Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (52 page)

“No.” He tugged at the cinch. “Just following
orders.”

“Orders?”

“The Colonel seems to think it’s in your best
interest if I don’t converse with you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Seems to think you need protection.”

“Protection?” Andrea forced a laugh. “From
what?”

Pierce lifted the saddle from the mare’s back
and placed it on the gelding Zach brought forward. “From me, apparently.” He
reached under the animal for the cinch.

“You jest.” Andrea removed the bridle from his
lame horse with expert hands and handed it to Zach.

“No, I don’t.” Pierce watched with apparent
interest her casual and relaxed interaction with his horse and the practiced
way she handled the bridle.

“Then you must have misunderstood.”

“There was no misunderstanding.” He mounted and
then bent down, his face almost even with Andrea’s as he pretended to adjust
his stirrup. “Perhaps he believes I find you intoxicating and would not be able
to perform my duties as a soldier with you in my blood.”

Andrea’s heart thumped as his deep, passionate
gaze swept over her. But the suggestion he offered stirred no pulse of desire
in her, only a slow building of anger.

“In any event,” Pierce cleared his throat and
straightened, “I’m a soldier first and remain obedient to the Commander. I fear
any further discussions on the subject will have to be with him.” He tipped his
hat, devoured her with his gaze in such a way that let her know he did not
concur with Hunter’s wishes, and urged his horse forward, leaving Andrea
standing in the barn, both hands clenched in fists.

* * *

Hunter heard the crowing of a lazy rooster as he
started out the door. With his head bent over the task of pulling on his
gloves, he did not see Andrea making her way back from the barn. He almost
strode right past her on the steps, but when he looked up, he stopped.

“Andrea.” The image of green eyes blazing in
firelight appeared in his mind unbidden. She stared straight ahead, making it
obvious the memory of what transpired in the cabin had not deserted her mind
either.

“Wait!” He
grabbed her arm. “Andrea, if there is something I have said or done, or failed
to do or say … I mean, it was not my intention to offend you—”

Andrea interrupted him in such a calm,
determined voice that it instantly struck at his heart. “
Offend
me? Sir,
you forget. I have spent enough time in the exclusive company of men to
understand their motives.” Her voice betrayed no pain, but her eyes did,
noticeably.

Hunter winced at the thought of the many indelicate
conversations she must have heard among soldiers in the gleam of campfire
light. For a moment he tried to divine her meaning. “My motives?”

“The
conquest.” Andrea assumed an air of indifference she obviously did not feel.
“It’s the thrill of the hunt that enthralls men such as you, is it not?”

She was apparently trying to make the matter
sound trivial, but Hunter could see she was so angry—or hurt—she trembled. He
reached out for her hand, but she evaded the move.

“No, Andrea. I fear I’ve bungled badly something
that … that—” He struggled for the right words. She stood on the top step, he
two steps down, just where they had been two days earlier when he had stared
into laughing, happy eyes. Today he could not look directly into them, so
agonized and distrustful was her gaze.

“Andrea, you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I believe I understand perfectly.” Andrea
drew her arm away when he reached toward it. “I’m that willful spirit which you
doubtless longed to break, and certainly not the first to become a woman at the
hands of—” She took a deep, gasping breath and shook her head impatiently as if
losing her train of thought. “I mean, to be
conquered
by the gallant
Colonel Hunter.”

Hunter noticed she no longer trembled. She
visibly shook. Even her teeth chattered as though bitterly cold. The strong,
unwavering Andrea stood quivering from head to toe and, for once, showed no
signs of being able to rally her spirit. He imagined her heart beating like the
wings of a caged bird, thrashing and bruising itself against the bars.

“Andrea, please listen to me.”

“And now I have caused a rift with one of your
officers.” She wrung her hands, staring out over his shoulder again. “I rather
thought, Colonel …” She stopped to catch her breath. It was as if she were
sobbing, yet there were no tears. “I rather thought that
sharing
the
spoils of war was a key component of your Command.”

“Andrea, you must calm down.” Hunter took both
of her arms and held them by her side. “Stop talking like this. Listen to
reason!”

“I would have expected as much from Captain
Pierce, whose motives were clear to me from the moment I met him.” She looked
Hunter in the eye now, staring through him with a half-crazed expression.

“Andrea, you don’t understand. Pierce is a
volatile man. If he found out who you really are—”

“I’m not ashamed of my allegiance!” She
struggled from his grasp again. “For if I were to be shot by him or held in his
arms, I’d be grateful for the former and sickened by the latter!”

After taking a deep, shaky breath, Andrea seemed
to will herself to calmness. “Perhaps you can withdraw your offensive order
from Captain Pierce, sir.
He
is not the one from whom I need
protection.”

She tried to turn and leave, but Hunter stepped
in front of her. “Andrea, you must know, it was not my intention to—”

Andrea held up her hand. “I understand, Colonel,
that these matters are inconsequential, more so for a man than a woman. Such
things will naturally sit more lightly on your conscience than they do on
mine.”

“I did not mean to imply it was inconsequential!
You are misconstruing my words!” Hunter suppressed the urge to drag her into
his arms, for it appeared to him she would crumble to dust and blow away if he
but touched her. “Andrea, I don’t have time now, but—”

He gave his horse a hurried glance. His men were
already gathering. Stern duty demanded his prompt return to them.

“Yes, of course. If duty requires you to leave,
then leave you must.”

“Andrea, I need to talk to you.”

“No. No need to talk.” She stared straight
ahead, her face white with restrained emotion, her whole appearance one of
misery.

“I swear to you on my brother’s grave I never
meant to hurt you.”

“Oh, yes. There is the matter of that promise.”
Andrea laughed without smiling. “No doubt a distasteful obligation for you. But
it
is
ironic that a promise is the only reason I am here, is it not? A
promise to allow no harm to befall me at that.” Her voice turned to a mere
whisper. “Tell me, Colonel, do you consider that promise kept?”

She gazed deep into his eyes, and the look on
her face told him that she did not. He bowed his head at her words, could no
longer bear the pain in her voice.

Her next words were barely audible, with such
heartbreaking emotion were they voiced. “I asked you before to despoil me of my
life … but leave me with my honor.”

Hunter looked
at her hard, then wished he had not. He saw her very soul in her eyes and it
wept—even if she did not. “Andrea. Please listen to reason.”

“Truly, Colonel, I accept the situation. It is I
who construed a mere truce into a . . . into a sacred claim.”

“It was not just a truce!” Hunter grabbed her
arms and held them to her side. “Andrea, what must I say to make you
understand?”

“Say nothing! I want nothing to do with you!”

“If I have to lock you in your room, young lady,
I will make you listen to me!”

“Do not
threaten
me.” Her voice was calm,
though she still stared into his eyes with an unnerving, unnatural look.

“Andrea, please. This is too complicated to
discuss right now. But I—”

Hunter paused, unable to decide on a course of
action. He had hoped to ask her to become his wife, to make things right with
the night they had shared. But he did not dare. Not now. She would not believe
his words of devotion. Her emotions ran too deep for that.

In that
moment’s hesitation, when he did not know what to do or say, Andrea struggled
free from his grasp, and half-ran, half-stumbled to the door.

“Andrea, wait! We need to talk! Don’t walk away
from me! I forbid it!”

Andrea turned slightly and gave him one pitiful
backward glance of hopeless pain and fury before rallying her spirit enough to
speak in customary defiance of his power. “Do not
dare
give an order to
me!” Her eyes blazed with that old foe, hate. “You forget! I am the
enemy
!”

Chapter
51

“It is faith that saves, distrust that most quickly
destroys.”

– From Jest to Earnest, E.P. Roe

Hunter paced in his library, his hands clenched,
his face red with anger. After returning from the field, he’d discovered Andrea
was nowhere to be found. Izzie had been forced to admit she had “gone for a carriage
ride” with John Paul hours earlier.

Was this her
way of exacting revenge on him? His heart lurched at the thought. She had no
way of knowing he would return so soon. Even he had not known that the cry of
alarm that roused him this morning was a false one.

The sound of carriage wheels interrupted his
thoughts, soon followed by the soft tap of Andrea’s cane coming up the porch
steps.

Hunter strode from the library and waited for
her by the stairs. Unconscious of observation, she brushed her disheveled hair
back as she walked across the foyer, her eyes cast downward. Even in her
tousled appearance she radiated a glow of beauty and natural innocence. The
sight of her made his heart flutter, and the thought of her with John Paul
caused his blood to surge with jealousy.

The closer
she got, the more his anger swelled. “Welcome back, Miss Evans,” he said. “It
appears you had an errand that took you away from Hawthorne.”

Andrea lifted her head, obviously surprised at
his presence. Yet she stood and looked him calmly in the eye. “I pray you did
not return in haste so we could resume our earlier conversation.” She tried to
push past him.

Hunter grabbed her by the arm and blurted out
the first thing that entered his mind, fully expecting a fight. “Are you
intentionally following in Elizabeth’s footsteps, Miss Evans? Or does lust for
my neighbor fall under the category of vengeance?”

Andrea blinked repeatedly, as if his words were
a hard slap to the face, but otherwise she did not move or even appear to
breathe. Instead of pulling away in anger or rebellion, she looked up at him
with eyes that reflected surprise, then disbelief, and then a deep hurt, as if
he had indeed physically assaulted her. She opened her mouth to speak, but
nothing came out.

The silence for a few long moments remained
oppressive, her thoughts apparently too deep for human utterance. “Once again
you dishonor me, sir,” was all she said before wrenching her arm free from his
grasp.

Hunter looked
in wonderment at her blank, detached expression, and then into the eyes that
stared up at him still. His heart welled with pity at what he saw there—for he
could have sworn, before she turned away, that a tear had overflowed the rim
and trickled down her cheek.

Hunter felt a crushing blow to his chest at the
deep hurt reflected in those misty eyes. “Papa does not like tears,” she had
said during her fever. Indeed no amount of physical agony, fear, or memories
from her past had been sufficiently painful to draw that dampness before. He
had never witnessed a single one—not even upon Daniel’s death—until now.

The tears she had pent up in her heart for so
long had finally been wrung from her soul by his own accursed words.

“Wait. Andrea, I—”

A loud knock on the door interrupted him. By the
time he yelled impatiently for the courier to enter and turned back, she had
disappeared up the stairs. 

“It’s important, sir,” the courier said.

Hunter tore open the dispatch. Blast it! The
Yankees were heading toward town. The chance of two false reports in one day
was slim.

Hunter ran up the stairs, taking two at a time.
He needed to apologize before he left. It could not wait. Knocking once on her
door, he burst in and found the room empty. She must have anticipated his move
and gone straight down the back staircase.

Hurrying back downstairs and outside, he made a
quick sweep of the gardens and the pasture where Justus stood. She was not
there.

“Saddle Dixie,” he yelled to Zach, while looking
down toward the pond. A sudden movement on the hill caught his eye.

There he saw
her, kneeling in front of Daniel’s grave, her head bowed, her shoulders
drooping. She placed her hand on the tombstone, and leaned her head on her
hand. The scene tore at his soul, made him regret the pain he had caused her.
How could he tell her how much he respected her? Honored her? Yet it was
strikingly clear that it was Daniel for whom her thoughts would ever be.

Oh, Andrea. If by forfeiting my life I could
place him back in your arms, how quickly and willingly would the exchange be
made!

Hunter turned away. He had a duty to perform. He
did not look back. He could not.

* * *

The sound of a horse galloping at breakneck
speed broke the silence in Andrea’s chamber. She sat on the bed with trembling
hands and closed her eyes in anticipation of what was to come. Within moments
she heard the loud clank of spurs, and then his voice outside her door.

“Andrea, we need to talk.” The doorknob jiggled,
and then Hunter pounded the wooden barrier with his fist. “Confound it, Andrea!
I’m going to put my horse away, and when I return, this door had better be
unlocked—or I’m coming through!”