One Wore Blue (25 page)

Kissing, caressing, finding sweetly erotic places, the pulse at her throat, the lobe of her ear. He shimmied his body down the length of her hers, and his kisses grew slow and sultry upon her naked flesh, teasing her breasts, loving them tenderly, demanding their fullness. Still his body caressed hers as he moved again, kissing the point at the back of her knee, the softness of her thighs, and the beckoning warmth of the sweet petals between them. She cried out, and he caressed her still, stroked her, whispered to her. But she was up on her knees to meet him, her lips searing his, her fingers entwined about his nape, curling into his hair. Windswept yearnings became a tempest in the tranquil quiet of the night. The end burst upon Jesse with shattering volatility, drawing everything from him. The world spun as he stared down at her, her lashes fallen over her eyes, her hair a tangle about them both, her delicate, beautiful features flushed and damp. Her eyes opened to his, and he kissed her again and fell to her side, pulling her close.

“Oh, Jesse,” she murmured.

“I was afraid that you wouldn’t come,” he told her.

“Why?”

He kissed her forehead. “Never mind. Let’s not get into it. I don’t want to argue with you.”

Even as he tried to pull her close, she stiffened.

“Why, Jesse?”

He leaned up on an elbow. “Because war is imminent. I’m sure you’ve heard about Fort Sumter.”

She blinked, staring at him. “Yes, I’ve heard about Fort Sumter. The wire services carried little else. Jesse, the Virginia legislature is meeting on the matter of secession.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

He wondered what it was in his tone that she heard. She pushed away from him, shaken, hugging her arms about herself in the sudden coolness that came once they had parted.

“Jesse, what is the matter with you?” she cried. “How can you turn against everything that—”

“I’ve not turned against anything!” he said irritably. He pushed up and stood, staring down at her. “Kiernan, it’s never been anything but one way with you. You’ve never even looked at the big picture. Not once.”

“What big picture?” she demanded. Her eyes were open wide now, and very dangerous in their luster.

He sighed.

He wanted life to go on, too, exactly the way it had been. He loved Virginia, he loved his home. He could never explain to her just how much, He and Daniel and Christa used to walk down and set flowers on the graves of their parents, and when his sister and brother were gone, Jesse had stayed, closing his eyes, thinking of the past that had been theirs, the times and trials that the house had weathered, the triumphs, the agonies.

He loved the James River. He loved to watch the steamers come in, and he loved to hear the singing and the chanting as the slaves loaded the bales of cotton onto the decks of the ships.

Why in God’s name did she think that he was turning against everything he loved? Couldn’t she understand? There was something greater at stake than slavery and states’ rights. They were all Americans.

“‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” he quoted softly.

“What?”

“It’s something that Lincoln said a few years ago,” he told her, “in Illinois, after he was nominated for senator.”

He could tell from her reaction that she didn’t have much interest in Abraham Lincoln.

“It’s true, Kiernan. My God, we aren’t even a century old as a nation. Americans bested the English, some of the finest soldiers in the world, because they joined together. Because Virginia stood up for Massachusetts.”

“Because we had help from the French,” Kiernan murmured dryly.

“Because we stood together,” Jesse said flatly. “We’re
one
country. And we can be great because of the farmlands of the South and the industry in the north.”

“You want to fight against Virginia.”

“I want to fight
for
Virginia.”

She leaped up, facing him, very beautiful and dignified in her nakedness. Her fingers wound into fists at her side as she faced him. “Jesse, you talk about a house divided against itself! Cameron Hall is your house. Virginia is your house. I am part of your house! Don’t you see? You’re against slavery? So are a lot of people! Maybe, eventually, we’ll manage to free our own slaves! Without being told to do so by fanatics. Damn you, Jesse,
you
still own slaves. You haven’t figured out how to change the world yourself!”

“My slaves will be freed!” he told her passionately. But then he curbed his anger, swallowing down a taste of pain and bitterness. “Kiernan, I love Virginia.”

“Then what will you do if Virginia secedes?”

“I don’t know,” he told her flatly. He took a step toward her. Even after the hours they had shared together, she stepped away from him. Anger spilled from him again, and he pulled her back into his arms. “I love you, Kiernan!”

Tears filled her eyes as they met his. “Do you love me enough, Jesse?”

“Damn you!” He exploded. “Do
you
love
me
enough?”

She jerked free from him and spun around for her clothing. She snatched up her dress and started away from him again, but he caught her arm and pulled her hard against his chest. He kissed her, sweetly, savagely. He refused to let her go when she fought his hold. He kissed her until her lips parted to his, until she offered up a surrender to at least that demand. The hair on his chest chafed against the softness of her breasts, and he felt the hardening of her nipples against his flesh. She twisted her lips free from his at last.

“Let me go, Jesse.”

“No, not tonight.”

“Please.”

“I can’t,” he told her. “Dammit, Kiernan, don’t ask me to let you go tonight!”

Suddenly, the force she had exerted against him was gone.
She rested her cheek against his chest, and he felt the dampness of her tears.

He swept her up into his arms and carried her back to the furs.

He kissed away her tears, and she curled into his arms again. They made love, slowly, tenderly. The night around them was achingly sweet.

When they rose at last, Jesse was the one to move first. He rose and dressed and helped her into her things.

“I’ll take you home,” he told her.

“I know my way.”

“I’ll take you home,” he insisted.

He set her in front of him on Pegasus, and when they reached her mare tethered under trees, he kept Kiernan with him and led the mare along.

When they neared her house, she stirred. “Jesse, you should leave me here. My father—”

“I’m taking you home, Kiernan.”

As it was, John Mackay was waiting on his front porch. It, too, was broad and handsome, with its brick facade, its pillars tall and regal. John Mackay sat with his pleasant, lined face in repose, his pipe in his mouth, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

“Though you might be bringing her home, Jesse,” John said. “Else I might have worried about the time.”

“I’d not have let her come alone, sir.”

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Kiernan began.

“It’s all right. I knew you were safe with Jesse.”

Someone else might not have considered her safe in Jesse’s company. But Mackay was a different man. Even if he suspected that his daughter and Jesse were lovers, her life and her happiness mattered more to him. He was indeed a rare man, created within a rare breed.

“I’ll just go in so you two can say good night,” John offered.

Jesse dismounted from Pegasus and reached up to lift her down. She leaned against him and accepted the tender kiss he placed upon her lips.

She lowered her head against him.

“I love you, Kiernan.”

“I love you, too, Jesse,” she said. But then her emerald eyes, brimming with dampness and fire, rose to meet his. “But if Virginia secedes and you don’t resign your commission in the Federal army, I won’t see you again. Ever.”

She pulled away from his arms and raced for the door.

There was nothing he could do but watch her go.

Jesse awoke the next morning with an incredible headache.

A great deal of the pain was his own fault. After he left Kiernan, he’d come home and spent the better part of the night with a bourbon bottle and Daniel, discussing times recently past, and times long past. Christa had found them down in the den in the first faint hours of daylight. Being a good Cameron, she had shared a sound swig of bourbon with them—and then ordered them both up to bed.

His headache was his own fault. And it was a damned mean and nasty one. It wasn’t helped a bit by the screeching and shouting and carrying-on that was coming from outside the house.

Staggering from the bed with a sheet wrapped about his waist, he stumbled across the room to the wide double doors. They led to a balcony that looked out over the rear porch and the gardens and all the way down to the river. He saw that Daniel was outside, greeting two riders. One of them was Anthony Miller, a fact that seemed to make the pounding in his head all the fiercer. The other was a closer neighbor from the Williamsburg area, Aaron Peters.

The two had ridden in, whooping and hollering. Having listened to them, Daniel suddenly swept his hat from atop his head and threw it high into the air. A thunderous war whoop escaped him, as if he were out west joining in with the Cheyenne or Sioux.

“What the hell?” Jesse muttered. The sound of his own voice hurt him.

He pulled on his breeches and his boots and drew a shirt from the heavy armoire in the corner of his room. Suddenly,
he stopped. He ran his hands over the armoire, then stood back to look at the room.

It was the master’s room of Cameron Hall. He hadn’t taken it over until several years after his father’s death. As the oldest son, he had inherited the hall. Not that it had meant anything in the years gone past. He had been involved in his medical career and the service, and Daniel had been just as avid a horse soldier. They came from a long line of fighters. The first Cameron on the Virginian shore had battled the Indians, survived the massacre, and lived on to create a dynasty. Camerons had battled pirates, and his grandfather had fought for the fledgling colonies in the American Revolution.

Jesse moved his hand over the armoire. It had stood where it did now as long as Jesse could remember, just like the big master bed and the elegant glass-paned doors that led out to the porch. The desk had held the Cameron ledgers for years and years.

He moistened his lips, feeling a cold sweat break out on his skin. A feeling of dread was already falling over him.

He slipped on his shirt and hurried from the room. Again he paused, for though he rarely gave the portrait gallery at the top of the stairway much attention, he now felt as if each and every Cameron were staring down at him. He paused and studied the pictures. Lord Jamie Cameron, and his beautiful barmaid bride, the indomitable Jassy. His grandmother, Amanda, cool and elegant, accused of being a Tory spy, but standing by her husband in the end. And Eric Cameron, a slight twitch of amusement to his lips, his eyes painted a startling deep blue. He seemed to question Jesse—to dare him to hold to his own faith.

And then there was his father. The portrait had been painted late, when he was older, his hair was snow white, his eyes still a startling blue. There was something wise in the gaze that seemed to follow him. Something, too, that seemed to warn him that there could be no course for him except the one he believed in most deeply.

“But I would betray you all!” he whispered. He realized that the whisper hurt his head, and that he was in worse
shape than he had imagined if he was talking to his long-dead ancestors.

He came down the stairs and strode through the breezeway. A larger grouping of men had gathered on the porch by then.

Anthony Miller cried out, shooting a gun off into the air.

“For the love of God!” Jesse exclaimed. “Will someone tell me what is going on here?”

“Hell, yes! It’s secession, Jesse! Old Abe Lincoln up there in the North is begging the states for troops. Well, Virginia will not take arms against her southern brethren. The legislature has voted her out! Hell, Jesse, we’re seceded! We’re out of the Union!”

Jesse felt a churning in the pit of his stomach. No one seemed to notice his discomfort. They were all shooting off their guns like a pack of fools, talking about whopping the Yanks in a matter of weeks if the Yanks thought to fight about anything at all.

He sank down into a whitewashed wrought-iron chair. Christa, sitting there too, looked at him and reached out to pour hot coffee into his cup.

“Jesse?”

“Thanks,” he muttered to her. He looked out onto the yard. Even Daniel was behaving like a fool, throwing his plumed hat up into the air and letting out a cry like a banshee.

“Jesse, Daniel’s going to resign his commission today.”

Jesse nodded blankly, sipping his coffee black.

“Jesse, there’s more news,” she said in a rush, her beautiful eyes dark on his. “Lincoln sent an emissary from Washington across the river to Arlington House.”

Arlington House was Colonel Robert E. Lee’s home. The message had come to him through his wife, who was George Washington’s step-great-grandchild. Her father had built Arlington House, and she possessed many fine household items and furniture that had belonged to the first president. It was a beautiful and graceful home, where Colonel Lee had raised his children. It was on a mount and looked right
across the river over to Washington, D.C. It was a very strategic location.

Jesse leaned back. “And?” he asked Christa.

She spoke in a rush. “Lincoln was ready to offer Colonel Lee command of the federal field forces, Jesse. Why, everybody knows that he’s one of the finest soldiers in the field, even Lincoln. But, Jesse”—she paused, leaning forward—“Jesse, Lee refused him. He was against secession—at least, that’s what Daniel told me. But now that Virginia has seceded, Lee has tendered his resignation. Jesse, everyone is doing so.”

He nodded blankly and looked at her with a lopsided smile. “Christa, why did you let the two of us drink so much last night? By God, but I am in pain this morning!”

He rose and stretched and stared at the men still caterwauling on his property. Someone had just trampled over a rose bush.