“Take one step nearer to me and I’ll scream to blue blazes!” she warned.
He stopped for a moment, then his grin deepened. “Why, honey, even if you’ve got darkies lingering on here now that they’ve been freed, they ain’t gonna raise their hands to help out the white woman who made them all slaves. Hell, honey, they’ll just cheer me on!”
“Don’t be a fool, Yankee. Our hands are all good people, and they know white trash when they see it.”
“Well, you know what I think? I think there just ain’t no one around at all. And you know what else I think? I think we’re going to have a good time, and you’re going to get your comeuppance.”
“If you touch me—”
“I’d just say that you were willing, Miss Cameron. Willing to do anything at all to bargain for this old house of yours! You tried to seduce a Union soldier.”
Despite his threats, Christa was amazed when his beefy hand reached out, his sausage-shaped fingers actually grabbing the folds of her bodice. He jerked her toward him. She smelled the scent of stale whiskey on his breath and realized that he was probably some lackey who sat around town all day drinking and whiling away time in the South. Reconstruction! This was it. Men like Bobby-boy.
They all said that it might have been different if Lincoln had lived. But Lincoln was dead.
And the powers in the North wanted to keep the South on her knees.
Bobby-boy was touching her now and the smell of whiskey on his breath was so bad that she was feeling queasy when it was important that she think and fight.
Fear suddenly coursed through her. Deep, gut-level fear. Tyne was here, but God alone knew exactly where. Tyne would kill the Yankee, but with emotions being what they were, someone would see that Tyne hanged for killing a white man. Old Peter was down in the smokehouse, but his hearing was all but gone and if he tried to help her, that fine old man would suffer the same fate as Tyne.
She stared into the soldier’s leering eyes, feeling his hot, fetid breath upon her cheeks, feeling his pudgy fingers curved over her flesh.
The war was over. All those awful years were behind her.
Why was this happening to her now?
“Let me go, you repulsive gorilla!” she hissed, trying to strike out again.
He didn’t let her go. He lifted her cleanly off the ground with one hand, then dropped her flat on the porch, crawling over her.
Christa’s heart hammered at a furious beat. In disbelief, she began to fight the man in earnest, twisting, striking, kicking, scratching.
This couldn’t be happening.
She grit her teeth, blinking back tears. Once, she had been so desperately in love. She had planned with Liam, waiting for the first possible moment for their wedding.
She remembered being in love, remembered his kisses. Remembered his touch, and remembered wanting more. But they had both been strictly disciplined. She would have been a bride in white, in love, waiting to be awakened.
They had waited to become man and wife. But bullets had severed the dream.
She had held back from the sweetness of desire, to come to this. Honor and innocence would be taken by this burly, bitter bear of a wretch in the dust on the porch of her very own house!
For a moment the fur-covered, pock-marked face rose above hers. She’d gotten in her digs, she realized. Bloody scratches tore his face. There was spittle on his lips and Christa inwardly recoiled again. “Hold still! You’ll like it, I promise, girly!” he told her.
“I don’t believe this!” Christa shouted. “They’ll shoot you! They’ll court-martial you. Rape is a crime—”
“A Yankee—against a Cameron? Why, honey, my commanding officer would give me a medal!”
He shoved her skirt up. Christa realized that she was really fighting a desperate battle. “You’re insane!” she cried. “You and your commanding officer! My oldest brother, Jesse, is the legal master of this place. He’s a colonel in the Yank army. He’ll have your hide if you so much as breathe my way again—”
“Hold still, you wily she-devil!” he ordered, and punched her right in the stomach.
For a moment, her breath was swept away. Stars seemed to shoot in a black sky before her. Stunned, Christa lay still. Then every fighting breath in her body returned in a maelstrom. She cracked her knee up into his groin and sent her nails raking across his cheek. He howled and she twisted, managing to crawl from beneath him. On her hands and knees she escaped to the porch steps and then ran down them.
But he was behind her. He caught her arm and threw her down to the ground. Her hands clawing into dirt and grass, she tried to drag her way across the lawn, her heart beating in a fury, her breath coming in quick gasps. She kicked out with all her strength, blinded by the dust in her eyes.
She made it to her feet again, but fell upon the tangle and fullness of her skirt. She felt his hand around her ankle. “No!” She glanced back. He was about to pit the bulk of his weight against her again. She closed her eyes against the dust, crying out again. “No!”
Suddenly, she felt a violent rush of air. He was no longer touching her.
Bobby-boy seemed to fly up, as if he had been plucked away from her by some gigantic hand. He grunted, landing hard, several feet behind her.
She was free.
What in God’s name …?
She gasped in a great rush of air, trying to ascertain what had happened. Bobby-boy was reaching out a hand. Was he trying to reach her again, or was he protesting some new threat? She shrieked, still in a wild panic, backing away from him.
She crashed against something hard.
A body.
A man.
Someone else was with them. Someone who had the power to rip Bobby-boy off her and send him flying across the yard.
She twisted around to see that she had backed her way to a pair of shiny black boots. Cavalry boots.
“Touch her again and you’re a dead man!” a deadly male voice warned Bobby-boy.
Gulping in more air, Christa allowed her gaze to rise. She was shaking.
This man, too, was in blue.
And it wasn’t Jesse.
But like Jesse, he wore a regulation Yankee cavalry uniform. Blue pants hugged long muscular legs. A scabbard and sword clung to a taut waistline and hard narrow hips. As she lifted her head still further, the brilliance of the sun blinded her for a moment. All she saw was that the man was very tall, and that he wore a plumed hat. Leather-gloved hands were upon his hips as he surveyed the situation.
The sun shifted, and she saw the man’s face.
Deep, rich russet hair framed handsome features tanned to a bronze color despite the rakish angle of his hat. Arched russet brows framed steel-gray eyes, eyes of a color so like quicksilver that it could change like lightning, being as stormy as a tempest one minute, and light as a mist the next. Gray like steel, silver like a glint beneath the sun. Eyes that touched her now, and flicked quickly past her.
Him.
Bitterness plunged through her heart. She didn’t realize for a moment that she was safe, that she had been saved from rape. She thought only that he was here.
Him.
That Yank of all Yanks.
Jeremy McCauley.
Two
Hell, what a mess, Jeremy McCauley thought wearily, looking from the puffed-up soldier to Christa. Her brilliant blue eyes were on him. He couldn’t read quite what emotion was in them, but he knew Christa, and he doubted, even under the circumstances, that she was glad to see him.
A shudder ripped through him, and despite Christa, a wave of anger washed over him. Jesu. The war was over! The damn thing wouldn’t seem to end, though.
He’d seen too many instances now when the victors were acting like conquerors. We won the war! he wanted to shout at the soldier. We didn’t win the right to rape and murder and plunder. And how the hell dare he touch Christa Cameron?
It startled him to realize that he felt like ripping the man’s throat out for having touched Christa. T
hey might be enemies, but Christa was Callie’s sister-in-law, and so in a way, Jeremy determined, he was kin.
Christa was still down on the ground, staring up at him. Christa on her knees was a view to begin with. But even with her clothing disheveled and covered with dust, she was a stunning woman, proud and defiant.
Maybe she hadn’t needed his help. Maybe she could have whipped Bobby-boy all on her own. It was possible. She hadn’t his strength, but she had a raw willpower to match any soldier Jeremy had ever met.
She was still staring at him, and he suddenly found himself annoyed that she could be such a disaster—and still be so beautiful. Her hair was a tangle, falling down her back in blue-black waves. Her eyes were that uncanny color to rival a summer’s sky. Her features were incredibly classical and beautiful.
And for just a moment he saw a flash of emotion in her eyes. She might still hate him. She might still blame him for the whole damned war, it was hard to tell with Christa, but she had been scared. For once in her life, she’d had the sense to be scared, and she was glad that he had come.
He remembered the first time he had seen her. He’d been standing on the porch just feet away from where he stood now. Callie had come out to throw her arms around him, and when he had looked over Callie’s shoulder, he had seen Christa standing there. Tall, slim, regal, stunning, with an exquisite face and beautiful coloring. He had thought for an instant that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, even more beautiful than Jenny.
He had felt like a traitor, and he had been furious with himself. She had muttered something about Yankees being everywhere and Daniel Cameron had accosted him. Jesse had appeared and it had been mayhem on the porch until Daniel had brought him into the office for the two of them to settle things between them.
Of course, he’d seen much more of Christa that trip. The very elegant Miss Cameron had begun to dine with them that evening, but she had chosen to take the children to the kitchen rather than sup with another Yankee.
Now here was Christa again, on the ground before him.
“Get up, Sergeant!” he commanded Bobby-boy sharply. He was just itching to touch the man again, to send him far across the yard.
“Now wait a minute, Colonel, sir!” he gasped out quickly. He looked still to be smarting from Jeremy’s having plucked him off Christa and thrown him to the ground. “Colonel, I don’t think you rightly see the situation—”
“You’ve got two seconds or there’ll be pieces of you flying all over this grass, Sergeant!” Jeremy warned him, his voice low but deadly.
The man was quickly on his feet, keeping a safe distance from both Jeremy and Christa.
Jeremy reached a hand down to Christa. Her eyes were still on him. She was probably damned surprised to see him. He hadn’t written, hadn’t told anyone his intentions of coming down here. But he’d made some decisions in Washington just last week, and it had seemed important to come down and say good-bye to Callie. He wasn’t quite ready to head out to his new post, but he didn’t know if he’d get much time to come south again, and so it had seemed imperative to come here now.
Christa stared right past his hand, and he was certain she was trying to pretend she didn’t see it.
She wouldn’t want to take a Yankee hand. Though General Lee might have decided a surrender was in order, Christa had certainly never done so.
Christa, my dear Miss Cameron, he thought wryly, you are a witch! Maybe I should have rescued the soldier here from you.
Witch or no, she was a stunning young woman. And she was his kin. He’d just as soon see this soldier’s face broken in a million pieces than see him dare to touch an inch of her again.
He arched his brow to Christa as she got up, then turned his attention to the errant soldier. He was tired. Tired of the North and tired of the South. He wanted no more of it, but if there were a problem here, he was honor-bound to solve it if he could.
“Who in blazes are you and what in the Lord’s name is going on here?”
“Eviction!” the man said quickly. He was panting harder than Christa. “Any living folk are to clear out of this place. It’s to be burned to the ground tonight.”
“Burned!” Christa raged. “They’re evicting us to burn it to the ground?” She wanted to scratch his eyes out at that moment. She took a step toward him furiously.
Jeremy McCauley caught her shoulders and jerked her back against him. His chest was rock hard, the grip his fingers formed was a forceful one. She grit her teeth, unable to fight him.
“This house is owned by Colonel Jesse Cameron, United States Medical Corp,” Jeremy said over her shoulder.
“That’s not what the records say. Seems the house was put in Daniel Cameron’s name when these people wanted to keep it from being burned by the Confederates. Hell, it’s real hard to tell just who is and who isn’t the enemy, eh, sir? Or maybe these people just did whatever was convenient. Anyway, the house is down as having belonged to Daniel Cameron, Colonel, in that rebellious army that used to call itself Confederate.”
“Convenient!” Christa choked out, wrenching away from Jeremy. How dare this stinking Bobby-boy say such a thing? Her family had been split and torn, and it had all been anguish. “Jesse is the oldest in the family and he never left the United States military, never!”
“It will burn for Daniel Cameron!” Bobby-boy said, a pleased grin on his face. He saw Jeremy’s expression and the grin quickly faded.
Jeremy spoke softly. “You’d better explain this and explain it fast, Sergeant. You are going up on charges as it is—the war is over, and even if it weren’t, soldiers do not resort to rape—”
“Ah, sir, she was asking for it, I swear!”
“Asking for it!” Christa exploded furiously. “Being mauled by corpses could not disgust me more!”
“Sergeant, I daresay that the lady was not ‘asking for it,’ ” Jeremy stated flatly. He continued in the same dispassionate tone. “I know Miss Cameron. She might be guilty of many things—but never ‘asking for it’ from a man in a blue uniform.”
“How gallantly you do rush to a woman’s defense!” Christa murmured, irritated.
Jeremy didn’t seem to notice. His attention was on Bobby-boy.
Bobby-boy seemed to have realized just how serious his situation was with Jeremy. His eyes remained glued upon the man. “I could see to it that you were court-martialed—”
“You’d take her side against a Yankee soldier—”
“Damned right!” Jeremy said softly. “Now tell me what’s been going on here.”
Bobby-boy was silent for a second, shuffling his feet. “All right,” he muttered after a moment. “Well, it don’t rightly seem as if it should be legal, and I don’t really know just what is going on!” he said sourly. “Someone big, someone up top, wants this place razed. And the last taxes that were paid were paid in Confederate scrip, and the last persons to sign any bills were Daniel and Christa Cameron. So if Jesse Cameron is the real owner, he’d best get his Yankee body—and his Yankee dollars—down to the courthouse in Williamsburg by nightfall, else the place will be taken, lock, stock, and barrel, and burned. There’s a new owner waiting to take over. And the new owner is waiting for the legal time limit to be up to take the place down.”
“New owner?”
“Well, the party who intends to buy the place at sunset.”
“And that’s tonight,” Jeremy said sharply. “Who’s the new owner, and how come this notice just reached the house?”
Bobby-boy shrugged. “Maybe somebody didn’t want it to reach the house until tonight. I’m just a soldier, just a messenger!”
“Who’s the party intending to buy the place?” Jeremy demanded sharply.
“God as my witness, Colonel, I don’t know. Lieutenant Tracy in Williamsburg gave me the order to nail the notice up this morning. He led me to believe that the house was a bed of rebellious vipers, just like the kind of folk what decided to kill Lincoln.”
Christa hugged her ar
ms tightly against her chest, staring from Jeremy to Bobby-boy. She shook her head, looking at Jeremy. “It can’t be legal! What new game are you filthy, stinking, scalawagging, carpetbagging Yankees playing down here?”
“See there, Colonel? ‘Filthy’ Yankees. And you say that she isn’t asking for it!”
Jeremy took a menacing step forward and Bobby-boy shrank back. “She may ask for a lot,” Jeremy said, his eyes like a flash of steel, “but she most assuredly isn’t going to get anything from you. Now you hightail it on out of here and fast. And if I ever hear tell that you’ve even been near this place I’ll forget that I’m a Yankee officer and I’ll hunt you down and rip you limb from limb. You got it, Sergeant?”
Pale as a sheet beneath the fur on his face, Bobby-boy nodded. On quaking legs he turned and hurried for his horse. He mounted and quickly rode away. In silence, Jeremy and Christa watched him go.
She felt a strange, cool breeze touch her. She was alone with Jeremy. Even though she had learned to love her sister-in-law, Callie, she’d never managed to accept Callie’s brother in their home.
She’d never known quite what it was between them. Maybe it had been the war. Maybe she’d just been too bitter to accept any Yankee other than Jesse by the time that she had met Jeremy. But from that time when she had first seen him on her doorstep, she’d felt as if the air were charged with lightning anytime he was near her.
They’d been bitter enemies from the moment they had met.
Maybe she thought that he had never understood her. Perhaps he’d been expecting a very sweet and ladylike belle. Maybe she’d even been one once. But the war had forced her to take care of her house and her home.
And it had forced her to take up arms against the enemy.
She hadn’t felt in the least obliged when Daniel and Jesse had determined to let Jeremy in because he was Callie’s brother.
Admittedly, Jeremy had been caught up in a fight to save Cameron Hall once before. When unauthorized troops had come against him, Jeremy had fought alongside both of her brothers to save the place.