Surrender (12 page)

“Sleep well?” she demanded irritably.

“Did you?”

“Not a wink, you wretched Confederate.”

He smiled suddenly, startling her.

A handsome smile … even though there was a disturbing light in his eyes as he watched her. He seemed to look at her with a mocking regard that was far more amused than malicious; she realized he had probably been awake some time—aware that she’d been watching him.

She inhaled sharply, anxious to be away from his scrutiny. “Could you possibly let me free? I need to stretch my legs and—”

“Go right ahead.”

She frowned. “But—”

He lifted his arm. She saw that he was no longer shackled to her. At sometime during the night—while she hadn’t been sleeping a wink—he had freed himself from his half of the steel set of shackles.

She swore, leaping out of the bed, and inadvertently hitting him in the head with the steel dangling from her wrist.

He swore.

He’d deserved it, she determined. She didn’t look back. She hurried to the washbowl and dumped water from the pitcher into it, studiously scrubbing her face and her hands.

“Hmm … it would appear you did sleep some,” he said, and she nearly jumped, for he spoke from directly behind her. She spun around to face him. He handed her a towel. The curious light of amusement remained in his eyes. “Apparently, you slept quite well for several hours, at least—either that or you were far more eager for my company than I dared hope! I had a meeting downstairs late last night that ran into several hours, so we were forced to part company despite my concern regarding your whereabouts.”

She took an angry swing at him, hoping that she might catch him in the temple and temporarily disable him—since her wrist was still clad in steel. But he anticipated the movement, and he was very fast. He caught her wrist, twisting her arm so that she was spun around, her back to him. She thought he meant her real harm at last; but she heard the twist of a key, and she realized that he had freed her. She moved away from him, spinning warily again to face him.

“I’m so sorry to leave you,” he said politely, “but I do have business to attend to. My men believe you to be far more formidable than any of the armed, masculine enemy they meet—they were far more ready to face the guns of battle than stay behind and keep you under guard. Alas—someone had to do it. Jeremiah will be here to see to your wants and needs. He will not be guarding you alone.”

He turned and headed toward the door. He was going off to battle someone somewhere—and leaving her behind, she thought. For how long? Where was he going? Why wasn’t he taking her?

He was almost out the door. “Wait!”

He paused at the door.

“Where are you going?”

He arched a brow to her. “Miss Magee, you are for the Union, and I am for the Confederacy. Therefore, you are the enemy. And you seem to acquire quite enough information on your own—without my help. Indeed, I think you’d ride right up to Davis in Richmond and ask him for the South’s strategy, but
I
certainly don’t intend to tell you more.”

“Captain, you are very amusing. I’m not asking for your battle plans, I simply want to know if—”

“Oh, I will be coming back for you!” he assured her.

“When?”

“When the battle is over.”

“What if you’re killed?”

“My men will see to it that you’re returned north.”

“What if all your men are killed?”

“Oh, well, then, I’ve left instructions that you’re to be given a long and gruesome death … strung up by your ankles, skinned alive, disemboweled, the works.”

Stunned, she stared at him blankly.

He sighed deeply, impatiently.

“Arrangements will be made for you to be brought to St. Augustine from here, Miss Magee. What else?” he inquired.

Naturally, she felt like an idiot and didn’t reply.

“You needn’t be so worried,” he told her.

“I’m not worried.”

“Good. And I’m not going to die,” he said, a half smile curving his lip. He offered her a very proper bow, causing a lock of deep auburn hair to fall over his eye. He pushed it back, and started to leave the room again, but paused, frowning.

“Why are you still in Jeremiah’s old breeches? New clothing was provided for you.”

“I wouldn’t think of taking anything from the Confederacy.”

“They weren’t from the Confederacy. They were from me. And though there are times when I’m loath to admit it, we McKenzies are quite well off.”

“I wouldn’t dream of taking anything from you,” she snapped.

“Well, then, that’s your choice. Good day, Miss Magee.”

He dismissed her, and exited the room. She stared after him in nervous frustration.

It was horrible to be dragged along on a Confederate ship.

It was worse to be left behind.

She hurried after him, swinging the door open. She stopped short as the door frame was filled with the body of a man.

He had Indian blood, perhaps Spanish or French, and black. He was at least six foot six, and perhaps three hundred pounds of pure muscle. He smiled at her. “You need something, general’s daughter?” he asked, his accent heavy.

“Captain McKenzie—”

“Gone. Jeremiah brings you breakfast, books.”

He shooed her back into the room as if she were a child or a puppy. With little choice, she returned to the room and plopped down on the bed.

It was going to be a long day.

At Precisely 11:00 A.M., the battle began.

Last night, Jerome had gone over the route with Captain Menkin of the
Montmarte
, and between them, they’d tried to pinpoint the time and place where the
USN Invincible
would most likely attack. They had concluded that she would try for the
Montmarte
mid to late morning, an hour out of Nassau harbor, due north. Their assumptions were incredibly close.

Jerome had taken the
Lady Varina
a fair distance behind the
Montmarte
, yet with the heavily laden vessel always in his sights. At first sight of the
Invincible
speeding in for the attack, he had increased his own speed, flying across the water.

They’d had little choice but to allow the
Invincible
to get in a few shots, yet they were lucky. Her first volley of cannon fire fell short of the ship, and her second volley overshot the
Montmarte.
Her third volley would have been true, dead-on, but she never got off a third volley of fire. By then, the
Lady Varina
had come about, and her first volley ripped into the mainmast of the
Invincible
; her second, fired while the sailors of the
Invincible
ran about in stunned surprise, tore into the aft of
the ship. It was evident that the enemy was sinking, even before the
Montmarte
gave the coup de grace, firing into the forward section of the ship.

Jerome was deeply pleased. They hadn’t suffered so much as a powder burn. And there was no hand-to-hand combat to be met that day; the crew of the
Invincible
surrendered. Her men were taken aboard the
Montmarte
, what could be salvaged of her guns and supplies was taken as well.

The
Invincible
did not live up to her name; she died a slow, sad death, taking several hours to sink, as if she fought death gallantly all the while. Jerome, standing forward in the
Montmarte
with the ramrod straight, sixtyish Captain Menkin, felt a genuine regret as he watched her go down. She had been a beautiful ship.

“A good day’s work,” Menkin said, pleased.

“Can any of this be called a good day’s work?” Jerome mused. The battle had not taken long, the aftermath had stretched into the afternoon. Now the sun was just beginning to fall. The sea and sky were beautiful, yet he could hear the groans of the wounded who lay on the deck, awaiting their turns with the two Rebel surgeons from the
Montmarte
and the
Lady Varina
—one of only two direct casualties aboard the
Invincible
had been her surgeon. He’d been killed instantly when a beam from the mast had cracked his skull.

“Captain,” Menkin said with a tone of reproach, “it is a good day’s work. The Yanks meant to take
me
, but we have taken them instead. Each of our victories brings us closer to resolution of these hostilities. The more ships we take, the more men killed, the greater the effort the citizenry of our Northern neighbor will put on her government to recognize us as a sovereign country. We do not have the manufacturing capabilities, nor the population, to win this war if we can’t pressure the average citizen in the North to be done with the death and mayhem!”

Menkin was right, and Jerome knew it. He shrugged though. Menkin was a captain—not a shipbuilder. He didn’t mourn the loss of the beautifully crafted
Invincible
. He could feel little satisfaction that day with their victory. He felt a dull pain in his heart, and little more.

“Aye, Captain, true enough,” he said. He turned to Menkin. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain, I believe I’ll see if I can be of some assistance to our surgeons.”

“Ah, yes, you’ve a brother practicing medicine in South Carolina, eh? Your mother had kin there, is that right?”

“My mother inherited a working plantation house outside of Charleston, but my brother is now working with General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, sir.”

“You’ve a cousin in medicine as well?”

“In the field along the St. Johns, yes.”

Menkin looked to the water. “And, then, you’re related to Ian McKenzie as well,” Menkin said distastefully.

“Yes, another cousin.”

“A traitor.”

“Many Southerners have chosen the side of the North, especially those who have been military for some time.”

Menkin snorted. “The truth of it is, he’s a Floridian, a Southerner, and by God, he shouldn’t be making war on his own state! You mark my words—he will rue his disloyalty! If I catch him—”

“Truth, Captain Menkin, is often a matter of perception. Quite frankly, sir, both the President of the U.S. and our own Jefferson Davis were actually born in Kentucky. Lincoln must suffer the agony of the damned each day—since his wife’s kin are Southerners as well. And I imagine Jeff Davis himself mourns the deaths of many of his old friends in the government and military when they fall prey to Southern bullets.”

“Young man, if you were to meet your cousin in battle—”

“Sir, I pray that I will not meet my cousin in battle. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

Menkin said nothing else. He was a tall stiff silhouette in the evening as the sun fell. Jerome left him, glad again that he captained his own ship, and that for the most part, his superiors let him be. Menkin was a strange man, seeing many things clearly. Yet there was something cold about him.

Jerome suddenly wished that he could be so damned
certain that they were entirely right. He had to admit, he didn’t believe either side was right.

Neither, it seemed, did God.

He walked across the deck, looking for David Stewart. When the wounded men were patched and tended as best as possible, Dr. Stewart was to return to the
Lady Varina
with Jerome and the few men who had joined him to assist. After the incident with the
Invincible
, however, Jerome had agreed his best course was to follow the
Montmarte
until she neared Charleston harbor, and there engage any Union ship that might try to block her. He wasn’t adverse to doing so; it was the only logical course of action.

But he chafed, nevertheless, at the time it would take. He had left Risa Magee in Nassau. And if he followed the
Montmarte
, it was going to take him nearly a week to return for her. It made him very nervous, indeed. The lady had a way with her. Though she was guarded by Big Tim—or Jimmy—Risa was cunning, clever, and determined. Yet he was just as determined to return her to a safe harbor. It was a matter of pride, honor, and principle.

And besting the lady herself, naturally.

He didn’t know why he felt such a surging conflict regarding the woman. He didn’t blame her for fighting—in her position, he would fight. Maybe he blamed himself. Last night, she had, at first, stayed as far away from him as possible while shackled to him and on the same bed. He had known when exhaustion had overwhelmed her, and he had been somewhat amazed himself that she had actually slept all the time he’d been downstairs planning today’s work with Menkin. When he’d returned to her room, she’d stirred, and he’d silently resumed his position at her side.

But she hadn’t wakened. She’d turned against him, a slim, trouser-clad leg thrown over his thigh, a hand cast upon his chest. She’d even rested her head against his arm. And it had been as if a brush fire had taken hold in his bloodstream. She’d moved upon occasion, nuzzled more closely against him, sighed—and damned near hugged him. He thought at one time that her eyes had even opened. Yet…

The room had been dark. And if she’d been dreaming, she’d surely dreamed about his cousin. How odd. There’d been dozens of times he’d been with a woman in the dark. A quadroon doxie in New Orleans, a rich divorcée in Charleston, a saloon keeper’s daughter in Key West. In the dark … they were all alike.

As a very young man, scarce out of his teens, he’d fallen in love with the sister of an adventurous young Irishman come to make his living as a salvage diver with his brother-in-law, Lawrence, now dead nearly a year himself. Mary had been two years younger with hair so ebony it gleamed blue like a raven’s wing, eyes alight with silver glitter. She’d loved the sea, the wild, lush paradise of the South, and she’d loved making love in the sand. She knew no prejudices, and wanted no other world than him.

But none of his mother’s medical wisdoms, no doctor’s cures, no love and no magic could save her when she had contracted malaria. She died in his arms; her brother followed behind her in a matter of days. They were both buried on his family’s land. He hadn’t had a chance to marry her, but he would have done so. She had just told him they were expecting a child when she had gotten sick, but she wouldn’t live to bear their child. When she had left him, she had taken with her a piece of his soul and more.