Surrender (32 page)

“She is a very proper young woman,” he said lightly.

Teela smiled. She lifted a hand with great effort, and touched his face. “I know you, son. I know your temper, and your ethics. And if she’s expecting your child…then there was something between you. Give happiness a chance. You’re such a prickly pear, so much like your father! All raw confidence and inner strength—and uncertainty when it comes to matters about which you really care.”

“We’ll be all right, Mother,” he said. “You shouldn’t talk so much, you’re tiring yourself—”

“You’re right. I’ll get to the point. If I die, Jerome—”

“Mother, don’t—”

“If I die, I want you to raise your little sister for me with your new wife.”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t—think—”

“You are married, Jerome. You’ll have a home and a wife. I pray that Jennifer will find a new life with the war over. Lawrence is dead, and she has one baby on her own as it is. Brent isn’t settled, neither is Sydney. And I don’t think your father would have the heart to start anew.”

“Oh, God, Mother…”

“Promise me, Jerome.”

“Oh, God, Mother, you can’t, you are all our strength—”

“Promise! Promise me, son, please.”

His heart was heavy; the pain was unbearable.

“I promise,” he told her softly.

She smiled, and closed her eyes.

F
or three days Teela wavered on the brink between life and death. She had lost an incredible amount of blood with the baby, and it had taken all Joshua’s skill to stop her bleeding. Jerome knew that between Joshua, his brother, and David, Teela had the best possible care. And still, it seemed that her strength ebbed, and their vigil stretched onward.

He was glad that their arrival had given their father new strength. He loved all his children, but Sydney had always had a magic touch with him, and she managed to get him to rest, and she cut his hair, and she would sit with him hour after hour by Teela’s bed.

Jerome sometimes sat with his newborn sister, rocking her in her cradle after the wet nurse had finished feeding her, and he would tell himself that he couldn’t blame the innocent infant for her own birth. He was aware that his father avoided the baby, and that his mother asked after her little one when she had the strength.

They were grim, dark days, and even the war receded. On the third night, he sat vigil with his mother alone. He sat by her side, dozed, awoke, and looked anxiously at her. She was snow-white and deadly still. He bit deeply into his lower lip, afraid that the time had come. But even as he started to reach out to pull her to him, her eyes opened. Wide, shimmering green. And she smiled.

“Jerome?”

“Mother?”

“I think…why, I think I’d love some soup.”

In the days that followed, Teela improved rapidly. As soon as she was strong enough, she demanded the baby,
Mary. His mother’s delight in his newborn sister filled him with a sense of shame as he remembered how he had first despised the infant, but through his mother’s eyes, he began to love his new sibling with the same protective affection he felt for Jen, Brent, and Sydney. Teela insisted he take the baby often. “You’re about to become a father, Jerome. Practice!”

“Mother—she, er—diddles. I think that Sydney needs practice. She will actually be a mother one day—”

“If the war leaves any men to marry!” Sydney interjected dryly.

“And I’m afraid it’s most unlikely I’ll be available when my own child is born,” Jerome said.

“But you’re here—”

“We were worried about you, because you’re—you’re—” Brent began, and stuttered.

“If you call me old, I’ll have your father drag you out to the woodshed!” Teela teased. “James, your children are calling me old.”

“Teela, dear, we are old,” James said patiently.

“Oh. Well, then, excuse me!” Teela said, and laughed.

After two weeks, she joined them in the dining room, and it was a great event. The night was highlighted by the arrival of one of Billy’s cousins—who had come from Tampa Bay with the news that Alaina, who had gone to Cimarron for her child to be born, had been delivered of a little girl. Mother and child were thriving. Jerome asked Billy’s cousin if Alaina had come to Cimarron alone, or if she had been accompanied by Risa. She had not; Risa had remained in St. Augustine.

He wondered if she had remained in St. Augustine because she had said that she would, or if she had chosen to remain because St. Augustine was in Yankee hands.

No matter.

It had been good to come home. Teela had survived when they had so nearly lost her, and the world was a far better place because of it, despite the ravages of war. With his mother—and new sister—doing well, Jerome suddenly found himself growing restless. He was eager to sail again.

He had to return Brent to his command, and Sydney
was determined to serve at the hospital in Richmond again. But once they were returned, he had good reason to sail to north Florida. His mother grew many herbal remedies. Julian was always desperate for medicines.

He himself was growing desperate for north Florida.

He intended to see his wife, and he would damn well do so—and the hell with her ultimatums and dictates.

Time passed slowly for Risa.

Compared to the days when she had ridden with her father and McClellan’s army, life was quite easy. Women continued to bear infants, children continued to acquire coughs. The soldiers continued to break arms and legs in rough-housing and drills, and the intermittent skirmishing continued between the opposing sides of the river. The war effort in Florida was quiet. The generals in the interior begged for reinforcements, and the generals and politicians, who knew the war must be won around Richmond, Virginia, told the state to look to her own resources. Once the Confederacy wanted to hold the key coastal positions. Now they left the indefensible coast, and their strategy was to hold bases in the interior.

As the blockade tightened, it became more evident to the visionaries on either side that Florida was going to become more and more important as a breadbasket. But as they approached the winter of 1862/1863, the state was, for the most part, ominously quiet.

With Alaina gone, Risa was lonely. She enjoyed Thayer Cripped, who was a good and interesting man, but since her marriage, he seemed to be afraid of being with her, and they spent little time socializing.

There had been a complete shift in feelings toward her in the city. Before she had been trusted and beloved by the Union officers—she’d been General Magee’s daughter. Now she was Captain McKenzie’s wife, and the Unionists were wary while the old brigade Southerners were ready to embrace her. One day, in the midst of assisting to remove a ball from a young soldier who had shot his own thigh while cleaning his rifle, she’d gotten so aggravated with his hostile attitude toward her that she’d informed him she was no man’s daughter and
no man’s wife, just herself, a damned good nurse, and if he wanted to walk again, he’d better remember it.

Thayer had stared at her, the soldier had stared at her—and her announcement had appeared in the paper the next day. Life was incredibly aggravating.

Hearing nothing from Jerome, she toyed with the idea of returning to Washington. Winter was setting in, and since heavy snows would have to impede troop movements, it was naturally a time of little activity. But she was afraid if she sailed, he would hear, and come after her, and she would endanger all aboard with her. Yet getting military passes to move by land through the Rebel heartland would be nearly impossible—she couldn’t use her husband’s influence to head
north
.

Toward the end of November, however, an incident occurred that changed everything.

To her amazement, her father arrived in St. Augustine.

She was folding bandages in the surgery when Lieutenant Austin Sage, accompanied by Finn, looked in on her.

Austin remained her friend, no matter what.

As did Finn—who was frequently with her here, keeping her company, making her laugh. Perhaps it was because he could assure her that he had come through the night without injury other than to his dignity that he could be her friend now.

“Risa!” Finn, with Austin at his side, called to her.

“Yes?”

“You’ll never guess…” Finn said.

“Yes?”

“Your father!” Austin announced.

“My father, what about him?” She set the bandages she had been rolling down, worried. Troops did continue to clash, and it felt as if her heart had risen to her throat.

“He’s here!” Finn announced.

She gripped the table to stand. She swallowed her heart back down, then felt her stomach flip-flop. She wasn’t afraid of her father, she’d never been afraid of her father, and she loved him dearly. But though her skirts somewhat hid her condition, she was definitely growing. The baby was big and active, and would be born in another three months or so. And she had married a Rebel. Not just any Rebel. Jerome McKenzie.

“Risa, come on!” Austin urged.

“His ship has docked,” Finn added. Having already survived her father’s wrath regarding his part in her first excursion south, he now seemed amused—mischievously eager to see her father’s reaction to her marriage and her condition. He had been indignant when she had announced her marriage to the Rebel Jerome McKenzie. “I would have married you!” he had told her with a woeful expression that had been very touching.

Austin, who had never seemed to have had an opinion on her clandestine marriage, reached out a hand to her. She braced herself mentally, and took his hand. “Come on!” he encouraged. “Courage under fire! Let’s face the general!”

Finn led. They hurried through the streets toward the docks. Finn paused. Austin crashed into him.

“What are you doing—” Austin began.

“Risa!” Finn told Austin. “Should she be running like this? I should have hired a carriage—”

She flushed, since she seldom referred to the baby in her conversations with her friends. “I’m fine. Keep going, gentlemen.”

They reached the docks. Angus Magee stood there, surrounded by officers who asked anxious questions. She heard him telling them that no matter what the Rebs tried to say, the horrible battle at Antietam had been an exceptional victory for the North, a victory that proved the Southerners could not move the war into Northern fields. Eventually, the North would prevail. The soldiers were cheering him when he looked across the crowd and saw his daughter’s face.

She nearly burst into tears at the look in his eyes. So much pain, so much betrayal, and so much love.

“Father!” she called out to him, and began barging her way through the soldiers and Unionist civilians who surrounded him. For one brief moment she thought that he meant to stand perfectly still, and ignore her—or repulse her. But his arms opened, and she threw herself into them, and he picked her up, hugging her close. “Precious, precious, child!” he murmured to her. “Ah, Risa, oh, God, how I have missed you. How I ever consented for you to leave…but then, I had thought you’d
be in England, away from all this death and madness…and
not
married to a Southern rogue!”

“Father!” she murmured, as they were surrounded.

“You’re right; we’ll talk later.”

“Later” took a while in coming. Her father was naturally wined and dined by the Union officers of the city and the local Unionist population. Risa nervously went through the social hours with him, smiling while aware that upright matrons talked about her behind her back. How could she have married that rake, that Southern scoundrel? Yet—how could she not? whispered many gentlewomen in return. After all, she was in a
family
way.

Oddly enough, in the whispering that she heard, she was far more to blame than Jerome McKenzie. After all, he was a
man
. And since he was known for his ethical treatment of Yankee sailors when he captured their ships, obviously, she had behaved like a jezebel, seducing him to madness.

A Miss Ivy Pendleton was the worst of the ladies, Risa decided. She was about Risa’s age, thin, and homely. She professed to have been a loyal Unionist all along, but she had sung “Dixie” loudly enough when the Rebels had ruled the city.

“Don’t you worry,” Finn said. He stooped to whisper in her ear as her father talked with the soldiers who had just put on an arms display at Ft. Marion. “She’s just a shriveled-up prune, jealous—because there’s not a man alive who would kidnap her.”

“And there’s definitely going to be a shortage of men at the end of the war,” Austin agreed, whispering as well, “so all she’ll be able to do is say nasty things about the women who do have husbands.”

Risa flashed them both appreciative smiles, but then sobered quickly because her father was looking at her curiously.

She had to admit to being somewhat thankful that her father intended to quarter with the officers—and that he wouldn’t be sharing her little house. But he escorted her home that evening, and when they were behind closed doors, he shouted at her at last. “Married! You married
that rogue, that rake, that sea monster—they call him the Devil, a demon—”

“Father, he’s a man. Ian’s cousin.”

“You married him!”

“I thought it was what you would want—under the circumstances.”

“I didn’t want the circumstances!”

He was red and shaking. He sank down into one of the comfortably upholstered armchairs before the fire. “Risa—you claimed there was no truth to rumors that he—that he—”

“He didn’t rape me, Father,” she said flatly.

“Oh, God! I raised a proper young woman! You’re not even supposed to
know
that word.”

“Father, please—”

“So, in other words, you purposely…you purposely became intimate with a Rebel scoundrel?”

He had stopped yelling, and she knew that he was hurt. And deeply frustrated. He threw up his hands. “Why? I can’t begin to imagine the circumstances.”

“Well, Father—”

“No, no, wait! I don’t want to hear the circumstances. I still can’t help but believe that he forced you. I surely can’t believe that you were foolish enough to fall head over heels in love with a man who viciously abducted you—”