Kary, Elizabeth (41 page)

As
always, she was startled by his perceptiveness and by the depth of his concern.
Perhaps her parents would willingly accept their marriage. The greater question
was, could she?

Leigh
drew a long breath. Hayes had been the soul of consideration these last days
and deserved more than the rough side of her tongue. During the trip from New
Madrid, he had been kind and solicitous, and she had decided to try to make the
best of their enforced marriage. But her dread of the coming confrontation and
her fears about the future had made her forget her resolves.

"I'm
sorry, Hayes," she apologized with true contrition. "I guess I am
worried about facing my parents for the first time, and especially about how
Father will react. He's just unpredictable enough to call you out rather than
shake your hand and welcome you as his son-in-law."

"He'll
welcome me as a son-in-law. Don't worry," Hayes promised her. "Now
just smile and wave to your parents, Mrs. Banister. They've come to welcome us
home."

There
was a good deal of confusion on the levee as the riverboat tied up. The
waterfront seemed busier and more crowded than it had been since the war had
begun, and Leigh was glad to see so many working, even if they were loading
supplies for the Union armies fighting their way south. There were a large
number of troops on the levee, too: men awaiting transport to distant battlefields
to fight and die for the Federal cause. How many of these men would she see in
the coming weeks? she wondered. How many of them would be returned battered and
broken, sent to St. Louis to die or be healed? The futility of the war weighed
Leigh down.

While
she waited for Hayes to finish his business on the steamboat, Leigh bid
good-bye to Nathan Travis. He had accompanied them from New Madrid, and was
heading farther north before he would return to his wife in Cairo.

"You
take good care of yourself, Nathan," she admonished him, "and give my
love to Delia when you see her."

"I'll
do that, Leigh. I surely will. Just wait until I tell her you and Hayes are
married. Delia will jump for joy."

Travis
must have read the change in Leigh's demeanor and bent a little closer. "I
know you didn't get off to the best beginning with Hayes, but give him a
chance. He's a good man, Leigh, and he cares for you very deeply. Trust him,
and you won't be sorry."

Leigh
started to protest, but before she could utter a word, Travis was turning away,
heading toward the gangway with his long, measured stride.

How
could Nathan understand the way things were between her and Hayes? Leigh
reflected as she watched him go. From the beginning he and Delia had been made
for each other. Delia had known Nathan was the man she wanted to marry that
first afternoon. And watching them together on their wedding day had been like
staring into the sun.

She
and Hayes were not bound together as Delia and Nathan were. There were too many
things standing between them to ever achieve the kind of happiness the other
couple seemed to share. Nathan didn't know about Lucas, about her betrayal of
his memory in Hayes's arms, or about the danger of being so caught up in
passion that good sense lost its sway. It would be to her eternal regret that
she and her husband did not love each other the way Nathan and Delia did. For
now she and Hayes were eternally bound together, whatever the future might
bring.

A
wave of devastating sadness moved through Leigh at the thought, and she
stubbornly subdued it. In a few moments she would face her parents and begin to
live a lie. From this moment on she must work to convince them, and the rest of
St. Louis as well, that she and Hayes had been so desperate to be together that
they had eloped rather than bear the wait it would take to plan a proper
wedding. It was a ruse that would take all the theatrical ability she could
muster, but it was necessary to everything she held dear.

"Leigh?"
Her husband's voice sounded behind her. "Are you ready to go?"

With
difficulty Leigh accepted the casual intimacy of his touch and raised her eyes
to his. "Yes, Hayes, I am."

They
had crossed the forward gangway and were making their way up the levee toward
the Penningtons' open carriage when Aaron Crawford suddenly stepped between
them and their goal. In the past days as she had tried to grapple with her new
role as wife and lover, Leigh had hardly given Aaron Crawford's suspicions a
thought. They had been her reason for boarding the
Barbara Dean,
but she
had put them out of her mind the night Hayes had made love to her. And in the
days since her marriage, she had not been anxious to complicate their new
relationship with things that had not seemed to matter. But now with her
husband's accuser standing officiously before them, a jeering smile upon his
mouth and a detachment of men at his back, Leigh wished with all her heart that
she had warned Hayes about Crawford's suspicions. Her fingers tightened on
Hayes's arm as if to telegraph her concern, but even her knowledge of the
major's suspicions did not prepare her for his next words.

"Hayes
Banister," Major Crawford announced clearly, his voice ringing across the
levee, "by the power vested in me as provost marshal of St. Louis, I
arrest you as a Confederate spy."

Silence
descended on the busy levee for one long moment, then the buzz of voices rose
louder than before.

"What?"
Leigh heard Hayes say. "Crawford, what the hell is the meaning of
this?"

"What's
going on here, Major Crawford?" Horace Pennington blustered as he pushed
his way through the curious crowd that had begun to gather. "What business
do you have with my new son-in-law?"

The
news of a marriage between Hayes Banister and Leigh Pennington seemed not to
faze the Union major. "I've come to arrest Mr. Banister on a charge of
treason," he said with a sneer. "We have information that this man
has been trafficking with Rebel agents and traveling freely behind enemy
lines."

A
second murmur of surprise moved through the crowd that was echoed by her father's
exclamation.

"I
can't imagine how you came to these ridiculous conclusions," Hayes said,
"but I hardly think this is the time or the place to discuss them. Shall
we go somewhere and straighten this out?"

"At
last, Banister, we agree on something. And since you are under arrest, I
suggest we continue our discussion at army headquarters."

Hayes's
face hardened. "Very well, Crawford. The sooner we get to the bottom of
this, the better. But I warn you, there are going to be some serious
repercussions to my arrest."

"We
shall see about that, Banister. We shall see. Corporal Cody, shackle the
prisoner's hands."

"Now
see here, Crawford—" Horace Pennington began, but Leigh cut him short.

"No,
Aaron. Please!" she cried, as a soldier stepped from the ranks to clasp
heavy iron manacles around Hayes's wrists. "What I sent south was only a
letter to his cousin's wife. Please, Aaron, I told you it was nothing
more."

Leigh
was too concerned with convincing Crawford of Hayes's innocence to see the
sequence of surprise, disillusionment, and reproach that sprang to her
husband's eyes, but Crawford noticed it and instantly surmised the cause. Leigh
Pennington might well have impulsively married Banister, but she had not told
him all her secrets. And that fact alone, he reflected, could make the
forthcoming interrogation very interesting, indeed.

"Yes,
and I appreciate your help, Leigh, though as Banister's wife, you must realize
you can no longer give evidence against him. But never fear, I found several
collaborating witnesses, even someone to verify the letters he had you send
south just before Christmas."

Leigh
fell silent, filled with fear. How could Aaron have found out about the
Christmas letters? She had been careful to keep her peace about those. Their
destination and the identity of their recipient would cast even greater
suspicion on Hayes than the other things Crawford had discovered. Of course,
the courier would have known, Leigh realized, and she might well have reason to
sell the knowledge in return for favors. Was that where Crawford had gotten his
information?

She
cast a sidelong glance at her husband, read the accusation in his eyes, and
knew immediately what he was thinking. Hayes was convinced that she had
betrayed him, informed to Crawford about his clandestine activities and the
messages he had sent. In that instant, she longed to shout a denial, but she
could not. There were too many inquisitive ears listening, too many who would
learn too much if she spoke out.

She
should have warned Hayes about Aaron Crawford's suspicions, but in the last
days she had been first too angry, and then too preoccupied with their changing
relationship to chance telling Hayes something that had no bearing on the
adjustments they were making as man and wife.

While
Leigh was trying to grapple with this turn of events, Crawford led Hayes to a
wagon and had him loaded roughly inside.

"Where
are you taking him, Crawford?" Horace Pennington demanded. "What will
you do with him now?"

For
a moment Crawford hesitated. He had more than enough evidence to hold Banister
on a charge of treason, and nothing Pennington's high-placed friends could do
would free him.

"We'll
be interrogating him for a while at headquarters," he replied with another
leering grin. "Then he'll go to the Gratiot Street Jail to await
trial."

"Now,
see here, Crawford..." Pennington began.

While
Aaron and her father argued, Leigh moved to where Hayes sat on the floor of the
wagon. "Hayes, I'll do what I can to get you out of this," she
promised. "I swear I will."

His
cold, blue-gray eyes moved over her, and she was singed by the contempt in his
gaze.

"Will
you?" her husband asked caustically, dismissing her words as a lie.
"It seems you've done more than enough for me already, Leigh. I'm probably
far better off on my own."

Before
she could respond, Crawford had clambered onto the wagon seat and the vehicle
had begun to roll. There was no time for denials and explanations, and Leigh
stood watching it go. When Hayes and Crawford's troopers had disappeared down
Wharf Street, her father led Leigh to their carriage, where Althea was
anxiously awaiting explanations.

"A
fine son-in-law you've given me," Horace admonished his daughter once they
had told Althea what had happened. "A son-in-law and a Confederate spy all
rolled up in one."

"Leave
her alone, Horace," Althea snapped in Leigh's defense. "She's hardly
to be blamed for something Mr. Banister did."

Ignoring
his wife, as had recently become his habit, Pennington continued. "I don't
suppose you know whether he really did what Crawford claims."

"No,"
Leigh admitted, twisting her lace handkerchief in her lap. "I really don't
know if Hayes is a Rebel spy or not."

"Oh,
Leigh, how awful for you!" her mother sympathized.

Leigh
was silent for a moment as tears gathered in her eyes. She might not have told
her husband about Aaron's accusations, but Hayes had hardly been forthcoming
about his own activities, either. She still hadn't discovered where he'd been
or what he'd done when he left the riverboat. She didn't know anything at all about
her husband's clandestine activities, except that Nathan Travis was somehow
involved.

Abruptly
Leigh's head came up, and she clutched her father's arm. "Father, you must
help me find a man named Nathan Travis!" she began. "He came north
with us on the
Barbara Dean
and can't have gone too far. Oh, please,
Father, tell Jed to turn the buggy around. Nathan will know what to do to help
Hayes, if only we can find him."

Horace
considered Leigh's words and the hope shining in her eyes. "What kind of a
man is this Travis. Where is he likely to be?"

Leigh
obediently told her father everything she knew about Nathan.

"Then,
from what you say, Travis might as likely be a Confederate spy as the man
you've taken as a husband," Horace pointed out. "What you may be doing,
instead of helping Hayes, is giving this other man a warning, a chance to get
out of town before he is apprehended."

"Nathan
wouldn't desert Hayes!" Leigh protested. "He'll help him. I know he
will!"

"But
will he help him by explaining this situation or by breaking him out of the
Gratiot Street Prison?" Horace mumbled under his breath.

It
was a question that bore consideration, but Leigh ignored it, intent on finding
a way to get her husband out of a situation her secrecy had caused. "Will
you help me find him, Father?" Leigh asked.

"Oh,
yes, Leigh, I'll help you find him. If he's still in St. Louis, we'll locate
him. But don't get your hopes up. Men of this sort are very good at hiding,
especially when they have a reason for not wanting to be found."

But
even her father's words and the truth they undoubtedly represented did not dim
Leigh's faith in Nathan Travis. If they could find Nathan, if they could
explain the danger Hayes was in, Nathan would help. One way or the other, he
would see that Hayes Banister did not hang as a Confederate spy.