Triumph (2 page)

“So,” he said, not touching his whiskey, “why have you come?”

“Because ... I heard you were here,” she said, staying close. She had to hope that he hadn’t heard rumors regarding her relationship with a certain Yankee. She had to keep Raymond here. Stall him. Play out this charade!

Oh, God. She was going to go to hell. And maybe quite soon—if Taylor were ever to discover what she was doing this night.

She didn’t dare think about that now. Steady blue eyes were upon her. “As I said,” Raymond reminded her, “I have business tonight, I’m afraid. Tell me—why have you come?”

This was it! The time to act, and act well, she warned herself. And so she lowered her head, fingering her glass of bourbon. “I have come because ...”
Why?
“Because I have seen too much death. I thought my work with Julian was so important ... but I ...” She looked up, amazed that she had managed to bring a glistening of tears to her eyes. “I have realized that life, so precious, slips away too quickly. We can’t be obliged to hold to the same restraints that might govern us were the world more fair. Time has new meaning, sir, as does life itself. I have come to regret my ...”

Her voice trailed off. The whiskey was suddenly taken from her fingers, set upon the mantelpiece with his own empty glass. He held her hands tightly, staring into her eyes. “You regret your refusal to marry me? Can it be?”

She lowered her head again, nodding. Yes, of course, that was it.
They could have a marriage ceremony. That would take time!

He lifted her chin. “I will still marry you, Tia. In a heartbeat. I have always thought you were the most beautiful, compelling creature in the world. Before the war, I was taken with your dreams, with your fierce desire to see the world, to know people and places. And since the war, I have seen your dedication, your devotion, your courage. I have always been in love with you, will always be in love with you. And yet ...”

His voice trailed of.
And yet
, she thought,
you would hang my father, you bastard!
Maybe he didn’t realize that although she disagreed with her father, she had never been his enemy. Too many fathers, sons, brothers, and cousins had faced one another down with rifles and bayonets in this war. She loved her father. More than any cause, dream, or ideal.

“Tia ... tonight, tonight I’m afraid I can’t. Duty demands my time.”

She touched his cheek gently with her fingertips, meeting his eyes. “Duty can wait. I’ve learned that war will go on—and so it can wait. You’re right. I’m so sorry I refused you. It was a mistake. Marry me now, right now!” she urged him.

He shook his head sadly. “My troops ride without a priest or any manner of minister,” he told her. “There is no one to marry us. I cannot tell you how very sorry I am, since you will come to your senses after this night and want no more to do with me again.”

“Why would that be?” she asked softly, trying not to let him see how desperately she searched for another way to stall him.

He stared down at her, hesitating. He apparently believed that she didn’t know the truth regarding his plans for the evening. It would never occur to him that what he planned was so wrong that he had been betrayed by a Southern soldier. “The things we must do in this war ... we never know what the future will bring, do we?”

“It has been the war, the things I have done, the way I feel that I must serve until the end that have caused me to give up all hope of personal commitment,” she told him. No, he didn’t know the truth of her life either. Few men did. Those who knew had sworn themselves to secrecy. Anonymous in her deeds, she was a heroine. If the truth were known ...

Taylor knew!
she reminded herself.
And she had sworn to cease her part in the war. She had tried to do so. But now, now, here she was ...

“So you have loved me, too?” he queried with a hopeful doubt.

She forced a tender smile. “You are handsome, sir, a gallant cavalier of my own beliefs. What is there not to love? I thought that I had nothing to give until the war ended, but I’ve come to realize that so much is stolen from us, so many sweethearts will never know their lover’s embrace ...”

“My God, what a pity I have to leave!”

“No!”

She stopped, breathless, gritting her teeth very hard and looking at Raymond again. “Ray, I came tonight because I’m afraid of the future, afraid that I’ll never experience life fully. I earnestly desire to take what ... happiness I may before it is snatched from me.”

He smiled, yet the sadness remained in his smile.

“I told you; I have to leave,” he said with weary resolution. “The war—and death—beckon to me, even now.”

“You mustn’t leave me ... not yet!” she insisted desperately.

“Yes, I must—”

“Not now, when we’ve both been so honest. When ... death is always so near. You mustn’t go, not when ... not when I simply crave ...”

“Yes?”

She opened her eyes wide upon his. She was losing him. She must do something. She couldn’t ... she had to. She spoke softly. “I want to know ... love.” The world seemed to spin.

“My God ...” he breathed. Then he frowned. “Tia, do you know what you’re saying?”

“Yes, as I know that you will ride out tonight, die for the Cause if you must, and I will then grow into a bitter old maid, without ever having tasted ... life.”

“My God ...” he breathed again.

Then his lips were on hers and he crushed her to him. The strength of his hold, the ardor of his kiss were overwhelming. For a minute, she felt a rise of panic. Of revulsion. She could not do this. She wanted to scream. Then she reminded herself that any price, any despicable act must become her willing sin, for her father’s life was at stake.

She drew herself from his arms, though, again alarmed at the strength within them. She looked toward the door, hesitating. There had to be a way to buy more time. “Isn’t there a place more private?” she whispered.

“Yes. Upstairs, one bedroom has been swept, the bed remade with fresh linens found in a chest. I rested there earlier.”

She nodded, slipped from his hold, and started for the stairs.

Just then, the front door burst open, and Private Thackery entered the parlor. Raymond stiffened, reminded of his quest that night. “Colonel, sir, the men grow restless. They—”

“I will be right with them,” Raymond said with a sigh.

Silently, Tia swore to herself. She was losing him. She must not. Where she stood now, high against the wall of the stairway, only Raymond could see her. She loosened her long dark hair from the twist at her nape, her eyes meeting his. One by one, she began to unbutton the ceaseless closures on her bodice. She had done this too often, she thought a bit hysterically. She was becoming far too adept with buttons. She needed to slow down.

Ray was staring at her, then he looked from her back to his soldier. He was wavering. She almost had him.

“Sir!” Thackery said.

Thankfully, she had greatly reduced the amount of clothing she wore in the last years of privation. Ray started to turn away again. No. She slipped the bodice from her shoulders, her eyes riveted on his, and waited, bare-breasted, determined that he would not leave her.

Raymond looked back to Private Thackery.

“The time is not quite right. Thirty minutes; I will be with the men in thirty minutes. Tell them to be ready to ride at that
time.” Thirty minutes! Would it be enough? If Ian had gotten her message, he would ride straight to Cimarron. He would have ridden across the state faster than she. Tia would delay the attack as long as she could.

Private Thackery exited.

“Yes, by God, privacy. You, alone ...” he said.

Tia continued up the steps, her heart slamming against her chest. A knife. She should have brought a knife. She could have executed him as he had intended to execute her father. But she didn’t think that she could kill a man in cold blood. Not this way. If she were facing a man with a gun while she stood on her father’s property, surely, she could shoot to kill. But murder, in this manner ... It didn’t matter anyway; she didn’t have a knife.

“To the right,” Raymond said. He was behind her, just inches away. She continued down the hallway, veering to the right as he had instructed.

She thought she heard a sound. Something. Movement in the house. Perhaps it was the whisper of the wind against the rattling, decaying old manse. Or perhaps she was at last losing her mind, fearing that God would strike her down for this act.

“The door there,” Raymond said. Apparently, he had heard nothing. Her imagination.

She entered a room. Moonlight, still that strange, unearthly shade of red, filtered through the open drapes. Once, this room had belonged to the master here. A handsome mantel stood against the left wall. A large bed faced the windows with their fluttering, now tattered draperies.

“The bed is clean, the sheets are fresh, tended by my men,” Raymond said softly.

“So you said,” Tia whispered. And suddenly, she could do nothing but stand there, watching the eerie color of the night spill upon the room. She felt very cold. She started to shake, Oh God, of all the things that she had done, this was the worst.

“My love ...” A whisper, and Raymond was behind her, swiftly. His hands moved upon her bare arms. He drew her against him. His lips touched her neck. She clenched down on her teeth, hating him. He shifted the fall of her hair, pressed his mouth to her shoulder. Then she felt his fingers on the tiny buttons that closed her skirt, felt it fall away, felt his fingers then entwine on the cord that held her pantalettes, and then they, too, had fallen, and the strange, bloodred dusting of moonbeams fell upon the length of her bare flesh. It had been all too easy for him. She needed more time!

“Come, my love ...”

Come.
Good God, how could she endure his touch when she had known another ...

“Look at the moon!” she entreated, walking toward the window.

“Tia, the moon, like the war, will come again.”

“It’s a beautiful moon, yet shaded in red—”

“There’s no time for talk.”

His scabbard and sword were cast aside. His cavalry jacket and shirt were shed.

“I need another drink, Raymond. This is new to me.”

“Madam,” he said curtly, running his fingers through his hair. She had denied him too long in life, she realized. And now that she had offered him what he had so long wanted, he had no more patience. “I remind you—you invited me to this room. Shall I leave?”

“No! You mustn’t leave!”

He lifted her, bore her down on the bed. He rose above her; his eyes met hers. Her heart hammered; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t follow through with this. She was going to scream, to laugh, scream, beat against him ...

“My love!” he said again, and kissed her fingertips.

“My—love,” she whispered in return, but she choked on the words, fighting the tears that suddenly stung her eyes with a vengeance. She had to stop this; she could go no further.
My love! She had heard those words before. Spoken in another man’s voice ...

“Oh, good God!”

The furious, mocking exclamation suddenly exploded from the shadows.

In another man’s voice!

A deep-timbred voice, husky and mocking, suddenly thundered out of the red-coated darkness in the room. Not just another man’s voice—
his
voice.

Yes, his. It couldn’t be! She was losing her mind; she had recalled that voice from memory, and brought with her memory the flesh-and-blood appearance of the man. Oh, God, her guilt had played havoc with her mind—he couldn’t possibly be here. But he was. And he had been here, following them through the shadowed house!

Yes, he was here. She saw only a shadow then, hovering above her, but she knew it was him. She knew his voice so well—knew it in laughter, taunting, as he taunted now. She’d known it gentle upon rare occasions, and sometimes, oh God, yes, sometimes she’d known it in fury, as furious as it was now, as dangerous as the portents of the bloodred color that danced upon the moon.

She froze. Her blood seemed to congeal, colder than ice. She felt Raymond atop her. Felt her own nakedness. Taylor’s deep voice struck her again like a whip.

“That’s it—I’ve had it with this charade!” Taylor announced. And then she saw his towering form more clearly, and she felt the fiery tension of his very presence.
Felt! Oh, God, she couldn’t look his way!

“What in the name of the Almighty?” Raymond demanded. “Taylor! You!” he spat out.

But the sound of steel could suddenly be heard in the room, and in the eerie touch of moonlight, Tia saw a flash of silver—and the touch of a sword at Raymond’s throat.

“Stop. Stop right now!” Tia cried. The sword rested just at Raymond’s jugular. Taylor’s eyes remained riveted upon Tia as he gritted his teeth.

“Ah, good, I have your attention,” Taylor said.

She should die right now, Tia thought.

Because certainly,
he
would kill her later.

She closed her eyes, praying that the night itself would disappear.
He
was not supposed to be here; he was supposed to be in the North! Good God, if she’d imagined he was near, she would have swallowed all pride and thrown herself on his mercy, begging his assistance rather than chancing this desperate game she now played. She knew that he would have helped her father.

“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, “but this charming little domestic adventure has gone quite far enough. Colonel Weir, if you will please rise carefully.”

“Damn you, Taylor Douglas! You’ll die for this. I swear it! How did you get in?” Weir demanded, rising, swallowing down his fury at the interruption—by a hated enemy.

“I entered by the door, Captain.”

Thankfully, Tia thought, the scene was not as wretched as it might have been. Raymond Weir’s trousers were still in place. But then again ...

The point of Taylor’s sword suddenly lay between Tia’s breasts.

“Tia, get up. And for the love of God, get some clothing on. I grow weary of finding you naked everywhere I go—other than in our marital bed, of course.”

“Marital bed!” Raymond repeated, stunned.