Hawkins was tall and solidly lean, his long hair almost curling to his shoulders. His face was dark from the sun and somewhat haggard from the fighting he had seen in Virginia and Maryland, but there remained the clear vestige of a young man’s rugged beauty that sparked within her a not unpleasant giddy feeling. She had been surprised by the feeling, and slightly disconcerted, the more so when he seemed to understand and his smile became a knowing grin.
It was, she had decided that first night, his eyes that marked him for such unusually intense reactions; though the rest of him was battle-hardened and he was obviously supported only by some continuing inner strength, his sharply blue eyes were years too young, gaily bright as though there was laughter inside patiently waiting to explode from his thin, pale lips. Cassandra became aware she had been staring and blushing when her father suddenly burst into laughter, backed away from the door, and invited the captain in for supper. When Hawkins had demurred graciously, the invitation had been extended to his men as well, and they had dined that night as if no war at all had torn the fabric of the country, as if no men at all were dying in fierce, close combat. Men like her brothers Rafe, and Greg.
When the evening had ended, she was pleasantly surprised to hear her father invite Captain Hawkins to come back, when he had the time.
“You shouldn’t have returned,” she whispered to the wounded man as she led the horse over a series of irrigation ditches her brothers had dug before leaving home. “You should have stayed away.”
But he hadn’t, and she knew she would not trade the memories of those nights for any of the treasures she had read about in her books.
He had returned as often as he could, lingering over the brandy longer each night, bestowing innumerable compliments on her mother for her cooking, her father for his provender, and on Cassandra herself for daring to take on the work of a man to keep the enterprise going. In return for the hospitality, he kept the other soldiers away, so they were no longer bothered by foragers raiding their meager crops.
Cassandra had had hopes that the interlude in the war would last forever. It had been too long since she had felt such stirrings about a man, and too long since a man had thought her more than just a girl who worked in the fields.
When she reached the gate in the fence at the back of the house, she touched Geoff lightly, as if this would prevent him from falling, then moved to lift the latch. As she did so, she remembered the last time she had seen him. It had been only four days before, on the first of July, and they had walked down the lane after supper, Falcon trotting obediently behind them.
“Are we winning, Geoff?” she had asked when suddenly she grew uncomfortable in the silence that had drifted down from the dark, overhanging trees. “Will this horrible thing be over soon?”
“I wish I could be more optimistic,” he’d answered quietly, “but that incredible man Lee refuses to back down. He just keeps moving, just keeps coming. Always. Just keeps coming.”
“There’s talk—we don’t get much news way out here where we are—but there’s talk that he’s invading the North.”
She sensed rather than saw his reluctant nod, and the chill in her arms and down her spine made her shudder strongly. “He’s an impossible man, Cass,” he said. “You think you’ve got him pinned down for good some damn place, and the next thing you know he’s up and gone somewhere else. He picks his places. We have to come to him. It’s a crime, Cass, he’s not on our side.”
There was no mistaking the admiration in his voice for the exploits of the Confederate leader, and Cassandra was puzzled by it, and more than a little angered because of it. Both of her brothers had volunteered for the Pennsylvania 3rd over her father’s loud objections, but when they had left the farm more than twenty months before, she had had the feeling they would be home in time for spring planting. When they stayed away, however, and the war dragged bitterly on, she began having nightmares of their dying, alone, under some uncaring sun; and there had been a number of anguished moments as she toiled over the crops when she had raised her sunburned fist to the sky and cursed both God and Satan for the carnage that never seemed to end.
Geoff sighed, then said loudly, “There’s going to be a fight soon, Cass… A bad one, this time. Troops are moving into the area by the thousands.”
“Lee?” she’d asked again, the chill returning.
“Lee,” he confirmed, and shook his head sadly. “It’s going to be a fine way to celebrate our Independence Day, isn’t it?”
They reached a break in the trees lining the lane, and the moon glinted brightly on Geoff’s polished buttons and the band of silver he wore around his uniform cap. It was an impressive and ghostly sight, and Cassandra became curiously aware more of herself than of the man she feared she was falling in love with. Her dress was of plain brown cotton, loose-fitting to keep the air moving about her as she worked at her brothers’ tasks on and off the field. She wished suddenly for a bright gold gown of silken brocade, with bows and ribbons and stiff underskirts to accentuate her hips. The neckline would swoop just enough to expose the thrust of her breasts, and a veil of faintly silvered lace would be tucked coyly around the bodice to hint at the fullness that lay beneath. Her black hair would be done in stylish ringlets which would brush her shoulders, and a tiara of the finest jewels would diminish the hauteur of her high forehead and match the glitter of her green eyes.
She had shaken herself, then, wondering what it was that put such girlish nonsense into her head. She had been about to ask Geoff of news of the President when he suddenly took her arms in his hands. She stared at him frankly, and he seemed abruptly nonplussed. He turned his head away and gazed down toward the road. “Cassandra,” he said, “I didn’t need to come out here, you know. Any excuse would have done.”
She felt his hands trembling, and she stepped closer to him. She was trembling slightly herself, but she did not look away as he had done. Instead, she tried to get him to read her thoughts, to understand that she wanted him to release her arms and move his strong hands to her back. She wanted more than anything at that moment for him to hold her tightly; the talk of war so close to home had driven ice into her blood, and she wanted his comforting embrace.
“Geoff,” she said then, and her voice was high and childlike. He turned, stared, then grabbed her almost in desperation, kissing her hard until her lips ached with the pleasure of their touch, and her breasts protested the row of buttons pressing into their flesh. Her legs weakened and her arms slipped around his back, her fingers gripping his broad shoulders; for a dreamlike moment she knew nothing at all but Captain Geoffrey Hawkins and the night and the cool breeze and the warm press of his lips to hers.
It could have been hours, but had been only a few short seconds before he released her gently and brushed a tender hand through her hair, letting a finger trace lovingly along the sun-baked skin that was soft on her face. He toyed for a moment with the metal clasp at her neck, and looked into her eyes as the two halves parted and her throat was exposed. She said nothing. Her lungs filled with the soothing night air, and she said nothing, but only half-closed her eyes, when his hand drifted to the next clasp, and the next, until his hands could move unimpeded over her breasts. She gasped, bit at her lips, and muttered his name softly. He stopped then, and drew her slowly off the lane to the thick grass that edged it. He knelt and looked up to her, and when she had joined him his hands were already taking the dress from her shoulders, her waist, as her own fingers moved over the buttons of his tunic and released them.
There was no sense of urgency, no sense of time; time had stopped, and there was only the wind and the cold light of the stars.
“Geoffrey,” she whispered as she lay back and felt the dew, chilly on her back and legs. She warmed rapidly as his lips and hands moved slowly, tenderly over her breasts that ached and strained and pressed upward; then to her stomach where the muscles jumped at his touch. She could sense his smile. She squirmed, wondering when he would be done with his exploring, knowing that his eyes were memorizing every inch of her flesh, each mark, each curve that enticed him. Her own hands reached out then, and brushed across his chest, downward until he gasped, then snaked around to his back and pulled him to her, slowly, without haste.
The only sound was their breathing as it lost its calm measure and became more and more hurried, deeper, rasping, held for an eternal moment when his hands reached the juncture of her thighs and parted them, probing…Then he lifted himself over her. She stopped him with a touch of her nails, wanting to taste the moment and savor it, feeling his strong chest on hers, his flat and muscled stomach poised over her. A soft, warm breath wafted across her ear and she smiled, wanted to laugh as she directed him down and in, and they merged with stifled cries of delirium.
For hours it seemed, they writhed and twisted, slowly, then rapidly, slowly again and rapidly again, until she could stand no longer. The breath caught in her lungs, the feeling of pressure that threatened to tear her apart unless she could scream. Her nails drew thin lines of blood along his spine and buttocks, and she knew that the grasp he had on her shoulders would bring bruises out before the night was done. But she did not care for anything at all but the intense fire of pleasure he drove into her again and again until, finally, they became one in a comet that sparked across the heavens, became a soft drifting cloud that lowered them back to earth and they were lying side by side, his hands still moving over her breasts, toying, kneading softly, brushing at her stomach, then lower, stroking until she grabbed him fiercely. This time there was nothing gentle in their love, only the hot-breathed grunts of coupling that again drove them to the edge of a scream … and over.
When it was done, not speaking, they kissed as they dressed, rose, and moved on toward the road. A great sense of loss engulfed her then, and tears welled like bitter rain as she gnawed her lower lip. And when, finally, he swung into his saddle, he leaned over and snaked an arm around her waist, pulled her from the ground and kissed her again, softly now, like a promise.
“When it’s over,” he said, and lowered her again, threw her a gallant salute, and rode swiftly eastward. She stood by the false well for several minutes, listening to Falcon’s hoofbeats join with a rising storm wind that had begun to rip savagely through the trees above her. Her hair fell loose from its prim bun and whipped over her shoulders. Thunder rolled faintly over the hills, but she remained, watching, waiting, half praying that Geoff would wheel about and return to her, to continue what he had started, to satiate the growing appetite she felt churning beneath the hands she kept clasped to her stomach.
She had not dared to dream he would return dressed in blood.
O
nce through the gate, Cass cried out for her parents, so close to weeping that her vision blurred and she stumbled over dust. Geoff’s unconscious form slipped then, and though she tried to bear the awkward weight and keep Falcon from bolting away at the same time, he shifted out of her grasp and fell heavily to the ground. Instantly she was on her knees, his head cradled in her lap. Blood flowed freshly red from a torn wound at his shoulder. His skin had turned an ugly, waxen yellow. Not daring to believe the worst, she placed a finger lightly at his throat and felt, though only barely, the pulse … and the cold.
“What in heaven’s name are you screaming about, child?” her father demanded as he rounded the corner of the house. “You’d think those damned—” He stopped abruptly when he saw her and Geoff, and shouted through the open kitchen window for his wife to start a pot of boiling water. Without breaking stride, he continued on and stood by Cass’s side only long enough to assay the damage before effortlessly lifting the Union officer into his arms and carrying him directly inside. Cass followed anxiously, watching almost hypnotically the play of muscles across her father’s back. He was a huge man, Aaron Bowsmith. The work of the farm had hardened his muscles; his torso was massive from shoulder to waist. Cass looked down at her hands, twisting nervously in front of her, back to her father, and shook her head. Since Rafe and Gregory had joined the army, there were only the two of them to do all the work. That, she knew, had cost her dearly in terms of looking like a woman should. Her hair had become brittle instead of gleaming with a black so dark it was almost blue, her hands were calloused, and her arms thin but extraordinarily strong. She had been forced through necessity to learn riding and shooting, to do most of a man’s work without flinching at the sight of blood, including her own. Her mother Ella despaired because she had hoped to send Cass off to Philadelphia and her sister, where there would be formal training to be a teacher or a governess while wealthy young men courted her.
The slam of the door brought her back, and she blinked until her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of the kitchen.
The wide-planked table had been cleared away and a clean sheet draped over it. Ella fussed noisily at the fireplace, boiling water and rags and arranging bits of herbs in a smaller pot for a poultice she would have to prepare once the operation was done. Cass folded a cloth that she placed under Geoff’s head when he was laid on the table, then proceeded, without needing to be told, to cut away at his grimy tunic. Once he was stripped to the waist, she gasped at the purple and black wound at his shoulder, and she bit down on a knuckle to steady her nerves.
“Come on, girl!” Aaron said. “You’ve seen worse. Remember old Greg’s foot when he caught it in that damned trap all those winters ago? What was it, four years? A damn sight sorrier than this little scratch.”
He stood by the kettle, holding a cutting knife over the tall flames. The sharp, thin blade glowed after a time, glowed as she carefully swabbed dried blood from Geoff’s chest and around the puckering hole in his flesh. She could see, now that the blood had been cleared, that he had been extremely lucky in the placement of the shot. The ball had not exited, so he must have been a fair distance away when hit. But she shuddered nonetheless, remembering the stories of what an Enfield ball could do to a man, the holes like fists, the bones smashed beyond repair, the victim often bleeding to death before help could arrive.