The Quaker and the Rebel (30 page)

Whatever he’d meant to add was lost. Emily wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, interrupting his dialogue. Then she kissed him fully on the mouth as a rush of heat shot through her veins. “Thank you for following me, Alexander. I secretly hoped you would.” Her words were a bare whisper against his lips, even though they were alone.

He pulled back slightly to study her. “Why do you insist on seeing my family as devils? Truly, many slave owners are, but I assure you my father is trying to deal with the land and the people he inherited the best he can. I agree that no one should be owned, but he is just a man without horns or tail.”

“I’m starting to realize life may not be as simple as I grew up believing.” She released him but snuggled up against his side, feeling warmth radiate between them. “But tonight I have no wish to debate the South’s reliance on slavery or banter society’s ridiculous rules of etiquette.” Emily ran her fingers up the muscles of his chest where his shirt clung to his skin.

“If you don’t wish to spar, what would you like to do, my little Yankee?” He pulled up a weed and tickled her nose.

Stifling a sneeze, Emily closed her eyes. “Let me think.” The smell of rain hung in the air along with the sweet scent of bougainvillea. Heat lightning streaked the sky in the distance, and a rumble of thunder foretold a coming storm. “What I should do is go up the back steps to my room. I’ve lost my hairpins and ribbons, so my hair has come down in a hopeless tangle. My coiffure is rather improper for a ball, no?” She winked as she sat up to work her fingers through her long hair.

He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “You look beautiful with your hair across your shoulders. Now tell me, what do you
wish
to do?”

Emily sat in the fading light of faraway stars and listened to the notes of a waltz drift through the ballroom windows.

“I would like to dance, out here in the garden, with you.” She rose with a stately bearing learned from Mrs. Bennington.

Alexander bowed low and offered his hand. “Then that is what we will do. We shall dance for the rest of the night or for the rest of our lives if you prefer. I love you, Emily Harrison.” His murmur carried on the breeze as lightning lit up the sky.

But she heard him clear and true. She knew it was an honest declaration, not spoken in a moment of passion, but coming from a hidden place deep inside him.

F
OURTEEN

N
athan Smith downed the contents of his glass and refilled it again from the sideboard decanter. The bourbon failed to assuage his ill temper as it usually did. Nothing had gone right that evening.

The insipid Daniels girl deserted him after only a few kisses. After two interminable waltzes, Samantha had followed willingly when he led her away from the ballroom and up the stairs. She’d giggled as they entered a guest room at the end of the hall. But when he tried to lift her skirt, she slapped his hand away like an annoying mosquito.

“Sir, I believe there has been a misunderstanding.” She pulled from his embrace and flounced out the door of the stuffy room.

His attempts to seduce two younger, more naive belles yielded the same unsatisfactory result. In one case the father of the girl, and in the other case, a brother, kept a keen eye on them to make sure their reputation remained unsullied. Even a scrawny Irish maid from Fredericksburg spurned him, raving that “her intended beau wouldn’t be likin’ his gal spoonin’ with the master” when he asked her to walk in the garden. His luck hadn’t been this bad in a long time.

The high-and-mighty master of Hunt Farms had barely talked to him all evening other than to set the time and place of their next foray. That he would do with his usual efficiency, making sure the rangers arrived knowledgeable about the plan and expectations. Alexander had been cordial but too preoccupied to share a brandy with him after concluding their business.
When had he become a teetotaler?
Smith knew whom Alex’s eyes searched for across the crowded ballroom. But the outspoken governess had disappeared after her obligatory dances with Porter Bennington and James Hunt. She couldn’t have gotten away from Alexander soon enough, that much was clear.

Smith tossed back his bourbon as he stared out the library window.
He could see the dancing firelight of the slaves’ festival in the distance. Movement in the garden beyond the portico caught his attention. Squinting through the wavy glass, he witnessed a kiss between William, Alexander’s valet, and that maid of the Benningtons. How sweet their kiss—brief, chaste, tender. What was her name—Linda or Leah? Her name didn’t matter, but he recalled the ripe figure filling out her dress the day he ran into the Yankee. Then William tipped his hat, bowed to the maid, and disappeared down the path.

William is a gentleman,
Smith mused.
But you don’t need a gentleman, little miss. What you need is someone to introduce you to the pleasures of life.
Setting down his empty glass, he moved swiftly out the front door and down the steps. When Lila turned to reenter the house from the portico, Smith intercepted her. He grabbed her wrists. “Good evening, miss. Forgive me, but I seem to have forgotten your name. We met on the road to Front Royal, or wherever you and Miss Harrison were headed that day.”

Lila reared back, perhaps from the smell of whiskey. “It’s Lila, sir. Lila Amite.” She attempted a half curtsey, difficult with constrained wrists. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my parents will be wondering why I’m not in yet.” She kept her voice level and calm.

“What’s your hurry? I’m happy to see you, Lila. Aren’t you just a lit’l glad to see me too?” He heard the slur in his words.

“Yes, sir, a pleasure to see you again. But I must return to my quarters before I cause my father undue worry.”

Smith tamped down his irritation that a maid possessed better language skills than him at the moment. “Well, if it’s a pleasure to see me as you say, you won’t mind giving me a lit’l kiss.” He covered her lips with his before she had a chance to respond.

Recoiling from the whiskey vapors—or perhaps his kiss—she tried to step away. But he stopped her with two strong hands that pinned her shoulders to the wall, and then kissed her again. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? If you would just relax, you might find this enjoyable.” His gaze raked over her from head to toe. “You are a beautiful woman, Lila. We should get better acquainted while you’re at Hunt Farms.”

Without warning, she stomped down on his instep. “Ow! Why, you—” Crying out in pain, he released his grip.

“Lila, is that you?” The door to the first-floor kitchen swung open. Joshua Amite stepped out in his long nightshirt.

“Yes, Papa, it’s me. Mr. Smith was inquiring about food, so I explained where a late night meal can be found.” With that, Lila bolted down the steps into the kitchen and pantries without a backward glance.

Joshua peered at the man before giving him a clipped, “Good night then, sir.” The butler bowed deeply and closed the door in his face.

Smith was left in the dark, feeling angrier than he had in a very long time.

Lila didn’t slow down until she was into the hallway of rooms reserved for domestic servants. Miraculously, the kitchen was empty, uncommon on an active plantation like this during the harvest festival. She struggled to compose herself before her father caught up to her. Her heart pounded so hard she feared it could be heard.

“Why are you so out of breath, girl?” Joshua sounded both concerned and exasperated.

She gazed into his soft brown eyes. Even standing barefoot with his gray hair wild, her father still maintained utter dignity. “I have been running, Papa. We had a race back to the house from the bonfire.” She hated lying to him, but what else could she say?

“Lila, you are too old for footraces. You don’t see your mother picking up her skirts and galloping across the yard, do you?”

Actually, she had seen her mother doing exactly that more than once on Bennington Island. But her father looked so weary, Lila simply shook her head. “No, Papa. Tomorrow I promise to be a perfect lady from sunup to sundown.” She leaned over to kiss his grizzled cheek.

“See that you are. Good night, daughter. Sleep with sweet dreams.”
Joshua entered the room where her mother already lay snoring and closed the door.

Lila was alone—alone to catch her breath and collect her thoughts. And she had a lot to think about. How in the world could she avoid a friend of Mr. Hunt’s for the entire time she was here? Entering the room she shared with Mrs. Hunt’s maid, she undressed without lighting a candle and slipped on her nightdress. She stretched out on her cot and closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. A bad feeling had crawled up her spine and taken hold, no matter how she tossed or turned.

Alexander stood for several minutes outside a bedroom window, watching Emily sleep as peacefully as a child. Her hair spilled across the pillow like a copper shawl, almost obscuring her soft features. She slept on her side with her knees bent. One hand clutched the coverlet, and the other cradled her sweet face. When he crept into her room and kissed her brow, she didn’t stir. Alexander couldn’t remember a night when he hadn’t stared at the ceiling for hours. Although he would give half his fortune to sleep so soundly, his sweet dreams ended when he became a ranger. And this morning was no exception as he crept from her room. Back on the gallery, he paced from one end to the other plotting their next mission. But it wasn’t their upcoming attack on a Union supply train that confounded him. It was the woman just beyond the French doors—the one who occupied an ever larger place in his heart. He knew full well he was a fool to let emotions control his actions.

But Emily was no Rosalyn. Raised by Quaker parents, she might not have grown up cultured and refined, but she had learned honor and trust.
Does she love me or am I only deceiving myself?
When he made his earnest declaration in the garden, she had uttered nothing in return. He would have given anything to hear those three words from her. She appeared surprised by his confession but then returned his kiss with an ardor to match his own. Wasn’t that what women excelled
at—playacting? Didn’t they charm their way to wardrobes filled with new gowns, larger mansions, and excursions abroad? Beautiful women quickly learned that the path to a man’s heart was
not
through his stomach.

Pausing at the balustrade, he gazed over moonlit wheat fields recently harvested. The tasseled heads of a few missed sheaves waved in the warm evening breeze. A lump rose in Alexander’s throat. There was nothing more beautiful than land in the fertile Shenandoah Valley. He loved the woodlots filled with game and songbirds, the pastures covered in wild flowers in the spring, and the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. This plantation, purchased by his grandfather with inherited wealth, grew dearer to him each day. The Hunt family fortunes had dwindled over the years because running a business for profit had never interested his father. Now the war would surely take what little James Hunt had left. The Glorious Cause certainly demanded all of Alexander’s time and most of his money. Duty had become his sole motivation in life, demanding every waking moment…until he met Emily.

Now he was in love with a woman hiding something, a woman whose affections ran from cold to hot and then back again, a woman who disagreed with everything he said and was annoyed with everything he did. Emily Harrison wasn’t someone who could be trusted, and yet watching her sleep had stirred something primeval inside him. The lure of her vulnerability was overpowering. He was helplessly smitten, and that realization afforded him many more sleepless nights to come.