Mercies of the Fallen (American Civil War Brides)
In the wake of the Battle of Antietam in 1862, blinded soldier Rowan Buckley, grouped with the wounded not expected to live, is being nursed by volunteers Ursula and her half-brother Jonathan. Rowan improves under their care and begins having feelings for Ursula, but she informs him that she is “not free.” As he recovers some of his eyesight, he realizes she’s wearing a nun’s habit. Rowan’s superiors arrange to have him transferred to Washington along with Ursula and Jonathan, and ask Rowan to pretend to remain blind and watch them, as they are suspected of spying for the Confederacy.
Rowan’s foster mother, French Canadian Marie Madeline, comes to visit. Jonathan tells Marie about Ursula’s past: being sent to the convent by her stepfather when she refused to marry a cousin, in order to keep her inherited estate and its income in the family.
To save Ursula from an assault by a Confederate soldier in the hospital, Rowan shoots the man. Ursula is arrested as a spy. The best way to help her is for Rowan to marry her and send her to Canada with Marie for the duration. But an overheard threat to murder Ursula on the journey leads her to depart secretly in the night, bound for New York instead.
I liked how the author let Ursula’s past unfold gradually, keeping me guessing in the early sections about her actions and motives. A touching subplot involves Ursula’s Black servant Miriam finding lost family members and a potential love interest in New York. The relationship between Ursula and Rowan is satisfying. Famous people of the era such as Edwin and John Wilkes Booth make cameo appearances.
Recommended for romance fans, though war story aficionados expecting battle scenes will find very few in volume 2 of the American Civil War Brides series.
