Rebel (45 page)

“Ian. It’s good to see you,” she said, moving back just slightly.

He smiled. “You, too, Risa. You look as well as ever. Very beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she said softly, then paused. “I assume you know that Alaina—”

“Oh, yes, I know that she left Washington. You know, it’s amazing how slowly military orders can move about the country and how quickly the affairs of men and women can travel. I had actually been right off of New Orleans with my men, chasing a Southern sloop from Pensacola, when I met up with an officer who had recently spent time here. He was saddened by Rose’s arrest, and anxious to find out if I knew how deeply it had disturbed others of the Southern persuasion in the area,
including my wife. The officer seemed to think that Alaina left in protest regarding Rose. But I don’t think that’s true. I think she left because she had been in league with Rose. What do you think?”

Risa stared at him, hesitating. “I—well, of course, you know that I’m a Union patriot all the way, so it would be unlikely that anyone would share their thoughts on the matter with me…. Tea, Ian? A whiskey? What can I get for you? It is good to see you, even if being here is not all that you had planned. Let me get you something to drink.”

She started to walk away from him. He reached out, gripping her arm. His hold was firm but not hurtful, and it felt as if his cobalt eyes penetrated right through her. “You know more than what you’re telling me.”

“She’s written to me,” Risa said quickly. “She knew, of course, that you’d be furious with her decision to go South, but … I think she wanted to go home, to Belamar, though I would assume that she’d still be in St. Augustine now.”

“The baby?” he demanded, and Risa bit her lower lip, suddenly hearing the pain beneath the anger in his voice.

“Sean is doing well, thriving,” Risa said. “You haven’t heard from Alaina—at all? Well, I suppose it would have been difficult. … I’m not sure I would be able to reach you, Ian, if I needed to.”

“Alaina left a note on my desk from three months ago, and that is the last I have heard from her,” Ian said, and the steel note of deadly anger was back in his voice.

“I’m sure that she would have contacted you if she had known how, Ian. She loves you.”

“Perhaps.”

“I would have contacted you if—”

“If you should ever need me in the future, for anything, go to General Brighton. He knows how to find me.”

Risa nodded. “You really shouldn’t be too angry; all she did was go home. I think that you must see her position.”

His dark look betrayed his doubt.

“Ian, she is a Southerner. Her home is in the South.”

He turned away from her, staring into the flames of
the fireplace.” And I should be a Southerner, too?” he inquired lightly.

“Oh, no, of course not…”

“There are but two issues here: The Union must be preserved, and slavery is morally wrong. Alaina knows that!” His aggravation and confusion mingled in the deep anguish of his voice.

“I’m sure she knows that slavery is morally wrong,” Risa said. “In fact, very few enlisted men in the Confederacy actually own slaves. Many Southerners don’t believe in slavery—they just feel that they have the right to be free and independent.” What in God’s name was she doing, defending Alaina? “Oh, Ian, if the two sides just tried to understand each other there wouldn’t be a war,” she insisted. And, hoping to slip from the conversation, she asked quickly, “Can you—can you stay for dinner? I doubt if we’ll see Father; he is constantly drilling with the army and meeting with McClellan and his generals. Father is being promoted to brigadier general himself—had you heard?”

“Yes, I hope to see him and offer my congratulations. And yes, I’d love to have dinner, thank you.”

“Fine. I’ll tell Cook, and get you a drink. Please, make yourself comfortable here.”

His eyes were on hers, and he smiled warmly. “I always have, Risa,” he said.

She smiled, feeling a strange slam in her heart, and hurried away to see about dinner.

“Are you in Washington long?” Risa asked him in the course of the pleasant meal.

His eyes darkened; his mouth tightened, and she felt a little chill streak through her. “I’d had a little time, but now … I think I may head out on a mission of my own.”

Risa convulsively curled her fingers into her palms and stood, nearly knocking her chair over. Ian stared at her in startled surprise. “Don’t you go getting killed over her, do you hear me? And I don’t mean that with any evil intent—believe it or not, Alaina is my friend. But you are my friend as well, and she is the enemy, and you shouldn’t go getting killed for her!”

He smiled, rising as well, walking around the table to
her. He took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Risa, I am continually
ordered
into enemy territory. I know what I’m doing, and I don’t take chances. But I thank you very much for your concern, and I swear to you, I will be careful.”

Risa looked up at him. She felt as if her heart were pounding a staccato beat that he couldn’t help but hear. Her flesh felt as if it were on fire. It would be so easy. Damn convention, and society. He was married, but his wife was the enemy, a thousand miles away, and he had been hers first, and he should have been hers now, and they would have understood one another perfectly, and these moments could have been a balm for them both….

He was touching her. She could feel his breath against her face. It would be so easy to slip into his arms, and she was certain that he felt it as well.

“Ian…” she murmured.

“Oh, God, I wouldn’t hurt you, Risa, I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said.

Again his lips brushed her forehead.

“What if you weren’t hurting me, what if I wanted just a memory, what if…”

His arms tightened. He lifted her chin. She felt his lips on hers. Grinding down on them with an openmouthed fever and passion that inflamed her senses, set fire to a longing that was as yet only imagined.

Then suddenly, with an oath, he released her.

“I’ve got to get out of here, Risa!” he told her hoarsely.

“Because you love your wife,” she said softly.

He was quiet a moment. “Because I love you both,” he said.

And then he was gone.

Alaina had always loved the city of St. Augustine, with its handsome and impressive fort standing guard in the harbor. The fort—called Fort Marion now, in honor of the Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion—had originally been built by the Spanish as the Castillo San Marcos. The British, who had held Florida during the Revolution, had called the edifice Fort St. Marks, anglicizing the original name. Whatever it was called, it was
beautiful and looked indomitable, like an ancient medieval castle.

Alaina arrived in daylight, in December 1861, and alighted almost directly in front of the fort with Lilly and Sean. Lilly was delighted that it wasn’t even a chill day—Lilly hated the cold of the North, and had accompanied Alaina south with little protest. Alaina was happy to be there. She was still well over two hundred miles from home, but they were Florida miles, and it felt good. If thoughts of Ian didn’t plague her continually, she might well have been content. Of course she had tremendous support for her position once she was in the South, and it was encouraging to feel that she was right, that she was part of a great revolutionary cause. But her nights were torture.

She had left Ian, and she didn’t know where he was, nor how he would feel, if he would ever forgive her, if she would ever see him again….

“Warm is good,” Lilly announced with a happy sigh. “Warm is good.”

“Yes, nice.”

“The street is nice. When Major Ian comes home, then it will all be nice.”

“Lilly,” Alaina murmured, “I’m not so sure he’ll be home—for quite a while.” But she, too, looked up and down the street and managed to smile. The city was charming, with its ancient Spanish architecture blending in with the growth that had been continuous since the mid-1500s. It had always amused Alaina to think that St. Augustine was the oldest permanent European settlement in the United States—especially when so many people still thought of Florida as being such a wild and new frontier.

Standing in the street where the coach had left them, Alaina stared up at Fort Marion. She felt a small, sweet thrill of excitement just to be here. She had enjoyed her stay in Richmond and Charleston, and she had experienced a wave of patriotism for the Confederacy in those stalwart Southern cities unlike any she had known before. The seat of the Confederate government was in Richmond, and she had even attended an evening’s soiree at the White House of the Confederacy, where none other than the gaunt, intriguing President Davis himself
had paused to thank her for her loyalty to her people. In those two cities, it seemed impossible that the South would fail in its mission for sovereignty. It had been wonderful to see Sydney and Brent, and frighteningly easy to lie, telling them only that Ian was so seldom in Washington, she felt it a dangerous city in which to be alone—the same story she intended to tell Julian when he met her.

She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, feeling the sun, the sea breeze, and the warmth of being home.

“Alaina!”

She swirled around and saw that Julian was leaping down from the driver’s seat of a small carriage. A little tremor streaked through her, for he looked so very much like his brother. She hurried forward to hug Julian, to be lifted up and swung around, and hugged again. But then he let her down in front of him, and his eyes were grave. “All right, young lady, just what are you doing here? I know damned well my big brother didn’t give you permission to leave Washington!”

Alaina exhaled a breath of irritation. “Well, your big brother wasn’t in Washington, and it was becoming a very dangerous place for Southerners.”

“Oh? For Southerners—or
guilty
Southerners?”

“Julian, don’t be cruel—and don’t forget that Ian is a Yankee when you …” she stepped back, surveying him from head to toe. He was very handsome in a uniform-gray frock coat with his medical and military insignia upon the shoulders. “You’re a Reb,” she reminded him bluntly.

“Fine. Let’s not argue. Let me take you home. Lilly, welcome! And this … is Sean! He’s so big already. I can’t wait for my folks to see him, their first grandchild—they’ll be so very proud!”

Alaina smiled. It was good—and strange. She felt that she was indeed welcomed home. Welcomed warmly by her husband’s family.

When her husband was the enemy.

Alaina wrote a letter to Ian the first night at Julian’s. Though she tried to pour her heart into it, her words seemed lame. She wrote again that she loved him, but
given her escape and the rumors of her spying that must be all over Washington, he wasn’t likely to believe her. Still, Julian took her letter, and she hoped that it would reach her husband.

She began working with Julian. He spent most of his days at the barracks, tending to the ills and injuries of the men. In the evening, he saw to the civilian population of St. Augustine. She enjoyed the feeling of working with the soldiers; it gave her a sense of usefulness and kept her from dwelling on her own situation.

She had been there about a week when the men from the Confederate States ship
Annie May
came in. The
Annie May
had been a blockade runner, and she had been destroyed at sea by the United States navy. Most of her seamen had been taken prisoner, but some had escaped. Many were seriously injured. Following Julian around from bed to bed, she was appalled by the bloodshed and the anguish of the men. At the beginning, she nearly passed out. Then, coming upon an already infected and pus-laden saber wound, she nearly threw up.

But she steeled herself to the carnage around her; she sopped up blood so that Julian could see clearly enough to suture. She applied pressure upon wounds when told to do so, she bandaged and bathed. When the ten survivors had been patched back together due to the skill of Julian and the other doctors, she wrote letters for the men.

That night, Julian and Alaina and a Dr. Reginald C. Percy dined together at an inn near Fort Marion.

Percy was perhaps sixty, a dignified man, ramrod straight, who had served in the Union army before secession. He told Alaina that in all his years, he’d never worked with so fine a surgeon as Julian McKenzie. He hadn’t joined up with the Confederate forces, feeling that he could better assist in Florida’s war effort by remaining a civilian.

“There was no reason for any of this last, tragic round of death!” he complained, slamming a fist against their dinner table. “From what the boys told me, they knew they were outmanned and outgunned, and they were surrendering their ship. The wretched Northerners killed those boys on purpose. They know that they haven’t got the sheer gumption of the South—but they can keep
replacing their own dead men, so they figure the only way to beat us is to kill us all!”

“Now, Dr. Percy, not all Yankees—” Julian began.

But Percy pounded the table again. “Damned blockade! This war isn’t over like they said it would be—it’s far from over. And it would be one thing if the enemy just went after the arms that were being shipped in, but when they take our laudanum, our morphine, our quinine—”

“It’s war, Percy, and there’s very little we can do about that fact,” Julian told him.

A few minutes later, as coffee was being served, Julian was called back to the hospital. When both Percy and Alaina began to join him, Julian protested. “The fellow has a Christmas-is-coming croup, and I can manage on my own. Enjoy your coffee.”

When Julian left, Percy sat back, still disgruntled. His dark eyes were very soulful, and with his collar-length thick gray hair framing his gaunt face, he looked both very old, and very sad. “More … we need more. Always more.” He looked at her, then leaned his elbows against the table, studying her eyes. “It’s my understanding that you’re from the wilds of the south, Mrs. McKenzie.”

“I grew up on a little islet—”

“In Biscayne Bay.”

She nodded, curious that he should know her background so well.

“So, Mrs. McKenzie, you know the waters down there. You know the deep water, and you know the reefs. You know the trails through to the northern section of the state.”