Anthony scarcely even wrote, though his words were passionate when he did. He and his father were recruiting and arming a unit of cavalry. They were busy buying horses and designing uniforms.
Then, in early April 1861, Kiernan’s time of waiting came to an end.
Christa came riding by to tell her with a great deal of jubilation that both her brothers were soon coming home. “I’m so delighted! They’ve both gotten leave to come for my birthday. I wanted to tell you as soon as I heard from the both of them. Thank goodness Daniel is such a wonderful correspondent!”
“Yes, thank goodness,” Kiernan agreed.
“Oh, I can’t wait to see them!”
“Neither can I,” Kiernan told her fervently. “Oh, neither can I!”
Two days later, Christa was back. She met Kiernan on her porch and did not dismount from her horse. She smiled mischievously. “A soldier just stopped by, a friend of Jesse’s who resigned his commission.”
“Oh?” Kiernan said, her heart thundering.
Christa laughed. “Well, it seems that Jesse is capable of writing after all. He sent me a note, and in it is a request for you.”
“Yes?”
Christa handed her an envelope. Kiernan raised a brow to her, then reached for the letter inside.
Her eyes scanned the brief but affectionate passages to Christa, asking about the house, servants, the weather, and Christa’s state of mind and health.
The last paragraph referred to her.
Christa, please see Kiernan for me. And ask her to meet me at the summer cottage. Dusk, the night of the sixteenth.
“What do I tell him?” Christa asked her.
Kiernan lowered her lashes swiftly, not wanting Christa to see the wild elation within her eyes. She fought for control, then raised her eyes to Christa’s once again and smiled demurely. “Tell him I’ll be there.”
Christa smiled and started to turn her horse away. Then she paused, turning back. “Oh, I forgot. There’s a postscript on the back. He says that it might be cold. He suggests you wear fur.”
Kiernan smiled and lowered her head quickly. She folded her hands before her, but despite her best efforts, her voice was filled with a soft tremor.
“Tell him … tell him I’ll wear fur.”
She turned and ran back into the house, unable to look into Christa’s eyes any longer.
She’d wear fur. It was what Jesse wanted.
Jesse was coming home.
Eleven
Looking out from the breezeway doors of the gazebo, Jesse could see the monuments of the cemetery and beyond in the evening light. The lawn sloped up to the house, and the garden was just coming out from its winter’s cloak of green to flower again.
It had been a beautiful day.
April in Virginia was often a whimsical month. Sometimes a dead heat lay over the coastal land. The heavy humidity of summer came creeping in early, and the nights were sultry and warm. Sometimes, it was just the opposite. The day could be bitterly cold, and it was even possible for a light spattering of wet snow to fall, the kind that could chill you to the bone.
Then sometimes, it was just beautiful, everything that came with the promise of spring. The sun would shine throughout the day, hot and radiant, throwing a bold new yellow light over the soft new grass that was just bursting through the old. The first of the spring flowers would be bathed in that light, their colors the brighter for it. But the heat of the sun was softened and tempered by the coolness of the air coming in from the river, and it was easy to walk, easy to breathe, easy to love to be alive. Newborn foals frolicked and played in the fields, and the horses bred from Arabian stock whipped their tails up incredibly high and seemed to dance within their paddocks.
It had been one of those days today. A cool day, tempered by a warm sun. The night coming on was a gentle and balmy one. The whisper of the breeze was itself sensual, seeming to wrap around him as he waited in the summer house.
He wondered if she would come.
The wire services were alive with the latest developments between the Union and the new-formed Confederacy.
In the early hours of April 12, the southern troops under General Beauregard in Charleston had fired upon the Union position at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.
Major Robert Anderson had been in command at Sumter, with Captain Abner Doubleday his second in command. Beauregard had set up batteries in Charleston because South Carolina was offended by the Federal troops sitting on its sovereign territory. The Federals had been asked to surrender, but Anderson, expecting supplies from Washington, had refused. He’d had only sixty-six cannon, many of them un-mounted, and he was short of powder-bag cartridges.
At 3:20 A.M., hostilities came to a head. One last demand for a surrender was made and refused, and the Federals were warned that they would soon be fired upon.
And so they were. Two hours later, a Confederate shell broke over Fort Sumter, and the shelling continued. Anderson gave Doubleday the honor of firing the first Union shot at seven, and the uneven contest began.
It went on all through the day. By nightfall, the shelling slackened, but by dawn of the thirteenth, it came again. Anderson and Doubleday kept their men low to the ground against the smoke inhalation. The supply ship Anderson had awaited came—but it was held in the harbor by the Confederate artillery.
Soon after noon, a Confederate shell blew away the fort’s flagstaff. Secessionist Colonel Wigfall rowed out to Sumter, having seen the flag go down, and demanded a surrender of the fort.
Anderson, having no way to fight, conceded. To that point, he had not lost a man.
Surrender ceremonies were planned for the next day, and Anderson asked and received permission from Beauregard to salute the American flag before hauling it down. The hundred-gun salute brought about the death of a Union soldier when the fiftieth gun exploded.
Throughout South Carolina, there was tremendous jubilation. Union forces had been thrust away.
In Virginia, the situation was at a crucial peak. A legislature would now decide the fate of the state. Lincoln had made a call to arms. War seemed imminent.
It seemed impossible for Virginia to take up arms against her sister states.
Would Kiernan come? Jesse wondered again in the summer cottage.
Even as the question plagued his mind, he saw movement in the foliage beyond, and then she burst into the clearing and raced into the gazebo.
She closed the doors behind her, leaning against them. Her eyes touched his, filled with life and a blazing green excitement. Her breast rose and fell swiftly with the force of her breathing. Her hair was free and wild, tumbling around her shoulders and down her back in a sweep of sunlit waves.
The fur she wore rimmed an elegant gold cape that swept evocatively around her body.
“Jesse!”
She whispered his name, and then she was in his arms. He quickly discovered that beneath the cape she wore a simple cotton day dress and nothing more. As he slipped the tie on the cape and it fell softly to the floor, he felt her hands upon him, tugging his shirt free from his breeches. He felt her fingers upon his naked flesh and marveled at the touch, shuddering as the hot fires of desire snaked through him.
In the days to come, he would remember this night, remember it with aching poignancy, and he would tremble anew, thinking of all that he had held in his arms.
For in all the long years when they had watched each other and waited, when he had wondered at the beauty she would be when she grew up, he had never imagined this.
He knew that she was his. He had been her first lover, the first to touch her, to teach her. And she had learned to give so very much to him. She had never questioned propriety, she had simply loved him. And in that, he had never known a feeling more exquisite, never known a power so great. She was sensual, elegant, beautiful, and in his life, he had never imagined a love so great.
She stroked his back, her fingers playing upon muscle and sinew. She rose against him, the soft curves of
her body haunting and evocative beneath the simple cotton of her dress as she pressed against his naked chest. She nibbled against his lower lip, then rose to meet him in a wild and sweet open-mouthed kiss that drove every demon known to man to tear into his groin and his blood. He had stripped her of the gown and borne her down upon the fur that had offered them so sweet and heady a haven before.
In the days to come, he would indeed remember this evening! Remember the feel of her lips, moist and searing warm, moving over his body, the feeling of soft, exhilarating fire, wet upon his chest, trailing patterns, circling his nipples where her teeth teased and played. He felt the flow of her hair following the taunt of her lips, soft velvet to bring him to an ever-greater need. And still she loved and teased and taunted him with tender kisses upon his flesh, exotic, erotic, decadent kisses upon his flesh, moving lower and lower against him until, incredibly, she touched the pulsing fullness of his sex with her mouth.
Lightly at first, with kisses that were so soft and sweet that they tormented him nearly to hell. He grabbed hold of her, unable to bear the bursting desire, when suddenly she closed her sweet caress hard around him, and in all his life he had never felt so searing an explosion of desire.
He drew her to him. The hot blood surged and raced throughout his body, and he pressed her down hard into the velvet-soft fur upon the floor. His fingers became entangled in her hair, and he ravished her with burning kisses as her long legs wound erotically around his hips, and he swept inside her, thrusting deeply into the welcoming, sheathing warmth.
When the sweetness of the tempestuous climax claimed them both, he scarce let the cool breeze of the night whisper over them before he turned upon her again, fiercely, needing the night. In the coming darkness, he smiled down into the misty beauty of her eyes and began to make love to her again.
Kissing, caressing, finding sweetly erotic places, the pulse at her throat, the lobe of her ear. He shimmied his body down the length of her hers, and his kisses grew slow and sultry upon her naked flesh, teasing her breasts, loving them tenderly, demanding their fullness. Still his body caressed hers as he moved again, kissing the point at the back of her knee, the softness of her thighs, and the beckoning warmth of the sweet petals between them. She cried out, and he caressed her still, stroked her, whispered to her. But she was up on her knees to meet him, her lips searing his, her fingers entwined about his nape, curling into his hair. Windswept yearnings became a tempest in the tranquil quiet of the night. The end burst upon Jesse with shattering volatility, drawing everything from him. The world spun as he stared down at her, her lashes fallen over her eyes, her hair a tangle about them both, her delicate, beautiful features flushed and damp. Her eyes opened to his, and he kissed her again and fell to her side, pulling her close.
“Oh, Jesse,” she murmured.
“I was afraid that you wouldn’t come,” he told her.
“Why?”
He kissed her forehead. “Never mind. Let’s not get into it. I don’t want to argue with you.”
Even as he tried to pull her close, she stiffened.
“Why, Jesse?”
He leaned up on an elbow. “Because war is imminent. I’m sure you’ve heard about Fort Sumter.”
She blinked, staring at him. “Yes, I’ve heard about Fort Sumter. The wire services carried little else. Jesse, the Virginia legislature is meeting on the matter of secession.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
He wondered what it was in his tone that she heard. She pushed away from him, shaken, hugging her arms about herself in the sudden coolness that came once they had parted.
“Jesse, what is the matter with you?” she cried. “How can you turn against everything that—”
“I’ve not turned against anything!” he said irritably. He pushed up and stood, staring down at her. “Kiernan, it’s never been anything but one way with you. You’ve never even looked at the big picture. Not once.”
“What big picture?” she demanded. Her eyes were open wide now, and very dangerous in their luster.
He sighed.
He wanted life to go on, too, exactly the way it had been. He loved Virginia, he loved his home. He could never explain to her just how much, He and Daniel and Christa used to walk down and set flowers on the graves of their parents, and when his sister and brother were gone, Jesse had stayed, closing his eyes, thinking of the past that had been theirs, the times and trials that the house had weathered, the triumphs, the agonies.
He loved the James River. He loved to watch the steamers come in, and he loved to hear the singing and the chanting as the slaves loaded the bales of cotton onto the decks of the ships.
Why in God’s name did she think that he was turning against everything he loved? Couldn’t she understand? There was something greater at stake than slavery and states’ rights. They were all Americans.
“‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” he quoted softly.
“What?”
“It’s something that Lincoln said a few years ago,” he told her, “in Illinois, after he was nominated for senator.”
He could tell from her reaction that she didn’t have much interest in Abraham Lincoln.
“It’s true, Kiernan. My God, we aren’t even a century old as a nation. Americans bested the English, some of the finest soldiers in the world, because they joined together. Because Virginia stood up for Massachusetts.”
“Because we had help from the French,” Kiernan murmured dryly.
“Because we stood together,” Jesse said flatly. “We’re one country. And we can be great because of the farmlands of the South and the industry in the north.”
“You want to fight against Virginia.”
“I want to fight for Virginia.”
She leaped up, facing him, very beautiful and dignified in her nakedness. Her fingers wound into fists at her side as she faced him. “Jesse, you talk about a house divided against itself! Cameron Hall is your house. Virginia is your house. I am part of your house! Don’t you see? You’re against slavery? So are a lot of people! Maybe, eventually, we’ll manage to free our own slaves! Without being told to do so by fanatics. Damn you, Jesse, you still own slaves. You haven’t figured out how to change the world yourself!”
“My slaves will be freed!” he told her passionately. But then he curbed his anger, swallowing down a taste of pain and bitterness. “Kiernan, I love Virginia.”
“Then what will you do if Virginia secedes?”
“I don’t know,” he told her flatly. He took a step toward her. Even after the hours they had shared together, she stepped away from him. Anger spilled from him again, and he pulled her back into his arms. “I love you, Kiernan!”
Tears filled her eyes as they met his. “Do you love me enough, Jesse?”
“Damn you!” He exploded. “Do you love me enough?”
She jerked free from him and spun around for her clothing. She snatched up her dress and started away from him again, but he caught her arm and pulled her hard against his chest. He kissed her, sweetly, savagely. He refused to let her go when she fought his hold. He kissed her until her lips parted to his, until she offered up a surrender to at least that demand. The hair on his chest chafed against the softness of her breasts, and he felt the hardening of her nipples against his flesh. She twisted her lips free from his at last.
“Let me go, Jesse.”
“No, not tonight.”
“Please.”
“I can’t,” he told her. “Dammit, Kiernan, don’t ask me to let you go tonight!”
Suddenly, the force she had exerted against him was gone. She rested her cheek against his chest, and he felt the dampness of her tears.
He swept her up into his arms and carried her back to the furs.
He kissed away her tears, and she curled into his arms again. They made love, slowly, tenderly. The night around them was achingly sweet.
When they rose at last, Jesse was the one to move first. He rose and dressed and he
lped her into her things.
“I’ll take you home,” he told her.
“I know my way.”
“I’ll take you home,” he insisted.
He set her in front of him on Pegasus, and when they reached her mare tethered under trees, he kept Kiernan with him and led the mare along.
When they neared her house, she stirred. “Jesse, you should leave me here. My father—”
“I’m taking you home, Kiernan.”
As it was, John Mackay was waiting on his front porch. It, too, was broad and handsome, with its brick facade, its pillars tall and regal. John Mackay sat with his pleasant, lined face in repose, his pipe in his mouth, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.
“Though you might be bringing her home, Jesse,” John said. “Else I might have worried about the time.”
“I’d not have let her come alone, sir.”
“I’m sorry, Papa,” Kiernan began.
“It’s all right. I knew you were safe with Jesse.”
Someone else might not have considered her safe in Jesse’s company. But Mackay was a different man. Even if he suspected that his daughter and Jesse were lovers, her life and her happiness mattered more to him. He was indeed a rare man, created within a rare breed.
“I’ll just go in so you two can say good night,” John offered.
Jesse dismounted from Pegasus and reached up to lift her down. She leaned against him and accepted the tender kiss he placed upon her lips.
She lowered her head against him.
“I love you, Kiernan.”
“I love you, too, Jesse,” she said. But then her emerald eyes, brimming with dampness and fire, rose to meet his. “But if Virginia secedes and you don’t resign your commission in the Federal army, I won’t see you again. Ever.”
She pulled away from his arms and raced for the door.
There was nothing he could do but watch her go.
Jesse awoke the next morning with an incredible headache.
A great deal of the pain was his own fault. After he left Kiernan, he’d come home and spent the better part of the night with a bourbon bottle and Daniel, discussing times recently past, and times long past. Christa had found them down in the den in the first faint hours of daylight. Being a good Cameron, she had shared a sound swig of bourbon with them—and then ordered them both up to bed.