Rebel (43 page)

“I’ll come home,” he whispered to her.

And she could only reply, “What is home, Ian?”

“Home is with you.”

“This is war—”

“I won’t be shot,” he promised.

“You can be bayonetted. Or hanged,” she whispered.

“Hanged! Spies are hanged, my love. I’m not a spy.”

A chill went through her. “But then—”

He rolled over, taking her tenderly into his arms. “I love you, Alaina. I say that with all the heart and power and passion within me, and how very strange, for we were such strangers, so at odds, and still … I love you. Deeply, with all my heart. And I can never tell you how sorry I am that my pride and honor demand I not take the role in this conflict that you wanted for me. I can’t, Alaina, but I do love you, and I swear, I will come home. To you.”

“Oh, Ian!” Tears spilled from her eyes again. He kissed them away. Kissed her tenderly. Made love to her again, until she lay against him, utterly spent.

She slept.

And when she awoke, he was gone.

And she didn’t actually understand the dread that filled her, but in her heart, she knew. For them, the war actually started that day.

Ian was the one betraying Florida, the Confederacy, their families, she thought.

So why was it that she felt such terrible guilt… such pain…

Such fear?

A
laina was pleased when she very quickly learned to correspond in code. She greatly admired Rose, for the woman hadn’t blindly formed her opinions, but had spent time at Congress, listening to the senators and representatives debate; she could speak several languages, and she had frequently attended Supreme Court hearings. Following Rose’s example, Alaina determined to learn Spanish, a language with which she was already familiar because of the many Cubans who traveled the waters off Florida, and the many Indians who spoke Spanish. Rose had assured her that languages could be superior weapons in any field of war.

Yet, not long after Ian had gone, Rose told Alaina that they had to escalate their operations. It was imperative that they get certain information across the Potomac. Rose sent Alaina south through Union lines, where she was to meet with an undercover agent, Captain Lewes, who would be waiting just outside Alexandria. The information was so critical that it mustn’t be taken or confiscated. General McDowell of the Union army planned to launch a surprise attack on Beauregard’s twenty thousand men stationed at Manassas Junction near Bull Run Creek, just thirty miles from Washington.

Alaina, traveling with one of Rose’s maids, was easily able to reach Alexandria. She found Captain Lewes, a young man in plain farm clothing, buying laudanum for his wife’s headaches. Alaina quickly slipped her message to him, and he thanked her.

It went so smoothly, but when she returned home that night, Alaina was shaking. She spent the entire evening holding Sean, even when he didn’t want to be held. She told herself that the Confederates would swiftly whomp the Yankees—after all, they had gotten so many of the
good Union fighting men!—and Southern independence would be accepted. The South could be as friendly with the North as the United States had been of late with Canada!

But the Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, was fought just four days later.

Half of Washington society rode out to see the spectacle.

Alaina did not. She sat home, so nervous she was nearly sick.

After the battle, she came out and stood on the street, incredibly torn as McDowell’s troops, routed by the Confederates—mainly because the Reb army was so well prepared for the “surprise” attack—came back into the city.

Maimed, filthy, bloody, bleeding. Soldiers dragging other soldiers with their own last reserves of strength. Alaina, Lilly, Henry, and the day maids came to the fence, handing out water to the broken, exhausted men. Alaina looked into their faces—grimed with dirt, hair plastered with blood—looked into their eyes and saw the horror of warfare. These Union soldiers became individuals to her, and she couldn’t help but be devastated by all that she saw.

She wept that night and stared up at her ceiling in the darkness. But when it was nearly midnight, she heard pebbles hitting her window. She looked out and was startled to see Captain Lewes, in his young-farm-lad clothing, hiding beneath an oak tree. She slipped into a robe and hurried outside to meet him. “I’ve just brought a letter of thanks,” he told her, brown eyes grave and earnest. “Mrs. Greenhow is greatly responsible for the Southern victory today—Mrs. Greenhow… and others.”

Alaina nodded, feeling ill.

“You should be proud,” he told her.

“I saw the men return from battle. It was awful.”

“Ah,” he murmured, and nodded. “Well, ma’am, you can take comfort in this: It is better that more Union men should be among the dead and wounded than our Rebs. It’s war, Mrs. McKenzie, and we must take sides.”

He tipped his hat to her and disappeared.

As she lay in bed that night, Alaina tried to find peace.

She hadn’t created the war. She could only do her best, as the captain had said, to save Southern lives.

In the days that followed, she brooded at first, but then returned to Rose’s frequently.

About ten days after the battle at Manassas, she received stunning and painful news when a woman at Rose’s, the wife of a Union general, slipped her a letter.

It was from Jennifer.

Lawrence Malloy, filled with revolutionary fever, hadn’t signed on with a Florida unit. He’d gone north, and from Charleston, he’d joined up with the Confederate army under Beauregard as a captain of cavalry.

Now he was dead.

Killed at Bull Run. His bullet-riddled body had been brought back by his admiring men.

Jennifer’s letter wasn’t just filled with grief, it was consumed with hatred. For Private Doby, who wrote Jennifer with the bad news, told her that the Federals behaved in a most despicable fashion—a hundred of them gunning down her poor husband even as he gave the order for his men to retreat! “May all those wretched Federal bastards rot and die in this war!” Jennifer wrote. “I tell you, Alaina, from this day forth, I will do my very best to see that they are brought low. I will risk anything, for there is no life without Lawrence.”

Alone that night, Alaina grieved for Lawrence, handsome, dashing, always kind. He and Jennifer had been her best friends. Jennifer had grieved with her, and now Jennifer was alone. Not alone, of course. Her brother was near, her father, her stepmother. She had precious little Anthony. She had her aunt and uncle, and her cousins, Tia, Julian… Ian.

Ian, the Union soldier. The enemy.

It was only at Rose’s, when Alaina saw Risa, that she felt a twinge of guilt once again for helping the South. Risa talked to her with the greatest sorrow; she’d gone to the hospital to help care for the wounded Union men. “I heard about Captain Malloy. I never met any of Ian’s family, but I know they were close. I’m very sorry.”

Alaina thanked her. “Jennifer is… devastated.”

“And Ian?”

Alaina shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. I don’t know where he is. Do you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I know nothing at all,” Alaina told Risa nervously. “Can’t your father—”

“Ian has been reassigned. My father is no longer his commanding officer. Everything is shifting. My father led men at Manassas—without Ian,” she said softly. “I’m just grateful my father survived. And I’m afraid he knows nothing about Ian.”

Alaina thanked her, wishing that she could hear something from Ian.

Anything.

He could pause, and listen, and imagine the world like it always was. It was summer, hot, the sun beating down relentlessly, only the deep green foliage of the Everglades sheltering men and beasts and all manner of swamp creatures from the deadly heat. Closing his eyes, listening, he could hear the flight of a great blue heron from the nearby water, the rustle of leaves with the slight breeze. When he listened the way his uncle had taught him, he could even hear the slither of a snake within the grass.

Once upon a time, it had been a playground for them all. Now it was no longer play.

“Well, Major, what do you think?”

Ian opened his eyes and turned around. Jake Chicoppee stood just a few feet away from him, waiting.

Jake was a half-breed Seminole, a man happily living with his wife’s family in one of the hammocks deep in the swamp. He and Ian had known each other since they were boys.

Jake hadn’t entered the Union army—he wasn’t going to go quite so far against an organization his people had so recently fought. But he couldn’t support the South either because he did not believe in slavery.

Ian wished that his uncle saw the war that way, but James did not. Hunkering down to survey the terrain around him, Ian felt as if fingers clamped around his heart and held tight. He’d heard about Lawrence’s death at Manassas. It was only when he was deep in the swamp, as he was now, that he missed communications. Usually he heard what was happening quite quickly, because he was using Key West as his main base, and ships
came and went with a fair frequency, bearing both news and supplies. Now, though, he’d been isolated in the swamp for several days. With Jake, he’d established a makeshift encampment in the midst of enemy territory— so sheltered by what most people saw as the deadly misery of the swamp that it would never be found. It was a high hammock, filled with pines and surrounded by water on three sides, its one entry naturally guarded by thick rows of trees. It was near enough to the water; it was large enough to accommodate several cabins and a barn for horses. Ian had to have horses here, if he was to be effective moving throughout the peninsula.

“Well?” Jake inquired again.

Ian looked around him once more. The trees were so dense, they could even hide buildings—and he just wanted a few cabins. The terrain would be extremely treacherous for anyone not familiar with it.

He nodded, looking at Jake. “It’s perfect. I’ll bring my men the day after tomorrow, and we’ll start building.”

“Why not tomorrow?”

Ian shrugged. “I’ve a few personal matters.” That night, under cover of darkness, he left the mangrove shoreline in a small rowboat. He left alone. He was stripped down to just his breeches, barefoot and bare chested, not because he wanted to discard his uniform, but because of the heat.

He made his way to Belamar. Even as he came near the beach, he heard a furious female voice call out to him.

“Stop!”

He frowned and kept coming.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot your bloody head off!”

It was Jen’s voice.

“Jen, it’s Ian.”

His rowboat grounded against the beach. He saw her standing there in the moonlight, a shotgun aimed at his heart. Pity seized him. She was still beautiful, but she was thinner and pinched, and her eyes had a wild look about them. She wasn’t wearing a dress, but an old pair of men’s breeches, tied up with rope, and a man’s shirt and boots. A mangled slouch hat was pulled low over her forehead.

“Jen, it’s Ian!”

“You bloody, despicable Yank!” she shouted at him.

“I came to see you because I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His cousin’s hazel eyes glinted in the darkness. “Go away, Ian.”

“Now, come on. This is my wife’s property—”

“And your wife can come here whenever she wants. Go away or I’ll shoot you. You’re a Yankee. I hate Yankees.”

“Jen, I’m your cousin Ian!”

She kept the gun pointed at his heart. Ian chose to ignore it. He stepped into the wet sand from his rowboat.

“Ian, damn you, I’ll shoot!” she cried out.

He caught her eyes, her beautiful, red-rimmed hazel eyes. He thought of her gentleness, the way she had been with him when he’d been just a babe, and he thought of her tenderness when she had comforted Alaina at Teddy’s death. He kept walking toward her.

The rifle butted against his chest.

“I’ll shoot you, Ian.”

He paused just another second. Then he pushed the rifle aside. “No, you won’t shoot me, you won’t because I love you, Jen, and I’m sorry, so very, very sorry.”

She allowed the rifle to fall as he took her into his arms. And she sobbed.

Soon more people spilled from the house.

“Jen!” his aunt Teela’s voice, filled with concern.

“Jennifer!” James, calling to his daughter.

“Jen!” Jerome, coming behind him.

And then all of them, staring at Ian.

After a long while, his uncle sighed deeply. “You’ve got to go now, Ian. You’re the enemy here, you know.”

He felt Jennifer clinging blindly to him, and he hugged her tightly in return.

“He’s not the enemy, he’s my nephew!” Teela said stubbornly.

“Mother,” Jerome informed her quietly, “Ian is an enemy soldier.” Jerome’s eyes, as darkly cobalt as his own, pinned Ian. “Ian knows that he has to go. Sweet Jesus, there are Rebs all about in these waters now…. Ian, you fool, you’re in danger here!”

“He’s safe enough tonight in this house,” Teela in-
sisted. She spun on her husband, tears in her eyes. “He’s safe enough,” she repeated.

James exhaled on a long note. He looked at his daughter, still sobbing in Ian’s arms. He lifted a hand helplessly. “You’ve got to be out of here by morning’s light, Ian. I’ll be damned if I’ll see my brother’s oldest son gunned down on his own property. And I’ll be damned if I’ll help the Union, you understand?”

“Yes,” Ian said, and with his arm still around Jennifer, he walked to the house with his kin.

After Teela gave him a bowl of her rich conch chowder, she told Ian what she knew about his folks. Tia and Julian were living life like usual at Cimarron, though there had been some talk that Cimarron could be confiscated.

“What?” Ian demanded hotly.

“It’s not going to happen; we still have laws in this state,” James said.

“It was just talk,” Jerome agreed firmly.

“Talk,” Teela said quietly, and hesitated just a moment, “instigated by an old acquaintance.”

“Who?” Ian demanded harshly.

“Teela, it isn’t going to help him to know,” James said, aggravated with his wife.

“I’m sorry, James,” Teela said, “but he should know. It’s that Peter O’Neill, who is naturally still bitter about the fact that you married Alaina.”