Surrender the Wind (22 page)

“Know the general long?” Betty asked and steered them into a room with exotic appointments and pulled the drapes.

Catherine took stock of the crystal candelabras and other rich accoutrements. Flowered murals with peacocks adorned the walls. Bouquets of peacock feathers fanned out in mammoth cloisonné vases. The room’s prominent feature was a huge bed, covered with a turquoise colored satin coverlet, and piled with pillows of turquoise satin and trimmed with turquoise tassels.

When Catherine made no reply, Betty made it a point to continue her conversation. “Johnny and I go way back, don’t we Johnny?” Betty flounced her broad hips up to Rourke, and stopped dead in front of him. “You better take your clothes off, General…if you get my drift.”

Like a dry twig under foot, Catherine’s temper snapped. “You get away—”

Betty looked down her nose. “Quiet, honey or you’ll wake the dead.” She laughed and moved away. “It’s almost like you two were married.” From her wardrobe, Betty grabbed a Union Colonel’s jacket and hat and draped it on the bedpost.

“We are,” John said.

“Thought so. Never saw a woman so possessive about a man,” Betty sighed. “Too bad it wasn’t us John. I always had a particular fondness for you.”

“I never—” Catherine sputtered, but Betty interrupted her.

“You get undressed too, honey and get in bed.”

“I will not. This is the end of this ridiculous charade. I’m leaving.”

Rourke grabbed her arm and spun her around. “You’ll not compromise, Betty. She’s a good friend. I’ll not see her hang for the likes of you. Get undressed, or I’ll tear your clothes off.”

Betty laughed and patted her red hair. “You have yourself a real wildcat with claws, General, should be an interesting evening.” She winked at him then ambled away, closing the door and leaving Catherine feeling tawdry.

John smiled then, a menacing smile. “Let’s stop the pretense. We are both aware of your profession. This is not an establishment you would normally work out of, but what’s the difference? Except what you do, I hold in contempt. Betty at least has my admiration. She is honest and has a heart. You however, are a spy, the worst kind. Don’t look daggers at me. I am no stupid fresh-faced raw recruit.”

Her lashes fell. To have come so close to a happy reunion. There were some roads that could never be revisited, no matter what lay at their ends.

She heard horses pulled up out front. Rourke lifted the drapes, then snapped them down. “Yanks, I’ll insist on your full cooperation or else.”

“I will not. You brought this down on yourself. You chose to leave the south on a fool’s errand.”

John reached her in two easy strides, spun her around then undid the row of tiny buttons down the back of her dress and yanked the garment off. He pulled a knife from his boot and before she could shriek, cut the laces off her corset and tossed the clothing across the room in a heap. “I will not put up with any more of your defiance nor will I be taken prisoner.”

She stood before him naked, yet proud, despite his attempts to humiliate her, and she didn’t like the hungry look in his eyes—the look of a man who had marched through hell and back to get what he wanted. He stripped off his jacket and shirt and stuffed them in a chest. He picked her up and deposited her on the bed, and then straddling her, he pulled the coverlet up to conceal them.

“Now is your time to act the part you were born for, my sweet. One slip, and I’ll—” The booming of heavy boots hammered up the stairway and thundered toward their room.

Catherine was about to scream for help but John silenced her with a kiss. The door busted in. A number of Union soldiers stood in the hallway witness to an act they could only imagine. Catherine yelped, her shame eternal, but John held a pistol at her side, warning her.

“Gentlemen?” John asked in his best imitation of a Washington accent. “Is there a problem?”

“Ah-uh-no, Sir.” The sergeant stuttered, glancing at the Colonel’s jacket hanging on the bedpost. “We were looking for an escaped Rebel.”

“As you can see—” John laced his tone with irritation. “I’m busy. If you don’t mind…”

“No Colonel,” The sergeant chafed, growing red-faced. “We were directed to this establishment. There’s a dangerous Rebel loose in the Capitol. If you see anyone or anything suspicious—”

“I’ll be the first to tell you,” John snapped. “It’s a short night boys. I’ve paid a good sum for tonight. But Miss Candy, I’m sure, will be obliged to sweeten your appetites tomorrow night if you are so inclined. Won’t you, Miss Candy?”

He jabbed the muzzle of his revolver in her side.

With a whimper, she doubled her efforts to be free of him. The soldiers laughed, enjoying an officer having fun with a woman.

“Yes Sir.” The sergeant smiled with the eagerness of a puppy, tail up, nose wet and impatient to play. “No one suspicious here. We’ll continue our investigation downstairs and interview the ladies. My apologies, Colonel.” He tipped his hat, stepping through the wreckage and left.

“How dare you put a pistol on me,” she hissed.

John laughed and wagged his index finger that he had used for a pistol. A cruel set came to his lips and a naked hunger in his eyes burned into her. While he voiced no words, she heard his thoughts as if he roared them. His fingers threaded into her hair, and then his knuckles brushed warmly over her cheek, her bare shoulder. “We have some catching up to do
wife.”
He lay with his full weight upon her. His hand slid down her taut stomach to the swell of her hip and then back up again to outline the circle of her full breast. He kissed her, forcing her to endure his punishing kiss.

It had been so long…she curled into the curve of his body, and a hard rise protruded from his wool pants, rough against her skin. The mere touch of his hand sent hot, wild shivers running through her, and she moaned aloud, aware of the heavy pounding of his heart, and her own throbbing a frantic new rhythm.

“No.” Catherine squirmed beneath him. “You were freed, back to your beloved homeland to preserve your insidious war. You have magnified me a hundred times over to be a villain. Have you no regard for the truth?”

“Your paramour, Mallory, had his thugs bound and beat me, then ordered to finish me off. The hangman was cheated, the Union Army thwarted, and for the time being, the Grim Reaper frustrated. You have made life a challenge, and I have met it, and now, we have come full circle. Don’t for one second, deny your deceit.”

“You are a fool!” Catherine hissed, and then gasped in alarmed surprise as his arm coiled around her like a striking snake, hauling her up against his chest.

“Don’t ever,” he said, enunciating in an awful voice, “use that tone on me again. For weeks I have served up the tantalizing prospect of having you beneath me. Can you begin to understand what can make a man fight and win, to keep his mind off blistered feet and burning muscles and torrid sun? Dreaming of champagne, of wide beds and soft white sheets, of a woman who betrayed me and who I will use at will to be at my beck and call for my every need when it arises. But now is not the time.”

He jerked her to her feet. “Get dressed!” he rasped.

They met MacDougal and Brigid in the hallway. Catherine expected to find an outraged Brigid. She looked twice. Her maid stood starry-eyed, hauled up underneath the tall Scotsman’s arm in an embrace.

Catherine pulled her reluctant maid aside. “Brigid, you’ve been kidnapped, forced against your will into a brothel and—” Catherine hesitated looking up at the formidable Rebel who she dared not offend, “—if I recall, you’ve had less than an inclination for a particular nationality.”

“He’s so romantic.”

“Romantic.” Catherine blurted. “He didn’t take any liberties, did he?”

“Ian’s a perfect gentleman. If only my dear departed mother told me the Scots could kiss so well,” Brigid sighed.

“Ian?” Catherine repeated. “You’re on a first name basis?”

Ian pulled Brigid back to his side, and John prodded Catherine ahead. Turning her head, Catherine witnessed the unadulterated dreamy looks her maid and Ian cast each other. Unbelievable.

Betty led them down a back stairway to the outside. “The Yanks are still here. My girls will keep them busy. Ride due west. My sources say it’s your only avenue of escape.” She kissed John good-bye. “Until I see you again.”

To Catherine, she said, “You are a lucky woman.”

If the moon did come out, it would be shrouded by clouds. The smell of moss and rotting leaves floated up from the earth. There was no breeze, just a hot humid night awaiting the release of an impending storm. The air was electric. Catherine looked behind her at John. In the minimum light, his face appeared marble with no show of fear.

He stopped to double-check his compass and waited for Ian to bring his horse abreast. “With numerous miles and three hours before dawn, I want to put distance between us and Washington. Crossing lines will be tricky. Our surroundings have changed from a point on a map to a battlefield. My above average hope is to stay away from the tight formations of Union companies and not run into a stray company. Staying on the fringes and hoping to fall into General Jubal Early’s columns is the best we can pray for.”

“Let’s hope panic shooting pickets don’t wedge bullets in our sides,” Ian warned and Brigid wailed. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll protect you with my life.” The big Scot comforted her.

Darling?
Catherine worried about her maid. But the fearsome adjutant looked like a man who could take care of himself. John wouldn’t have picked a henwit for such a risky mission. No, he would pick someone like himself, dangerous and deadly.

John spurred his horse. He was a matchless rider, running at a full gallop across the fields to the south, gliding over fences in effortless motion, every bone, muscle and tendon of horse and rider working in spectacular, perfect symmetry. Did he see in the dark?

Sounds from nearby units filtered through the forest and a surge of quick time marching streamed to the west. In the road parallel to them, cassions of horses, pulling cannons galloped by and disappeared ahead of them.

The pace was quicker. With his gloved hand John stroked her hair as if assuring him that she was there. He drew her hood over her head shielding her from the briars that might snap across her face. The gestures were telling.
He did care.

They raced through the thicket and woodlands, the horse jumping over fallen logs.
Were they alone in the woods?
Her head jerked up, the steady drumbeat of hooves galloping through the soft earth, slashing through brush, and crumpling thickets. John too, heard, and she started to ask, but he waved his hand, silencing her. A shot cracked off to the right and John’s head snapped toward it.

Were they discovered?

A deer dodged through the bush ahead of them. John and Ian froze. Yankee pickets moved east of them. The hairs stood up on her arms.

“If you dare make a sound—” he whispered in her ear, his contempt, a deep warning.

Catherine could reach out and touch them through the bushes, even count the hairs in a man’s whiskers. They were that close. On foot it would be a shoot-out, then hand to hand fighting. To be pierced by a bayonet?

As quickly as the Yankee pickets sidled past them, they were gone. Waiting for them to pass over the ridge, John moved again, melting into the darkness. He switched direction bearing harder into the brush, bending saplings and sidestepping trees, punishing his horse. The animal’s flanks lathered from the double load. At the edge of a clearing, they paused for Ian to catch up. Brigid draped lifeless in his arms.

“What did you do to my maid?”

The adjutant shrugged. “She fainted at the first sound of a bullet.”

“Impossible. Brigid would stand firm in front of a charging bull.”

“Quiet.” John breathed, listening, and then peeling his Union top coat off, he stripped to his butternut and doffed his Rebel hat. Ian did the same. No doubt, getting caught wearing Union garb guaranteed a hanging or invited a bullet from Rebel pickets. Both horses were prodded over an open field. Bullets exploded around them. Union infantry from the road had discovered them. John spurred his horse, urging his mount to get out of range of rifle fire.

“This way.” he shouted, heading deep into the cover of the woods ahead of them.

Catherine held her breath. No way could they keep up this pace through the woods. The horse followed an erratic path and at once sloshed through a creek bed, water soaking her skirts. All the fear eating her pushed outward. She was on fire. Every sound exploded in her ears. Every sight burned into her mind as if it were her last.

The horse carried itself low to the ground, out of sight. Like an invisible phantom of the night, its strong wide hooves secured confident footfalls, dodging branches, leaping ravines, and fallen logs. More shots. Too fast. Gunpowder spiraled in the air. Her teeth clamped down on her knuckles to block her scream. John and Ian fired off a few shots and picked a new direction.

“Hell, General, we’re flanked on both sides. These woods are crawling with Yanks. What do we do?” John scanned the night. “General Early must be in retreat. Plow straight ahead.”

Her hands shook. “You’ll get us all killed.”

John checked his compass again.

Mary Mother of God! With all this zigzagging, he has us lost!
Another bullet whizzed right by her ear before slamming into the trunk of a tree beside them.
The fool!

Another round came, and another en masse, emanating from the mysterious darkness. They flew until a single roll of crackle gave way to a solid roll of shot. John crushed her belly-low over the horse, to make as small a target as possible. Bullets whizzed by, miraculously missing. At any moment their mount would be shot from beneath them breaking both their necks. It just wasn’t pickets anymore. Branches flew off the trees as spent bullets kicked-up the leaves.

She was in the arms of a madman! God save her!
As quickly as the volley started, it ceased, as if the Yankee leaders decided it was a waste of ammunition on such small quarry. Their respite was momentary. Yank Calvary shouted from far atop an opposing hill on sighting them. John kneed the horse across a small clearing, heading east, and then when obscured from view, veered west, plunging into another endless forest. They came upon several mounted Rebels.