And One Wore Gray (32 page)

He still had far to go, and so did not tarry long in Richmond. It was a careful day’s ride out to Cameron Hall from the capital, since he didn’t know if there might be any Union troops on the peninsula.

But coming home, he thought, when he first saw the drive leading down a length of oaks to Cameron Hall, was worth any care or danger. The house still stood, and stood regally with its huge white columns and wide, inviting porches. Seeing the house, he began to ride hard. Even as he neared the house, the large doors to the grand hallway were thrown open and a woman appeared on the porch. She was dressed in deep maroon velvet and her hair was darker than his own. She cried out, and was joined in seconds by another woman, this one blond, and dressed in deepest royal blue. The brunet was his sister, the blonde his sister-in-law.

“It’s a soldier, Kiernan!”

“Reb or Yank, Christa?”

“Reb. It’s—”

“It’s Daniel!”

The two of them came flying down the stairs, running for him. Daniel felt the bitterness of the war melt from his heart, and he leapt down from his horse and began to run himself. Seconds later they were both in his arms, and he was swirling with them and holding them close. They each kissed and hugged him, and he returned the kisses and hugs, meeting his sister’s
crystal-blue gaze first, then Kiernan’s entrancing emerald-green one.

“Oh, Daniel, you made it home for Christmas!” Christa said happily.

Kiernan was observing him more carefully. “I sent all kinds of things to you in Washington, Daniel. Jesse got a letter through that you’d been captured. But then I received another letter saying that you’d escaped before my goods ever reached you!”

He grinned. “Kiernan, you know I couldn’t stay.”

She shook her head, nervously biting her lower lip. “Oh, Daniel! I was almost glad! You might have survived very well up there.”

He arched a brow to her. “Is my brother changing you into a Yank, Kiernan?”

She flushed, and he was sorry he had spoken. No one could be more torn than Kiernan. Her heart had been so completely for the Confederacy—and yet her love for Jesse had proven stronger than any war. She and Daniel had been friends all of their lives, good friends. But even as she greeted him now with warmth and tender concern, he knew she was wishing that another Yankee soldier was also coming home for Christmas.

“Never mind,” Daniel said quickly. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and turned to his sister. “Christa! Will we be able to have a Christmas dinner?”

“Of course,” Christa said, her head high, a smile still teasing her lips. “We’ve had no battles on the property, Daniel, nor even skirmishes. The closest difficulty has been in Williamsburg. So we’ve all manner of good things. I gave a number of chickens and several cows and numerous bales of hay to a group collecting for the cause the other day, but everything is running very well Kiernan and I do quite nicely, really.”

Daniel laughed. “Remember all the times Pa used to spend with Jesse and me determined we’d be very well
educated planters? Who would have thought you’d be the one to carry on with the family business!”

Christa grinned. “I have lots of help,” she assured him, winking at Kiernan, and the three of them walked into the house.

It was good to be home. Jigger, the very dignified butler of Cameron Hall, was quick to see that Daniel was pampered during his stay. Some men had brought slaves or servants right to the battlefield with them, but neither Daniel nor Jesse had ever seen the right in dragging another man along in a fight that wasn’t his. On the line, he took care of himself. Here at home, it felt good to let Jigger take charge of his life. That meant steaming hip baths with a brandy at his fingertips. Slippers ready to cushion his feet, soft cotton shirts to slip over his head. It meant coffee with rich heavy cream in the morning, and it meant eggs and ham and bacon. It meant fine tobacco. Being home was good.

Being home meant that he was even more amazed at how well the plantation was running. Kiernan and Christa could give him long accounts of everything that they had done, ledgers on planting and harvesting, sales of horses and livestock, the buying of carriages and equipment. Except for salt and sugar, they were almost entirely self-sufficient at Cameron Hall. They had lots of help, of course, because life at the house had really changed very little. Most of the slaves had stayed on as freemen, willing to work for wages, for the right to better their small cottages, and knowing that they could move on if they chose. Some had left. Several of their people had gone north and then come back, Christa told him. When he complimented her and Kiernan again, she was quick to remind him that Jigger ran the house, Janey had come back with Kiernan from Montemarte, and that Taylor Mumford, a freeman of mixed blood, ran the plantation just as he
always had. Christa wasn’t alone because Kiernan was there, Kiernan’s father was nearby to advise them, and the children, Jacob and Patricia Miller, Kiernan’s sister and brother-in-law from her first marriage, were always eager to help with the garden, or with making soap or candles, or whatever else might be necessary.

“And of course everyone dotes on the baby!”

The baby was his nephew, John Daniel Cameron, named for Kiernan’s father and himself. Now six months old, he was creeping about the house with a thick thatch of raven-black hair and a pair of startling blue eyes and a set of lungs to defy any army. The very best part of being home, Daniel thought, was spending time with the baby. He liked to jiggle John Daniel on his knees after a meal while Christa, Kiernan, and Patricia amused him with the harpsichord and piano and all manner of songs.

It was just like old times; almost like old times. Walking with his sister by the river one morning, he looked back at the house, and a shiver seized him. He glanced back at Christa. She was growing older, and so very, very beautiful with her pale skin, ebony-dark hair, and crystal-blue eyes. There was a serenity and maturity about her now. In a yellow day dress, she was stunning. She was smiling at him. “What is it, Daniel?”

“I’m afraid every time I ride away.”

She shook her head. “Daniel, we’re safe here. The Rebs keep clear of us because it’s your home. Even when the Yanks are on the peninsula, they stay away because it’s Jesse’s home.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “But, Christa …”

“What?”

He shook his head. “It ought to be over,” he said softly. “I’ve seen more men die, more men maimed, left limbless, emaciated. We fight better, but that Lincoln, he’s a tenacious man. It’s going to go on and on.
And it’s going to get worse. I’ve seen what happens when the battle actually comes to your doorstep….”

He broke off. Damn. He was trying so damned hard not to think about her—Callie. He’d given his word; he hadn’t traveled north. He’d come home.

Cameron Hall was a huge and magnificent plantation. Life here was complex, with ships still moving on the James, with the fields still bringing in an income, with meals an affair, with life rigorous but still played by the codes that Kiernan and Christa had learned as girls. And his sister and sister-in-law were still gowned in fine materials, with deep layers of petticoats, with hoops and stays.

While Callie survived alone. Serene, regal, she had come from a different life. She kept the farm running herself, in the hope that someone would come home. She’d survived in the very midst of battle, with windowpanes shot out and cannonballs in the very eaves of her home. Her clothing was not nearly so elegant.

Her beauty was every bit as deep.

And her mind just as cunning, for she had betrayed him so completely. He groaned, amazed that he could still feel the bitterness, the anger, the pain, so deeply.

“What is it, Daniel?”

“Nothing. I’ve just seen what happens when the battle hits home. Christa, if it comes to that, neither Yanks nor Rebs will care about our traditions. Both armies will be seeking food and supplies. Both will strip us bare. Both will burn the house to the ground if necessary. I want you to remember this, Christa. As much as we love it, this place is wood and brick. You and Kiernan and John Daniel and the others are what matter. Guard yourselves first, always. Promise me that.”

“Daniel—”

“Promise me that!”

“I promise!” she said softly. Hand in hand, they walked back to the house together.

That night, they stayed up late, sipping cinnamon wine that Kiernan had made. The baby was put to bed, and Patricia and Jacob were encouraged to tell them all that they wanted for Christmas. Patricia wanted one of the new foals that had been born that spring, a little Arabian. Jacob wanted a sword and a uniform. “There will be time for that later,” Daniel told him gruffly. The twins were sent to bed, and the three of them were left in the living room. “What do you want for Christmas?” Daniel asked Christa.

Kiernan laughed softly and answered for her. “His name is Captain Liam McCloskey. He was here on a reconnaissance ride out of Williamsburg soon after you and Jesse left last June. He’s been back a few times since then. Buying grain.”

“Really?” Curiously, Daniel looked at his sister. She was the shade of a tomato, but didn’t deny anything. “How serious is this?”

Christa was looking at her fingers. “Well …”

“Well?” he said.

“Well, I believe he intends to find you when he can. He’s asked me to marry him.”

Marriage! Well, of course, she was all grown up now, and she was beautiful. It was such a huge step. Jesse should have been asked too. They should have done all kinds of checking up on this man, this captain. They should have known exactly where he came from and all about his family. Most of all, they should have known if he could care for Christa properly, if he could provide her all that she had grown up with.

But none of them would know, or could know. Who knew what would be left when the war was over.

I shouldn’t say yes, I should meet him, Daniel thought.

But he loved Christa, and Christa was intelligent, and exuberant and beautiful and young, but she knew
her own heart and he thought her a good judge of men. If she loved this captain, it was enough for him.

Daniel exhaled and then laughed. “I take it that you do want to marry him?”

“With all my heart. Daniel, have I your blessing?”

“Yes, with all my heart. I look forward to meeting this young man.”

“That’s all that I want for Christmas,” she said softly. “What about you, Daniel?”

He couldn’t say all the things on his mind. “I don’t know. Let me think. Kiernan, what about you?”

She smiled. “That’s easy. I just want to see Jesse.”

He rose and kissed them both, and went on to bed. He stayed up half the night, looking out at the river.

Despite his lack of sleep, he rose very early. He walked out to the family graveyard where nearly two centuries of Camerons were lain to rest. For some reason, there was always peace to be had here. He walked back to the house and walked the length of the portrait gallery. Jassy and Jamie, the founders of the line, looked down upon him in their seventeenth-century finery. His great, great—he didn’t know how many greats—grandparents. She’d had nothing when she had met Lord Cameron, so the legend went. Nothing but sheer guts and tenacity. Together, they had forged this place from the wilderness.

Dear God, let it stand! he thought.

But it wasn’t so much a house that they had created, he thought. It was something intangible, something that had given him and Jesse the right to go their separate ways, and to love one another still. That something wouldn’t live on in brick and stone and wood. It would live on in John Daniel Cameron, and Lord willing, in themselves.

He turned from the pictures and hurried down the elegant hall, rapping hard on Kiernan’s door. She
opened it, startled, her hair wild, her eyes wild, dressed in a white cotton nightgown with the baby on her hip.

“Daniel!”

He grinned. “You want Jesse for Christmas, eh? Well, I know where he is, and I’m going to get you to him. Get dressed, pack up, let’s ride!”

She stared at him for a moment, then her face broke into a smile so beautiful he was convinced sacrificing the remaining days of his leave would be well worth this early trip back.

“Oh, Daniel!”

She kissed his cheek, then slammed the door on him, and he had to laugh. Within half an hour she had herself dressed, and Janey and the baby ready to travel.

It was difficult to say good-bye to Christa, but Christa was delighted for Kiernan.

It was difficult to ride away from home, because he wondered if he would ever come back.

They reached Richmond with little problem, and as they were there for the night, they once again attended an evening at the White House of the Confederacy. Many officer’s wives were there, as were many officers, politicians, and socially prominent citizens. It was a curious war. Kiernan greeted old friends, some of whom snubbed her for being a Yankee’s wife. One woman actually turned her back on her. But Varina took Kiernan’s hand, mentioning that if she had time in the future, they could always use help at the hospital. Kiernan was surely experienced, having worked with such an excellent surgeon and physician.

The next morning they started out again. The roads were clear; the weather held. By late that night, they had returned to Daniel’s encampment. The Yanks were right across the river.

“Welcome back, Colonel!” Billy Boudain called, seeing him approach his command tent. “What you got there, sir—oh, sorry ma’am!”

Daniel laughed. “I’ve got a Christmas present for my brother across the river,” he said. “Billy, send out a messenger for me under a white flag. Ask the Yanks for a private rendezvous with Colonel Jesse Cameron, Medical Corp. I’ll see him at the pontoon bridge.”

“Yessir!”

That night at dusk Daniel rode down to the makeshift bridge the Yanks had used to cross the river. There were pickets—numerous pickets—on either side, and he was careful to call out that there was a meeting going to take place. He didn’t feel like being shot by his own men, or getting Kiernan or the baby shot either. He left her in the shadow of the trees while he moved down by the water. A horseman stood on the other side.