By Any Means

by Cindy Nord

  A smile wreathed the aged face framed in black and white. “I look forward to reading your reports.”

  If only she felt the same way about writing them. Dread sliding through her, she nodded, and then hurried out.

  Chapter Six

  Along the banks of Knoblick Creek

  Mid-morning, the following day

  Annabelle lifted her chin as the sweat-drenched scoundrel shoved Mother Superior’s letter into his back pocket. The pleasant gurgling of the nearby creek and chirping birds a sharp contrast to the tension roiling between them.

  He stepped closer to her one-horse rig, his eyes narrowing into slits. “What do you mean you’re here to observe?”

  A gambler…and thickheaded. On a sigh, Annabelle angled her brown-silk parasol to block the sun. “I thought myself clear when I explained moments ago, I’m the liaison for the Sisters of St. Joseph. I’ve been sent to record your brick-making process.”

  “Like hell you will.” With a grubby hand, he popped the mare on her rump.

  Startled, the animal lunged forward.

  “Monsieur!” Annabelle’s parasol clattered to the wagon’s seat as she grabbed for the reins. The sunshade bobbled on the worn wood beside her while she slowly regained control over the spooked horse. Furious, she shot the man a hard glare. “Your wishes regarding this matter are unimportant.”

  His jaw tightened.

  Stubborn fool. She might as well be talking to a rock with the headway she was making. Much to her despair, her tiny chip-hat had shifted atop her upswept chignon and a loose curl drifted over her face. She blew back the errant lock. “My directive comes from the Reverend Mother. Not you.”

  He arched a stubborn brow.

  “Please,” she said, exasperation strangling the word. She realized that pursuing this discussion would further erode the fragile inroads they’d made.

  Inroads? What rubbish. He wanted her gone, a fact on which she agreed, except that option didn’t exist for either of them...another truth the Reverend Mother had ensured. Regardless those facts, she had to try. “I propose we negotiate some sort of peace with my presence here.”

  “Negotiate a peace?” A hot breeze lifted a clump of hair that stuck to his scalp in wet hanks as he strode up to the rig once more. “Are you mad? I’ve more interest in trying to temper this damnable wind.”

  Annabelle drew up the reins to steady her horse. “Though you believe I’m here to plot against you, I assure you, my presence is merely to chronicle your day’s performance for the abbess, nothing more.”

  Be pleasant.

  Sunshine streaked through the tree branches above him to emphasize the hard angle of his jaw as he uncrossed his arms. Dark eyes narrowed. “Then you’ll be chronicling a garden of weeds.”

  Turning, the man stalked to the creek and squatted beside a mounded pile of clay. His words drilled deep, his dismissal insulting. She stared at him. The jacket he’d usually worn was missing, broad shoulders now strained against dirty white linen.

  Gone was the cool, composed man of their first meeting.

  Their gazes reconnected.

  He lifted the hand trowel, waggling the pointy end toward her. “I’ll soon be gone from this hellhole,” he snapped, his Virginia drawl even more pronounced, “and all those pages you will’ve clogged with your nonsensical gibberish can be tossed to the bloody wind.”

  “In a battle of words…or wits, Monsieur Benedict, ‘tis the side with the greatest patience that wins.”

  “How easy for you to speak of battle lines from safely atop your roost,” he said, his voice ice. “For you see, Miss Swan, untold nightmares crawl from my memories on a regular basis, events you’ll never have the pleasure of experiencing.” He dug his trowel into the earth, then jerked the tool toward him. Clay coiled upward in a thick curl. He paused, and again scowled over his shoulder at her. “So, that high road you’re traveling may well offer a lofty view, but provides you little else. In my experience, the best soldiers meet their enemies face-to-face.”

  Unbidden empathy filled her. From the first, beneath his carefully polished veneer, she’d sensed something dark within this man. A rebellious soldier who fought a pointless conflict, and witnessed comrades fall by the hundreds. Indeed, such heartbreak would harden any man. She leaned forward. “I am not the enemy, monsieur, merely a woman charged with a task.”

  Hard eyes darkened with suspicion.

  Far from dissuaded by his glare, she continued, “A good worker knows when to save his strength, and when to bear the full weight of his burdens.”

  He snorted. “Burdens? As in these simple bricks and the task it takes to create them? Or in battling you?”

  “Both.”

  Like a predator with slow intent, he pushed to his feet and pointed at her. Even from where she sat she could see the dirt that smudged his manicured nail. “You’ve never been at war, or sliced a saber through a man’s guts, so spare me the deliverance of advice from atop your supercilious perch.”

  She was trying to be gracious, but this man would challenge a saint!

  The rumble of wheels had her glancing upstream. Jubal Jones rolled a hand cart mounded with wet clay toward a half-formed kiln. Thank goodness the giant hadn’t heard them sparring. She looked back at the gambler. “Monsieur Benedict, I’m afraid your grousing does nothing but delay the creation of bricks.” She straightened her parasol with a snap. “So my advice for you, right now, is to commence working. The sooner you finish, the sooner you’ll complete the contract, and the sooner neither of us will ever have to see the other again.”

  A dimple creased his jaw. “You remind me of an alley cat, Miss Swan,” he said, his words measured. “As quiet as a shadow, yet slinking through nonetheless.”

  “Cat-like or not…I don’t trust you.”

  His sharp laugh danced on a tempered, humid wind. “Distrusting me is the smartest thing you’ve said since you’ve arrived.”

  “You’re a gambler. The worst of the lot, or so the good book says.”

  Laughing, he lowered to his knee again and scraped deeper into the clay. Annabelle tried to ignore the way his muscles flexed beneath his shirt.

  “Right you are there, little minx,” he said without looking up. “I’m known far-and-wide for my skill at cards, my choice of fine whiskey, and…” he cut a wicked glance her way, and winked, “my knack for bedding women.”

  Heat burned her cheeks. This man had a wild streak, the polar opposite of the naivety that had stolen all the good years of her life. But still, she knew of Edward, and vulgar men like him, whose philandering tore apart the sanctity of marriage. “I’m well aware of your ill-mannered lot,” she whispered.

  Curiosity darkened his gaze as he sat back on his heels. “Now that is a surprise.” He glanced toward his helper, who labored near another muddy section upstream, then back at her. “In truth, you only know what I share. While I, on other hand, know you’re hiding a boatload of secrets.” He swiped his shoulder against the sweat on his temple. “And I’m looking forward to exposing every single one of them.”

  She tried to deny he’d struck a nerve, but Brennen Benedict was much too observant. With fighting…with cards…with her. A caution flag whipped in the summer wind, and her chin lifted, ever-so-slightly, along with an urge to deny the truth, “You’ve no way of knowing my life, either.”

  “Au contraire, ma chérie,” he replied in broken French. “I know all I need to know.” He again pointed the hand tool in her direction and smiled. This time the gesture seemed genuine. “Once again you’re out of your nunnery gear. Off-duty? Or not? Here’s my thought….and tell me if you think I’m getting warm. You’re about as much a good Sister of St. Joseph as I am. In fact, I think you’re hiding from something, or someone.”

  Warning bells jangled in her brain.

  Dropping the trowel atop the clay, he shoved to his feet. “And since I am such a damned good gambler, Miss Swan, I’m also betting that before we go our separate ways, I’ll know th
e truth.”

  Relieved her hand didn’t shake, she nonetheless tightened her grip on the parasol’s metal handle. Her heartbeat, however, belied her fraud as the heavy kick against her ribs forced a grimace.

  “Hell’s fire,” he continued with a shrug. “You could scribble whatever garbage you want to inside there, and no one would be the wiser. In fact, if you turned your rig around, right now, and headed on down the road, we would never have to see the other again starting today. You’re a woman, wouldn’t you rather go shopping? Or enjoy tea in the comforts of town?”

  He held the premium on frankness. And Annabelle tightened her lips, the arrogance of this libertine unnerving.

  “See, I’m thinking you agree with me.” He laughed, the sound brittle. With his gaze riveted on hers, he tugged a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the blue scrap of material across his face. “I’ll eventually figure out the reasons why, which, regardless if you admit it, scares you to death.” He paused and stuffed back the cloth, all the while staring at her, his dark eyes narrowing. “But, since I am exceptional at playing the odds, I also admit to being intrigued by the mysterious cards you’re holding.” He picked up a nearby jug, offered her a silent salute, and then took a gulp.

  Water sloshed against his mouth and ran in silvery rivulets down his neck.

  Brennen’s throat worked as he swallowed, while Annabelle’s throat went dry. Shaken by her unsteady pulse and elemental draw to this man, she ordered herself to look away. But she watched, noticing how droplets stained his collar and partially-buttoned shirt, the wetness spreading beneath to glisten on his well-muscled chest.

  He wiped his arm against his mouth, then lowered the vessel to the ground. “Take me, for example--” He grabbed a glob of clay, tossed the ruddy mess into an almost-filled hand-cart, and straightened. “I’m a gambler, and an insult to my fine Benedict name. Yet, nowadays I can sleep at night without worry.” He stepped around and gripped the handles of the cart. “Far better gaming, or making bricks for some cantankerous old nun, than running my blade through a soldier for wearing the wrong color uniform.”

  She issued an unladylike snort. “Some folks need trouble to mature, or so says Mother Superior.”

  He glared at her. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that you don your devil-may-care insolence to hide from the real world.” She thinned her lips.

  The knuckles on his hands whitened. “Miss Swan, you’ve unexpected depth, I’ll grant you that. On the other hand, you seem quite contemptuous of me.”

  “Not of you, per se, but of your prejudices…against weakness and work and responsibilities. A special class of men that judge and jump to conclusions without any of the facts. For you…’tis rather all about your money.”

  “So you do have all the answers, I see.”

  Bobbing her head, she straightened the reins across her lap. “In this case I do, monsieur. You’re the worst sort of lot there is…a moneyed, intellectual snob. Mon Dieu, ‘tis astonishing what having security can do to a person.”

  “Ahh, I see…security? Unlike what you’re so desperately searching for now?” His brow arched as he peered at her. “Now, here’s my thoughts which are, I’ll grant you, a tad bit different than yours. For example, your condemnation of me, my money, and my outlook on life appears to lend you strength, and you cling to your censures as if a religion. What exactly are you hiding from tucked behind your far superior judgement of me?”

  She recoiled, his low-slung words dredging up the image of a knife in her sister’s back and a murder blamed on her. Annabelle suppressed the sob that clawed up her throat. “Though one’s tragic tale in life may be different from yours, Monsieur Benedict,” she said, her ragged whisper wobbling on the breeze, “the heartbreak felt by another is no less painful.”

  For a long moment he stared at her, his grip tightening on the worn wood. Tension thickened between them, broken only by the gurgling creek and the low intonations of a mourning dove.

  “Painful for you, perhaps…yes,” he finally said, hoisting the handles. He tipped the cart’s weight onto the lone front wheel. “In regards to me, what the Reverend Mother fails to understand is the Brennen Benedict whom she believes so worthy of reforming, long ago died on the battlefields of Virginia. This bastard standing before you now, no longer gives a damn.”

  He pushed the cart forward three steps, then stopped and turned to face her. “Spare us all this misery and just scribe in your journal no rebirth possible. Now stay out of my way. You got that?”

  At his warning, she gave a shaky nod.

  With a mumbled oath, he shoved the cart toward the kiln.

  And she watched him stalk away, the groan of the wagon’s weight as the wheel bumped over uneven ground mirrored the angst rumbling around inside her. What had happened to have caused him to build such a wall around his emotions, one where he believed himself unsalvageable?

  She sighed, lowered the reins, and retrieved her journal. Why should she linger on his problems? She had enough of her own to worry about. If this condescending man wanted to believe himself beyond saving, who was she to try to convince him otherwise? As he’d said, neither of them wanted to be here, anyway. For both of their sanities, she’d just craft the notes and keep her distance.

  * * * *

  Blasted woman.

  The cart jerked over a bump, and Brennen tightened his grip. She could sit on her wagon seat in the heat ‘til the damned cows came home for all he cared. At the edge of the growing pile, Brennen dumped the clay. Thanks to Jubal’s skills, the kiln was almost repaired. Then, his foreman would use the fire-dried blocks that had been purchased in Evansville to construct three more ovens.

  He returned to the creek, and began dragging up more clay, tossing the muck into the cart. His gut burned at the remembrance of watching the men who’d delivered the goods yesterday climb atop their rented rigs and head for Owensborough. Sonofabitch. He’d wanted to say “to hell with this entire fiasco,” jump on their wagons, and ride off with them to freedom. Instead, he’d spent the remainder of the day learning from Jubal exactly how to gather clay for the contracted bricks.

  His stomach rumbled from hunger. For the tenth time, he wished he had eaten breakfast. Except, his now-repaired manor house contained no food.

  He glanced at Miss Swan, an opened journal spread across her lap, a pencil firm in her hand. With a parasol propped on one shoulder, she sat hunched forward, vigorously writing in her tome. A grimace pulled tight across his mouth. She looked like a woman who should be sipping tea at a high-end New Orleans restaurant instead of pretending to be God knew what.

  Even if her eyes were as green as the Shenandoah…to hell with her, and her wretched task.

  Tension coiled through him, bunching further his already-bunched muscles. With a sigh, he leaned on the upended cart handle. His entire body throbbed. Not the usual stiffness experienced from sitting too long. No, this ache burned clean through him. He’d not worked so damned hard since he and his Grey Ghosts had toughened themselves into lean beasts. Tearing up Yankee train rails and shimmying up poles to slash apart endless miles of telegraph lines had sculpted them all into fine, fighting men.

  Like a blade to his chest, his thoughts slipped back to the mist off the Rappahannock…the stench of gun powder from the battle that raged upriver in Fredericksburg…the Rebs holding Marye’s Heights. And…that sharpshooter’s minié that’d sunk in deep to topple him from his horse.

  Brennen blinked and rubbed the throb in his shoulder, a reminder of just how close he’d come to death. He dropped his gaze, and lowered the cart. He owed his life to his sister, Em, and her husband Reece, the big Yank colonel who’d commandeered her plantation for his winter encampment, and along the way had also captured her heart.

  Five years already…Good God.

  His occasional note to let her know he still lived wouldn’t satisfy Emaline much longer. Shapinsay and Virginia beckoned. Besides, he had a niece and neph
ew to meet. A lopsided grin lifted his lips. By now Euley would’ve divulged to the toddlers just what a scoundrel their uncle really was. He chuckled. Lord knew he should be there to defend himself against the beloved old shrew.

  Now I’m a lazy, out-of-shape old scoundrel, Euley. Since Appomattox, the years of easy living, easier drinking, and the endless slide of playing cards across a tabletop hadn’t kept him lean.

  Brennen snorted as he worked out the pinch in his shoulder. The war was long ago over, and wielding his talents up and down the mighty Mississippi had gained him enormous wealth, along with an extra ten pounds around his middle.

  The squeak of Jubal’s cart had him glancing over.

  Brennen stared at the growing mound as his foreman dumped his load atop the ruddy mess. “We keep up this pace, my friend, we’ll have enough to fire a million bricks.”

  “What’s found along Knoblick Creek is some o’ da best clay in Kentucky, suh. ‘Nother reason why dem sistas want yo’ bricks ‘stead o’ any others.” He hunkered in the shade, lifted the tail-end of his filthy checkered shirt, and swiped away the beads of sweat from his ebony face. “If we didn’t have da lady sittin’ over yonder, I’d pull dis ol’ thing off faster‘n a hound pullin’ chicken from a bone.”

  Brennen glanced over his shoulder at Miss Swan. Still writing. Still beautiful. Still determined to annoy the hell out of him. “We’ll just forget about her, Jubal. She shouldn’t be sitting out there in the damned sun anyway.” He nodded toward the mound. “When do we start making bricks?” So I can ride the hell out of this Godforsaken place.

  “Gotta fix da broken forms first. Found me another batch o’ beechwood. I’m stripping off the bark this afternoon.” He headed toward the kiln. “Should have ‘em finished soon.”

  “Then we just fill the wooden forms with clay, and shove them into the kilns, right?”

  The goliath laughed. “Wish it were ‘dat easy, suh.” He angled his jaw toward the spot where he’d earlier cleared a place for the new kilns to be built. “You’s gonna be the brick moulder.”