And One Rode West (14 page)

He just had to discover the key to reach inside of her, to forge past the power of her will.

It would be something to think about in all the long nights to come.

Six

Christa arrived at Sterling Hall well ahead of the others. She observed the house as she patted her mare’s neck, thinking that it was a very beautiful place and it was a pity it had been neglected so long. The majority of the construction was brick, and much of that had been plastered over so that the edifice seemed to be a large white building with symmetrical columns. It was very much like Cameron Hall, and like the age-old family estate it was still equipped with all its outbuildings, smokehouse, laundry, kitchen, and slave quarters. There were no longer any slaves but a lot of the household servants intended to come along with Daniel and Callie. Numerous Negroes—and poor lost white souls too—needed work and a place to live. Things would never be quite the same, and they’d probably have to sell off a lot of the land. Still, her brothers would manage both places well enough. Jesse wanted to resign his military commission soon and come home and practice medicine. Daniel was the natural-born planter and horseman. He could manage both estates.

And where would she live, she asked herself. As close as Jesse and Daniel were, they had both wanted their own homes. Sterling Hall had been in their family since the Revolutionary War when their great-great-grandmother
had brought it into the list of family holdings. They hadn’t worried about it much during the war years, but luckily neither had either of the fighting armies. Maybe that was because it had been cloaked by the overgrowth of shrubs and trees. The house was still standing, and except for the overgrowth and what some carpentry, paint, and a lot of cleaning would do to improve it, it was in very good condition. Callie would certainly make a very beautiful home of the place.

She slipped down easily from her horse and walked up the steps to the porch. With her hands on her hips she surveyed the place, trying to imagine it brought back to grandeur.

It had always been the family plan that Daniel would come here. The house had been willed to him. Cameron Hall for Jesse, Sterling Hall for Daniel. No home for Christa, since she would, of course, marry properly. A fine southern boy from a fine southern home she would take over as chatelaine when the time came. It was the way it had always been. The natural order of things. The Camerons had always prospered—more of the natural order of things. The very first Cameron had been a titled aristocrat, seeking more adventure than riches in the new world. Their great-great-grandfather had given up the title to cast his lot with the rebels in the Revolution. Through that rebellion they had prospered.

Now those who had rebelled had been beaten.

She had brought saddlebags full of things to start to build a household for Callie. Instead of bringing them in, she wandered along the porch and took a seat on the broad railing. She leaned back against one of the structural pillars and closed her eyes.

It had been so bitter for them to see Jesse ride away in his blue. Kiernan, in love with him then but not yet his wife. Daniel, the brother he had been as close to as
his own conscience his whole life. And Christa, the baby sister he had halfway raised and lovingly protected. She hadn’t understood Jesse’s reasoning when he had sided with the Union. But not even the war had divided them. She had watched him go, loving him fiercely no matter what the dictates of his heart.

Still, not one of them had imagined that, eventually, they would all be grateful that Jesse had chosen to fight for the North. They had property left because of that decision. And they had Yankee dollars.

Actually, she reminded herself, they had property left because of her.

And Jeremy McCauley.

She grit her teeth, suddenly feeling the breach between them and the worlds they knew to be incredibly great. Angry feelings were very high at the moment. With military occupation and harsh Congressional Reconstruction taking place, men and women were hostile enough. The lost cause of the Confederacy, and her failure to split from what she thought had been a voluntary union, was becoming something sacred. It lived with tremendous pride in the hearts of the vanquished southerners. Perhaps they could be physically beaten, but in the depths of their souls they would never give up.

Yet newspapers—North and South—had been filled lately with accounts of the execution of the “Lincoln Conspirators.” Callie had read of the assassination of Lincoln and everything that had followed. John Wilkes Booth, the actor who had killed the president at Ford’s Theater, had been shot and had died himself. But on July seventh, Mary Surratt—the first woman ever executed by the Federal Government—was hanged along with others involved in plotting first the president’s kidnapping, and then his assassination. Some said that Mrs. Surratt was guilty only of association with the killers, others that she had been as set on assassination as
anyone else and that she had deserved to die. Mrs. Surratt’s son had been involved to some extent, but he had escaped. The conspirators had been tried by a military tribunal that some considered to be a mock court. It was difficult to find the truth, Christa thought. Lincoln had been horribly murdered, and although many southerners had considered him an awful tyrant throughout the war, they now felt that he had been the one chance for a decent reconciliation. Booth had thought himself a hero but he had died despised by many of his own people.

The executions, just like the assassination, made public sentiment run high and volatile. Tempers flared, fights ensued. And chasms seemed to grow ever deeper, old wounds to bleed afresh.

Christa stood up, stretching her hands against her back. The lower part by her spine had been giving her trouble lately. It was because of this move, she thought. She and Callie and Kiernan had already been inside Sterling Hall, all scrubbing away with Janey, the ex-slave who knew her business like nobody else.

When it was done, what was she going to do?

For all his threats and promises, Christa had yet to see Jeremy again.

He wrote volumes to his sister.

He kept up appearances for Christa.

He was still in Washington—not so very far away. There were great upheavals in the army. Men staying in, men mustering out. New companies to be formed and assigned. Jeremy’s command was being delayed. Since he really had nothing to say to her, he sent her newspaper clippings on the West, books by explorers, botanical articles, and the like. Occasionally he actually wrote a few words to her. Wonderfully tender, husbandly-type words like “Thought this might interest you” or “Pass on to Daniel.”

She pressed her hand to her forehead, frowning,
then shaking her head against a moment’s dizziness that seized her. It was the sun. Or the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping very well.

She sat again.

It was Jeremy’s fault, she was certain.

He’d been gone a little over five weeks now, and she wished fervently that she didn’t think of him. At first she’d been so delighted to wake up and discover that he was gone. On that morning she had been exhausted and sore from head to toe, and she had wanted nothing more than time in which to convince herself she had healed her wounds.

But days had passed. And when she thought about him, and that night between them, she had alternated between moments of deepest humiliation … and fascination.

Thinking of it now, she nearly groaned aloud, raising her knees to the rail and hugging her arms around them. Liam should have remained in her dreams. She should at least have fantasies of what might have been.

But thoughts of Jeremy preoccupied her too much now, when she was awake and when she was asleep. There was no denying the war-sharpened strength of the man, the size of him, the sleekness of his power. She tried to close her eyes and her mind from such thoughts, but they came to her again and again, unbidden. She could see his steel-gray eyes, warning her that his will was law. The rakishly tousled auburn hair, the naked length of him, stalking her, touching her.

Then all manner of heat began to rise in her, and her cheeks bloomed crimson and she swallowed down the thoughts. Thank God he was gone. She didn’t have to submit to any wifely duty.

Or feel that shameful tug to surrender, the desire to reach out, to touch something sweet and magical and elusive.

She leaned her head back against the pillar, opening
her eyes to watch the sky around her. It was so very blue today. The dead heat of summer was leaving, and fall was beginning to come upon them. It was such a beautiful time in Virginia. The air would be wonderfully cool, the sky still so beautiful, and then the leaves and trees would begin to change and the green landscape would be carpeted in color. She did love her home. Passionately.

She sighed, watching a spider build a web. Eventually, Jeremy would make the trip west. What then?

She bit her lower lip. She had caught Jesse watching her so frequently lately. And she had seen a heartsick expression in his eyes.

He wasn’t going to play along much longer with the story that they had entered willingly into marriage. And then he was going to feel guilty the rest of his life, certain that he had caused her hardship by not being there when he should.

He had already torn apart half of the government offices in town trying to discover what had happened. But not even Jesse had been able to find out the truth. Everything had been in order on paper. There should have been plenty of time for Christa to reach Jesse, for him to have come home and straightened things out. Reconstruction staff had come and gone, men knew what they had been ordered to do, and the truth had eluded them all. The buyer who had been so frantic to buy the place and burn it down had disappeared without a clue.

So Cameron Hall still stood. And it was still her home. But Daniel and Callie were moving out with their children, anxious to set up housekeeping on their own. She would be welcome either place.

She rose, having forgotten the feeling of dizziness, and walked back to the brick pathway before the house where her mare was standing. She reached up to take down the saddlebags with their precious cargo of silver
dinnerware and napkin rings. When she lifted the saddlebags down, the dizziness seized her once again. She swore softly—having learned some very colorful language during the war—and hurriedly set the bags down on the steps. She was startled by a sudden surge within her stomach. She leaned a hand against a pillar and paused for a moment. She’d felt queasy a few mornings ago, but she had swallowed hard and the feeling had passed. It would do so again.

She waited. The feeling didn’t pass. To her astonishment, it worsened.

There was a well around the side of the house and Daniel had just tested it the day before. Cool water might help. She walked around quickly to the well and pulled up a bucket of water, drinking deeply from the ladle.

It didn’t help. She clutched her stomach, and found herself being sick into the midst of a honeysuckle vine. She straightened, dismayed, wondering what sort of strange disease she might have caught. She ladled out more water, bathing her face in it, washing out her mouth, trying to swallow more down. It stayed. Maybe she was going to be all right.

The petticoat she wore was a very old one. It had already been ripped up once, the day Eric Dabney had tried to burn Cameron Hall down with his renegade forces. She had made bandages from it for Jesse to treat the wounded. It didn’t seem much of a loss now to rip another panel of cotton from it to dip in the water and continue to cool her forehead. She soaked it, then leaned against the well, her eyes closed as she set the cloth against her face.

As she did so, she felt a curious feeling of unease slip over her, as if she were being watched.

She pulled the cloth from her face and stared across the weeded and overgrown yard.

A horseman had come upon her. A Yankee horseman. Jeremy.

As usual, he seemed to be in excellent condition. From his shiny black cavalry boots to his Union blue jacket and plumed hat, he was handsomely attired. When he dismounted from his horse and walked toward her, she noted that he hadn’t lost a whit of his sleek muscled tone or suppleness. His hat was pulled low over still-relentless silver-gray eyes and neatly clipped russet hair. He was clean-shaven, and his features seemed exceptionally striking against the precision of his uniform.