One Wore Blue (18 page)

There was a tremendous commotion, but then Judge Parker brought the court to order.

John Brown, still suffering from his wounds, was brought in on a cot. Kiernan stared at him, searching for something in the man to confirm what she had heard. She was not disappointed. His eyes did burn. As they moved about the courtroom, she felt a distinct unease.

The prisoner had barely come in and order had just been called when one of his defense attorneys began to make a plea for him. He read a telegram from A. H. Lewis of Ohio who stated that there were many instances of insanity within Brown’s family. Clemency was the suggestion.

It was an intriguing defense stratagem, Kiernan thought, one that might well save the man’s life.

Except that John Brown wasn’t about to allow it. He stood, rising from his cot with considerable dignity, and denied that he was insane.

He would not be sent to an institution; he would not have his life salvaged. He had known what he was doing, and he believed in the right of it.

Watching him, Kiernan was startled by the pity she felt for the man. He frightened her, and yet she was sorry for him. She could not admire him, yet she could admire his conviction.

As the day dragged on, proof of his treason was read out time and time again, and she believed more and more that he truly thought himself a servant of God, and that although
he had shed blood, he regretted that blood must darken the land.

She left the courtroom that first day with a great deal of confusion. And in that confusion, she wanted to see Jesse.

She saw him sooner than she had expected. As she was leaving the courtroom on Anthony’s arm, she ran right into him. He stepped back, and lifted his hat to her and to Anthony. “Kiernan, Anthony. What a pleasure.”

His voice was edged with sarcasm, and his eyes held a distinctively mocking light when they fell upon her.

Anthony shook Jesse’s hand and greeted him enthusiastically, and then her father was there and Andrew Miller and Thomas Donahue, and the men became quickly involved in conversation. Before she knew it, they had invited Jesse to dinner with them.

Well, she had wanted to see him. But not with half of the world present, and the only conversation that of the trial.

She held her breath, waiting to see if Jesse would decline the invitation.

He did not. “I’d enjoy the companionship,” he said, and turned to Kiernan. “And of course, the presence of such a fine lady.”

They met in two hours in the restaurant of the hotel where they were staying. Eager as she was to see Jesse alone, Kiernan was hard pressed to remain graciously with the others for long as they spoke outside the courtroom. She tried to respond appropriately to their conversation, she tried to remain calm and demure lest her father grew suspicious. But the first second that she could, she excused herself and bolted for her room. In the short time she had before dinner, she ordered a bath and scrubbed her hair with perfumed shampoo. With furious energy, she towel-dried her honey-colored tresses. Then she dressed in an elegant peach and yellow gown with draping white linen sleeves and tore down to the dining room, hoping to meet Jesse before the others arrived.

The place was a madhouse with all the people in town attending the trial. Kiernan looked anxiously about but did not see Jesse. The tuxedoed maître d’ of the restaurant found
her, and bowing low, he informed her that Captain Cameron had reserved a room for their party.

She reached the doorway and saw Jesse standing by one of the chairs, sipping a full drink. He was in full dress uniform, dark, handsome, exciting. Her heart was suddenly still as she watched him.

He sensed that she was there and turned to her. Their eyes met, and for a moment, her need to rush into his arms seemed to be overwhelming. In only a second, her heart and limbs would have taken flight.

“Ah, here you are, Cameron, Kiernan. Jesse, I do say, what a fine thing you’ve done for us all, thinking to reserve this privacy!”

She didn’t move. Her heart sank, and her limbs did not take flight. Anthony was behind her, setting his hands tenderly upon her shoulders. Though Jesse’s eyes continued to meet hers, he spoke casually to Anthony.

“I was expected that there might be a crowd and thought of reserving space.”

Then her father came in, and Andrew and Thomas. Kiernan found herself seated in between Anthony and her father, and across from Jesse.

“Well, Jesse,” John Mackay demanded, making a broad motion as he unfolded his napkin and set it upon his lap. “What did you think of the proceedings today? Brown could easily have grabbed hold of that insanity plea, by Jove! There’s a madman if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Sir, he’s a fanatic, certainly. If that makes him a madman, I’m not certain.”

“Bah!” Andrew Miller said irritably. “He’s mad. And dangerous. And a fool. He thinks that he has the word of the Lord in his ears! Well, let me tell you, the Lord says otherwise. In the Bible the good Lord said, ‘Slaves, obey your masters.’ Isn’t that right, Captain Cameron?”

Kiernan stared at Jesse, praying that he wouldn’t be difficult at the dinner table.

Jesse shrugged. “Mr. Miller, I’m afraid that I wasn’t a very good Bible student.”

“What are you saying, sir?” Andrew Miller, his face
flushed, demanded. “You don’t think that Brown will hang—or that he deserves to?”

“Oh yes, he’ll hang,” Jesse said. “And by any law, he deserves to do so.”

Andrew settled back. Lacey’s husband, Thomas, looked acutely uncomfortable. He was Andrew’s friend and a strong advocate of states’ rights, but he didn’t believe in slavery himself.

Jesse leaned forward. “Gentlemen, we’ve a lady present at the table. I suggest we cease to discuss politics for the duration of the meal.”

Kiernan was deeply annoyed when her father literally snorted, “Kiernan? Why, Jesse, you know my girl as well as anyone!”

Jesse smiled at her. “Probably better,” he offered pleasantly.

“Then you know she’s not in the least offended by talk of politics.”

“My, my,” Kiernan murmured sweetly, “it must be the company I keep!” She side-kicked her father. He yelped and stared at her and frowned warningly, but she continued to smile sweetly. “Humor me, Father,” she said. “Let’s do cease with all of this for a while.”

There were plays to discuss, their land, the military itself, the trip that the men in partnership had taken into the mountains. The food offered by the hotel was very good, but Kiernan barely tasted hers. She grew restless as coffee was served to them in elegant silver pitchers. The meal would end soon. Maybe then she’d have a chance to talk to Jesse.

But it wasn’t to be. Jesse barely touched his coffee. He stood and told them that he had an appointment for a drink with an old army friend and bade them good night, bowing handsomely to Kiernan.

The trial lasted two and half more days. Kiernan sat through the entirety of it. She listened to John Brown, and she listened to the witnesses. She was torn. What had happened had been horrible—John Brown had committed murder. He had come with hundreds of pikes with which to arm
slaves. If he had created an insurrection, hundreds of people might have been brutally murdered in cold blood.

Yet there was something about the man. He would not be quickly forgotten.

On October 31, closing arguments were given. The case was handed over to the jury at one thirty in the afternon.

The jury deliberated for forty-five minutes. The verdict came in. John Brown was guilty on all three counts. Old Ossawatomie Brown was going to be hanged by the neck until dead.

Kiernan had expected shouts and cries from the crowd that so often upon the steps of the courthouse had shouted threats and insults upon the man.

But there was silence, dead silence.

Brown himself merely adjusted the pallet on his cot and stretched out upon it.

Kiernan looked across the courtroom. Jesse took his eyes from Brown and stared at her. He seemed sad—no, stricken, almost anguished. She felt his stare like a touch. But people stood all around them. In seconds, they were lost to each other in the crowd. “Daughter, it’s done. Let’s go,” her father told her. She was led from the courtroom on his arm.

With the trial over, Kiernan knew that Jesse would be riding back to Washington. But she had to see him alone one last time.

She didn’t know when she would see him again.

He would be joining them for dinner again, as he had every night, but sitting through those meals with the others in attendance had been pure misery. She would have escaped those occasions if she could have. No matter how polite Jesse was, how careful with his words, he still refused to lie about his convictions about the political situation. Sometimes his comments were nearly traitorous to the life that they led, traitorous for a Tidewater Virginian.

When he wasn’t creating tension at the table, he was watching her and Anthony with that rueful twist of his lip and pained and bitter mockery in his eyes.

This last night, Kiernan dressed carefully for dinner. She chose a gown with a soft underskirt and an overskirt and
bodice of deep blue velvet. The sleeves and low-cut bodice were trimmed lightly with fur against the chill of the night. She swept her hair back cleanly but allowed tendrils of golden-red curls to escape the coil and frame her face. She stepped back from her hotel room mirror and surveyed her image.

Anthony was right—she
was
growing older. Her eyes seemed very old. But she wasn’t displeased with her image. The gown was beautiful, and it displayed an ample amount of bosom and shoulder without being too daring. The color was perfect for her, and the gown was perfect for a proper evening out with her father and friends.

And it was perfect for reminding Jesse that she was a grown-up woman, one with whom he had made love.

She wasn’t going to mind dinner that night, she determined. She was going to find a chance to tell him that she needed to see him alone.

She hurried down to the dining room they had shared every evening. To her dismay, her father and Andrew were already seated. Thomas Donahue came in immediately behind her. A smile crinkled his pleasant, weathered old face, and he paused to tell her that she was a beautiful sight for old and weary eyes. She smiled in turn. Thomas was very dear.

When Anthony arrived, he brushed her cheek with a kiss and pulled back her chair.

“I wonder where Jesse has gotten himself to,” John Mackay said to no one in particular.

“There’s a lot of military brass around,” Anthony said, unknowingly defending his rival. “Perhaps he has been waylaid.”

Their waiter arrived with a message on a small silver tray. John took the message and crumpled it in his hand. “The boy’s running late. He says that we should go ahead and order, and he’ll be along as soon as he can.”

Kiernan jumped out of her chair, so restless that she could no longer bear it. She had to see Jesse.

All eyes turned to her.

“There’s a chill in the air,” she told her father regally. “If you gentlemen will just excuse me—”

But Anthony was up too. “If you need a wrap, Kiernan, I would be delighted to fetch it for you.”

“Oh, thank you, Anthony, but I’m not sure that I left the stole I want in my room. I might have left it in the sofa by the registrar. Stay, please.” She gave him one of her most charming smiles, then added, “Really, you gentlemen go on and talk without me. I’ll be just a few minutes.”

Her father’s blue eyes were downright suspicious, but Kiernan ignored them. She left the room and moved quickly through the dining room beyond.

She knew that she’d have to have a wrap when she returned, so she raced upstairs to her room and grabbed the stole, which was on the foot of her bed—exactly where she knew it would be. She raced back down the main stairway and outside to the huge veranda that surrounded the hotel.

It was quiet out there. All the conversation was going on inside. The night was cool and beautiful.

She looked down the street, into the darkness of the night. Jesse was staying at a different hotel and would arrive from the north.

But when would he come?

She gazed across the road to the livery stable, and with a sudden spurt of energy she flew down the few steps from the porch to the road and hurried across the street.

To her amazement, she discovered him coming around the side of the stable. There was foliage all about, and she might not have recognized him in the darkness, except that she knew him so well—his walk, the tilt of his hat.

“Jesse!”

She breathed out his name, and he saw her. Before she knew what she was doing, she raced along the trail toward him.

She threw herself into his arms, pressed her lips to his with a starved hunger, and nearly burst with the sweet fervor of the kiss he gave her in return, his tongue filling her mouth, his passion robbing her of breath and reason. As he held her against him, she felt their hearts beating like the
wings of eagles. She felt the coolness of the night and the soaring heat between them. Slowly, he eased her down to her feet and stared into her eyes. She flushed and lowered her face.

“Where’s poor Anthony?” he asked her.

“In—in the restaurant.”

“Did you tell him that you’re not going to marry him?”

“I tried to.”

“Tried?”

“He can be very stubborn.”

“Just tell him that you’re going to marry me.”

She looked up at him, searching his eyes. Her fingers wound around the button of his cape. “But I’m not going to marry you, Jesse. Not until you see things the right way.”

“Your way?” he quizzed. He arched a brow and spoke very softly. He bent down and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He rubbed his tongue lightly, slowly, across her lower lip, caught it between his teeth, then kissed it very tenderly. She pressed against him, savoring the warmth of him and the sheer luxury of touching him. “The right way is your way?” he repeated.

“Yes, my way,” she murmured. “Oh, Jesse—”

Suddenly, swiftly, he set her aside. “So now what, Kiernan? You flirt and tease and torment poor Anthony until I come around to your way of thinking?”