“Nathan!” She tried to push him away, but he was holding too tightly. “Nathan! Stop it this instant! Have you gone mad? What is wrong with you? I’ve never seen you so…”
“I’m sorry.” He was instantly contrite, his hold slackening to a point where she could wriggle away.
“I just love you—want us to get married quick as we can…”
“So we can have sex?” she snapped. He stared at her in the dim glow from the lights inside the hotel ballroom. “That’s all you talk about, it seems, making love to me. Is that why you want to marry me?”
“What’s wrong with that?” He swayed, hiccupping.
“There’s more to marriage than just making love.”
“Well, maybe.” He lurched against the railing and hiccupped again. “But maybe once I have you, know you’re legally mine, I won’t see you doing it with another man every time I close my eyes. It’ll be me doing it to you and I’m going to do it to you so goddamned good, you won’t think about those other men anymore, either.”
She turned to walk away, but his hand snaked out to grab her once again, this time slamming her to the railing so hard she almost fell, a sharp pain moving up her back. “How dare you!” Her hand came up, ready to crack across his face, but he caught her wrist, twisting it painfully to her side.
“You listen to me,” he snarled, a complete stranger now an angry, hurting stranger. “I can’t stand it, knowing what happened to you. I never wanted you in this war to start with, remember? If you’d stayed home, like I asked you to, left Doc and his hospital alone, none of this would have happened! But no, you had to play the stubborn, independent woman and look where it’s got you. Look what it’s done to me, or don’t I matter anymore? Tell me, Katherine my sweet, which one was the best? Tate or Coltrane? Or have there been so damned many you can’t remember which you liked the best?”
Her hand ached to slap him, but he now held both wrists tightly. “You think a woman is only fit for one thing—a man to take her when he wants to so she can have a baby every year and get fat and ugly and sit at home like a crow and sew and tat and think empty-headed thoughts. You think it’s wrong for a woman to want to be herself, have hopes and dreams of her own, have a life for herself! Well, I tell you what you do, Major Collins, you go back to Wayne County and find Nancy Warren. Maybe she’s pure and goody-goody, maybe she fits your image of the ideal wife and mother. And you just leave me alone. Leave me to live my own life the way I want to. I’ve had my fill of men, including you.”
Her nostrils flared, her eyes danced like coals of fire—every fiber of her body wanting to strike out and hurt, hating, despising. This was not the man she had known and loved. This man was a selfish, jealous stranger, a man she no longer knew or wanted to know.
For an instant his eyes, too, flashed fire, but then he laughed. “Nancy Warren? I rolled her in the hay before we were ten years old. I had all of that I wanted, and then some, because she loved me, still does. She’d do anything for me, which is goddamned more than I can say for you.”
He released her and she slapped him—once, twice—and he stood there, lurching, hiccupping, grinning. And finally, pressing her fist against her lips to stifle a sob, she ran from the veranda, through the crowded room of faces staring curiously; she ran up the steps and into her room, slamming the door behind her.
She flung herself across the bed and then the tears came—tears for Nathan and what was but never could be, and for Travis and the realization of what might have been but never should have been. And yes, she cried for herself, also, and whatever the frightening future might bring her way.
War had done this to all their lives. Nathan was not the same; she had sensed it that first day but refused to acknowledge it. Her father’s life had been destroyed—and her mother’s and Andy Shaw’s and David Stoner’s, and, yes, Travis’s as well. As for herself, did she even have a life left? She could return to the hospital, care for the wounded, give what she could to those who needed her. And then what? Did she even have a future? And what if the North won the war, what would happen to all of them then?
It all seemed so hopeless. A headache began to inch its clutching fingers around her forehead, but still the tears came. Feeling weariness creep over her body, Kitty gave way to the sweet oblivion, hoping for release, freedom, to leave behind the shreds of the world about her.
Out of the mist, he came to her, arms outstretched. It was difficult to see through the gray-orange shroud of light that swept over their bodies. His lips were warm, seeking, possessive, and his hands were deft and quick as he ripped her clothes away until she lay naked beneath him.
“Mine…” She heard the voice straining to reach her through the shroud of mist. “All mine…forever and ever…”
Who was this stranger in the night, this faceless lover who came to claim her in a dream? The touch was familiar. And then there was a parting of the clouds and she saw the familiar Federal blue, the dark beard, the gun-steel eyes hot with desire. Travis… Travis was not dead. He was here, alive, consuming her, ravishing her body, plunging into her, and she wanted him—had to have him. She moved against him, answering the rhythm of two bodies locked in unison, legs reaching up to wrap around his hunching buttocks, heels digging in to lock him even closer against her throbbing form.
“Travis… Travis… I want you,” she whimpered shamelessly. “Travis, you live…”
Suddenly the movement ceased. There was a sound like that of a wounded animal snarling in the night. She felt a sharp crack across her face, opened her eyes to awaken from the dream to shocking reality. “You bitch!” The voice screamed down at her, and she stared up, straining in the pitch-darkness to make out the hulking form above.
It was slowly coming back: she was here in the hotel room and there was a real man above her and she was naked and he had been ravishing her—but who?
“You lying bitch!” Again the crack across her face. “So it was Travis Coltrane, the son of a bitch! He was the one who took you away from me.”
Nathan. It was Nathan moving quickly to the edge of the bed. Her whole head ached from his blows. Quickly, frightened, she slid away from him in the darkness. She could feel his heavy breathing, his body shuddering with rage.
He reached out for her, slapping at the air, and she cowered in the darkness, trembling with terror. Was he so drunk he had lost his mind? Was he going to kill her here and now?
He threw himself across the bed, reaching out, hands entwining in her hair, yanking her down on the mattress, bouncing her up and down furiously.
“Nathan, please, stop,” she screamed, her teeth rattling inside her mouth as he continued to bounce her upon the mattress violently.
“Hey, what’s all that yelling about in there?” Someone was pounding on the door furiously. “What’s going on? Let me in!”
Instantly, Nathan withdrew his hold, moving off the bed. A small shaft of light filtered through the window from a lantern burning on a street light below. Kitty realized blearily that he was stark naked.
“It’s okay.” He was instantly contrite, his voice slurring the words. “Had too much to drink, that’s all.”
“Well, keep it quiet,” the voice cried through the door. “I’ve had some complaints. One more peep out of you tonight, soldier, and out you go.”
“I’m an officer, not a soldier!” Nathan yelled back, angry once again. “And you go to hell!”
“I’ll kick this door down, you son of a bitch.”
“Please,” Kitty cried then, pulling the sheet up around her, eyes still on Nathan as he stood in the gleam of light. “Please don’t come in. It’s all right. He’s had too much to drink.”
There was a momentary silence, then the voice again: “All right, lady, since you asked me, but tomorrow I think it’s best the two of you get out of here. I try to run a decent place.”
“Yes, yes, we’re sorry. We’ll get out.”
Footsteps echoed down the hall.
Nathan stooped to sna
tch up his clothing from the floor. Slinging them over his shoulder, he walked naked across the room to a door Kitty had not bothered to notice before. Their rooms adjoined, and she had not known it! He opened the door, then slammed it loudly behind him.
For a moment, she could not move. Then she forced her shaking legs to walk to the little wooden desk that stood near that door, sliding it in place to block the entrance. True, it would not keep Nathan out should he decide to enter once again, but there would be enough noise so that she would have time to get up and run out the door leading into the hall.
She walked hack to the bed and lay down, turning her face to the wall.
There were no tears left to be shed.
Chapter Thirty-One
For a time, Kitty did not hear the urgent knocking. Exhausted both physically and mentally, she had fallen into a deep, though restless, sleep. As she opened her eyes, reality was slow in coming. There was the taste of old blood, the feeling of soreness in the jaw. And then it came, first hurt, then deep anger.
The knocking continued, louder, insistent.
Finally, she asked suspiciously, “Who’s there?”
And she knew, before the voice replied, what it was going to say. “Nathan. Let me in, please. I must talk to you, Katherine.”
“Go away. I never want to see you again.” She turned her face to the wall, pulled the covers up tightly around her neck. How could he have done it? How could he have sneaked into her room and removed her clothing and raped her? Yes, that’s exactly what it had been—rape. Nathan—who had always been the perfect gentleman, the aristocrat, the fine image of decorum and good breeding—like an animal gone mad, he had raped her.
“Katherine,” the voice through the door sighed wearily. “I know you’re angry with me and for good reason, but please don’t make me stand out here in the hall groveling for everyone to hear. Let me in even if you hate me. Have some feeling for what we used to mean to each other. Please.”
Feeling? What did she feel now but complete hopelessness? And he was right. There was no use in letting everyone in the hotel hear him begging, for after all there had been enough to attract attention last night. Wrapping the sheet about her, she got up, opened the door, and then retreated to the bed.
He looked terrible, as terrible as she felt. His hair hung down in his face, his eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembled. He drew up a chair and sat down near the bed, staring at his feet miserably. “I know how you must hate me.”
She did not speak.
“Katherine, hear me out. I beg of you. I was drunk. I cannot deny that fact. It was getting to me—this…this thing I feel between us. It’s not like it used to be. Perhaps it can never be again. Thinking about those men, what they did to you…” He shuddered.
“I couldn’t help any of that,” she reminded him bitterly.
The voice changed. Gone was the humbleness and in its place was angry reproach, “You can help dreaming about this Coltrane fellow, damnit. You can help calling out his name when it’s me making love to you. Just what the hell was he to you anyway? He’s a Yankee, a marauding, no-good Yankee soldier who held you prisoner. And as wrong as I was to do what I did last night, it was wrong of you to pretend all this time that you didn’t enjoy what he did to you. Maybe you even enjoyed what Luke Tate did, too. Maybe I never really knew you, Katherine.”
They faced each other, eyes blazing, and then his gaze moved downward and he snapped curtly, “Cover your shame, woman.”
She looked down as his words washed over her. Snatching up the sheet, she screamed, “Shame? My body is shame? Something to hide? You wanted it last night, Nathan, all of it, because you couldn’t live with the fact that another man possessed me!”
In a rage, Kitty leaped from the bed and reached for one of her old muslin dresses. “Let me tell you one thing, Nathan Collins, I don’t consider my body, or sex, something to be ashamed of. The shame comes from your wanting me and then putting the blame on me.”
He stood up also, slamming the chair across the room loudly. “You don’t consider it shameful that you cried out the name of the man who raped you, who held you prisoner? A goddamned son of a bitch Yankee?”
And then it came, the explosion that had been bubbling from the depths of her soul and that she could no longer control. “I dreamed it was Travis,” she cried furiously. “I think I wanted it to be Travis. He wasn’t all that bad, not toward the end. I don’t know how I feel about him, whether it was love or whether we were just two people reaching out for something to hold on to in the middle of all the suffering and dying. I don’t know what I feel for you now, either. At this moment, I hate you.”
He stared at her a long time without speaking. Kitty finished dressing, moved to the mirror, and eyes blazing, began brushing her hair with short, quick strokes.
“I think,” he said finally, evenly, his voice low and ominous, “that you have developed a sickness from your experiences in the war, Katherine. It’s been too much for you. There is a train leaving for Wilmington in an hour that will have us in Goldsboro by late evening. Get together what few belongings you have and I will be back to take you to the depot. We’re going home.”
Whirling about, she threw the hairbrush at him. “You can go to hell, Nathan! I’m not going anywhere except back to that hospital.”
“No.” He still spoke quietly, as though she were, indeed, mentally ill and had to be dealt with thusly. “I will speak to the people in charge there, explain that the place for you now is home, around familiar people and things. If necessary, I will have you forcefully taken to the depot and put on the train. Don’t make me embarrass either of us this way. Now you just go on and get ready. I’m going to do what’s best.”
He walked out and closed the door, and Kitty stood there, shaking in her rage. He would do it. She knew he would do it. He would have his men carry her bodily to the depot. He would also go to the hospital and make sure she was not allowed to work there any longer. They would believe him. Who wouldn’t? After all, he was a respected major and she was merely a poor war refugee who’d dragged into town after having been held prisoner by the Yankees till it drove her to madness. Who would believe she was sane when Nathan got through with his lies?
There was nothing to do but prepare to leave.
And what difference did it make, she thought dully. What was left here? Nathan had changed. She doubted she could ever forgive the events of the night before nor the way he had just talked to her. Her father was probably long dead. Travis Coltrane, if he existed, hated her—and all of that had been a mistake that never should have happened, anyway. There was nothing to do except go home and try to pick up the pieces. If the stories about her mother were true—that she was a drunk—then perhaps there would be something to be done there. And there was also a hospital in Goldsboro now, the one Doc Musgrave had helped to begin—”Way Hospital #3”, it was called. She could go to work there after Nathan returned to Richmond.
But here, there was nothing. The past was dead and only the future remained, for the present, with Nathan, was unbearable for both of them.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The train ride had been agonizingly slow, averaging only a little over ten miles an hour. Kitty did not speak to Nathan, who sat next to her, an anxious look on his face as though he expected at any moment that she would leap through the open window.
The air was hot and humid, and the ashes and cinders from the wood-burning engine up front whipped through the window which had to remain open, for in the humid late summer weather, the closeness would be unbearable. At the rest stops along the way, Nathan would ask a soldier nearby, or some other passenger, to leave the train and bring back cool drinks for them—as though he were afraid to leave her alone. She took the drinks but refused the food, and he would urge her to eat.
Finally, she snapped, “Nathan, for God’s sake, just leave me alone. I want to go home and never see you again, so stop hovering over me or so help me, I’m going to start screaming a
nd not stop, and everyone will think I am crazy!”
He shifted away from her, his brows knit together tightly and his chin propped on a knotted fist as he stared moodily straight ahead. Kitty fought the childish impulse to stick out her tongue. How she hated his pompousness, his self-righteousness! At that moment, it was hard to remember a time when love had existed between them.
When the train finally chugged out of the mountains and sloped down into the flat lands of eastern North Carolina, Kitty finally felt she was truly getting near home. Tall pine trees with thick scrubby underbrush stretched as far as the eye could see. Here and there plank farmhouses stood, some deserted by inhabitants who sought to flee the threat of invasion from the North.
Directly in front of Kitty and Nathan, a bald-headed man held a newspaper in front of him.
To agitate her further, Nathan, bored with having no one to talk to, addressed the man. “Sir, I see you have a copy of the Raleigh Standard. What do they write about the war?”
Eager to engage in conversation, the man said, “They’re carrying on an active campaign to bring the war to a close. The editor, a man named W. W. Holden, is leading it, says the war should end—at any cost.”
“At any cost?” Nathan frowned.
The man nodded. “Peace meetings are being held all through North Carolina and they say soldiers are deserting right and left. They’re fed up. Have you heard about the trouble up in the mountains, in the western part of the state?”
“No.” Nathan shook his head and looked at Kitty meaningfully before turning his attention back to their traveling companion. “I’ve been in Richmond and unfortunately, I’ve had other matters to draw my attention besides the war back home.”
“Well, there’s a civil war going on there between the Confederate troops. Terrible, just terrible,” he clucked. “Paper says they’re even organizing—deserters against bushwhackers. And there are Federals in the area who are stripping the region of anything of value that they can move.”
Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 Page 41