Glory (22 page)

“Thank you, Dr. McKenzie.”

Julian stretched out an arm, indicating his canvas quarters. “Paddy, you’ll see to the men?”

“Aye, sir.”

Once seated behind his camp desk, Julian poured brandy. Rogers sipped it, and the expression on his face as he savored the brew was such that Julian felt a moment’s guilt; Rogers obviously hadn’t had brandy in a long time. He was an old-timer and still willingly accepted the hardships of war, taking whatever assignments were given him.

He’d been damned lucky himself. Yes, the state was stripped, and he got no help from the central Confederate government. But he’d had Jerome to see to it that his Florida boys did have what medicines could be procured. Often, though his father remained loyal to the Union, his mother managed to send him smoked hams and dried beef from their plantation in Tampa, just as he’d received supplies from his Uncle James down the peninsula.

That, he realized, was about to change.

Captain Rogers sighed with pure pleasure. “Thank you, Dr. McKenzie.”

“I’m delighted to see you enjoy it so. I think we can spare a bit more.”

Rogers smiled, accepting another portion of brandy. “I’ve heard your cousin was shot up, and that his ship is in. The Yanks know it, you can be sure. You’ll have to take care.”

“Yes, the Yanks know it,” Julian agreed, waiting for Rogers to go on.

“Well, down to it, then, I’m here to tell you to report just outside of Jacksonville in five days’ time. You’re to be commissioned to the regular army and sent north to help with the surgical needs of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

“My entire company?”

“Oh, no, sir, they’ll be sending another young surgeon here. And you may choose your assistants, of course.”

“Why me?”

Rogers shrugged. “You’ve managed to keep people alive. You’ve written letters on the subject of sanitary conditions—”

“I wrote personal letters to my cousin,” he said, eyes narrowing.

“Yes, and your cousin, Captain McKenzie, used paragraphs from those letters when writing entreaties for supplies that could improve conditions when operating on the battlefield. The major medical officers of the Confederacy have asked for assistance, Doctor.”

Julian drummed his fingers on his desk. “Will I be working with my cousin?” Naturally, he would be glad to be with Brent, though at the moment he’d like to strangle him. How could Brent have shown others their private correspondence? But he knew that they were both aware that filthy conditions and unsanitary water caused more deaths than bullets and sabers combined. Brent had done what he felt he had to do. He couldn’t have know the consequences.

“I’m afraid Brent McKenzie is being sent on to a grave task indeed.”

“Oh?”

To his amazement, old Rogers blushed. He leaned forward, as if there were others in the tent who might overhear their conversation. “Prostitutes!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why, sir, it is an epidemic. Where men will fight, women will go. We have so many men downed by diseases of the ... well, you know, sir, diseases of the flesh—”

“A problem with crabs?” Julian couldn’t help but ask bluntly.

Rogers became pathetically pink. Julian decided a little kindness would be in order. “Sorry, sir.”

“Much more than that. There are women ... so many women. Well, Dr. Brent McKenzie is being put on special assignment to try to contain some of these awful diseases and get our men back in the field.”

Julian lowered his head, a small smile curling his lips. Well, it was war. Here he had been, sick at heart at leaving his state. He sure as hell couldn’t be angry with Brent anymore. Brent had been passionately dedicated to the men on the field. And now he was being sent off to deal with prostitutes! He was surely fit to be tied.

“I’m sure my cousin will rise nobly to the task ahead,” Julian said.

Rogers nodded somberly. “You’ve been noted by the important men in medicine, sir, and they are pleased with your records of success.”

“I’ve not had to work under the same conditions as many of the men in the midst of the major battles.”

“You’ve treated men in the field.”

“We’ve had skirmishes here. I’ve worked with the same illnesses and the same injuries, but never under some of the truly horrifying circumstances about which I’ve read. From the major battles, sir, the numbers of wounded, missing, and killed are staggering.”

“Staggering,” Rogers agreed. “That’s why you’re in such high demand. Don’t be too dismayed, Doctor. Your Governor Milton spends hours writing to the Confederate government, decrying the way his state has been stripped and left to fend for itself with so little defense. The Confederacy has deep sympathy for your plight here. When the summer campaigns are over, there’s a good chance you’ll be relieved of national duty and allowed to come back home. That’s not a promise or a guarantee, sir. You know that I can’t give that. We all go where we’re ordered to go.”

“For the cause,” Julian murmured, lifting his brandy glass to Rogers.

“For the cause!” Rogers repeated passionately.

“Tell me, sir, how did you draw this assignment, finding me here in this Godforsaken little hammock?”

“Why, I’m in the process of being reassigned as well, sir. And I’m from Georgia, familiar with north Florida here.”

“Why are you being reassigned?”

Rogers rimmed his brandy glass with a finger and then smiled ruefully at Julian. “Well, the boys and I are all that’s left. We started out with a company near fifty men back at the beginning of the war. My company. I financed them, you see, and I was elected captain—we were militia to begin with as well, you see. We fought at Chancellorsville. By then, we were already down to about twenty-five men. And after Chancellorsville ... well, we’re all that’s left. So we’ll be seeing you outside of Jacksonville as well, sir.”

Julian nodded slowly. “I’m very sorry, sir.”

“So am I, Doctor. So am I.”

“It seems to me you’ve fought a hard war. Perhaps you should be seeing out the rest of it back home in Georgia.”

“That sounds like a right fine proposition. But it’s strange, Colonel. Once you’re in this thing, seems like you’re in it to the end.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Julian agreed.

“You keep your head down, working out on the battlefields, Doctor.”

“I will. And you, Captain, you take care of yourself, too.”

“I’ll drink to that, sir! That is, if you can spare me a touch more of that brandy.

Julian poured them both another drink.

It was late the following afternoon when Rhiannon ventured out to the brook. She was feeling hot, sticky, and restless. Corporal Lyle stood guard at the passage to the water and assured her that he was on duty for several hours to come and would let no one disturb her. Of course, she had heard that story before, but she was beginning to feel a strange sense of fatality, and of recklessness, and she realized that she missed sparring with Julian, and that he had carefully kept his distance from her since his cousin’s surgery.

At the brook she hesitated, then stripped her shoes, stockings, petticoat, pantalettes and mourning gown. In her thin linen shift she stepped into the water, delighted by its cool caress. She moved into the deep area, floating on her back, looking at the canopy of trees above. The cool water trickled through her hair, seemed to massage her scalp, to wash away the heat of the daytime sun and all the dust of the earth and air that had surrounded her during the day. The water was lulling, cleansing, crisp, and sweet. She delighted in it.

She didn’t know when he came; she just knew suddenly that he was there, by the brook, leaning against an old oak, watching her. She straightened, treading the water to keep her toes from touching the muddy bottom. “Were you waiting for me?” he inquired.

“Certainly not. Corporal Lyle swore to me that he’d guard the pathway.”

“Oh, I see. And it never occurred to you that for those of us who know these woods so well, there might not be another path?”

“I was told there was but one.”

He pushed away from the tree and came toward her. On the shore line, he hunkered down, trailing his fingers on the surface of the water. “As far as Corporal Lyle knows, there is but one way here.” His touch remained on the water. “So cool ...” he murmured. “Touched by the sun, and still so pleasantly cool. In summer, of course, when the water level lowers ... it’s like bath water. But not today.”

His eyes met hers. He straightened. She realized that he was already barefoot; he stripped off his cotton shirt and stepped into the water in his trousers. “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

“Well, yes, actually—” she began, but he had walked straight to the deeper section, very near her, and plowed in. She continued to tread water nervously, looking around. He didn’t surface. He remained below far too long.

Then his head shot smoothly from the water. He was some distance away from her, in the deepest section of the brook leading toward the river.

“I do mind, but, please! Hop right in,” she called to him dryly.

He started swimming toward her. Strong, sure strokes. She started to back away, but it was too late. He was suddenly before her, capturing her hands.

“You don’t mind. If you did, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t be absurd. I was assured that—”

“That what? I came here and found you before.”

“I came to swim, McKenzie. The coolness, the cleanness—”

“Wash away the feel of all those Rebels you’ve been touching, eh?” he queried.

She jerked her hands free, and turned, ready to swim toward the shore. She got nowhere. His hands settled on her hips as she tried to flee, and he turned her back to face him. The material of her shift had never felt so thin. His hands all but burned against the coolness of the water and that of her flesh. His eyes were steadily on hers. She set her hands on his, trying to free herself. “Mrs. Tremaine, you are the most atrocious liar I have ever met.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she snapped, working at his fingers where they lay against her waist. “Let me go—”

“You came here to wait for me. You knew that I would come.”

“Now there is the lie, Colonel—”

“Have you been drinking, Mrs. Tremaine?”

“Drinking? While working with your injured soldiers?”

“Have you?”

“Of course not!”

“Any laudanum in your system?”

“No!”

“You’re sure, absolutely sure?”

“Yes, of course, I’m sure—”

“Good!”

He drew her hard against him, caught her chin between his fingers and thumb, and kissed her. Very hard, open-mouthed, with a startling, searing passion. Instinctively she struggled. Set her hands against him. His chest. Bare. Sleek. Furred with dark hair, tautly muscled, alive with a searing heat that seemed to explode from the water. She couldn’t breathe ... that was it, of course. The lack of air. She couldn’t breathe, she was losing consciousness, sanity, reason, her touch with reality. She felt the wet heat of his tongue and lips, so seductive, ravaging her mouth. Felt his hands, as if they touched her bare flesh, moving over her body creating an erotic friction through the sheer linen that only seemed to enhance his slightest touch ...

She made a sound in her throat ... pressed against him again, pushing him, trying to free herself, and yet ... her strength was fading, along with her desire to be free. She’d never felt anything so evocative, the liquid heat of his touch, the fire of his body. The coolness of the water causing her to burn and shiver in one. Her fingertips remained against his naked chest. Her lips parted freely to the sweet, raw, raking of his tongue, the touch of searing wet fire that seemed to sluice all around her. He tilted her head, tasted her more fully. His fingers moved over her breast, the tips brushing her nipple beneath the linen, hot and cold, sluicing seductive fire everywhere ...

Then his head lifted. His lips hovered just above her.

“Not drunk, eh?”

“What? No ...”

“And no drugs?”

“No.”

“Good. Then you’ll remember me this time.”

He released her, inclining his head politely.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, still feeling the pressure of his lips, but now the coolness of the water around her felt like a cold wake-up slap.

“Why, you Rebel bastard.”

Naturally, she tried to strike him. But naturally, he was prepared, capturing her wrist and then drawing her against him one more time. “If you ever want the truth, Mrs. Tremaine, look me up. This time, at the very least, you’ll remember my name. And my face. Call on me, if you ever decide that you need me.”

“Need you!” she gasped furiously.

“You never know, do you, Mrs. Tremaine?”

“I will never need you—”

“You may.”

His eyes were deep blue and steady on hers, intense, and yet touched with just the slightest amusement. Maybe more. Maybe something deeper. She was held so closely against him that she felt the muscle and sinew of his body again, felt the strength. She couldn’t see Richard’s face anymore, just his. His face. He had wanted her to know it, to remember it.

She railed inwardly against her own weaknesses, the darkness in her heart that allowed desire when love was dead, slain on the battlefield.

“Do you know what I need, Colonel?”

“What?”

“Trust me, I know your face and I need just one chance to lay a right jab against your smug cheek!”

He released her, stood back. Smiled, eyes alive and dancing. “One chance. Go for it,” he said.

She swung. Hard, with all her strength. She thought that her blow would land. He spun like an acrobat at the last second, and she careened into his arms, pinned hard against him once again. “As I said—”

“You’re a rude oaf!”

“But an honest one.”

“Honesty and honor are slain on the field like all else, Colonel.”

“Life itself has a way of going on, madam, in defiance of all else. Life will always find a way.”

“I will never need you!” she whispered again.

“Regardless of that, my dear, I would move heaven and earth to come to your assistance if ever you should beckon. The name is McKenzie. Julian. Remember that.”