by Martha Hix
Connor straightened, his arms lowering; his eyes grew suspicion. “What are you wanting this time?”
“Information.” Wresting her eyes from the muscular sight of him, she went around to pick Amelia up from her favorite sleeping spot, the knitting bag. The Persian’s purrs vibrated against India’s collarbone. “I know you’re an army man through and through. You’re from Memphis. You had smallpox at some point. I know you have a brother in the steamship business. And you ran into a little trouble in Gettysburg.”
“A little trouble?” His beautiful yet manly face contorted. “More than a little, you ought to recall.”
“I do.” She coerced a smile. “Tell me more about yourself, your family, your likes and dislikes.”
“Sounds like you’ve got something in your head. Something along the lines of going home to meet my folks.”
“I’d love to meet your family.”
His expression now whitened. “We aren’t courting.”
Why don’t you just put it bluntly? Never for a moment had she imagined they were in a prelude to forever-after, but she wouldn’t be human if a tiny corner of her heart didn’t beat for a chance at magic. After all, she’d never had a chance at it.
Granted, she was no Antoinette, or Persia, in matters of lust or love or courtship, yet India knew intuitively Connor, Union Army loyalty be damned, was no Tim Glennie. She moved toward him, placing a fingertip on that interesting scar. “You wanted to be my hero and I let you. What do you call that?”
Connor, backing away, scraped fingers through the dark shock of his hair. “India, are you wanting marriage?”
That would be the ultimate magic. Provided the world were a different place. Provided a couple could rub their palms along some ancient lamp to make a genie appear. A jinn would make the war go away. A jinn would turn Connor into a dove. A jinn would make it possible for that couple to build a cozy nest where they could chirp and trill while planning for nestlings.
India tore her eyes from Connor’s staggered visage, bypassing a dozen paper bouquets and settling on Arabian Nights Entertainment. Genies only happened within those pages, not in Illinois. Not amid civil war. Not for a box-faced old maid too fond of a male who wouldn’t have her on a magic carpet.
How could she preserve her dignity?
Eleven
His back to the proverbial wall, Connor felt the blood seep from his face. “India, for God’s sake, have you forgotten what I told you? My career has my troth.”
Way before he shut up, he saw the hurt he’d wrought and was sorry for it, a sudden wrench in his heart reminding Connor that he, too, wouldn’t come out of marriage talk unscathed.
She said not a word, simply gave him her back. She, the bravest woman he’d ever known. She, the squirt with more guts than a full battalion of soldiers. She, with a heavy burden of guilt on those feminine shoulders. Guilt that weighted her down by taking the blame for Winny’s vain attempt at the heroic. “I’m sorry, India. For everything.”
He didn’t have to know the rest of the story of her life to understand that she’d been too often hurt, too seldom encouraged, and never loved to her just deserts.
“India ...”
He closed the gap between them, inhaling the lavender scent that no longer put to mind an aunt. Lavender would always be India to Connor.
After turning her to face him, he took Amelia from her arms and set the cat to paws. “If I were to seek marriage, I’d want a woman like you. But I don’t want a wife. This war isn’t over, and I won’t make a widow.”
“You needn’t crawfish.” Her chin lifted, her indomitable spirit covered her misery, and he wished he could make her happy.
Dallying with her heart had been a blackguard’s ploy. “Once the rebellion is put down, I’ll be sent no-telling where. Could be a frontier outpost, could be anywhere.”
How the devil could he truly explain himself? Piecing together his feelings proved impossible, for Connor couldn’t explain his attitude toward marriage. All he knew with any certainty? He was his father’s son. He could well let a woman down, like Georgia Morgan had been hurt.
“India, listen, please. It’s no kind of life for a lady, being hitched to a sol—”
“What makes you so certain the Union Army will win?” she challenged, spunk firmly in place.
Connor refused to take that avenue of discussion, but her question drew to mind: she was Gray and he was Blue. For now, though . . . “Honey, you deserve a fellow who’ll give you a happy home and a brood of children.”
“Too bad Zeke is older than my granny. Else he would’ve never given you a chance to make this exit speech.”
Zeke. Not for the first time this evening, Connor eyed the blossoms festooning India’s bedroom. Would that they wilted! It was downright ludicrous, of course, being jealous of a man who’d been ten at the beginning of this century.
Nonetheless, Connor’s fingers tightened on India’s shoulders. “Don’t bring that old goat into this. You can do better.” It hurt to say, “Find some wonderful man to give you your dreams,” but Connor did it. Somehow. For her.
India feinted out of his reach, scooting over to the bedside where Arabian Nights Entertainment lay on the table. Idly, she fanned the pages. “All I did was ask about you and your history.” Calm flowed her words. “I wasn’t asking for your hand in marriage.”
“Familiarity leads to what you were after.”
“Well, pardon me.” She slapped the braid of hair to her back, then parked a hand on her curvaceous hip. “I don’t deny that I’m curious or that I may have made a statement or two you could’ve taken in the wrong light. I may be less than popular with the gentlemen, precious Zeke being the exception, but I’m not after putting a ring through your nose.”
Zeke! Always Zeke. Connor hoped he tripped on his beard and fell into something about his same age—Old Man River. Better yet, I hope he trips on his scissors.
She said, “I’ll take no Yankee from Dixie to husband.”
“Yankee from Dixie? That doesn’t make sense, India. Granted, you’re loyal to your fellow Southerners, but you don’t hate me for the color of my uniform.”
“I thought you knew I dislike any uniform for what it stands for.” She eyed him coolly, her convictions palpable. “You jumped to a wrong conclusion. You’d be the last man I’d take home to Pleasant Hill.”
It finally sank in. He hadn’t hurt her. Not for a moment. Could it be, though, that she whistled in the dark?
“Matter of fact, Connor, I don’t even like you.”
She hadn’t whistled.
It was an odd feeling that went through him, rejection. While Fitz O’Brien had made certain his grandsons were trained by the finest courtesans on the Mississippi, and in spite of the fact Connor had chased enough women on his own, he hadn’t been governed by sexual urges—an asset for a military man—not until encountering a faux sanitarian who roused him to heights of career idiocy and unfulfilled passion.
Her dismissal stung. She was deeply under his skin and, whether she liked him or not, the desire to spend time—tots of it—buried deeply in the cove of her charms was more than an urge.
“You look like you swallowed a bug.” One attractive black brow soared. “Is this the first time the handsome major has been spurned by a plain-Jane spinster with more demands than there are pismires at an Easter picnic?”
“You’re not plain.”
“It’s too late for flattery,” she replied. “The line is drawn in the sand, Major. I shall not cross it again.”
Cross it, he started to challenge. He fought to keep from gathering her petite form back in his arms. He itched to unbind the single plait and stroke the raven-black tresses that would fall across her shoulders. He would caress her tawny cheek and . . . more. Then she’d like him! By damn, she would.
Never again would she throw another man up to him, especially a geezer with no teeth and a white beard to his waist.
Suddenly, differences became clear, focu
sed, all too plain, like the sermon from a Sunday pulpit. Pays didn’t have to have his arm twisted to be a hero. How could India admire a soldier who had to have his arm broken before crying uncle, and knew nothing about cutting flowers out of paper?
He couldn’t be what he wasn’t. Retreat was the only option.
Reading his mind, India ordered, “Go away, Connor. To your room.” Her expression surely matched the ones she’d had while eyeing ants at past picnics. “I shall be leaving, too. This house, this island. Soon.”
“What about your hospital, your brother?”
“My work here won’t stop. Zeke and Antoinette and Doot will carry on. As for my brother, he’s a Marshall. He can look out for himself.”
“Indy, I . . .”
He tried to place his hand on her cheek, but she slapped his finger, saying, “Keep your distance and I’ll do you the same. Good-bye, Connor. Take note, though. I do appreciate all you finally did for the good of mankind.”
Damned with faint praise though he was, Connor took a modicum of satisfaction from her remark. “I take it you find something to like in me.”
“Don’t dig for compliments. Close the door when you leave.” Hands fisted, disfavor in her inky eyes, she added, “By the way, if our paths should cross again, don’t call me ’Indy.’ That name is reserved for my loved ones.”
“As you wish.”
He left. Reaching his room, Connor stared back down the hallway to her shut door and listened to hear if she made a sound. She didn’t. Not a whimper, not a cry, not a squeak.
The least she could have done was shed a few tears. No. Caterwauling didn’t fit India Marshall. All the things he admired fit her. Determined, driven, unsinkable. Everything he’d missed in a mother otherwise adored, but found collected in a pair of aunts. Including a sharp tongue. She and Aunt Phoebe did have their similarities, albeit India resorted to bald cruelty only on occasion.
Sharp tongue? What about his own words?
“Me and my big mouth,” he muttered to the wall, realizing just how lonely he’d been over the years. “The aunties would have loved her. And I’ll miss her. Sorely.”
Should he try to make amends? No. In the long run a clean break would be the better tack. But if she left with a bad taste in her palate, he’d always regret it. While he owed her nothing, he wanted her to have something beyond their argument to remember him by. What tangible token could he give?
It came to him.
He put on coat and boots, made for his office. Sitting down at the scratched desk, he poured a finger of bourbon into a water glass, leaving the jug uncorked. If ever there were a time for Kentucky’s finest, it was now. He then picked up pen and paper. It didn’t take five minutes to compose the pardon for Captain Mathews Marshall, CSA.
“Major, I be wantin’ to speak to ye.”
“Sergeant Pays. I’d’ve thought you’d be over in town, tucked in and getting your beauty sleep.” Fighting rancor, Connor rose to stand. “What can I do for you?”
“It be about Miss Indy.” One eye squinted shut; Pays screwed up his toothless face. “Ye been spoonin’ my gal.”
His gal? Over my dead body. “Where did you hear that?”
“That don’t make no never-mind. I heared it.” Beard swaying from side to side like a ragged old mop, Pays marched to him. “She be mine, and she done kisst me to prove it.”
“What!”
“She kisst me,” he gummed, “and that be the same thing as promising herself, back where I come from.”
Connor could imagine India doing many things, but kissing this old geezer wasn’t one of them. “Don’t you think you’re too far past long-in-the-tooth to make up stories about the lady?”
“Ye be callin’ me a liar, ye whippersnapper!” His face red as fire wagon, Pays shook a fist. “I’m gonna marry that gal, just hide and watch.”
If Pays weren’t so tiresome, Connor might have seen humor in the man. “Go to bed, old-timer. You’ll need your strength—”
“Strength!” he wheezed, belying his protest. “I got more strength than ten boys yer age. Ye may be the actin’ comman’er here, but ye still be wet behind the ears.”
“Don’t get your heart set on Miss Marshall. You’d best stick to fashioning blooms.”
“Don’t ye set yer heart on her, neither. A young buck like ye, wantin’ to poke a gal up in years, ye oughta be ashamed. She be more my age than yern. Leastways, I intend marriage.”
What a time for the subject of matrimony and good intentions. Connor groaned. Ice cracking on the Mississippi covered it. A different cracking couldn’t be covered. The crack in his heart. In the midst of standing down India’s ardent admirer, Connor hurt that she didn’t give a damn about a confused military man. What right do you have to expect anything?
Pays shook his fist. “Listen up, ye whelp. Don’t think I be lyin’ about rumors. Ye been seen. It been acted on, too.”
Connor had the sinking suspicion Pays spoke the truth.
“Thar’s a telegram done in Rose Lawrence’s hand, tellin’ all about yer trashiness to a gal what has a natural fancy for a wet-eared whelp with a purty face.”
Anger building, Connor, nonetheless, now took comfort in India’s plan to leave soon. He didn’t want her in the middle of Lawrence’s wrath. He barked, “At ease, and that’s an order.”
“Go to hell!”
Pays reared back that liver-spotted fist, drove it into Connor’s nose—he packed a helluva blow for a codger—then kept going. He landed on the desk, bony behind up, upsetting the bourbon jug and spilling the contents on a piece of folded paper.
Before Connor caught his breath, Pays rounded on him. A spindly leg shot out. A boot drove into Connor’s groin. He yowled. It seemed as if a minié ball had struck him.
“That be for good measure” was the last thing Connor heard before he blacked out.
By morning light India had dressed, had eaten a small bowl of porridge, had made final infirmary rounds. Afterward, she proceeded to Solitary. The guard allowed her inside Matt’s door without quarrel, and she could have thanked Connor for those orders, but wouldn’t. She was in no mood for gratitude, even if he were in his room back at the mansion, which he wasn’t.
Her brother sat up. “Didn’t expect you this early.”
“Expect the unexpected.” She threw off her wrap, uncomfortable with the warming trend. “I’ve got something to say, so don’t interrupt. A while back you accused me of seeking approval. That is the corner I painted myself into. We all have corners. Yours is to head the family in Papa’s absence.
“When you thought Major O’Brien had been under my skirts, to use your indelicate vernacular, you were ready to fight for my honor. Time is ripe to make good on it. You must—”
“You want me to kill him?”
“I told you not to interrupt.” She exhaled. “It isn’t Marshall family honor at stake, it’s survival. I’m leaving Rock Island, and I’m leaving today. Alone. You must tell me where Papa deposited his inheritance.”
“You’d leave without me? You never let me down before.”
It had been years since India had seen such boyish disappointment in Matt, and while she hated to betray him, she must. “I cannot secure your legal release. Nor will I be part of a prison break that would endanger your life.”
“You and the major had a tiff,” Matt speculated, amazingly more concerned for his sister than for her betrayal.
“We had a parting of the ways.”
“I’m sorry, Indy.” Matt’s voice coursed quiet, sincere. “I know he means a lot to you.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I’m afraid so.” Dragging his chains, Matt left the cot and lifted his bound wrists to caress her face clumsily. “I haven’t been the best of brothers to you, Indy, and I’m sorry for that, too. I do love you, Sis.”
“You do?” she asked, taken aback.
“Certainly. You’re my sister. A damned good one, too.”
“I never tho
ught I’d hear you say that, Mattie.”
“I guess it wasn’t easy for you, being twin to a brother everyone doted on, even in his grave.”
Losing Winny had caused a part of India to die along with him. Even though she’d taken comfort from confessing to Connor, she couldn’t be that free with the one person who would never forgive her. “Let’s don’t talk about Winny.”
“I wish you would. You’d be happier for it.” Matt leaned his cheek on the top of her head, and she barely noticed as a hairpin fell from her wig. “Big brother’s here, if you need a shoulder to cry on.”
“You know I don’t cry.”
“Not on the outside you don’t. But you cry. On the inside. And have ever since Winny passed away.”
“Please stop digging at me about him.”
“You take me wrong, Indy honey. I’ve changed. Behind these walls I’ve had a lot of time to think. And reconsider. You weren’t to blame for Winny’s death. You tried to save him. I’ll grant I’ve given you hell through the years, but I sincerely apologize. Do you think you can find room in that big heart of yours to forgive a scoundrel?”
She studied Matt’s eyes. Always she’d been able to detect dishonesty on his part. He was being honest. Allowing his comforting words to sink in, to settle, she whispered, “I forgive you. I love you, big brother.”
If she couldn’t have Connor, at least she’d have her last brother. It eased the sting somewhat.
He smiled, leaned down to kiss her cheek. And it was no hurried peck. It was a kiss of brotherly love. “I’ll never take you for granted again, even if you leave without me.”
“I can’t take you, Mattie. If I could, I would.”
“I know you would, honey, I know you would. It isn’t easy to stomach, but I know you would.”
“I’ll do what I can to make it comfortable for you. The hospital cook has promised to bring food to Solitary, and—”
“I’ll be okay. Honest. Indy, I want to know about you. What happened between you and the major?”
