A long half hour later, cool breezes stole through the broken panes of window glass and carried the rhythmic sounds of rain into the house. Along the edge of the yellow circle of lantern light, Alexander slept with one hand on his wheeled horse, the other on the snoring mastiff.
Charlotte rubbed her upper arms. With the storm and the deepening darkness, an unseasonable chill had invaded the brick house. Or perhaps it was her terror that raised gooseflesh, for she sensed the coming conversation would smash what was left of her old life into splinters.
“Boys and dogs are so much alike,” she said in an attempt to fill the uncomfortable silence. “Fill their bellies and they sleep. He won’t wake till the morning.”
“Shall I carry him upstairs?” Ben asked. Despite the politeness of his offer, no remnant of affection warmed his words.
“I can do it.” She knelt and slid an arm beneath the child’s bent knees. With the other, she supported his shoulders and his head. Honeybee rose and stretched, her tail fanning lazily.
Charlotte winced as she lifted Alexander, her ribs protesting her earlier collision with the Judas Officer.
“There’s no need to be stubborn,” Ben said. He relieved her of her burden, his arms forming a strong cradle for the child.
“Can you manage the stairs?” she asked, concerned that he did not hold his cane.
“I won’t drop him,” Ben assured her, and this time she heard emotion in his voice, enough to help her recognize his need to do this, to prove to himself that he was capable. She’d lived too long with men, her father and her brother, not to understand their pride. She knew, too, that Ben would not drop Alexander, that as angry as he was with her, he’d rather die than hurt the child.
“I’ve made a pallet for him out of the draft,” she explained as she took up the lantern. “I would have shared the bed, but he insisted upon sleeping with his puppy. With everything that’s happened, I didn’t have the heart to tell him no.”
She waited as Ben climbed the staircase and said nothing as the lantern light gleamed on the perspiration that appeared upon his brow. When he reached the top, she led him to the bedroom, then set the lantern on the floor. Afterward, she took Alexander so Ben would not have to stoop with him. The captain must have been in pain, for he allowed it. She pulled a blanket over the child’s shoulder and kissed his cheek, then stroked the mastiff’s head.
“Piddle on the floor again, and it’s the barn for you for certain,” she told the animal as it curled against the child. She felt a pang of homesickness for Polly, who might have shared her bed, but she was certain the cat was happier in familiar territory.
Charlotte glanced up at Ben, who stood leaning against the door frame. He had taken up the lantern as he waited.“We’ll finish our conversation now, Miss Randolph. Come downstairs with me, and I’ll light a fire.”
Charlotte’s stomach lurched. The time had come. His words from the barn reverberated like a clap of thunder in her memory. I mean to see you pay for what you’ve done. What was it he’d discovered?
As she followed Ben down the stairs and into the sitting room, her tension grew with each step. Heart pounding, she watched him put a match to a few twigs from the firewood she’d brought before she had decided not to risk the smoke. Apparently, the armed captain was not as concerned about the possibility of drawing marauders.
An idea flickered through her consciousness like distant lightning, and she saw herself walking up behind him while his back was turned, picking up a log and bashing it against his head. She pictured the blood seeping from a scalp wound as he sprawled before the hearth. Charlotte turned away, shaken by the violence of the images and by the thought of how far off course this war had swept her.
Before her mind could piece together another savage fantasy, she heard the crackle of flames among the kindling. Ben dropped broken wood from a dead peach tree into the fire, and soon a hint of fruit spiced the scent of wood smoke.
The aroma was familiar, reminding Charlotte of pleasant family gatherings in this same sitting room. She settled herself onto the worn sofa, and her mind flooded with images of Aunt Lila braiding one of her girls’ hair or mending her boys’ torn trousers. Ben’s weight settled on the opposite end, vanquishing the memories of a past she sensed would never come again.
“You intend to take us back tomorrow,” Charlotte told him, no question in her voice.
“There are charges you will face in Memphis.” Grimness had settled over his features, as if it were a mask he had pulled on to shield himself from feeling.
“I told you before, I don’t understand.” That much, at least, was true. Which of her sins had he discovered?
“I’m going to make certain you do, Charlotte, and perfectly. At first light, I’m taking you to see the bodies of the men you killed.”
Breathing was a struggle, and speaking was next to impossible. Still, she struggled to make sense of what he’d said. “Killed? I’ve never – I would never . . .”
She had no idea how to finish. What could he mean, killed? She shook her head in denial and began to rise on trembling legs. The Judas Officer caught her arm and prevented her from standing.
“You aren’t moving till I say you’re moving.”
His gray eyes had gone cold as granite, and his voice had turned to stone. His anger was too fierce to appease with charm, Charlotte realized, too deep to offer her hope of a reprieve. Her trepidation turned to icy terror as she recalled that a man this angry might do anything. Anything at all.
She could not allow this, could not let him reduce her to a cowering child. Her father would expect better of her, or at least he would have in the days before her fall from grace. Stiffening her spine, she faced the Yankee with renewed determination.
“You will explain yourself.” She glared as if she were about to challenge him to fisticuffs instead of bolt for cover.
“Fine, Charlotte, if that’s the way you want to play this hand. I still don’t know how you managed, but somehow you saw a copy of a set of General Branard’s orders sent out last week. Apparently, you coded notes and passed them to another member of a spy network that’s been operating throughout western Tennessee.”
“A spy network? You have a vivid imagination, captain. Why would I do such a thing? As far as the ‘loyal Confederates’ are concerned, I’m an enemy collaborator. I’m certain they’d as soon spit on me, perhaps even hang me, as listen to anything I said. And what would a young lady know of codes and secrets? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my --”
“Don’t play stupid with me, Charlotte. Stupid women don’t read The Iliad in Greek. Or base codes on it either.”
Her heart lurched painfully. How could he have – he was only guessing, trying to convince her to incriminate herself. It had to be. She took a calming breath and waited for her pulse to return to normal.
“This code you’re imagining,” she began. “You’ve deciphered messages that were traceable to me?”
In his hesitation, she saw that she’d been right. He was bluffing.
“We’ve had some difficulty locating a scholar who reads Greek to assist us.”
“And you think the rebel camps are crawling with such experts?” She raised her palms in a gesture of bewilderment.
“All it takes is one,” he countered. “Don’t you have a brother serving the Confederacy? A brother who was raised – and educated – in the same household you were? Michael, isn’t it?”
Fear stabbed through her. “I don’t remember the last time I heard from him.”
“Another lie,” Ben growled. “It could only have been he who sent you word of your father’s death.”
“You have no proof,” she challenged.
“You’ll see all the proof you need when I take you and Alexander to view those bodies in the morning.”
She leapt to her feet and jerked her arm clear of Ben’s attempt to grasp it.
“You most certainly will not take a child to --!”
He
stood and took a step too near so that only inches separated them. “What’s the matter, Charlotte? Don’t you want your son to see the men his mother’s murdered? Don’t you want him to --”
“No!” she cried, sick with the realization that he honestly believed his accusations and that he was furious enough to lash out at Alexander, too. How could she have imagined that he truly cared about the child?
“You will not do this to him!” she vowed. “Don’t you see? You’re wrong. I didn’t kill anyone. How could I do such a thing?”
But even as she spoke the words, she realized she was capable of murder. Not for a cause but for Alexander. If she had it to do over, she would bash the Judas Officer’s head with all her might. And she would do anything it took to prevent him from forcing the sensitive young boy to witness bloody death.
“You’re no fool, Charlotte. Surely, you can understand the consequences of your actions.” He fixed his icy gaze upon her. “All of them.”
Tears of frustration streamed unchecked down her cheeks. “It always comes back to this, doesn’t it? No matter what I tell you, you’re convinced that I’m a liar.”
As she was, thought Charlotte, so why did it matter what he thought? What was he to her except a Union officer hell-bent on her destruction?
“You are a liar,” he said. “You’ve proven it by telling us that Alexander was your brother.”
She stared at him, and her mind backtracked their conversation. “What’s the matter, Charlotte?” he had asked her. “Don’t you want your son to see the men his mother’s murdered?”
She’d been so upset about the murder accusation, she hadn’t bothered to deny what her heart recognized as fact. With a cry of dismay, she brought her hands up to cover her face. She wanted to argue with Ben, to tell him he’d confused her, but she knew where he’d received his information.
Mrs. Martin. She’d spoken to someone after all on that terrible day that Charlotte had learned about her father’s death.
Charlotte struggled to think through a haze of desperation. Why had Ben waited over a week after learning of her secret to confront her with it? Why had he behaved so kindly toward her and Alexander in the intervening time? And why, in God’s name, had he chosen now to bring this up, now when panic disordered her thoughts so she could not begin to frame an answer?
Or another set of lies to see her through.
She was sick of her deceptions, the lies balanced upon lies as delicately as a pyramid built out of dragonflies’ wings. Sick of denying everything she loved and valued, everything she was. She knew she must continue, knew that all depended upon adding another layer to the stack, but when she opened her mouth to speak, truth slipped through the words that choked her.
“I – I am his mother.” She felt a profound numbness, as if she were listening to a stranger speak a foreign tongue. Behind her own voice, others rose like resurrected souls, each one louder than her own whispered admission.
“We’re doing this not only for your own good but the child’s,” her mother told her, her face already shadowed with the death that soon would claim her. “If you ever confess this, you’ll doom him to life as Charlotte Randolph’s bastard. He might be pitied, but he’ll never be welcomed into decent society.”
She’d been stubborn. After months of silence on the subject, she had wept and argued on behalf of the miracle that had formed inside her womb. However he had come about, Alexander was her son. At fifteen years of age, she’d fooled herself into thinking that her love could vanquish the hatred of anyone who refused to understand.
“I didn’t raise you for a fool, Charlotte.” Her father had been stern that day, sterner than he’d ever been before or since. “Your mistake has already cost this family dearly. If you fight our solution, think of what more it will cost us. Every one of us, from your brother to your parents to this child, will be forever tainted by your sin.”
He’d turned away from her then, and she’d immediately relented. In part, she’d agreed because she understood her parents were correct, but mainly, she did so out of fear that they would turn from her forever if she brought them further shame. Or worse yet, that they would force her to give up Alexander altogether.
She realized then that in the six years that had passed, she’d come no farther. She was still trying to secure her family’s love and their forgiveness. To do that, she’d agree to anything.
Even Michael’s plans to make her into a spy and now, if what Ben Chandler said was true, a murderess as well.
o0o
Ben cursed the instinct that screamed at him to stop before he hurt her further. As it had from the first, his need to protect her flew into the face of reason.
But this time, he could not let it keep him from his duty. He had pushed her this far to reach a truth. If he pushed harder, would he break through the rest of her deceptions? Might he learn something that would help him save other soldiers who could be maimed or slain because of information she’d passed on?
Fresh tears shone in her eyes, and her face looked moon pale in the firelight. “Alexander can’t know. There’s never been a choice.”
Pity has no place in this, he told himself. Yet he passed her a handkerchief before he spoke again. “Mrs. Martin believes you did choose. She claims that you seduced her son and --”
Her cry was too raw and feral to be contained in words. At the sound of it, he thought of a bobcat he’d once found, its mangled leg caught in a trap set by a neighboring rancher. Sickened by the animal’s suffering, Ben had shot it and destroyed the steel-jawed menace.
The tactic he had used now seemed no less cruel. He could not help but think how his own mother would condemn him for causing a young lady such distress. He sat beside Charlotte, and his hands reached for her of their own accord. He stopped them only inches from her trembling shoulders.
Immersed in her own heartbreak, she appeared oblivious to his weakness. “Seduced him? I never – I could never – I was only --”
Neither his duty nor his anger could stand against her pain. His disloyal arms pulled her against him; his traitorous fingers stroked her back. Her gender, he admitted, was only part of it. What he felt for Charlotte, with her warmth, her wit, and her dangerous beauty, went miles beyond chivalry . . . and into the realm of love.
The idea struck him, expanding like a minié ball inside his body, tearing him to pieces with its absurdity. Love! Had he lost not only his leg but his mind, too?
Thinking of the Articles of War, Ben realized the feeling amounted to more than madness. It might easily prove suicidal, too.
“Whosoever shall be convicted of holding correspondence with, or giving intelligence to, the enemy, either directly or indirectly, shall suffer death . . .”
Though he had betrayed no information to Charlotte, someone clearly had. If he could not master his inappropriate feelings for her, he could easily be accused. Already, Lieutenant Snyder suspected him by virtue of his birthplace.
Not even this thought could compel him to continue hammering at this woman’s weakness.
“It’s all right, Charlotte,” he said quietly. “I know you were just a child. And I’m certain you believed you were in love.”
She burrowed further into his embrace, as if she had no choice but to welcome comfort from the man who’d hurt her with his words. “I was in love,” she whispered. “Foolishly, stupidly in love.”
He understood the feeling. “It’s all too easy for a grown man to abuse an innocent.”
He felt her head shake against his shoulder.
“I was not so innocent,” she told him. “I understood the danger in our flirtation. My father had – my father had educated me about such matters. He said that far too many girls were misled out of ignorance. He always quoted Cervantes: ‘forewarned forearmed.’”
An unusual man, Ben thought, as he tried to imagine a father speaking to his daughter on such a delicate topic. Yet he’d probably observed Charlotte’s blossoming beauty, perhaps even her effect on
men, and attempted to forestall trouble with his favorite tactic, knowledge.
“I thought I was smart enough to enjoy the excitement of a few stolen kisses without consequence,” Charlotte continued. “That’s all I wanted, truly. I didn’t understand what I offered when I agreed to meet him in his carriage house.”
Ben remembered Mrs. Martin saying something about that outbuilding burning to the ground. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said quietly. Long ago as it had been, he didn’t want to hear about Charlotte’s dalliance with Edgar Martin.
Charlotte ignored him, or perhaps she hadn’t heard. “I only meant to kiss him. I only meant . . .” Her voice had a trancelike quality about it, as though the murky river of her secret, so long held back, had cast a spell upon her, compelling her to speak until its waters finally ran clear.
She gave a shudder, and her breaths began to rasp. The illusion of enchantment fell away.
“Before I knew what was happening,” she said, “he was – he was touching me . . . all over. I didn’t want him to; I told him to stop, begged him not to, but he – he told me a man could not be worked into such a state without satisfaction, and he called me – such terrible names – names I’d never heard in all my life.”
Rage fisted in Ben’s chest as the meaning of her words sank in. This was nothing like the youthful foolishness he’d imagined. As Charlotte jerked away from him, her hands covered her ears, and he knew she was still hearing the echo of Edgar Martin’s lies.
“The bastard,” he swore. “He lied to you. A man, a real man, can always stop himself. He simply didn’t want to.”
She must have heard him, for her hands dropped. “And he didn’t. He – he – it hurt me terribly. I was so ashamed.”
“He raped you,” Ben said flatly. How he wished Edgar Martin were alive so he could kill him!
“I never should have gone into that carriage house with him. Never should have trusted him.”
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