When the Splendor Falls (48 page)

Swinging it around behind her back, Leigh pointed to the flat, wooden box that had been wedged next to the recipe books in the corner cupboard. “Don’t forget that, Jolie, and you might bring along that jug of corn liquor,” she said, hurrying from the kitchens before Jolie could protest.

The Bloodriders, watching from the stables, must have experienced a few mixed feelings at the sight that met their eyes a few minutes later. Certainly there were a few sighs of relief as they saw the young woman returning, and carrying a large basket loaded with bottles and bandages over her arm. And there were even a couple of surprised gasps when a tall, thin mulattress came running after her with a corked jug under one arm and a narrow box tucked beneath the other, her scolding voice causing a couple to cringe and wish they were facing the rebels again. But when the next figure appeared, a green-liveried black man with snowy white hair, his feet slipping and sliding across the muddy field, the suspenseful silence that had hung so ominously low over the group gave way to sidesplitting laughter. The comical antics of the dignified old man trying to keep his balance, ever careful of where he stepped, while carrying a large, black iron pot, mouthwatering steam rising from it, and a rifle dangling haphazardly from beneath his crooked arm, the barrel tipping up and down dangerously with each step he took, had been too much for them.

It was certainly almost too much for Leigh, who’d already entered the stables and was unloading her basket by the Irishman, when she heard the muffled, tittering laughter around her.

Neil had opened McGuire’s overcoat, cutting away the sleeve, then part of the jacket and shirt beneath, and baring the ugly, bruised and bloodied flesh around the wound. Leigh threw off the blanket she’d worn like a shawl and unbuttoning the neat cuffs of her gown, she rolled up her sleeves as professionally as any field surgeon might have while eyeing the work to be done on the wounded soldier lying before him.

Jolie shouldered her way in, managing to insinuate herself between Leigh and the tall Yankee captain, her eyes meeting his for a long, sizing-up moment that told him clearly enough that
she
, at least, remembered him and hadn’t forgiven him. Then she turned a damning shoulder to him and began to select her potions.

Within an instant, she’d mixed a sweet-smelling brew, the fumes almost overpowering as she held it to the astonished Irishman’s lips and ordered him to drink up, then, when he hesitated, looking to his captain for salvation, she bribed him with the promise she’d let him wash it down with a swallow of corn liquor. Neil grinned as McGuire quickly emptied the cup, looking up expectantly, but to Jolie this time, and Neil knew the woman had practiced her wily ways on the Travers family for far too long not to know how to handle McGuire now.

Neil couldn’t hide his surprise when Leigh opened the long, flat box the mulattress had brought in and placed beside her.

“Good Lord! Where did you get that?” he asked in amazement as Leigh’s delicately feminine hand began to hover over the deadly looking tools of a surgeon’s field kit, where all manner and size of knives and saws fitted neatly into the proper compartments, alongside scalpels, forceps, probes, a tourniquet, and silk thread; every conceivable device needed for amputating some unfortunate soldier’s limbs.

“One of the surgeons left it at Travers Hill by mistake,” Leigh answered without bothering to look up as she carefully selected a small knife. “We don’t have any chloroform or ether, but Jolie’s mixture will have the same numbing effect,” Leigh explained. “I must probe for the ball and any broken bone fragments. I think, however, we are lucky, because he seems to be bleeding from the back as well.”

“That comforts me to know, miss,” McGuire said with a sickly grin, his eyelids already beginning to droop from the drugging effects of Jolie’s secret ingredients.

“The ball most likely passed right through the fleshy part of his shoulder, missing the lung because he isn’t having trouble breathing. And except for his bloodied lip, he’s not bleeding internally,” Leigh said, her expression fixed with grim determination as she began to clean the wound of dried blood.

“Ain’ rightly fair to git so shot up fer jus’ blowin’ that trestle,” one of the soldiers commented from somewhere close behind Leigh’s back as he kept a watchful eye on the young woman and the knife she was poking into his friend’s shoulder.

Leigh frowned as she heard his words, but she never looked up as she said, “That’s only part of the reason they’re so determined to hunt you down. Two days ago, a supply train riding the Orange and Alexandria railroad was attacked. It was blown up except for the engine and two boxcars; the first car and one in the middle of the train. Inside the car midway in the train was a well-guarded shipment of gold bullion. The raiders knew exactly which car the gold had been loaded inside, and which one not to blow up. The guards were butchered in cold blood
after
they had surrendered. Only one survived to inform the authorities the train had been attacked by the Bloodriders. The major called it one of the bloodiest massacres he’d seen. The gold was loaded into the first car and the raiders made their escape using the train. It was found toppled into a ravine just south of Gordonsville. The raiders, and the gold bullion, gone. And to make matters worse for you gentlemen, federal raiders tried to attack Richmond, but failed, although they burned and destroyed property along the James River. The major just received orders to stop the federal soldiers, who, when last seen, were retreating north, with Confederate forces in pursuit. That’s why there are so many rebels searching the countryside around here,” Leigh told them, glancing up when she heard the angry curses and shocked denials.

“Now, miss, we didn’t have nuthin’ to do with no gold shipment bein’ stolen. Shoot, it ain’ fair, gittin’ blamed fer it an’ I ain’ even got a gold piece to my name. Ain’ been paid nuthin’ in I don’t know how long.”

“We ain’ no butchers neither!”

“Did your major mention the names of the raiders who attacked Richmond?” Neil asked curiously.

“A General Kilpatrick, and a Colonel Dahlgren. Friends of yours?”

Neil smiled. “No. My men are telling you the truth. We didn’t blow up
that
particular train, nor did we steal any gold bullion,” Neil told her, and strangely enough, Leigh believed him, or maybe it had been the outraged indignation of his men that had convinced her, for they had not been hesitant to take the honors for the destruction of the railroad trestle, so why not this other, even more daring raid, unless they hadn’t been involved and were telling the truth.

For the next hour, Neil stood silently by, while Leigh and the mulattress treated and dressed his men’s wounds with an efficiency and care to cleanliness that would have done any field hospital proud. With hands that ministered gently, but firmly, Leigh had Lieutenant Chatham sitting straight, his breathing coming easier now that his ribs had been tightly wrapped, molded together, and moved back into place, where they would have a chance to mend properly. His ankle had been similarly dealt with, the beads of perspiration that broke out on his brow wiped away by a cooling cloth that smelled like mint and soothed his nerves. And the young lieutenant, drowsy with Jolie’s potions, and far from home, fell hopelessly in love with the young woman who cared for him with such kindness.

Neil glanced around the stables at his men, and although still on guard, and ready for a fight, they stood easily, their bellies full, their wounds treated, with a good chance now to heal without further complications, which was a wounded man’s greatest fear. It helped to ease a man’s mind, since death came more easily, and agonizingly, from wounds and disease than from a bullet on the battlefield. He sensed a return of their spirit, and no longer could he smell the fear seeping out of his men and tainting their sweat.

His hardened gaze came to rest admiringly on the young woman washing her hands of blood.
Leigh.
He said the name silently, caressingly, so many images of her drifting through his mind. He saw once again the long-legged, slender girl with flowing chestnut hair, riding her mare with such daring across a summer meadow, her carefree, innocent laughter beckoning him closer.
Leigh Alexandra.
He remembered a soft, balmy night in a magical garden, the scent of jessamine and roses filling his senses, and a beautiful woman in a gown that shimmered dancing into his heart and out of his reach. He realized now that she had been a girl then, a cool, pale image of the warm, vibrant woman she had become—a stranger to him now.

She was like the willow on the riverbank. She bent to the winds that swept across Travers Hill. She had adapted gracefully to the changes that had come so tragically into her life. She hadn’t broken trying to resist, to fight against a far greater force that would have destroyed her. Nor had she been weakened by the struggle, she had become stronger, finding a strength within that she might never have known otherwise.

Neil stared down at her bent head, at the vulnerable, soft curve of neck, and felt a fiery-hot flame of desire to possess her, in both mind and body, begin to flicker and burn deep inside of him. It would become a consuming flame, feeding off every emotion that his love for her would bring him…
if she were his
, he reminded himself. But she wasn’t. She belonged to Matthew Wycliffe. She had chosen another man that night, not him, Neil thought savagely, feeling his jealousy like an ache inside as he thought of her in Wycliffe’s bed, thought of her in another man’s arms, thought of her as another man’s lover, bearing another man’s children, sharing her warmth with them, never with him.

“No ring?” he commented harshly, unable to speak the words of gratitude he had intended as he eyed her ringless hands, or ask the many questions about his family’s whereabouts.

“It’s washing day at Travers Hill,” Leigh said, thinking of the cameo ring she’d taken off and left on the mantelpiece in the kitchens. “And I don’t think your Irishman would like to have my ring sewn up inside his shoulder,” Leigh said, rubbing the back of her neck tiredly as she stood up, perhaps not seeing the helping hand he held out to her, which was ignored.

“But soon you’ll have the good Matthew’s ring back on your finger. Where is he? Fighting in the Carolinas?” Neil asked, wanting to see her expression when she spoke of her beloved husband.

Leigh glanced up at him in surprise, realizing he believed she was still engaged to Matthew.

Leigh looked back down, seeing her ringless third finger. “Matthew is dead,” she said, hardly able to remember what her engagement ring had looked like. It had been his mother’s and in the Wycliffe family for generations. She had returned it to his family upon hearing of his death. That summer seemed so long ago, now, another lifetime when Matthew had placed his ring on her finger and pressed her hand to his lips, his dark eyes glowing with such promise for their future together.

Neil couldn’t hide the start of surprise when hearing her quietly spoken words.

“Widowed so young,” he murmured, “and left with two small, fatherless children,” he said, thinking of the little dark-haired boy and the baby lifted from the cradle and held with such motherly devotion by Leigh the day before. Her children. And both had inherited Wycliffe’s dark hair. He might have died, but those two children Wycliffe had sired would always be a reminder to Leigh of him. A child of hers should have soft chestnut curls, Neil found himself thinking, wanting to reach out and caress the long golden brown strand of hair that fell across her cheek. “Not very obliging of Matthew, but unless the Wycliffes have already lost everything during this war, you will be well cared for. But I imagine a smart man like Wycliffe would have made investments in the North, perhaps even in Europe. I am surprised to find you sitting here in the heart of the battlefield. There are safer places,” he commented, still disbelieving that she was a widow—that she was free.

“My family is here,” Leigh said simply. “What kind of a person do you believe I could be that I would leave my family in danger while I ran to safety?”

“My mistake, I had forgotten how very close-knit the Travers family is, and how you would do anything to keep them from the road to ruin. Always so self-sacrificing, aren’t you? So, you now find yourself a very wealthy young widow,” he said as if musingly, but inside he knew an anger against this family of hers that always seemed to come first, and he wondered what it would feel like to come first with her. “And Travers Hill will soon be restored to its old glory, courtesy of your late husband’s fortune? I suppose the war has been something of a mixed blessing for you, hasn’t it?”

He had forgotten how proud she was, and how easily her temper flared, and he wasn’t fast enough to stop her, the sound of her hand striking his lean, tanned cheek drawing the startled attention of the mulattress and most of his men. Neil saw the accusing glances leveled at him, knowing they rightly blamed him for her actions, and knowing they all thought themselves in love with her. But he couldn’t blame them. Leigh had that effect on a man.

Leigh started to correct him, but then decided it was none of his business, and she didn’t want his pity, or his hurtful sarcasms if he discovered that Matthew had died before they could marry.
All for naught
, he would have said, smiling that cynical smile. Let him believe she had been happily married to Matthew, and borne his children; she would never see Neil Braedon again. It was none of his business.

“Your men have been tended to, Captain,” she said coldly, hurriedly gathering up her doctoring tools and healing salves, stuffing blood-soaked compresses into the basket. “I would appreciate it if you left Travers Hill with no further delay. I might find it difficult to lie so easily and convincingly next time,” she told him, and a haughtier, more condescending mistress of the manor it would have been hard to find.

“I stand warned, madam,” Captain Dagger replied courteously, his smile unnerving as he added, “but since I wouldn’t wish to cause you any more inconvenience than I already have, you will agree that leaving after dark would be far safer, attracting less attention. You may sleep easy this eve, for no one will see us leaving Travers Hill. Far safer for you and your family, ma’am, as well as for my men.”