Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance Series, #2) (10 page)

“I gave him my real address. He sends letters. I write. I don’t...I don’t tell him much about what I do. I miss him, though.” She looked down at her hands. “You like to talk about things that aren’t rescuing your sister, you know.”

“It feels hopeless,” he admitted, and her chin came up at once, her eyes grave.

“It is
not
hopeless.”

“What?”

“You’ve seen war, and you know the evils that men can do to one another. Aye, and women, I’d bet—you know the words they say when they speak of the enemies that slaughtered their brothers and their sons. People can hate, and people can do terrible things even without hating. But haven’t you seen, Solomon? In war, you also see the best. It’s too rare, but it’s so blinding it hurts. Men who run into gunfire for their brothers in arms, the citizens who give food and care to their enemies. There are those for whom the darkness is no more than a passing thought. I have seen the worst, and I came to be a spy for vengeance. Every day I am humbled by the goodness and mercy in others’ hearts.”

“It is only one of many miracles. There is pity in the man who kidnapped your sister. There is uncertainty in the others. Who can say, but that they might let her go? Who can say if there will be a shadow, a birdcall, and we will be able to creep into their camp? Solomon, you wish to save those who are dear to you, and that itself is a miracle, an ordinary, everyday miracle. Do not lose hope that another might occur.”

Solomon stared, his eyes wide. On top of everything else, the woman was a poet, and one of faith, at that. If he had never heard her speak of God, still he could not doubt her faith in the goodness of the world. He remembered things he had hardly noticed before: the way she smiled at the dawn, the way she paused when birds leapt into the air as they rode.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said finally. He wondered, now: did she know? Could she possibly know that he had nursed Jasper back to health, and that the man had brought him back? She must know of Jasper’s defection, and yet perhaps she thought that it had been a coincidence.

He could not count on her ignorance; he knew that now, and every time he remembered it, it gave him a chill. She knew more than she was telling, that much he could say for certain. What she had put together, though...

“Stop looking so melancholy,” she said. She threw another branch onto the fire. “We need a plan.”

“Creep up on them while they’re sleeping?”

“They’ll expect that.”

“They’re expecting an attack, anyway. Even if you sleep with your gun by your hand, it’s difficult to clear the sleep from your head.”

“True. But I wonder...” She looked away.

“What?”

“Suppose we circled around them. Left now, pushed hard tonight, came up to catch them tomorrow, just before they bedded down. If they’re going where I think they’re going, they’ll need to head west sometime soon. We can get the sun in their eyes, and catch them at their most weary.” Her brow furrowed at Solomon’s expression. “What?”

“You should have been a general.”

“It’s one thing to have a clever idea once in a while, and quite another to manage thousands of men,” she informed him. But she was smiling, and could not quite hide it. She looked out into space and considered. “Besides which, then Jasper and Cecelia would both already be on horses.”

“Knox is never letting Cecelia go,” Solomon said, his heart twisting. The man, for all his discomfort at holding a woman prisoner, could have picked no better way to secure Jasper’s cooperation.

“He’s trying to keep her safe when she’s surrounded by vengeful soldiers. I should think he’d be glad of the option to get rid of her. I’m not saying he’ll just hand her over,” Violet said, exasperated, when Solomon raised an eyebrow. “But I’m saying it’s possible, if we get them at enough of a disadvantage. I don’t want to kill any more than you do.”

“What
do
you want?” Solomon asked her, and he could have sworn he saw her flinch.

“That’s not a fair question.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I didn’t make you a traitor, Solomon Dalton.” Any trace of warmth was gone from her face. “You’re not a law-abiding man facing down a robber. You’re a man who turned on the Union, and you expect me to look past it because you want to save your sister’s life? I’ll help you save her; that much I can do to make sure she doesn’t suffer, but I am not to blame for where you find yourself now. If it had not been me that came for you, it would have been another, and all of that is as it should be.”

“You do not know me.” How could he be so angry? His blood was pounding. She had said nothing he had not said to himself. Indeed, she had been less cruel than he had been in the months since he returned home. It bothered him that she should look at him and see treason when he knew she also saw honor. Desperation grasped him each time he realized that no smile, no rapport, would break her of her duty.

Desperation.

That was what this was. Only now, in the face of a death he had, to be honest, did Solomon see his own cowardice reflected back at him. Neither cowardice nor honor mattered anymore. He was going to go back and stand trial and hang for his crimes.

T
heir pace the next day was so slow that Jasper and Cecelia were given leave to walk. What began as a delicious freedom after sore days in the saddle turned quickly to misery. Their sore muscles were much the worse for wear after the constant jostling, pinned in place by their hands tied to the pommels, and now each step jolted, sending shooting pains through them. Filthy socks and disused shoes had their feet bleeding before noon.

Jasper lagged, hoping they might be asked to ride once more. His head still ached fiercely, and the concussion filled him with nausea as he took each unsteady step but the men found his pain nothing more than amusing, and Cecelia was not inclined in the slightest to intervene on his behalf. Once as he stumbled, she merely stepped away so that he fell into the leaves and the muck, and he heard the soldiers laugh. When he looked up, her face was still as stone—and as cold.

As they sat around the campfire, Knox evidently decided to make an example of Jasper. He was hauled from his seat, Cecelia gasping and settling back when Knox motioned that she was not in danger. The next moment, Jasper found himself sprawled on the cold ground, and the toe of Knox’s boot turning him over.

“Tell us about Stuart,” he said. His tone was almost pleasant, unless one looked at his eyes.

Jasper felt only a sinking fear. Men said they did not know things all the time. No one would believe him that he knew no one named Stuart. He had said Horace was dead, hadn’t he? Now he was going to pay for that lie ten times over, with broken ribs and blood pouring from his nose.

“Who?”

“Ambrose Stuart.”

“I don’t know an Ambrose Stuart.” The only way he would get through this was if Knox, by some miracle, believed him. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, they knew Horace had used a fake name, but they were not sure of it.

‘You’re lying, just like you did about Horace. We saw Stuart in the camp with him. What do you know about the man?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Jasper said desperately. Why Horace should have come with anyone, it didn’t make sense.

Despite himself, he looked to Cecelia, and even though there was no sympathy in her eyes, he saw her give the tiniest shake of her head. The name meant nothing to her either.

“I hope you’re telling the truth, because if not, you’ve found yourself a more painful death than hanging.”

Jasper took a moment to appreciate a threat instead of a blow, but his mind would not be distracted for long.

“Who is Ambrose Stuart?” he asked finally.

“Union spy,” Knox said flatly. “Still going to tell us you don’t know, Perry?”

“Yes. What use would a Union spy have with me?”

Knox gave a bark of laughter, and quieted.

“Either you’re the stupidest man that ever lived, or you really don’t know. And I’ve talked with you, Perry; I know you’re not that stupid. Of course, Jemison here might have whacked you a bit too hard with the butt of his rifle yesterday. So you’re telling me you don’t know a man, oh, up to my shoulder, looks like he should blow away in a stiff wind, all fancy manners?”

Jasper shook his head.

“So how does Horace know him?”

“I...don’t know.” And it was no deception. He truly could not think of how Solomon would know such a man. Had he ever seen someone of that description around the farm? He did not think so. Too late, he realized he should have said nothing, but it seemed his musing honesty had earned him at least a small reprieve.

“You really don’t, do you?” Knox asked.

“He’s lying,” one of the men said nervously.

“I don’t think he is.” Knox sighed. He did not help Jasper up out of the mud.

“How do you know this man?” Jasper asked finally. There was an angry muttering in the camp, but Knox did not pay them any attention.

“He was dispatched to us from command after you left. Rode with us for a week. Gave us orders, brought brandy with him. Said how proud they were of us.”

Jasper blinked. It seemed to him to be an odd way of spying on people.

“He...brought
you
information?”

“Not real information,” Knox snapped. “None of us saw it coming. Someone comes to tell you something, and you think...” Embarrassment turned his face a ruddy shade, but the incomprehension he saw in Jasper and Cecelia’s faces seemed to mollify him somewhat. “Even Union people don’t seem to know that trick then.”

“What did he do?” Cecelia asked, before she could stop herself. She colored and looked down, murmuring an apology.

Knox, however, was not inclined to lecture her on speaking out of turn; he only gave a bitter laugh and considered his words. “It’s a good question,” he said finally. “And I’ll tell you plain, I don’t even know all of it. What he was looking for...something small. One fact, command said later. Even they didn’t know. He’d gone to other groups as well as ours. He’d show up, say he had orders, and ride with the men for a few days. Unusual, but it was wartime and nothing is simple then. When a man shows up, never asks a thing...

“He has this way, see. It’s not like he’s listening, but it’s a quiet you want to fill, and you tell him things. We told him much more than he needed to know. I told him about my younger sister, Jemison told him about the crops at home, and somewhere in there, someone told him whatever fact he needed to know. He left us after a few days, and soon after that, we showed up where he told us we were supposed to be. Empty field.”

Jasper said nothing. He was still frowning. This still did not make as much sense as he hoped it would.

“And you know where we weren’t?” Knox asked him bitterly. “Where they needed us. He’d taken our troops and scattered them to the wind, and some big offensive, some... Well, it didn’t happen. A few of our spies got caught for it, I heard. We must have given him the information, and no one knows how.”

The mood in the camp was grim, almost eerie. Jasper tried to see such a man in his mind’s eye. He would not look sly and shifty, oh, no. He would look trustworthy, open. And his smile was meaningless. Who was he? A wraith, a ghost. He looked around at the men and saw their fear, and as if entertaining the same thoughts, Cecelia shivered and looked over her shoulder involuntarily.

“And now he’s working with Horace Delancy,” Knox mused. “Which makes me wonder...”

Jasper’s blood turned to ice. How could he refute this? He had thought the same about Solomon when he learned the truth, and there had not even been a Union spy to damn him by association. How could he possibly convince them that this man and Horace were acquaintances at best, perhaps connected by some coincidence but nothing more? They would never believe him, not after he’d lied about Solomon being dead in the first place. Now they would think he was a spy, and what they would do to him would be far, far worse than what they would do to Jasper.

He opened his mouth in a desperate appeal and stopped.

Could he say, truly, for certain, that Solomon
wasn’t
a spy?

This was what war did, he thought bitterly. It turned man against man and made enemies from friends. It sowed discord and mistrust where there should be none.
He
had rescued Solomon.
He
had defected. Surely if Solomon had been passing intelligence after...

...but now Solomon rode with a man who had come to their troop after Solomon and Jasper left. Jasper squeezed his eyes shut. It was too much. He could not tell truth from fiction any longer.

“So why’s Horace come for this one, then?” Knox asked, breaking the tortured whirl of thoughts in Jasper’s mind. He jerked his head at Cecelia. “Heard him call her name.”

Jasper pushed himself up, hoping the spasms of pain on his face would block any other emotion that dared show itself. He had to think quickly, had to come up with something. Any association with Solomon would do Cecelia more harm than good.

“He knows her, aye,” Jasper said wearily. “He’s still alive, he visited the farm before.”

“So he’s come to rescue her?”

“I don’t know why he’s here,” Jasper lied with as much alacrity as he could manage.

“You called out for him.”

“He wasn’t doing you any favors, and you did kidnap us,” Jasper pointed out.

“I see.” Knox did not seem to believe him. “Well, it won’t be a mystery for long. They have ways to get things out of people.”

“They?” Jasper felt fear skitter down his spine. At his side, Cecelia was suddenly very still.

“Command. They’ll want to talk to Horace before we get him back, and they’ll want Ambrose too. Think what that man knows.”

“Knox...” The thought of Solomon being tortured made Jasper want to be ill. He could not allow it to happen. He had promised Clara he’d get Solomon back, not lose him to a fate worse than death.

But what if he was a—

No. Don’t even think it.

Then why was he in the company of a spy?

“Don’t tell me you pity the spies,” Knox said, clearly enjoying himself. “That would suggest you had some lingering attachment to them.”