yankee captor when he w
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