The Pride of Hannah Wade Read Online Free PDF Page A

five years ago when we married.” The instant the words were out, Hannah regretted them, wishing she hadn’t emphasized the passage of time.
    Five years. Stephen had hoped for so much to happen in that time. Hannah recalled their first meeting at her father’s silversmith shop in Philadelphia, and the lifting of her heart at the sight of this dashingly handsome officer. She had learned he was on leave, visiting friends in the city. They had met again at a soiree given by the Van Camps, old and valued patrons of her father. His reputation as an artist in silver and the wealth he’d accumulated, plus her mother’s socially prominent but impoverished family background, gave Hannah an entree into Philadelphia society. And on that night, they had gained her a formal introduction to Major Stephen Wade. The attraction between them had been instantaneous. Hannah had been drawn as much by his intelligence and sureness of purpose as she had been by the striking figure he made in his uniform. She had noted, too, the ambition-riddled restlessness that caused him to chafe at his martial duty in the Reconstructed South. He had applied for a transfer to another regiment, preferably one posted on the frontier.
    His leave had been short, so their courtship had been fast. His orders, assigning him to the Ninth Cavalry in Texas, had arrived the day before their wedding. There had been no time for a honeymoon.
    Initially Stephen had attempted to discourage her from accompanying him to the western outpost, but his warnings of adverse conditions, hardship, and dangerhad made Hannah all the more determined to go with him and provide a cultural oasis for him in the harsh environs of the frontier.
    It had been a challenge from the beginning. Over the last five years, they had moved three times, sold and set up three households, but there had been no promotions, no advancements, no permanent assignments. Living in this uncertainty, never knowing where he might be posted next, to what dregs of the frontier outposts the army would assign the Ninth or when, they had postponed starting a family. Out here in these Godforsaken frontier outposts civilization was at its barest—few schools, even fewer churches and hospitals except what the army provided. Babies, a family, they had decided, would wait. Only time was slipping away.
    Stephen’s Jaw hardened for an instant after her comment, that gnawing frustration surfacing briefly before he broke away from her, turning so she couldn’t see his expression. But his reaction was evident in the tension that showed in his body, in the muscles held taut and stiff.
    “Custer has been summoned to Washington to testify at the congressional hearings about all those accusations he made against Belknap this past winter in New York.” W. W. Belknap was President Grant’s secretary of war. “Some are speculating that he won’t be back in time to lead the Seventh on its summer campaign.”
    “I hadn’t heard.” Hannah was careful not to comment on the news, aware that he was sensitive to any discussion of the Seventh Cavalry.
    “I should have accepted that transfer to the Seventh four years ago and gotten away from these damn niggers. But the promotions were coming faster for the officers in the colored regiments,” Stephen said, reiterating the arguments that had convinced him to stay with the Ninth. “And I didn’t fancy serving under that glory-hunting boy general. Maybe I was wrong.”
    Wisely she said nothing, merely slipping her hand inside the grip of his fingers. “We need to check to be sure everything is in readiness for our guests.”
    The living quarters were austere, the lamp flames reflecting on the dull adobe walls. The drabness and severity of form were part of the army stricture that no habitation should be better than any other save that of the commanding officer. So all of them had colorless adobe walls, plank floors, and green shades at the windows.
    Only Hannah’s personal and prized