1862

by Robert Conroy

  “I will miss you.”

  “And I you.”

  Rebecca took a deep breath and looked puzzled. “I feel a little light-headed. The champagne must be stronger than I thought.”

  Valerie smiled. It wasn't the champagne; it was what she had added to it. “Are you warm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then lie down on the bed and let me tend to you.” Rebecca lay down on the larger of the two beds while Valerie walked over to the dresser and poured a pitcher of water into a bowl. She dipped a cloth in it and wrung it out. Then she placed it on Rebecca's forehead.

  “Feel cooler?”

  “Yes, but I still feel like I'm drifting away. It's very strange. It's as if I'm conscious but not in control.”

  “The heat has been terrible. Here, let me help you.”

  Without waiting for a response, Valerie untied Rebecca's robe and guided her out of it. Then she removed her own. Again, she compared herself to Rebecca. Where Valerie was soft and rounded, Rebecca was slender, almost boyishly lean and with much-better-defined muscles, particularly in her thighs and calves. It came, she supposed, from Rebecca's habit of going for long walks that were more hikes and forced marches than gentle strolls. Thank God the fuller-figured woman appealed to most men. Valerie hated exercise like the plague.

  “You're just too warm.”

  Valerie took the cold, damp cloth and guided it across Rebecca's naked body, pausing to touch her breasts and thighs.

  “Do you like this?” Valerie whispered. She knew her answer. Rebecca was breathing deeply, and her nipples had stiffened. “Then you will like this even better.”

  Valerie dipped her hand in the water and let her cool fingers dance across Rebecca's body, pausing briefly at the burn scar on her neck and shoulder. Then she caressed Rebecca's breasts with one hand while, with the other, she slowly and gently began to explore the suddenly moist softness between Rebecca's thighs.

  “Oh, God,” Rebecca moaned. It was nothing she had ever felt before. Her own body was glowing with a radiant and glorious heat. It shouldn't be happening and she knew she should stop it but she was unable to make her body move. It was as if she were paralyzed. She could only lie there and receive the pleasure that came on her in increasing waves.

  “Are you happy?” Valerie asked gently.

  “Oh God, yes,” groaned Rebecca in a slurred voice. Now even her tongue had betrayed her.

  “Then let me make you even happier.” Valerie lowered her lips over Rebecca's breasts and began to kiss her erect nipples while she continued to caress the other woman's thighs. Within a couple of moments, Rebecca gasped and spasmed, involuntarily clamping Valerie's hand with her thighs. Valerie smiled. Rebecca had just had her first climax.

  “Did you like that, little Rebecca?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca managed to gasp. Her own voice sounded strange, distant. Valerie still caressed her inner thighs. “That was wonderful.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want it to be even better?”

  “Yes. No. It couldn't be. Yes.”

  Valerie slowly moved her face down Rebecca's belly, gently licking at her slightly sweaty skin. When she reached Rebecca's thighs, she replaced her fingers with her softly probing tongue.

  Rebecca groaned, then arched her back upwards while she tried to hold on to Valerie's head with her barely responding legs. In a couple of minutes, Rebecca had had her second orgasm. A little while later, it was followed by her third, after which Valerie allowed her to sleep.

  The two women sat across from each other and nibbled at their breakfasts. Both were fully dressed.

  “You used me.” Rebecca said.

  “I admit it.”

  “What was in the champagne?”

  “A mild narcotic. A derivative of laudanum. It did a marvelous job of breaking down your inhibitions, didn't it?”

  “What you did to me was despicable. The drug paralyzed me and made me helpless.”

  Valerie arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying you didn't like it, received no pleasure from me?”

  Rebecca flushed. “Of course I did. I couldn't possibly deny it, could I? I heard myself groaning and I know what pleasures I felt. I was just so helpless to stop it. You controlled me like I was a toy, not a human being.” It had sometimes felt like she was floating above herself, or, at other moments, as if she was a bug impaled on a pin. However, she had felt exquisite pleasure, not agony. “I knew everything that was happening but was totally unable to do anything about it. But what I find most discomforting was that you never told me what you were going to do. It was a sexual ambush, wasn't it?”

  “Correct again. But I couldn't give you a warning. If I had, you'd have said no, wouldn't you?”

  “Probably.”

  Valerie laughed. “No, not probably, definitely. But now you know what your body is like and what you can do with it. As I once told you, I was taught such matters at a much earlier age, but one is never too old to learn. I can leave for France with the knowledge that you are finally a woman.”

  “You used me,” Rebecca said. “Betrayed my trust.”

  “Correct.”

  “Why?”

  Valerie smiled. “How else could I have done it? Could I have brought in a strange man to service you? Or perhaps I could have sent you to bed with Mr. Hunter and hovered over you and given instructions. No, any suggestion of mine would have been overruled by you. As it is, what happened was beyond your control, which makes you blameless. Educated, but without taint.”

  Despite her anger, Rebecca saw the twisted logic. “We can never be friends again.”

  “Is that your wish?”

  “It is,” Rebecca said firmly.

  Valerie shrugged. “So be it. I have no regrets, and, when you've had time to think on it, neither will you.”

  Later, as Rebecca's carriage and driver took her home, Rebecca reflected on what truly had occurred. Valerie D'Estaing was as depraved and as amoral as anyone could be. What was truly astonishing was that Valerie saw absolutely nothing wrong in what she had done and had absolutely no regrets.

  Rebecca had no desire to ever again have such an encounter with another woman. Had she not been under the influence of Valerie's narcotic, she would likely be feeling enormous guilt. As it was, she could examine what had occurred with a degree of objectivity and with only a minimal amount of shame.

  Valerie was correct in one area. Rebecca's knowledge of her own body had grown from virtually nothing to great substance. She reiterated to herself that she would never permit a woman to touch her. However, a man would be different, and if Tom had been a proper husband, she would already be aware of that difference.

  Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to imagine Nathan Hunter caressing her and using both his lips and his tongue on her. It was an astonishingly pleasant thought, and she found herself growing even warmer than the summer day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brigadier General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne sat on the edge of his cot in his tent and wondered just what had caused the world to fall in on him so suddenly and so totally. A couple of days ago he was the darling of the Confederate army; now he was a virtual prisoner.

  Cleburne's unit was one of the few to have emerged from the battle of Shiloh with its reputation enhanced. His rise in the Confederate army had been meteoric. He had begun the war as a private and now was a highly regarded general. His intelligence: bravery: charm: and personal experience in the British army had stood him in good stead. He had commanded a division, and was told he would soon get a corps. He was a man whose star was rising rapidly.

  But that was then and this was now, and there was a guard at the flap of the tent with orders to shoot Cleburne should he attempt to leave.

  How had this happened? Cleburne was an immigrant from Ireland who had worked hard and finally made good as an attorney and a military man. He enjoyed the fighting and his men seemed to love following him into combat. Why not? He was a
winner and the winners not only had the glory but, generally, fewer casualties. And now he was under arrest at the order of General Braxton Bragg and charges of treason were likely to be levied against him.

  “Damn Bragg,'^: Cleburne muttered. He was not the first man to utter such a curse. Braxton Bragg now commanded the renamed Army of Tennessee and was heartily disliked by virtually all under his command. Bragg's prickly temper and ability to find insult where none existed or was intended was making him the source of ridicule, a fact that made matters worse. Virtually none of Bragg's general officers had any respect for him, which was causing the morale of the Army of Tennessee to deteriorate rapidly.

  “And damn Flynn,” Cleburne again muttered. His assessment was correct. Cleburne was under arrest for consorting with a known Irish radical who supported the Union, one Attila Flynn. Two of Cleburne's sergeants, fellow Irish immigrants Red Coughlin and Gus O'Hara, had seen Attila Flynn come and leave and, having recognized him, had run to Bragg's headquarters with the information that General Cleburne was consorting with the enemy. Worse, there was the strong possibility that the charge would stick since it had the virtue of being true. Cleburne cursed himself for not having arrested Flynn instead of talking with him. But no, he had honored the implicit truce and this was his reward.

  “Penny for your thoughts, Patrick.” Attila Flynn stood in the entrance to the tent.

  Cleburne did not rise, although his anger did. “For some reason I expected you, and I do not want a penny for my thoughts, as it would be a bad penny coming from you.”

  Flynn sat on a camp stool across from Cleburne. They were so close in the small tent that their knees almost touched. “But I've done you a favor, lad. Now you know what their mighty Confederate lordships think of you and what your real future is with them. They don't like or trust you, Patrick. You're Irish, and they don't like the Irish. I've heard that some think you're a Catholic despite your professed Anglicanism.”

  Cleburne almost complained about the injustice of it. But Flynn was fairly correct. Cleburne was an Irishman and an immigrant and, while Anglican instead of Catholic, was looked upon as being almost Catholic in a land where Catholics were far from universally loved. At times he'd thought that he'd become an Anglican because it was the closest one could get to Catholicism and still be a Protestant.

  “After all was said and done. Patrick, it was the Negro thing that brought you to the attention of Braxton Bragg and Jefferson Davis. Without the Negro thing you might have gotten away with meeting with me. But with it, your goose is cooked.”

  Cleburne had always been against slavery and. as the war had dragged on without any signs of a future letup, he had authored a report that suggested that an army of Southern colored troops be formed to protect the Confederacy. His report was logical and concise. The Southern white man was outnumbered by the Northern white, and the North was already arming Negroes for service against the South, which would further improve the North's dominance in manpower. Cleburne simply wished to augment Southern manpower by utilizing “loyal” Negroes in the military. His suggestions had gone to Bragg, who had forwarded them to Jefferson Davis.

  As a foreigner, Cleburne was not fully aware of the depth of fear felt by Southern whites towards their Negroes. Arming them was and would always remain an impossibility, and, for suggesting it, Patrick Cleburne had been severely chastised by Bragg. Admittedly, he had not comprehended just how anyone held in bondage could be “loyal” to his keeper. As a result, Cleburne had become an untrustworthy pariah to the government at Richmond. The incident with Flynn had merely provided Bragg with the excuse needed to remove him.

  “No man should be a slave,” Cleburne said angrily. “If the South is so outnumbered, she should free her slaves and have them protect her from the North. That would guarantee their loyalty.”

  Flynn shook his head. For such a clever and intelligent man, in some ways Cleburne was so naive. What slave would fight for his master? Or for his ex-master? Or for someone who had flogged him or sold his family? When the war ended so, too, would any need for their freedom. They would be returned to bondage. “So now what will you do?”

  “Hang and be damned to them all.”

  “Would you like to escape and go north?”

  “I cannot fight for the Union.”

  “Would you fight for Ireland?”

  Cleburne paused. He was intrigued. “How?”

  “Tonight you leave here with me. When you've gone: some others may follow, particularly when they find out what you can offer them.”

  “And that is?”

  “A chance to form an Irish army and strike at England in Canada. Patrick, I promise you that neither you nor any other Irishman who comes over will ever have to fight against the Confederacy.”

  Cleburne could not hide the fact that he was interested. If what Flynn said came to pass, he could lead an army again, and possibly a larger one then he^’ d had before his arrest. Better, they'd all be Irishmen fighting England.

  “There's no longer any place here for me in the South, is there?” Cleburne asked with a wry smile. “Might you have an idea where I'll live when this is all over?”

  “Not one thought, lad. You'd be too Northern to ever return to Arkansas, and maybe too Southern to live in the North. However, you would still be alive and not hanged, which is what Bragg wishes to do.”

  It was a good and compelling point. Then a thought struck Cleburne. “Flynn, what happened to the guard stationed outside my tent?”

  “Let’s just say he's not guarding much right now. Hopefully he'llbe up and about in a few days when the lump on his noggin heals. Now, if you're willing, let's get the hell out of here before anybody notices.”

  Lord Cardigan was livid. He was not used to being scolded, and the lecture he'd received from the governor of Canada, Viscount Monck, had infuriated him.

  What was worse. Viscount Monck was entirely justified in his anger. While Cardigan had assumed almost dictatorial powers as military commander, he had largely left the civil administration of the Province of Canada in the very capable hands of Viscount Monck. That the governor had many friends back in London was another reason for Cardigan to pay attention to the man.

  “General, the fact that Americans have crossed onto Canadian soil is extremely upsetting to the loyal population of Canada, and that means just about everyone. My office is being bombarded with multitudes of sincere entreaties every day. I must know what you intend to do about it.”

  Cardigan glared at him. “I will be the first to admit that the Americans surprised me by invading at Windsor. After that, the logic behind their move puzzles me. They are more than two hundred miles from Toronto as the crow flies, and I'm assured that the real distance they must travel is in excess of that. Therefore their move baffles me. It will take a major effort to march an army from Windsor to Toronto.”

  “Not that much of an effort,” Monck responded. 'You are new here, so I'll forgive you your lack of knowledge of the area. A road called Dundas Street runs almost directly from Windsor to Hamilton, where it follows the lake to Toronto. It is a decent road, and there are no geographic problems that will delay the Union horde. I would also remind you that a railroad parallels Dundas Street and I presume that that, too, is still in excellent condition.”

  Cardigan winced. “We have damaged the rail as best we can, but the Americans are even better at repairing it. They have indeed begun advancing, and there isn't much we can or will do about it until they draw closer to my army.”

  Monck glared. “Which means you will be surrendering the richest and most heavily populated part of Canada to invaders from the United States.”

  “Temporarily, I assure you. Whether we like them or not, Viscount Monck, I have my orders. I must defend Toronto and the Niagara peninsula, which means that I may not send my army too far afield to fight the Americans. I will not assist the militia mob that is forming near London, and I will not split my army to defend that city.” Cardigan chuckled a
s he thought he saw humor in the situation. “If it were the London on the Thames in England, I might feel different. However, this is the London on the Thames in Canada, which is far less important.”

  “Except to the people who live there,” Monck snarled. “My London is approximately halfway between Windsor and Toronto. If the English government is going to hope to retain the loyalty of Canada's people, your army must do something more than just sit here on its arse. I have always pressed for more of a military presence in Canada to help keep the rapacious Americans at bay. What will you do if the Americans advance and then stop? What will you do if they choose not to attack where you wish, but, instead, are simply content with conquering the breadbasket of Canada?”

  Cardigan sighed. Of course the man was right. But what was he to do? If he sent his army west towards London, then he'd run the risk of it being in the wrong place should the Americans thrust north with another force at Niagara. Damn this Grant. The Union army was indeed a couple hundred miles away, but after spending several days crossing the river and consolidating its base, it had begun to move east down Dundas Street, just like Monck had said.

  Cardigan was determined not to leave Hamilton until and unless he was reasonably assured of victory over the Americans. There was too much to risk. If he was not careful, he could lose Canada in an afternoon. Palmerston had made that simple fact plainly obvious to him.

  “Would a token suffice?” Cardigan asked. “Who commands this mob you have gathering at London?”

  “A journalist named D'Arcy McGee.”

  “God help us,” Cardigan said. “May I safely presume that McGee knows nothing about forming an army?”

  “You may presume that he knows far less than nothing.”

  “Then I will send him a general. I will send him no less than the recently promoted hero of the New York attack, Brigadier General Garnet Wolsey. Will that suffice?”

  “Of course not but if you won't send an army with General Wolsey: then it'll have to do. However, I doubt that the Canadian militia will obey him. McGee has formed this army, and he is hot tempered enough to throw out someone who tries to usurp his command.”