Surrender the Wind (34 page)

“Be my guest,” retorted the Yank, “It will be a complete waste of your time.”

John could not believe the arrogance or the glint of humor crossing the Yank’s face. He had the sudden desire to smash his fist into his jaw. “You mean to tell me you are taking a stroll in Southern Virginia without a horse or gun, in a Union uniform, merely for pleasure, and you expect us to believe you?” John said.

The Yank chuckled, a dry, cynical sound. “Have a nice day.”

For more than seven hours, John canvassed the Valley in search of the Yank’s cavalry, expecting them to spring up at any time for a battle. No evidence was found. He gritted his teeth from the delay. John turned his men back to camp, his foremost thoughts were to see Catherine—alone. He fantasized of what he’d like to do, and grew warm in the saddle, thinking about the blush that rose to her cheeks. They met up with Big Samuel.

The Yank dared to stand there his arms folded in front of him. “I told you so.”

John spurred his horse ahead eager to get to his wife so he could spend some private time before he questioned the Yank. Pulling into camp, he dismounted and with a welcome cry, Catherine threw herself into his arms.

“I’ve missed you,” she beamed, skimming her hands up the border of his jacket and around his neck.

“How much did you miss me?”

In answer, she pressed her lips to his, caressing, teasing. John crushed her into his embrace, plunging into her mouth with savage intensity.

John’s men rode in with the prisoner, breaking up their brief interlude. Catherine straightened, blushing from John’s scrutiny, and the fact that his soldiers’ had witnessed their indiscretion. “You better control yourself, my wife. My reputation is at stake.” He jerked his head to where his men hooted with approval.

Catherine folded her arms in front of her. “I’m not going to share you with anyone at the moment.” She took his hand and started drawing him toward their tent. “Business can wait. You’ve been gone all day and I have a million things to discuss.”

“Just discuss?”

“You are incorrigible, General Rourke, but you catch on quick for a Reb. I was going to say you look a little dusty and need some dusting.”

She peered up at him. He was lost.

“I happen to be a lot less distracted in our tent, John.”

“I didn’t know dusting required all that concentration.”

“It doesn’t. But other things do. First we have to remove those dusty clothes.”

John threw back his head and let out a great peal of laughter that resonated across the camp. Ian called to him, asking what to do with the prisoner. John draped his arm around her shoulder and swerved to issue an order.

He felt Catherine stiffen, saw her face pale.

“It can’t be true.” She flipped off John’s arm and started running in the direction of the captured soldier.

The Yank’s mouth gaped open. He broke from his captors in a flat out run. “Catherine! Is it really you?”

Catherine fell into the Yank’s arms, weeping aloud, kissing him all over his face. She held the prisoner in a death grip, refusing to let him go. “Is it really, you I’m not dreaming. You’re not dead. You’re alive and well?”

“Fit as I’ll ever be, love. God, how I’ve missed you.” He picked her up and swung her around.

John strode from behind, his men surrounding them in tight circle. “Yank, you’ll take your hands off her. You forget your place or have you forgotten you’re in the midst of a war?”

The Yank’s eyes flashed a hostile green, full of sullen resentment. “Who the devil do you think you are?”

“I’m the commanding officer.” Did the Yank have the insolence to look him up and down?

“I haven’t forgotten my place. What the hell are you doing with her?” He pushed Catherine arm’s length. “What are you doing here?” Then the Yank turned his back, giving John a haughty cut-direct. “I’ve put up with a lot over the last seven months, and I’m not about to let some Reb deter me.”

John put his hand on the hilt of his sword. To run him through had certain appeal. “I’m warning you, Yank, unless you want a good fight on your hands, you’ll release her.” He was through being polite.

“Do you want to finish him off, general?” His soldiers pointed their gun barrels at the Yank.

His wife stepped in front of the prisoner, shielding him with her body. “No. John, this is Shawn. My brother who has been missing all these months.”

“What the Hell are you doing with my sister?” Shawn demanded. And then turning to Catherine he frowned. “You still haven’t answered me. What are you doing in a Reb camp?”

“It’s a long story, Shawn.”

John saw she was trying to placate her brother and slow his temper. His men lowered their rifles, their mouths gaped open with interest. What’s your name Yank?”

Shawn lifted his chin and annunciated his name with salute, “Lieutenant Colonel Shawn Callahan Fitzgerald.”

John took a closer look. The green eyes and color of his hair. Of course, they were brother and sister. “I should have seen it from the start. I’m General John Daniel Rourke, the Army of Northern Virginia.” He extended his hand.

Shawn’s eyes spit like green fire. “If you don’t mind telling me, General John Daniel Rourke of the Army of Northern Virginia,” he mocked. “What the hell are you doing with my sister in your camp? Have you perhaps taken it upon yourself to invade New York and kidnap young unprotected women from their dwellings? I’d like some answers, for my sister is a long way from home and I didn’t care for the way you were mauling her when I entered this camp.”

John raised an eyebrow as the Yank folded his arms in front of him, expecting answers as if he were the commander of the whole known world, and oblivious that more Rebels crowded around them.

“I’m waiting and I’m being very patient on the subject, for you see, the way I’d be thinking is that my sister has been compromised, and I want to know, General John Daniel Rourke, Emperor of plunder, rapine, destruction and infinite idiocy, what you plan on doing about it.”

Catherine threw her hands up. “Shawn I’ll remind you that you are not in your element and you are overstepping your bounds. If you need a geography lesson, I’ll remind you that you reside in the heart of the Confederacy.”

“Not where you are concerned, Catherine. I promised father when he died, I’d take care of you.” Shawn pushed up his sleeves.

“And you are, Shawn,” she admitted. “You’ve only come to blows with a general of the Confederacy, and one I might add who holds your fate in his hands. You may want to improve your manners and apologize.”

“Apologize! The way he’s manhandled and compromised you. Never.”

“You will,” Catherine avowed, digging in her Irish stubborn heels.

“I won’t.”

“You will,” she said sharply.

“Pig-headedness must run in the family,” John interrupted them. “Before this turns into a brother-sister brawl—”

“He’ll apologize first.” Catherine shrieked, determined to straighten the matter.

“Give me two good reasons,” Shawn demanded.

“Number one,” she told him with certainty in front of John’s men, “I love him.”

John straightened with her public declaration.

“She loves him.” His men all nodded their heads. Someone in the back of the crowd yelled out, “I can’t hear. What’d she say?”

His wife’s temper flared, frustrated from Shawn’s mulishness. “I said I love him!”

“Who does she love? The Yank or the Reb?”

“The Reb,” she screeched.

“That’s not good enough.” Shawn shook his head. “You love him? But he’s a—Reb.”

“He’s a Reb, and he’s my husband which is reason number two, and don’t tell me that’s not good enough because I’ll shoot you myself.”

“She’ll shoot him herself.” John’s soldiers muttered to one another, and then raised their guns again.

“He’s really your husband. But how?”

“It was all very romantic, Shawn,” she gushed, and missed the consternation on John’s face. “He literally fell at my feet.”

A louder murmur cascaded through his soldiers with nods of approval. “The general’s very romantic, even fell at her feet.”

John gritted his teeth. He needed a cigar.

She tapped her toe. “I’m waiting, Shawn.”

Shawn wasn’t about to give up.

With a grudge, her brother appraised John across the ringing silence. “So this is the man my sister has chosen for a husband. Your reputation reaches far, General. However, you must be quite a man to control my sister, knowing how headstrong she is.”

“Yes,” John admitted, thinking how much time it would take for the
‘romantic’
part to reach General Lee’s ears.

“You have my apology and my
pity
,” Shawn said and extended his hand.

John shook his hand. “Thank you,” he said. He was getting to like his Yank brother-in-law.

“I don’t like the
pity
part, but I’m happy both of you have conceded to a mutual respect. “You can lower your guns gentlemen, this is a family affair,” she ordered.

John nodded behind her and they lowered their guns. His wife was happy. She thought she had commanded them.

“We were just ready to take our coffee in the tent, Shawn,” she slipped her arm through her brother’s. “Weren’t we, General?” She looked over her shoulder in that I’m-telling-you-husband look. “Really, Shawn, its ground chicory. Coffee is not as plentiful but chicory is very tasty once you grow accustomed to it. And where have you been for the past seven months?”

Inside his tent, John poured two glasses of Old Crow whiskey and shoved one across the table to Catherine’s brother. Francis Mallory was at the core of the problem. John wished he could take Washington so he could strangle the bastard.

Shawn detailed his missing months. “Mallory orchestrated my kidnapping at The Battle of Brandy Station last October. During the melee, I had maneuvered off the road and through the woods. There were six Union soldiers in fast pursuit who I thought had my back. Surrounded, I was knocked unconscious. I awoke later, locked in a farmhouse in Virginia, guarded by the same soldiers who kidnapped me. The walls were thin and I soon gleaned that they were Mallory’s thugs. They talked about how Mallory was circling Catherine and laughed about other crimes Mallory had committed. After a couple months passed, orders arrived from New York. Mallory in his perverted sense ordered me hanged and for it to look like a suicide.”

Shawn drained his whiskey and John refilled his glass. “With the rope around my neck, the thugs slapped my horse from beneath me. Rebel sharpshooters had been watching and shot the rope in two before it snapped my neck, and then they chased off the thugs. My head hit a rock. Unconscious again, and with a second head injury, I was in a very bad way. I roused from a dark fog and in a strange farmhouse owned by the seven Confederates, all brothers, who had rescued me. My life was a total blank. I had no recollection of any of prior events. The brothers assumed I was a spy for the Confederacy. To them, it didn’t make any sense that Union officers would hang one of their own. What they didn’t realize was that they were Mallory’s thugs. The brothers’ sister cared for me.” Shawn cleared his throat and looked at Catherine. “We were married.”

“What?”

Shawn nodded his head. “She is the love of my life and the finest woman I’ve ever met.”

“Congratulations,” John reached for his cigars and offered one to Shawn.

“For weeks, I had temporary flashbacks. Nothing was right. Then one day, everything came back all at once. The hardest thing for me to do was to leave Emma, my bride, but I had to get back to protect Catherine. I told her not to tell her brothers and that I would send for her. I had been moving north for a week, when you came upon me.”

Ian brought dinner that Brigid had prepared. When his adjutant left, Shawn leaned forward. “I have to get back home and take care of Mallory. The monster has gone unchecked too long.”

Catherine shoved half her portion on her brother’s plate and waved his protest away. “Mallory has Father Callahan. John’s brother, a Union Colonel in Washington and Jimmy O’Hara were to find him, but I’ve had no communication. I saw firsthand, Mallory crushing Confederate soldiers that he had taken from Capitol Prison just for his sick pleasure.” Catherine shuddered. “He also tried to kill John.”

John kept his own counsel. The conundrum was a war within war.

“Mallory’s destroying Fitzgerald Rifle Works,” Catherine said. “He ordered his foundry-men to manufacture irregular-shaped gun-barrels. When the Fitzgerald rifles were fired, they exploded backward into the user. Mallory hoped to bankrupt us.”

John pulled his cigar from his mouth when he heard that bit of information. “Danny Boy’s death was from a Fitzgerald rifle.”

Catherine’s eyes filled with tears. “I tried Shawn. When the problem with the backfiring was discovered, it was too late. There were already many rifles in the field. After the report, I had our men test each barrel before assembly, then again after it was assembled. I made sure not one Fitzgerald rifle left the plant unless it had been tested, re-tested and perfect. I raised cash by selling the Fitzgerald jewels, and then gave the funds to our plant manager to secretly build another foundry in New Jersey so we would have our own barrels. Now Danny Boy has died because I didn’t catch the error in time.”

John rose and took her in his arms. She sobbed, her tears dampening his shirt. He was proud of her. No other woman he knew would have been so brave or been able to outwit her foe. But Mallory was too powerful and had to be stopped. He shuddered to think that Mallory had almost forced her into marriage. If John hadn’t kidnapped her out of Washington—he hated to think what would have happened.

Shawn ran his fingers through his hair. “I realize I’m asking you to do something entirely against your principles, but if you could afford me a couple of hours and escort me to where the Union Army is positioned near Washington, then I can take care of Mallory. The situation is imperative.”

John had no idea what to do as he glanced at his wife and her brother, waiting his decision. He needed time. He walked outside his tent. The last rays of the evening sun poked through the boughs of a hickory. A courier arrived, ordering him to Lee’s headquarters. An order from Lee was an order from God. Would he have to pull his troops out and defend Grant’s flanking movement or would he be asked to move his troops northward in the Valley? None of it mattered for now.