by Nia Farrell
Edward refilled Daniel’s glass, and he took another drink before continuing. “The next morning, we were still pinned down. The air was filled with the moans of the wounded, the loss of blood peaking their thirst. They prayed for death, pleaded for mercy, begged for water, just a sip, just a drop. When one of the Southrons couldn’t stand it anymore, he came over the wall with canteens slung around his neck and started going from Federal to Federal, lifting heads and helping them drink. We held our fire and let him. As soon as he was safe on the other side of the wall, it was on again. One of ours was shot, a boy whose parents had had to sign their consent for him to fight. I was trying to drag him back when I was hit. I made a tourniquet from two kerchiefs tied together and slowed my bleeding, but it wasn’t until afternoon that I was carried off the field, after Lee agreed to let the fallen be taken.”
“He nearly died,” I said, my throat thick with tears. “He lost so much blood. If it had been warmer, he probably would have.”
“Aye.” Daniel nodded. “That’s the only good thing I can say about fighting in the cold. As it was, they took me back across the river to the grand house that they’d made Union headquarters. There was a woman doctor there, looked at my leg and whispered to not let them take it. She made me promise not to tell anyone what she’d said, but when Lane came and said the same thing, I stuck to it, like it was his idea first.”
I stared at Daniel, who was revealing secrets to Edward that he’d never told me.
“They took out the ball and what pieces of bone they could find, bound me tight in a splint and stuck me in a cupboard. I’d lost so much blood, they didn’t think I’d make it, but I proved them wrong. It took a good two months to mend, then I had to get my strength back. As soon as I was fit enough to leave the Invalid Corps, I returned to our unit. As luck would have it, General Meagher and I made it back the same day, just in time for Chancellorsville.”
“Meagher? Thomas Meagher of the Irish Brigade?” Edward tore his gaze from Daniel and turned to stare at me. “You served with the Irish Brigade.”
“The Fighting 69th,” I said, certain that he’d heard of it, great news reader that he was.
Edward shook his head, trying to conceive it. “God help me, I had no idea.”
“Yes. Well,” I said, looking past him to meet Daniel’s memory-filled eyes. “How I came to fall in with them is a tale in itself. You asked me for stories of war. Tonight I shall tell you another.”
Chapter Thirty
I made him wait until after dinner. We tucked Daniel into bed, half-lost to drink, but at least the pain in his leg had lessened enough to let him sleep. By the start of my tale, he was snoring. Neither of us had the heart to try to shift him and see if that might help. The poor man needed rest.
I settled in, sitting high in the center of Edward’s bed, my back cushioned by the pillow that I had placed against his headboard. My Irishman lay to my right. Edward was stretched out on my other side, facing me, his golden head propped on his hand. I kept my voice low, just loud enough for Edward to hear my broken sentences, wedged between Daniel’s snores. The professor listened with rapt attention to my recitation of the Southern press coverage of the Peninsular Campaign.
“When the fighting came close enough,” I said softly, “I snuck out of Richmond, headed for the Federal lines. It was the Spring of ‘62, just ahead of the Battle of Fair Oaks. I was determined to find a unit and enlist in the Union cause, except the Irish Brigade found me first. Wandering lost in the dark, I inadvertently stumbled into their picket line. I barely missed being shot for a spy. I was placed under arrest, of course, while my story was checked out, having given the name, rank, and unit of my father and the date of his death in the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing, or Shiloh, as the Southrons called it. Deemed the son of a hero, I was offered a place in the company that had captured me. I was one-eighth Irish, and I was Catholic. That alone was good enough for most of them.”
“It was still early in the war,” Edward murmured, not wanting to disturb Daniel any more than was necessary. “The worst was yet to come.”
And come it did. I had no desire to recite the litany of our battles. To do so was a sure invitation to night terrors that yet haunted me, lessening over time but still there, hovering on the edge of my consciousness, waiting to descend when I least expected it. “But we survived, Daniel and I, when so many others did not.”
“Come here,” he hummed, tugging on the hem of the chemise that I’d worn to bed. I wasn’t sure if he’d let me finish my story, had I come to bed au naturel.
He was hard, of course. He was always hard for me, it seemed, and yet tonight, he simply gathered me in the shelter of his arms and held me, unspeaking, letting me feel his desire but, more than that, letting me feel how much he cherished and respected me.
Edward left the next morning before Daniel awoke. Certain that he’d be as hung-over as ever I had seen him, I decided that the hair of the dog was in order. I had a tray brought up with his favorite oatmeal, a rasher of crisp bacon, and Irish coffee, with a cup of willow bark tea added for good measure.
When the smell of bacon didn’t rouse him, I wafted the coffee near his nose, fanning the steam arising from the cup.
One bleary eye cracked open. “Just shoot me,” he croaked.
“And let you get away from me that easily? Think again.”
I lifted the cup to my face and breathed it in. “Mmm. Smells good. Of course, if you don’t want it….” I arched a brow and challenged him.
“Fine,” he groused. “Fine. Here.”
He pushed himself up, wincing as he sat against the headboard. He adjusted the pillow at his back and looked at me expectantly.
“It’s hot,” I warned, handing him the cup.
He took a scalding sip and spit it back in. “Judas,” he swore. “Take it. Maybe by the time I’ve eaten, I can drink it.”
“Well, aren’t you just full of piss and vinegar? Sounds like someone needs to visit the water closet. I expect a better disposition when you’re done, young man.”
He still needed to shave, of course, but he did look a bit more human when he returned. Daniel dove into his oatmeal, polished off the bacon, and finished his coffee, savoring the last sip before he finally swallowed it.
“Stay with me today,” I said. “We’ll find you a chair to use at the site and you can work on a pair of frames for Young Frank and his mother. There’s plenty of room out back to set up a work station. If weather threatens, you could probably make space in the greenhouse. I just think it’s best to keep the sawdust out of the house. When the frames are built, then we’ll bring them inside. You can apply the finish in here, or we’ll find another space with good ventilation when you’re ready.”
Daniel nodded. “What size?”
“Eleven by fourteen.”
“Medium?”
“Sepia ink and watercolor, I think.” It had been a while since I’d done one, but I thought that it would lend itself well. The addition of color would yield a more realistic portrait than a simple sketch. Given their station in life, the simpler, humbler medium seemed more appropriate than oils. I also like the history of sepia ink. Da Vinci had used it in his drawings, as outlines and as a wash.
“What about bird’s eye maple?” he asked. “Finished in a mixed brown and burnt sienna stain?”
We’d worked together long enough, he seemed to know just what my pieces would need. The grain of the wood would provide the detail, rather than fanciful carving, and the slightly ruddy finish would complement the sepia ink image drawn first, before the water colors were added.
I smiled my pleasure. “You’re brilliant. It’s perfect. Just perfect.”
Now it was up to me to compose the portrait. I’d flipped through my file of mental images, rejecting one after another. I wanted the piece to be flattering, of course, but I needed to capture Young Frank’s personality. Most days, he was well-mannered, helpful, gracious, but far too serious for a boy his age. Losing his fathe
r so young had ended his childhood too quickly. I’d caught a glimpse of it the day that he’d been downstairs, petting his mother’s hedgehog.
I had it, then. The light in his eyes. The appreciation on his face. The enjoyment he was experiencing, handling the small animal. I wouldn’t include the hedgehog, of course. But I would recreate his expression, as if he were observing life itself and liking what he saw. His shoulders had been relaxed. His head slightly turned, looking up as he’d sat at the table, contentment in the lines of his face, the spark of pleasure in his youthful gaze. The half smile he crooked at regular intervals was stretched wide, as if poised on the verge of laughter.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
While Daniel rummaged through his tools and the crates of framing materials, I found the paper that I preferred for watercolor, already stretched and mounted on boards. I’d do a pencil sketch first, a study for the finished piece done the same way that I’d carve a smaller version of Achilles, Patroclus, and Briseis. Any corrections or changes would be done in pencil. I might even do a second study, in sepia ink only. Once I was happy with the composition, I would recreate it in unforgiving ink and watercolors that demanded perfection.
I worked on the sketch all morning, mentally translating lines of graphite into brown ink, shades of gray into primaries and pastels, seeing in my head what I would need to do on paper. Daniel fetched me for a lunch that we shared at the dining room table, then it was back to work for both of us.
I quit at five, allowing myself time to clean up before Edward was due home. Daniel sat in the shade behind the house, sanding one of the two frames he’d built. The wood was nicely figured, beautiful even in its bare state. The stain would only enhance it.
“Oh, Daniel. They are lovely. Just lovely. I shall strive to make art worthy of them.”
The situation was a reverse for us. Usually, the artwork came first, then the frame, like a composer who writes lyrics, then surrounds them with music—only this time, Daniel was already playing a tune. I’d need to make a brilliant piece to match it.
Another challenge, one that I eagerly accepted.
Professionally, my main concern was the imminent arrival of Sydney Blevins, the session she would photograph, the study I would carve. I knew myself. I would want to work on it immediately, but there was no timeframe on the study and Young Frank’s two portraits needed to be done before Christmas. Starting the sculpture needs must wait.
Unlike Edward, who had the patience of Job, I had never been particularly good at waiting. I did it begrudgingly, chomping at the bit and pawing the turf, anticipating the time when I could run with whatever it was that was spurring me on. The inner turmoil did nothing to help my stomach, of course. Edward’s discipline and the lesson he’d instilled, to take care of myself, were proving timely indeed.
Edward arrived home, as punctual as ever. With ninety minutes until supper was served, he shepherded us into his study to discuss what would happen tomorrow.
“Sydney will be here in the morning at eight. She wants to see the existing light in the unused rooms—pick one for taking pictures, a second for processing them. The mirrors are coming with her and will go in whatever room she chooses for her studio. She is bringing her darkroom supplies as well, to deliver to the room that Young Frank will shutter, converting it into the space she needs to process her plates and make prints. Essentially, she will set up tomorrow and come back Saturday for our session. She will stay however long it takes to complete her commission. Lucy is preparing the room next to Daniel’s for Sydney and her assistant. Sorry, but you will be sharing the water closet with two females. You are welcome, of course, to use mine or Elena’s. Isn’t that right?”
“Of course,” I said. “Anything of yours that’s in the water closet, you may as well move tonight. There’s plenty of space on my side,” I said, sensitive to Daniel’s discomfiture at the thought of using Edward’s. Daniel was getting there, but he was not there yet.
Edward nodded. “Right, then. All that is left is the shaving. Daniel, you do remember that she will need us denuded? All of us, including herself?”
A pink flush crept into my Irishman’s cheeks. “Aye.”
“Tomorrow night, then. After supper. A shaving party. I am certain that Elena shall receive an inordinate amount of satisfaction from taking the razor to us both. But then it will be our turn, won’t it, Daniel?”
I could have melted, then and there, envisioning what was to come, an evening that promised to be decadent, hedonistic, and hopefully liberating, with inhibitions shed one razor stroke at a time. But would it be enough? By the time it was my turn, would Daniel be ready, or would he make us wait? I truly did not know.
He was coming along, as Edward said, but he was still farther than where we needed him to be.
“Edward?” I drew out his name.
He looked at me, curious, hearing in my voice what I wished him to.
“Tomorrow night. Sydney will have her studio set up. The mirrors in place. Could you see that a chaise longue is set in the middle of them for us? We’ll have to make certain that it’s removed before she comes on Saturday, but I want to use it Friday night. The shaving. I need to see.”
More images to commit to memory, to store, to reexamine, to treasure. Perhaps even commit to paper at some future point in time. Hmm.
Edward’s eyes, like mine, were alive with possibilities. Daniel’s had darkened to a shade of green that I had not seen before.
“Yes. Of course,” Edward hummed, his voice resonating with mine. “The red?”
The one we’d used a number of times because of its perfect configuration.
“The red. And a table to serve as a washstand, please. Short enough for easy reach and large enough to hold a pitcher and basin, a shaving kit, towels—whatever else you think that we’ll need, please?”
Yes, let him think about that while he’s trying to lecture tomorrow.
Once the idea was unleashed, it seemed the three of us must follow it. Dinner conversation was more thought than word, looks laden with open languor and hidden longing. Poor Daniel had no idea how much Edward desired to possess him, or how much I wanted to be there when he did.
The allure of forbidden fruit was there, hanging between us, ready to be plucked. It remained just out of reach when Daniel came to my bed. Edward stood in the doorway and watched us make love, keeping his hands on his drink and away from his arousal. I could almost see his mind at work. He was giving Daniel tonight and biding his time until tomorrow when God only knew what would happen. Shaving, for certain. Sexual congress between us, nearly guaranteed. Just the thoughts of what might come next triggered the orgasm that had been building for hours. I hissed, breath sloughing between clenched teeth as my sheath clamped tight and spasmed, rippling along Daniel’s length.
Encouraged by my grip on the perfect curves of his buttocks, Daniel shifted his position and started driving into me. Shifted again, hooking one knee over his arm to drive in deeper. Shifted again, catching the other knee and spreading me wide for a serious pounding. By the time we finished, my insides were fucked raw, my ankles were over his shoulders, and my front was festooned with his cream.
Daniel winced as he dismounted. He started to roll away, headed for towels to clean up.
“Stay,” I ordered, snagging his forearm before he could get away. “Lie still and do not move.”
I swung my head toward the doorway, where Edward stood watching. “I’m afraid my hospitality is lacking. Edward, might I trouble you for some whiskey, please? Three fingers should do.”
To start.
He brought the bottle, set it on the bedside table within Daniel’s reach, and handed him a tumbler half-filled with liquid gold. I was still musing how to move without ruining the sheets when Edward disappeared into my water closet. He returned with a stack of towels and a warm, damp sponge.
“Thank you,” I said. “Truly.” I bit my lip, hesitant to say more. If Edward had wanted to join us, he would have. If he’
d wanted to be next, he would most certainly be in my bed, not standing beside it.
“Do you need anything else?” he asked, keeping his promise to take care of me, even in this.
I glanced at Daniel, who shook his head. “No. No. We’re fine, thank you. Well, then. Good night to you, Sir.”
The honorific made Edward stand a little straighter. “Good night, Elena,” he rumbled. “Daniel.”
When he kissed my forehead in parting, I was relieved to feel his smile.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sydney Blevins arrived precisely at the appointed hour. She reminded me of Dr. Walker, the female physician who had tended Daniel after his wounding at Fredericksburg. Sydney (she insisted, rather than Miss Blevins) was more Edward’s age, petite, with nondescript brown hair, brown eyes, and a mouth that never stopped moving, whether it was to ask questions, remark upon the space or the light or the nearest source of water, or address her assistant, the formidable Mary Margaret Mann, who was closely built like one—a six feet tall, broad-shouldered, blonde haired, blue eyed Amazon who grunted more than she spoke.
Either one looked like they could eat Daniel alive. Together, they were far too intimidating. I sent my Irishman away, with orders to work on staining his frames.
Sydney wasted no time choosing the two rooms she would use: one for our session, the adjacent one for her laboratory, where the glass plates would be prepared, taken to the camera for exposure, then brought back and developed—a process that necessitated a portable darkroom and the use of a capable assistant. The plates had to be developed while still wet. The process, from beginning to end, was a mere fifteen minutes or so. Take too long, and the plate would be ruined.
