She stared at him with regal disdain, then started down the aisle to pass him by. “You never mind. Whatever comes in the future will have to come. Nothing could be so wretched as you—”
He didn’t allow her past him. He caught her arm, and forced her eyes to his. “Where’s the priest, Rhiannon?”
“What?”
“You summoned me to marry you. Where’s the priest?”
Her eyes widened. “He’s—he’s on his way. I—I needed time to talk with you, to ask you first, naturally, to—”
“To set me up?” he accused softly.
“No! I—I—” she stuttered. Her lashes fell again. “Damn you! I need you to marry me.” She stared at him again, fire in her gaze once again. “Do you wish to do it or not?”
He hesitated, smiling slowly.
“If you’ve just come to torment me, let go—”
“Marry you? Of course, with the greatest pleasure. How could I possibly refuse such a heartfelt request?”
A sound at the door sent him spinning around. Damn her! She so easily taunted him from the care he usually took. But it was Father Vickery who had come, the young Georgian Episcopal priest.
“I’m sorry I’ve taken so long,” he apologized, nervously stroking his chin as he hurried in. “I wanted to make sure that I properly record the marriage, assure that it’s legal.”
“Of course!” Rhiannon said softly. “You were sent here, to help us, of course?” she queried.
Julian watched her. Had she been expecting a priest? Or was she assuming Vickery had been sent by her Yankee cohorts?
Vickery cleared his throat. “We needed witnesses as well,” he said, opening the door a few inches farther. “I really moved as quickly as I could, recruiting these ladies!”
Two young women had accompanied them. They both smiled.
“This is so romantic!” said the rounder of the pair. “I’m Emma Darrow, this is my sister, Lucy.”
“Lovely, just lovely!” Lucy agreed.
“Thank you,” Rhiannon murmured.
“Charmed!” Emma supplied, and giggled.
“So lovely!” Lucy said again.
“We must hurry and get back. The dawn is beginning to break in earnest, and God knows what horrors today will bring!” Father Vickery said. He caught Rhiannon’s hand, hurrying down the aisle with her. “You stand there. I’ll give you into marriage myself—you are the lady in question, right?”
“Yes, she is, Father,” Julian supplied dryly, since she was the only other female present. If the whole thing weren’t so sad, it would be amusing.
But Father Vickery, though nervous, suddenly seemed to have his wits about him. He began the rite of marriage, speaking very quickly, but clearly. When it came time for Rhiannon to give her vows, she stared at Julian in white silence.
He squeezed her hand so tightly she eked out a cry, but then, choking over the words, she spoke them. Clearly. Loudly. Keeping her hand tight in his, Julian gave his promise to love, honor, and cherish her, as long as they both should live. He used his family signet ring for a wedding band.
“I now pronounce you man and wife. Kiss your bride, and get back to camp!” Father Vickery said. He hurriedly started down the aisle to exit the church. “Emma, Lucy, come along, come along. Julian, you must hurry! Kiss the lady, be done with it!” It was a final warning. Father Vickery fled, but still, Julian didn’t touch his bride.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asked. She looked as if she were about to expire.
“Well, one way or the other, it is done,” he said briefly. “But you’ll forgive me; I really can’t linger. Yet, I warn you. I pray to God you’ll have the sense to keep safe. I may be in enemy territory, but I do have ways to make sure that you don’t risk a child’s life the way you do your own.”
He turned away from her. “Wait!” she cried.
He turned back.
“Stay, just a minute. ...” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I can’t stay.”
Quite suddenly, she threw herself at him. She came into his arms smelling seductively like roses. Her fingers twined into the hair at his nape, she came upon her toes, and found his lips. Her tongue teased for entry. Stunned, he found himself enfolding her to him, weeks of abstinence tearing into his system, and giving him a hunger for her that seemed to tear into his heart and mind. He kissed her passionately in return, holding her close, tasting her, savoring each second. ...
Then vaguely, he became aware of the sounds beyond the church. She broke away from him at last.
Her words were whispered with lips not an inch from his own, still damp from the passion of their kiss.
“I’m sorry, Julian. But, you see, you would have died.”
The passion? The trickery. He’d been right all along. He’d been the biggest fool in the world. She had lured him here, careful of the timing, keeping the Yankees away at first, knowing full well he would be watching for a trap. But now, they had arrived. Discreetly. Quietly. They were outside the church, ready to break in, to seize him should he become too enamored of his bride.
He wore a Colt in a holster at his side, and at times, he wore a dress sword as well. Not tonight, and not that it mattered. He was a surgeon, a medical man, not a strategist, and not the usual Yankee prey. And many Yanks would just as soon die as face a Rebel surgeon. But many more were probably willing to bear his touch if it meant that their lives be spared, or if a limb might be saved.
Bitterness swept through him. He wasn’t going to pull the Colt, kill the men sent to seize him, and go down in a blaze of glory himself. They’d shoot him down from the front door. And he intended to live. Besides, there might be a chance to escape later without being shot down, if he kept his wits about him.
He pulled away from her, staring into her eyes. The truth was there. Every bit of it. She had planned this, so that he might be captured. She had thrown the kiss in at the last minute so that he would not leave too quickly. “You bitch!” he accused her softly.
“I said I was sorry!”
He caught her about the waist once again, jaw taut, ice seeming to fill his veins. He held her with such a force that she was crushed against him, her back arched, her chin high. “Dear wife,” he promised her, “trust me, I will see to it that you are very, very sorry, indeed.”
She shook her head, angry now at the way he held her—and that she hadn’t the power to escape his arms. “You persist in being a foolish Rebel. I’m not your wife, and you will not make me sorry! That priest was no more real than my story.”
So it had all been a ruse. But she was mistaken.
He laughed softly. “I beg to differ, my dear. That was Father Vickery, out of Atlanta, devoted to his Georgian boys. Georgians, being Florida neighbors, try to help us out and the good Father Vickery just happened to be the closest clergy when I was getting ready to ride out. You may not be expecting my child. But I’m afraid that you are my wife.”
Disbelief touched her eyes.
The door to the church burst open. “Captain McKenzie! Julian!”
He knew the voice, and he wasn’t surprised, other than the fact that a general could be spared at this hour to take part in a capture. He had saved General Angus Magee’s foot when the fellow had nearly pushed it to a point when only amputation would have saved his life.
“General Magee, sir!” he returned pleasantly, still staring at Rhiannon.
“Julian, step away from Mrs. Tremaine and drop your weapon, sir!”
He stepped away from her, his eyes pinned upon hers. He smiled slowly, reached for the Colt, tossed it down. His stare didn’t alter or flinch as he heard the men rushing into the room to take him. Yet, as they reached him, they didn’t touch him, they hovered awkwardly around him.
At last he drew his gaze from her green eyes. “Good evening, gentlemen. No, I’m afraid it’s morning. Where does the time go? It seems to fly when so many are about to die, doesn’t it?”
One of the men cleared hi
s throat and started toward him. Julian shook his head, smiling. “There’s no need for force or manhandling, my good fellow. Point me where I am to go, and I shall proceed.”
“Just come along, Julian,” General Magee said. His still striking, if aging, face, lined with pride and character, seemed to sag that night. He stood just in the entry of the small church.
“Aye, sir, as you wish,” Julian said politely. “Tell me, since we have this happenstance to meet, sir, do you know if my brother is well?”
“Yes, Julian. Ian is well. But he isn’t a part of this; he knows nothing about it—”
“No, sir. My brother wouldn’t be a part of such naked treachery.”
Magee stiffened. “Mrs. Tremaine?” he said softly, ready to defend and protect Rhiannon.
Julian had reached the general at the door, but he knew she walked behind him. He stepped out to the clearing. Yankee horsemen were aligned thirty feet from him. He turned back. Magee had exited the church, Rhiannon at his side.
He smiled, addressing them both. “By the way, your pardon, General Magee, but she is Mrs. McKenzie now. I’m afraid you and your men were a little late,” he said, his tone apologetic.
Magee stared at Rhiannon. “My dear girl, is it true?”
“No!” she said, her whispered word alarmed.
“General, I swear to you that it is. Father Vickery will tell you so, before God. The lady is over twenty-one. So am I. The marriage is legal and binding. With witnesses. Ah! And in private, sir!” he said, lowering his voice so that only the general and Rhiannon could hear his words. “As I did the right, proper, and most gentlemanly thing, coming here at the lady’s summons—and since I have become your prisoner—I ask you to do me a service. As an officer, and a gentleman. Rhiannon is in your medical service,” he said softly, “be kind enough to keep an eye on her. She has a tendency to believe herself dreaming of her dear departed Richard—then turning to the nearest living, breathing body—”
She stepped forward and slapped him. It was a hard, stinging strike. Hard enough to make him feel the blow straight to his jaw.
He lifted his hand to his face, then bowed deeply to her. He turned around and started for the horse that the Yankees held for his use. He swung atop the animal. It was sleek. In excellent condition. He saw the opportunity he’d been waiting for. A gap in the Yankee line. Lying against the horse’s neck, he moved his heels against its flanks. It leapt to life, bolting straight for the gap.
“Stop him!” Magee commanded. “What, will we be the laughingstock of the battle, losing a lone surgeon?”
“Men—” Magee began.
Two cavalrymen managed to fill the gap. It didn’t matter, Julian needed only spin his mount and ride hard straight back and to the left. But when he swung his mount around and started pell-mell back, she was there, in his path, eyes on his. Tall, straight, as still as a statue, challenging him.
Not much of a challenge. She knew he would stop.
He reined in his mount. Instantly, the soldiers were on him, dragging him from the horse. One of the men swung at him with the butt of his rifle. A good, solid blow. Julian’s head rang. The whack had been strong enough to cause a fracture, pray God, no.
He started to fall, the world going black. But he saw her. Saw her beautiful green eyes upon his. He reached out. She screamed, but he had caught her hand. And with what strength he had left, he pulled her to him.
And she came down with him. The world continued to fade. No matter. He smiled at her. Tried to mouth words. “I swear, dear wife, you will be sorry.”
Indeed. Brave, bold words, especially when the world was fading to a total black. ...
“He’s unconscious, ma’am, if you’ll take my hand. ...” one of the young horsemen offered.
Rhiannon looked up. Nodded. She looked down at Julian again. His eyes were closed, a long lock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead. “You’ll just never know, never believe, that I did this ... because I love you,” she whispered, knowing that neither he, nor anyone else, could hear her.
Cannon fire suddenly exploded far too close to them. “Get the prisoner up and to the field hospital!” Magee commanded. “The day’s work has commenced, and gentlemen, may I remind you, the fate of a nation may rest here today!”
The fate of a nation. What of the fate of people? Did she have the power to change fate? She’d been willing to risk anything to change her dream. She’d tricked him, betrayed him.
He’d tricked her. And now, if he’d told the truth, they were evermore entangled in a hopeless web. ...
Fate. Had it all been destined, from that first night when he had ridden through the foliage to the isolation of her house, and into her life?
Chapter 1
PADDY MACDOUGALL WAS DYING.
Julian McKenzie carried his stalwart old friend before him on the scrawny gray nag with a show of courage and a sinking heart. If he didn’t get the sergeant to some decent shelter soon, get the bullet out of his leg, and stanch the flow of blood, the man would almost certainly perish. Their ragtag troop of skirmishers, eleven in all including him, a surgeon, ostensibly a noncombatant, had ridden hard, zigzagging a good distance from their camp to avoid discovery by the Yanks in pursuit, and now, though it seemed they had eluded the enemy, they were far from home.
“There, sir, up there!” Private Jim Jones called out, pointing through the trees. “A house!”
The sun had begun to set several minutes ago and that, combined with a light billowing of summer’s fog, gave a surreal appearance to the pine forest surrounding them—and the pathway to the plantation house ahead. In classical Greek style, the house boasted a large porch with six massive white columns. Its last coat of paint had most probably been white, but time and the elements had faded its pristine color to a dull gray that all but matched the dusk and fog. The forests and foliage surrounding the house had grown wild, and the place appeared to be abandoned.
“Thank God!” Julian breathed, blue eyes sharp on the facade before him. “Let’s get Paddy to shelter, men. The place looks empty, but hopefully we’ll find a place where I can make Paddy comfortable and get to work.”
“Wait, sir! Colonel, sir!”
Julian paused, looking back. Liam Murphy, just eighteen—if he was telling the truth at that, and the newest recruit among their troops—was anxiously calling to him. Julian realized unhappily that all the men were looking at him as if he were a military man, trained for strategy. His older brother—the Yankee, he thought with dry amusement—was the one who’d gone to West Point. He’d gone to medical school.
Steady nerves under fire and an ability to assume command when field officers had lain dead around him had recently brought him a battlefield promotion to colonel of their small militia unit, which frequently made him the officer in command. Due to the strange conditions under which they fought—too few fighting men in a state that had been stripped of the majority of her troops—he found himself in combat situations despite his oath to save lives.
Guilt often plagued him by night; survival instincts kept him returning fire by day.
“I don’t think we should go there, sir,” Liam told him. He was a skinny youth with earnest eyes as green as the fields of County Cork, from where his family hailed. His father had died at the second Manassas, his mother of fever or a broken heart, and his three young sisters were now scattered to relatives about the South. He wasn’t bitter, and he wasn’t determined to fight for revenge, but justice. For a youth he had a good head on his shoulders, and Julian arched a brow, ready to hear what he had to say.
“Private Murphy, I have a dying man here,” Julian said.
“I don’t think that the place is empty, sir.”
“You know this house?” Julian asked.
Liam nudged his mount, an old gelding that looked as if it would fall over in a heavy breeze, urging it closer to Julian.
“I’ve heard tell of the place, sir. It’s said the folks there were Unionists—we might be riding
into danger.”
Julian stared at the house. It didn’t much matter who had owned the place if it was deserted. And if it wasn’t, well, at worst, someone’s old mother and maybe a mammy were left behind. As small as their band of soldiers was, they could surely hold their own against a few women.
“Private Murphy, I acknowledge your concern. But I’ve got to find shelter where I can work.”
“Colonel, we’ve got to have a few minutes rest as well,” Corporal Henry Lyle told him, nudging his own mount forward. “Liam, boy, we’ll take care, but we were on the road two days solid searching out that Yankee depot, and now we’ve been running night and day.” Lyle, a grizzled old codger of indeterminate age, solid and steady as rock, looked at Julian over Liam’s head. They were exhausted and beaten, and shelter lay ahead.
“There’s more,” Liam said stubbornly.
“Oh?” Julian queried.
“A witch lives there. Or she did.”
Henry Lyle broke into laughter, along with the rest of the men, Kyle Waverly from Palatka, Keith and Daniel Anderson out of Jacksonville, River Montdale from Tampa, and the Henly cousins, Thad and Benjamin, out of Tallahassee.
“Liam, if there’s a witch in there, we’ll burn her,” Thad said, riding by Liam to ruffle the boy’s hair. “God a’mighty! If there’s a witch anywhere near, I’m praying she can conjure up a chicken or a hog. I’m hungrier than a bear.”
“Don’t count on any hogs,” his cousin Ben said, riding on by him to reach Julian. “Maybe we can scavenge up some roots or old canned food. Doc—Colonel, sir—what do you say?”
Julian looked at the house, then at Liam, who was as red as a beet but who was still looking at him steadily. He shook his head at Liam. “Boy, I haven’t got any choice. If there are any witches up there, we’re just going to have to deal with them. Paddy’s dying. I can feel his blood seeping through my fingers.”
“And hell, if there are Yank sympathizers in there, it won’t matter much, anyway. We don’t have any real uniforms,” Kyle Waverly, a young schoolteacher before the war, a graying philosopher now after two years of constant skirmishing, reminded them. He hiked a brow at Julian, scratching his bearded chin. “If there are any Yanks, we can just say we’re heading on in to join up with the Unionists at St. Augustine. Who would ever know the difference?”