“Darling, what are you doing up so early?” Brandon asked sleepily. “Come back to bed.”
She didn’t mention the odd thunder to him. Slipping in next to her husband, she reached for his hand and placed it on her stomach. He turned and snuggled close to her, sighing contentedly.
“Dearest,” Lilah whispered, “kiss me good morning.”
Brandon, without opening his eyes, reached his lips out to her. He missed his mark and found instead a firm breast beneath damp linen. He tried to pull away but Lilah held his head against her. He gave up his slight struggle and was soon suckling contentedly. Lilah let her hands stray down his strong back. Brandon quivered under her touch and slid her beneath him.
“You’re sure this won’t hurt the baby?” he asked, hesitating.
“No, love,” she answered, guiding him into place.
The thunder boomed again, but this time Lilah didn’t hear it. Sweet warmth flooded her, making her oblivious to all but her own flesh and that pressing it.
Brandon’s head shot up suddenly. “What’s that?”
“Hum-m-m? Oh, nothing. Thunder, I think,” she answered dreamily. “It’s been rumbling since before dawn.”
“Like hell it’s thunder!” Brandon was out of bed and pulling his breeches on before Lilah could move. “It’s cannon fire! And not far away!”
“Cannon fire? From where?”
“Fort Sumter would be my guess! It’s begun, darling! What we’ve all been waiting for. The war!” Brandon shouted gleefully, racing out of their room and down the stairs.
Lilah was still sitting up in bed, clutching the sheet to cover herself when the door opened a crack and Jeremy stuck his head in.
“Morning, beautiful!” he said, stripping the sheet from her with his eyes. “From the glow on your cheeks. I’d say brother Brandon performed his husbandly duties this morning. Doesn’t he know that’s not necessary after he’s already knocked you up?”
Lilah threw a pillow at his head, but missed.
“No, no!” He wagged a finger at her. “Mustn’t get testy with your brother-in-law, especially when he has a belated wedding surprise coming in for you on the boat today.”
Lilah eyed Jeremy with uneasy suspicion. He’d acted oddly ever since the wedding, as if he had a secret that very much amused him. He’d been courteous to Lilah in Brandon’s presence, but often made lewd remarks to her when no one else was within hearing. What was he up to?
“Do you mind closing the door so I can get dressed?”
Jeremy stepped inside and closed the door behind him, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, Jeremy Patrick! Get out of here!”
He moved closer, his eyes still roaming her barely covered body. “Come on, sister dear, just give me a sample of what Brandon’s been getting. It’s not as if we haven’t done it before.” He leaned close to kiss her, but Lilah lunged out and clawed his cheek with her nails.
“Ow!” he shrieked, holding his face. “All right! So that’s the way you want it!”
The fury in his tone made Lilah shrink back against her pillows, afraid of what he might do. But he only smiled, a slow, cruel grimace. “I still plan to give you that wedding gift. You deserve it! Both of you!”
He left the room abruptly. Lilah sat staring after him. A feeling of dread filled her. The cannon thunder boomed again and she shuddered.
When Lilah arrived downstairs a half hour later, the rest of the family had already assembled.
“I tell you, I know it’s from Fort Sumter,” Brandon was saying to his father. “I heard talk in Savannah this week that Governor Pickens had confiscated some messages from Lincoln and sent them to Montgomery. The feeling is that a move like this will unite the border states and bring them into the fold. And I agree!”
“We’ll just have to wait till Kingdom returns from Savannah to find out for sure,” Ames Patrick replied sagely.
The Rainbow Landing bell sounded at that moment. Everyone rushed out of the house toward the dock, Brandon in the lead.
Brandon stopped abruptly when he saw Kingdom helping a dark-haired woman out of the boat. Vague recollections stirred in the back of his brain.
Jeremy leaned close to whisper to Lilah. “Your wedding gift, dear sister!”
Lilah didn’t understand. She watched Jeremy take the woman’s hand. He led her to where Brandon stood, seemingly frozen, an odd expression on his face.
Lilah measured the stranger with her eyes. She looked Latin or perhaps she had a touch of the tar brush. Her build and golden eyes made her resemble Saralyn faintly. But her emerald satin gown, caught up in ruffles and flounces with bright silk flowers would have looked ludicrous on Brandon’s first wife. The woman’s features, though delicate, were powdered and painted as no gentlewoman’s would have been.
Jeremy bowed slightly to her. “You have the papers, Carmelita?”
She produced a document from her bosom and handed it to him. “Sí, Señor Jeremy.”
“Mother, Father, I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Carmelita Patrick,” Jeremy announced dramatically.
Elizabeth Patrick’s hand flew to her throat and she gave a strangled cry. Ames turned red with fury.
“How dare you marry this woman without approval from your mother and me? I’ll have it annulled immediately!”
Jeremy handed his father the piece of paper that, until moments before, had nestled between Carmelita’s ripe breasts. He smiled. “You misunderstand, Father. Read this.”
“My God!” Ames Patrick gasped, letting the paper slip from his fingers to flutter to the ground. “But this can’t be! Lilah’s in a family way!”
Lilah, who had been watching the scene with a detached air, suddenly came alert. “What?” She reached to retrieve the document and quickly scanned the page. She paled, reading, “Carmelita Juarez to Brandon Patrick January 4, 1861!” She looked at her husband—no, he wasn’t her husband!
“Lilah, darling, I know nothing about this,” Brandon protested.
“Nothing, brother? Do you deny that you accompanied me to Madam Estrella’s Starlight House in Brunswick on that night? That you, shall we say, befriended, this woman? That you stood with her before a padre and afterward bedded her?”
Brandon couldn’t deny anything. Bits and pieces of that night remained in his memory, but nothing of a marriage.
“I couldn’t have! I wouldn’t have!” he shouted.
Jeremy took the paper from Lilah and thrust it into his face. “But you did! And this is the proof!” Jeremy brought Carmelita forward. “Did you marry this man, my dear?”
“Sí!” she answered, nodding vigorously.
“And did the two of you… afterward… ?”
“The whole night through, sí! My husband, Brandon, had had much champagne, but he is muy macho!”
Lilah refused to allow herself the luxury of fainting. Instead, she whipped around and headed back to Fortune’s Fancy to pack.
Brandon ran after her. “Lilah, listen to me! Let me explain!”
“There’s nothing to explain. Two nights before our fraudulent wedding you married a whore, which will make our child a bastard! So you and your family have your revenge. You’ve put me in my proper place at last. You all put on a brilliantly clever act back there. I hope you enjoy your laugh over supper tonight. I’m going back to the cabin where I belong!”
“Lilah,” Brandon begged, “it’s not like that at all. If I married that woman, the whole thing was a farce. I don’t remember any of it.”
“So, you were as drunk as your wife said,” she replied bitterly.
“Yes, yes, I was drunk! You know I can’t hold my liquor. Jeremy insisted we go to that place to celebrate my coming marriage to you. I don’t know what happened that night. I must have blacked out. Please, believe me, Lilah!”
Lilah looked at the misery in Brandon’s eyes, mirroring her own. “Don’t you see, Brandon? It m
akes no difference whether I believe you or not. Your marriage to that woman is legal. Ours is not! Yes, it helps to know that this is one of Jeremy’s fiendish tricks and not your planning. But that won’t change anything. Now, get out of my way. Granny and I will be out of your house within the hour.”
Brandon stood in the entranceway of the mansion, seeing all his dreams fade as Lilah disappeared through the door upstairs. “Jeremy!” he said aloud. “He did this because he couldn’t have Lilah. I’ll take care of him once and for all!”
Brandon went to the library, took down a leather box and opened the lid. Inside lay two pearl-handled, smoothbore dueling pistols, the blue-black of their muzzles gleaming dully with oil against the blood-red velvet lining of the case.
Never mind the Code Duello! Jeremy Patrick hadn’t enough honor to respect rules made for gentlemen. They’d settle it now. If Brandon died, that would be an end to his problems. But a voice in his brain, like the distant booming cannon fire, told him that justice was on his side.
Lilah walked out of their bedroom, a small portmanteau packed, in time to see Brandon coming from the library, dueling pistols in hand. She gave a small cry, but Brandon didn’t hear. He strode determinedly out the front door. Lilah hurried down the stairs after him, fear speeding her steps.
Golden sunlight drenched the deceptively peaceful landscape outside. Still, the thunder rambled far over the water, a more fitting portent of what was to come.
Lilah watched Brandon approach the knot of people still standing near the dock. Instead of the gentlemanly slap of the gauntlet that normally initiated a duel, Brandon delivered a powerful right to his brother’s jaw. Jeremy staggered, but didn’t fall.
“Brandon! Have you gone mad?” Ames shouted.
“Probably, and with good cause. You are about to lose a son, Father. I’m sorry, but this situation can’t be tolerated.” He shoved one of the pistols into Jeremy’s hand. “It’s loaded and ready.”
Jeremy stood, stunned, looking at his brother with disbelief in his eyes. “You can’t mean…?”
“We can dispense with Wilson’s Code,” Brandon interrupted. “I wish no second in this affair of dishonor, and I doubt that anyone would volunteer to back you up. Does ten paces suit you?”
“What the hell is all the fuss about?” Jeremy whined.
“There’s no fuss,” Brandon replied, deadly calm. “There’s only the question of which of us will live.”
“Brandon, for God’s sake, it was only a joke!”
“In insufferably poor taste!” Brandon moved away from the group and stood with his pistol in position to begin. “Now, will you take your place so we can get this done?”
Elizabeth Patrick sobbed hysterically. Carmelita stood silent, fascinated. Ames took Jeremy by the elbow and led him to stand back to back with his brother.
“You’re right, Brandon,” Ames said with only the hint of a quaver in his voice. “A matter of honor must be settled in a gentlemanly fashion. I’ll count off the paces. After ten, I will announce, ‘Ready. Aim. Fire.’ Should either of you fire before the signal, the other will be allowed one clean shot. Shall we begin?”
Brandon gave his father a slight nod. Ames began to count. “One!” Lilah felt her throat tighten. ‘Two!” Perspiration beaded her upper lip. “Three!” She focused her eyes on Brandon’s set jaw, missing the sound of Ames’s steady count. “Nine!” No! They cant do this! she thought frantically. “Ten!” It seemed to Lilah that the two men turned in slow motion to face each other.
“Ready! Aim! Fi—”
Before Ames could pronounce the word, a single shot rang out. A gasp went up from the group. Brandon sagged for an instant, then righted himself, supporting his wounded right arm with his left hand. He aimed his pistol directly at Jeremy’s heart.
“It is your right, son, if you wish to take it,” Ames Patrick said with controlled emotion. “Your brother fired before the signal. I call a foul on him.”
Jeremy stood with smoking gun in hand, his face the color of bleached muslin, awaiting the inevitable.
Lilah couldn’t stand it. “No, Brandon!” she called out. “Think of your child! Do you want him to carry the stigma of his father as a murderer for the rest of his life?”
“My children,” he corrected, glancing at Lilah. Then he raised his bleeding arm and fired his free shot into the air.
Lilah ran to him and caught him in her arms a moment before he fainted.
Ames Patrick turned his attention to his other son. “I want you off Rainbow Hammock before sunset. Don’t ever return! And take that woman with you! I might have overlooked the dastardly trick you played on Brandon before his marriage, but I’ll not have a coward in my family!” He turned his back on Jeremy and headed toward Brandon and Lilah.
“Mama?” Jeremy said in a pleading tone.
Elizabeth Patrick made no answer, but followed her husband.
“It’s only a flesh wound in his shoulder,” Lilah said when both Ames and Elizabeth came to Brandon.
“I’ll have Blue and Kingdom carry him up to the house to tend him,” Ames said.
“No, Father, I can walk,” Brandon answered. “With Lilah’s help.” He offered her a conciliatory smile.
“I’ll walk with you back to the house, but then I must return to the cabin… until this matter is cleared up.”
Brandon didn’t try to argue. He knew that tone in Lilah’s voice. She would not be his wife again until their marriage was legal.
A few days later, the newspapers reached Rainbow Hammock. Most of the headlines echoed one another: “THE WAR IS ON! SUMTER SURRENDERS IN 33-HOUR BOMBING SOUTH JUBILANT!”
Beauregard had taken the fort in Charleston’s harbor with only four Confederates and four Union men wounded, and one secessionist horse killed. At 1:30 P.M. on April 13, Major Robert Anderson surrendered his command, and the Union flag was hauled down.
Ames Patrick paced the parlor excitedly, scanning each paper for more news. “Listen to this, Brandon! The War Department has issued a call for 19,500 more men. By God, I wish I were young enough to join up!”
Elizabeth Patrick set her embroidery hoop aside and frowned at her husband. “Don’t even think of such a thing, Ames! With your bad heart, the army wouldn’t consider you anyway. Besides, if those Yankees get down here, we’ll need you and Brandon on the island to protect the rest of us.”
Brandon, his healing shoulder bandaged and his right arm in a sling, had been staring silently out the window at the overseer’s cabin, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lilah. He spoke quietly. “I’m going, Mama, as soon as my arm is better.”
“Brandon! That’s pure foolishness!”
“Of course, he’ll go!” Ames responded proudly. “There’s no question of that… never has been!”
Elizabeth went back to her needlework, huffing, “Men!”
Lilah and Granny had settled back into a regular, if slightly monotonous, routine at the cabin.
Stirring the supper stew in her big, black pot, Granny grumbled, “Can’t figure how come this family’s cursed with such a string of bad luck!”
“Luck has nothing to do with it, Granny,” Lilah responded, putting the finishing stitch in a baby sacque she was making. “Interference was the problem in this case. Jeremy Patrick is a bad seed. He’s always been different from the others. Ames did right to send him away.”
‘Takes after old Simon, he does,” Granny mumbled. “Cold bastard, through to the heart!”
“At any rate,” Lilah continued, “Brandon will soon put things right. He should have his annulment from that woman any day now. We’ll be back at Fortune’s Fancy shortly.”
“If you ask me, Lilah Patrick, you’re just bein’ pure ornery! Ain’t no cause for us to have ever moved back here. Brandon’s your husband, the father of that baby you’re carrying. You ought to be with him!”
“I will be soon, Granny. And things will be better than ever between us. This separa
tion might help us, who knows?”
“Humph! Might help Brandon to decide he don’t need a wife anyways!” She leveled a cold gaze at her granddaughter. “You best give that some thought, girl!”
A knock at the door interrupted this argument, which had been going on between the two women since the moment Granny set foot back in the old cabin.
“I’ll get it.” She groaned a complaint about her arthritis as she went to the door and opened it. “Well, bless my old soul! Brandon! What a fine surprise! Lilah, it’s your husband here to see you.”
Brandon looked over at Lilah, who offered him a welcoming smile. “Granny, could Lilah and I have a while alone to talk?”
“Why, sure, son, take all the time you like,” she answered, obviously pleased by the request. “I was fixin’ to go down to the swamp and dig some sassafras root anyways.”
Lilah, sure that Brandon had come with news of his annulment and freedom to make their marriage legal, held out her arms to him.
“Brandon, darling, it’s so good to see you!”
He closed his arms around her and accepted her kiss. They clung to each other for a long time, engrossed in the sensual delights of their nearness.
“Oh, Lilah,” he sighed, “you feel so good.”
Lilah felt the familiar warmth she loved creeping through her. Brandon, fully recovered from his wound, looked tan and strong. She imagined his chest and back, golden brown as Unicorn’s soft leather saddle. The thought stirred her.
Brandon pulled the pins from her hair while his lips held her prisoner. When the silver cascade fell down her back, he stroked it lovingly. This had become a ritual between them—a prelude to their gentle intimacies. Lilah let her body go limp against his, signaling her acceptance.
With a single, easy motion, Brandon lifted Lilah and carried her to the big bed with the cornshuck mattress. He pulled back the quilt and positioned her in the center.
“Remember the night we were supposed to have our bundling party?” he asked with husky passion.
“Hardly at all,” she sighed, watching his fingers loosen her bodice.
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