And One Wore Gray (59 page)

Until the flames caught, and he could give her the lead no more, but became the aggressor, until he fell beside her, spent once more.

He held her very close, breathing in the fragrance of her hair. He trembled, thinking of how deeply he loved her.

It was morning. The first rays of light were just beginning to streak into the room.

Daniel frowned suddenly, certain that he had heard something outside.

Callie slept. Naked, he slipped quietly from the bed and strode to the window. Carefully, he pulled back the drape and began to watch.

Callie awoke with a start, aware that he was no longer beside her. She sat up, running her hand over the bed where he should have been.

“Daniel!” His name formed on her lips, but something had warned her, and she barely voiced it aloud. She saw him. Naked, silent, he was by the window, looking down. He saw her, and pressed his finger to his lips.

“What is it?” she mouthed.

He walked back to the bed, looking down at her. “Yanks,” he said softly.

Yankees. Not her brother, not his brother. Every time he trusted in her, every time he made love to her, the enemy appeared,

Callie leaned up to him, gasping. “Daniel, I didn’t—”

“Hush!” He pressed his lips to hers. With sadness, with regret? With a poignant bitterness? “Get dressed, Callie, quickly.” He was already dressing. Even as he spoke again, he was pulling on his cavalry boots and reaching for his sword and guns. “I’ve got to rouse the house, and I’ve got to get out there.”

“Get out there? Daniel, you need to stay in here! Jesse can speak with them, he can—”

“Callie, these aren’t friends of Jesse’s. These men are definitely the enemy. They’re trying to fire the house,” he said softly. “I’ve got to stop them.”

“But how—”

“Callie, your old friend, Eric Dabney, is down there. I saw him. Now get dressed. Hurry.”

With those last words, he turned and left her.

Callie managed to dress quickly. With her blouse barely buttoned, she ran out of the bedroom and raced down the hall, determined first to see to the children.

Janey, her beautiful silk-black flesh paled to an ashen shade, was standing guard over the cribs where the youngest Camerons were sleeping unaware of any danger.

“They’re fine, Miz Callie. No one will touch these boys, by my life, I swear it!” she promised.

Callie felt as if she were choking. “We may—we may have to move them out quickly,” she advised Janey. “Where has my husband gone?”

“He’s gone down, Miz Callie. Move soft, and move quiet, he’s got to take them by surprise.”

Her heart slammed hard against her chest. Eric Dabney was here. Trying to burn down Cameron Hall. And it was her fault. He had come because he hated Daniel and that hatred was because of her.

She hurried out into the hallway again. Maybe she could speak with him. Maybe she could ride back with him. Maybe she could do something!

She gave Janey a fierce hug. “Please, Janey, please, do watch out for the boys!” she said, and she hurried out.

She reached the portrait gallery. All those long-gone Camerons seemed to look down on her with reproach.

At the foot of the stairway, she nearly cried out as she crashed into a tall, rocklike body. Arms gripped her. But they weren’t Daniel’s. They were her brother’s.

“Jesu, Callie, that’s Dabney out there!”

“I know,” she whispered miserably.

“I’ll talk to the son of a bitch!” Jeremy exploded.

“It won’t do any good,” a voice suggested softly. Daniel emerged from the shadows in the hallway. “Jer
emy,
how many of them have you counted?”

“At least a company. There won’t be many of us against them—”

“You
can’t shoot at them,” Daniel said flatly. “Neither can Jesse.”

“But—”

“Unless we kill every man in that company, the two of you could be hanged as traitors at a later date, assuming you survived the fighting.”

“Sir—” Jeremy began. He was interrupted as Christa came running down the stairway with a large, lethal-looking revolver in her hands.

“Daniel! There are dozens of them out there!”

“Not dozens,” Jeremy corrected, his eyes raking her length. He looked to Daniel. “I know Dabney; I knew him before the war. He has a company, but no more than twenty. He can’t seem to keep much of a command around him. His men ask to be transferred. And they die. Frequently.”

Daniel nodded. “Thanks,” he told him.

“Wait!” Jeremy said. “This is my fight too!”

“Jeremy, it can’t be your fight. And Christa, have some faith in me! Put that damned gun down until I tell you that I need it.”

“There’s Yankees inside, and Yankees out!” Christa protested. “I wonder what happened to the overseer!”
she cried. “He would have warned us if he could; he would have fought them …” She broke off, biting into her hand, misery clear in her features.

Jesse Cameron came hurrying down the stairway, loading a cartridge into his revolver. Daniel stared at his brother and then whispered, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“They’re attacking my home!” Jesse said flatly. “And I know damned well they haven’t been ordered to!”

“You can’t shoot at them! They’re still Yanks! Someone will have you court-martialed if you fight your own kind.”

Jesse Cameron was going to ignore his brother. Callie was glad of it—there was no way that Daniel could take on a company by himself, and she was becoming more and more aware of the furtive intruders herself. She could hear the creaks on the porches, hushed whispers near the windows.

Daniel was striding toward his brother.

“Jesse!” he said suddenly.

Jesse looked up. Daniel caught him in the jaw with a clean right hook.

Jesse Cameron slumped down to the floor.

At the top of the stairway, Kiernan cried out softly. She came running down the steps. “Daniel!”

“Jesu, Kiernan, I had to! He could be shot for what he was intending to do!”

“If we survive this!” Kiernan moaned. “Daniel, they’re preparing to light fires out there. They mean to burn the house down.”

“I know,” Daniel said. “I’m going to take care of it.”

“It’s twenty to one out there!” Callie cried to him. “Don’t be a fool, you can’t—”

“I can’t have my brother hanged, Callie, and I will not have you and Christa and Kiernan endangered. And I’d just as soon not see your brother hanged either.
For the love of God, will you all have some faith in me?” he demanded. “Stay here!”

Christa had found herself a position at one of the windows. The revolver was still in her hands. She was as ready to defend the place as her brothers.

“Kiernan, get that damned gun from Christa, will you? If I don’t come back, Dabney will have what he wants, and you won’t need to defend yourselves.”

“Daniel!” Christa protested. “We’re the Rebels! And you can’t knock me out like you did Jesse.”

“I would,” Jeremy muttered.

Daniel cast them both warning stares. “Leave me to this, damn you, both of you! Christa, put the gun down! If I am killed, don’t you go trying to shoot them! Jesse can negotiate something for you.”

“No!” Christa protested.

“Cameron, whatever your plan is, I’m going with you. Damn it, if Dabney is here now, it might well mean that he followed me, and that I brought this on,” Jeremy insisted.

“I brought it on!” Callie said softly.

“If you want to help me, keep an eye on my sister,” Daniel told him.

“What?” Christa demanded, indignant, incredulous, and furious.

But Daniel paid her no heed. He was staring at Callie. Suddenly, he wasn’t there at all anymore. He had slipped through the door.

“What is he doing?” Callie demanded desperately.

Kiernan, holding Jesse’s head in her lap, sighed softly. “He’s gone to war,” she said.

“He can’t fight them alone!” Callie said.

Christa still had her gun. “He isn’t alone,” she murmured.

Callie bit her lip and moved toward Kiernan. She curled her fingers around Jesse’s gun. “I’m going with him!” she whispered.

“The hell you are!” Jeremy growled behind her. He grabbed the gun from her, and sighed, looking at Jesse. “They can sure punch, huh?”

“Yes,” Kiernan agreed.

Jeremy tried to lift Jesse to something of a sitting position, but it was true, Daniel knew how to knock out a man.

After all, Jesse had taught him just how to do it.

“He’s going to wake up madder than a hornet,” Jeremy said. He pressed a finger to his lip. They could both see a shadow by the window in the dining room.

There was silence, then a big thump.

Daniel was out there, all right. But what was he doing? Callie wondered.

Jeremy’s eyes met hers. He winked.

Then her brother was off to join her husband, and she was left behind.

To worry. To wait. She gazed at Kiernan and Kiernan at her.

“Oh, dear God, please!” she whispered aloud. The tension mounted.

It was not difficult surrounding his own house in a sure, silent movement. Daniel knew the exact placement of every small bush and trellis.

He stayed low on the porch, moving on the balls of his feet to come around to the north wing of the house. Two men were busy by a dining room window, stuffing straw against the base of it. Daniel rose and padded softly to them.

“Hey!” he said.

They turned to look at him. He caught the first with the butt of his gun in the jaw. He brought the second down with the return thud of the barrel.

He paused long enough to look them over well, stripping them of their weapons. One of them was carrying
a Spencer repeating rifle. Daniel acquired that as his own.

He began to inch around the house again. In the rear were three men, setting dry twigs. It seemed that Dabney still considered himself safe from sight. Or maybe he thought Daniel was the only male in residence. That couldn’t be true, if Jeremy was right, and Eric Dabney had followed him out. No, Dabney had to think that he had been quiet enough so that the household still slept. That was to Daniel’s advantage.

He dropped down below the porch level to the ground, coming around the back. He waited for one of the men to near the edge, then he jerked him over by a foot.
The
flailing man cried out. Daniel belted him in the jaw, and he crumpled like a puppet. But he’d been heard.

“Jace, what’s going on down there!” someone hissed. Footsteps came to the edge of the porch. A wary soldier looked over.

Daniel jerked him down too. This fellow fell with a crunch to his arm. Daniel heard the bone snap.

He didn’t have to hit the fellow. The soldier opened his eyes once, stared at Daniel with alarm, and passed out cold.

Daniel looked up. The third Yank was staring at him. He was going to have to pull his gun and shoot. He hadn’t wanted to make that kind of noise and alarm the others.

But he didn’t pull his gun. To his amazement, the soldier’s eyes flew open wide and then closed, and the man toppled over the porch.

He looked at the fallen man, then looked up. Jeremy McCauley was grinning down at him. “Want a hand up?” he mouthed.

It seemed there was no point talking sense to Yankees. Daniel reached for his hand, and Jeremy helped him leap up to the porch.

He tensed as he realized that someone was coming around the corner. He started to cock his Colt, then realized that it was his brother.

Jesse was rubbing his fist, as if he’d just given somebody a good knocking with it.

“Can’t talk sense into Yankees, and can’t knock it into them, either!” Daniel complained.

“I’m going to knock some into you, little brother, when this is over,” Jesse warned him.

“Christ among us!” Daniel complained. “I’m trying to keep the two of you from a hanging!”

“Fine,” Jesse said. He hunkered down low, rubbing his sore jaw. “There were two on my side,” he whispered.

“Two on the north side, three back here,” Daniel said.

“Seven,” Jeremy murmured.

“And the rest … ?”

“The barn,” Jesse suggested. “It will burn like a hellhole!”

It would, Daniel thought quickly. He rose. “If you’re with me, come on!” he told his brother and brother-in-law.

They started to move off the porch. It was then they heard a shot fired and then a bloodcurdling scream from the front of the house.

Christa was by the front door, sunk down by the narrow strip of etched glass on the side of it. Kiernan stood on one side of the great hall, watching the dining room windows, and Callie stood on the other side of the hall, looking out through the parlor.

“I hear … something!” Christa whispered.

Both Callie and Kiernan hurried toward her. Callie stared out, searching the frozen scenery, feeling as if her heart had lodged permanently in her throat. Kiernan was beside her, and the three of them
searched the front in the morning light that grew ever brighter.

Callie felt something cold and sharp at her spine. She swallowed down a gasp, turning around.

Eric Dabney was there, holding a pistol to her. He had come in from behind them. Instinctively she looked toward the stairway, praying that no one had reached the children.

He saw the way that her eyes moved. He smiled, his eyes bright, amused.

“I haven’t been up there, Callie, not yet. And I won’t go up there. Maybe I won’t even burn the house. Not if you come with me. And not if you help me bring in Daniel Cameron.”

“Help you?” she queried, fighting desperately to remain calm. “There are any number of you here, Eric: Daniel is out there alone. You need my help?”

“He isn’t alone,” a man behind Eric said, and Callie realized that he had entered the house with two of his soldiers. “Why, we got men down—”

“Get away from Callie,” Christa interrupted the man, aiming at him.

“I’ll get her—” Eric’s man began, taking a single step.

“Stop!” Christa warned.

But he didn’t heed her. Christa fired her gun and Callie heard a long horrible scream. No, it was two screams combined, for the wounded man had screamed, and so had she. The second of Eric’s soldiers hurtled himself toward Christa, wrenching the gun from her grasp before she could fire again. Christa swore savagely, something not at all ladylike.