“Angel of mercy indeed. Is there, perhaps, a large quantity of arsenic in that well?”
Once again, her heart slammed hard against her chest. Then she could not feel it at all.
He was alive, and he was well. And he was free.
He had been there a while, just past the fence, beyond the range of her sight. He had dismounted, leading his horse, a gray Thoroughbred that had once been a very fine mount but now resembled all the other creatures of the Confederacy—too gaunt, with great big haunted brown eyes.
Why was she looking at the horse?
Daniel was there.
He hadn’t changed. He still towered over her, clad in a gray frock coat with a pale yellow sash looped around his waist, his sword at his side, buckled on by his scabbard. He wore dun trousers and high black cavalry boots, muddy and dusty boots that were indeed the worse for wear.
He wore a cavalry hat. It was rolled at the brim, pulled low over his eye, with a jaunty plume waving arrogantly from the top, laced to the hat at the narrow gold band around it.
She no longer gazed at his clothing, but met his eyes.
Those blue eyes she had never been able to forget. A blue framed by ebony dark lashes and high arched brows. A startling, searing, blue. A blue that penetrated her flesh with its fire, a blue that pierced into her, that raked her from head to toe. A blue that assessed, that judged, that condemned. That burned and smoldered with a fury that promised to explode.
They stared out at her from a face made lean by war, a handsome face made even more so by the lines of character now etched within it. His flesh was bronzed from his days in the saddle. His nose was dead straight, his cheekbones broad and well set. His lips were generous, sensual, and curled now in a crooked, mocking smile that nowhere touched his eyes.
“Hello, angel,” he said softly. His voice was a drawl, a sound she had never forgotten.
She mustn’t falter, she musn’t fail. She wasn’t guilty, though he would never believe her. It didn’t matter. She simply could never surrender to him, because he did not understand surrender himself.
Breathe! she commanded herself, breathe! Give no quarter, for it will not be given you. Show no fear, for he will but leap upon it. He is a horse soldier, and so very adept at battle.
But still her fingers trembled upon the ladle. Lightning seemed to rake along her spine, and at first, it was not courage that held her so very still and seemingly defiant before him. She was simply frozen there by fear.
She had always known that she would see him again. There had been nights when she had lain awake, praying that when that time came, all that had gone so very wrong between them might be erased. Many a night she had dreamed of him, and in those dreams she had savored again the taste of the sweet splendor and ecstasy that had been theirs so briefly, once upon a time.
She would never be able to convince him of the truth. So very little had been left to her in this war. But she still had her pride, and it was something that she must cling to. She’d never beg.
Or perhaps she would, if it could do her any good! But it would not, and so she would not sacrifice her pride. The war, it seemed, had stripped all mercy from him. She wanted to be as cold as he was.
She wished that she had betrayed him. With all her heart, at that moment, she wished that she could hate him with the same fury and vengeance he seemed to send her now.
Angel, he had called her. With venom, with mockery. With loathing. Surely the word had never been spoken with such a tone of malice.
“Cat got your tongue?” he said, his tone still soft, his Virginia drawl deep and cultured—and taunting. “How very unusual. Weren’t you expecting me?”
He seemed taller even as he stepped nearer to her, leading his gray horse. Despite his leanness, his shoulders seemed broader than ever, his size even more imposing, his supple grace of movement more menacing.
Run! Run now! Blind instinct warned her.
But there was nowhere to run.
He was a gentleman, she reminded herself. An officer, a horseman. One of the last of the cavaliers, as the Southerners liked to call their cavalry. He had been raised to revere women, to treat them kindly. He had been raised to prize his honor above all else, taught that pride and justice and duty were the codes by which he must live.
He had been taught mercy …
But no mercy lingered in his eyes as they fell upon her now. She nearly screamed as he reached toward her, but no sound came.
He didn’t touch her but merely pulled the dipper from her hand, and sank it into the bucket. He drank deeply of the fresh well water.
“No poison? Perhaps some shards of glass?” he murmured.
He stood just inches from her. The world around her was eclipsed.
For a fleeting moment, she was glad. She had thought him in prison, but she had believed, always, that he lived. No matter what he thought, what he believed, she had desperately desired that he live. Swiftly, sweetly, in a strange shining hour that had passed between them, she had loved him.
No color of cloth, no label of “enemy,” no choice of flag to follow could change what dwelt so deeply in her heart.
She had loved him through the long months of war. Loved him even while the belief of her betrayal found root in his heart, nurtured by the vicious months of war. She had loved him, she had feared him, and now he stood before her again. So close that she could feel the wool of his coat. So very close indeed that she could feel the warmth of his body, breathe in the scent of him. He had not changed. Lean and gaunt and ragged in his dress, he was still beautiful. Handsome in his build and stature, noble in his expression.
He came closer still. Those blue eyes like the razor-sharp point blade of his sword as they touched her. His voice was husky, low and tense and trembling with the heat of his emotion.
“You look as if you’re welcoming a ghost, Mrs. Michaelson. Ah, but then, perhaps you had wished that I would be a ghost by now, long gone, dust upon the battlefield. No, angel, I am here.” He was still as several seconds ticked slowly past, as the breeze picked up and touched them both. He smiled again. “By God, Callie, but you are still so beautiful. I should throttle you. I should wind my fingers right around your very beautiful neck, and throttle you. But even if you fell, you would torture me still!”
He hadn’t really touched her. Not yet. And she couldn’t afford to let him. She squared her shoulders, determined to meet his eyes, praying that she would not falter.
“Colonel, help yourself to water, and then, if you will, ride on. This is Union territory, and you are not welcome.”
To her amazement, he remained there, standing still. His brows arched as she pushed him aside and walked past him. Inwardly she trembled, her show of bravado just that—a show. But there was no surrender in this. That had long ago been decided between them. Regally, she walked on. She would not run. Head high, she continued toward the house.
“Callie!”
He cried out her name. Cried it out with fury and with anguish.
The sound of his voice seemed as if to touch her. To rip along her back, to pierce into her heart and soul and bring both fear and longing.
It was then that she suddenly began to run. She couldn’t look back. She had to reach the house.
She picked up her skirts and scurried across the dusty yard toward the rear porch. She leapt up the steps, ran across the wood planks and through the back door. She leaned against it, her heart leaping.
“Callie!”
His voice thundered out her name again. She gasped arid jumped away from the door, for he was hammering it down with the weight of his shoulders.
He had warned her.
There would be no place to run.
No place to hide.
She backed away from the door, gnawing on her knuckles. There had to be some place to hide!
He couldn’t strangle her. It might be war, but Rebel soldiers didn’t strangle Yankee women. What would he do to her?
She didn’t want to know
.
“Daniel, go away! Go home, go back to your men, to your army—to your South!”
The door burst open. He stood there staring at her once again, and there was no taunting in his eyes now, or in his smile.
“What? Are there no troops close enough to come to your rescue once you’ve seduced me into your bed this time?”
She had never, never seduced him!
There was a coffee cup upon the kitchen table. Her fingers curled around it and she hurled it at him. “Go away!” she commanded him.
He ducked, ably avoiding the coffee cup.
“Go away?” he repeated. “How very rude, Mrs. Michaelson! When I have waited all these months to return? I lay awake nights dreaming for a chance to come back to your side. What a fool I was, Callie! And still, I suppose I did not learn.”
He stepped into the kitchen, swept his hat from his head, and sent it flying onto the kitchen table. “Well, I have come back, angel. And I’m very anxious to pick up right where I left off. Let’s see, where was that? Your bedroom, I believe. Ah, that’s right. Your bed. And let’s see, just how were we situated?”
“Get out of my house!” Callie snapped.
“Not on your life,” he promised. He smiled again, a bitter, self-mocking curl. “Not, madam, on your life!”
He strode toward her, and a sizzling fear suddenly swept through her. He wouldn’t really hurt her, she assured herself. He’d never really hurt her. Not Daniel. He’d threaten, he’d taunt, but he’d never really hurt her….
But she couldn’t let him touch her. She couldn’t want him again. She couldn’t fall again!
“Don’t!” she warned.
“This is one invasion of the North that is going to be successful,” he warned her, his tone bringing shivers down her spine. He smiled, relentlessly coming toward her, his eyes ruthless as they fixed upon hers.
Callie knocked a chair into his path. He barely noticed.
“Don’t, damn you! You have to listen to me—” she began.
“Listen to you!” he exclaimed. She heard the sound of his fury explode in his voice. “Callie, time is precious! I have not come to talk this night. I listened to you once before.”
“Daniel, don’t come any nearer. You must—”
“I must finish what you started, Callie. Then maybe I can sleep again at night.”
He reached for her arm and the fire in his eyes seemed to sizzle through the length of her. She didn’t know him anymore. Or had she ever really known him? In his eyes she could see the effect of his days in the prison camp and even the days beyond. She had not imagined that he might be so ruthless. She still did not know how far he could go.
“Daniel, stop!” she hissed. She jerked free of his hold upon her arm, turned, and ran.
He was on her heels, not racing, just following her.
Relentlessly.
She stopped and found a vase and tossed it his way. He ducked again, and the vase crashed against a wall. She tore through the parlor, looking for more missiles. A shoe went flying his way, a book, a newspaper. Nothing halted his stride.
She reached the stairs, and he was there behind her. She started to race up them and realized her mistake. He was behind her. She reached the landing. When she paused to catch her breath, his fingers entwined in her hair, and she was wrenched back and swept into his arms. Struggling wildly, beating her fists against his chest, she met his eyes. For a moment she was still, breathing hard, her breasts heaving with her exertion.
“Let’s finish what we started, shall we, angel?”
“Let me go!” Callie demanded. Tears stung her eyes. He was alive; he held her again. So many days and nights of dreams and memories had passed her by. If only he could be made to understand, if only she could see his smile, hear his laughter once again.
If only he could believe her.
But he would never understand, and there was nothing left for her but the violence and the fury in his eyes.
“Let you go?” he repeated, his tone bitter. “Once I tried to walk away. To honor both North and South, and everything that we both held sacred. But you raced after me, angel. You could not bear to have me leave. You wanted me to stay here. Remember, Mrs. Michaelson? Here.”
He walked again, carrying her into her room. A second later she found herself falling, cast down with very little care or tenderness onto the bed. She struggled to rise, her heart beating furiously. She wanted to fight him with a vengeance, and she hated the excitement that was snaking its way into her limbs.
Did it matter? Did anything matter when he was alive, when he had returned? When she could reach out her arms and hold him once again. When the night could sweep them into fields of ecstasy where there was no North and no South and where the sounds of roaring cannons and rifle fire could not intrude. Sweet, magical places where there was no black powder to singe the air, no pain of death, no anguish of defeat.
No! She could not hold him, she could give nothing to him, take nothing from him, for he sought not love, but vengeance. He had sworn once that he would never hurt her, and she had to believe in that vow, for in his present ruthless mood, she had no way to fight him.
“Don’t!” she commanded. “Don’t even think—”
But he was suddenly straddled over her, stripping off his mustard gauntlets to catch her wrists where she pressed against him.
“Just what am I thinking, Callie?” he demanded.
She lay silent, watching his eyes. There was no mercy within them. Hard and brilliantly blue, they impaled her where she lay upon the pillow. She had no choice but to fight him, and fight him with equal fervor.
“I don’t know. What are you thinking?” she asked, gritting her teeth.
“Ah, if the Yanks but had you in the field!” he murmured. “Maybe you are recalling the last time we met. It was right here. I’ll never forget, because I loved this room from the first time I saw it. I loved the dark wood of the furniture, and the soft white of the curtains and the bed. And I loved the way that you looked here. I’ll never forget your hair. It was like a sunset spread across the pillow. Sweet and fragrant, and so enticing. Newly washed, like silk. I can’t forget your eyes. I can go on, Callie. There’s so much that I never forgot. I remembered you in camp, and I remembered you every moment that I planned and plotted an escape. I thought of your mouth, Callie. It’s a beautiful mouth. I thought of the way that you kissed me. I thought of your lovely neck, and the beauty of your breasts. I thought of the feel of your flesh, and the movement of your hips. Over and over and over again. I remembered wanting you like I’d never wanted anything or anyone before in my life. Of feeling more alive than ever before just because I breathed in the scent of you as I lay against your breast. And when you touched me, I think I came closer to believing I had died and gone to heaven than I’ve ever done upon a battlefield. Damn you! I was in love with you. In the midst of chaos, I was at peace. I believed in you, and dear God, when I lay here with you, I even believed in life again. What a fool I was!”
“Daniel—” Callie said, desperate to explain.
“No! Don’t!” he said coldly. His fingers shook as they grasped her wrists. She felt the terrible tension in his limbs as his thighs tightened around her. Her heartbeat lifted and soared further. “Don’t!” he insisted again. “Don’t tell me anything. Don’t give me any protestations of innocence. I’ll tell you what I’ve thought over all these months. I’ve thought that you were a spy, and that you deserved the fate of a spy. I thought about choking the life out of you.” He released her wrists. His knuckles moved slowly up and down the column of her throat. She didn’t move. She didn’t dare breathe. In fascination, in dread, she listened as he continued to speak. “But I could never do it,” he said quietly. “I could never wind my fingers around that long white neck. I could never do anything to mar that beauty. Then I thought that you should be hanged, or that you should be shot. Through long dark nights, Callie, I thought about all of these things…. But do you know what I thought
about most of all?”
His face had lowered against hers. Taut, bitter, hard. She should have fought him then. Fought him while she was nearly free.
But she did not. She stared at him and at the eyes that held hers so fiercely and passionately. “What?” she whispered.
“I thought about being here with you. I thought about this bed. I thought about your naked flesh, and I thought about your smile when it seemed that you poured yourself upon me, heart, soul, and body. I thought about the way that your eyes could turn silver. I thought that all I wanted was to be back here.”
His fingers moved suddenly upon the lace of her bodice. And still Callie didn’t move. Not until he spoke again.
“I wondered what it would be like to have you when I hated you every bit as much as I had once loved you,” he said softly.
At last, too late, she came to life. She tried to strike his face, but he caught her wrist. “Hate me, then, you fool!” she told him heatedly. “Give me no chance, no leave, no grace, no mercy—”
“Were I to give you more mercy, I might as well shoot myself, madam!” he swore.
“You self-righteous bastard!” she charged him. “Hate me and I will despise you. You were the enemy! You are the enemy! This is Union soil! God damn you for expecting more from me,” Callie swore. Enraged beyond all reason, she managed in a fierce and violent burst of energy to twist away from beneath him.
He moved like lightning, dragging her back down. Gasping, struggling wildly, she fought him, until her breath left her, until she was caught and spent. She stared hatefully up into his eyes again.
Her situation was worse, for now the length of him lay against her, and all the fever and the fury and the heat that had burned and built so long within him seemed to encompass her.
“Here we are, Callie. You’ll not leave me tonight. And you’ll not betray me,” he whispered fiercely.
“And you’ll not have me!”
“I will.”
“It would be—rape!” she spat out.
“I doubt it.”
“Oh, you flatter yourself!”
“I’ve waited long and cold and furious nights, Callie. I will have you.”