A Corner of Heaven

by Raine Cantrell

  Elizabeth was shaking. But she returned his caress, finding the tiny hard point of his nipple and rubbing it between her fingers. Wavering candlelight gilded his flesh, and she threaded her fingers into the soft hair on his chest, his hoarse groan another sensation that shivered through her.

  “I want you, little fox. But if you’re going to refuse me, say so now.” His eyes targeted hers, and he wondered at his own sanity for giving her a choice.

  “Colter, I—”

  “Only one word, love, that’s all you have to say.”

  “Why? Why are—”

  “Wrong word.”

  She searched his face and met his gaze with a feeling of being cornered that she knew he could see by the cynical smile on his lips.

  “Tell me why you’re doing this.”

  Desperation underscored each word. Colter heard and understood, even as he cursed himself. “I want you with a hunger that eats at me. But I won’t take. I won’t be accused of seducing you. I told you I came to steal your laughter, but I can’t touch you without passion flaring up between us.” She closed her eyes, and anger found its home. “Look at me, Elizabeth. I won’t let you deny it any longer.” And when she refused to respond, he taunted her. “If you won’t look at me, then look at yourself. See if your body can lie to you. Mine can’t.”

  With an abrupt move he grabbed her arm and pulled her close. Taking her wrist in one hand, he used the other to uncurl her tense fingers, his leashed strength overcoming her attempt to fist her hand.

  “No more lies,” he whispered, lifting her hand to brush the back of it across her breast. “You’re aroused and aching, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” he repeated, driven to have an answer.

  “Yes. Damn you, yes.”

  “So am I.” There was a seductive darkness in his voice that should have warned her.

  But she was exactly what he had proved her to be, aroused and aching. To find her hand suddenly splayed across the rigid length of his male flesh, singed by the heat, brought a violent tremble that coursed endlessly through her body.

  He released her hand, unable to stand her touch, knowing he had forced it, and realizing too, that his own exhaustion had sapped whatever reason he had.

  “I won’t touch you again, Elizabeth, until you come to me.”

  She looked at him as he stood, and wanted to lash out at him for making her want him and then forcing her to knowingly admit it. He rubbed the back of his neck and she knew that tension had taken hold. She saw for the first time the exhausted lines of his face and bit her lip to keep silent.

  He turned away and she knew she couldn’t let him go.

  “Colter, wait. I can’t tell you what you want to hear. But don’t leave this anger between us. I can’t help what I feel, no more than you can.” She slid from the bed and took up her wrapper. Slipping it on, she tied the belt, walking around the bed to where he stood.

  He nudged the haversack with his foot and several bright red apples spilled out. “I wanted to surprise you and Nicole with these. For Thanksgiving,” he added, swaying where he stood.

  The candle flame sputtered and wax spilled down. Elizabeth wanted to touch him but was afraid. She was still trembling from the desire that shimmered inside and knew by the shuddering breath he released that he was still aroused.

  Gray light filtered through the lace curtains, warning of daybreak. “Colter, why not rest here. I’ll leave. It’s almost time to—”

  “No. Stay with me.” Bleak eyes met hers. “I’ve made a mistake by cornering you, little fox. Blame the damn war. It claims a man’s soul.”

  “Tell me. Talk to me Colter.”

  There was a plea in her gaze and voice that he didn’t want to ignore. But tell her…he couldn’t. Taking a man’s life to protect your own belonged in that dark, secret recess of the mind and soul that no man would expose.

  Elizabeth was beset by an intense need to know what brought such blackness to his eyes, as if a light had been snuffed out. She wanted to know him. When they first met, there hadn’t been time to share hopes and fears. The incredible passion that flared between them consumed every moment they could be together.

  Elizabeth offered him her hand, and when he laced his fingers with hers, she led him to the bed.

  Colter glanced at the window, shook his head as if to shake off the exhaustion that raked over him and judged the time. “An hour, no more. I must be in Richmond before eight.”

  She didn’t bother to ask why, he wouldn’t answer. She nodded, quickly fluffing the pillows and smoothing the linen-covered tick. “Come rest. I won’t let anyone disturb you. And if you want to talk, I’ll be here with you.”

  “Sometimes, it’s too late for talk.” But he accepted her offer and stretched out on the bed.

  Colter’s eyes closed and she hesitated before slipping into bed at his side, holding her breath a moment before she felt him relax. Taking hold of his hand, she prayed he would share his thoughts with her.

  “You bring me peace from turmoil, love,” he said in a hoarse whisper that she strained to hear. “And I, I bring you a sometimes haunted man.”

  “Then tell me what haunts you and we’ll chase the ghosts together,” she returned, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand, thankful the tension there was easing.

  “Such a sly little fox,” he murmured in a tired voice. “You’ll have my secrets and give up none of your own.” He felt her turn to face him and managed to drag his arm up so she could nestle her head against his shoulder. Absently he began stroking her arm.

  “Before I returned home, it was easy to talk of the war. My cousins retold stories of their fathers who fought under Wellington. But talk does not come close to the reality of the destruction war can bring.” His hand stilled, and he found himself struggling to keep his mind clear. He had to remember not to reveal too much.

  “Colter?” she whispered, thinking him asleep.

  “I came home to serve, but I wanted to still the voices of the high-minded idealists who spoke of death before surrender. They have never faced a superior force in battle. And it sickened me to know men who bought others to substitute for them.” He squeezed her arm, unaware, lost in some world that beckoned him to ease his burden. He had to make her understand what drove him.

  “No one knows how many have already deserted. The conscription law makes it easy for rich men to avoid the fight and for poor men to die. Deserters are shot and no one seems to care. God.” The word grated from between his clenched teeth. “How do we kill our own for leaving a war that gains them nothing? How can a man live with his conscience for turning in another who hides in the woods by day and farms his field by night to feed his family?”

  Elizabeth was unsure if Colter talked of himself. The doubt left her almost immediately. Colter would never turn such a man in. Lifting her head, she smoothed the hair from his brow, listening to his uneven breathing.

  “Sleep, love,” she murmured, longing to comfort him as she would Nicole, wishing she could bring him peace.

  “The Yankees are going to trample every inch of our soil and there’s damn little we can do to stop them.”

  She stilled her hand. His voice was faint but hot with anguish.

  “I want, I need to believe that even a disaster is not without hope, but Lee and most of us know that we are playing out an ill-fated scenario. And until it’s over, we’ll watch men die…”

  His voice faded and through a blur of tears, she saw that sleep finally claimed him. Inside her, a fire burned to fiercely protect this man she loved.

  The last of his words lingered in her mind…we’ll watch men die…“But not you, my love, not you,” she mouthed silently. She felt grieved that he had not touched the true blackness that ate at him, and perhaps he never would. Just as she knew she would keep from him secrets of the past that could not be undone.

  Resting her cheek on his chest, she felt the heat of his skin. She stroked the sleek dark mat of hair that covered his naked torso, thinking the pe
lt almost silky. Her fingers touched a puckered ridge of flesh on his rib cage and once again his words crept forth.

  We’ll watch men die. With a start, Elizabeth guiltily questioned if that had been James’s fate. If only she knew…if only…

  To the beat of Colter’s heart she slept. When Nicole came to wake her, he was gone.

  And apples were strewn over the bed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Thanksgiving passed quietly and the prayers continued that winter would come, making movement of the armies impossible. The first day of December saw ice covering the water pitcher in Elizabeth’s room, a bitter wind bearing testimony that hopes could be realized.

  A few days later, news came that Fredericksburg was under fire and the night was once more warm. Fear became a daily companion. The Yankees had crossed the river. Rumors flew, battles were won and lost, and there was victory to cheer, defeat to moan.

  Colter didn’t come again. But there were mornings when evidence of his stopping, or having sent someone, awaited her. A wooden top with string for Nicole, a leather-bound volume of Tennyson’s poems for Emily, whose reading of “Nothing Will Die” infused them all with hope.

  Elizabeth cherished the memory of Rutha’s smile when she would find a packet of cinnamon bark or a length of soft calico. Another time there was real coffee to share, and even Josh was remembered with a finely made knife. For herself, there appeared one morning a brown velvet-and-satin hair bow and much needed gloves of black Marseilles kid, trimmed with an embroidered spray of yellow and brown silk flowers.

  Yes, she cherished his thoughtfulness toward all of them, but she longed to see him, for the fear for his safety rose as the weather turned to a springlike warmth. On Monday morning at work, Elizabeth learned that the fighting had taken the lives of General Cobb and countless others. General Hood was severely wounded, but the Yankees had been repulsed.

  As she worked, a litany played over and over in her mind. The waiting and waiting without news of Colter was going to drive her mad. She thought of visiting the secretary of war—after all, Colter had claimed friendship with the man—but if her suspicions about Colter were true, no one would tell her anything.

  The wounded began to arrive and women were asked to volunteer their time at the hospitals. Elizabeth wanted to give her time, but Emily cautioned against it.

  “What if you are recognized? Would you undo all we’ve taken pains to ensure?”

  Conceding that she was right, Elizabeth made her excuses and was left with a vague feeling that she had lost the respect of her fellow workers.

  News came from General Lee that Burnside had withdrawn to the hills beyond the Rappahannock. Winter brought them a time of peaceful security.

  Elizabeth now waited with restless anticipation for Colter to return. Her feelings toward Jenna began to border on mistrust. Twice now, Hugh’s wife had revealed information that Elizabeth knew she could not have gathered from reading a newspaper or hearing talk from their own military. Yet some instinct cautioned her not to reveal what she believed.

  Everyone talked about the congressional elections held in October and November, which had increased the Democratic delegation from forty-four to seventy-five, but the Republican majority was saved, to the surprise of many, by the New England and western Mississippi regions. A few days after the battle of Fredericksburg, Jenna mentioned that Senator Sumner, during a caucus of the Republican members of Congress, had appointed a committee of seven radicals to call on Lincoln to demand that Secretary of State William Seward, a close friend of McClellan’s, be removed.

  By itself, Elizabeth was not alarmed that Jenna knew. It was that Jenna continued to discuss the jealousy between Seward and Salmon Chase, the Union secretary of the Treasury. To hear Jenna speak knowingly of Chase’s ambitions to run for president and have her add that Senator Browning, an intimate friend of President Lincoln, had offered a solution to his having a radical cabinet, Elizabeth could scarce hold her tongue.

  “Is it through your family that you are well acquainted with these men, Jenna?” Elizabeth watched Jenna’s reaction closely. Her smile was cool, just as her gaze was.

  “No, I merely repeat rumors.”

  “The security of the Yankee government must be loose indeed to allow such gossip to flourish. I have always believed there must be a seed of truth in all rumors.”

  Directing a wry look at Elizabeth, Jenna murmured, “Perhaps you are right.”

  That was the first incident. The second was a blatant lie of a personal nature. Elizabeth knew of Lincoln’s using presidential authority to call for enlistments not yet sanctioned by Congress, in his declaring of the blockade, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland. During a brief respite from work, Mrs. Galwey, as she often did, was reading aloud. She recounted an outrage that sprang from this suspension of rights. A judge who had charged a grand jury to inquire into illegal acts of government officials was set upon by soldiers while his court was in session. He had been beaten, dragged from his bench and imprisoned. This provoked an outcry from all who listened.

  “God save us if the Yankees take Richmond,” one matron exclaimed.

  “This power-hungry warmonger Lincoln will show us no mercy,” yet another declared.

  “Fools,” Jenna whispered. “So he arrests and imprisons those with Southern sympathies.”

  “Jenna! You can’t support his actions.” Elizabeth was furious.

  “You misunderstand. This is war. Each side will do whatever must be done. It is foolish to decry what we cannot help.”

  Elizabeth dropped her blotter just as Jenna bent to reach for her reticule. Their hands entangled and the contents of Jenna’s purse spilled. Before she could kneel to pick them up, Elizabeth saw the bold scrawl on a missive dated the previous Sunday. My darling Jenna, meet me…

  So hungry for news of Colter, Elizabeth spoke without thinking. “You’ve had word from Hugh?”

  “No,” Jenna snapped, shoving the paper into her bag. “Not for weeks.”

  Frowning, Elizabeth gazed after Jenna’s retreating back. There was no doubt that the note was from a man. Elizabeth’s mind was dulled by lack of sleep, but she refused to doubt what she saw. What possible reason could Jenna have for lying? Were the other women right and Elizabeth’s own judgment at fault? Should Jenna’s loyalty be questioned? The thought made her uncomfortable. She did not want to accuse her falsely. Not out of a sense to protect Jenna, but to protect Colter, who used his influence to obtain this position for Jenna.

  Living out of the city left her without means to watch Jenna and there was no one she could trust with her suspicions. Yet it troubled her to leave the matter unresolved.

  Her mood remained pensive on the ride home. Josh mentioned that Nicole had been restless all day, comparing her to a pea jumping around in a hot skillet. Elizabeth blamed the unseasonable weather changes for Nicole’s recent slight cold, but now that her daughter was feeling better she knew that for everyone’s peace, she had to spend some time out of doors with her.

  As had become the custom, Dobie helped Josh take the mules from their traces when they arrived home. Elizabeth’s greeting elicited a curt nod from Dobie before he went into the barn and climbed the loft where she knew he would sleep until supper. He had refused all her overtures to draw him out, but she couldn’t help wondering about a man who slept during the day and kept guard all night.

  “Don’t be frettin’ over him, Miz Elizabeth,” Josh advised, seeing that she still gazed at the shadowed barn opening where Dobie had disappeared.

  “I can’t help it, Mister Josh, I’m curious about him. I wonder where the colonel found him.”

  “He ain’t sayin’ an’ I ain’t askin’.”

  “I am sure that is the wisest course.”

  “Prove to the colonel you ain’t like them mules.”

  “That’s where you are wrong, Josh. I am just as stubborn.” But she was laughing as she walked toward the house.

  Nicole pounce
d on her the moment she walked inside. “Mama! Mama, can we play?”

  “Chil’,” Rutha scolded, “let your mama catch her breath. Ants has got you fidgetin’ an’ frettin’ all day.”

  “Has not! Has not,” Nicole repeatedly denied.

  Elizabeth let her imagination fill in what had gone on all day. Rutha appeared on the verge of losing her patience.

  “Nicole, let me change and we’ll go outside.”

  “I don’t wanna wait.”

  She glared at her daughter. Nicole’s mouth was a sullen pout, her eyes almost defiant. Elizabeth drew on her own store of patience and guilt that she wasn’t able to be home with Nicole, making her temper her response.

  “I’ll hurry, precious, and we’ll have almost two hours before dark. We can stay out the whole time.”

  “Oh, Mama, you’re the bestest.”

  Elizabeth braced herself as Nicole came flying at her, hugging her tight. For a moment she met Rutha’s gaze, letting her eyes blaze with the fury she felt, and found that Rutha felt the same. Alma’s threat was denying Nicole other children to play with, forcing her to remain hidden away from any diversion.

  Releasing her daughter before Nicole could sense her tension, Elizabeth hurried to change.

  For a little while they played tag in the yard, Josh teasing them as he split wood. The day was still warm and Emily joined them outside, seated in a chair near the kitchen door. Rutha was humming and Elizabeth felt her mood lift with each new burst of laughter from Nicole.

  When she pleaded for a walk in the woods, Elizabeth hesitated, although she was unsure why. Glancing back to see Josh close by, drawing water from the well, Elizabeth dismissed her unease as foolish. She called out to him that they were going for a short walk.

  Holding hands with Nicole, Elizabeth raced down the knoll that took them out of sight of the house. She smiled to see her daughter’s bright eyes, flushed cheeks and sturdy little body twirling around and around.

  “Catch me, Mama. Catch me,” Nicole teased as soon as her mother released her hand.