He could see that she was wondering just what venue his anger would take. That pulse against the ivory white column was beating every more rampantly.
“No poison? Perhaps some shards of glass?” he murmured.
He moved more closely toward her. His voice was husky, low and tense and trembling with the heat of his emotion. “You look as if you’re welcoming a ghost, Mrs. Michaelson. Ah, but then, perhaps you had wished that I would be a ghost by now, long gone, dust upon the battlefield. No, angel, I am here.” He was still as several seconds ticked slowly past, as the breeze picked up, as it touched them both. He smiled again. “By God, Callie, but you are still so beautiful. I should throttle you. I should wind my fingers right around your very beautiful neck, and throttle you. But even if you fell, you would torture me still!”
At last she moved, squaring her shoulders, standing even more tall against him. Her chin hiked up, her eyes shimmered, and her tone was soft and entirely superior to any of his taunts.
“Colonel, help yourself to water, and then, if you will, ride on. This is Union territory, and you are not welcome.”
The back of her hand touched his chest. Head high, she was pushing him out of her way and starting for the house.
“Callie!”
Perhaps the extent of his rage was in his voice. Perhaps there was even more than that in the simple utterance of her name.
She began to run.
“Callie!” He shouted out her name again. Every restraint within him seemed to fail. The bitterness of nearly a year ripped wide, and he didn’t know himself what he intended to do.
He followed her.
She had slammed the back door on him, bolted it against him. He hurtled his shoulder against it. It shuddered. He slammed against it again.
It began to give.
“Daniel, go away! Go home, go back to your men, to your army—to your South!”
The door burst open. She stood staring at him.
Again, he felt a taunting curl touch his lips. He hadn’t known what he would do when he saw her again. He still didn’t know.
But he was going to touch her.
“What?” he demanded, taking a stride into the kitchen. “Are there no troops close enough to come to your rescue once you’ve seduced me into your bed this time?”
He ducked quickly. Her fingers had curled around a coffee cup, and hurtled it across the kitchen at him.
“Go away!” she commanded him.
“Go away?” he repeated. “How very rude, Mrs. Michaelson! When I have waited all these months to return? I lie awake nights dreaming for a chance to come back to your side. What a fool I was, Callie! And still, I suppose I did not learn.”
He swept his hat from his head and sent it flying to the kitchen table. “Well, I have come back, angel. And I’m very anxious to pick up right where I left off. Let’s see, where was that? Your bedroom, I believe. Ah, that’s right. Your bed. And let’s see, just how were we situated?”
“Get out of my house!” she charged him,
“Not on your life,” he promised. “Not, madam, on your life!”
He strode toward her.
“Don’t!” she cried out instantly.
Her denial seemed to touch him inside and out, adding fuel to the fire that raged so viciously inside of him. Dear God! Where was everything he had learned through a lifetime? Where was restraint, forgiveness, mercy?
He remembered the chill on his naked back when the Yanks had taken him. He remembered being in love with her. Damn her, but he remembered trusting her.
“This is one invasion of the North that is going to be successful!” Indeed, yes. Let it be a battle.
A battle that he would not lose.
He began to walk toward her once again. Maybe his intent was clear in his movement. Or perhaps she saw it in the cold hard glimmer of his eyes. Some sound escaped her, and she knocked over a chair in his way.
It wouldn’t stop him. Not tonight.
“Don’t, damn you!” she cried out suddenly. Her breasts were heaving more swiftly now with her growing agitation. Angel, you can falter and fall, and so beautifully. For a moment he almost paused. For a moment it was there again, the silver softness in her eyes, the sweetness in her voice. The plea, the seduction. “You have to listen to me—” she began.
The seduction. Yes, damn her.
“Listen to you!” he exploded. He was shaking. His flesh was on fire. His fingers twitched.
“Callie, time is precious! I have not come to talk this night. I listened to you once before.”
“Daniel, don’t come any nearer. You must—”
“I must finish what you started, Callie. Then maybe I can sleep again at night.”
He reached for her arm and the fire in his eyes seemed to sizzle through both of them.
“Daniel, stop!” she hissed. She jerked free of him and ran.
But tonight, there was nowhere for her to run. He followed her.
She stopped and found a vase and tossed it his way. He ducked again, and the vase crashed against a wall. She tore through the parlor, looking for more missiles. A shoe came flying his way, a book, a newspaper. Nothing halted his stride.
She reached the stairs, and he was there behind her. She started to race up them and realized her mistake. He was behind her. She reached the landing.
He caught her by her hair. He thought that she cried out, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was having her.
He swept her into his arms and strode the last few steps to the bedroom, the bedroom where she had lured him once before.
“Let’s finish what we started, shall we, angel?”
“Let me go!” Callie demanded. Her fists were flying; she struggled wildly.
“Let you go?” He heard the lethal roar of his own voice, and it might have belonged to someone else. He’d never let her go. Not now. His words tumbled from his lips. “Once I tried to walk away. To honor both North and South, and everything that we both held sacred. But you raced after me, angel. You could not bear to have me leave. You wanted me here. Remember, Mrs. Michaelson. Here.”
He strode to the bed, and tossed her heedlessly upon it. She rose up on her elbows instantly, head proud, chin high, and watched him.
“Don’t!” she commanded. “Don’t even think—”
He straddled over her. Her eyes widened. He glowered at her.
Her hand connected with his cheek, but he stripped off his mustard gauntlets to catch her wrists when she struggled against him.
“Just what am I thinking, Callie?” he demanded.
He heard her teeth grinding. Felt the defiant flame of her gaze as it met his.
“I don’t know. What are you thinking?”
“Ah, if the Yanks but had you in the field!” he murmured. “Maybe you are recalling the last time we met. It was right here. I’ll never forget, because I loved this room from the first time I saw it. I loved the dark wood of the furniture, and the soft white of the curtains and the bed. And I loved the way that you looked here. I’ll never forget your hair. It was like a sunset spread across the pillow. Sweet and fragrant, and so enticing. Newly washed, like silk. I can’t forget your eyes. I can go on, Callie. There’s so much that I never forgot. I remembered you in camp, and I remembered you every moment that I planned and plotted an escape. I thought of your mouth, Callie. It’s a beautiful mouth. I thought of the way that you kissed me. I thought of your lovely neck, and the beauty of your breasts. I thought of the feel of your flesh, and the movement of your hips. Over and over and over again. I remembered wanting you like I’d never wanted anything or anyone before in my life. Of feeling more alive than ever before just because I breathed in the scent of you as I lay against your breast. And when you touched me, I think I came closer to believing I had died and gone to heaven than I’ve ever done upon a battlefield. Damn you! I was in love with you. In the midst of chaos, I was at peace. I believed in you, and dear God, when I lay here with you, I even believed in life again. What a f
ool I was!”
“Daniel—”
“No! Don’t! Don’t tell me anything. Don’t give me any protestations of innocence. I’ll tell you what I’ve thought over all these months. I’ve thought that you were a spy, and that you deserved the fate of a spy. I thought about choking the life out of you.” He released her wrists. His knuckles moved slowly up and down the column of her throat. She didn’t move. Those silver-gray eyes met his. Wide. Luminous. Beautiful still. Haunting him. The eyes of an angel.
“But I could never do it,” he said quietly. “I could never wind my fingers around that long white neck. I could never do anything to mar that beauty. Then I thought that you should be hanged, or that you should be shot. Through long dark nights, Callie, I thought about all of these things. But do you know what I thought about most of all?”
She was so still. He moved more closely against her.
“What?” she whispered.
“I thought about being here with you. I thought about this bed. I thought about your naked flesh, and I thought about your smile when it seemed that you poured yourself upon me, heart, soul, and body. I thought about the way that your eyes could turn silver. I thought that all I wanted was to be back here?”
He had to touch her. He had to finish what they had started.
“I wondered what it would be like to have you when I hated you every bit as much as I had once loved you.”
She moved swiftly. Her eyes grew instantly dark, and she swung at him with a wild fury, but he caught her hand. She lashed out at him with venom in her voice. “Hate me, then, you fool! Give me no chance, no leave, no grace, no mercy—”
“Were I to give you more mercy, I might as well shoot myself, madam!” he swore.
“You self-righteous bastard! Hate me and I will despise you. You were the enemy! You are the enemy! This is Union soil! God damn you for expecting more from me!”
She was so furious, the force of her anger was great enough to dislodge herself. But not for long. He hadn’t known what he would do. Now he did.
He had wanted some proof of innocence. He had wanted her to plead, to profess her innocence. He had wanted to believe in her.
God damn you, he raged inwardly. He caught her hard, and dragged her back down. He used the length of himself to subdue her when she fought and struggled wildly. He felt the fluid movement of her body, and he wanted her with an ever greater hunger. She was so warm against him. He felt her heart and her breath. Felt the curve of her hip, the length of her thigh. Even the curve of her breast. Her body seemed etched against his. He could feel all of her heat, and against the growing swell of his desire, he could feel the subtle movement at the juncture of her thighs.
In all the heat and tempest there was the pulse of something beside her anger. She wanted him.
“Here we are, Callie. You’ll not leave me tonight. And you’ll not betray me.”
“And you’ll not have me!”
But he would. He’d be damned if he’d be a gentleman. He would have her. Now. And in any way. “I will.”
“It would be—rape!” she spat out. “I doubt it.”
“Oh, you flatter yourself!”
“I’ve waited long and cold and furious nights, Callie. I will have you.”
“You won’t! You won’t hurt me, you won’t force me. You won’t, because you promised! You won’t, because of who you are. I know it, I know you—”
She didn’t know him. Not anymore. He didn’t know himself.
“Damn you, Callie! You don’t know me. You never knew me!”
His lips descended upon hers. With hunger, with passion. With all the longing that had tormented him through the never-ending months. He kissed her with a startling violence, demanding, parting her lips and tasting their sweetness, marveling at the feel of his tongue upon them.
She fought him. Fought his touch; fought the invasion. Fought the sweep of his tongue, the taunt and the fury of it. And then, somewhere within this fury she ceased to fight.
His kiss gentled. His fingers moved upon her. Ached to touch her. She seemed to give. She trembled beneath him.
“Callie!” he whispered her name. Her gaze touched his. Did she plead for mercy still? Did she seek only to be freed? Was she, ever and always, the ultimate actress? Did she spy for the Yanks, had she done more for her cause than just her capture of him?
“Damn, I’ll-not let you sway me!” he roared. His fingers bit into her arms. Nothing would stop him, nothing, he swore.
But something did.
A loud, fierce cry suddenly tore through the air between them.
A baby’s cry.
He sat back. “What in God’s name … ?”
“It’s—it’s Jared.” She slipped from beneath him, and he let her go. He stared at her, amazed.
“That’s a baby.”
“Yes! It’s a baby!” She leapt from the bed and disappeared into the hallway.
He followed her down the hall. He watched her pick up the tiny bundle of an infant. Hers. He knew immediately that it was hers.
If the child was hers, who knew how many men she had betrayed. There was the Yankee captain who had taken him, once Callie had disarmed him. How many others, friends, enemies?
He strode across the room.
She hugged the child to her breast, staring at him with the first real fear in her eyes.
He reached for the child. “Give him to me, Callie.”
She wanted to fight him; he could see it in her eyes. But she wouldn’t hurt the baby. She released him.
Daniel watched with amazement as the baby squalled, little fists and feet flying. He was beautiful. He was amazing. He was perfect in every way. And loud. His screams defied any Rebel yell that Daniel had ever heard.
He was beautiful, perfect, sound. Something welled up inside of Daniel. The fiercest urge he had ever known to protect someone. It was warm. It was all powerful. He looked into the little face. The face of his son. I love you, he thought, amazed at his own emotion. We’ve never met, until this moment. You are incredible.
And indisputably, my boy, you are a Cameron.
Daniel stared at Callie. Did she intend to deny it? She’d certainly made no effort to tell him about the child. Had she done so, she would have learned that he had been out of prison for a long, long time.
“It’s my baby!” he exclaimed harshly.
She didn’t answer him. Damn her. She would do so. He turned and started out the doorway.
“Daniel!”
She caught up with him at the foot of the stairway. For once, she was learning how to plead. She was desperate. Tears touched her eyes, making them sparkle an incredible silver. “What are you doing? Give him to me! Daniel, he’s crying because he’s hungry. You can’t take him from me! Daniel, please! What do you think you’re doing?”
“He’s my son.”
“You can’t begin to know that—”
“The hell I can’t. What a fool you are to try to deny it.”
“Daniel, give him back!”
“He doesn’t belong here. He belongs at Cameron Hall.”
He’d never seen her so stunned. She must have just realized how deeply he felt.
“You can’t take him! He’s barely two months old. You can’t care for him. Daniel, please!” Tears sprang to her eyes. She caught hold of his elbow and held on hard. “Daniel, he needs me. He’s crying because he’s hungry. You have to give him back to me.”
A slow smile curved his mouth despite the baby’s hungry screaming. “You didn’t even intend to tell me about him, did you, Callie?”
She shook her head fiercely. “Yes, I intended to tell you!”
She was lying. She was still beautiful, and he was still in love with her. No, in hate with her. He didn’t know which.
“When the hell did you intend to tell me?” he bellowed.
“You didn’t give me a chance. You came in here condemning me—”
“You knew that I’d come back. Maybe you didn’t,” he correcte
d himself bitterly. “Maybe you thought that I’d rot and die in that camp!”
“Damn you, Daniel, you can’t kidnap my son!”
“My son. And he’ll have my name,” Daniel said. He realized then that he did intend to take the baby. With or without Callie.
Or maybe he was taking the baby because by doing so, he would take Callie too.
“You can’t care for him!” she cried out.
But he could. And he was determined to do so. No, he couldn’t be a mother to his son. But Jared was coming to Cameron Hall.
He stopped and turned back with a smile. “Oh, but I can, Callie. I can find a mammy to care for him easily enough. Within the hour.”
“You wouldn’t!” she breathed.
“He’s a Cameron, Callie, and he’s going south tonight.”
“You can’t take him away from me! He’s mine!”
“And mine. Created under very bitter circumstances. He’s coming home, and that’s that.”
“This is his home!”
“No, his home is south, upon the James.”
“I’ll call the law!” she threatened.
“There is no law anymore, Callie. Just war.”
She was following him as he strode for the door. Did she know that he was waiting for her? Waiting to see what she would do next, when she would swallow her pride, when she would plead to come with him?
Was this the great cruelty, the revenge he had imagined so many dark nights?
If so, it was not sweet, as revenge should have been.
“No! You cannot take him from me!” she thundered, and she slammed against him, beating her fists against his back.
He spun on her, blue eyes fierce, ruthlessly cold.
“Then you’d best be prepared to travel south, too, Callie. Because that’s where he’s going!”
She stepped back, stunned once again.
“What?”
“My son is going south. If you want to be with him, you can prepare to ride with me. I’ll give you ten minutes to decide. Then we’re moving. Who knows, Meade just may decide to chase Lee’s army this time, though it seems poor Uncle Abe can’t find himself a general to come after Lee. But I’m not waiting. So if you’re coming, get ready.”
And One Wore Gray Page 29