“Ashlinn, is that really you?” the young man said. Even his voice had a similar timber to hers.
Sean’s gaze moved slowly to Ashlinn. It struck him as sure and hard as a slap that she had been hiding something from him. How could he not have seen this? But then, what did he expect. Deserters were hanged, without exception. If she had told him about her brother being alive, it would have been as good as tying the noose herself. How could he blame her for that?
The cold expression on her face showed no signs of surprise, or happiness. “Yes, brother. It is me.”
At the sound of her wintery tone, the young man’s smile wilted and his eyes narrowed. “’Tisn’t what you think. I was wounded. The lady of the house here found me and nursed me back to health. I was going to come back to the army as soon as I was able, but things changed.”
Stiff as a board beside Sean, Ashlinn grunted. “You look quite healthy now. If that were the case, you would have come to me yourself rather than have Scáth find Cliste and me.”
From her pinched expression he feared she had come to the same conclusion he had. Her brother had deserted. No wonder she had hid it from him. But still…
“Now, big sis, don’t be that way. I warned you to leave, knowing how I would disappoint you.” Anger flashed across the man’s face.
Red darkened Ashlinn’s face, spreading like a port wine stain up from her neck. “You are my baby brother. I could not leave without you. Besides, I signed up to serve as a nurse to the 69th and I would not abandon that responsibility.” She flung a hand toward Scáth. “You had to know Cliste would find him and lead me to you.”
Michael shook his head. “If you had left when you received my letter that never would have happened. You and I differ greatly, dear sister. Survival is paramount to me as honor is to you. That is something you have never come to accept.” A tightness remained around his eyes as they flicked behind Ashlinn to where Ezekiel stood. “Bring them inside, Ezekiel. ’Tis freezing out here.”
With that, he spun and practically pranced back into the house. That the man hadn’t so much as acknowledged Sean’s presence with even a glance ratcheted up his suspicion. Angry as he was at Ashlinn for keeping this from him, he still wanted to pummel the man for speaking to her that way.
“How long have you known he was alive?” Sean demanded in a harsh whisper as Ezekiel urged them forward with a grunt.
The hurt in Ashlinn’s eyes made him regret his harshness, but only partially. How could he trust her if she wasn’t honest with him? “Only for a few days.”
She tried to pull her hand free as she started up the stairs, but he held fast to it. Only a few days didn’t seem all that bad. It was barely enough time for one to process such a revelation. “’Tis all right. We’ll figure this out,” he said.
Her lips twitched upward but the smile couldn’t quite reach them. Fingers with more strength than those her size should possess gripped his hand tighter. Using his longer legs to his advantage, he lengthened his stride to go through the door before her. Brother or not, he didn’t trust this man and wouldn’t allow her to go into harm’s way first. They stepped into a sunroom, just off the back of the kitchen by the scent of baking bread. Plush chairs, a fainting couch, and a long coffee table sprawled across the space to their right. To the left a small hallway led to several doors.
In one of those doorways stood a woman in a blue dress that swelled out like a bell. Long brown hair wound in an elaborate bun atop her head, ringlets framing a lovely face that had likely never seen a day of work in the sun. Harsh brown eyes narrowed at them as if they had wronged her in some way. Waving a hand in the woman’s direction, Ashlinn’s brother put on a tight smile.
“Marylou Collinsworth, meet my sister, Ashlinn O’Brian.”
Inclining her head slightly, Marylou took up the sides of her skirts and curtsied. Her eyes maintained their hard look of suspicion as they moved from Ashlinn to Sean. “I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but it most certainly isn’t considering you are Yanks.” Sweet as she looked, her words stung like drops of acid.
Ashlinn’s brother shot the woman a vicious look. “Watch your tongue, woman. That is my sister you are talking to.”
Eyes widening with fear, Marylou shrank away from him a bit as she shook her head and covered her heart with her hand. “You said so yourself, Michael.” Her soft voice and hunched demeanor suggested something Sean didn’t want to think of Ashlinn’s brother. But then, this day was revealing many things he hadn’t wanted to think about her brother.
“Yes, well, this is my sister we are talking about,” Michael snapped.
Hands smoothing her perfect dress, Marylou’s gaze shot to Sean again. “And she is with a Yankee,” she nearly whispered.
Finally, Michael’s gaze fell upon Sean, turning calculating as it did so. “Yes, he does present a problem.”
Nails scratching at his chin, Michael walked over to the fainting couch, scooped up a blanket, and approached them. Moving with deliberate slowness, he draped it around Ashlinn’s shoulders, hugging her a bit awkwardly as he did so. “Please, come, sit. We have much to discuss.”
Ashlinn shrugged his hands off. “Playin’ the Southern gentleman now, are you?”
His eyes narrowed to slits and his hand closed around her wrist. “Careful, sister. This is a delicate situation.”
The fury in Ashlinn’s eyes suggested she was about to be anything but careful.
“Delicate? You desertin’ the Union army is anythin’ but delicate, Michael. What exactly do you plan to do? Hide out here until the war is over?” The deadly calm of her voice even gave Sean chills.
Michael’s false cheer drained away. “I am going to California. Mark, Ryan, and I, we bought some land down there ripe for planting. The sun shines three hundred days out of the year there they say. You will come with us, o’ course.”
Sean did not like how the man hadn’t let go of her arm.
“Mark and Ryan are dead.”
The skin around his eyes pinched and he looked down for a quick moment. “I know that. I meant you could come with Marylou and I.”
Ashlinn lifted her chin and looked down her nose at her brother, who was scarcely taller than she was. “You are a married man, Michael O’Brian.”
Michael spat on the polished wooden floor. “To a wench I cannot stand the sight of, and forced into it at that.”
In one swift movement, Ashlinn twisted her wrist free of her brother and slapped him so hard across the face his head whipped back. “You took Catarina’s virtue, you impetuous, selfish little brat!”
Too fast for Sean to react, the man backhanded Ashlinn. The resounding smack burned deep into Sean’s ears, igniting fury within him like oil reaching a flame. Were it not for Sean having hold of her arm, she would have fallen.
“She took my future. ’Twas not exactly a good trade-off!” Michael bellowed. Loud though his voice was, it sounded far away, as if coming from a tunnel.
Sean knew it was the rage burning every sound and sensation in its path, but he couldn’t stop it any more than he could a wildfire. He launched at the man, fist swinging. The blow caught Michael full on, just below the red mark that Ashlinn had left on his cheek not a moment before. Eyes wide, Michael raised his hand to his face. But his raging eyes didn’t fall upon Sean; they went to the man behind him. Too late, Sean remembered Ezekiel and turned toward him. The butt of a rifle slammed into the side of his head, turning the world black.
Chapter 30
The butt of the rifle rose again, but Ezekiel hesitated, looking to Michael. Still holding the side of a face contorted with rage, Michael nodded. Ashlinn dove, covering Sean’s prone body with her own, putting her head in the way of his. Bright red blood shone in his hair only inches from her face. She braced for impact.
“No, Ezekiel, please!” she begged.
The impact didn’t come. Eventually, she let out a slow breath but didn’t move away from Sean.
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“Ezekiel, you do not answer to this Yankee bitch. Do as Michael told you!” Marylou’s high-pitched voice snapped.
Footsteps pounded out a rapid, angry rhythm against the hardwood floor. Ashlinn watched, helpless, as Michael backhanded Marylou so hard she went to a knee. “Shut up, Marylou! That is my sister, regardless of her foolishness.”
Sobbing, Marylou scrambled backwards like a terrified animal and disappeared into the doorway. A moment later Ashlinn heard the woman’s heeled boots clomping up stairs.
Appalled, Ashlinn looked up at her brother. “We will leave and not tell a soul. You have my word, Michael. Just please do not harm Sean.”
Fair brow furrowing, amusement filled Michael’s eyes in contrast. “You love this man?”
Her gaze shifted back to Sean. Though his clean-shaven features were slack, his chest rose and fell steadily, suggesting he was only unconscious. Along with the relief came a flood of something else.
“Yes, I love him.”
Joyless laughter burst from Michael. “The Ice Princess is in love. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”
One hard glare from her at Ezekiel had the slave backing up several steps. Once he was far enough away for her liking, she rose to her feet and faced her brother. “I do not know what happened to you, and whatever it is, I am truly sorry. But do not allow it to turn you cruel, Michael, please.”
The hardness in his blue eyes flickered for a moment, like a candle flame about to go out. “Come with us. You are the last family I have,” he said.
Ashlinn swallowed down her anger, taking a moment to answer so she didn’t scream. “No, I am not. Catarina is waiting for you back in New York.”
Michael threw his hands up in the air and began to pace. “I can never go back to New York, to my barren wife. Do you really think they will just overlook the fact that I deserted?”
From the speed of his pacing she knew he didn’t want an answer, wouldn’t hear it, so she waited. After only a few steps, he ranted on. “I tried, I really did. First Mark died, and then Ryan. What chance did I stand when they both fell? I knew it was only a matter of time, and mine was runnin’ out. Then I got lost durin’ a battle, wandered around until I was so tired I became ill. When Marylou found me and saved me, I knew what I had to do.” At this last part he stopped before her and took her hands in his.
She didn’t want to let him touch her, not with her anger so piqued, but he was her baby brother, the sibling she had spent her life protecting and making excuses for. Another part of her wanted desperately to embrace him. But it was a small part. The sting of her cheek kept her wits sharp, reminding her that this was not the little brother she remembered from before the war.
“I am sorry I could not protect you better,” she whispered.
A short, tolerant sounding laugh came from him. “I am a man, have been for some time now. You have not had to protect me since we were children.”
She had to clench her jaw against a reply that would no doubt stir his considerable temper. If he only knew half of the things she had done to protect him over the years: paying off gambling debts, squelching vicious rumors among high society, crediting him for acts of benevolence and charity that she herself had done…
“Come with me to California.” His eyes flicked about the room. Voice dropping, he said, “We will send for Catarina to join us.”
Claws clicked on hardwood, the sound carrying to her from a hallway to the right. Ears perked up, head held high, Cliste trotted from the hall. Her ears wilted a bit as she dashed straight for Ashlinn. Knowing the hound would go to Sean since he was down, Ashlinn bent and swept her into a hug to stop her. Michael had always been a jealous person, and if he saw Cliste go to Sean it would turn his mood worse for certain.
“Cliste and Scáth will come with us, o’ course,” Michael said, as if they were children and he were tempting her with a sweet.
Ashlinn couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go with him. Dead though their family was, she still had friends in New York. And the family practice. True, she would have to take it over in the guise of a nurse or a midwife, but people would still come to her, regardless of what she called herself. They had been for years already. But the hopeful, almost desperate look in her brother’s eyes made it clear she couldn’t tell him that. She would have to lie to get both her and Sean out of this alive.
“All right,” she said through a sigh.
His eyes widened and a smile banished his concern in one fail swoop. “Truly?”
Eyes going to the doorway Marylou had gone through, she nodded. “Yes.” She leaned in closer to him. “But what about your Southern lady?” She finished in a conspiratorial tone.
A quiet groan behind her told her Sean was regaining consciousness. It was all she could do not to turn around or let her relief show on her face. Michael was like a cornered fox. If she moved too quickly, or gave him any reason to doubt her conviction, he would either attack or skitter away. That part of him hadn’t changed a bit. The ruthlessness she saw in his eyes, the way he had commanded Ezekiel to strike Sean, all of that was new to her. She had a bad feeling he wouldn’t hesitate to do worse if it came to protecting himself.
He laughed, covering his mouth like he had when he was a little boy. The sight pinched at her heart, especially since she was about to deceive him and likely never see him again. “I never really intended to take her with me. Besides, she has this entire plantation.”
She resisted the temptation to close the distance between them, grab him, and shake some sense into him. Instead, she forced a smile and nodded. The lie she had concocted flowed a little too easily from her lips. “It won’t be safe for us to go now. We need to wait for the Union to pull back further. I can get information on their movements, return with it, and we can decide on the best route to avoid them.”
His eyes widened, filling with the light pouring through the many windows. “That’s brilliant! You were always good with plans like that. But will you be safe returning to them?”
She looked pointedly down at Sean. “O’ course, I will be returning one of their wounded to them. They won’t suspect a thing.”
Chin thrusting in Sean’s direction, Michael narrowed his eyes. “You trust him not to tell them about us?”
Watching Sean’s closed lids and relaxed face, she realized he was no longer unconscious at all, merely faking it. She nodded. “I trust him with my life.”
“And mine?” Michael asked a little too quickly.
Her eyes remained on Sean. She couldn’t look her brother straight in the eye and lie to him. “He will protect us both. He is just as tired of this war as you are.” It was true for the most part. She believed Sean would do what he could to protect them both, and he was tired of the war. But she also knew Sean was a loyal soldier with a deep sense of honor, one that would never allow him to take part in the plot of a deserter. Nor would she, but her brother needed to believe they both would.
“What of your Southern lady?” she asked again.
With a shake of his head and a dismissive gesture, he revealed his lack of dedication to the woman. “She has her land here. Once the Union pulls out she’ll be fine.”
The urge to slap him again made her clutch her hands together before her. Petulant and selfish were two traits her little brother had always possessed, just not to this blatant level, at least not that she had ever seen. Sean’s right cheek twitched and his body went tense, a subtle sign of movement that she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been staring at him.
The hammer of a rifle clicked back, the sound echoing in the big room. “Oh, I will definitely be all right, because I’m going to California. I told you not to hit me ever again, you bastard” came Marylou’s high-pitched voice from the doorway she had vacated minutes ago.
Darkness flashed before Ashlinn. Something clattered to the floor as footsteps brushed across it. Suddenly Ezekiel stood between the three of them and Marylou, hands held out to h
is sides as if to shield them better. His rifle lay upon the floor, not far from Sean.
“Ya don’t wanna do this, Miss Collins. Ya love master O’Brian, and dese good people. Dey mean us no harm,” Ezekiel pleaded.
Nostrils flaring, Marylou tried to glare a hole through the man. “Get out the way right now, Ezekiel, or I will have you whipped until there is no skin left on your back!”
Anger so hot it burned like her father’s Irish whiskey scorched its way up from Ashlinn’s stomach. “You horrible witch,” she hissed.
Marylou’s eyes slid to her. The rifle barrel moved up and to the left, past Ezekiel.
“I will take everything you promised me, Michael,” she said.
A shot rang out like a massive drumbeat that reverberated all through Ashlinn. Blood sprayed across the flower-patterned fainting couch a moment before her brother fell back onto it. Screams tore from Ashlinn’s throat, some wordless, others bearing her brother’s name. She lunged in his direction just as Sean launched to his feet, rifle in hand. Blood bubbled from a gaping wound in her brother’s chest, pouring out and soaking his clothes in the moments it took her to kneel beside him. Putting all her weight behind them, she pressed her hands against the wound.
Claws clicked on hardwood, skidding as they rounded a corner. Scáth entered the room, fangs bared, and eyes boring into Marylou as he stalked toward her. Gray flashed as Cliste joined him. In the chaos Ashlinn froze, not knowing what else she could do. Useless words of comfort flowed from her as her eyes went to Sean. He stood before Ezekiel, blocking both him and Michael from another shot. She could not save them both. Hell, she may not be able to save either of them.
Marylou sneered at him. “You would give your life for livestock?”
Never had Ashlinn wanted to hurt anyone in her life, until now.
Sean’s expression remained calm, sad even, as he leveled the rifle upon her. “Ezekiel is a man, same as myself, same as Michael.”
Horrible, cackling laughter hiccupped from Marylou. “That is the problem with you Yanks. Thinking I would allow my slaves to carry a loaded rifle.”
Honor Before Heart Page 25