“Please, let me go,” she sobbed.
“I will when I’m finished with you. Now you be nice to me. Make it easy on yourself, missy.”
Lilah felt tears squeezing out at the corners of her tightly closed lids. She heard Amalee give an agonized scream. Was she too being ravaged by One of these brutes in blue? She remembered Amalee’s horror at Henri’s lovemaking. How much worse it would be to have a stranger manhandling her.
“No!” Lilah screamed, pushing at the anxious officer. “Let me go! They’re hurting my children upstairs!”
She managed to wriggle free, catching him by surprise. But he grabbed her at the foot of the stairs, and shoved her against the wall, pulling up her skirt and petticoats.
“You ain’t getting away from me that easy!” he growled through clenched teeth.
Lilah fought and screamed. She wouldn’t be violated by this animal. But he tore at her clothes, groped at her body, and held her while he unbuttoned his breeches. He pushed his hard penis against her bare thigh, and the room blurred before her eyes.
“Damn you, Captain Yorkin!” a familiar voice trumpeted. “Get your filthy hands off her!”
Lilah’s eyes flew open in time to see Major Steele Denegal send the other officer flying through the front door, his nose smashed by the blow.
“Lilah, did he hurt you?” Steele had her in his protective arms, and once more she was sobbing into his shoulder.
Steele ordered Yorkin and his men off the island. “This was a mistake,” he explained to Lilah. “Yorkin and his troops were supposed to return to Tybee after the raid on Saint Simons. Only the islands in the chain of coastal defenses were supposed to be inspected.”
After making sure no one had been injured, and seeing Amalee to her bed with a stiff shot of brandy, Steele and Lilah walked through the house together, taking inventory of the damage. Smashed glassware, ransacked drawers, slashed portraits.
In front of her great-great-grandmother’s picture, now knifed from chin to bosom, Lilah stopped. A piece of yellowed paper protruded through the ripped canvas. She drew it out and unfolded it.
“What’s that?” Steele asked.
Lilah read the words, then began to laugh, quietly at first, then louder and louder, until the sound turned into choked sobs. “Read it,” she managed.
Steele took the paper. “It’s an old marriage contract,” he said, looking at Lilah quizzically. “Geraldine Smythe to Lord Robert Patrick. I don’t understand, Lilah.”
“The bastard line! It never existed! This is the missing document that gives my family full title to Rainbow Hammock. All we’ve been through… for nothing, Steele!”
She collapsed in his arms, and he carried her upstairs to an empty bedroom. She awoke when he held a glass of brandy to her lips. For a long time she stared up into his familiar eyes. That well-remembered look that probed deep to touch her soul gleamed into her. Slowly, he bent to press her lips. He slipped his arms under her and hugged her trembling torso to his chest.
“Lilah, darling,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you so. I’ll never stop loving you.”
His words seemed to turn the hands back on the clock. She was in his arms again for the first time—accepting his love, trusting him, needing him.
“I don’t know what I would have done if Kingdom hadn’t found me and brought me to you. I could never have lived with myself if anything had happened to you, darling.”
Ulah clung to him, the pain and tension draining from her.
“Oh, Steele,” she murmured.
“Let me love you, Lilah. It’s been so long!”
“Too long,” she answered, as he slipped onto the bed beside her.
Time stood still for Lilah as Steele Denegal kissed her lips, her neck, her breasts. It seemed forever and only moments that he caressed her, fondled her, loved every inch of her. When she thought she would faint from wanting him, he pressed her down with his body and filled her aching need. They were one again. They flew together—faster, higher, sweeter.
Lilah tightened her arms around his neck and clung to him from lips to toes, glorying in his musky male scent, his taste, his hardness, which she now possessed.
Her legs felt numb. She knew it was coming, but didn’t want it to be over. She fought the rising tide as long as she could, then felt herself engulfed by a delicious ecstasy that left her weak with love.
“Lilah, my darling,” Steele moaned. “It’s never been like this before.”
“Never,” she echoed, still clinging to him.
Then her mind clicked, and she released him. He looked into her eyes, puzzled.
“And it can’t ever be like this again, can it, Steele? You have a wife,” she accused.
“And you a husband,” he countered in a hurt tone.
“No. It’s a long story, but Brandon is married to someone else. He promised to have it annulled and marry me, but I’m not sure he means to go through with it. Who knows if he’ll even come home from the war?”
“So, you’re saying that this is the end of the road for us, Lilah?”
“It has to be, Steele. I was foolish to allow what’s happened.” Her heart thundered with the enormity of her own words.
Steele launched himself from the bed, and dressed quickly. “Sorry to have bothered you, ma’am. I’ll see that it doesn’t happen ever again!”
He stormed out of the room. Lilah, in a delayed reaction, rushed after him. “Steele!” she called from the head of the stairs. But he was gone.
Chapter 24
Mill Springs, Shiloh, Seven Pines, Antietam. The strange names of battle zones filtered south to Rainbow Hammock all through the early months of 1862. Horrors, too, were passed word-of-mouth to the inhabitants of Savannah and on to the islanders: bread riots in Richmond, starving dogs killing children, battlefield operations performed without morphine, once-strong men coming home minus arms or legs—or not coming home at all, but being left to the scavangers on the bloody ground they’d fought for.
Lilah did the best she could. Stores ran lower every day. But, at least, the sea still provided fish, oysters, crabs—more than the mainlanders had.
Only occasional raiders in blue came to the island. Word had spread that there was little left for stragglers from either army.
They buried Ames Patrick in February, pneumonia, and Granny in April. She succumbed to weariness. By May it became clear that Elizabeth Patrick had lost her mind. She proved it on the first day of summer.
“It’s so lovely today, Lilah,” the vacant-eyed woman said. “I think I’ll ask Amalee to walk with me to the beach.”
“That would be fine,” Lilah answered absently, while she continued taking inventory of their meager supplies.
A half hour later, Amalee came screaming up to the house. “Lilah! Come quick! It’s Mama!”
Lilah ran to meet Amalee. “What’s happened? You’re white as a ghost!”
Panting and crying, while she pulled Lilah toward the dunes, Amalee explained, “We got to the beach for our walk. I stopped to pick up some shells and she went on ahead of me. Oh, Lilah, it was awful! I looked up and she’d taken every stitch of clothes off. She was just standing there looking out to sea. I called to her, and she laughed. Then she walked into the water and just disappeared!” The woman’s words broke off in a sob. “What can we do?”
Lilah scanned the beach, but saw nothing. “We’ll watch for her body. That’s all we can do, Amalee,” she replied, resignedly.
So the two women and three children were left alone, except for the few slaves who remained. Lilah was indulging in one of her few pleasures, watching the three toddlers play in the yard under the ancient fig tree with little King Solomon, when she saw several men coming toward her from the direction of the landing. She tensed, on guard immediately, and called the children to her.
Friend or Foe? she thought, the hair on her neck rising.
Two of the men appeared to be helping a thi
rd in his slow progress toward the house.
“Mrs. Patrick?” one of them called out.
She stood and advanced toward them. “I’m Lilah Patrick,” she answered.
“I’m Sergeant Kirkland. We’ve brought your husband home, ma’am.”
Stunned for a moment, Lilah stared at them. Brandon hobbled on one leg, supported between the other two men. She looked at his face—the color of old rags, and thin, aged far beyond his years.
“Bring him up to the house quickly,” she ordered.
Lilah led the way to the bedroom. The two men eased Brandon onto the mattress.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” young Kirkland said. “He’s not in very good shape. He made it to Savannah under his own steam, though, Lord only knows how. When he showed up at headquarters, the surgeon patched him up as best he could, then detailed us to bring him home.”
“Thank you,” Lilah answered, trying to ease the filthy shirt off Brandon without hurting him.
“One thing, ma’am. He gave me this paper and said to see you got it. He also insisted we bring a chaplain along with us. Wouldn’t get in the boat until the preacher did. I’m not sure what it’s all about. Maybe he’s out of his head with the fever.”
Ulah took the paper and read it. The annulment!
“Lilah,” Brandon called weakly. “Will you marry me?”
Lilah took his thin hand and pressed it to her lips, fighting back the tears. “Yes, Brandon,” she whispered.
“Ma’am, we have to get back to Savannah right away. What about the chaplain?”
“Give me a few minutes to make Brandon presentable, then bring the chaplain up here. You gentlemen are invited to a wedding!”
The ceremony took only minutes. Afterward the soldiers offered their congratulations, then adjourned to the kitchen for what passed as a wedding feast—a few boiled shrimp, fried yams, and swamp salad. Lilah, Brandon, Scottie, and Ruth were left alone.
Brandon, propped up on pillows, smiled weakly at his son. “So this is your little sister.”
“Ruth, Papa,” Scottie announced importantly.
“Ruth, yes. Such a pretty name for a pretty little lady.” He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.
“Are you all right, Brandon?” Lilah asked. “Maybe you’d better rest now.”
“I think so. You’ll stay with me, won’t you, Lilah?”
“Of course.” She went to the door and called Dora to take the children.
Brandon patted the bed when they were alone. “Come lie next to me, Lilah. Hold me the way you used to. It’s been so damn long. I’m tired of this war—of being alone!”
Lilah eased onto the bed and took his hand in hers. “You’re home now, Brandon, and you’re going to stay.”
“But we won’t have much time together,” he whispered, staring at her with sunken eyes.
“Enough,” she replied, and bent to brush his lips.
“So sweet,” he murmured, “so soft and fragrant. My Lilah.”
“I’m glad you’re home, Brandon,” Lilah said, feeling flustered—aware that, more than anything else, her husband was a stranger to her now.
He reached out and cupped her breasts. “Let me look at you, darling. That may be all I can do.”
Feeling embarrassed, Lilah undid her bodice with trembling fingers. He slid a hand inside her dress, clasped her warm flesh, and sighed. Lilah let the frock fall about her waist. Brandon devoured the sight of her with eager, longing eyes.
“More beautiful than ever,” he rasped. “The rest of you…please, darling.”
He reached to the table and turned the lamp wick higher, casting a golden glow over her skin. When she sat before him, naked, he slid his hand over her breasts and belly, then twined his fingers into the silken triangle between her legs. She tensed. She ached.
“God, I want you so, Lilah!” he groaned “But I’m so helpless.”
He threw back the sheet. Below his waist he wore nothing. But his full erection showed that he was more than the half man Lilah had thought. She reached gingerly and touched him—something she’d never done before. The feel of his pulsing blood sent a shock through her. She pulled away.
“Oh, God, Lilah, don’t stop,” he moaned. “That feels so good.”
“But you’re injured. We can’t,” she stammered.
“We can! We have to! Please!”
Lilah eyed the bandaged stump that had been his right leg. She eased the covers up to hide it. Then, straddling her husband, she let herself down slowly. Inch, by careful inch, her body swallowed him. He kneaded her breasts while she moved up and down in easy rhythm. She felt her own passion rising with his. When he heaved his hips upward she met his thrust. Their streams mixed. She threw her head back and gave a cry.
The rest of the night they lay side by side. Pain forbade the sleep Brandon needed so desperately. They talked of the old days, of his mother and father, of the children, of the war, and, at last, he spoke of Jeremy.
“He died as he lived—a coward. The men who told me didn’t know I was his brother. They spared no details of the scene. While I was getting myself shot up at Shiloh, brother Jeremy was trying to get as far away from the war as possible. He deserted his unit in Virginia and broke into a home—a Confederate home, mind you! There he helped himself to a gown, bonnet, hoop, and all the whiskey on the premises. Decked out as a flower of Southern womanhood, he tried to steal through enemy lines. He hadn’t bargained on running into a group of stragglers from the Union ranks. These men had been in someone’s wine cellar also. They made advances toward the ‘fair maiden.’ When Jeremy refused them, they decided a gang rape was in order to show the rebellious woman her place.”
Lilah gasped.
“It apparently turned out worse than either of us could imagine. Finding Jeremy under that hoop skirt made them furious. He was beaten, sexually molested, then murdered gruesomely, according to my source.”
“I should have let you shoot him that day, Brandon,” Lilah cried softly. “At least that would have spared him such a fate.”
“But you spared me all that guilt, Lilah.”
When Brandon did fall asleep near dawn, he had horrible nightmares. Lilah lit the lamp and saw the pain etched in his face. By morning he had a raging fever. For three days and nights she nursed him, but the sickly odor of gangrene hung heavy in the air.
One week after Lilah’s marriage, she was a widow.
The morning after they buried Brandon, Amalee came into Lilah’s room to find her packing a trunk.
“And where might you be going?” she demanded.
“I’m not sure,” Lilah replied. “Away for a time.”
“And leave me here alone? What if the Yankees come back?”
“You can manage, Amalee. We haven’t seen a Yankee for months. I’ll probably go to Savannah for a few days. I’m going to the Ryans and insist that they come to the island. My guess is that Savannah will fall long before Rainbow Hammock. It’s as your father said. No one cares about this little speck of land.”
“Lilah, you’re acting crazy!” Amalee whined.
“I’m going to be crazy if I don’t get away from here!” She snapped the latch on the trunk. “I plan to leave Ruth and Scottie with you. Between Meranda and Dora they’ll take care of them. Rhea and King Solomon are going with me. I promised Kingdom I’d put his family back together. After what’s happened to mine, I mean to keep my word to him.”
“You care more about a bunch of niggers than you do about your own flesh and blood!” Amalee accused.
Lilah answered with cold fury in her voice. “Maybe that’s because they’ve always cared more about me!”
The matter settled, Lilah kissed Ruth and Scottie goodbye, gathered Rhea and King Solomon, and had Blue take them to Savannah. He waited with the boat while she went to the Ryan house and prevailed upon Oscar and Gertrude to return to Rainbow Hammock. They finally agreed, but only after Lilah promised to take up residen
ce in their home.
The house on St. Julian Street proved more than adequate. Lilah closed off part of it, and Kingdom’s little family moved into the servants’ quarters out back.
At first Lilah wandered the streets of Savannah, unsure of her reasons for coming. Perhaps she felt she had to know the why of this dreadful war. Perhaps she only needed time away from Rainbow Hammock to think things out and let some of her own wounds heal. She felt she was searching for something, but what?
And then she found it. While strolling in Oglethorpe Square on a bright, chilly November afternoon, she happened to meet Sergeant Kirkland, one of the soldiers who’d brought Brandon home.
“Well, Mrs. Patrick! This is a surprise,” he said, removing his kepi. “May I introduce Major Randolph?”
The short, stocky officer eyed Lilah with good-natured interest. “Ma’am. I haven’t seen you in Savannah before.”
Before she could reply, Tim Kirkland filled in the story of the trip to Rainbow Hammock to take Brandon home.
“Oh, yes. I remember,” Major Randolph replied. “And how is your husband, ma’am?”
“I’m afraid he didn’t recover,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“I am sorry,” the two men chorused.
“Would you think it presumptuous of me to ask if I might see you home? It’s getting near dark, and this city is filled with undesirables. You really shouldn’t be out alone, Mrs. Patrick.”
“Thank you, Major Randolph.”
When they reached the house, Lilah asked the major in for a brandy. They sat beside the fire, talking.
“You remind me of someone, Mrs. Patrick. Do you have any relatives in Virginia?”
“No,” she answered, her curiosity aroused. “At least, none that I know of. Who were you thinking of?”
“The coloring’s all wrong, of course. Her hair is much darker. But there’s something about the eyes. Her name’s Antonia Ford. Lives with her family in Fairfax. Damndest thing! That young woman outranks me!”
“You mean she’s in the military?”
The brandy had loosened his tongue. He leaned closer and confided, “In her own way. She’s a secret agent for our side. Jeb Stuart himself commissioned her a major back in October of ‘61. I didn’t attain that rank until this year. She does a hell of a job though. You have to give her that. And pretty as a picture too.”
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