A smile crossed his lips when his groggy mind considered the possibility of waking to this feeling each morning, and feeling this sense of contentment each day. The more he thought about it the more he looked forward to pouring out his feelings and letting his affection be known.
But then reality set in. His heart, seemingly of its own accord, began pounding in such frantic reaction to his thoughts that he feared it would wake her. He could accept having fallen in love with the enemy—but could she?
There may have been no North and South last night, but there would be today. He knew well the effects of whiskey on an empty stomach and tired mind, and he feared that without its intoxicating influence, he would once again be a foe—one that had taken advantage of her youth and innocence.
Yes, she would be angry. He was sure of it. Mother Nature may have kept the world at bay last night, but it was morning now. Andrea would never forgive him for making her feel she had to make a choice between her beloved Union and him.
What have I done?
In that moment of uncertainty, Hunter decided that rather than admit something had happened between them, it would be better to pretend nothing had happened at all. But before he slipped out from under her, he did as she had done on the balcony that warm, summer night. He closed his eyes, opened his hand and brought it back to his heart to effectively store the passion and emotions there, forming a memory that would be vivid and real to him to his last breath.
* * *
Andrea awoke to morning light streaming in through the window and a fire that was only a bed of hot ashes. Before she had time to wonder where Hunter had gone, the door opened and he appeared, wearing his coat, but no shirt beneath it.
She looked down and realized she now wore the large garment that hung to her knees, but Hunter did not appear to notice. He walked by and poured a cup of coffee with nothing but a remote, detached look in his eye—the same look that had infuriated her on so many previous occasions.
“The horses are ready,” he said with callous indifference. “We’d better get a move on. They’ll be worried.”
Andrea was stunned, then incensed, unable to believe his conduct could be so uncaring and cold after his passionate display just a few hours previous. Then again, why should she be surprised? He was after all a man—and a Rebel at that!
Removing the shirt in one swoop, she aimed for the back of his head. “You mean Victoria will be worried!”
By the time Hunter unwrapped the cloth from around his neck, Andrea had pulled on her dress and was limping unceremoniously to the door, picking up her undergarments as she walked.
“Andrea, wait—” She slammed the door shut before he could finish.
Chapter 50
“Look what fools these mortals be.”
– William Shakespeare
Andrea successfully avoided conversation both on the wagon ride home and the rest of the day. But her attempts to avoid her own memories that night failed miserably. Although she searched her mind, she recollected no words of devotion spoken. Hunter’s actions may have implied, but never really confirmed, any newfound admiration for her.
Tossing and turning in bed, she strove to push all thoughts of the incident from her head. It had been an act of simple lust, nothing more—lust brought on by intoxication and hunger and fatigue. Why or how she could have behaved that way, she could not understand. But it was over with now, over and done. She had to forget it ever happened. As Hunter had done.
Giving up on sleep, Andrea crawled from her bed a little before dawn. Tiptoeing down the steps, she hurried out the door, and gasped at three shadowy figures standing on the porch talking in low, hushed tones.
Colonel Hunter, Major Carter, and Captain Pierce seemed to be in the middle of a very important council of war. At the sound of her approach, all three heads jerked around at once. At the sight of her, all three removed hats in unison.
“Mornin’, Miss Evans.” Carter was the first to find his tongue.
“Major Carter.” Andrea nodded. “Captain Pierce.” She looked the latter in the eye, but Pierce quickly averted his gaze. As for Colonel Hunter, she did not say his name or acknowledge his presence.
“I-I couldn’t sleep. I regret the intrusion.” Without pausing, she continued on her way.
In a matter of moments, Andrea inhaled the soothing scent of the barn, and the violent pounding of her heart began to ease. She followed the sound of banging buckets to find Zach preparing the horses’ feed. “Good morning!”
“Morning, Miz Andrea,” he replied with a large smile.
When she turned back around to visit Justus, she nearly ran into Captain Pierce.
“Colonel sent me down to get a fresh horse,” he said to Zach, ignoring Andrea. “Mine seems to have picked up a stone. Be quick about it.”
Zach disappeared to retrieve a horse, and Pierce turned back to begin unsaddling the mare that stood in the aisle. Andrea watched his blank mien for a few moments. “Are you trying to ignore me?”
“No.” He tugged at the cinch. “Just following orders.”
“Orders?”
“The Colonel seems to think it’s in your best interest if I don’t converse with you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Seems to think you need protection.”
“Protection?” Andrea forced a laugh. “From what?”
Pierce lifted the saddle from the mare’s back and placed it on the gelding Zach brought forward. “From me, apparently.” He reached under the animal for the cinch.
“You jest.” Andrea removed the bridle from his lame horse with expert hands and handed it to Zach.
“No, I don’t.” Pierce watched with apparent interest her casual and relaxed interaction with his horse and the practiced way she handled the bridle.
“Then you must have misunderstood.”
“There was no misunderstanding.” He mounted and then bent down, his face almost even with Andrea’s as he pretended to adjust his stirrup. “Perhaps he believes I find you intoxicating and would not be able to perform my duties as a soldier with you in my blood.”
Andrea’s heart thumped as his deep, passionate gaze swept over her. But the suggestion he offered stirred no pulse of desire in her, only a slow building of anger.
“In any event,” Pierce cleared his throat and straightened, “I’m a soldier first and remain obedient to the Commander. I fear any further discussions on the subject will have to be with him.” He tipped his hat, devoured her with his gaze in such a way that let her know he did not concur with Hunter’s wishes, and urged his horse forward, leaving Andrea standing in the barn, both hands clenched in fists.
* * *
Hunter heard the crowing of a lazy rooster as he started out the door. With his head bent over the task of pulling on his gloves, he did not see Andrea making her way back from the barn. He almost strode right past her on the steps, but when he looked up, he stopped.
“Andrea.” The image of green eyes blazing in firelight appeared in his mind unbidden. She stared straight ahead, making it obvious the memory of what transpired in the cabin had not deserted her mind either.
“Wait!” He grabbed her arm. “Andrea, if there is something I have said or done, or failed to do or say … I mean, it was not my intention to offend you—”
Andrea interrupted him in such a calm, determined voice that it instantly struck at his heart. “Offend me? Sir, you forget. I have spent enough time in the exclusive company of men to understand their motives.” Her voice betrayed no pain, but her eyes did, noticeably.
Hunter winced at the thought of the many indelicate conversations she must have heard among soldiers in the gleam of campfire light. For a moment he tried to divine her meaning. “My motives?”
“The conquest.” Andrea assumed an air of indifference she obviously did not feel. “It’s the thrill of the hunt that enthralls men such as you, is it not?”
She was apparently trying to make the matter sound trivial, but Hunter c
ould see she was so angry—or hurt—she trembled. He reached out for her hand, but she evaded the move.
“No, Andrea. I fear I’ve bungled badly something that … that—” He struggled for the right words. She stood on the top step, he two steps down, just where they had been two days earlier when he had stared into laughing, happy eyes. Today he could not look directly into them, so agonized and distrustful was her gaze.
“Andrea, you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I believe I understand perfectly.” Andrea drew her arm away when he reached toward it. “I’m that willful spirit which you doubtless longed to break, and certainly not the first to become a woman at the hands of—” She took a deep, gasping breath and shook her head impatiently as if losing her train of thought. “I mean, to be conquered by the gallant Colonel Hunter.”
Hunter noticed she no longer trembled. She visibly shook. Even her teeth chattered as though bitterly cold. The strong, unwavering Andrea stood quivering from head to toe and, for once, showed no signs of being able to rally her spirit. He imagined her heart beating like the wings of a caged bird, thrashing and bruising itself against the bars.
“Andrea, please listen to me.”
“And now I have caused a rift with one of your officers.” She wrung her hands, staring out over his shoulder again. “I rather thought, Colonel …” She stopped to catch her breath. It was as if she were sobbing, yet there were no tears. “I rather thought that sharing the spoils of war was a key component of your Command.”
“Andrea, you must calm down.” Hunter took both of her arms and held them by her side. “Stop talking like this. Listen to reason!”
“I would have expected as much from Captain Pierce, whose motives were clear to me from the moment I met him.” She looked Hunter in the eye now, staring through him with a half-crazed expression.
“Andrea, you don’t understand. Pierce is a volatile man. If he found out who you really are—”
“I’m not ashamed of my allegiance!” She struggled from his grasp again. “For if I were to be shot by him or held in his arms, I’d be grateful for the former and sickened by the latter!”
After taking a deep, shaky breath, Andrea seemed to will herself to calmness. “Perhaps you can withdraw your offensive order from Captain Pierce, sir. He is not the one from whom I need protection.”
She tried to turn and leave, but Hunter stepped in front of her. “Andrea, you must know, it was not my intention to—”
Andrea held up her hand. “I understand, Colonel, that these matters are inconsequential, more so for a man than a woman. Such things will naturally sit more lightly on your conscience than they do on mine.”
“I did not mean to imply it was inconsequential! You are misconstruing my words!” Hunter suppressed the urge to drag her into his arms, for it appeared to him she would crumble to dust and blow away if he but touched her. “Andrea, I don’t have time now, but—”
He gave his horse a hurried glance. His men were already gathering. Stern duty demanded his prompt return to them.
“Yes, of course. If duty requires you to leave, then leave you must.”
“Andrea, I need to talk to you.”
“No. No need to talk.” She stared straight ahead, her face white with restrained emotion, her whole appearance one of misery.
“I swear to you on my brother’s grave I never meant to hurt you.”
“Oh, yes. There is the matter of that promise.” Andrea laughed without smiling. “No doubt a distasteful obligation for you. But it is ironic that a promise is the only reason I am here, is it not? A promise to allow no harm to befall me at that.” Her voice turned to a mere whisper. “Tell me, Colonel, do you consider that promise kept?”
She gazed deep into his eyes, and the look on her face told him that she did not. He bowed his head at her words, could no longer bear the pain in her voice.
Her next words were barely audible, with such heartbreaking emotion were they voiced. “I asked you before to despoil me of my life … but leave me with my honor.”
Hunter looked at her hard, then wished he had not. He saw her very soul in her eyes and it wept—even if she did not. “Andrea. Please listen to reason.”
“Truly, Colonel, I accept the situation. It is I who construed a mere truce into a . . . into a sacred claim.”
“It was not just a truce!” Hunter grabbed her arms and held them to her side. “Andrea, what must I say to make you understand?”
“Say nothing! I want nothing to do with you!”
“If I have to lock you in your room, young lady, I will make you listen to me!”
“Do not threaten me.” Her voice was calm, though she still stared into his eyes with an unnerving, unnatural look.
“Andrea, please. This is too complicated to discuss right now. But I—”
Hunter paused, unable to decide on a course of action. He had hoped to ask her to become his wife, to make things right with the night they had shared. But he did not dare. Not now. She would not believe his words of devotion. Her emotions ran too deep for that.
In that moment’s hesitation, when he did not know what to do or say, Andrea struggled free from his grasp, and half-ran, half-stumbled to the door.
“Andrea, wait! We need to talk! Don’t walk away from me! I forbid it!”
Andrea turned slightly and gave him one pitiful backward glance of hopeless pain and fury before rallying her spirit enough to speak in customary defiance of his power. “Do not dare give an order to me!” Her eyes blazed with that old foe, hate. “You forget! I am the enemy!”
Chapter 51
“It is faith that saves, distrust that most quickly destroys.”
– From Jest to Earnest, E.P. Roe
Hunter paced in his library, his hands clenched, his face red with anger. After returning from the field, he’d discovered Andrea was nowhere to be found. Izzie had been forced to admit she had “gone for a carriage ride” with John Paul hours earlier.
Was this her way of exacting revenge on him? His heart lurched at the thought. She had no way of knowing he would return so soon. Even he had not known that the cry of alarm that roused him this morning was a false one.
The sound of carriage wheels interrupted his thoughts, soon followed by the soft tap of Andrea’s cane coming up the porch steps.
Hunter strode from the library and waited for her by the stairs. Unconscious of observation, she brushed her disheveled hair back as she walked across the foyer, her eyes cast downward. Even in her tousled appearance she radiated a glow of beauty and natural innocence. The sight of her made his heart flutter, and the thought of her with John Paul caused his blood to surge with jealousy.
The closer she got, the more his anger swelled. “Welcome back, Miss Evans,” he said. “It appears you had an errand that took you away from Hawthorne.”
Andrea lifted her head, obviously surprised at his presence. Yet she stood and looked him calmly in the eye. “I pray you did not return in haste so we could resume our earlier conversation.” She tried to push past him.
Hunter grabbed her by the arm and blurted out the first thing that entered his mind, fully expecting a fight. “Are you intentionally following in Elizabeth’s footsteps, Miss Evans? Or does lust for my neighbor fall under the category of vengeance?”
Andrea blinked repeatedly, as if his words were a hard slap to the face, but otherwise she did not move or even appear to breathe. Instead of pulling away in anger or rebellion, she looked up at him with eyes that reflected surprise, then disbelief, and then a deep hurt, as if he had indeed physically assaulted her. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
The silence for a few long moments remained oppressive, her thoughts apparently too deep for human utterance. “Once again you dishonor me, sir,” was all she said before wrenching her arm free from his grasp.
Hunter looked in wonderment at her blank, detached expression, and then into the eyes that stared up at him still. His heart welled with pity at what he s
aw there—for he could have sworn, before she turned away, that a tear had overflowed the rim and trickled down her cheek.
Hunter felt a crushing blow to his chest at the deep hurt reflected in those misty eyes. “Papa does not like tears,” she had said during her fever. Indeed no amount of physical agony, fear, or memories from her past had been sufficiently painful to draw that dampness before. He had never witnessed a single one—not even upon Daniel’s death—until now.
The tears she had pent up in her heart for so long had finally been wrung from her soul by his own accursed words.
“Wait. Andrea, I—”
A loud knock on the door interrupted him. By the time he yelled impatiently for the courier to enter and turned back, she had disappeared up the stairs.
“It’s important, sir,” the courier said.
Hunter tore open the dispatch. Blast it! The Yankees were heading toward town. The chance of two false reports in one day was slim.
Hunter ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. He needed to apologize before he left. It could not wait. Knocking once on her door, he burst in and found the room empty. She must have anticipated his move and gone straight down the back staircase.
Hurrying back downstairs and outside, he made a quick sweep of the gardens and the pasture where Justus stood. She was not there.
“Saddle Dixie,” he yelled to Zach, while looking down toward the pond. A sudden movement on the hill caught his eye.
There he saw her, kneeling in front of Daniel’s grave, her head bowed, her shoulders drooping. She placed her hand on the tombstone, and leaned her head on her hand. The scene tore at his soul, made him regret the pain he had caused her. How could he tell her how much he respected her? Honored her? Yet it was strikingly clear that it was Daniel for whom her thoughts would ever be.
Oh, Andrea. If by forfeiting my life I could place him back in your arms, how quickly and willingly would the exchange be made!
Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia Page 39