She hated being grateful to him. Hated to be obliged.
But there didn’t seem to be a choice. If he could help her now, she was going to have to accept that help.
Sweet Jesu. She’d accept help from the devil himself to save Cameron Hall.
He was already caught up in this mess, so it seemed. He turned to Christa as soon as Bobby-boy was out of earshot. “Where’s Jesse?” he demanded.
“Washington,” Christa said quickly. “There’s no way that he can be back here before nightfall. Even with the railroads all working, I’d have to reach him, and then he’d have to get back here. He’d never make it.” She forgot for a moment that she needed his help. Feeling desperate and bitter, she lashed out, “McCauley, tell me that this can’t be real! Not even you wretched Feds can come sweeping down here like a horde of conquerors—”
“We are the conquerors,” he reminded her softly, but there was a silver fire in his eyes as he stared at her. She wondered at his thoughts as her temper flared.
“Ah, yes! Hail the conquering heroes! Bastards!” she spat out.
His jaw set. There was something different about him. She realized that the last time she had seen him, he’d had a mustache and beard. He was clean-shaven now. His jaw seemed even more square and determined.
“Christa, do you want to fight with me? Or do you want to solve this mess?”
She lowered her lashes, wishing that she didn’t feel so compelled to battle Jeremy. She did need his help. “How can this be?” she cried out. “Aren’t there supposed to be some laws?”
His silver gaze was assessingly upon her. What he saw in her, she couldn’t quite fathom. The only thing she knew about Jeremy was that he seemed to have the ability to see right through her.
At the moment, he seemed nearly as disturbed about the house as she was. He sighed. “This shouldn’t be possible, and who would do this except—”
“Except?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Someone acquired an enemy. An enemy with power. And then … well, then anything can be done.”
“Because the North wants the South on her knees!”
“Christa! Some men are good, and some are bad. And some bad men do get into situations of power!”
She lowered her head again. She didn’t want to fight with him. Not now.
He paused a moment, then turned his back on her, walking along the drive to where a big, handsome bay horse awaited him. He turned back to her as he mounted the bay. “I take it my sister isn’t here? Daniel can’t be.”
“No, Callie is in Richmond with Daniel. How did you know that he wasn’t here?”
“Because if Daniel had been here, that sergeant would have been a dead man,” he said. “All right. I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“I’ll come with you—”
“No!”
“Dammit, it’s my house, my home—”
“And you’re very likely to get it burned before nightfall with your gracious way of addressing us conquerors!”
Christa braced herself, wanting to smack his handsome face.
He was all that she had at the moment. “Hurry. Get back here immediately.”
He tipped his cavalry hat. “Yes’m, Miss Cameron. Let me see, save you from rape, and the home from demolition, and do it fast. I’ll do my filthy Yankee best.”
She felt her cheeks coloring. “Just go!” she hissed.
He inclined his head in a bow. Christa watched him race away on the bay, her teeth clenched bitterly. She hated to admit it, but he was one Yankee who could ride almost as well as her brothers.
An hour later she was pacing the steps before the house when she heard the sound of hoofbeats once again.
Her heart slammed against her chest as she rushed to one of the pillars, holding it for strength as she peered down the drive.
It was Jeremy, returning. Christa ran down the steps, ready to greet him when he dismounted from his horse.
“Did you do something? Did you stop it?” she asked anxiously. She saw from the storm-cloud gray of his eyes that nothing was resolved.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she wasn’t about to shed them. She knotted her fingers into fists and slammed them against his blue-clad chest. “Damn you! You should have let me come! This isn’t your home. You didn’t fight hard enough. You don’t care—”
“Shut up, Christa!” he commanded harshly, catching her wrists and jerking her close to him. Her head fell back, ink-dark hair cascading over the length of her spine as her eyes met his. “Don’t you think I would have done something? Hell, I was on Jesse’s side! My sister is married to Daniel. It’s her home too.”
“Then—”
“I found a friend in the courthouse, but not even Lieutenant Tracy knows who’s after the place. A General Grayson is the one who gave the order that the house be confiscated, and he went about it all legally—at least, on paper it looks like it’s legal. The notice was supposed to have been on the house thirty days ago.”
“Supposed to have been!” Christa reiterated bitterly, trying to pull away from him. He wasn’t letting her go. His jaw and his voice hardened as he continued.
“Well, Grayson must be playing dirty politics. Taking bribes. But the only thing I could do would be to call him out, call him a liar to his face. Then I’d have to shoot him, and then I’d be court-martialed and hanged.”
He still wasn’t letting her go. Christa swallowed hard, afraid that she was going to start crying in front of him. “Would that save the house?” she asked him.
He shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “No.”
“Then don’t bother!” she whispered miserably, pulling away from him and starting up the steps, her shoulders drooping.
“There’s only one way to stop this. They need a signature before dark,” he called after her.
She spun around. “I’ll sign anything!” she whispered, still fighting tears.
“No, Christa, that won’t do. A Yankee signature, that’s what they want. If Jesse were just here!”
“If Jesse were just here, this would never be happening!” Christa said.
“You’re most assuredly right,” Jeremy said evenly. “But Jesse isn’t here. And I’ve just walked into the middle of something that I don’t understand. And though I know you’d like me to shoot every Yank in town, I just don’t know who to shoot! Whatever is going on isn’t my fight.”
“Some dirty, lying vulture—”
“Yes, some dirty, lying vulture, sweeping down from the north,” Jeremy finished for her evenly. “But I don’t know who, Christa. And I’m not going to try to shoot every man in town, not even if you’re still convinced it’s your due!”
“It’s our due!” she cried out. The tears were stinging her eyes again. She’d been to town. The blue uniforms were everywhere. She was damned sure that most of the men in town had never fought, they’d just seen the South like a wounded and dying creature, and they’d come just like a pack of jackals, sniffing opportunity. There were free blacks to exploit, starving women to proposition, near-slave labor in desperate straits, orphaned urchins—and there were houses to pick up for a song!
But whoever wanted Cameron Hall wanted to burn it!
She would never let it happen.
“There has to be something that can be done,” she said vehemently.
“They’d even take Callie’s signature,” Jeremy told her. “Along with the money.” He sighed. “Except that I’m not sure she ever swore any kind of an oath to the Union. Think, Christa, maybe there is someone. Some relation. You need a Cameron, or a Cameron spouse, who has sworn an oath to the Union.”
“What?”
“You need a hundred and fifty dollars, but I can loan you a bank draft for that. What you have to come up with is a Yankee with a serious connection to this house.” She was staring at him, too desolate to go to war with him at the moment. He stared at her, waiting for her to say something.
“I don’t understand this. It can’t be legal without
warning—”
“Christa, don’t you understand? They’re saying at the courthouse that they’ve put up numerous flyers and warnings and that you’ve just ripped them all down.”
“My God! It’s a lie! It’s a horrible, filthy Yankee lie—”
“Christa, dammit, whether it’s a lie or not, it’s what they’re saying.” He hesitated, staring at her. “And hell, Christa, like it or not, the South was beaten! Your word is just about worthless right now!”
She grit her teeth tightly together. She wanted to run down the steps and pummel her fists against his chest. She wanted to hurt him.
“I need a brandy,” she announced tonelessly. She turned her back on him once again and started into the house.
No.
She paused a moment.
She could not lose it. Not after all this. Not after all these years. She could not lose the Hall. She had lost Liam. This was all that she really had left.
Jeremy followed behind her. She walked straight through the hallway to Jesse’s desk and pulled out the brandy bottle. When she started to fill the entire glass, he jerked the bottle out of her hand. She swirled on him, staring at him hatefully. “How dare you! You’re not my brother, my father, my husband—”
“That’s right, Christa, I’m no one but a filthy Yank. And you’re going to turn into a southern lush if you’re not careful!”
She stared at Jeremy. He was too tall and too damned superior with his cockaded hat sitting low on his brow and his eyes flashing at her with silver scorn. She had never felt more bitter. Maybe that was why she longed to slap him all the more.
But she was careful with Jeremy McCauley. She had come to know a little about her sister-in-law’s brother. He had a certain quality about him that might make someone else want to call him a gentleman.
He was extremely well built, with arms like iron and a hard, muscled chest. He was quick, and could be ruthless. He had no patience with her, and wouldn’t even pretend to play any chivalrous games.
Not that she had really attempted to play any games with him. She’d tried to keep her distance from him.
He’d been fighting a war for a long time too.
And in an all-out battle with him, she wouldn’t win. He was accustomed to snapping out orders, and he was always quick to give them to her. He must have known damned well by now that she would never obey him. He wasn’t her brother! And most certainly wasn’t her—
Husband.
A deep, searing chill came sweeping through her and her knees went weak. She took the chair before Jesse’s desk just as Jeremy sat himself, watching her with narrowed, speculative eyes as he poured himself a brandy.
“What?” he demanded in something that sounded like a growl.
She moistened her lips. She couldn’t do it. Not even for Cameron Hall.
She’d do anything for Cameron Hall.
“You’re trying to tell me that this has all been done legally? Or, at least, what you Yankees are calling legal these days?”
“Christa—”
“Someone hates either Jesse or Daniel. Probably Daniel—he was the loser here, right? Hates him enough to have gone through all kinds of machinations to burn this place to the ground.”
“Christa—”
“Is that it?”
“Yes, dammit, that’s it. So let’s try—”
She leaned forward. “Wait. I need one hundred and fifty dollars and the signature of someone connected with the hall who has sworn an oath to the Union. And whoever is doing this must know that Jesse is in Washington. Jesse could stop it, but he can’t get here in time. Someone knows that I’m alone here, and that I haven’t any Yankee relations nearby.”
“That’s about the gist of it,” Jeremy said. He tossed down the whole of his brandy, staring at her with his silver eyes. Then he sighed. “I’ll stay here, Christa. I’ll try to stop what’s happening, but somewhere along the line, one of your brothers made an enemy. A big enemy. I don’t know who. And I don’t rightly know what I can do, but I’ll try whatever I can.”
“You can sign the paper,” she said in a rush.
“Christa, I don’t own Cameron Hall. I don’t even have a real connection with it. Callie does, not me.”
“But you would, if—”
“If?”
Why did he have to stare at her the way that he was staring at her now? He was a Yankee to the core with that hard-edged face of his and those flashing eyes. And that voice that could sound like a whip-crack.
How the hell did she do this?
She stood suddenly, trying not to appear as nervous as she felt. She had to sound offhanded. As if it were certainly no major task she was asking of him.
She folded her hands before her and sighed in what she hoped was a very mature and very matter-of-fact manner. “We’ll have to be married,” she said. “Very, very quickly, of course.”
Maybe he would understand. It would just be something done on paper. It might be complicated to undo, but once they had saved the house, it could be done. Maybe, just maybe, he would understand, and make it easy for her.
“What?” he exploded, leaping to his feet and towering over her.
Then again, maybe he wouldn’t understand.
And he sure as hell wouldn’t make it easy for her.
It didn’t matter. He was going to have to do it. And she was going to have to convince him.
“Jeremy, it’s necessary.”
He came closer. She had to lift her chin and lean her head back to attempt to stare him down.
She didn’t like the disadvantage.
Her fingers curled around her glass and she tried to keep her gaze level with his. “Oh, you don’t have to take it seriously. We can do something about it later, I’m sure. But we’ll have to be married, and fast.”
He sank down into the chair behind Jesse’s desk again, a dark auburn brow arched high. “Oh, you think so, do you, Miss Cameron?” he demanded.
“Yes.”
His brow arched still further as he stared at her incredulously. “Just like that?” he said softly.
“It’s not such a big thing—”
His eyes narrowed sharply. She had come too close to him. He reached out, plucking the brandy glass from her hand, setting it on the desk. Then his fingers were suddenly wound around her wrist, and she was afraid of the strength in them, and afraid to fight him. Before she knew it she had been pulled down on her knees before him. “It’s not such a big thing, eh, Miss Cameron? Ah, no, not for you perhaps. Liam McCloskey is lying dead in a battlefield and you don’t give two figs for any other man living or dead.”
She tried to free herself. “That’s not true!” she cried out. “I care! I care about many people. I love my brothers—”
“And you love a hunk of bricks! Brick and mortar and glass and wood!”
She managed to jerk her hand free, lowering her head. “You don’t understand! It’s not a pile of brick! It’s my family, it’s history, it’s—it’s been here for centuries! It’s not just a house!”
For a moment he didn’t say anything. Then he ordered her, “Look at me, Christa!”
She did so. She wanted to be defiant. Maybe that would be the wrong ploy. In a way, Jeremy knew her well. He knew the gracious games that she could play, but he also always seemed to know what was in her heart.
“Christa, no.”
“Damn you!”
She wanted to hurt him. To scratch and strike out and hurt him. He was the conqueror. She had already lost, and she was about to lose more.
Don’t fight him! she warned herself. Play it softly, softly!
“Please!” she whispered, and she tried to give him a beseeching look.
“Don’t bat your lashes at me, Christa. I know you hate the very sight of me,” he said flatly.
Anger flashed through her eyes, making them brilliantly blue. “Then do it for your sister! Do it for your niece and your nephew. Do it because you goddamned filthy Yankees owe us something for this war
!”
“Ah, with such a declaration of undying love and devotion, how could I possibly refuse you!” he retorted, a hard curve to his lip.
“Then you’ll do it?”
“I already said no!”
“Oh!” she cried out. She freed her hand. She swung it at him with all her strength.
But he caught her wrist. “Christa! You have to stop fighting. You have to worry about—”
“I don’t care! I don’t care about anything. There won’t be anything left to care about.”
“Christa—”
His voice had changed. Just a little bit. She looked up into his eyes. They were pure silver now. Burning harshly within the handsome planes of his face.
“Christa, you hate me! And I must admit, you are not on the top of the list of my favorite Rebel women! You can’t marry me.”
“I’d marry that disgusting fur-face fleabag old Bobby-boy to save this place.”
“You can’t mean that!” he told her incredulously.
“I don’t know what I mean! All I know is that I can’t let it go!”
He pushed her away from him, furious. “It’s a pile of bricks!” he roared.
Tears touched her eyes again, glazing them. “I’d do anything.”
Before she knew it he was suddenly up again, his hands on hers as he wrenched her forcefully up before him. His eyes touched her like fire. “Anything, Christa?” he said. “Anything? What you’re asking me to do is a mockery. So you had best mean it. You would do anything to save this place. You’d marry that white trash. You’d marry me.”
She opened her eyes wide, gasping. “You mean—you’ll do it?” She couldn’t believe it. He seemed angrier than ever with her.
And furious with himself.
“Miss Cameron, you are quite something, you know. Marriage doesn’t mean a damn thing to you. You don’t, in the least, mind selling your own soul for Cameron Hall. But what of mine? What if I were in love with someone?”
She grit her teeth, meeting his eyes. She felt a trembling inside of her. It was quite possible. He was a very handsome man. She wasn’t blind and she wasn’t stupid. He was tall, trim-hipped, broad-shouldered, lean, and muscular. His face was both ruggedly masculine and classically cast, with high cheekbones, startling eyes, and striking, deep russet, high-arched brows. He was a war hero. There might well be a woman waiting for him in the North.