Startled, she drew her eyes from her husband’s. Down the hall, the young lieutenant in uniform was speaking to her. He continued, “How can we lose, when we have such dashing cavaliers, such splendid horsemen as your husband! He’s been known to cover well over fifty miles in a single day, to ride circles around the Yanks! We cannot lose! What do you say, Mrs. Cameron?”
All eyes on the table were upon her. The war was suddenly sitting in her lap.
Once upon a time, she might have engaged in battle. Not tonight. Tonight her enemies were truly flesh and blood. They were people with graciousness, with kindness, with exceptional honor and pride.
They were people who loved their children.
She smiled gravely, and then her eyes touched Daniel’s once again.
“I say that, indeed, my husband is a splendid horseman.”
Pleasant laughter rang out. The moment passed. Conversation continued.
Daniel’s eyes remained upon her, grave, intent.
Perhaps there was even the slightest flicker of approval in them.
She had neither surrendered nor taken up the sword. She was somewhat startled to realize that perhaps, just perhaps, it was all that he wanted of her.
Dinner broke; the men had brandy and cigars, the ladies closed the pocket doors and sipped a supply of English tea which had come through the blockade as a special gift from one of Varina’s close friends. Thankfully, they did not tarry long, for Callie was uncomfortable again, aware of the very curious stares that came her way when her back was turned.
But no one was rude now. The ladies, even as they speculated about her, passed Jared from one to another, heaping all manner of advice upon her.
At last, it was time to leave. Varina managed to hold her back until the last of the guests had gone other than she and Daniel.
Even then she pulled Callie back into the little sewing room on the pretext of showing her something.
On the floor lay a pair of red satin slippers. They matched the tiny flowers in her dress beautifully.
“The moment I saw your dress, I thought that you must have these to go with them!” Varina said.
Callie flushed. “Oh, but I can’t take your shoes. Oh!” She gasped, aware that she had been in Varina’s house all night, shoeless, depending upon her skirt to hide the fact. “I’m so sorry—”
“Please try these on. Our men go barefoot in the field, I am told, and I am heartbroken that I can do nothing for them. At the very least, I can see a pair of slippers on the wife of a dear friend and cavalryman. I shall be truly upset if you do not take them.”
Callie stared at her, then tentatively placed a foot in a slipper. It fit her comfortably. “But I can’t—” she began.
“Of course you can! A wedding present!” Varina told her.
She could protest no more, for Varina had opened the door to the foyer, and Daniel was there with the president.
Davis was giving him stern warning. “I am ever on the alert, lest the times grow dangerous, indeed, and it is necessary to evacuate Varina and the children. If you must go home, you must take grave care. It seems we never know when the enemy is upon the peninsula.”
“I’ll be careful, sir.”
“You could leave Mrs. Cameron in Richmond,” Varina suggested. “She could travel with me farther south, should it become expedient.”
“I’m not sure that would be such a good idea,” Daniel said, eyeing Callie. His tone was pleasant. His wry glance was something only Callie could really understand. He turned then to Davis. “Well, good-bye, sir, and thank you immeasurably for the evening. We’ll be leaving quite early, and with any luck, sleep in Williamsburg tomorrow night, and reach home the next day.”
He kissed Varina’s cheek, and shook Davis’ hand. Both of them bid Callie good night, both of them kissing her cheek.
Out in the night air Callie and Daniel hurried to the coach. Ben had come for them.
They were silent for a few minutes. Callie sat far to her own side of the carriage, wishing that she could not feel the speculative heat of his gaze so constantly.
He spoke to her dryly. “My, my, Mrs. Cameron, but you were on good behavior this evening!
She hated the tone of his voice. “The better to steal Confederate secrets,” she said pleasantly.
A mistake. She could almost feel the sudden burst of fury within him, despite the fact that he in no way touched her.
He replied softly enough. “At the very least, madam, you were polite.”
“Dared I not be so?”
“Of course not.” Even in the darkness, she felt the cobalt stroke of his gaze. “Had you been anything less than entirely pleasant, I would have merely excused myself and taken you for a foray into the barn and a lesson with a buggy whip!”
Tremors assailed her. She was suddenly very ready for battle. “Oh, I do think not, Colonel Cameron! Why, every man there would have been totally appalled by your lack of manners and good breeding!”
“They might have been startled, but they would have pitied me, thinking that the hardships of the war were costing me my mind at last.”
Callie drew herself very straight in the carriage. “Say what you will. You’ll not threaten me.”
“I don’t really care to threaten. And you need never fear me—my love—action will come far before any words of warning!”
They had reached the house. Callie held Jared close to her and leapt from the carriage before either Ben or Daniel could give her any assistance.
“You fool!” Daniel called after her. “You could have tripped! You could have injured the baby!”
She spun around at the door. “I have become very accustomed to caring for him under any circumstance or physical handicap!” she retorted. “After all, his father chose to drag him through war-torn country.”
She hurried into the house and began to race up the stairs. She would reach the guest room, slam the door against him, and bolt it quickly. Surely, not even Daniel would dare to break down another man’s door.
She shouldn’t have bothered to elude him. Daniel caught her on the upstairs landing.
“What!” she cried.
He dropped her arm. To her surprise, he offered her an elegant—if mocking—bow.
“Actually, madam, I had meant to thank you for your manners this evening in the proximity of your enemies. Perhaps we will change you to our side after all.”
She stared at him, at the evocative blue fire in his gaze, at the ebony lock that now dangled rakishly over one eye.
Her husband was indeed a splendid horseman.
A splendid man. She wanted to reach out to him and to be held by him.
They had just been married. It was their wedding night. She should have been able to cry out and fall into his arms.
And whisper, beg, that he make love to her, and in doing so, erase the fact that they were enemies. She wanted so dearly to be held against the darkness!
But by morning’s light, they would be enemies again.
“I cannot change sides,” she said softly. Neither could she lie at that moment. “I cannot change sides, for you are wrong, sir. And you know it, Daniel. You know that owning another man—be he black, white, or purple—is wrong. Jesu, Daniel! In his will, George Washington freed his slaves! He was a Virginian, Daniel. He knew slavery was wrong!”
He stared at her. Tall, straight, as proud as the southern cause itself.
He bowed again, graceful and agile.
“Good night, madam,” he said simply, and left her.
She didn’t have to close or bolt a door against him.
It was their wedding night and he walked away from her.
———— Twenty-three ————
Nothing that Callie had ever seen before prepared her for her first sight of Cameron Hall.
It was twilight when they came upon the house, and it seemed to sit atop a glittering hill, the last rays of the sun shimmering on the elegant white pillars. The house was large, rising into the
blue and crimson sky, with gentle acres of lawn sloping off from its height. A long, wide, curving drive led to the large steps that ended at the huge sweeping porch. Back upon the porch were massive double doors with brass knockers that, even from this distance, gleamed.
Daniel had reined in the remaining Yank horse and Callie, mounted behind him, leaned around to see his face. He was staring hard at the house himself. For the last several miles, he had been exceptionally tense.
He had seen to it that Ben awakened her at the crack of dawn the day before. If she thought he had ridden hard to reach Richmond, she had not imagined just how anxious he could be to reach his home. He had barely spoken to her the length of the long road home.
He had ridden carefully, always aware that there could be danger on the roads, but he had ridden quickly. She had wondered if he meant to ride through the night yesterday, but he had stopped in Williamsburg, taking a room at an old inn.
Williamsburg had seemed very quiet, depressed. The war had touched the town, and it was obvious. The young men were all gone. There was no bustle in the streets. Fresh Confederate graves lay behind the old Episcopal church. Fields were empty.
The inn, though, was pleasant enough, exceptionally clean, and the innkeeper was a charming man. Callie, exhausted, had eaten and taken Jared up to bed, falling asleep with the baby at her side.
Daniel had known a number of the older men down in the tap room, and found two old friends who had been badly disabled, one without a left hand, and one minus his right leg from the knee down. It had seemed to Callie that they all overindulged in whiskey, yet she had been far too weary and heartsick to care. Lying awake she realized that her stomach was in knots because she would soon reach Daniel’s home. Though she had met Jesse Cameron and knew him to be a kind gentleman, it would not be Jesse she would be meeting, but his household, a Rebel household. How strange, though, that she could live there, and Jesse could not.
She was uneasy about the women she would meet, for Daniel had been so curt with her that he had described them very little. There was Kiernan, Jesse’s wife, and Christa, their sister. There was a man named Jigger who ran everything in the house, and a woman named Janey who had once belonged to Kiernan, but who was now a free black. They still grew cotton and tobacco, and so far, had managed to survive numerous battles in the near vicinity. The house was very old, he had told her, the cornerstone having been laid in the early sixteen hundreds.
Having awakened later in the evening, she wondered what made him so certain that she would stay once he had returned to war. She felt a set of chills assail her. If she left, he would come after her. As he had told her once, there would be no place where she could hide. He would find her.
She had to write to her brothers, to pray that her letters would reach them wherever they were. She would have to make them understand why she was suddenly living in the heart of the Confederacy.
She would leave out the part about having dined with President and Mrs. Davis!
Though Jeremy, at least, might understand.
She punched her pillow, and tried hard to sleep again. She could hear the laughter from below. Damn Daniel. Well, they would have a late morning of it!
She didn’t want him here! she reminded herself. She didn’t want him demanding any rights. She bit down on her knuckle, remembering the sweet ecstacy at the creek that had been so cleanly swept away from her when she had seen the look on his face. He didn’t love her; he had wanted her. Forgiveness was the farthest thing from his mind.
She didn’t want forgiveness. She hadn’t betrayed him. She wanted understanding. She wanted trust.
She tossed and turned. She would fight him tooth and nail now if he touched her. Yet he made no attempt to come near her. He gave her no chance to tell him what she thought about his conjugal rights!
Exhaustion overwhelmed her and at last she slept. Sometime deep in the night, Daniel came to the room. When he awakened her next morning, she was certain that he had slept on the other side of the bed, on the other side of Jared. The pillow was indented, the sheets were warm.
He was in breeches only, reaching for the white cotton shirt he had left at the foot of the bed. “Get up. I want to get going.”
They had started out with the wagon. They hadn’t traveled very far before a Confederate sentry warned them there were rumors of a Yankee company moving down the main road.
Daniel decided to leave the wagon to travel through the forest paths.
They had left everything with the wagon. She had left the beautiful white dress with the tiny red embroidered flowers.
She didn’t know exactly why, but leaving the dress hurt. Daniel had commented on it.
“I won’t be stopped over a gown, Callie.”
She had shrugged. “You, sir, are the one bred to wealth. There is nothing that I need,” she had told him regally.
But it hadn’t been true. The dress had meant a lot to her. It was the first really elegant piece of clothing she had ever owned. And it was matched so perfectly by the red slippers that Varina Davis had given her.
It didn’t matter. They had deserted the wagon, and she had cradled Jared into her arms, and mounted behind Daniel on their remaining horse. They were both back in the near rags they had worn from Maryland to Virginia, clothing that had at the least been cleaned and mended during their short stay in Richmond. To Daniel, it didn’t matter. He was in uniform again and he was going home.
Along the way, riding through the forests and close to the river, they had come upon the ruins of two great houses. A stairway still extended from one of them, leading straight up into the blue sky. Daniel had paused, stared hard, and then ridden again.
And at last, Cameron Hall seemed to burst and blaze before them.
And Daniel, at long last, seemed to draw in an even breath.
“This is it. Home,” he told her briefly. He urged the horse forward, bringing them down the path. When they were still a good fifty yards from the house, he flipped his leg over the horse’s haunches and leapt down from the mount. “Christa! Kiernan!” His voice rang out and he went running.
Seconds later the double doors burst open. Callie allowed the horse to amble forward at a slower pace as she watched as Daniel was greeted by the two women.
One with deep, raven dark hair, the other a blonde with sun-bright reddish streaks. The dark-haired girl was in a sunburst yellow gown, and the blonde was in midnight blue. Their gowns were beautiful and elegant, even if they were just day gowns. They were trimmed with fine laces, and both women wore hoops and petticoats.
And both were young, and fresh, and very lovely. And both were very loving.
Callie felt very much the intruder as she watched the scene upon the grand porch. One by one, the women kissed and hugged him. And one by one he swept them up, swirling them around. There was laughter and chatter and so very much happiness.
The horse was still plodding forward. Callie pulled back on the reins, determined to go no farther for the moment.
But it was just when she did so that the blonde caught sight of her.
In the beat of several seconds, Callie just stared at her, and couldn’t help but feel a peculiar little flutter of fear.
She didn’t belong here.
But then the blond woman smiled a broad, entrancing smile of greeting. Her eyes fell from Callie’s to the bundle in her arms.
“A baby!” she exclaimed. “Daniel, you’ve brought a baby!”
She came running down the steps, moving as if she glided across the expanse of lawn to reach Callie. “Hello! Welcome! I’m Kiernan Cameron, Daniel’s sister-in-law.”
“Hello,” Callie said softly. “I’m Callie …”
Her voice trailed away. She’d never spoken her married name; she still couldn’t quite grasp that it was really hers, and she knew that she couldn’t form the words to explain that she was Daniel’s wife.
She didn’t need to. Daniel spoke dryly from the porch. “Callie is my wife.”
“Wife!” the brunet gasped. But she quickly regained her composure. “How wonderful! And that means that this is your baby, Daniel. But you were just home before Christmas and you didn’t mention—”
“Christa!” Kiernan interrupted quickly. She hadn’t lost a bit of her composure or poise. Callie was sure that her cheeks were growing pink despite her very best efforts. “Let’s get Callie and the baby in, shall we?” She smiled brilliantly. “Daniel has always been full of surprises.”
Daniel left the porch, and now strode up to the horse, reaching up to lift Callie down.
“The baby!” Kiernan cried.
“We’re quite accustomed to him,” Daniel told her.
But when Callie’s feet touched the ground, Kiernan was reaching out for Jared. “May I?”
She didn’t really expect an answer; she swept the baby up and pulled the cotton bunting from his face. “Oh, you’re beautiful!” she murmured to the baby. She glanced up, smiling at Callie and Daniel. “My Lord, Daniel, you would recognize this child anywhere as a Cameron. And he’s so young! Callie, how old is he now? Two months old?”
“Yes, just about,” Daniel replied before Callie could speak.
“Oh, is he precious!” Kiernan said.
“But Daniel, you were here last fall and you never mentioned a wife. Oh—” Christa began. She cut off her own words, flushing. Of course, it had to be painfully evident to them both, Callie thought, that if she and Daniel were actually married at all, the ceremony had to have taken place long after the baby’s conception.
“Oh!” she repeated quickly. “Where are my manners? You’ve had a long trip. You must be tired.”
“And famished,” Kiernan added, “and very thirsty. Daniel, bring your wife in.” To Callie she added, “We’ve done our best to aid the war effort, but we’ve also been very lucky. We’ve had friends burned out, but the Yanks haven’t tred this way yet. Of course, my husband is a Yankee—maybe that’s kept some of the companies from our doorstep—but that’s another story, and a very confused one. Come in. Just leave the horse, Daniel. Jigger will have him seen to.”
Kiernan had the baby bundled in the crook of one elbow. She linked her free arm through Callie’s and started leading her up the steps. “I don’t imagine that my brother-in-law will be home very long?”
And One Wore Gray Page 38