John reached across the table and patted her hand. “We’ve the very best horsemen, and the very best marksmen. And the very best military leaders. How can we lose?”
But one of their very best men was in the North.
She had vowed that she was no longer going to think of Jesse. It was July, and he’d been gone a long time now. They had been quiet months for Kiernan, easy months in the Tidewater region. A hot, lazy summer was coming on.
As Kiernan had watched the events taking shape around her, she had avoided Cameron Hall. It was too painful to go there. As it was, her nights had been torture. Due to the pain that Jesse caused her, she really began to hate him. She prayed that the pain would ease. She had even avoided Daniel and Christa.
But they were her friends and her closest neighbors, and she couldn’t stay away forever. Daniel, a cavalry captain, had recently left for the Confederate Army. Troops were gathering at an important railway station, Manassas Junction, and Daniel was with them.
Anthony was with those troops, too, or would be soon. The army was still being organized, and Anthony’s company had yet to move in from the western side of the state.
She didn’t know where Jesse was.
She tried very hard to convince herself that she didn’t care. At some moments she actually felt numb, and she relished those moments.
The conflict moved ever closer.
Alexandria, just across the Potomac from Washington, was occupied. It was the Union’s backyard, and it had surprised no one when forces marched in. The first Union casualty had occurred there. The very popular young colonel Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth had spotted a Confederate flag atop the Marshall House hotel. He climbed to the roof to tear it down. Coming down the stairs, he was shot to death by the hotel’s proprietor. The proprietor, in turn, was shot to death by one of Ellsworth’s men.
Kiernan felt sorrow that a Union man had been killed. From what she read, he had been a handsome, gallant, and giving man—and a very close personal friend to Abe Lincoln. His body had lain in state at the White House before it was sent home to upstate New York for burial.
Ellsworth, like John Brown, became a martyr in the North, stirring men to cry out and clamor for more bloodshed.
It seemed very sad.
But it also seemed very sad that Robert E. Lee, after refusing an offer from the North and accepting a commission in the Confederacy, had been forced to leave his home. She could imagine Lee and his wife talking through the night of the decision that he’d been forced to leave. He would have known that the Federals couldn’t possibly let him be there at Arlington House. And so his wife and his children had been uprooted along with him. The enemy now tramped through the halls where his children had played.
So much seemed so very sad.
Perhaps the duel between Jesse and Anthony had been fought over her, but it never would have happened without the prospect of war. And if not for the prospect of war, she would have married Jesse. No questions of honor would have been raised. Jesse would never have had to tell his brother good-bye, and he would never have had to walk away from his home.
But she wouldn’t waste her time thinking about Jesse. If anything, she would worry about Anthony.
She had gone into Williamsburg to see him the day after the duel. She cared very much about him, but she had to admit to herself that it was guilt that forced her to visit him rather than deep affection.
In Williamsburg, she had felt more guilty than ever, because Anthony had assured her that he was fine, that his pride was wounded more than anything else.
He had told her again that he loved her, that he’d fight a thousand duels for her, that he’d die over and over again for her.
But Jesse, who claimed to love her too, would not even remain to fight in his own state for her. He claimed that as a doctor, he wanted to save lives, but lives could be saved on this side of the conflict just as well.
She had been thinking about Jesse when Anthony had demanded, “Well, Kiernan?”
“Well?”
“Will you marry me now? Or will you at least think about it? I’ll march soon enough, now that Virginia has seceded, I know that. We’ll be going off to whip those boys in blue. Let me carry the memory of your love into battle with me!”
“Anthony, I don’t—”
He pressed his finger against her lip. “Don’t say no to me, please. Tell me that you’ll think about it. Let me live on that hope.”
She hadn’t had the heart to tell him no.
It would not be only Anthony against Jesse. It would be Daniel against Jesse too. Brother against brother.
But that was war. And as Kiernan’s father had told her, war was coming. Everyone spoke of it. Everyone seemed to long for it. “On to Richmond!” As her father had said, the North was very determined to swiftly end the rebellion. Patriotism ran high on both sides.
One morning in July, John Mackay lifted his head and quickly folded up the paper he had been reading at the table. He frowned. “Listen!” he told her.
She didn’t hear anything at first, but then she heard horses, a large group of them, coming down the long drive.
John stood quickly, and Kiernan followed him to the door. Suddenly, she heard a loud Rebel cry, and the sounds of pounding hooves came closer and closer.
“What is it?” Kiernan asked.
“Seems to be a Rebel company,” John replied, grinning. “But what it is doing on my front lawn, I surely don’t know.”
He strode out onto the porch, Kiernan following him.
There was, indeed, a Rebel company on their lawn. They were a handsome lot, even if they moved with a wild confusion, their horses prancing everywhere. They were dressed in butternut and gray, the handsome new uniforms of the South. The uniforms didn’t seem to be government issue, but ones specifically designed and lovingly hand-sewn for this particular company. The Rebs wore cavalry hats, just like those in the Union cavalry, except that these were gray. Gray, pulled low, and finely plumed.
There were about twenty-five in the company, tramping across the lawn, reckless, loud, and constantly cheering.
“What in the Lord’s good name—” John Mackay began. But a rider broke away from the melee and trotted toward them. He pushed back his hat.
“Anthony!” Kiernan gasped.
He grinned broadly at her. He was wonderfully, engagingly handsome with his warm, dancing brown eyes, his golden curls beneath the fine plumed hat, and his perfectly curved moustache and finely clipped beard. He sat his horse so well, and his smile, so endearing, touched her that night as it had never touched her before. She did not love Anthony. And she could never love anybody with the wild and desperate passion with which she had loved Jesse.
As he stood before her that night, so gallant and so comical, she laughed in delight as she had not laughed in some time.
Not since Jesse had left.
“Mr. Mackay!” Anthony called, and he grinned at Kiernan again. “Despite your daughter’s very inappropriate laughter at such a fine pack of soldiers for the Confederacy, I have come to ask you for her hand in marriage. No, sir! Your pardon, I take that back! I have come to beg you for her hand in marriage!”
John Mackay’s brow shot up.
“Well, son, if you’re going to be begging and pleading, I’m the wrong one to be doing it to!”
Anthony grinned, and he leaped down from his horse. The men of his company quit their wild prancing and brought their horses to a standstill behind his, as disciplined now as they had been unruly just seconds before.
Anthony walked toward the steps to Kiernan, pausing with a booted foot atop the first step. He reached for her hand. “We’re riding even now for Manassas Junction. We will barely arrive when we were ordered to. But all these fine fellows know how deeply I pine for you. I have told them, of course, that you have moments of heartlessness. I have told them that you have refused me for years. But the last time I spoke with you, you didn’t actually refuse me. So you see, we decided to waylay o
ur journey just a bit—”
“Just a bit!” Kiernan exclaimed. “You’ve ridden well over a hundred miles out of your way! You came all the way over here to the peninsula!”
He grinned again. “Yes. So it would be churlish for you to refuse me still again!”
He walked up the last step and pulled her close against him. “Kiernan, I’ve no time, no time at all. Not even a night to spend with you, not a day to take you anywhere, not even home. But I’ve got a preacher with me—Captain Dowling is also Father Dowling of Charles Town—and if you would consent to be my wife this night, I promise that I’ll come back for you. And I’ll take you anywhere in the world that you want to go once this skirmish is over. I’ll take your kiss into battle, and with the sweet promise of you in my future, I swear I shall lead these fine gents to sure victory.”
Kiernan stared at him blankly for several moments. She felt numbness steal over her.
Yes. Yes, marry him, marry Anthony. She had known him so long, and she did care for him very deeply. And she owed him, because she had led him on in a way, when she had known in her heart she loved Jesse.
She didn’t love Anthony, but he loved her enough for both of them he had told her once.
Marry him, marry him, marry him, she told herself. Erase forever the hope that Jesse will come back.
“Anthony,” her father answered for her, “this has been a cavalier and highly romantic deed on your part, but perhaps it might be best to wait until—”
“Yes!” Kiernan exclaimed.
“What?” Anthony and her father voiced the word simultaneously.
Anthony, she realized, had not really dared to hope. Her father, she thought, knew her too well.
“I said yes!” Kiernan exclaimed.
“Kiernan,” John said, frowning, “this is so fast.”
“Nonsense, Papa, we’ve known each other for years. Anthony has been asking me for years! And he’s about to ride away into battle—” She broke off, for his troops were shouting and whooping, cheering her on.
“It seems that I’m outvoted here,” John murmured. He stared at Anthony. “Young man, give me a moment alone with my daughter.”
He drew her into the house, closing the door so they could have privacy in the hallway. He set his hands upon her shoulders.
“Daughter, do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes, Papa, I do.”
“You were in love with Jesse Cameron.”
She didn’t blink. She stared steadily into his eyes. “I hate Jesse Cameron,” she said flatly.
“That’s what scares me,” John told her. “There’s a very thin line between love and hate. All these years, young lady, I never forced your hand, never arranged a marriage, so that you could fall in love and marry the man of your choice.”
“But if you had arranged a marriage for me, you would have arranged it with Anthony,” she reminded him.
He sighed softly. “Kiernan, don’t do this.”
“Papa, I must!”
“You’re always too passionate, Kiernan, too reckless.”
“Papa, don’t stop me, please. He’s riding into battle. He came miles and miles out of his way.”
“And he’s riding out again as soon as you say the word. I won’t stop you, Kiernan, but listen to me first. If you marry him tonight, he will ride back into your life. You will be his wife, and when he returns for you, you will go to his home. You will share his bed at night, and you will take care of his family. Do you understand that?”
She shivered deep inside. Images of Cameron Hall flashed through her mind. She had always dreamed that she would be the lady of the hall.
“Yes,” she told her father.
“You really want to do this?”
“Yes, with all my heart.”
John sighed softly again, then opened the door. Anthony was waiting on the porch, handsome and dignified in his new uniform, straight and tall. Only his eyes betrayed his anxiety.
“Seems my daughter is now all-fired determined, Anthony. All these years, and we have to have a wedding here tonight with the supper dishes barely off the table. Well, then, it’s what you both want. Come in, men, come in.”
A cry went up like nothing Kiernan had ever heard before. Anthony let out a whoop and threw off his hat and plucked her up high into his arms. She stared down into his eyes, and she was glad.
It was just that she felt cold and numb.
“Lieutenant Miller, let’s get to it!” one of his men advised. Suddenly the gray-clad soldiers were filing into her house, and her feet were back on the ground.
Anthony’s adoring eyes were still staring into her own. “Thank you!” he told her.
She tried to smile, but her lips would not move. She stared at him gravely until her father caught her arm, pulling her back into the house. “Anthony, come on.”
She remembered very little of the ceremony. Her father stood by her side and slipped her hand into Anthony’s. Captain Dowling—Father Dowling of Charles Town—said all the proper words while Anthony’s men stood witness behind them.
Her father had pulled a handful of daffodils from a vase, and she curled her fingers around them as she listened to the words. Anthony had to nudge her to repeat her vows, but she did so. She repeated them firmly, even if she was so cold that she didn’t know what she said.
Then the same cries went up in the air, and Jubilee, her father’s housekeeper, who had been very much a mother to Kiernan, started to cry. Father Dowling said that the groom could kiss his bride, and she was in Anthony’s arms.
He kissed her.
And then she knew that she had made a big mistake. His kiss was filled with love and warmth. It was tender and restrained.
And it was little else. It wasn’t demanding, passionate, or filled with fever. It wasn’t a kiss to cause the world to cease spinning, a caress to warm her inside and out. It did not touch her blood or reach into her limbs, or into the very center of her being. It wasn’t hot and wet and reckless and …
It wasn’t Jesse’s kiss.
Tears stung her eyes, but she swore that she would not shed them. She forced herself to curl her arms around Anthony’s neck, to return his kiss, to try to give him a hint of the love that he was so determined to give to her.
The war whoops and hollering continued. The men stamped the floor. She heard the pop of a champagne cork.
She allowed herself to break away from the kiss, and she forced herself to keep her eyes upon Anthony’s. She hadn’t really thought this out at all. She didn’t love him.
But she would be a good wife to him, she swore. She’d be a wonderful mother to his little brother and sister, she’d keep the house while he went to war, and she’d learn what she could about his business. She’d be good for him, she really would. She’d make up for the fact that she’d love another man until the day that she died.
But Anthony would never know that, she vowed.
“Kiernan, I love you. If I died tonight, I’d die happy, knowing that you love me.”
She forced a smile to her lips. Her father brought them both champagne and shook Anthony’s hand, and he welcomed him as his son-in-law.
It felt as if her cheek were kissed a hundred times as each of Anthony’s men filed by her. Her father’s supply of champagne, cool from the wine cellar, was drunk, and Jubilee managed to get out enough pies and cakes and breads and smoked meat to create something of a wedding feast.
It all went by so fast. Then a nervous private urged the company on. The troops filed out until only Anthony was left, holding her hands in the hallway.
“You’ve made me the happiest man on earth,” he told her. He pulled her against him again and kissed her. She tried very hard to return his emotion, to fight the tears that stung her eyes.
“Take the greatest care, Anthony.”
“I will. I’ll come for you as soon as I can. Oh, Kiernan, thank you! I love you so very much.”
He kissed her one last time, then released her, lookin
g over her head to her father and thanking him.
“Care for her for me, sir.”
She sensed her father’s smile. “I’ve been doing so all these years, young man. I reckon I can manage awhile longer.”
Anthony grinned, and he was gone.
Her father came up behind her, setting his arm upon her shoulder as they watched Anthony and his company ride away. They were beautiful—all of them, Kiernan thought, all young, and elegant in their new plumage, excellent horsemen.
God protect them all, she thought.
“Well, Mrs. Miller?” her father said. He spun her around to face him. She lifted her chin. She was close to tears, but she knew she had to smile.
“I’m happy, Papa. Honest to God, I’m happy. I’ll be good to him, honest I will.”
He lifted a brow. “Most men don’t want a wife to be good to them, Kiernan. They want a wife to love them.”
She lowered her head quickly. “Papa, I care very much for him.” She raised her eyes to his. “He was so handsome tonight, wasn’t he? Handsome and gallant and wonderful!”
“Handsome and gallant and wonderful.”
And that, John Mackay agreed, young Anthony Miller had been. Everything was right about the boy. He liked his new son-in-law just fine.
But handsome and gallant and wonderful didn’t mean everything. The real measure of a man was inside him. While one man might not be any worse or any better than another, it was largely the qualities inside of him that made him what he was.
She was still in love with Jesse Cameron. John Mackay understood that better than she did herself at that moment. He still liked Jesse himself. There was something special about Jesse Cameron, and something special about the way he and Kiernan connected.
But Jesse was gone with an enemy army, and it was best that Kiernan learn to forget him.
She was on the right track, John determined wryly. She was married now, legally wed, forever bound.
He hoped she understood that.
“I’m tired, Papa. I’m going up to bed,” she told him.
He studied her eyes, nodded, and kissed her cheek. She smiled brilliantly and hurried away.
But later, he passed by her room and heard her sobbing softly.
One Wore Blue Page 21
