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right, though I have never considered my motivations. When he died, I knew I had to act as the head of the household. And being a soldier—being like him—was all that ever occurred to me.”
    He studied her face for a moment, then offered her his arm. “I hope I am not being too forward to proffer you this assistance. In private, Roger told me that you two have come to an understanding. And if you’ll forgive my boldness, Miss O’Connor, I’d like tosay that I am touched by your commitment to your father. You are, I believe, a rare woman.”
    “That sort of boldness is easily forgiven.” Flanna laughed softly. Hesitantly, she pulled her hand from her muff and placed it in the crook of his arm, then allowed him to lead her across the street.
    “I must say,” he went on, his eyes scanning the cobbled sidewalk as they walked, “that you are not at all what I expected to find when Roger told me he’d been courting a Southern belle. I’d always heard that Southern women were rather vain and insipid creatures. Spoiled, in fact.”
    “No doubt some of them are,” Flanna said as she looked up at him, “but the South has no monopoly on vain women or gallant men.”
    He smiled, and she thought she detected rising color in his cheeks. “Roger warned me that you were charming.” He looked away toward the street. “I suppose I had better watch my heart lest I lose it to my own brother’s sweetheart.”
    “I’m acting under direct orders,” she replied lightly, breathing more quickly to keep up with his brisk pace. “Roger told me to charm you.”
    He stopped so abruptly that she feared she had offended him. She searched his face, hoping for some clue regarding his thoughts, but could find nothing but cool detachment behind those ice blue eyes.
    “Have I, then?” Her heart fluttered wildly beneath her corset. “Have I fulfilled my orders?”
    “Completely.” His expression was serious, but one corner of his mouth curled up in a dry, one-sided smile. “I have the feeling that you, Miss O’Connor, are much like whiskey—pleasing to the eye, warming to the heart, and the source of the world’s worst headaches.”
    Flanna blinked. “Whatever do you mean?”
    “I salute you, miss.” He released her arm as he backed away. “And I bid you farewell.”
    Flanna looked to her right and saw that she stood before her own boardinghouse. She’d been so intent upon their conversation that she hadn’t even realized that he’d walked her home.
    “You cannot leave me like this, sir!” she called, her voice suddenly hoarse with frustration. What had he meant by his last-minute insult? Was this his way of teasing her?
    Alden Haynes only laughed softly and turned toward an intersecting street, then broke into a slow jog as he hurried to catch his train. He obviously had no intention of coming back to explain himself or beg her forgiveness.
    Feeling restless and irritable, Flanna stamped her foot. At least Mrs. Haynes was honest enough to insult her openly. What had Alden Haynes intended, behaving like a sweet gentleman until the last moment, then likening her to a headache and hurrying away?
    Flanna shook her head and turned to climb the boardinghouse steps. “Until my dying day, I shall
never
understand Yankees.”

    Alden proceeded into the train car and took a seat by the window, eager to be alone with his thoughts. A train butcher paused in the aisle and offered to sell Alden a newspaper or dime novel to pass the time, but he waved the boy ahead, preferring to close his eyes to the sights and sounds of his fellow passengers. The porter had shoved a log into the wood stove at the far end of the car, and the air was thick with the scent of smoking hickory—a log far too green, Alden suspected, to burn without smoke.
    “Do you take tobacco?” a man asked.
    Alden opened one eye. A man wearing a dark suit and bowler stood at his elbow, a thin stream of dark juice running down his bearded chin.
    “Never developed