The Quaker and the Rebel (37 page)

Emily was troubled by more than adjustments to a city in turmoil. Recriminating memories of past actions followed her around the house like Mrs. Cabot’s tabby cat. She wasn’t the same fiery abolitionist who had left Ohio two years ago. Her conviction that slavery was an evil that never should have come to the New World remained the same, but now that it had been abolished, she saw that the newly freed had few choices open to them. Many joined the tent camps of burned-out refugees from the surrounding farms. The first step had been taken, but a permanent solution in the ravished South was obviously years away.

No, what changed for Emily had been brewing for a long while. She was in love with Alexander. Of that she was certain. No one had ever touched her heart as he had, not even Matthew. She had judged him to be a shallow, vapid aristocrat and overlooked his kindness and integrity. Alexander and his family weren’t like others in the privileged class of inherited money, land, and power, yet she had judged the Hunts with her preconceived biases. Shame over her past deception filled her with sorrow. Had she shared even one honest conversation with Alexander? Perhaps a woman lacking honor could not recognize it in others.

The lesson had cost her the only man she had ever loved. How stupid she had been. He might have overlooked her lack of sophistication, but who could overlook manipulation and trickery? Telling herself the end justified the means, Emily had borne false witness many times. She had stolen from him and from his family. Alexander would have freed his slaves if they had been his to free. He would have given her what she wanted if she’d asked. But she never gave him the chance. Now it was too late. The look he gave her inside the stable of Marshall House said it all.
I do not trust you. And I can never love a woman I cannot trust.

E
IGHTEEN

S
UMMER
1863

T
he rain had dwindled to a drizzle when Alexander, tired beyond measure and sporting a heavy beard, rode into the Hunt Farms stable yard. Traveling by night with only moonlight to guide him, he had circled around Front Royal to the east in case cavalry patrols still watched the roads from the mountains. Not having seen a newspaper or heard military reports in several months, he didn’t know if Union troops had found more important matters to occupy themselves. But he couldn’t stay away from home a moment longer even if Yankee cavalry camped in the orchards and Union officers dined at his mother’s Hepplewhite table. He also couldn’t stay away from Emily any longer. He needed to talk to her, to hear what she had to say. He owed her that much. Even if he left his beloved Shenandoah Valley for the remainder of the war, he had to gaze on her sweet face one last time. He owed himself that.

Reining Phantom to a halt outside their largest horse barn, Alexander felt an uneasiness hanging in the air like a mist. Nothing seemed as it should. The stable doors swung back and forth in the breeze, banging each time upon a rusted hasp. Dead leaves swirled across a barnyard no one had swept in weeks. Wiping rain from his eyes, he stared in the direction of the house that had been his home since birth. He’d heard tales of Yankee vindictiveness, of burning the homes and businesses of people suspected of aiding rangers. What price had his parents paid for having sired the Wraith? But when the moon broke through the cloud cover, the outline of the house appeared before him unscathed.

Alexander dismounted to inspect the stable and barns first. Every single horse, mule, cow, and laying hen was gone. The Union Army had confiscated every piece of tack and equipment they could carry—his father’s lifetime of hard work. On his way to the house, he noticed that the flower garden had been trampled and the vegetable plots picked
clean. Not a cabbage, squash, or carrot remained. But the absence of any human life felt the most ominous. No one seemed to live or work at Hunt Farms anymore. Alexander entered the house through the front door, removed his hat ridiculously from habit, and then walked through one dusty room after another. Most of the massive, heavy furniture remained, but the chairs, paintings, silver, crystal—anything valuable and easily carried off to be resold—were gone.

Where were his parents and the Benningtons? And where was Emily? He prayed she had returned with William from Middleburg and was with his family.

Alexander opened the door at the far end of the center hall to gaze over his father’s abandoned pastures and fields. In every direction, the once-fertile land had been stripped clean and beaten down. Not even a crow perched on forlorn branches in between meals of fallen corn kernels.

Suddenly, the distinctive sound of a chair scraping across wood lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. Someone was in the house, directly below him in the winter kitchen. Drawing a long-barreled Colt from his belt, he silently made his way down the narrow interior steps. Carrying no firearm on his ranger forays was one thing—he endangered no one but himself. But returning to Hunt Farms without a weapon, the infamous home of the Gray Wraith, was unthinkable. He would have no way to protect his parents…or Emily.

At the bottom of the dark steps, his boot caught on a broken tread and sent him flying. Someone jumped up from a pallet close to the dying fire. Others stirred and fought to extract themselves from their blankets. Were deserters living in the cellar of his home? “Identify yourself and state your business!” he shouted. Then he leveled his gun at the man moving toward him.

“Mr. Hunt?” said a tenuous voice in the dark.

Alexander struck a match to put a face to the familiar voice. Someone close to the hearth lit a tallow candle. The flickering light revealed the weathered face of their best horse trainer.

“Ephraim?” he asked, jamming his gun back into his belt.

“Yes, sir, it’s me. We’re livin’ down here to look after things the best we can.” The face of Ephraim’s wife, his mother’s seamstress, stepped into the yellow pool. One by one, four children rose from the floor to join her side.

“Hello, Mr. Alex,” said Fanny. She hefted the smallest child to her hip.

He stared at one and then the other. “Where is everyone? Where’s my family?”

“They’re gone, sir, gone to Richmond to your Aunt Harriet’s. Your pa said I should tell you that, but nobody else. So far, you’re the first who asked. We hid when those soldiers came. They made an awful racket.”

“And made a mess too,” added Fanny. “I cleaned up best I could, but I can’t fix what’s broken.” The woman whom he’d known most of his life smiled at him shyly.

“Thank you. I’ll see that you’re paid for your work. I’m just not sure when that will be.” Unsure what to do, Alexander awkwardly extended his hand to Ephraim.

The former slave shook it heartily. “Sit by the fire, sir, while my wife fixes you somethin’ to eat. It ain’t much, but whatever we got we’ll share.”

“Much obliged,” Alexander said, feeling like a guest in his own home. “Tell me everything you know, Ephraim. Leave nothing out.” He ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair.

“Not much to tell, sir. Mr. Hunt and Dr. Bennington packed up whatever they could carry in the wagons. Then Mr. Hunt roped most of his best horses together and gave the rest away. He gave me that paint Morgan, but the soldiers took her.” His mouth pulled into a frown. “Mr. Hunt told us they were going to Richmond, where it would be safer for the womenfolk.” Ephraim waited for this to be absorbed.

Alexander exhaled a sigh. “Then my family wasn’t jailed by the Yankees.”

“A couple freemen who had been gettin’ paid went to Richmond. Most everybody who had been a slave just run off. Your ma gave them
a little money and told them to take food and whatever their pockets could hold.” Ephraim lowered his voice to a whisper. “Some are still here, hidin’ from the army in the woods. They are scared the Yankees will force them to join up. They don’t wanna get shot.”

Fanny handed him a cup of the weakest chicory coffee he’d ever tasted, but he nodded his appreciation. “My father should have signed papers giving folks their freedom long ago,” Alexander said quietly.

“Yes, sir, he should of.” Ephraim poured himself a cup from the pot on the hearth. “But he gave away almost as many horses as he took, plus food and clothes too.”

“Your ma gave the women blankets, cook pots, all kinds of things.” Fanny interjected, slicing off a piece of dark, crumbly bread. “She divided her purse money between the women too.”

Alexander forced himself to meet the woman’s eye—a woman his family had held in bondage. Shame filled his empty gut. Shame and regret. “Where did they go, all of our people?”

“They ain’t your people no more,” said Ephraim with pride. “Most went north to try to find kinfolk. Some said they were going west. A few are still livin’ out in their old cabins until they make up their minds where they’re goin’. They do some trappin’ to eat and hide from the soldiers.”

“Why are you still here, Ephraim?” Alexander asked softly. “You’re free. You could have left anytime.”

Ephraim pulled on his beard sagely. “Oh, we’ll go one of these days, but I ain’t got a place in mind right now. Until I figure it out, might as well stay and look after things for a spell.”

Handing him the bread and some slices of cheese, Fanny nodded in agreement.

One question still remained. Alexander swallowed hard before asking. “What about my Aunt Augusta’s governess? Did Miss Harrison accompany my family to Richmond?”

Having little contact with house staff, Ephraim looked confused. “Can’t say yay or nay, sir. I was packing the feed wagons before they left.” He looked to his wife, who simply shrugged.

“Thank you, Ephraim, Fanny. Stay as long as you wish.” Giving them permission for something they had done for months seemed ridiculous. He quickly finished his meal, drank down the rest of his coffee, and then said, “I’m going upstairs to sleep in my room if the bed’s still there.”

“Oh, it’s still there, but you won’t find a sheet or a blanket nowhere. Best to sleep in your clothes.” Fanny peered curiously at his outfit, which obviously had been slept in for some time as she handed him a stub of a tallow candle.

As he wandered up two flights of steps, weary beyond description, his home felt desolate and alien, but at least no one had taken a torch and burned it to the ground. “Thank You, God,” he whispered in the darkness. Stretching out on his bed, he wrapped himself in the same tattered blanket he had carried from the mountains, but sleep refused to come. Troubling questions plagued him until dawn. Why would Emily go with the Benningtons to Richmond? Wouldn’t she have sought safe passage back north with help from the Yankee Army? If she were a spy, she needed the governess subterfuge no longer. And she needed him no longer.

Either way, she must hate him knowing his true identity—a man who wreaked havoc on her beloved Union Army. Alone in his cold, damp bedroom, Alexander had only the memory of a few stolen kisses to keep him warm. Tomorrow he would head for Richmond. And he would not rest until he knew the truth.

A
UTUMN
1863

The sunlight warmed his already overheated skin as Nathan Smith walked back to his boarding house. However, his spirits needed little buoying up. After many months of evading Yankee patrols determined to capture the legendary Rebel Rangers, he finally felt safe to walk the streets of his country’s new capital—Richmond. His visit to the
Confederate War Department had gone well. The Secretary of War not only received him but listened intently to how a Yankee had ingratiated herself into the lives of the Benningtons and Hunts. People of their class never would have suspected someone like her. Possessing high moral standards, they assumed everyone else was of the same ilk.

Nathan inflated only minor parts of his report, exaggerating a bit here and embellishing a bit there to blame the Middleburg fiasco on that red-haired wench. True, he had no proof that Miss Harrison reported the movement of Confederate troops through the Shenandoah, along with their strength in numbers to the Yankees, but she was up to no-good. He was certain she’d led the enemy to the Marshall House that horrible night. Many of his compatriots, his lifelong friends, were moldering in their graves instead of riding beside him.

The fact that Colonel Hunt had protected her grated on Nathan sorely. But he couldn’t blame Alex—the man was a babe in the woods when it came to women. This wasn’t the first time a female had wormed her way into his heart and gained a foothold. Nathan enjoyed a romp between the bed sheets too, but Alex failed to realize women couldn’t be trusted. They would say anything to get their way. So he boiled quite a stew at the War Department and then dropped the skinny governess into the pot. Now Emily Harrison would get her just reward.