Surrender (40 page)

She blinked, wishing to banish him from so familiar a place in her dreams. But he didn’t disappear.

She awakened fully, sitting up, a gasp of surprise rising in her throat. God, no, it was impossible, he couldn’t be here, he was an arrogant fool, thinking that he could just come to her in the dark! He’d been captured in Yankee territory once before! There was a guard at her tent!

She never uttered a sound. He clamped his hand over her mouth, his touch far more rough than any she had
felt from him before. She grasped for his arm, to protest his brutal hold, but he gave her a firm shake.

“Don’t move!” he commanded. “And don’t make a sound.”

Tears of pain stinging her eyes, she nodded. He let her go. The hell if she would stay still! She tried to leap up from the bunk. She barely managed to take a step. He could move like the night wind, with uncanny grace and speed. He tackled her, bringing her down to the canvas-covered ground. He was swiftly atop her, and his eyes burned with true blue ice fire as he stared down at her, a hand once again clamped firmly upon her mouth.

“Not again, my love. You’ll not cry out an alarm, weave a web, or set a trap!” His whisper was so harsh and venomous that she forced herself to remain still. Yet all her strength of will could not keep her from trying to writhe free as he stared at her, impaling and condemning her so mercilessly with his eyes. She tried to push his hand away, to strike out at him, scratch his face.

He slammed her arms back and gripped her cheeks with such a hold that tears nearly flooded her eyes again. This time, she went still, and stayed that way.

He was leaner, harder, meaner than before, she determined. Prison had not improved his humor.

“Open your mouth, and you’ll never sit again!” he threatened. She couldn’t possibly open her mouth. She felt paralyzed. He had escaped. He was real. And he had come straight here. For her, his wife? To have her? No …

He had come for revenge. Of that, she was certain.

Wary of his dark anger, she lay quietly, but then could not help but gasp as he rose, wrenching her up and into his arms in a single fluid motion. He moved in silence, carrying her swiftly out the front of the tent.

He was mad, insane. He was an escaped Rebel soldier, surrounded by enemies. But he defied them all, cloaked by the night. And he meant to take her somewhere, for he carried her toward a large black horse that waited, hidden by the darkness, near her tent.

He wouldn’t really hurt her—or would he? She had never felt such heat emanating from a human being. His every stride reminded her of his unyielding strength.
And anger. And sense of betrayal. Fear brought a protest to her lips. “No!” she gasped. “Jerome, no!” She kept her voice low. She wanted to escape him; she didn’t want him captured again.

She didn’t want him shot down.

But neither did she dare face this terrible rage in his heart. “Jerome, please, you can’t—I will not allow—”

“Shut up!” he warned fiercely again, eyes burning into her soul. “Not a word, not a whisper. Don’t even breathe.”

Oh! How could he! She wanted to scream and bring down every Yank within miles! “Don’t you tell me what to do. There was a guard on this tent, you fool! How dare you—oh, God, did you kill him? Are you insane? Our child is sleeping—”

He stopped dead, looking down at her.

“Mrs. McKenzie, I would dare the Devil himself at this moment, but I give you fair warning—I will not be captured again. I didn’t kill the guard; he is knocked out. Our child is already gone.”

She froze, aware of the cobalt malice in his eyes and the steel hard determination in his features as he stared down at her. “Gone—where?” she whispered in breathless panic.

“Home. South. Where he belongs.”

She remained motionless, eyes locked with his, afraid now that he would drop her like so much refuse if she protested again.

He had taken their child!

And if she didn’t maintain control, she would burst into tears of panic. He could not mean to take his revenge by stealing Jamie, kidnapping her—and deserting her somewhere far from her child. Could he?

Did he think that she wouldn’t dare cry out, demand that he be tortured into telling her where their child had been taken—and by whom?

She could! She could cry out!

But she didn’t. He might leave her. She didn’t want to be left. He had Jamie.

He continued his impatient stride toward the large black phantom horse. He lifted her, all but throwing her atop the animal, before leaping up behind her. The big
black reared slightly, then plunged forward to Jerome’s urging. And they raced through the camp, dodging tents here and there, leaping over smoldering campfires.

Risa clung to the creature’s mane. She felt Jerome at her back, felt the ripple of muscle within his arms and chest, felt the burning heat of his body as he maneuvered the horse out of the camp.

A sleepy picket cried out, “Who goes there?”

But Jerome galloped on, heedless of the demand. They raced like the wind, soaring over a makeshift fence posted along the road.

She heard the sounds of shots being fired, and yet she knew that they were in no danger—they had already traveled beyond the range of the fire. They continued down the road and she nearly screamed aloud as they plunged straight into a canopy of trees, but there was a trail within those trees, and they sped along it.

It seemed that they raced forever.

She kept thinking that surely, soldiers would come in pursuit. But they did not, and she realized that Jerome had moved with such speed in the darkness that they would be all but impossible to follow.

They would not be pursued.

The night wind seemed to soar and buffet around them into eternity. She was blinded by the whipping wind, by her hair, blowing into her face. She could barely breathe, and she feared if she should fall or be thrown, she would be trampled to death beneath the huge black, because the animal couldn’t possibly stop. Her heart thundered, and she was certain that their mad dash could only end in sheer disaster. Yet when Jerome at last reined in, her heart was still thundering. She was still afraid, but Jerome ignored her, leaping from the horse and moving into a copse. As he did so, three men stepped from the trees, leading lean dark horses. One of them carried a bundle that squirmed in his arms. Jamie.

Risa cried out, leaping to the ground herself, nearly falling, the animal was so large. She caught her balance and ran in her bare feet and white flannel nightgown toward the stranger, but she stopped short when Jerome took the baby from him, walking a distance away while easing the blanket from around his little face.

“Hello, ma’am,” the fellow who had held Jamie said. He stood resolutely between Risa and Jerome. “I’m Anthony Hawkins. How do you do? Sorry to cause such a stir, but Captain McKenzie couldn’t wait to see his boy. These fellows here are Robert Gray and Ricky Boyle.”

Jerome’s companions were handsome young men—as lean and hard-looking as her husband. They were fellow escapees, she thought, and she knew that she was right.

She nodded in wary acknowledgment of the introduction. “You came into my tent and stole my child?” she inquired coldly.

“No, ma’am. Your husband went into your tent, and handed me the baby. We couldn’t risk the babe making noise, you understand.”

“Oh, yes, I understand,” she said, staring at him. He stared right back at her, the other two men flanking him, separating her from Jerome.

“He’s a might handsome boy, ma’am,” Hawkins said.

“Thank you.”

Did his father agree? she wondered. Thankfully, Jamie was sleeping, or else he’d probably be screaming his head off.

But then she heard her son give out a little cooing sound—and she realized irritably that he was perfectly happy to be in his father’s arms. Men. None could be trusted.

Jerome turned with the child then, rewrapping him more snugly in the blanket as he walked back toward them. He didn’t look at her. Holding the baby, he remounted the large black horse. “Anthony, if you’d be so good as to escort my wife … ?” he inquired.

His eyes touched hers, dispassionately. She realized that she was standing barefoot on the cold ground in a thin white flannel gown, and he didn’t seem to notice that she wasn’t decently clad, or care. And she felt a terrible chill seeping over her as she remembered the last night they had spent together. They’d shared more than passion, she thought. There had been warmth between them, the beginnings of something that might have been very real …

She was in love with him, she thought, feeling quite
ill. And he looked at her … oh, the way he was looking at her! As if he didn’t really want her with them at all.

She swallowed hard, determined not to plea or beg, or make a fool of herself. She lifted her chin. “You should really let me take the baby, Captain,” she said quietly.

He stared down at her, holding his son, and the reins of the huge black. “No, my dear, I don’t think so. You’ve had him quite a while now. And I’ve never seen him before. If you wish to accompany us, Anthony will be glad to assist you.”

“And if I don’t wish to accompany you?” she inquired.

He shrugged, as if he couldn’t care less what decision she made. “If not … well, I’m sure a Yankee patrol will be by here come morning.”

She would have given anything to hit him. Just once. She longed to walk over and spit at him. But he had Jamie.

She walked to Anthony Hawkins. “Nice horse. Did you get your mounts at Old Capitol?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Where did you steal them from?”

“A Yank patrol just this side of the river.”

“Ah.”

“Now, wait, we didn’t exactly steal them,” Ricky Boyle protested. He had a barely discernible, old-country lilt to his voice. “This is war—and this is Virginia. So I think that we confiscated them from the enemy.”

“And,” Anthony Hawkins added dryly, “I think that the Yanks originally confiscated them from us. They have brands on them from a horse farm in Mississippi.”

“Guess we got to thank the Yanks, though, for feeding them well,” Robert Gray said, and grinned.

The baby—at long last, the little traitor—suddenly started to cry.

Risa instinctively turned away from Hawkins and the horse she had been about to mount, and headed for her child. She set her hands upon Jerome’s thigh where he straddled the horse, folding them almost prayer fashion.

“Jerome, he needs me!” she pleaded.

His eyes remained merciless, but he let out an oath
of irritation. He bent down, setting the baby into her arms. When she was holding him securely, he caught hold of her around her waist, and lifted her to sit sidesaddle in front of him. A small victory won, she thought. No, a victory won—and lost.

For his arms were around her, warm, strong, and powerful. His body, at her back, was fire. And she ached inside.

But his heart, beating a fierce, staccato rhythm, was nothing but ice.

T
hat night they stayed at an abandoned plantation which had apparently not yet been discovered by scouts foraging for either North or South. When they arrived, it was painfully evident that the people who had once maintained the beautiful old home had simply left—a teacup remained on a cherrywood table in the formal dining room. Wardrobes and trunks were filled with clothing. The larder was filled with jars of preserves, and even the smokehouse had meat. The slaves had apparently all run off, taking little or nothing with them. All that remained were the spiders, rats, and the cobwebs.

She slept with Jamie in the least dusty of the rooms, having spent hours before lying down in an effort to clean it. She remade the bed with sheets found in a drawer. It was a sad task. While dusting off the mantel, she believed she found the secret to the empty house. She came upon a letter that informed a Mrs. Everett Dolenz—apparently left behind when her husband and son rode off to war in a cavalry company formed in their home county—that both her husband and son had been killed in the battle that had taken place at Sharpsburg, Maryland. It seemed that the woman had just walked away from the house once she had received the letter, as if she had felt in her heart that there was no reason left to keep a home. Photographs on the mantel showed the family—a dignified father, serene mother, handsome young son.

Risa said a little prayer for them all before lying down to sleep at dawn, and in her prayers she asked that they not mind the fact she and her baby made use of their
home. She prayed that her father would not be worried sick.

And she prayed the war would end. She wondered if she could bear it if she were ever to lose her husband and child, and she lay awake, miserable, realizing that the war could go on for a very long time, and she could lose everyone she loved.

She slept alone with Jamie. Jerome had apparently wanted no part of her; she hadn’t seen him that night since he had helped her down from the horse. He had warned her, however, that if she tried leaving with Jamie, she would come to deeply regret her actions.

Once Jamie had awakened and been fed, Risa set about the task of making him more diapers. She searched through Mrs. Dolenz’s trunks for clothing. She was grateful to find that the woman had been about her height and weight, and that it was easy to find undergarments and a simple cotton dress that would wear well with travel. She didn’t know where Jerome intended to go, or how long they would be on the road, so despite the wonderful smell of food coming from below, she was determined to be ready to ride at a moment’s notice. She packed extra clothing carefully in a carpetbag she found, then sat at Mrs. Dolenz’s desk and wrote her a letter telling her who she was, what she had taken, and promising that she would repay her for the things when she was able to find her.

An uneasy feeling filled her as she finished writing, and she turned to find that Jerome stood in her doorway. His hair was damp and his cheeks were freshly shaved, and he seemed to have found fresh clothing among the offerings in the mansion as well; he wore dark breeches, a clean, muted ivory shirt, charcoal waistcoat, and a dark navy greatcoat with frocked shoulders. His eyes were fathomless, his features impassive as he watched her. Seeing Jamie kicking and throwing his little arms about on the bed, he went to his son, sitting at his side. He allowed Jamie to wind his chubby little fingers around his own. His back was to Risa as he asked her, “What are you doing?”