by Debra Diaz
The wind began to gust around her, whipping out her skirt as though it were a living thing. She reached up and removed her hat before it could be snatched off her head. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, a man walking parallel with her across the street, and realized that he kept looking across at her. But such attention from men wasn’t unusual, and she was in too much of a hurry to pay him any mind.
She looked up and saw the hospital ahead of her; the sidewalk butted against a low wall, in the middle of which a narrow set of stone steps led up to a small pavilion. Trees and shrubs had been planted at carefully measured spots to make it more appealing, and just beyond the pavilion the white-painted front door stood slightly ajar.
A boom of thunder crashed in her ears and immediately great drops of rain spattered down. Before she took three more paces the rain had become a downpour. With still some distance to go before reaching the stone steps ascending to the entranceway, Genny darted into the alley between the hospital and the building next to it, where a small awning protruded from one of its doorways.
She huddled against the wall, breathing rapidly, and heard a staccato of quick, light footsteps. A man’s figure loomed out of the rain, apparently intent on seeking the same refuge. She moved over a little to make room, then looked up into his face. She froze.
“How nice to see you again, Miss Romayne,” said Slade Malone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dr. Will Howard, a blond, husky young man, entered the storage area of the hospital, looking for extra blankets. He was a friend of Ethan’s, having stood beside him many times against some of the older doctors who opposed the practice of stringent hand washing and other methods of sanitation advocated by Ethan’s group. He’d also met Genny, and when he glanced out the second story window overlooking the alley he recognized her right away, in spite of the heavy rain.
He flashed up the corridor and down the stairs, swinging around the doorway of an ante room used by the doctors. “Where’s Ethan?”
The only doctor present was Aubrey Hughes, not a friend of Ethan’s. “Don’t know. I think he just left out the back door.”
When Will backtracked and rushed out the door, he saw Ethan already on his horse, wearing an oilskin coat and hat against the slashing rain. He grabbed the horse’s bridle and shouted, “Your wife’s in the alley. There’s a man there who looks as if he’s bothering her — ”
He’d no sooner got the words out of his mouth than Ethan kicked the horse into a gallop. Will ran after them.
“You keep away from me!” Genny cried, wild with fear, sick with loathing.
Malone laughed, his hand resting easily on her arm. “I had no idea you were here in Nashville. It’s fate, of course. No, don’t jerk away from me, Miss Romayne.” His hand slid caressingly down her arm. “I’ve thought of you often.”
She reached back with her free hand, trembling, and tried the doorknob behind her. It was locked.
“Well, I haven’t thought of you! Not once. You’re not worth thinking about! Now turn me loose before I scream.”
He chuckled. “There’s no one to hear you. No one can see anything in all this rain. We’re quite alone, Miss Ro — ”
“I’m not Miss Romayne anymore. I’m Mrs. Ethan Carey, and my husband will kill you if — ”
He wrenched her arm and pulled her against him. “Still the high and mighty little rich girl! You think mighty well of yourself, don’t you?”
She looked into the snapping black eyes that she suddenly remembered too well; she remembered how she had thought he was insane and now she was sure of it, for she’d never seen such eyes. They seemed empty and full at the same time, empty of a soul and full of hate and bitterness. She screamed, but the wind blew away her voice. She dropped her packages and her hat, and shoved with all her might against him. She couldn’t believe his strength as he slammed her shoulders back into the door behind her. She screamed again, and again he hurled her backward.
“You’re coming with me,” he snarled. “You’ll see how — ”
At first the hoof beats sounded like thunder, but something made Malone turn his head. His eyes grew large when he saw the horse barreling down the alley, its rider wearing a slicker that billowed out behind him like black wings. A quick look around him proved there was nowhere to run except right by the flying horse, which took up nearly the whole of the alley. He began to splash through puddles of rain.
Ethan tore off his coat and hat and launched himself onto the running figure. They both tumbled to the ground. Malone scrambled up and kicked out with his booted foot. Ethan caught the foot, twisting it ruthlessly. Malone fell again, but was up in an instant and running. A hand clamped down hard on his shoulder and spun him around, and a crushing impact caught him squarely on the jaw.
A murmuring crowd from the hospital waiting room had followed Will Howard into the alley; the rain had lessened and heads bobbed excitedly in the upper windows. Obviously someone had seen them and spread the alarm.
Malone returned with a punch to Ethan’s jaw, making him fall over backward onto a pile of empty wooden crates. Ethan recovered at once, leaping up to deliver a blow to Malone’s midsection. He collapsed against the brick wall, hitting his head. Ethan was on him, pulling back to deliver another blow with all his strength behind it, when a man broke loose from the crowd of eager spectators and grabbed Ethan’s arm.
“Don’t kill him,” said Will, seeing the look on Ethan’s face. “He’ll pay for it, soon enough.”
Slade Malone slid quietly to the ground, his face bloody, his eyes closed. Ethan turned to look at Genny, a trickle of blood running from his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
She pressed close against the locked door, staring past him at the crumpled figure. Her dress was torn and her hair straggled about her shoulders.
“Genny,” he said, closing his hands around her arms, his eyes going over her from head to toe. “Genny, look at me,” he commanded.
Her head moved almost imperceptibly.
“Did he hurt you?”
She felt bruised all over, but she knew what he meant. She shook her head.
Looking over his shoulder, Ethan saw his coat and hat where he had thrown them. He picked them up and placed the coat over Genny’s shoulders, saying, “Come with me.”
She didn’t move. Her face went white, and he caught her just as she fell.
It seemed almost immediately that she woke, conscious of being acutely uncomfortable. She was lying on a wooden bench; a blanket had been rolled up and placed under her head for a pillow. The odor of a cigar burning made her eyes water as she opened them.
“You’re in the hospital lobby,” said a woman’s voice beside her. “You’re safe now, Mrs. Carey.”
“Where’s Ethan?” she asked, through a dry throat.
The nurse answered, “He went to — oh, here he comes, now.”
She glanced up. Ethan strode toward them across the wide wooden floor, muddy and wet but managing to look as self-possessed as if he were about to deliver a lecture. Which, she thought dismally, he probably was.
“She’s fine, Doctor. I’ll go and get her a glass of water.” The pretty, young nurse disappeared.
Genny sat up carefully. People passed to and fro, peering at her curiously. An old man sat on the bench across from her, smoking. The nurse returned with the water, gave it to her, and went away again. Ethan sat down beside her.
“Will’s going to drive us home in his carriage. He’s gone to get it. I didn’t bring the buggy today — I rode my horse.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Did you know him?”
Genny nodded. “He’s the one — I told you about, in Knoxville. I don’t know what he was doing here. He — I think he followed me from the store.”
“He won’t bother you again.”
“Did you get my things? My packages?”
“Will has them.”
After a moment, during which she lingered somewhere in a state of
semi-consciousness, she was pulled gently to her feet and outside to the waiting carriage.
* * * *
Ethan sat on the front porch in the darkness. The air had grown warm and humid after the shower that afternoon. He was tired, and a feeling of pressure burned in his chest.
Genny was in bed, tucked in by a clucking, sympathetic Agnes. She would sleep for a long time — he had seen to that, had given her a sleeping draught in a glass of warm milk. News of the attack had spread quickly and there had been many callers, all expressing horror and concern. Valerie had come to help; she and Ethan saw them and thanked them and sent them politely away.
He thought for a moment about Genny’s narrow escape. Why women would wear those infernal tight skirts and high heels was beyond him…they couldn’t outrun a tortoise! He didn’t want to think what might have happened if Will hadn’t seen Genny out the window.
Geoff had spent time with the police. It seemed that a large number of complaints had been made against Malone, but the man never stayed in one place long enough to get caught. He was wanted for questioning in a rape-murder case that had occurred in Memphis last year. Well, he was in jail now, and would soon be in prison for the rest of his life…
The moon showed its bleak face intermittently. His reflective glance fell upon his right hand as it dangled over the wooden arm of the rocker, the knuckles scraped and slightly swollen. That morning his hands had labored for hours in an effort to save a life, moments later, they had turned to violence and tried to destroy one. He still felt, as weary as he was, that he could kill Slade Malone. Then Ethan’s head was against the side of the rocker and he was asleep, reliving the first time he’d felt that emotion; it was the first time he’d dreamed the dream in a long while…
* * * *
Shiloh hadn’t been his first battle. There had been many skirmishes with the enemy when he was on picket duty, and the fighting at Fort Donelson early in the war had been hard and desperate. But somehow, of all the battles he had fought, it was Shiloh that haunted him. It was Shiloh, that “place of peace”, which had awakened the beast within him, and forever robbed him of his own inner peace.
He could feel, even in his sleep, his own hidden fear, his hot rage and frustration. He could remember the confusion and the hellish noise and violent death all around him…
By three o’clock that afternoon, the Confederates had become almost as disorganized as the Federals. Companies became separated from their officers, entire regiments ceased to have either form or plan as the battle raged. Ethan’s company, hit by a barrage of enemy guns, had scattered, and unable to locate their original positions had rejoined other companies.
Ethan had tried to find Forrest, but in the stinging smoke and with screaming shells bursting all around, it was impossible to recognize the faces of men, even had they not been blackened with gunpowder and grimacing with dreadful determination.
He’d joined General Ruggles at the Hornet’s Nest, so-named by the Confederates. It was actually a sunken road where some of the heaviest fighting of the day occurred. Men fell all around him as they surged into a literal storm of musket-fire. How Ethan escaped death that day he could never explain.
He had fought viciously, without mercy. He leaped like a madman directly into Federal lines, shooting point-blank into startled Yankee faces, stabbing wildly with his saber when he ran out of ammunition. When his saber was wrested from him, he pulled out his six-shooter, with unerring aim killed six men, then used the empty weapon as a club until he acquired a dead man’s rifle and started all over again.
By five o’clock, the Hornet’s Nest was surrounded, and the Federals there were either captured or left for dead.
Later he had been appalled at himself. He was appalled that Ethan Carey, who had studied medicine, who wanted to heal and not to kill, could be so completely lacking in humanity. But, he hadn’t been human that day. He’d been — they’d all been — killing machines.
He woke with a start, looking around him as if he expected to see cannon fire and men charging toward him. He sighed and got up to go into the house. He climbed the stairs slowly, his hand heavy on the rail. He paused for a moment, and then opened the door into Genny’s room, walked inside, and looked down at her.
Her long hair spread over the pillow like a cloud of molten gold. Dark gold lashes swept in crescents against her cheeks. Her lips were parted slightly, and her breathing was deep and regular. She looked like an angel, the back of one hand lying against the pillow, the other resting across her chest.
Yes, he thought, with a deep feeling of irony, he knew what it was to face a battery of rifle-fire. He knew what it was to brace himself against instant annihilation from the artillery of the enemy. He’d ridden a horse in pursuit of fleeing Federals for over ninety hours with little respite. He’d gone days without food and without sleep. He’d fought in the snow and sleet, when it was so cold it took both hands to cock his pistol. He’d fought in blistering heat, when men around him were collapsing with sunstroke. He knew what it was to engage in hand-to-hand combat in the dead of night, when it was so dark one could hardly discern friend from foe.
He’d endured it all, never failing to take action or make a swift decision. His life, and the lives of others, had depended on it. His success as a doctor depended largely on his knowledge of human nature, and on the willingness to take chances, and he’d overcome countless obstacles. But Genny, this young woman he’d taken to wife, completely baffled him, and for the first time in his life he was at a loss as to what to do.
Why had he married her? Other women, over the course of the last fifteen or so years, had tried to ensnare him in matrimony, especially after his broken engagement to Caroline. He’d resisted them all with little effort, because none had particularly interested him — until Genny.
Was it her beauty that had caught him; was it her charm, which she could produce in abundance when she chose to? Was it her high-spiritedness that captivated him, or her innocence? Could it be nothing more than a strong physical attraction? Like any man he admired beautiful women, but he’d learned the hard way that beauty really was only skin deep.
Certainly he’d been exposed to her selfishness; he knew her to be vain and stubborn to a fault. Yet, in spite of her beauty and all that life had given her, he sensed in her a feeling of insecurity. There was something almost pleading about her, even in her rejection of him.
He supposed that was what had first drawn him, arousing a desire to protect her. He’d always had a weakness for vulnerability. Then he’d fallen captive to other things about her, things he couldn’t begin to define. He sensed a complexity in her nature, as if she were two people, and the one struggling to get out was altogether different. He was intrigued. Somewhere inside her a flame fought for life, a flame of passion and deep tenderness, but she herself had extinguished it almost at its inception. Why had she done so? Why had she turned against him?
The obvious answer was that she believed he had forced her into marriage, because he’d told Philbert where she was and she absolutely did not wish to return to Knoxville. And so now she was exacting her revenge.
But there was something wrong about that; something didn’t fit. For the first day of their marriage, she had looked and acted like a woman in love. The hours they’d spent together were full of passion, and of an awakening knowledge of each other. Then with no warning whatsoever, she’d grown as cold as a statue.
He wondered briefly about mental illness. He wondered if her first experience with Slade Malone had damaged her emotionally, or perhaps it was that in combination with feeling unloved by her family. He knew he had to be patient, he had to try to find out what was wrong and deal with it. But it was difficult when she wouldn’t talk to him…would hardly even look at him.
She never stirred, as long as he stood there. Just before he moved toward the door, he said quietly, “Yes, I do love you, Genny. But I’m not going to wait forever.”
* * * *
The sun was hi
gh when Genny woke the next morning. She remained in bed for a moment, reliving the events of yesterday. She remembered how she’d felt when she saw Ethan coming on his horse to rescue her — the relief, the thrill of excitement, the awe at his speed and fearlessness. But then, she thought of Caroline Adams, and the hurt went so deep she could barely stand it. He had pierced through her wall again, without even meaning to, just by being himself.
She rose and began to dress, thinking. She had to get away from him, even if for a short time. She had to have time to build up her defenses, to harden her heart.
A knock came on the door. Thinking it was Agnes, Genny said, “Come in,” and bent to pull a petticoat out of the dresser drawer. When she straightened, her eye was immediately caught by a tall figure in the mirror.
She gasped and whirled about, dropping her petticoat on the floor. Ethan stood looking at her, one eyebrow raised at her obvious alarm.
“Excuse me, Genny, I thought you said to come in.”
“Yes.” She stiffened her spine, determined not to act like a ninny. “But it’s so late — I thought you’d be in the office.”
“I came to see how you are. Miss Pickel is there. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, but — ”
“But?”
“Ethan, I must get away. Just for a little while. Josephine has invited me to take a trip to the mountains. Her uncle has a hotel there. I — I’d very much like to go.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, and she was conscious of a speculative glint in his eyes as he gazed at her. But then he said calmly, “Very well, madam. Take your trip to the mountains, on one condition.”
“What?” she asked nervously.