“Christa. Christa. You have to wake up. Now.”
She came awake from a deep unconsciousness. There had been a strange cocoon of comfort in her sleep. Last night, she had given in to him. She had given in to far more than duty. She had felt so very weary, and even in her surrender she had discovered a certain peace.
But now, awaking, she felt a tinge of fear encroaching upon her comfort. She had given too much. Surrendered too much.
She had tried to tell him that it had been the wine. Now all that she wanted to do was crawl beneath the covers and not have to face him until she was ready. Until it was dark again. Until forever. She didn’t know which.
She shook her head, trying to pull the sheets tightly around her. “Leave me be!” she pleaded.
“Christa!” His voice had been fairly gentle. Now that old snap of command was back in it. If that weren’t irritating enough, she felt the palm of his hand fall sharply upon her derriere.
Indignantly, she opened her eyes, staring at him with all the evil reproach she could muster. She turned her back on him again, murmuring. “Please, just—”
“Up!” he repeated, catching her shoulder and rolling her over to face him. He had apparently risen some time ago. He was fully clad in his dress uniform. She heartily resented the fact that he could appear so striking in the cavalry dark blue, and that most women would find him a handsome figure indeed.
Yes, he was a striking figure. Yes, he had done things to her that she had never imagined. Yes, now when he touched her, she remembered and grew warm.
She hugged the sheets tightly, determined to stare him down—even after last night. “Jeremy—”
“You have to get up.”
“You did tell me a wife belonged in bed!” she snapped.
A smile curved his lip and he leaned against her. “I do like you there, Christa. Very much so. And I would dearly love to join you again. Especially after last night. You were wonderful. Extraordinary.” He started to stroke her cheek.
A flood of color rushed to her cheeks. “It was the wine!” she whispered.
“The wine! And I thought it was my devastating charm! Ah, Christa, are you sure that it wasn’t? Perhaps I should cast duty to the winds and crawl back in to discover the truth!”
“Trust me!” she murmured, inching herself against the rear of the bed. “It was the wine—”
She didn’t want to remember how completely she had surrendered, how desperately she had wanted him.
And there was still the Sherman matter between them!
“If you’d please just leave me be—” she began.
But she broke off. She swallowed hard, shrinking back as he suddenly pinned his arms on either side of her, bracing himself as he studied her eyes. “Christa, I won’t go back,” he said softly. “Everything I longed to find was there within you. I won’t let you deny it again.
I never meant to press my point with as much anger as I did last night, but hell, who knows? Maybe the only way to ever get anything from you, Christa, is to take it by force.”
She felt a trembling deep within her. She didn’t want to have the surge of emotion that flowed through her. She didn’t mean to be so hostile to him. There were times now when it seemed that he was trying to find peace, break down the wall between them.
This morning, she needed the wall. She was suddenly very afraid. Afraid for her own heart.
“Don’t talk to me like that!” she said heatedly, and she saw the silver in his eyes glitter and harden but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m not one of your privates to be ordered about. And don’t think yourself such a great commander! You’re only a colonel because the Rebs managed to kill so damned many Yankee officers that they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill their ranks!”
His brow arched. His lip curled. She wondered fleetingly whether he was amused or furious. She hadn’t meant to say the words. She was sorry that hundreds of thousands of Yanks were dead as well as Rebs. She was sorry for the whole damned war.
And she was heartily sorry that she kept finding herself fighting it again and again when it should have truly been over.
“I’m a colonel because too many Yanks are dead,” he said softly. “And you’re my wife because too many Rebels fell. And it’s all a travesty, but it’s the way that it is, my love, and you had best get used to it. I found there does exist a match to strike the fire within you. By God, Christa, I swear I’ll not let that flame go out.”
“I told you, it was the wine—”
“Then perhaps we shall have to douse you in the stuff nightly.”
A sense of panic was rising within her. He could hurt her all too easily. It seemed best to strike out first.
“Have it your way, then! Dead Yanks, dead Rebs. But a few too many glasses of wine and you’re no longer a Yank. You’re a Reb officer, a ghost come back to life—”
She broke off with a little cry of protest as his fingers wound around her upper arms, lifting her from the bed and hard against him. “We’ll have to see to it that next time, Mrs. McCauley, you are well aware that you’re not sleeping with a corpse!”
The tension within him was suddenly frightening her. She wanted to cry. Last night had begun with anger, yes. But they had come so close to something being right between them.
Daylight always seemed to bring back the war.
“Let me go!” she cried. “If you even think about touching me tonight—”
“I’ll think and do whatever I please, Christa. But cheer up—perhaps you’re not so all damned alluring as you seem to believe. Maybe I’m weary of sleeping with someone who seems to be one of the walking dead herself at times. For now, just get up. Or stay there. My staff sergeant is due here any minute. Maybe you’ll give him the entertainment of his life, lying there naked. The picnic for the officers and their wives is at eleven. You’ll be there and you’ll behave politely. And you won’t sing a single note under any circumstances!”
He was balanced upon their bed on one knee, his fingers tightly vised around her arms. She should just give in, she thought.
But she wouldn’t lie and promise that she’d behave any differently if General Sherman made an appearance.
She narrowed her eyes at Jeremy. “Will he be there?”
She almost cried out. It seemed impossible, but his hold upon her tightened.
“What difference does it make?”
“All the difference in the world.”
He released her so suddenly that she fell back, unprepared. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and breasts, and the covers fell away from her. He stepped back, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, then unclenching again. “The war
is
over!” he exclaimed. He stared at her and she was startled by the depths of the passion in his eyes. She wondered if the burning emotions within him then were hatred or desire, or perhaps a combination of the two. Despite his anger, despite his harshness, she wanted to cry out, to reach out to him. To tell him that she wanted it to be over! I just don’t want to have dinner with George Tecumseh Sherman!
But she didn’t cry out. He had turned and was walking away from her, ready to leave their tent. Before lifting up the flap he paused. His back to her, he spoke again. “Sherman will not be there. He is reviewing troops farther along the trail.” He turned back to her. “I’m not asking you to like Sherman or anyone else. I’m not asking you to forgive the war. All I want is for you to extend whatever courtesy you can manage to our guests in this godforsaken land. Will you be so kind?”
She tried once again to assemble some dignity about herself, flipping back her wayward hair, tugging at the sheets once again to cover her breasts. “I tried to be courteous last—”
“Try harder. I’m warning you.”
“Oh? And if I don’t?”
He smiled, and doffed his hat politely. “My love, you will
please
try harder!”
When he turned to leave this time, he did so without another word. Christa threw herself back on the bed,
fighting a new rise of tears behind her lids. He didn’t understand. She didn’t hate the cavalry wives. She felt sorry for so many of them! She, at least, had been forced to raise her own food. She’d smoked meat and made soap and baked bread. She might have been raised a lady, but life had already taught her hard lessons.
Little Celia Preston had been practically raised in a nunnery. From her home in Maine, she’d scarcely known that a war was on! An Irish maid had doted on her all her years, and she had come here totally unprepared for the hardships that faced them.
It was just Sherman.
How could any Reb be expected to tolerate the man?
She rolled over with a groan, her face against the sheets. As she lay there she became aware that there was a faint smell of her husband about the bedding. It was rich, pleasant, masculine. It reminded her of the night that had passed between them. She’d never imagined such a night. Not even when she’d been young and in love with Liam. Maybe a few previous occasions had hinted at such glory, but she’d been too naive to imagine what incredible physical sensations could be reached. Jeremy had known, of course. He had known long before he had known her.
And yet she had to give him credit where it was due. No matter what her protestations he had always been determined to sweep her into his fire. He had been a giving—if a forceful—lover. Because he had wanted her surrender.
He had wanted her to know the richness of sensation and emotion that could be reached. Any time that he had touched her with lovemaking in mind, he had been determined to teach her the sweetness and the beauty of the act.
She grit her teeth. She did not want to appreciate or admire the man.
Or love him.
A sigh escaped her and she shivered suddenly. The bed had grown cold without him. Her head was aching. She was tired and she suddenly wanted very much to close her eyes and go back to sleep. She wanted to forget the world.
Her lashes fluttered closed. Then they flew back open. Jeremy’s staff sergeant was due any minute.
She flew up, dragging the covers with her. Jeremy had already brought in wash water. She bit her lower lip. He had left her a clean pitcher and bowl and towel. He was, she thought, always courteous in such things.
She hurriedly washed and more hurriedly dressed. She wanted to be out of the tent before Jeremy or his staff sergeant arrived. She needed some time alone if she was going to appear calm and poised—the subjugated and polite Rebel—for Jeremy’s officers’ picnic.
He hated to admit it—even to himself—but there were moments when Jeremy wondered if Christa would defy him so far as to refuse to show up for the impromptu social event, much less assist with it.
But when he had finished the morning business with Staff Sergeant William Hallie and then spent an hour being briefed on recent Indian events along the westward trails by Jennings, he came around to the center of the clustered tents to discover with definite relief that Christa was already there busily preparing plates and offerings alongside Bertha and Nathaniel. She glanced up briefly at his arrival, then looked quickly back to the chore at hand. She was busy twirling fine white linen napkins into silver holders.
Indeed, the camp tables that had been stretched out on the grass were covered in the same white linen. They were using Christa’s china and silver, and even
here in the wilderness she had made an elegant scene of the buffet table.
There were benefits to marrying a southern belle, he told himself wryly.
Her eyes rose to his again. Beautiful, as blue as the summer’s sky. She hadn’t wound up the bountiful wealth of her ebony hair but rather left it loose upon her shoulders. She was probably the most fascinating woman he had ever seen and the most beautiful. He felt a flash of heat come searing through his body, and he knew that the one benefit to the marriage had been Christa herself. No matter what words passed between them, no matter what gulf separated them, he ached for the nights. Even when she lay stiff. He had felt sometimes that he lived through the day just to touch her by night.
He lowered his head, determined not to let her see his smile. It wasn’t amusing. It was painful to want his wife the way that he did.
But there was something special deep within her. A passion sweetly strong, feverish, dynamic. He had sensed it, felt it, longed for it. And now he had touched it. Briefly. For one night. And as he had suspected, there was nothing in the world like making love with Christa when she made love in return. Nothing. It was dangerous to remember last night, because it made him forget everything else that he was doing.
Night would come again.
He had to keep a smile from curving his lip once again.
Poor thing. Sherman, it seemed, had caused another southerner to fall.
She would certainly not see the amusement in it. And if she spoke today anything like she had spoken yesterday, they could all be in for a fall. He sobered quickly, determined to make his gaze a warning one as he watched her finish with the table.
Even as she did so, a number of the officers began to arrive with their wives. James Preston came with his lovely young Celia on his arm. Then Major Tennison with his wife, Lilly. Several of the captains came, some with their wives, some alone. Nearly all the invited men had made their appearances when Major Paul Jennings arrived at last with his wife, Clara.
Jennings wasn’t a bad sort, Jeremy had decided. Sherman seemed to think highly enough of him. But though he liked Jennings well enough, he wasn’t particularly fond of the man’s wife.
Though most of the men on the trail, the officers and the enlisted men alike, were eager to see to the welfare of any of the ladies along with them, Clara Jennings was proving to be something of a harridan. She was a good companion for Mrs. Brooks. Since her arrival she hadn’t done much other than complain. She had imagined they would be given real officers’ quarters, not a canvas tent.
There were no real quarters, Jeremy explained. Clara didn’t understand. Real quarters should have been built.
But they would soon be moving on.
Clara didn’t seem to care.
She kept the men moving throughout the night, bringing her blankets, warming bricks for her bed, brewing her a cup of tea.