When the Splendor Falls

by Laurie McBain

  Her chest heaving beneath his, Leigh struggled to draw breath into her lungs as she stared up into the man’s face, raising her arm to fend off his attack, but her small fist was caught and held, his steely fingers closing around her hand, holding their hands clasped together.

  Leigh closed her eyes, feeling a strange lethargy seeping through her limbs and she knew she must be dreaming. Then she opened her eyes, thinking the vision that had haunted her for so many years would have disappeared—as it always did in her dreams. But, instead, she saw again the hawkish-featured face, sun-darkened, the carved angle of the jaw, hard and unforgiving, the gray-green eyes, so cold in their crystalline depths. The dark gold hair was even longer than she remembered, and it had been woven into a heathenish-looking braid that just touched his shoulder, while around the strong column of his neck, a leather pouch, which she knew the contents of, hung suspended by a rawhide thong.

  It was a face she’d thought never to see again.

  Fifteen

  In many ways doth the full heart reveal

  The presence of the love it would conceal.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Leigh stared up into the face of Neil Braedon.

  “Neil.” Silently, she mouthed the word, unable to speak aloud his name, a name she had cursed silently for so long, a name branded deep by her own heart’s betrayal.

  She closed her eyes again, shaking her head in disbelief and denial. She had been so frightened…but to discover the Yankee who’d attacked her was Neil Braedon was a cruel jest indeed. Neil Darcy Braedon. No friend to her, or to her family, she realized, remembering the violence of their last farewell. How many times since that night had she been haunted by his face in her dreams, his mocking voice sounding in her ears, longing to see him again yet hating herself for not being able to forget him?

  “Leigh.” He spoke her name softly now, a gleam of amusement, or perhaps malice, in those pale eyes looking so deeply into hers, his breath warm against her cold cheek. She felt his body tensing above hers, then watched as he glanced over her head at the house and the green-shuttered windows peering down on them. Then his gaze traveled across the greensward toward the woodlands and the river beyond, his eyes narrowing intently as if searching for something. With catlike agility he was on his feet, easily pulling her up with him.

  “Not frightened of me, are you?” he chided, not having missed her worried glance back at the big house. “We are, after all, old friends.”

  “You had better let me go,” Leigh warned in a low, furious tone as she found her voice and began to struggle against him as he headed toward the stables. “You’re trespassing. This is Travers land—or have you forgotten?”

  Neil laughed. It was a rough sound, as if he had seldom found reason to laugh during the last few years. “No, I haven’t forgotten,” he said in a hardened voice. “Some things never change, do they? I seem to remember being warned about trespassing on Travers land the last time you and I met so unexpectedly. We seem destined to meet under the most amazing circumstances,” he said, ignoring her struggles as he kept walking, roughly pulling her behind him, her stubbornly dug-in feet sliding through the mud and hindering him little.

  “A tumble in the hay, now a tumble in the mud,” he said mockingly as she lost a shoe and he stopped just long enough for her to slip it back on her mud-soaked, stockinged foot.

  “Damn you,” Leigh said, not trying to hide her animosity as she glared at his broad back and tried to pry loose his ironhanded grip, but she was far angrier with herself than him. She had known a momentary gladness in her heart when seeing him, having wondered if he still lived, for Adam had told her his cousin had joined the Union army to fight. And now, her heart was pounding with its traitorous beat even though she hated him for the man he was, and for the blue uniform he had chosen to wear.

  “Is that any way to greet an old friend? I thought you’d be pleased to see me after all these years. You haven’t missed me then? No sweet peck on the cheek to welcome me back to Travers Hill? Where is that famed Travers hospitality?” he taunted her cruelly, unable to contain his own anger as he saw the intense dislike in her beautiful blue eyes, and suspected she would without the slightest remorse turn him and his men over to the rebel patrols searching for them.

  And he hadn’t given her much reason to feel otherwise. They had not been the best of friends when last they met. And she had little reason now to befriend him, he thought, recalling the empty shabbiness of her home and the poor condition of the stables—once the pride and glory of Travers Hill. He saw again the six brick chimneys rising so forlornly from the ashes; all that remained of Royal Bay. He still couldn’t believe Royal Bay, his father’s home, was gone. They’d ridden first to Royal Bay, where he’d thought he and his men could rest, and the wounded could have been treated, but he’d been stunned to find the grand old house in ruins, the outbuildings tumbled down. He remembered seeing Althea Braedon, Nathan’s wife, lying ill on the sofa at Travers Hill, and he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the rest of the Braedon family. Where were they now? Did any of them still live? And the Travers family. What of them? He could understand now Leigh’s hatred of Yankees—especially one particular Yankee.

  Damn, he thought to himself. Why couldn’t he and his men have remained safely hidden in the stables until nightfall, when, rested, they could have made their escape under cover of darkness, no one at Travers Hill ever having been the wiser? Instead, they had been discovered, and now he found himself in a devil of a predicament.

  What was he to do with Leigh Travers? No, Mrs. Matthew Wycliffe, he reminded himself. She certainly had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there was nothing he could do about it; his men were in no condition to move. They were cold and tired, and half of them were seriously wounded. And their wounds, especially McGuire’s and young Chatham’s, needed to be tended before they moved to another, safer hiding place. They had just barely made Travers Hill before McGuire had fallen from the saddle, weak from loss of blood. The lieutenant had been unconscious when they’d hauled him down from his ignominious perch—but at least he still breathed.

  Dragging Leigh behind him, they reached the stable doors. The doors opened almost magically, but Leigh knew someone had been waiting and watching, and then she found herself once again inside and facing the hostile looks of a score or more of federal soldiers.

  “See you caught the lil’ reb spy, Cap’n,” someone said.

  Captain, one of the soldiers had addressed him. Leigh was not surprised to learn that Neil Braedon was the leader of this scruffy band of Yankees.

  “But not without a fight,” another gruff voice commented, reminding Leigh of her own muddied gown, and drawing her attention to Neil Braedon’s odd appearance. No Yankee she’d ever seen had worn a uniform quite like his, and she wondered how he managed to do so without having been reprimanded by his superiors. But then, Neil was the kind of man who did as he damned well pleased. Beneath his caped overcoat, she could see the dark blue belted jacket of a Union officer, but his trousers were hardly standard military issue, and were only too familiar to her. Buckskins. And on his feet he wore moccasins and buckskin leggings, which looked far more water-resistant than the shoes and boots his men were wearing. All of the men had long and shaggy, almost shoulder-length hair, which meant they seldom stayed at Headquarters for long, and had apparently been living a rough-and-ready existence behind enemy lines for some time. But none wore their hair woven into a braid as did their captain, and none were clean-shaven, as was Neil, and Leigh could suddenly envision the Comanche brave he once had been. No one would hear him prowling or sneaking up behind, Leigh found herself speculating, a suspicious thought entering her mind as she wondered just what Neil Braedon and his men were doing behind enemy lines.

  “Wouldn’t mind rasslin’ that sweet reb to the ground, but s’pose rank has its privileges.”

  “All clear, ain’t no Johnny reb hotfootin’ it after her, Cap
’n,” the guard at the door said, shutting it firmly.

  “Always suspected them rebs were fools, leavin’ a pretty lil’ thing like this one all by her lonesome.”

  “What we goin’ to do, Cap’n? Can’t let her go, can we?”

  “Reckon she’d turn us in, eh?”

  “With them pretty Yankee blue eyes?”

  “She’s wearin’ rebel gray, Billy Yank, don’t ever be forgettin’ that.”

  “The way we was ambushed, somebody already ratted on us.”

  “Can’t understand it, Cap’n. Where’d them rebs come from? How’d they know we was there? Almost like they was sittin’ in wait fer us, like they was already riled up about something. Never happened like that before. We come close to gettin’ caught, sure, but we’ve always managed to slip out of the noose them rebs been tryin’ to tighten around our necks.”

  “And we’ll escape the noose this time, Johnson,” his captain replied matter-of-factly and apparently setting his men’s minds at rest because Leigh heard the sighs of relief and saw the exchange of glances that followed his easy statement.

  “Hell, all we did was blow up that little railroad trestle,” someone said with a grin.

  “And the gun, don’t forget that,” another chuckling voice reminded proudly.

  “Yeah, but that shouldn’t have gotten them that mad. Made ’em madder last month blowin’ up that depot full o’ pork barrels. We been real good little boys since then.”

  “Reckon them rebs been lookin’ fer us that long, an’ they’re just now findin’ us!” the man called Johnson said with a guffaw that had his friends laughing, and the tension in the stables easing almost visibly as a number of them started grinning and trading jokes.

  Raiders, Leigh thought, eyeing them as if they’d suddenly sprouted horns, especially Neil Braedon.

  He stood just inside the stable doors, his relaxed attitude giving the impression he’d just come down from the big house and was awaiting the saddling of his hunter for a leisurely morning ride across country to enjoy a bit of gentlemanly shooting of pheasant. He stood so tall, so arrogant, so self-assured, that Leigh wasn’t surprised his men had confidence in him, but Leigh had been the only one who had felt the momentary tightening of his hard fingers around her hand when he’d reassured his men about the prospective ease of their escape.

  Leigh was breathing a little easier herself, for even if Neil was the enemy, and he held her captive, she was not as frightened as before, after all, as he himself had said, they were old friends. And even if there were some old scores left to be settled between them, she could not believe he would allow his men to harm her. And as some of her fears left her, she gradually became aware of the men grouped around her. Their faces were soot-blackened and bloodied, and some, she now realized, were badly wounded, unable to stand or even sit as they huddled together miserably in the stables.

  “Beals, you’re on watch,” Neil ordered brusquely, moving along the passageway, and pulling Leigh along with him, but as his men closed in around their figures, she suddenly found she didn’t mind being under his protection, at least for the moment. “Hendricks, stay sharp,” he called to the man on duty at the far end of the stables.

  “Yo, Cap’n,” the man said, his hand resting easy on his rifle as he leaned a shoulder against the stable wall, the door cracked just enough for him to see the lane disappearing down toward the river.

  “Patterson, keep an eye out that window. Watch for anything moving in the woods to the southeast. If they’ve managed to track us this far, they’ll be coming from that direction. I want us out of here before that happens,” Neil said, glancing around at the stables as if sizing it up as a possible stronghold.

  “Reckon if they stumble across us, it’ll be just that. Dumb luck,” someone grumbled.

  “Yeah, ’cause we didn’t leave no tracks, ’specially comin’ through the woods single file the way we did.”

  “Best way of keepin’ ’em guessin’ ’bout how many of us there is. They’ll come in real slow like, worryin’ so. Wouldn’t want to be trackin’ the cap’n, I wouldn’t, or even tracked by the cap’n,” he said, thinking of all the tricks the captain had up his sleeve. They said the captain had Indian blood in him, and even if he didn’t look it, half of them believed the tale.

  “How are you doing, McGuire?” Neil asked, releasing Leigh’s hand as he squatted down beside a man whose pallor and bloodstained overcoat left little doubt that he was suffering.

  “No fancy jigs, Cap’n, reckon they got the fiddler,” he said, trying to grin, but his mouth wobbled and a spot of blood appeared where he’d bitten into his lower lip trying to control its trembling.

  “Wishes he had that Dutchwoman here to keep him warm, I bet.”

  “Aye, now that she could, with plenty of warmth left over fer the rest of ye lads, if I was in a mind to share,” McGuire said, grimacing when he moved his shoulder trying to laugh. “But it takes an Irishman to handle the reins when ridin’ her. ’Course, reckon I might not be man enough fer her right now,” he said faintly, falling back as he tried to sit up.

  “We’ll fix you up just fine, McGuire.”

  “Ain’t goin’ to leave me to rot away in some reb hospital, are ye, Cap’n?” he asked worriedly. “Figure ye might as well put me out of my misery now. Don’t want no one hackin’ away at me piece by piece,” he said, shivering uncontrollably as he thought of gangrene spreading through his body.

  “No one gets left behind.”

  McGuire nodded. “Faith, but I’ve been wantin’ to ask you this, Cap’n. Don’t know much about ye, sir, not even yer given name, but I was bettin’ the lads that ye had a wee spot of Irish in ye. Ye would, now, wouldn’t ye? ’Cause I been figurin’ that ’twas only an Irishman I’d have followed grinnin’ into hell an’ back like that, an’ singeing off me eyebrows to boot.”

  “My mother was Irish,” Neil told him quietly.

  “There, ye can’t be foolin’ an’ Irishman. ’Tis in the blood, ’tis. That does me heart good. Reckon ’twas meant to be, after all. But what I wouldn’t give now, to be back in Ireland,” he murmured, grimacing. “An’ what is her name, Cap’n? Something lyrical, to be sure?”

  “Fionnuala,” Neil said, frowning as the Irishman closed his eyes against the pain.

  “Like music in me ears,” he said, slurring his words slightly. “Is she still livin’?”

  “No.”

  “A real pity that. Bet she was a fine woman. All Irish women are. Best mothers in the world, they are. An’ d’ye have any other family, then?”

  “A father.”

  “But not Irish, I’m thinkin’, ’cause ye got a hard, mean streak in ye, Cap’n, an’ that’s got to be English blood.”

  “No, he’s not Irish,” his captain answered, wanting to keep the Irishman talking so he wouldn’t lapse into unconsciousness.

  “Any brothers or sisters?”

  “A young sister, and two brothers. One too young to fight, the other lost in the war. And, once, I had an older sister. Her name was Shannon,” Neil said, speaking her name aloud for the first time in years, and it sounded strange on his tongue.

  “Shannon. ’Tis the loveliest name in all of Ireland, I’m thinkin’.” McGuire sighed. “Did ye know, Cap’n, I was born on the green banks of the River Shannon. ’Tis a fine, ancient river flowin’ through the heart of Ireland. When a wee lad, I used to sit on the bank, watchin’ the waters flowin’ by. They gently touched the land, leavin’ it green an’ fertile before flowin’ on into the sea, flowin’ on forever, I was thinkin’, an’ I wanted to reach out an’ stop them from leavin’ me, an’ when I couldn’t, then I wanted to follow wherever the river flowed, but again I couldn’t. I could never quite catch it, an’ the river disappeared, to be embraced by its true love, the sea. Ah, I was jealous, that I was. Felt betrayed, I did. But the next mornin’, the river, my Shannon, was still there, flowin’ by, and I knew then that it remained a part of the people, of the heart always,” he m
umbled drowsily.

  Shannon Malveen. Yes, his sister Shannon was like McGuire’s beloved river, Neil thought sadly. Flowing on forever, disappearing from sight, but always a part of the heart. If only he had understood like McGuire had. So much had been lost because he hadn’t. She-With-Eyes-Of-The-Captured-Sky had tried to tell him she would always be with him in spirit, and in the heart…but he hadn’t listened, hadn’t believed.

  “He’ll die if we don’t stop the bleeding,” Leigh said softly, jolting Neil from his memories. She was staring down at the Irishman, a pitying look in her eyes.

  “We?” Neil said doubtfully, glancing up at her, but she was already kneeling beside the young, sandy-haired lieutenant, his soft blue eyes behind his round-rimmed spectacles suddenly reminding her of Palmer William.

  Gently, Leigh touched the lock of hair that fell across the young lieutenant’s brow, feeling the clamminess of his skin beneath her fingertips, his breathing labored as he struggled to draw breath into his lungs. “I think you’ve cracked a couple of ribs.”

  “I have?” he whispered, apparently unconcerned as his lips curved into a smile as he stared up at her, his hand reaching out to grasp hers. Leigh frowned slightly, for there had been a definite look of recognition in his glance.

  “My father was always breaking a rib or two. He loved to ride, but sometimes he couldn’t keep his seat, especially when he’d been into the corn liquor,” she said, smiling down at the wide-eyed lieutenant, trying to reassure him. “In fact, one night, he’d enjoyed himself rather too much at the punch bowl, and the next morning, still not quite himself, he went out and saddled the fence instead of Apothecary Rose, his favorite hunter,” Leigh said, hearing a snorting laugh from one of the men close enough to have heard her story.