Authors: Heather Graham
He was the enemy. One of the enemy who had taken her husband.
A husband she had loved.
Daniel wished that there were something he could say to convince her that there had been something special and unique between them. That no intimate action could be condemned when two people had been so strongly attracted to one another, when emotions had come so swiftly, when need had been so deep. There was nothing at all wrong because he loved her, he thought with a growing amazement.
He loved the gravity and emotion in her eyes, and he loved the way that they could fall upon him. The way that she spoke would remain in his memory forever, the softness of her voice, the beautiful tone of it. During long lonely nights ahead, he would dream of the perfection of her face, and he would remember both the thrill and the tenderness of her fingers upon him. He would remember, too, the steadfastness of her heart, her loyalty to her cause, right or wrong. He would remember the way that she had loved him, and he would know that, yes, he loved her.
Perhaps he couldn’t tell her such a thing. Not now. She mourned a husband and lived in the midst of a battlefield. Perhaps all that he could do was hold her and let that be enough.
“I surrendered everything!” she said suddenly, fiercely.
He cupped her cheek and met her gaze, and smiled with all his tenderness.
“No, angel. I surrendered everything.”
He felt her trembling and hesitated to speak again. Her eyes widened with a sudden gratitude, then suddenly she pushed away from him, sitting up. Her gaze met his, a sizzling, shimmering silver. She lifted back a long, wild wayward skein of her deep flame hair, sending it sliding down the length of her back as she straddled over his hips and leaned closely over him.
“Want to fight again?” she whispered softly.
He grinned, knowing that she was going to be all right with her decision to lie with him.
Her head lowered, her lips touched his chest, the tip of her tongue seemed to singe it.
“Fire away, Yank,” he told her, caressing her neck, cradling her head against him. “Fire away!” he repeated, and he wound his arms around her, sweeping her beneath him, as all the fires that had just begun to cool found a new and wild ignition with her touch.
The whole world could be damned, Daniel thought. Even as he lost himself within the musky sweet scent and taste and feel of her, he dimly marveled at the very idea.
He was falling in love.
With a Yank …
It was a strange war.
And a strange, strange battle.
“We call him ‘Beauty.’ Of course, we try very hard for the rank and file not to hear such terms. After all, we are military men. But Beauty he became, and so Beauty sticks.”
“Is he really so handsome a man, then, so beautiful?” Callie asked, laughing.
It was night again. They had spent the day like newly-weds until dusk had fallen, and then Callie remembered the few animals that remained on the farm. Feeling more than a little guilty toward the poor creatures, she had enlisted Daniel’s help to feed them.
It was interesting to watch him—not because she had discovered it was hard to take her eyes off him—but because he was so at ease with everything she asked of him. He knew what he was doing, whether measuring grain for Hal, her one remaining horse, or strewing out the grain for the chickens. Of course, a plantation was just a big farm—a very big farm—she reminded herself, but Daniel had been born and bred a child of privilege, of the southern aristocracy, and she had never imagined he would have such ease with manual labor.
Not that he had given her a chance to talk about it. Still barefoot, in her father’s breeches and open plaid
flannel shirt, he might have been the image of any farm boy. Against the setting sun, atop the gate of the barnyard door, his legs dangling, he seemed so very young. The lines had eased from his eyes while he chewed upon a blade of hay and entertained her with stories about some of the more infamous southern commanders.
“Is he really beautiful?” Daniel repeated, then laughed. They were talking about Stuart—General James Ewell Brown Stuart, “Jeb,” as he was known. He was Daniel’s immediate superior, but it didn’t sound to Callie like Daniel gave that matter much thought at all. He called Stuart “Old Beauty.”
Daniel shrugged, the light of laughter still in his eyes. “Beautiful, well, let’s see. He is certainly gallant. And he loves to dress. He is flamboyant, he is courageous, and to Flora, I imagine, he is beautiful.”
“Flora?”
“His wife,” Daniel said with a grin. “But beautiful? The name was given him at West Point. I fear it was given him as a joke, for apparently, his classmates found his features not beautiful in the least.”
“And what do you think?”
“Well, he is my superior officer.”
“And you do not sound respectful enough.”
“Well, I have known him forever, so it seems,” Daniel admitted. “He’s older than I by a few years.” He was quiet for a minute. “He and Jesse were in the same class, but we were all Virginians, and were all assigned to the West together.” He shrugged again, as if he didn’t want to dwell upon the past any longer. “Beauty and I are friends, we are both avid horsemen, and we work very well together. In truth, I am very respectful, for I know of no cavalry commander more talented, dashing, or bold.”
“Here, here!” Callie applauded, smiling. Then her smile faded, and she swirled about in the dust to cast
more seed to the chickens. Dear God, how strange. He was speaking about the men who were grinding countless companies of the Union army into constant bloody defeats. The way that he spoke, she found herself smiling far too frequently, and anxious to meet such a man as Beauty Stuart.
“There was an occasion when the Federals under Pope managed to take Stuart’s magnificent cape and his plumed hat,” Daniel told her, his eyes twinkling.
“And?”
“And so we had to go after Pope—and get back his cape and hat.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true, and we succeeded nicely, thank you. You see,” he advised her, his tone grave, his eyes alight, “we are entirely bold and dashing and daring, and there’s nothing that can stop the southern cavalry.”
It was often proving all too true, Callie thought. Northern horsemen had a difficult time keeping up with their southern counterparts. Too many of the South’s men were like Daniel, born and bred to ride and hunt and master the slopes and hills and valleys and forests of their region.
“We are Lee’s eyes and ears—” Daniel began, but he broke off, looking into the darkness of the night.
“What is it?” Callie asked him.
“Nothing,” he said after a moment. He shrugged. “I thought I heard something.” He stared at Callie again. “Cavalry was all-important in the battle here. Lee’s orders for the campaign were discovered by the Federals, and it was our scouting and riding around the Federals that brought back that information.”
“Lee’s orders were found by the Union?” Callie said. One point for their side. How unusual.
Daniel nodded, watching her. “Special Order Number 191,” he said. “It advised a number of Lee’s key generals that he was splitting the army, that Jackson
would be taking Harpers Ferry. Someone was careless. There were seven copies of the order. One was found by Federal men in the grass at one of the campsites we had abandoned near Frederick, Maryland. It was wrapped around three cigars, can you imagine? It was an incredible gift to the Union—and a blow to us. But McClellan moved too slowly. Jackson managed to take Harpers Ferry, and to meet us here to do battle. And Lee was forewarned that McClellan knew about the order because we looped around to get the information.”
“You didn’t win the battle,” Callie reminded him.
“Do you know that for a fact?”
Callie shrugged. “Union soldiers are keeping you here,” she said softly.
“I wonder. I wonder if it is Union soldiers keeping me here,” he murmured softly. He tore his eyes from hers, looking out over the night that settled around them. “Perhaps we didn’t win. Maybe we didn’t take the territory. But I don’t think that the Union won either.”
Callie didn’t want to remember the aftermath of the battle. The bodies had been taken away from her lawn. More selfishly, she didn’t want to give up the night, or this very strange time between her and this Rebel. He was anxious to leave, she knew. Now that she was anxious that he stay, he was feeling the hard pull to return to duty. She was very afraid for him to go. He wasn’t strong enough yet, she had convinced herself. And the countryside was crawling with Union troops.
He wouldn’t allow himself to be taken. Not easily. He’d die to escape, or he’d bring down more men to whom she should owe her loyalty and concern.
She smiled at him, dispelling the desolation that had intruded between them.
“So the southern cavalry can all ride,” Callie said. “Watch it. The northern boys just might catch up.”
“But we ride very well,” he assured her with a grin.
“So might they.”
“We ride exceptionally well.”
“And you also excel in your humility,” she said.
“The prim and proper Mrs. Michaelson, returned to me at last!” he teased.
Callie threw out a handful of seed to the chickens, which hurriedly pecked away at the offering. “I am very prim and proper, and you must keep that in mind,” she told him. She didn’t dare look at him to see the warmth of the smile that curved his lip. Perhaps she had been prim and proper once. But he had changed her. Irrevocably. He knew her more intimately than any man alive … or dead. He had demanded so many things from her, and he had given back so many. He had robbed her of old emotions, and given her new ecstasy—and anguish. She didn’t dare dwell too closely upon it. She was falling in love with her enemy, and in this war, that was a very frightening thought.
She turned back to face him and met his gaze. He was looking at her with that blue fire kindled within his eyes once again. A fire that caught deep within her just because he glanced her way. A fire that evoked sweet longings and seemed to touch down upon her flesh with a dance of sweet little flames.
A fire from which she needed some distance.
“Let’s hear more about these famous—infamous!—men in gray,” she told him. “What about Lee? Is he really so great as they say?”
Daniel grinned. “There is no man greater.” He slid down from the gate, leaning against it. “Imagine, Callie. He had a beautiful home in Arlington. It still sits there, high upon a ridge, looking over the Potomac, right in Washington, D.C. And it wasn’t just his home, it was his wife’s home. And she is—”
“Martha Washington’s great-granddaughter, and the step great-grandchild of George Washington,” Callie
interrupted softly. Daniel looked at her with an arched brow. “So I’ve heard,” Callie said. “Your General Lee is a legend here, just as he is in the South. Many people believe that the war would be over now if we had had him leading some of our troops. They say that he is a brilliant commander, and an extremely fine man.”
Daniel smiled ruefully. “It’s quite true; he is both of those things. And sometimes, when the war seems to drag on and on and I’m thinking of home with every breath I take, I think about Master Lee, as we sometimes call him, and his wife, Mary, and that beautiful home of theirs.”
“And what of Mary Lee?” Callie murmured.
A slow, wry curl worked its way into Daniel’s lip as he looked down at Callie. “Mary Lee loves her husband very much. And trusts in his decisions.”
“It is her home that is lost,” Callie said. “He is off riding around the countryside.”
“Skedaddling Yanks,” Daniel said lazily. She cast him a most condemning gaze and he laughed softly.
He leapt down from the barn gate and came toward her. “He’s very, very good at it.”
“Is he?” Callie said.
Daniel nodded. “Yes. All Rebs are. Look. All I’m doing is walking very slowly toward you. And you’re already trying to skedaddle.”
Her heart was thudding already. Yes, she was backing away from him. She just couldn’t feel this warm, lusty wonder every time he looked at her. It was wrong, and she had created a fool’s paradise. She had to learn to walk and talk and keep her distance from him, to regain her sense of propriety, dear God, to regain her morals!
But all that he had to do was beckon, and she felt the heat come simmering through her.
“I’m not trying to skedaddle,” she assured him.
“Then stand still.”
“But I’m not ready to surrender!” she said quickly. He was still coming. She dropped the bucket of chicken feed and veered around toward the paddock fence, making sure she kept her eyes on him all the while.
“How futile to battle when the war is already lost!” he told her.
“No, sir! The war is not lost. Battle after battle may be won, but that does not mean that the war is lost!”
“The enemy can be worn down.”
“Not a determined enemy.”
He paused for just a moment, his head cocked, a crooked smile playing into the corners of his mouth. “Have you ever made love in the hay, Mrs. Michaelson?”
Her mouth dropped, although she didn’t know why anything that he should say or do should surprise her anymore.
He didn’t wait for her answer, but came toward her again with his long, relentless stride. A sound escaped her as he came too close, and she made a beeline past him, slipping behind the barn gate and using it for a barrier between them.
“Colonel, things have happened very quickly here,” she told him, “and I think that a measure of constraint—”
“The moment is constraining me to sheer distraction, Mrs. Michaelson,” he said pleasantly enough. But then his hand touched the rim of the gate and suddenly he was leaping up and over it, and facing her.
“Daniel Cameron—”
“You never, never made love in the hay?”
She pushed away from the gate, backing away from him once again. “Well, it’s hardly the proper thing to do—”
“Callie, Callie, Callie, making love is not supposed
to be a ‘proper’ thing at all. And the scent of the hay is so delicious—”
“And it surely sticks into your flesh and tangles in your hair!”