And One Rode West (5 page)

“Convenient!” Christa choked out, wrenching away from Jeremy. How dare this stinking Bobby-boy say such a thing? Her family had been split and torn, and it had all been anguish. “Jesse is the oldest in the family and he never left the United States military, never!”

“It will burn for Daniel Cameron!” Bobby-boy said,
a pleased grin on his face. He saw Jeremy’s expression and the grin quickly faded.

Jeremy spoke softly. “You’d better explain this and explain it fast, Sergeant. You are going up on charges as it is—the war is over, and even if it weren’t, soldiers do not resort to rape—”

“Ah, sir, she was asking for it, I swear!”

“Asking for it!” Christa exploded furiously. “Being mauled by corpses could not disgust me more!”

“Sergeant, I daresay that the lady was not ‘asking for it,’ ” Jeremy stated flatly. He continued in the same dispassionate tone. “I know Miss Cameron. She might be guilty of many things—but never ‘asking for it’ from a man in a blue uniform.”

“How gallantly you do rush to a woman’s defense!” Christa murmured, irritated.

Jeremy didn’t seem to notice. His attention was on Bobby-boy.

Bobby-boy seemed to have realized just how serious his situation was with Jeremy. His eyes remained glued upon the man. “I could see to it that you were court-martialed—”

“You’d take her side against a Yankee soldier—”

“Damned right!” Jeremy said softly. “Now tell me what’s been going on here.”

Bobby-boy was silent for a second, shuffling his feet. “All right,” he muttered after a moment. “Well, it don’t rightly seem as if it should be legal, and I don’t really know just what is going on!” he said sourly. “Someone big, someone up top, wants this place razed. And the last taxes that were paid were paid in Confederate scrip, and the last persons to sign any bills were Daniel and Christa Cameron. So if Jesse Cameron is the real owner, he’d best get his Yankee body—and his Yankee dollars—down to the courthouse in Williamsburg by nightfall, else the place will be taken, lock, stock, and barrel, and burned. There’s a new owner
waiting to take over. And the new owner is waiting for the legal time limit to be up to take the place down.”

“New owner?”

“Well, the party who intends to buy the place at sunset.”

“And that’s tonight,” Jeremy said sharply. “Who’s the new owner, and how come this notice just reached the house?”

Bobby-boy shrugged. “Maybe somebody didn’t want it to reach the house until tonight. I’m just a soldier, just a messenger!”

“Who’s the party intending to buy the place?” Jeremy demanded sharply.

“God as my witness, Colonel, I don’t know. Lieutenant Tracy in Williamsburg gave me the order to nail the notice up this morning. He led me to believe that the house was a bed of rebellious vipers, just like the kind of folk what decided to kill Lincoln.”

Christa hugged her arms tightly against her chest, staring from Jeremy to Bobby-boy. She shook her head, looking at Jeremy. “It can’t be legal! What new game are you filthy, stinking, scalawagging, carpetbagging Yankees playing down here?”

“See there, Colonel? ‘Filthy’ Yankees. And you say that she isn’t asking for it!”

Jeremy took a menacing step forward and Bobby-boy shrank back. “She may ask for a lot,” Jeremy said, his eyes like a flash of steel, “but she most assuredly isn’t going to get anything from you. Now you hightail it on out of here and fast. And if I ever hear tell that you’ve even been near this place I’ll forget that I’m a Yankee officer and I’ll hunt you down and rip you limb from limb. You got it, Sergeant?”

Pale as a sheet beneath the fur on his face, Bobby-boy nodded. On quaking legs he turned and hurried for his horse. He mounted and quickly rode away. In silence, Jeremy and Christa watched him go.

She felt a strange, cool breeze touch her. She was alone with Jeremy. Even though she had learned to love her sister-in-law, Callie, she’d never managed to accept Callie’s brother in their home.

She’d never known quite what it was between them. Maybe it had been the war. Maybe she’d just been too bitter to accept any Yankee other than Jesse by the time that she had met Jeremy. But from that time when she had first seen him on her doorstep, she’d felt as if the air were charged with lightning anytime he was near her.

They’d been bitter enemies from the moment they had met.

Maybe she thought that he had never understood her. Perhaps he’d been expecting a very sweet and ladylike belle. Maybe she’d even been one once. But the war had forced her to take care of her house and her home.

And it had forced her to take up arms against the enemy.

She hadn’t felt in the least obliged when Daniel and Jesse had determined to let Jeremy in because he was Callie’s brother.

Admittedly, Jeremy had been caught up in a fight to save Cameron Hall once before. When unauthorized troops had come against him, Jeremy had fought alongside both of her brothers to save the place.

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.