Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia

by Jessica James

  “Damn this leg,” Andrea said under her breath. “Oh, sorry for my language. Please pardon me.”

  Pierce smiled and let her go. “No harm done. The old riding injury acting up, I suppose.”

  Andrea had continued walking again and looked back over her shoulder, her brow drawn in confusion. “Riding injury?” Then she laughed softly as if remembering a joke, and continued walking. “Oh, yes, the riding injury.”

  Pierce touched her arm. “It was not?”

  Andrea stopped and turned, then smiled awkwardly. “Yes, of course it was.”

  “I don’t believe you now,” he said, studying her face. “You wouldn’t lie to an old friend.”

  “Very well. If you insist on knowing, I was a guest at Libby,” she said indifferently, as if speaking of a prestigious hotel. “And was not one of the warden’s most desired inmates, I dare say.” She grasped his arm for support and started walking again. “But I did not ask for your company to speak of the war.”

  Pierce followed and reluctantly pressed her no more. But in his mind he tried to put together pieces of the impenetrable mystery of her past, the details of which she would never reveal and whose secrets were most likely known only by her husband, whose lips were sealed in death.

  “Look at all these beautiful flowers!” Andrea pointed toward a small patch of wildflowers. “Let’s pick a bouquet for Charlene and Alex … for the memorial, I mean.” Andrea did not wait for an answer but began plucking the colorful blooms.

  “You have such a lovely family,” Andrea said, not noticing Pierce as he watched her intently. “I must tell you Captain, it seems ironic that you always had a way with women—and now you have a house full of them.” She laughed and then looked up at his unsmiling face. “I’m sorry,” she said, straightening back up. “I meant, Mr. Pierce. I mean, Will.”

  Pierce continued gazing at her with a thoughtful stare as she went back to picking wildflowers. “You made quite a sensation today,” he said at last. “Doubtless, captured the attention and admiration of more than one heart.”

  Andrea did not seem to understand, or chose to ignore, his meaning. Yet she seemed to sense Pierce staring at her and straightened back up. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Well, um, you consider me a friend do you not?

  “’Of course,” she said. “There are no greater friends than foes who have served honorably.”

  “Then may I ask you something?”

  Andrea shrugged. “Certainly.”

  “I have been asked,” Pierce began, taking a step toward her, “that is to say, I’ve had some inquiries.” He cleared his throat. “From some of the unwed men in the Command, good men all, wishing to know your status. Well, not status exactly—perhaps your position… Yes, your position on suitors, on whether you would receive them. And knowing that I know you as I do, they asked me to, um, ask as to whether or not, well, I guess, that is, they would like to know if you would be, you know, open to such a… possibility.”

  Andrea appeared to think he was joking at first, but then by the tone of his voice and his stammering, determined he was not. She cocked her head and looked up into his eyes, her brow creased in obvious confusion. “But why? They know I am married.”

  Pierce studied her face, unblinking. “He’s dead, Andrea.” His eyes never left hers.

  Andrea did not respond other than to push past him and try to get away. He caught her by the hand and whirled her back around to face him, holding her by the arms firmly so she could not get away.

  “How dare they send you to me!” she spat. “How dare you think I would betray my husband! Take another man’s name! You are deluded, or you are insane, or you are bloody well drunk!”

  Pierce shook her gently and said it again. “He’s dead, Andrea! Fifteen years for heavens sake! There are other men out there … good men who would take care of you, cherish you.”

  “I need no one to take care of me!” Andrea began to struggle. When she found she could not possibly free herself from his powerful grasp she pounded on his chest with her fists, the flowers falling in a crushed clump from her hands. “I want no one else! Let me go!”

  Pierce held on, closing his eyes against her relentless fury as she pummeled and kicked and struggled against him like a wild animal caught in a trap. Finally, out of pure exhaustion, she sank against his chest, sobbing and trembling, years of grief spilling from her soul. “My love is not dead,” she cried into his chest, pouring out her sorrow for the first time. “Our love did not die!”

  “Dear Andrea,” Pierce said, wrapping her in his arms and gently stroking her hair. “Would that I could take your grief away and make it my own.”

  Andrea sobbed some more and he could feel her warm tears soaking through his shirt, could feel that she was tormented beyond the power of words with the anguish of years of loneliness and heart-breaking sorrow. “I miss him,” she said softly between sobs. “He was my life!”

  “Of course you miss him,” Pierce said soothingly. “But you are too young to bury your heart in a grave. He would not ask it of you. He did not expect you to be cloistered away at Hawthorne for the rest of your life.”

  “He’s waiting for me. You do not understand!”

  The despair in her voice made his bones ache. “Andrea, please reconsider. You have mourned long enough. It is time to rejoin the living. They know you will never love them as you loved him. They accept that.”

  Andrea uttered not a sound other than to continue to weep softly, but Pierce felt her arms wrap more tightly around him, as if she needed his strength to overcome the misery that had been locked in her heart for the past fifteen years. He tightened his embrace, hoping to relieve her suffering and the terrible anguish of her yearning. “Andrea, have you forgotten what it is like to have a man’s arms around you?” he whispered trying to console her, knowing within the circle of his arms was a young, vibrant woman who had not been held by a man for a decade and a half.

  Again she did not answer, but she did not resist. Pierce continued talking, knowing her depth of pain was too deep for words. He ran his hand down the length of golden hair that had fallen in her struggle and blinked at its softness.

  “You are but a woman, Andrea. You deserve to be taken care of, to be treated like a woman.” Pierce’s voice cracked and he closed his eyes, slightly unnerved by his own reaction to the words. This is not what he had planned when he told the men he would ask her if she would receive them. He felt her fingers dig into his back as she clenched a fistful of his shirt.

  “But, Will, you do not understand,” she murmured into his chest. “No one understands.”

  Pierce suppressed a shiver at the sound of his name on her lips and took another deep breath, wondering why it seemed like he could not get enough air into his lungs and where the heat was coming from that was beginning to surge through his veins. His cheek rested on the top of her head and the smell of lavender in her hair caused his knees to suddenly feel weak. Perhaps he had indeed drunk too much ale earlier, for the feeling of her breath coming fast and hard against his chest, her soft body pressed firmly against his, was beginning to blur his senses.

  “The spark that was within you,” he said in an unsteady voice, “is still there. It can flame again at the hands of the right man.” Now both her hands were fisted tightly within the folds of his shirt as she clung to him in desperate anguish. He could feel her heart fluttering against his chest, could feel each beat, and it possessed an intensity and a tempo that almost exceeded his own.

  “After all these years,” he whispered soothingly, “you must long for affection, yearn for strong arms to hold you. You cannot help but crave a man’s touch.”

  Pierce felt her swallow hard against him, thought he even heard a whimper—but he could have imagined it, or expected it … or wished it. He allowed one hand to slide down to the small of her back, and wondered at the slightness of the form that carried within it so much vitality and strength. Suddenly there was a passionate temptation wi
thin him, the likes of which had not crossed his mind since he had taken his own vows. “Dear Andrea. I understand why you fight it so.” He lowered his head to speak softly into her ear. “You fear you will enjoy it.”

  Pierce felt her take a deep tremulous breath and shiver, and she wrapped her arms more completely around him. Her hands seemed to reflexively open then, fingers spread, lying flat upon his back, the way a woman holds a man. The searing heat within them caused his skin to tingle through the shirt she had been clutching. He wondered if she knew who she was holding anymore, or if she was merely clutching a memory, for her embrace felt suddenly more passionate than it had before.

  Pierce shut his eyes when the hands closed again in seeming desperation, this time her fingers digging into flesh, in an apparent effort to feel the man rather than the shirt. He took a deep sucking breath, realized he must have been holding it for quite some time, and let it out slowly as he tried to control the sensations that overpowered him. She too was having trouble breathing, for he could feel her chest rising and falling more rapidly against his own, her warm breath feeling more like a flame-throwing torch against his skin than the exhalation of air. Every nerve in his body strained to its limit as wild images flashed through his mind. For so great was the heat between them, he feared if one of them moved, a spark would ignite and surely they would both go up in flames.

  For a few more moments Pierce remained breathlessly quiet—in fact breathless—as he acknowledged that he was intimately wrapped in another woman’s arms. He could recall no act in four years of war that required more strength or stamina than the battle in which he found himself engaged, fighting with every ounce of his manhood not to yield to his impulses.

  Finally, he felt her start to relax into him, succumbing to her emotions he surmised, surrendering to his touch, at last realizing how desperately she needed a man. Her hands slid down his back and she released her tight hold around him. Pierce winced, for his skin flamed where her fingers created a trail of heat down his spine. He exhaled long and deep, a sigh of extreme satisfaction and contentment, pleased with himself for the restraint he had shown—and delighted that her unconquerable spirit had bowed to his. Even after fourteen years of marriage he had not lost his touch. He loosened his grip around her. The men would be pleased with what he had accomplished on their behalf. He had done his duty well!

  It was not until Andrea had pushed away and brought her heel crashing down onto the top of his foot, and then her toe into his shin, that he realized her aforementioned actions were but a maneuver—a feint as they called it in the cavalry—to get him to let down his guard and relax his own grip so she could make her escape.

  “Tell them, no! I can take care of m-y-y-self!” she cried, as she picked up her skirts and ran away toward the woods. She looked back only once—and then with an expression that would haunt Pierce for the rest of his life. For he could recall no other look, in dream or in life, that so fully expressed despair and sorrow.

  * * *

  “Mother.” Daniel watched his mother’s eyes open slowly. “Mother,” he said again.

  “Yes, dear?” She turned her head toward him but her eyes appeared unfocused.

  “I believe you were dreaming, Mother,” he said, “about the memorial.”

  Her eyes met his, then drifted over to his wife, Ellie, standing beside him.

  “Yes,” she smiled weakly. “I guess it’s the fever. Funny, I remembered every moment of it.” She struggled to take a breath. “That was where you and Ellie met. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, we remember,” Daniel said smiling at his wife. “But that was ten years ago, Mother.”

  Her eyes closed again as if trying to remember something or account for the time lost. “Yes, I suppose it was,” she said. “Where is Alexandria?”

  “I’m right here Nana.” The little girl stood on tiptoe, poking her nose over the side of the bed between her parents.

  “Well, come up here and talk to me.” Andrea patted the covers.

  Daniel helped his green-eyed bundle of energy up. “Why are you in bed so early, Nana?” Alexandria asked. “In the morning, won’t you take me for a ride? You’re the only one that takes me fast!”

  “I told you, Alexandria,” Daniel said. “Nana is not feeling well.”

  “Maybe I can make you feel better.” Alexandria laid her head upon her grandmother’s heaving chest and Andrea wrapped her arms around the child. But the little girl did not stay quiet long. She reached for the locket around Andrea’s neck and opened it. “There’s the Kulnel,” she said, staring at the faded image of Alex in uniform and speaking as if she knew him well. “My grandpapa.”

  Daniel looked at the wistful smile on his mother’s face and knew she was thinking the same thing as he. This child would have had her grandfather wrapped tightly around her little finger.

  Alexandria closed the locket and replaced her head on Andrea’s chest. “I wish he was here.”

  “He’s very close, dear,” Andrea said. “He’s waiting for me.”

  Alexandria sat up. “Can I see him?”

  “Yes, some day. But for now, you must be a good girl for your mother and father.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Alexandria glanced at her father. “I am being a good girl, right, Papa?”

  “Yes, you are being good today.”

  Andrea must have noticed the tone of her son’s voice. “I fear she has inherited more of my traits than you would care her to have.”

  “Grandpa Pierce says I’m just like you,” Alexandria said proudly. “He said when you were young, you were as fearless and stubborn as a Yankee—”

  “Alexandria!” Her mother and father yelled in unison, trying to stop her.

  “—mule,” she finished.

  Andrea’s eyes lifted to her daughter-in-law. “Your father would surely know,” she smiled. “Your parents are well?”

  Ellie nodded. “Yes, ma’am.

  “You will tell them I was thinking of them today, won’t you?”

  Ellie gazed at Daniel with look of confusion. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mother, don’t talk like this. I believe you are getting stronger every minute.” Daniel only hoped his voice did not betray him, because she looked weary and weak. Her eyes were sunken and glassy, her lips pale, and each breath seemed to be a struggle.

  “I’m very tired today.” Andrea took a raspy breath. “Ellie, you will take good care of my son.”

  Ellie looked at her husband with an expression of sadness and fear, her mother-in-law’s words causing the former—the commanding tone of her voice the latter. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Daniel cleared his throat and pulled his wife away from the bed. “Will you send for the doctor?” he whispered, his voice filled with concern.

  Ellie nodded. “Come with me Alexandria.” She backed out of the room on her errand, her eyes never leaving her mother-in-law until she was out the door.

  “Son, will give you this to Ellie?” Andrea removed the Hawthorne medallion from her neck. “She is a part of Hawthorne now.”

  Daniel sat down on the edge of the bed. “Mother, please don’t—”

  “And this,” she continued, ignoring him. “I would like Alexandria to have this to remember her grandfather—always.” Andrea likewise handed him the locket that had not left its place next to her heart since the day her husband had been laid to rest beneath Virginia soil. Then, without hesitating a moment, she slipped Daniel’s ring from her finger, though her eyes were now closed from the effort. “Here, son. Your Uncle Daniel would be honored for his namesake to have this.”

  Daniel reluctantly took the ring and watched his mother’s fingers move to her left hand. “Bury me with this one,” she said weakly of her wedding band. “He put it on. I don’t want it taken off.”

  “Oh, Mother, please don’t talk like this,” Daniel sobbed, taking her hand in both of his. “Please don’t! I don’t wish you to leave!”

  Andrea’s eyes were open now and staring at the flick
ering shadows created on the ceiling by the gas lamp beside her bed. “He has been waiting long enough.” Her voice was filled with impatience.

  Daniel took a deep breath and spoke softly, placing his hand on her shoulder. “You mean, you have been waiting long enough.”

  Andrea turned her head slowly to meet the eyes of her son. “You understand, don’t you, dear?”

  “I know you have not the will to go on.” His eyes were moist with tears as he bent down and kissed his mother’s cheek. “But, you have always been here for me, so strong, I do not know how—”

  “My dear Daniel.” Andrea reached up and gently stroked his face like she did when he was a child. “You have a family of your own now. You do not need me.”

  “Do not say that, mother,” he pleaded. “That does not mean I do not need you!”

  “I will still be with you,” she comforted him. “In the hills and the sky of Virginia.”

  “Are you sure you will see him?” Daniel asked worriedly.

  Andrea smiled peacefully, her eyes closed again. “Yes, I can see the stream.”

  “And Father is there?”

  She nodded.

  “But you always dream of that. Yet, he is always on the other side, and you can never cross.”

  “But tonight,” Andrea said, a smile beginning to light up her face, “tonight there is a bridge.”

  Daniel held her hand and watched her take a deep struggling breath. “It is as I always told you, my son. Eternal love is stronger than—”

  Opening her eyes again, Andrea turned her head to look him in the eye. Daniel waited breathlessly for her to finish her sentence, but her gaze shifted to somewhere over his shoulder, and her eyes began to dance and blaze with a sparkling look of vitality. Her lips turned upward into a joyful grin that was both shy and radiant, while her entire countenance changed from sickly and frail to beaming and blissful. Cheeks that had been sallow, bloomed with an adoring blush, and she literally glowed with a light so bright that Daniel turned to see from where the illumination was coming.