“I believe most everyone here knows you are my wife, but for the benefit of our new arrivals, would you state your name.”
“Linese Beaufort Cordell.” She tried to still the quiver in her voice.
“When did you meet me?” Chase leveled a glance at her and she felt strength emanate from his hard gray eyes. It brought a measure of calm to her when she looked at him.
“May 30, 1862.”
He smiled at her. “Where did we meet?”
“At the Presbyterian church social.”
“What county?”
“Ferrin County.”
“Is that where the body of Alfred Homstock was found?”
“Yes, I believe it was.”
“Thank you. I have no more questions at this time.”
“Chase?” Linese half rose from her seat in shock. Surely he meant to ask her about the man she had seen. Surely he intended to bring it up now that the war was finished.
“I have no more questions of you.” Chase looked into her eyes and she knew it was pointless to argue. Whatever he was doing, it was obviously going to be done his way and in his own sweet time.
“I call Samuel Green to the stand.” Chase’s voice rang out over the musical sound of rain.
The little jeweler looked more unhappy than ever to be taking the stand, but he slowly made his way back to the witness chair.
“Mr. Green, you testified that I bought a cameo from you with British gold.”
“Yes, that’s right.” He swallowed hard and Linese felt sorry for the little man who squirmed under Chase’s unrelenting gaze.
“Have you ever sold anything, to anyone else in Mainfield that was bought with British gold?”
Her breath lodged in her throat. There was something about the way Chase asked the question that made her believe he already knew the answer. Mr. Green frowned and rubbed his fingers across his thick chin whiskers.
“Yes. It was a while back as I recall. I sold a ruby stickpin. It was paid for with British gold.”
Linese heard the collective gasp in the courtroom. Chase turned to her and she knew he had solved the puzzle. Now he was going to tell everyone else.
“That is ridiculous,” Mayor Kerney blustered, and he leaned forward in his chair. With lightning quick action, Chase leapt around the desk and grabbed the man by the throat. With his free hand he reached beneath the desk, and when he brought his hand up it was clamped around Kerney’s fat wrist.
“Now, Mayor, what have you got there?” Chase smiled, but it was not a smile of mirth. “What did you have hidden in your boot?” Linese saw Chase’s eyes harden like the cold gray of gunmetal.
“Nobody in this room is to move a muscle,” Colonel Baskins’s voice rang out. He nodded and she watched Union soldiers position themselves in front of every door and window in the courtroom.
Linese was hard-pressed to tear her eyes away from Chase’s grim face, but she looked at the mayor’s hand a saw what he was clasping in white-knuckled desperation.
“That’s a mighty mean looking blade,” Chase said softly, as he let go of his grip on the mayor’s neck.
The mayor looked around the room. Beads of sweat had formed on his brow and upper lip. Linese saw panic in his face. “A man needs to protect himself.”
Chase smiled again. “Linese, would you take the witness stand?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. Mr. Green practically ran, eager to get away from the bizarre situation taking place next to him.
Linese sat down and Chase turned his attention back to Kerney. “Mayor Kerney, what did you do when I returned to Mainfield with my new bride in 1862?” Chase tightened his grip on the man’s wrist and the knife clattered to the desk.
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come now, Mayor. Don’t you remember paying me a little visit? Don’t you remember telling me that you had information that a horse bearing the Cordell brand had been seen in Ferrin County, that a murder had been committed, that you thought my grandfather’s continued safety depended on my cooperation?”
The mayor’s face flushed to a bright crimson. “I might’ve said something like that, but—”
“Mayor, how is it that you knew a horse with the Cordell brand was there in Ferrin County that night? Were you there?”
The mayor’s eyes flicked from Chase to Colonel Homstock and back. Linese saw his jowls quiver when he swallowed. “Of course not. What a ridiculous notion.”
“Then how did you know?” Chase’s voice was deadly soft.
“Well, I—that is—I had been in Louisiana, on business. I was riding by and saw the horse. It was the horse Captain Cordell always rides—that big black mare.”
“You saw the horse tethered at the church. But you never stopped?” Chase was toying with him like a barn cat with a mouse.
“No. I never stopped.” Mayor Kerney seemed very pleased with that answer. “I rode straight on back to Mainfield.”
“What kind of business were you on that night?” Chase smiled and turned toward Linese. She felt her heart increase its tempo inside her breast. For the first time she knew what he was doing. He was building to the moment when everyone would know who had killed Alfred Homstock.
“Business,” Kerney snapped.
“And would your business have been raiding, looting, gathering what profit you could from the misery of a country torn by war?”
Kerney paled. “Yes! The Businessman’s Association had been raiding in Louisiana that night.”
A strange ripple moved through the courtroom and Linese saw every eye turn and focus on those men who had been associated with Kerney. It gave her pleasure to know they would profit no longer in Mainfield.
“So, after you raided, looted and burned farms, you quietly rode back home?”
“That’s right. It was wartime. You can’t fault me for what I did,” Kerney snarled.
Linese felt the confidence and love pulsing from Chase each time he looked at her. When he turned to her, she was ready.
“Linese, tell me some more about May 30, 1862. Tell me what happened after the social ended.”
“I left late with my aunt Hesta after we cleaned up. When I went to the hand pump outside to wash up, I ran into a man.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was washing up at the hand pump.”
“Did you know him?” Chase stepped away from Linese.
“Not at the time. He was not from Ferrin County. I only met him after we married and I came here to live in Tyron County.”
“What was he washing, Linese?”
“The man was cleaning off a long knife.” She pointed. “That knife. I saw Mayor Kerney, behind the church washing his hands and that knife.”
Colonel Homstock barely kept his seat. His body vibrated with rage. She saw his hands, still tightly closed into fists in front of him on the table and realized he was trying to control the desire to kill Mayor Kerney.
“Tell us, Mayor, why did you do it? You didn’t care who won the war, so why did you stab that man in the back?” Chase asked.
“For the gold. I did it for the belt full of gold. The idiot had stopped to see to the bullet hole in his shoulder. He had the belt slung over his arm. It was easy, he never heard a thing.” Kerney’s eyes had glazed over and a bit of spittle was forming at the corner of his flaccid lips.
He was mad. Linese could see that now.
“I’m going to take a great pleasure in seeing this man hang,” Colonel Homstock’s voice rang out. He stepped in front of Chase and held out his hand while two Union soldiers took hold of the mayor. “Major, I hope you will accept my apologies.”
Chase grasped the colonel’s palm. “I do.”
“What will you do now, Major Cordell?” he asked.
“I’m going home. I have two daughters that I’m mighty anxious to get acquainted with.”
Linese smiled and felt tears on her cheeks.
“Linese?” When she looked up she found Captain Cordell smilin
g sheepishly at her. He held out his closed fist. “I have something for you.”
“What?” She still found it hard to believe that her sweet old companion was as sane and lucid as she was. She held out her hand. He dropped he wedding ring and her cameo into her open palm. “Oh, Captain. How did you ever?”
“Nobody ever told that Confederate soldier it isn’t smart to play poker with a crazy man.”
Linese’s throaty laughter sluiced over Chase and he knew that he was finally home—finally free.
Chase took her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. He had come full circle and met himself in the bargain.
He realized now that the man he had been was not as imperfect as he had once feared, and yet he knew he was a better man now. Linese’s tears of happiness soaked into his shirt and he made himself a promise. No matter how many causes, or how great the question of his honor, he would never, ever leave her side again.
As if God heard his vow and agreed with it, the rain stopped and a bright shaft of sunlight blazed through the windows of the courthouse.
Chase and Linese were free—free of the past—free of any curse, real or imagined—free to love each other for the rest of their lives.
*
Author Note
Three separate ideas are responsible for The Return of Chase Cordell. Two movies, Regarding Henry and Sommersby. I hated one and loved the other. The third ingredient in the mix was a piece of family history. My great-greatgrandfather, Benjamin Everett Caudill, returned to his home in Kentucky from the Civil War, so badly scarred from smallpox, his wife did not know him. From these seemingly unrelated things sprang Linese and Chase.
Mainfield and its citizens are totally fictional, but I have endeavored to keep all dates relating to the Civil War intact. If I have failed along the way, I pray you will forgive me.
eISBN 978-14592-6785-5
THE RETURN OF CHASE CORDELL
Copyright © 1997 by Linda L. Crockett
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Printed in U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Title Page
Books by Linda Castle
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Author Note
Copyright
Linda Castle Page 28