One Wore Blue (26 page)

“Excuse me,” Jesse muttered. He strode back inside, and entered the parlor. The April morning was chilly, and Christa had seen to it that a fire was set against the cold.

He leaned against the mantel, feeling curiously numb now that secession had come.

Someone suddenly burst in on him. He swirled around to see the young, anxious, and highly flushed face of Anthony Miller.

“Oh! Sorry, Jesse. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. You look like a man seeking solitude. But, hell—you should be out there celebrating with us!”

Jesse stared at Anthony, at the wild exhilaration in his eyes. Suddenly, raw anger ripped through him. “Anthony, there has been firing. There’s going to be a war. What the hell is there to celebrate in that?”

Anthony stared at him blankly, then flushed. “Hell, Jesse. I never took you for a coward.”

“Don’t make the mistake of taking me for one now,” Jesse warned him sharply.

Anthony lifted his hand to his hair. “Captain Cameron, I apologize. I’ll leave you, sir, to your own deliberations.” He swung around, but then paused, looking back. “You know
her mighty well, Jess. Think she’ll marry me now? What with war being on the brink? I’m banking on her finding a little romance in it all. I’ll be her soldier-boy, marching away to war—well, riding. It’s a cavalry unit we’ve recruited.” He grinned with a boyish appeal. It should have been difficult to be angry.

But Jesse still felt slow burning fury.

“Do I think that
who
will marry you now, Miller?”

“Why, sir, I refer to your good neighbor here in the Tidewater region, Miss Mackay. Kiernan.”

There was something so painstakingly eager on Anthony’s face that Jesse looked back to the fire. “You don’t want to marry her, Anthony.”

A silence followed his words. Then the sharp sound of Anthony’s voice queried him again. “Cameron, I demand you explain yourself, sir!”

Jesse gazed at Anthony, who was as straight as a poker. What was he to tell the misguided sap? That the girl he adored was in love with Jesse himself? But was she so much in love with him anymore?

“There’s nothing to explain, Anthony. Forget it.”

But Anthony wasn’t about to forget it. He came striding across the room, pulling off his riding gloves in his agitation. He faced Jesse at the fireplace. “I demand, Captain Cameron, that you explain yourself!”

“And I’m telling you, there is nothing to explain.”

“You have cast aspersions upon the woman I love!”

“I cast no aspersions upon her! I merely suggested that she might not be—that she might not be the woman that you want to marry!”

“Because she has meant something to you, sir? How dare you suggest any impropriety on her part!”

“I did no such thing!” Jesse snapped irritably. “If anyone suggested such a thing, Anthony, I’m afraid it was you.”

Anthony took a wild swing at him. Instinctively, Jesse ducked, but Anthony swung again. This time Jesse dropped low and swung beneath him, turning back to come up with his right fist flying in self-defense. He caught Anthony
square in the jaw, and the younger man landed hard by the mantel.

Anthony rubbed his jaw, staring at Jesse. Jesse gritted his teeth and walked over to him, offering him a hand. “Ask her to marry you. Maybe war
will
change her mind.”

But Anthony’s anger had risen too high. He eschewed the hand offered to him and rose. “I reckon we’re not even going to be on the same side in that war, are we, Cameron?”

“I won’t celebrate bloodshed. That’s the only decision I’ve made so far.”

“She won’t go with you because she doesn’t want you,” Anthony stated aggressively.

Jesse lifted his hands, clearly stating he wanted no part of a fight.

But Anthony’s glove came flashing across his face in a stinging blow. Startled, he touched his cheek and stared at the younger man as if he had gone insane.

“What the hell—?”

“I’ll meet you, sir, with pistols. By the old chapel in the glen, this evening, at dusk.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“I know what you said! Damnation, Anthony, no one meets with pistols anymore!”

“Then let it be swords!”

Jesse swore softly. “Jesus, Anthony, I don’t want to kill you.”

Anthony bit down on his lip as if he regretted his hasty challenge.

Again, Jesse tried to dissuade him. “Anthony, there is no one in this room except you and me. No one saw what happened here. Let’s not meet with pistols or swords.”

Anthony worked his mouth as if he were about to agree, but then he stiffened. “I have my honor, sir!”

“God in heaven!” Jesse began.

“What’s going on in here?” a soft voice suddenly demanded. Jesse looked past Anthony to see that Christa had come into the room, and Daniel and the others were behind her.

“Why, Mr. Cameron and I have just agreed upon a meeting with pistols over a personal and private matter.”

“What?” Daniel demanded increduously.

“Aaron, I’d look kindly upon it if you’d agree to be my second. Daniel, I’ll naturally assume that you’ll stand for your brother,” Anthony said.

Jesse threw up his hands in exasperation. “What the hell is this desire for bloodshed?” he demanded.

“Sir, I will meet you at dusk!” Anthony insisted. “The challenge was mine, therefore the choice of weapons is yours.”

“Well, why not bring everything that you have?” Jesse drawled sarcastically. “Let’s do this up well!”

“This is not a matter to be taken lightly!”

“Very well, then, Anthony. Meet me at dusk!” Jesse said with disgust. He bowed low to Anthony with an elegant, cavalier mockery, then looked upward. “God help me, for I do not seek to kill this poor fool!” he muttered.

Anthony turned crimson, but Jesse ignored him. With everyone staring at him, he swore a sudden, savage oath and strode swiftly from the room.

Twelve

Few people were as thrilled by the vote for secession as Kiernan’s father. John Mackay was totally convinced that the southern cause was right. When the colonies had felt unjustly treated by England, they had broken away. They had fought a revolution and gained their independence. He saw the present southern situation as very much the same.

Oddly enough after a sleepless night, Kiernan rose early. She spent time in the laundry advising Julie on how to remove a custard stain from one of her father’s favorite shirts. There were several deer and a wild hog to be properly preserved, so she had then spent time in the smokehouse. There was plenty to keep her busy. But no matter how preoccupied Kiernan became, she couldn’t keep her mind off Jesse.

By the time her celebrating father remembered that she was down at the smokehouse, it was late in the afternoon.

She heard a gunshot and looked up at old Nate, who was hanging a slab of the venison. She hurried around the structure, wiping her hands on her apron and smoothing back some tendrils of hair that were escaping the bun at her nape. She looked up to see her father on horseback, racing up and down the path through the manor house appendixes. At one end he stopped, turned, and saw Kiernan. A broad grin split his weathered face, and his misted blue eyes came alight.

“They’ve done it, girl! They’ve voted us out! Virginia is out of the Union!”

His pistol exploded in the air again. A nearby chicken squawked in panic. Nate looked at Kiernan.

She wiped her hands nervously on her apron again. “We’re out?” she repeated to her father.

“Indeed, we are, missy! Let them hothead Yanks breathe hard and threaten and ramble on about sedition now! The heart of the country, the heart of the revolution, is southern!”

He turned his horse away and raced back toward the house. From her distance, Kiernan could see that riders awaited him by the front porch. His old cronies had come by with the news, she thought. They’d retire now to his den and drink themselves into being heroes.

She sighed softly and reminded herself that her father had been a military man, West Point like so many of the others, and that he had served in Mexico. She smiled softly. He had been very handsome and dignified in his uniform.

A uniform he would never wear again.

But Jesse!

It had reached the crisis stage for Jesse, she realized, and the blood drained from her face. She had told him not to see her again, but she suddenly realized that it was imperative that she see him. She had to convince him to resign his commission with the Union Army.

She smoothed back her fallen hair again and pressed her palms over her apron. She was a mess, she thought. Beneath her apron she wore a simple gingham dress and a single petticoat, and her hair was sodden and limp from the smokehouse, and she probably smelled like a good old country ham. Her heart beating furiously, she had to hurry back to the house and bathe before going to Cameron Hall. It would be one of the most important occasions of her life.

“Nate, just finish here, please,” she advised him. He was one of her father’s few free black men, a talented worker who had earned the money to buy himself from John Mackay by tinkering on the side. But Nate had liked his home, he had liked John Mackay, and so he had stayed on. Now, looking at Kiernan, he rolled his eyes as if wondering at the strange ways of the gentry, then nodded solemnly. He made
Kiernan smile, and she waved as she left him, but her smile faded as she ran quickly for the house. An instinct was warning her that she hadn’t much time.

A half-dozen horses were standing in her yard, their reins hanging, and she surmised that the men had gone in for a drink to celebrate the occasion. She had heard church bells ringing earlier, and she now realized that they must have heralded the final vote in the legislature.

As Kiernan started to run up the brick steps, she heard her name cried out.

“Kiernan!”

She turned to see Christa was riding up, bareback and wild. Christa leaped from her horse with little concern for her skirts or for ladylike dignity and raced to her. “You’ve got to come! Now!”

Kiernan felt the blood drain from her face. A trembling swept raggedly through her body. Something had happened, something horrible.

“Jesse—” she voiced his name. There had been an accident. He was hurt, he was dead. “Oh, my God! He’s dead?”

“He’s not dead!” Christa told her quickly. “Not yet, anyway. Kiernan, you’ve got to stop them.”

“Stop who, from doing what?”

“Jesse and Anthony—”

“Anthony?”

“He and Andrew were in Williamsburg on business when the news came in from Richmond. He rode straight out to tell Daniel. And then he and Jesse got into a confrontation.”

“What? What was it? Over what?”

Christa shook her head, her blue eyes bright. “I don’t know!” she wailed. “Neither one of them will say anything at all! They’re just planning to have a duel.”

“A duel!” Kiernan exclaimed.

“Yes! Oh, I thought that I could shame the two of them out of it at first. I thought they could not be serious! Jesse tried to refuse to fight, but Anthony insisted that his honor would be tarnished if Jesse refused to satisfy his demand. I don’t even know what it’s over. One moment everyone was throwing their hats in the air, and the next moment I came
inside to find Jesse and Anthony at each other’s throats. I can’t explain any more, Kiernan. We have to go. I haven’t been able to stop them, and Daniel hasn’t been able to stop them. You have to come and do what you can!”

“Oh, Lord!” Kiernan breathed in misery. Was this over her? What had Jesse said to Anthony? Had he told him about their affair? But Jesse would not have done that. What was it then? Jesse’s determination that secession was a mistake? No, the lines were clearly drawn now. If Jesse believed in something different, Anthony would have felt honor-bound to allow him that belief.

He wouldn’t kill Jesse unless they came face to face on a battle line.

“Kiernan, come!”

Kiernan tugged off her apron and looked at the assortment of horses in front of her. Her father’s big stallion, Riley, was eating grass just down the walk. After Christa took a leap and remounted her horse, she offered Kiernan a hand. “You haven’t time to get your mare. Ride with me!”

“I’ll take Riley.”