Surrender to the Fury (37 page)

“It’s all right, Elizabeth, really. What were you going to say? I’m sure there must have been many women before me in Nick’s life.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Positive.”

“Well, then, I was merely referring to a time in Nick’s life when he fancied himself in love with a woman he barely knew. Actually, he had only met her one time, but she must have made quite an impression upon him. He couldn’t seem to forget her.”

Aimee was fascinated. “What happened?”

“She was a southerner, just like you. I forget her name, it’s been so long. That’s really all I know about her, except that she was from New Orleans. I don’t know how they met, but when Nick returned from a business trip, he was obsessed with the woman. He returned to the South time and
again to search for her, but it was as if she had disappeared into thin air.

“I finally convinced Nick that she didn’t want to be found. For a while he was inconsolable, but then the war started and he turned his energies to fighting for his ideals and beliefs. Now that he’s found you, I’m certain there’s no room in his heart for some dim memory from his past.”

Elizabeth’s words affected Aimee deeply. Her thoughts were confused, her brain muddled. Elizabeth couldn’t help but know that Aimee was moved by her words.

“Oh, dear, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut,” Elizabeth said, clearly distraught. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Aimee. What happened between Nick and that other nameless woman occurred so long ago, I thought it would no longer matter.”

“You’re wrong, Elizabeth, it matters a great deal.” Aimee’s voice held a strange note, one that Elizabeth could not easily decipher. She wouldn’t have hurt Aimee for the world.

“Oh, dear,” Elizabeth repeated, wringing her hands. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come to Washington, but I did so want to meet you and your son.”

“You couldn’t have picked a better time, Elizabeth, dear,” Aimee said, smiling. “What you just told me makes me extremely happy.”

“You’re—happy? I—don’t understand.”

“I don’t suppose you do. I owe you an explanation, and you shall have it.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Elizabeth insisted, though actually she was curious to know what she had said to make Aimee happy.

“Nick and I met more than six years ago.”

Elizabeth stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face Aimee. “Over six years ago? But I thought …”

“We met aboard the
Dixie Belle
, a riverboat plying the Mississippi River.” An awkward silence ensued. Briefly Aimee considered telling Elizabeth that she was engaged in a poker game with her son at the time, but decided there were some things her mother-in-law didn’t need to know.

Elizabeth was a bright woman. Understanding dawned in her wide green eyes. “Then Brand—”

“Is Nick’s son.”

“A son Nick never knew existed,” Elizabeth said with mild reproof.

Aimee flushed. “It’s a long story, Elizabeth.”

“One I don’t need to know,” Elizabeth replied. “Suffice it to say you’ve found one another again and all is well. Nick has his adorable son now, and he couldn’t be happier.”

“And Brand will soon have a brother or sister,” Aimee added, unable to keep the news to herself a moment longer.

Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled. “How wonderful!”

“Only you mustn’t tell Nick until I’ve told him myself.”

“I wouldn’t think of it, my dear.”

The final week of Elizabeth’s visit was spent becoming acquainted with her grandson. The two had taken to each other immediately, and by the time they put Elizabeth aboard the train for Chicago, everyone was sorry to see her visit end. When she gave Aimee a final hug, she whispered into her ear, “Hurry and tell my son about the baby.”

*     *     *

Several days after Elizabeth left, Nick returned home in a serious mood. He explained the reason when they were alone, after Brand had been put to bed.

“Jefferson Davis abandoned Richmond. He took the Treasury’s remaining gold and as much of the archives as could be carried,” he said. “They boarded ramshackle trains and any other conveyance they could beg for, borrow, or steal. Everything else was put to the torch. They burned more of their own capital than we did of Atlanta or Columbia.”

“My God,” Aimee said shakily. “It really is the end.”

“President Lincoln followed Union soldiers into the city. Do you realize that the president of the United States sat in the study of the president of the Confederacy mere hours after Davis left it?

“Word has it that Lincoln walked the streets with only an escort of ten sailors. Then he was surrounded by an impenetrable cordon of freed slaves shouting, ‘Glory to God! Glory! Glory! Glory! Bless the Lord!’ God, Aimee, they’re free! I feel a part of history.”

Aimee gulped, unable to speak for the lump in her throat. The Yankees had finally succeeded in beating the South into the ground. What was in store now for the valiant citizens of the South? Starvation? Deprivation? Subjugation? Would she ever see Tall Oaks again? Unlikely, she thought bitterly. She was married to a Yank now and must follow where he went. The new baby she carried in her belly made any other alternative unthinkable.

“I know this comes as a blow to you, sweetheart,” Nick said when he noted Aimee’s pallor. “But the outcome was inevitable from the beginning. Now the South can get back to the business of normal living. When the end comes, which we believe will be in a few days, for Lee has nowhere else to turn, men can return to their families. Our lives will change, too, sweetheart. I can spend more time with you and Brand. And maybe,” he hinted with a twinkle, “there’s a new baby in our future.”

Aimee looked at him sharply. Had Elizabeth told him about the baby? She doubted Nick’s mother had broken her promise, and assumed that Nick was merely guessing. She chose to ignore his subtle hint. “You’ve won,” she said bitterly. “I know how happy that makes you.”

“It’s something you’re going to have to live with, Aimee. Neither side has won. Not when you consider the staggering numbers of dead and wounded. People without homes, or food, or clothing. Come on, sweetheart, let’s go to bed. I have this terrible urge to hold you in my arms. The only thing about this war I’m grateful for is that I found you again.”

Once in bed, Nick made no move to do more than hold Aimee. Sensing her sadness and her need to come to grips with the imminent fall of the South, he offered comfort with no strings attached. Aimee felt his warmth envelop and enfold her, felt his compassion, and something inside her broke loose. Instinctively she knew this man would always be there when she needed him. He offered comfort in times of stress, gave her love when she had scorned it, brought passion and fire
into her life when she had been empty. He had filled her with his child when she wasn’t sure she wanted to bring another Yankee into the world, made her love him despite the hatred she bore him throughout the years.

“Nick …” Her voice faltered and she tried again. “Nick—I do love you.”

Nick’s arms tightened, but he said nothing. He was too choked up to speak. Before, he’d always had to pry those words from Aimee’s lips. And once she’d spoken them, he never knew whether they came from the heart. This was the first time she had given them freely.

“Did you hear me? I said I loved you.”

“I heard you, sweetheart. I’m just too shaken to speak. I never thought you’d give up that damn southern pride long enough to admit you could love a Yankee.”

“I believe you now about looking for me after that night aboard the
Dixie Belle
. Hate is such a destructive emotion that I’ve had a difficult time accepting that you truly love me.”

“Why in the hell do you think I married you?”

“So you could have Brand.”

“If I had wanted Brand and not you, I’d have found a way to get him. There would have been no one to stop me.”

Aimee chewed on that thought for a while. Then she decided that the time had come to tell Nick about the new baby, but to her shock, Nick forestalled her.

“Is there something else you wanted to tell me, sweetheart?”

Aimee’s breath quickened. “You know?”

“If you’re referring to the child you’re carrying,
yes, I know. I’ve been wondering when you were going to tell me.”

“How did you know? Did your mother tell you? I haven’t been sick in the mornings like I was with Brand, so you had no clues.”

Nick laughed. “No dues, you say. Ah, sweetheart, you’re wrong. I know your body as well as I know my own. There were too many subtle changes for me not to know. What about this?”

He touched her breasts, and she inhaled sharply. The sensitive flesh responded to his touch almost violently. “And this?” He slid his hand over the ever so slight protrusion of her belly. “Not only are your breasts and nipples more sensitive to my touch, but they are fuller. And your stomach is softly rounded against my palm. I’d have to be blind not to notice the changes in your body. So when am I to be a father again?”

“In late summer.”

“Are you happy about it?”

“Yes, yes, I am,” she said, surprising herself. Suddenly this new baby was very important to her.

“I’m surprised you and Beau had no children.”

“We were together a very short time before he left for war.”

“Long enough,” Nick said dryly. “You conceived Brand on our very first night together. Aimee, I’ve deliberately refrained from asking you this before because I’ve been afraid of the answer, but it’s something I have to know. I can’t live with a dead man’s memory. It’s hell not knowing whether you think of your dead husband when we make love. Or if he’s in your mind and heart more often than
I am. Do you love me as much as you loved Beauregard Trevor?”

Aimee was silent a long time, choosing her words carefully. So long, in fact, that Nick finally blurted out, “No, don’t tell me! I think I already know the answer.”

“You don’t know a damn thing, Nick Drummond. Beau was a wonderful, kind man who came into my life when I needed him most. He never thought less of me for having an illegitimate child, nor did he ever consider Brand anything but his child. We might have been happy together had he lived.”

“Might have been?” Nick asked, quickly picking up on her words. “Did you enjoy making love with him?”

“We were together such a short time …”

“Tell me, Aimee.”

“Beau never made me feel the way you do,” she admitted slowly. “And I refuse to continue with this conversation. Beau is dead—he’d want me to be happy with someone else. When you and I make love, there is room for no one in my heart but you. You consume my thoughts and fulfill my body in ways I never thought possible. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject of Beauregard Trevor.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. I’m the jealous sort. Though I begrudge Beauregard Trevor his possession of you, I’m grateful he was there when you and Brand needed him. But as long as I’m alive, you’ll never need to turn to another man for comfort or love. I love you, Aimee Drummond. I’ve loved you for more than six years. Until I
found you again, I never knew why my life felt incomplete.”

“Oh, Nick, just think of all those years we’ve wasted,” Aimee sighed.

“About the baby, sweetheart; shall we stay in Washington for the birth or would you prefer to go to Chicago, where my mother can look after you and Brand?”

“I want to go home, Nick. I want our baby to be born in the South. Is that impossible?”

“Still the little Rebel, aren’t you? If it’s at all possible, I’ll grant your wish. But don’t count on it.”

They lay in silence for a while, both consumed with their separate thoughts. Suddenly Nick turned to her, drawing her close and kissing her. “Is it all right if I love you now? I thought I could lie here without making love to you, but I hadn’t counted on the aching hunger that gnaws at me each time I touch you.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t make love to me.”

“What!” Keen disappointment sent the word hissing through his teeth, but he’d not force the issue if Aimee truly felt unable or unwilling to make love with him.

“Let me make love to you instead.”

“Oh God!”

She began by kissing him everywhere, running her tongue the length and breadth of his hair-roughened skin, tasting and biting his flesh with teasing little nips. When she lay full length atop him, Nick tried to raise her so he could push himself inside her, but she wouldn’t allow it. Instead, lying groin to groin, she rubbed her sensitive breasts against his chest until her nipples became engorged and aching, until she burned between
her legs with the fires of hell. But still she resisted his attempts to press her to her back and thrust into her.

“Not yet,” she told him. Nick groaned and persevered, vowing to pay her back in kind for the torture she was inflicting. Finally, when her mouth grew bolder still, tormenting him with wet kisses in places that drove him mad with wanting, he flipped her over on her back and shoved himself inside her.

“You little tease,” he grunted as he buried himself deep into her throbbing heat.

She was laughing until he began thrusting furiously. And then her laughter turned to gasps, sighs, and incoherent cries as he drove her to the brink of ecstasy, then tumbled her over the edge.

Aimee accepted the news of General Lee’s surrender to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in April with a heavy heart. It was no more than she had expected, but painful nevertheless. Nick tried to comfort her by telling her about the generous settlement offered the vanquished army.

“Terms of the agreement left Confederate officers and men free to go home without being disturbed by U.S. authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they reside.” He had explained all this to Aimee and Savannah as he paced back and forth in the parlor. Brand sat quietly beside Aimee, listening carefully.

“Does that mean none of the Southern army can be tried for treason?” Aimee asked.

“That’s right,” Nick replied. “And they were granted another boon. At Lee’s request, Grant allowed
each man who claimed a horse to keep it, privates as well as officers. They’ll be needed to put in crops to carry them and their families through the next winter.”