Glory (6 page)

He did so. It was an excellent full-bodied wine, almost a port. It was dry without being bitter, fruity without being too sweet.

“Well, Colonel?”

“You make wonderful wine, Mammy Nor.”

“You don’t know just how wonderful yet, Colonel!”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Have a good night, sir. Sleep well. Dream sweetly.”

“Thank you.”

With a knowing wink and a slow turn, she left him alone.

He couldn’t help thinking that it was a strange household.

The wine was good. It seemed to flow through his limbs, and, as she had said, it eased all the little aches and pains. Though he was certain it wasn’t poisoned, he still sipped it carefully. The earth witch who owned the place was a Yankee, which meant he had to be careful. But the lulling heat that filled his veins was addictive. A second glass seemed in order. God, yes, it was potent, and very good. Besides, he’d always been able to drink his share of bourbon. He could surely handle a couple glasses of wine.

As he sat there, just finishing it, Rachel came in to the room.

“Oh, sir, there you are!” she said happily.

“Hello, Rachel.”

“Have you eaten?” she asked him.

She was young, charming, effusive, and sincere. He smiled in return, suddenly wishing he weren’t living out a lie for the evening, since she was so pleased to have them.

“Yes, I’ve eaten.”

“Good. Then come on up.”

“Up? Where?”

“I’ve made arrangements for everyone, sir, but since you’re the ranking man—” She broke off suddenly, frowning. “You are, aren’t you?”

“Uh—yes, at the moment.”

“You’ve a private room, upstairs. The other fellows will share, though they say they have to take turns on guard. Is that right?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Ah, well, follow me.”

“All right. Just let me look in on my patient.”

He did so. Paddy was sleeping peacefully. So peacefully that he paused, listening for Paddy’s heartbeat and his slow, deep breathing.

“Don’t worry,” Rachel said, tugging on his arm. “Rhiannon gave him some laudanum. He’ll sleep like a baby. That wound must have hurt blue blazes.”

He didn’t object to an injured man being given a pain-killing drug—just to the fact that Rhiannon had chosen to do so without asking him. But then again, it was the common household cure for every little ache and pain, quite popular among the ladies—young and old, North and South.

“Perhaps I should speak with Rhiannon,” he said.

“She’s gone to bed for the night,” Rachel told him. “You’ll have to speak with her in the morning. Don’t yell at her.”

“I can hardly yell at our hostess.”

“She meant well.”

“Did she?”

“Of course. She wouldn’t do anything bad to anyone. I told you—she’s better than most doctors. She was in Washington for a while, petitioning to follow Richard’s regiment as a medic, but she couldn’t get permission, so she worked in a hospital there. She’s magic.”

Magic again. “Is she?” he inquired skeptically.

“Honestly. And she sees, you know.”

“Sees what?”

“More than most.”

He lowered his head, hiding a skeptical grin. “She’s a prophet?”

“Oh, no, and she’d be furious if she thought I told you such a thing. Sometimes she just ... knows things. When they happen, right before they happen. And she can find things and people and ... she’s just magic, that’s all.”

“And what is Rhiannon to you? Are you related? Do you see things as well?”

Rachel laughed. “No, I’m afraid that I can’t see things right before my eyes most of the time. Richard—her husband—was my cousin. Rhiannon watches out for me ... Come on now, sir. You do look haggard.”

He arched a brow.

“Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude—you don’t look
bad.
You’re a very handsome man. Oh, dear, I guess it’s quite forward for me to say such a thing ...”

He started to laugh. “I’m not offended, but rather, Miss Rachel, I am deeply flattered. And I am tired, and I’m sure, quite haggard. Thank you for your kindness. Lead away.”

She brought him upstairs to a large pleasant room with a big bed, French doors leading to a balcony, and something even more inviting—a hip tub filled with steaming water.

“Like it?” she asked him, delighted by his expression.

He caught her hand and gallantly kissed it. “This might be the nicest gift I’ve received in years.”

She blushed. “I’ll get out of your way, then. There are towels on the chair, there, and some soap. We still have decent soap, by the way. From France. But it’s not perfumed or anything—it just isn’t that awful lye everyone seems to be using these days. I promise, you won’t smell funny tomorrow or anything.”

“Good. It’s terrible when your men think you smell too pretty,” he told her gravely.

She laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning, Colonel.”

“It’s a wonderful room. Thank you.”

She shrugged. “I think it was a nursery once, attached to the master’s chambers. I’m not really sure. Rhiannon inherited this property from her parents, so there haven’t been any little children around for a long time. Sleep well, sir. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She left him, and when she did so, he couldn’t get his clothes off fast enough. A bath and a change of clothing had gotten to be a luxury. At his base camp they were, in one way, lucky. The river ran cool, fresh, and beautiful quite near them, and due to the constant heat, men were drawn to the river. It wasn’t that often that he went without bathing.

He plunged into the tub, feeling a deep comfort as the steaming water soaked into him. Then, before lethargy could steal over him, he grabbed the soap—heedless of what it smelled like—and scrubbed himself energetically from head to toe. He’d already had lice twice during the war and he washed furiously at every opportunity. Thoroughly scrubbed, he leaned his head back and relaxed.

God, but the hot water felt good. And the wine had been potent—just as Mammy Nor had warned. It seemed to steal through his body, warming him, relaxing him. He felt lazy, redolent, good. Pictures of the sick and injured—soldiers writhing in pain from fever, gunshot, knife wounds, and amputations—which so often slipped into his mind, faded. He felt as if he had gone back in time. He might have been home, at Cimarron, listening to the night, feeling the air. A breeze against the heat could be so wonderful. And tonight there was a soft, cool breeze. While he lounged there, he could just hear leaves rustling, brushing against the house. It was all lulling. He hadn’t felt so relaxed in a very long time.

After a while he began to hear more than the whisper of the night. He heard a soft, muffled sobbing sound. Quiet, so wrenching that it tugged upon the heart.

He was in the old nursery, next to the master’s chambers. That meant his hostess’s room was next to his own.

It was terrible to listen to her grief. In the course of war he’d seen many men die. He’d never accustomed himself to death. He had learned, though, that he had to keep moving, steel himself to continue working mechanically, even when it went against the very fiber of his being to see a young life fade on the operating table beneath his very hands. He knew that for every man he lost, a widow grieved, a mother sobbed, or a child was left fatherless. War was brutal and cruel. He knew that. He knew the pain. He lived with it, fought it, day after day.

And still ...

The soft, muffled sobbing seemed to steal into him. He tried not to listen, to respect the privacy of her grief. But then, in the midst of it, he heard a sudden exclamation.

“No, no, noooo!”

He heard something slam and he jumped up, dripping. For a moment he felt as if he were weaving—a reaction from the, alcohol content in the wine. Swearing, he reached for his towel and wrapped it around him. He staggered from the tub and steadied himself. He found his Colt on the chair where he had set it when he’d stripped. Colt in one hand, towel in the other, he was about to bound out into the hall and find out who or what had assaulted his hostess when he realized that there was a connecting door between the two rooms.

He strode pell-mell to it, tried the knob, and found it locked. Afraid that she was in real danger, he rammed the door with his shoulder.

A far flimsier door than the main one below, it gave readily—the lock simply breaking from the hinge. His impetus took him, towel around his waist, gun in hand, into the center of her room.

There was no one there. Not in the room.

Rhiannon sat in a whitewashed wooden swing out on her balcony. If not for the moonlight, he wouldn’t have seen her. Barefoot, in a long cotton gown, she sat, knees curled into her chest, rocking. Her ebony hair was loosed from its coil and streamed down her back like a silk shawl. She looked very young, a lost waif, a magical creature indeed, caught by the pale glow of the soft moonlight.

She should have heard her door break open, but it appeared that she hadn’t even noticed his arrival.

Stunned, he started walking toward her. He stopped suddenly as he stepped in liquid. Looking down, he realized that he had just missed stepping on the remnants of a shattered glass. A small pool of wine lay next to it.

He stepped around the glass and walked toward the balcony. When he had nearly reached her, she heard him at last. She leapt to her feet, spinning around to face him, startled and afraid.

“How dare you sneak up on me!”

“I hardly snuck up on you, considering the fact that I broke a door apart to reach you.”

“What in God’s name are you doing in here?”

“Trying to rescue you.”

“Rescue me?”

Her eyes skidded over his body, taking in the towel and the gun. Her eyes widened.

“Rescue me—you’re aiming a gun at me!” she said indignantly. Then some emotion passed through her eyes. “Are you going to shoot me?” she inquired a little breathlessly.

As if there might be a reason he would consider shooting her.

“Why would I shoot you?” he inquired.

“Because—” she began, and broke off. “You’re—carrying a gun. It’s aimed at me.”

“I thought you were being attacked. And I’m not aiming at you.”

“Attacked? By whom? Your men?” she queried.

He gritted his teeth, growing impatient and feeling very much a fool. His head was still swimming. He was standing in her room with a towel and a gun. “You were crying—then you screamed,” he explained.

“Don’t be absurd. I didn’t scream.”

“You did.” Damn her. He hadn’t drunk
that
much wine.

Suddenly her gaze slipped from his. Her words and tone faltered. “I’m—I’m sorry. I must have been dreaming, it was a ... nightmare, perhaps ...”

And then he knew.

There was something not quite right about her. Her eyes, when they met his again, were widely dilated. She held one hand behind her back, like a child hiding a forbidden toy. He frowned, stepping forward. “What have you got?”

“Nothing.” She backed away from him in such a way that he was determined to persist. He cast his Colt to the foot of her bed and reached for her, drawing her to him. She stiffened at his touch, her body trembling. She struggled to free herself, but he caught her wrist, wondering what it was she was so determined to hide. A gun? A knife? Had she been planning on entering his room and murdering him while he slept?

“Give it to me!” he commanded harshly. He slid his left arm around her waist, forcing her hard against the length of his body. He squeezed her wrist and forced her to drop what she held.

“Let me be!” she pleaded, for she hadn’t the strength to stop him from forcing her clenched fist open. What she held fell to the floor, and as he stopped to retrieve it, he looked quickly back up at her, startled. It was a small, corked vial. Laudanum? Or a truer form of the drug, pure opium.

He understood the look in her eyes as he rose to his feet, staring at her.

“Laudanum or pure opium?”

“None of your business!”

“You’re an addict.”

“No!” she protested. “Give it back, no ... I’m not addicted, I just ... sometimes ... please ... I need it!”

He gritted his teeth. God, yes, laudanum, a legal drug. In times of peace so plentiful! It cured headaches and women’s ills, and yes, of course, it was good for pain.

And for forgetfulness.

It could be essential in an operating theater; he knew that because so often he didn’t have any. If not for his cousin Jerome being a blockade runner, he might never have the drugs he needed, especially since the serious fighting took place so far away. He could surely use more of the drug.

Yet laudanum was also easy to abuse. He’d never forget one of the first corpses he’d worked on in medical school. In life she had been a beautiful young woman with golden blond hair and bright blue eyes. In death, she had lain ashen and gray, naked, displayed for dissection, the victim of her need. She’d been found in a field, and no one had known who she was or where to find her kin. And so she had come to the medical school. It was later discovered that she was the child of a wealthy and prominent family, but she had run away from home after acquiring an irresistible hunger for the drug that had killed her.

“Colonel, please ...”

Her voice was husky, low, pleading. He shook his head.

He was furious. There was so much death and horror in this war! That she could be so careless with something so precious as life ... !

He gripped her by the shoulders and shook her. She was taking the drug and drinking wine. A potent combination indeed.

“What is the matter with you?”

She stiffened against his touch. “You don’t understand—”

“But I do.”

“Let me go. I must—” she began to insist angrily.

“You don’t need this.”

“I do. Just tonight.”

“I’m telling you, you don’t.”

“God damn you! Who are you to tell me anything?”

She wrenched free from him, backing away, her eyes meeting his with a challenging fire.

“So you’re free from me,” he said very softly. “You don’t think that I can stop you if I choose?”

She was alarmed at his determination. “What is it to you what I choose to do with my life?”

“You won’t have a life!” he assured her.