Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (61 page)

Hunter put his hands to his head and groaned
like a wounded animal. “Please do not deny me the opportunity to explain.”

“I just told you I do not blame you,” Andrea
said, still staring at the wall. “I have always respected you for your loyalty
and honor and duty to country. You have always been a soldier first. You never
tried to deceive me on
that
matter.”

“How can you talk like that after what we shared
. . . here?”

“What we shared was lust!” Andrea wheeled back
to face him. “You loathed me! Despised me for my allegiance! I accept that and
do not begrudge you, for you were gentleman enough to have never claimed any
different! Thank goodness! At least you never lied and claimed
affection
for me!”

Hunter stared at her incredulously, blinking
repeatedly as if her words were blows that were actually making contact. “No.
How can you think such a thing?” he choked helplessly. “I did … I do … I wanted
to … I tried … but I thought … I thought …”

Hunter stood swaying, opening and closing his
fists. He turned pale; his legs began to shake. He looked like he was going to
be horribly sick.

“Your wound is painful to you?” Andrea hurriedly
pulled a chair over to his shaking form.

Hunter sat down heavily. “Only the one in my
heart,” he said, his head in his hands, his breath coming heavy under the
weight of great suffering. Then he looked up. “You are concerned?”

Andrea kneeled beside him, one hand on the back
of the chair the other tenderly on his knee, and studied his ashen features,
the beads of sweat on his forehead. “I wish no hurt to you, Alex,” she said
solemnly and sincerely. “I never have.”

“Nor have I. Yet I have hurt you dreadfully.” He
sucked in a deep, quivering breath. “Please know, Andrea, that it was never my
intent.”

“I have recovered,” she responded mechanically.

“I cannot believe you. Not when I look in your
eyes.”

Andrea looked up and quickly stood, unwilling to
face his expression of desperate hopefulness. “These eyes have seen much,
Colonel.” She blinked repeatedly in an attempt to stop the images that assailed
her vision. “If they do not glow with happiness, rest assured it has nothing to
do with you.”

Hunter stood and winced with the pain it
produced. “Andrea, what can I say to you? What must I do to win your trust
again?”

“There is nothing to say, Colonel. The obstacles
between us have always been too considerable and are even greater now.”

“And my desire even stronger,” he said
determinedly. “Look into my eyes and test the truth there.”

Andrea refused to meet his gaze. “Nothing would
change in the end, Colonel. Your distrust of me would lead to the same outcome
eventually.”

“And that is why you left without explaining the
truth to me? Without fighting?”

Andrea gazed into the nothingness beyond his
shoulder and spoke the words that had been repeated in her thoughts a thousand
times. “I merely submitted to the inevitable. I left because you ordered it.
You ordered it because you did not trust me. You did not trust me because we
are enemies.” She paused and tried to control her trembling voice. “Because we
are enemies, I could not stay.”

“We are
not
enemies, damn it! Stop saying
that!” Hunter grabbed his head in pain. “Can we not be a man and a woman?”

Andrea was not sure if he was asking her or the
heavens above, so loud were his words proclaimed.

“Andrea.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and
shook her. “I will desire you, admire you, cherish you forever, whether our
loyalties differ or not, whether our allegiances allow it or not. Can you not
look beyond the color of my uniform to the heart that beats beneath it?”

“Release me,” she said, her voice and her
expression cold.

Hunter’s hands fell limply to his side. “Do not
make me your enemy, Andrea, for that I shall never be. The enemy is within you
and your tormented, tortured soul. If you would only open it to me, I would
willingly share your pain.”

“Share it? Or
double
it?” 

Hunter swallowed hard at her words but did not
dispute them. He turned instead to the night that the catastrophic chain of
events had begun. “You must know, Andrea, that I … the Confederacy … owe you a
great debt for your services.”

Andrea closed her eyes, trying to shut out the
memories. “Pray do not speak of it.”

“But why? It was an act of kindness. Of
compassion.”

“You must realize, that as an ally of the South,
I became a traitor to the North, to my country, my flag.”

“Showing humanity is not a traitorous act—nor
dishonorable. Providing relief will ever be more highly regarded than
inflicting misery.”

“How can I look in the eyes of those I once
stood beside?” She turned away, her chest heaving at the burden she had carried
alone these months.

“You cannot blame yourself for doing what is
right,” he said soothingly. “That cost cannot be measured.”

Andrea took a deep breath and shrugged, knowing
she had said those same words to him once. But that was long ago. Nothing was
the same anymore.

“You told me once your conviction for right and
wrong is stronger than that for North and South,” Hunter said from directly
behind her. “There is no crime in that.”

Andrea sighed heavily. “You are wrong. I arrived
at Hawthorne with nothing but my honor. And I left with nothing at all.”  

“Andrea, do
not speak this way! Please, I beg of you! It is not true!” When she did not
respond, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Andrea, you saved a Confederate
officer from drowning in a stream once. Was that traitorous?”

Andrea took a deep breath. “There are some who
would say it was.”

“Do
you
believe it was?”

She remained silent for a moment, wrestling with
conflicting emotions. “I regret it not.” She turned around and looked him in
the eye. “The
regrets
, I suppose, are all yours, Commander.”

Hunter closed his eyes and clenched his fists at
the thrust of her words. “I spoke in anger, and I shall carry that burden and
regret those words to my dying day.”

Andrea realized for the first time that he was
trembling. This mountain of a man, this brave and noble soul, stood before her
shaky and insecure, his eyes pleading, his countenance one of pain and misery
that she knew had nothing to do with his wound. Yet there rested between them
an interminable shadow.

“You can’t just throw it all away,” he finally
said. “Not all that we’ve shared. You cannot deny the sacred ties that bind me
to you.”

“Apparently you see things differently through
the haze of time and distance, Colonel. For you cannot possibly remember our
relationship as a harmonious one.”

Hunter looked
deep into her eyes. “Perhaps not harmonious, yet a more perfect match could not
be found. Our wills may run contrary, yet we are always in perfect accord. Even
you, Miss Evans, cannot deny the attraction.”

Andrea looked away, unable to meet his gaze.
“The only attraction I recall is between you and Victoria. No doubt she is
waiting for you with open arms at Hawthorne.”

“You are mistaken on both counts, Andrea. There
was no attraction on my part, and Victoria no longer resides at Hawthorne.”

Andrea gazed up at him questioningly.

“Miss Hamilton was a childhood friend—nothing
more—as evidenced by the fact that she has tired of Hawthorne and taken up
residence at Oakleigh until the war subsides.”

Andrea’s eyes flicked across his face, but she
saw no sign of regret or any indication that he cared one way or the other that
Victoria now resided with his nemesis John Paul.

“Tell me, Andrea,” he whispered, obviously
hoping that what her lips said was in direct contradiction to the emotions of
her heart. “Do I really cease to exist to you?”

“I have let go,” she said without thinking, “as
you asked me to.”

“
Asked
you to?”

Andrea looked up and realized that dream and
reality were so closely mixed she no longer knew the difference. The warm,
compassionate eyes she stared into now were nothing like the ones that still
chilled her in her dreams night after night. She watched the steel-gray eyes,
usually smoldering with courage and determination, fill with a tenderness that
flooded her heart with a feeling she thought was long ago dead.

“Andrea. Don’t let this war take any more than
it already has. What we have, it’s strong enough to survive this war. I know it
is.”

“No, the war’s grip is too tight.” Andrea shook
her head. “It’s too big to think we can overcome it.”

“To hell
with the war!” Hunter threw his hands in the air in desperation, then took her
arms and shook her gently. “I love you,” he said huskily. “I love you, Andrea.
Desperately. Nothing—not the war—
nothing
can change that!”

“You are wrong. The war had changed everything.
And no one and nothing will ever be the same.”

Hunter looked blankly at the wall behind her,
his lips tightly compressed. All his strength appeared to leave him. Not a
muscle in his countenance moved as he stared into the distance with vacant
eyes. “Andrea, I wish to begin again,” he said, trying to make a final stand.
“I will refuse you nothing in my authority to grant. I will serve you in any
way in my power and at any cost to myself.”

“Is the offer made out of pity or regret? Because
I told you before, Colonel, you need not lament over something that was done
honorably as a soldier.”

A sigh so deep it sounded like a groan escaped
him. “Andrea, must you prove I have a heart by ripping it out?”

Andrea turned from him as she fought for
control. She did not want to hurt him, but neither could she allow herself to
be hurt again. Every inch of her being, every nerve, every sense, remembered
the agony.

“You are in
command of this battle, Andrea,” he said coming up behind her. “I only ask that
you allow me to surrender with honor. Will you grant it?”

Andrea turned her head, startled, knowing that
his nature did not allow him to say the words easily.

“No conditions,” he said as if reading her mind.
“Complete and unconditional.”

Andrea felt his hands on her shoulders. “The
terms sound satisfactory, but unfortunately I have found it does no good to
lodge an objection with fate. And the fate of war has already decided against
us.”

“Fate cannot deny us what our hearts most
crave,” he said, turning her around. “I believe our love is sacred! There can
be no bond stronger than that which unites enemies—”

“I’m sorry,” Andrea interrupted. “I can’t.”

“
Can’t
? Or
won’t
? Can’t let down
your reserve and accept the circumstances that have been thrust upon us? Won’t
let down that wall you’ve built thick enough and high enough to keep everyone
out?”

“I am enfleshed only by skin, not a coat of
armor!”

“Then why won’t you allow yourself to feel? Why
can’t you see that loving someone, needing someone, is not a sign of weakness?
What are you so afraid of?”

Andrea turned her back on him, her mind numb and
confused. Did he not know she had allowed herself to feel once, and the pain it
had caused had been almost more than she could bear? Why could he not see that
she was only pretending to be alive now? Of course she could not feel. A part
of her had died the day she left Hawthorne. And it would never live again.

“You pretend to be so fearless,” Hunter said,
interrupting her thoughts. “Yet when it comes to your feelings you are a
coward.”

Andrea remained silent. He spoke the truth. She
turned back to him and asked the one burning question that remained. “Tell me,
Colonel, do you come to me now because of the promise?”

 “No!” he yelled almost before she had finished
the sentence. “This has nothing to do with Daniel! Damnation, your stay at
Hawthorne had less to do with that promise than you can possibly know.”

Hunter let out his breath and leaned against the
wall with an outstretched hand. “I am here because my heart … my soul … is not
whole without you.”

“Then I pity you, because I’m sorry, but I have
nothing left to give.”

Her words were like a deathblow. Andrea watched
him let his breath out in a pitiful sigh. She could tell he had finally let go
of all hope, given into dreadful despair.

After a few moments to regain his strength he
spoke again. “I understand that I have no right to ask anything of you, Andrea,
but your forgiveness I will seek before you leave here. Truly, I implore your
pardon.”

Andrea forgave him all, but she did not form the
words. “I blame no one but myself and never have,” she said in an unemotional
voice. “You are clear, sir, of all liability.”

A look of intense regret flashed across Hunter’s
eyes. “I brought a horse, in case you wished to leave tonight. I assume you
would like to do that.”

Andrea
nodded, her eyes closed tightly. Considerate to the core, generous to a fault,
he had envisioned the possibility she would not want to spend the night. He was
too chivalrous, too much a gentleman, to force her to do so.

“I-I have the highest regard for you and your
wishes, and so will not seek you out again. But live or die, Andrea, my love
for you will never end.”

Andrea heard the door close behind her as he
went out to saddle the horse, and a fresh set of tears spilled down her cheeks.
The pain that tore through her was like no other she had ever felt. But she had
to send him away—had to get it over with—even if it was going to kill her.

After a few minutes, Andrea put her hand on the
doorknob, drew a deep breath, and put her hood up against the cold night air.
Hunter stood outside with the horse already saddled, staring at the sky, his
face etched with pain.