by Diane Wylie
Phillip, who had been listening closely, glanced at Jenny briefly then back to David before speaking. “Your Captain Reynolds is being far too modest, Jennifer dear.” A strange smile crossed his face. “The good Captain has some knowledge of the law and argued my case quite well. Because the unfortunate soldiers forced their way into the house with no warning, David was able to convince the magistrate that I was merely defending my children from intruders.”
Jennifer noticed frowns of disapproval appearing on the faces of a few men gathered in the library. Papa didn’t miss their reaction either. “I assure you, gentlemen, I had no intention of taking that young man’s life and plan to send a letter of condolence with some form of compensation to his family. When a group of men break into your house unannounced…well…” He dropped his head in shame, “I overreacted.”
“This is a hard time for all of us, sir.” David’s voice was quiet. “There isn’t a man among us who hasn’t done something he has regretted in the heat of the moment. War makes men do things they would never conceive of doing otherwise.”
His eyes flicked up to meet Jenny’s, and something moved in their depths. Sorrow and remembered horror passed through him almost visibly as she held his eyes with hers. She smiled at him with the love that had burst through her heart. A trace of a smile touched his mouth and disappeared. She longed to bring it back.
“Gentlemen, please help yourselves to more of Kizzie’s wonderful treats.” Deliberately making her voice cheerful, she tried to break the solemn mood. She passed among them, offering shortbread and coffee.
David’s hand brushed hers as he accepted a cake. A tingle ran up her arm from her hand. It startled her with its intensity. Another glance passed between them, and Jenny ached with the desire to touch him, really touch him as she had so intimately months before. To have him wrap his arms around her…
Bang!
Everyone jumped when the front door slammed open, but David was headed toward the door with his pistol in his hand before anyone else even moved.
“Rebs! A whole regiment headed this way!” The panic in Forrester’s voice as he thundered into the house spurred everyone into motion as china cups were hastily placed on the table. Caleb shoved his cake in a pocket as he rushed out of the parlor door.
“Go out the back way! I’ll show you!” Jenny beckoned to the Yankees.
David waved them down the hall. “Lieutenant Miller, take the men, get on your horses, and head for camp. I’ll try to slow them down and catch up with you later.”
Miller stopped cold. “Yes, sir! I’d like to have Frank take my place, if it is all right with you. I’d like to stay and help, sir.”
“No, Thomas.” Jenny saw David’s sudden metamorphosis from affectionate friend to superior officer reflected in his demeanor and voice. “You have to do this. I got you all into this mess, and I’ll get you out. Now go! That’s an order, Lieutenant!”
With a crisp salute, Miller conceded wordlessly and hurried after the Bluecoats as Jenny led them out the rear door, passing Jeb huffing in the opposite direction.
What was David going to do? She wanted to take him by the hand and drag him with the others hurrying along behind her, but she couldn’t interfere with his commands to his men. Her heart was in her throat as she left him behind, praying she would see him alive and healthy again.
Chapter Seventeen
A silent blue line of cavalry moved slowly through the trees. The clanking of canteens and jingling of bridals heralded the approach of the band of Southern soldiers. Jenny returned in time to see David give her father a little push as they moved off the porch out into the yard with Papa’s hands held high over his head and a gun at his back.
“David!” she cried, horrified. “Why—”
“Stop right there, Miss!” He bellowed, glancing quickly over his shoulder at her. “You don’t want me to shoot this man, do you? Just do as I say, and no one will get hurt!”
She stopped, frozen on her front porch. What was he doing? Whatever David had planned, it was dangerous, but evidently he planned to distract the Confederates from his escaping comrades.
The Rebels came pounding closer. Watching the scene unfold filled her with heart-stopping dread. Rifles were being unslung and pointed at David and Papa as the soldiers approached. Papa’s hands were still in the air, but he was looking at Jenny. He seemed to be pleading with her for cooperation. Could it be that he feared the Yankee would shoot him?
David’s voice rang out over the click of guns being cocked. “Tell your troops to halt, Colonel. Don’t come any closer unless you want to be responsible for the death of this fine Southern gentleman!”
The Confederate officer held up his hand to hold back his men. “What are you doing here, Captain? What do you want with our people?”
David gave the officer an arrogant smile. “Just finding out what I could get for myself out of this war, Colonel. You know how it is. There is just so little profit to be made in the army.”
Without looking at her, he then addressed Jenny as if she were a stranger. “Miss, if you please, would you bring my horse to me now? He’s the big black brute hidden behind your barn. Be quick about it, too, if you want your father here to remain in one piece.” He pressed the gun to Papa’s temple.
“Yes! Yes! Please don’t hurt him!” She ran down the steps and headed toward the barn in a flurry of skirts.
“You have no chance of escape, Yank! My men will hunt you down like the thieving dog you are. You Yankees have no sense of honor!” The Confederate officer’s voice was strident in her ears as she ran. “This Bluecoat will hang for his actions, mark my words!”
Heart pounding, she raced to grab the horse’s reins and drag him quickly to the front of the house. She could barely catch her breath as she approached the group in time to hear David laugh—a loud harsh sound in the cold air.
“You think so, Colonel? You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he said in a voice filled with venom.
“Who am I dealing with, Captain?” the officer asked.
The cold, cocky attitude he presented to the Rebel officer had to be for show—wasn’t it? The real person was nothing like this man who stood only feet from her now with his gun barrel pressed to her father’s head. This man’s eyes were flat, devoid of any warmth. She saw a muscle in his jaw twitch.
“No one, Colonel. We aren’t dealing.”
With a movement so quick that she didn’t have time to react, David shoved Phillip toward the Rebels and leaped into the saddle dragging Jenny with him. She landed hard in front of him. He locked one arm around her, dug in his heels, and Napoleon shot away. Shots rang out.
“Don’t shoot! You’ll hit my daughter!” Her father’s voice was filled with panic.
David bent low over her, pressing her stomach down uncomfortably into the saddle horn. It hurt to breathe.
“Listen to me, Jenny, and do exactly as I say!”
“Yes,” she gasped, thankful that his voice had lost that stranger’s coldness. He sounded like himself again. They were heading directly across the open field in the opposite direction taken by his men. Shouts and the pounding beat of many horses came from behind them. The Rebels were in pursuit.
“I’m going to kiss you and put you off. I want you to fight me!”
“No, let me come with you! Please!”
“What? No—”
“Yes! I love you!”
They were seconds from the dense forest ahead. David gave Napoleon his head, grabbed her shoulders, twisted her toward him and kissed her hard, thrusting his tongue hot and wet between her lips.
“Fight!” he demanded, pausing for air then kissed her again.
She drew back her hand and brought it toward his face intending to slap him lightly on the cheek, but the movement of the horse jostled them both, and she poked a finger right in his eye. His plumed cavalry hat flew off at the impact. He grabbed his face and swore, tears streaming down his cheek.
“…Damnatio
n! I didn’t mean you should blind me!”
“Oh! I’m so sorry, I…”
She didn’t have time to say more. He kissed her breath away, and suddenly she was being carefully set on the ground.
“I love you, too. Don’t forget me, Jenny,” he said and wheeled Napoleon away.
She was left staring after him in astonishment as he disappeared into the trees. “I will marry you, David,” she whispered to his retreating figure. “Please come back and ask me again…please.”
A chorus of shouts drew her attention to the approaching Confederates. Think! Slow them down!
Wailing and sobbing, she dropped to her knees and pointed back in the direction of the manor, still clearly visible in the distance. “Yankees!” she screamed. “More Yankees come to kill us!”
The lead soldier, an officer of some rank, drew up to a stop in front of her and twisted in the saddle to look behind him. Scrambling to her feet, she ran to his horse’s head and grabbed the bridal.
“Help them!” She turned up her helpless Southern belle act to a high pitch, letting her accent thicken. “My father and dear little brother! Please, sir, there are Bluecoats at my home. I saw them. Please go back there!”
Confusion and uncertainty showed on the man’s face. The other men drew up around him, milling about in utter confusion. Suddenly the officer’s face cleared, and he barked out a command, pointing to three men.
“You three go after that Yankee captain. Find him and drag him back—dead or alive! The rest of you, back to the house with me!”
The officer extended a gloved hand to Jenny. “Ma’am?” he said when she didn’t move.
She shook her head vehemently. “No, sir. You’ll ride faster without me. I’ll walk back. Please, hurry!”
She backed away from him. She had no intention of being there while they searched for phantom Bluecoats. A leisurely stroll back home was best.
By the time she made her way slowly back to the house she was chilled to the bone. The excitement had died away, leaving raw anxiety in its wake. Every step of the way she listened for sounds of battle or shots behind her, praying that none would come. She couldn’t keep her eyes forward a moment longer and turned to try and see into the dense trees. Nothing moved.
Papa and the Confederate colonel were waiting for her when she wearily walked in the front door.
“Daughter!” Papa cried and rushed to fold her in his arms. “Are you all right, Jenny?” He turned to the officer, anger in his voice, “How could you leave a helpless woman to walk back home after all she has endured, sir?”
“But—” the man blustered.
The familiar warm feeling of her father’s arms around her brought all the stress of the day crashing down on her at once. Jenny began to cry, great gulping sobs. Dear Lord, she was losing control completely. Papa raised his head and gave the colonel a hard look.
“She didn’t want… Miss Winston, I do apologize… Now see here… There has been no sign anywhere of any—”
Phillip brusquely interrupted him. “My daughter has been through a lot today, sir. I’ll not have you badgering her.” He turned and began to walk her to the wide, sweeping staircase. They headed up the stairs, her father’s arm solicitously around her shoulders.
The colonel stared after them in surprise. “I-I’ll wait here for your return, Mr. Winston, sir.” Jenny heard him say hesitantly.
Papa waved a hand in the air and mumbled, “Yes, yes.”
“Don’t you worry, Jennifer, if they do catch Captain Reynolds and bring him back here, I will think of some way to set him free again,” he whispered.
“But how?”
“Trust your old father. I’ll find a way.” A huge smile creased his face just like the smiles she had seen in the past when he was planning something reckless. Phillip Winston was back to his old self again.
As soon as he was gone, she ran to the window. Confederate soldiers sat around on the front lawn. Some were smoking pipes, some playing cards, and a few were tending their horses. Obviously they were waiting. None of them even glanced up at her window. Anxiously she scanned the trees where she had last seen David. It was dark and still in the shadowy depths of the forest.
Leaning back into the pillows on the window seat, she closed her eyes and thought of him. Dear Lord, she prayed silently, keep him safe, and let him escape. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed all of her muscles and cleared her mind. She searched for him, reaching, stretching, and yearning to find some sense of his presence. Deeper and deeper she went into the subconscious world, calling for David. She passed through many memories of him as she searched—his laughter; his smile; the way his eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled; his touch, so gentle and so exciting on her bare skin; the warm solid feel of his hard body against hers; and most of all, yes most of all, the love and desire that she had for him and from him.
He was there, in her soul; she could feel him.
The sound of men’s voices and horses’ hooves startled her. Her eyes flew open.
“Easy, Miz Jenny.” Kizzie sat beside her, watching her closely. The woman had come silently into the bedroom at some point. “Y’all cain’t come back too fast, or it make you dizzy and sick.” She laid a brown hand on her arm. “Yo’ white folks don’t know ‘bout handling the other world.”
“Oh, Kizzie, what is happening?” Jenny asked, ignoring the old slave woman’s strange comments and turning to the window.
Three men in gray and butternut uniforms were approaching the house on horseback from the direction of the trees. There was no blue-coated officer among them, no big black stallion in their midst. Was David heading back to his army unharmed? Or did they kill him and leave his body to be savaged by wild animals?
She watched as her father and the Rebel colonel went out onto the front lawn to meet the returning soldiers. The officer spoke to one of the three, a sergeant, based on the insignia of his uniform. The sergeant shook his head negatively in response to whatever his commander was saying. After several moments of discussion, the colonel beckoned to Papa, and the three men continued to talk among themselves.
“Stop talking and leave,” Jenny said to no one, forgetting Kizzie’s presence.
“No worries, Miz Jenny. Yo’ captain be just fine, I knows it.”
But Jenny couldn’t take her eyes off the scene unfolding below her window despite Kizzie’s encouraging words. “Oh, Mother Kizzie, I pray that you are correct! I just don’t know what I would do if he were captured.”
The old woman’s hand settled on her shoulder, and she covered it with her own. Immediately a sense of peace spread down through her body, relaxing her tensed muscles. Kizzie had to be right. Papa was nodding. Finally the officer motioned for his horse, shouted something to the troops, and they all mounted up. The entire regiment rode off Pleasant Run Manor grounds in their original direction, east, not north where David and his unit had gone.
Jenny was down the stairs in a flash. Papa was just entering the house and met her at the bottom of the steps, smiling broadly.
“They couldn’t find any sign of Captain Reynolds out in those trees, sweetheart.”
He hugged her close while she threw her arms tightly around his waist. Romulus, who had followed, barked and barked, catching the excitement of the moment.
“The sergeant said it was ‘the strangest thing.’ He said it was almost as though the Yankee had never existed in the first place. There was no trail to follow at all, no prints on the ground.”
“I am so glad!”
“Me too, Jenny!” said a smaller voice. Benjamin had joined the family hug, putting his little arms as far as he could around their legs. He looked up at the two adults. “What are we happy about?”
Father and daughter laughed with delight. Phillip swung Ben up into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Our friend, Captain Reynolds, is safe, Benjamin.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jenny straightened and stretched the kinks out of her back with a groan. Inhaling
the scent of freshly cut hay and hot, dusty earth, she looked at her companion with a frown.
“How do you stand it, Mother Kizzie? I am decades younger than you, but harvesting these potatoes is pure torture on my back.”
The old woman looked up at the young mistress of Pleasant Run without stopping her digging. “I’s used to hard work all m’life, Mizz Jenny. Ain’t nothin’ new.” Now she stopped and grinned, showing her beautiful straight, white teeth. “’Sides, I is a whole lot closer to the ground than you is, Mistress.”
Jenny laughed. “Oh, Kizzie, you are a treasure! These past few months have given me a whole new appreciation for everything that you, Isaac, Patsy, Cordelia, and all of you have done all these years.” Taking off her straw hat, she mopped her perspiring face with a lacy handkerchief that used to be white. It was then that she saw him standing at the edge of the shady forest. He was standing stock still, half in the shadows, facing in their direction. Even at a distance she could see that he was not the same.
“Oh, Mother Kizzie, look!” she whispered.
“What is it, chile?” She straightened and looked in the direction Jenny was scanning, with a hand shading her eyes. “Oh, dear! It don’t look good.”
Without taking her eyes off him, Jenny spoke to the older woman as she started to move, “I’ll bring him back here.”
Across the open field she moved, little clouds of dust from the hot, dry earth rising around her feet as she walked. Her eyes took in the once magnificent animal, and her heart broke into painful pieces. Putting her hand in her pocket, she pulled out a carrot she had intended for her mare and held it out.