Chapter Five #2
Charlotte blushed at the compliment. The General captivated her.
His physique was stringy, lean, and grizzled.
It was obvious that he did not much care about his personal appearance.
His complexion was rough, his eyes asymmetrical, and his dome-like brow was fringed with red lifeless hair.
It was a difficult face to forget. She couldn’t help looking at his face again and again, studying it, trying to read it—this portrait of a man who was ready to fight, a man burdened with the need to prove himself.
She knew from her study of the man that General William T.
Sherman was a complex and multifaceted individual, known for both his military prowess and his distinctive personality traits.
He was a brilliant military strategist with a rich emotional life, a strong sense of duty—a man who had left a controversial legacy to the American people.
“Begging your pardon, General, but I was just about to take Miss Liddell for a stroll in the beautiful gardens.”
“Of course. I will see you both later,” Sherman replied.
Spencer wrapped his arm protectively about her waist, drawing her toward the door that led to the gardens.
When they went out into the mild evening air, Charlotte admired the borders of the parterre garden that were made from several shrubs of different shades of green clipped in such a way as to create compartments and pathways within the general space.
Rounding the side of the building they came to a stop behind high hedges and sat down on a wrought iron bench.
Spencer turned towards her and crushed her against his chest. Without a word he plundered her mouth in a devastating kiss.
His lips were possessive, and all thoughts swept into oblivion as his mouth explored, no, devoured hers.
A kiss or touch had never so completely staggered her.
Sparkling, shining and new, it brimmed over at the surface of her being.
Tired of being cautious and guarded she abandoned reason, at least for tonight .
.. this one special moment. His hands encircled her slender waist and slid over her curves in a caress that left her flesh hot and thirsty for more.
A soft moan escaped her lips as she leaned further into him.
This felt so... Right.
He traced a trail of fiery kisses down her neck and murmured, “I’ve been waiting, wanting to do this all night. I just want you, only you.”
“Oh, Spencer,” she moaned his name, a breathless whisper escaping her throat. At that moment she would follow him anywhere.
Pulling back, he implored her, “What do you say, Charlotte?”
“Say to what?”
She pressed forward, wanting nothing more than to be swept back into his arms.
His face was intense, nervous.
“I want to ask you to marry me.”
“I can’t, Spencer,” she replied.
“Why not?”
****
She beseeched him with her huge green eyes and a blow full in the chest could not have more powerfully laid him low. Please God, make this believable. I want to believe her. I love her.
“I’m from the future,” she said, and squeezed her eyes shut as if to hide from the look of disbelief she knew must be on his face.
“The ... future.”
Seconds passed before he added, “I see.”
Charlotte opened her eyes and gazed at him
“No,” she said. “I don’t think you do. I knew it was hopeless to think you might take me on trust, take my word for something do far beyond the realm of possibility that even I had a hard time accepting it when it ... happened. When I was torn from the year two thousand and twenty-four.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Spencer stood stock still staring at her for several moments, and then ... he exploded.
“What did you say?”
His handsome face twisted in fury as he grasped her upper arms in a cruel vise.
“This is your attempt to explain why you’re rejecting my marriage proposal? Christ!”
He half lifted her off the bench.
“I realize I’ve been blind to the truth, Charlotte, but I’m a bit more intelligent than to believe you’re from the future. And you could at least have had the decency not to say you loved me!”
The rage, now far beyond red hot, pulsated through him, darkened his vision, and he was hard put not to wrap her throat in his hands and strangle her.
“Spencer,” she cried desperately. “No, please listen. It’s true! I can prove it!”
“Prove what? Who the hell are you, Charlotte? What are you?”
“Spencer.”
Bravely, she forced herself to meet his condemning gaze. “I know how this sounds, but I was born in 1998. March 26, 1998, right here in Savannah, Georgia. I’ve lived here all my life.”
He turned on his heel ready to leave her standing there alone.
She grabbed his arm, refusing to release it even as he pulled away.
“Get off me,” he growled.
“No, Spencer ... all those things I know about medicine. It’s because I’m a surgeon! I went to Savannah State University and then attended medical school. I was also an intern at the hospital here in Savannah. It took me eight years to qualify for the profession,” she sobbed, frantically.
She gazed at his incredulous face.
“I do not believe you,” he replied stonily.
“You must! I swear what I’ve told you is the absolute truth,” Charlotte insisted.
“When I came here—I’m not even sure how it happened—but I was sitting on the balcony off my room at the Marshall House hotel and the next thing I knew Annabelle had somehow managed to get me into her carriage and it was 1864 instead of 2024! ”
She was babbling, sobbing, rambling uncontrollably, her eyes crazed.
He stopped, blinked.
“Are you mad?”
“No!” she cried in panic. “Annabelle—Annabelle knows that what I’m saying is the truth. I still have my driver’s license. I have pictures. I can prove it to you!”
“Jesus Christ,” he cursed. “Is your entire family insane?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Spencer.”
Me, don’t be ridiculous?
“Charlotte,” he sighed, suddenly feeling resoundingly hollow, depressed.
He didn’t want to feel this way—he wanted to stay angry, no, he needed to stay furious.
He fought to maintain it even as he realized the woman he loved was quite clearly insane.
He was pulsing with anger. If he gave in to sadness, he’d have to admit that Charlotte was totally mad.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Charlotte, but I am leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
Her whisper was so devastatingly soft and broken that for a moment the anger coursing through his veins faltered, wavered and disappeared.
Her beautiful, wounded eyes made it impossible to stay furious with her.
But without anger, what was left? Despair?
God, he didn’t want to feel that! Anything but that!
He needed his anger. There was righteousness in it.
Anger was powerful—it kept the crushing sadness at bay.
“The hospital,” he said. “I’ll take the nightshift for one of the other doctors.”
“We’ll talk about this later. Don’t go anywhere but back to Annabelle’s house. I want you to stay home and get some rest.”
Drawing a ragged breath, Spencer got up from the bench, turned away from Charlotte, and strode up the path to the house.
The next morning Spencer stood in the doorway of Charlotte’s bedroom at Annabelle’s impressive townhouse, heart aching as he watched the woman he loved dress.
He did not know what to believe, but he would be devastated if at the end of the day he found that she was not fully in charge of her faculties.
Testily he asked, “If you are from the future, tell me when the war ends.”
“April, 1865 in the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.” Her answer came without hesitation. “The Union wins. General Ulysses S. Grant is the commander of the Union Forces at that time and General Robert E. Lee surrenders to him. Could I possibly make up anything that detailed?”
He opened his mouth to reply and then rapidly closed it.
Could she be telling the truth? The progressive ideas about medicine she so often spoke of and the countless times he’d caught her and Annabelle in the middle of a bizarre conversation—Spencer still wasn’t sure who or what Pink Floyd was or what he, she, or it had to do with the dark side of the moon—he made a mental note to ask her about that someday.
After Charlotte had dressed, they went downstairs to the parlor where Annabelle was waiting for them.
“Where is this proof you spoke of?” he demanded, staring at Charlotte.
Annabelle turned to Charlotte. “You told him?”
Charlotte shrugged.
“I had to! It was a choice between telling him the truth or letting him believe that I didn’t love him or want to marry him,” she replied.
Annabelle crossed the parlor and opened the small door located behind the bookcase and pulled the box containing Charlotte’s futuristic belongings from the safety of their hiding place. Quickly she handed the box to Spencer and allowed him to feast his gaze upon the proof of Charlotte’s words.
To say he was shocked would have been a gross understatement. Holding Charlotte’s driver’s license in one hand and her cell phone in the other, he collapsed back onto the sofa, shaking his head in disbelief.
“It can’t be. It is impossible, impossible,” he murmured repeatedly. After a moment Charlotte handed him another picture.
The photograph was amazing, like nothing he had ever seen before.
It was a picture of her and was all in color. She wore blue trousers and a long sleeved blue and orange shirt with the words SSU, Class of 2018 emblazoned on the front. Spencer knew of no way for her to fabricate such evidence, but it was still several moments before he was able to speak.
Over bitter cups of Confederate “coffee,” the women explained everything they knew until Spencer’s head was fairly spinning. Relief that the woman he loved was not crazy was intense, but it didn’t make coming to grips with the situation any easier.
“Why don’t you use your advanced medical knowledge to save people’s lives? If you had told me—someone—we might have saved those poor soldiers at the hospital.”
Charlotte sat beside him.
“Who would have believed me? Certainly not you.”
“She’s right,” Annabelle said, nodding in agreement.
“Besides, anyone crazy enough to believe us wouldn’t be able to make much difference and we would probably just wind up in the madhouse anyway. In any case, we cannot change the future—nor should we. Whatever happens, we are part of it. We must live our lives as though we don’t know anything.”
Spencer nodded, grasping his lover’s hand and squeezing it in evidence of his profound, immense relief.
“You’re probably right. I don’t necessarily believe the future will be exactly as you say, and there is still a great deal you two don’t know.”
Spencer turned to wrap a reassuring arm around Charlotte and changed the subject slightly.
“I’ll protect you, love, but you must be careful.
Go nowhere unattended and do nothing that could be construed as suspicious.
I’m so sorry that I didn’t believe you without this proof,” he apologized.
“My heart is just overflowing with love for you, my darling. All my hopes of Heaven and earth depend on your answer. There is nothing honorable and possible I would not dare, to have your love. Your love and tenderness are the oasis of my life. In friendship, love and truth, I am truly yours. I love you with all my heart, my darling. Will you make me the happiest man on earth and consent to be my wife?”
After his long, heartfelt speech, his breath caught as he waited for her decision.
“Before I give you an answer, I don’t want you to feel insecure because I don’t come from this time.
Don’t worry about what I think of you. I do not laugh at your attempts to treat your patients or think any the less of you for your lack of medical knowledge as compared with that of my time.
I think you are a wonderful, caring, and generous man!
Not to mention brilliant! My life was very different before I met you, but I wouldn’t change it now for the world.
I believe that I was meant to exist in this time and place—to live out my life with you.
I love you, too. You must know that. My answer is yes, yes, and yes! ” Charlotte exclaimed jubilantly.
Happiness coursed through Spencer. He had never been so happy in his entire life. His heart was irrecoverably lost, and it was Charlotte’s forever.