Wanting.
He cradled her hand against him, and the fever that swept him seemed to take them like the power of the wind. Guns might have thundered, swords might have clashed, the world and war might have exploded around him, and he would have given them not a care. Compulsion ruled him, the searing need, the desperate desire to reach the pinnacle. He had seen her, yes, he had known her, tasted her kiss, tasted her flesh. He hadn’t imagined that she could drive him so far, reach so deeply into him, bring him to a fulfillment of something more than he had expected or known. Sleek, damp, twisting, moving ... she suddenly strained against him, and he shuddered into her, and into her, and into her again, flooding her with his seed, with the force of his climax. He fell to her side, pulling her into his arms again, and lay there panting, wondering what she had done to him, what spell she had cast upon him, why there was something so unique about her that ...
That he could forget.
Not just feel hunger, want sex. But forget ...
The sound of gunfire. The war all around him. Abby ... running.
Abby ...
The blood on his hands.
He lay in silence. So did she. Soft tangled webs of ebony hair lay upon his chest. The top of her head was beneath him. He couldn’t see her face. Although he’d been almost violently certain he hadn’t wanted a wife, he couldn’t regret the events of the night. He had wanted Tia McKenzie. She wasn’t a lonely widow, divorcee, or prostitute. She was Jarrett McKenzie’s daughter, Ian’s sister. There was only one way to have such a woman. Marry her.
She was also Godiva, he reminded himself, and he suddenly felt a greater anger at that fact. She still didn’t realize what she had risked, even after tonight.
“Do you think you’re going to survive marriage?” he queried.
“Don’t!” she whispered.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t—talk. Don’t, I beg you, add insult to injury!”
Insult to injury? She had taken a heady slug at his masculine dignity and pride, and he wasn’t going to ignore it. He turned to her, finding her face hidden in a web of her hair. He delved through it, smoothing it to the side, capturing her hands when she tried to twist away. Being Tia, she put up a fight. He straddled her, leaning low, pinning her wrists down, meeting her eyes. “You were injured?” he demanded.
“This was your idea!” she accused him.
“Marriage was your idea.”
“But this—”
“This goes with marriage!”
He saw that her thick dark lashes were spiked with unshed tears. Compassion and anger stirred within him simultaneously. “You were wishing for a gallant Southern gentleman, I take it?”
“You were thinking of your wife!” she accused him in a pained whisper.
Something seemed to thud against the wall of his chest.
“You are my wife now,” he told her quietly.
“I have married the enemy.”
“So have many women. You will survive it.”
“Will I? Will we survive the war?” she asked, and her voice sounded desperate, pained, frightened. He suddenly knew her vulnerability, and the courage it had taken to do the things she’d done. And prickly little enemy that she was, he wanted to protect her.
Enemy ... wife. His wife.
“Yes! We will survive! I will see to it!” he promised her. Her eyes were beautiful. Shimmering mahogany. And for once, she looked up at him as if she trusted him. He leaned down to kiss her again, and her lips were salty with the taste of tears. But she made no protest to his kiss; indeed, she kissed him in return with a sweet, hungry yearning. Kissed him, and kissed him ...
It was he who raised his lips. “Insult to injury?” he queried huskily.
“Must you always talk?”
He smiled. “Certain talk has its place ...” he murmured. “Such as ... madam, I love the way you move. I love the way you look, the scent of you, and though other wives might be cold and dutiful, making love swathed in voluminous nightgowns, I would not dream of enduring such a situation, since you are quite stunningly beautiful, and you seduce by your very existence.”
Her ebony dark eyes were upon him, still glittering with a certain moisture, but his words brought a rueful smile to her lips.
“I don’t dislike you, Taylor.”
“With endearments like that, it is amazing that I can control my ardor at all!”
Her smile deepened. “Taylor?”
“Yes?”
Her cheeks were flushed. She wet her lips. “You ... are ... it’s not so awful to be with you. You’re right ... you’ve somewhat seduced me before. I don’t think that I could have been with anyone else ... as I am with you.”
“Thank God!” he said.
She was dreaming again. She saw the big white house with the grand entry. Then the toddler, the boy, the beautiful child, was on the balcony ...
Falling, falling, falling ...
She awoke screaming. Once again, her mother-in-law was there, waking her, holding her, arms around her, assurances coming softly from her lips. “It’s all right, it’s a dream, and we’ll take care, we know it’s a warning. We’ll warn everyone we know with a little boy, Rhiannon. It will be all right, really.”
Her mother-in law wasn’t the only one with her. Alaina was there as well, holding little Conar, who screamed in resentment at being awakened again.
“I’m so sorry!” Rhiannon said, “I keep waking you ... causing so much trouble.”
“Waking isn’t trouble, Rhiannon,” her mother-in-law assured her.
“I just wish that we could help you somehow. Tell us about it,” Alaina said. “Perhaps if you talk it out, detail by detail ...”
And so, Rhiannon talked. Detail by detail. She described all that she had seen in her dream, all that recurred, all that was new.
And when she had finished. Alaina was as pale as the sheets. Her eyes were immense, their deep blue in stark contrast to the ashen shade of her cheeks.
“Alaina, what is it?” her mother-in-law asked with alarm.
“I know the house!” Alaina said. “I know the house she is describing.”
When Tia awoke, she was alone, and she lay pensive on the cot for a long time.
The events of the evening seemed overwhelming and unbelievable to her at first. But with the increasing daylight, they became very real.
She didn’t dislike Taylor. She was often furious with him, very often wished she could just slap him once really good and force him to listen to her point of view. But he had always intrigued her. And it was true that she had been strangely drawn to him from the beginning, true that she had been fascinated by him, that she had wanted to touch the bronze texture of his flesh. True, she had never imagined that anyone could awaken in her the sensations she had learned in her first night at his side. True, she was even anxious to see him again, feel his gold eyes upon her again, and feel again that sense that she was his, somehow protected, even cherished ...
Even if he hadn’t wanted another wife.
Remembering where she was, she rose quickly then, anxious to wash and dress. A bucket of fresh water and a towel had been left by the camp desk; she assumed they were for her. She also found Taylor’s brush in the first compartment of his trunk, and she struggled to brush the mass of tangles out of her hair and wind it into the semblance of a neat chignon.
After making herself presentable, she stepped outside the tent. Sergeant Henson sat on a makeshift chair constructed out of a fallen log, and he whittled a little wooden figure as he tended a fire with a coffeepot. He looked up as she exited the tent, greeting her cheerfully.
“Good morning, Mrs. Douglas.” He knew a great deal about her, she mused. What had he thought of her last night, having suddenly arrived in Taylor’s tent—and becoming a wife in a large white uniform shirt?
Whatever he thought, he could not have been more cheerful or polite.
“Good morning.”
“There’s a meeting this morning
, occurring in the doctor’s tent since your husband wanted to let you sleep.”
Because Taylor wanted to let her sleep? She doubted it. Because no one wanted her around while they discussed Yankee strategy!
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Coffee?”
“I would love some.”
He poured her a cup, and she sipped it. It was the best coffee she had tasted in a very long time. “Sergeant, is my brother involved in the meeting, too?”
“Why, of course. Your brother arrived with despatches and information, Mrs. Douglas.”
“I see.” Information they would assuredly not share with her.
Of course, they were both the enemy—her brother, her husband. It didn’t seem real.
She looked across the camp of army-issue tents, hitching lines for the healthy horses still held by the Union, fires, and men. From a large, extended bleached canvas tent, she suddenly saw a woman hurrying across the grounds. She was young, thin, attractive, and seemed to be coming straight toward them.
“Sergeant,” she said softly. “Who is that?”
“Cecilia Bryer, the doc’s daughter. A fine young lady, at his side throughout this fight!”
“Mrs. Douglas!” the young woman called, hailing her.
Cecilia Bryer was about Tia’s own age, slim, pretty with soft red hair and green eyes. She had a quick smile for Henson, but she looked tired, worn, old for her age, as did most people who involved themselves too deeply in the realities of war.
“Miss Bryer, how do you do,” Tia said carefully.
“Well enough, for myself.” In a no-nonsense manner, the woman offered Tia her hand. “We heard about your arrival, of course. News travels swiftly in a small camp such as this.”
“I arrived unexpectedly.”
“Through great difficulty, I understand. Your husband explained the going was quite rough, that you traveled hard to reach him. Those are my clothes you’re wearing. I understand that your things were terribly muddied and damp.”
“Yes—something like that,” Tia said. “And I’m so sorry, I didn’t know I had your belongings. Thank you, I apologize ...”
“There’s no need. I’m glad to have the luxury of several changes of clothing. I believe we are far better supplied than our Rebel counterparts.”
“We make do,” Tia said quietly.
Cecilia arched a delicate, flyaway brow, as if surprised that a woman in a Union camp who was married to a Union colonel would still align herself with the South.
“Well, my father is glad to help any man.”
“So is my brother,” Tia said quickly. The girl frowned, thinking she was speaking about Ian. “My brother Julian, a Confederate surgeon.”
“Oh, yes, we’ve all heard about Julian—he was spirited into St. Augustine once to help General Magee!”
“Yes.”
“Well.” The girl smiled suddenly. “Whatever your affiliation, Mrs. Douglas, I’m glad that you seem to have a generosity of the soul. There is a young man in our infirmary who is dying—and he is an old friend of yours.”
“Who is it?”
“Canby Jacobs. He said his parents have a little cattle ranch a few miles west of your family home near Tampa.”
“Canby, yes. I went to school with his sister, years ago.”
“Come with me, if you’ll see him.”
“Of course I’ll see him.”
“He said that you may not. That you might consider him a traitor, and not want to have anything to do with him.”
“I will see him gladly.”
“Good. Follow me.”
Tia followed Cecilia Bryer through a number of single soldier’s tents. She saw in the distance that some of the men were going through drills. A few were at leisure about the camp, tending to their laundry, writing at makeshift desks, reading. One lone soldier played a sad lament upon a harmonica, but stopped as they passed him by. “Mornin’, Miss Cecilia,” he said, nodding to them both.
“Good morning, Private Benson,” Cecilia said. Tia noted that he had no left foot.
They continued on to the large hospital tent. There were at least forty, maybe fifty beds in it. Flies buzzed; men groaned. Orderlies and nurses, male and female, moved about, changing bandages, talking to the soldiers, bringing water and what aid they could.
It was not as bad as the battlefield had been. They were not lying strewn about in pools of blood with slashed, missing, and mangled limbs.
But the soldier on the bed to which Cecilia led Tia was in very bad shape. A large, fresh bandage, already beginning to show the color of blood, covered half his torso. The left side of his face was covered with a bandage as well. She wouldn’t have recognized him as Canby Jacobs if Cecilia hadn’t told her his name.
“His lung is mostly shot away,” Cecilia whispered to Tia. “There’s nothing more we can do but keep the wound moist and clean. Take care if you change the bandage again.”
Staring at Canby, Tia nodded. She walked over to the bed. His one good eye was closed. His hand was upon his chest. She clasped it in both her own. His eyes opened. Deep and blue. The visible half of his lip curled into a smile. “Miss Tia, can it be!”
“Canby! Yes, it’s me. It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see me, but I don’t look so good, eh?”
“You’ll get better.”
“No, I’m dying,” he said flatly. “It’s all right. I made my choice. I knew what I was fighting for, and what I’m dying for, and I believe that I was right, and that God will be glad to greet me. I’m awful glad, though, that you agreed to see me. Thought you might not. My folks split up over this, you know. My mother is in Savannah now. Pa died with the Massachusetts Fourth Artillery last spring.”
“Canby, I’m so sorry. I’ll write to your mother.”
“You needn’t write to her, Tia. She said that her son was dead the day I signed up with the Union.”
“She can’t have meant it. No mother—”
“Not all folks were like yours, Miss Tia!” he said, then smiled again. “I always had such a crush on you. Even now, I can see you when your father had his fine parties at Cimarron! Why, you danced and you teased—and you were nice to every fellow there, including ugly poor boys like me!”
“Canby, you were neither ugly nor poor!”
“So you married Colonel Douglas—now that’s mighty fine. He’s a good fellow, Miss Tia. You’ll see that more when the war is over. Reckon, though, I shouldn’t be so surprised that you did come to see me. Your father is one mighty fine man, one I sure do admire. He loves both his sons, no matter what path they chose. Guess he taught you the same.”
“I do love both my brothers.”
“And Colonel Douglas.”
“And my friends, Canby, no matter what side they chose!” she told him. She didn’t want him to see the way she was noting how quickly his bandage was filling with blood. “Canby, I need to change this bandage for you.”
“No, just leave it be.”
But she called to an orderly for a fresh bandage. The limping fellow who glanced her way knew what Canby needed.
As he came over with fresh linen for the wound, Canby said, “Tia, I do need you to write for me—to my wife. I found a right pretty little thing while I was in training camp first of the war, up in D.C. Her name is Darla. Darla Jacobs. And we got us a fine little boy, a real beauty. Can you tell her that I died thinking of her, loving her, and not to grieve too hard or too long, but raise our boy to be a happy child and a good man. Will you tell her ... tell her that I died with faith and courage.”
“Of course, Canby.”
The orderly had arrived with fresh linen. Tia carefully started to remove the old bandage. Her heart seemed to stop in her throat. Half his chest had been blown away; the lung was raw and exposed.
She quickly applied the new, dry bandage.
“Sing to me, Tia. ‘Amazing Grace.’ I remember when you and your ma used to do that at the piano at Cimarron. Your pa would
gaze on you both so proud, and you were just like a pair of nightingales, or Rose Red and Rose White, your ma so blond and you so dark! It was so beautiful, I thought the angels could hear!”
“I’ll sing, Canby. You save your breath.”
“Miss Tia, there ain’t nothing to save it for! I got the one lung left, so might as well speak while I can. Father Raphael is on his way over. Most companies have Episcopal ministers, but here we got lots and lots of Irish fellows. So we’ve got ourselves a Catholic priest!”
“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
“Sing for me. I think the angels will listen to you, Miss Tia, more than a priest.”
She smiled, squeezed his hand, and began to sing, very softly. But as she drew in breath for the second verse, another soldier called out, “Louder, please, miss, for all of us!”
And so she did. And when she had finished the last verse and looked down, Canby was already dead. He had died with a slight curve to his lips, as if he had, indeed, seen the angels coming.
She had seen so many men die. They died the same in Union blue as they did Confederate butternut and gray.
She lowered her head, tears sliding down her cheeks as she held his lifeless hand.
In Dr. Bryer’s private quarters, Ian had spread a number of maps over the camp desk, describing the main situation of the war as he had seen it in the last meeting he had attended in D.C. “As far as the situation here, little has changed. I have often given my opinion—that nothing less than a major thrust against the peninsula will work. The people here are tenacious, and those who would declare for the Union are often too afraid of repercussions if they state themselves Federals. To win a major battle, you would need a major army. The blockades, however, are tightening. Colonel Bryer, you’re to have a few more weeks in the field, then I’m afraid that our captured wounded and missing must be abandoned. You’re to return to St. Augustine, the men will be given light duty there, and then returned to heavier duty with the Army of the Potomac.”
“These men have been through a lot,” Colonel Bryer said. “It was an even battle, and a bloody one, and these men were wounded by swords, cannon fire, bullets, and bayonets, as in any other battle.”
Triumph Page 26
