Hearts Under Siege (Civil War Collection) (3 page)

Their gazes locked, and time ceased to exist. She could sense his restraint beneath his calm exterior. Yet she wasn’t afraid of him. In fact, she was drawn to him…

“I appreciate your kindness,” she said, taking hold of herself. “But I have to find my brother, Jeffy. He was on the steamboat.”

“Your brother? That’s why you were out there alone?” He gestured toward the door with his hand.

“No, I was alone because those animals murdered my servant. My brother’s out there, and I have to find him.” She threw back the blanket and placed her feet on the floor, gritty even beneath her shoes.

“Alexandra,” he said, grasping her arm. “It’s dark outside. You might make more progress in the morning and endanger yourself less. Besides…”

“No, he could be injured. He could die before morning.”

“Ma petite, your dress leaves you in no condition to go out.”

Looking down at her exposed chemise, her breasts straining against the thin material, her hands tugged at the shreds of cotton as she tried to pull his jacket closed around her.

“Sir, you are no gentleman to be looking.”

“I’m not looking,” he said, his eyes on hers, gently smoothing her hair away from her face, and trailing a finger beneath her chin. “However, those men could be lurking about outside. And I, for one, don’t wish to go through that again.” He deftly reached down and buttoned his jacket over her breasts.

Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she chose to ignore his action and her racing pulse.

“I have to find him.”

“We’ll find him, chérie.”

“He’s alive. I know he is,” she said, and tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Shh.” Thomas pulled her close and held her.

“Do you believe me? Will you help me find him?”

“We’ll find him. He’ll be all right.”

She pulled back, and blinking through the tears, looked into his eyes. “Do you really think he’s alive?”

“Do you believe it?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s my brother. My twin. If something happened to him, I would know it.”

“Then together we’ll find him. At first light. I give you my promise.”

Her lips formed a faint smile.

His face was so close that his breath touched her skin. He was a handsome man, but it was his eyes that drew her to him. Even in the dim moonlight, they were clear and sparkling. Drowning in the intensity of his gaze, she couldn’t pull away, yet she sensed that he could devour her with a mere touch.

He moved even closer. His breath caressed her skin, and a shiver ran up her spine. He was so close that she could feel his skin, rough with the shadow of a beard, scratching against her skin. Her eyes fluttered closed.

He placed soft lips against hers. She half gasped and half moaned, swaying almost imperceptibly. When he released her, her eyes flew open, and she was left with a feeling of emptiness.

She tried to concentrate. She knew she was supposed to slap him or do something equally appropriate to display her outrage at his taking advantage of her. But how could she slap someone whose touch gave her such pleasure? She couldn’t.

She just sat there, mesmerized. Staring at him with her eyes wide.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Miss Champagne. I shouldn’t have done that. Now, you get some sleep so that you will have strength in the morning.”

Though she lay her head down and snuggled beneath the scratchy wool blanket, she didn’t think she would sleep this night, not after everything that had happened. But fatigue swept over her and soothed the edges of her raw nerves.

Despite her doubts, she sank into a peaceful slumber. Then the memories came back in the form of a familiar nightmare, and she hovered on wakefulness.

When Alexandra was ten, her mother, Lauren, was stricken with yellow fever. Eighteen-fifty-three had been a hot, rainy year, and her mother had spent the last week nursing the slaves.

“How is Mama?” Alexandra asked, all but pouncing on Grand-père when he reached the bottom stair.

“I’m sorry, Kitten. She worsens by the hour.” His face was drawn with fatigue, and his hair more gray. Sadness in his eyes went beyond weariness.

“Let me help her,” Alexandra begged.

“I can’t do that. You could catch the fever.”

“I don’t care! I can help her. She taught me how.” She started up the stairs where her mother lay in her bed.

Grand-père grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Listen to me. I’ll let you speak to her, but only because she’s been calling for you. You mustn’t stay long, and you mustn’t touch her. And stand back away from her.”

“All right. Let me go.”

“Do you hear me? You must not touch her,” he demanded, tilting her chin up and forcing her to look into his eyes.

“Very well,” she said with resignation. “Please, let me see her.”

Alexandra often thought it would have been easier if she hadn’t seen her mother that day, lying beneath a mound of blankets, her skin a sickly yellow. Her father sat on the edge of the bed, his face buried in his hands.

“Alexandra,” Thomas said, shaking her gently. “Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

“It was happening again,” she said, taking a ragged breath.

“Don’t think about it, chérie,” he said, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “You’re safe now. You’ve been through so much, but you’re safe here.”

Not thinking, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face against his cheek. The tears started slowly; then she couldn’t hold them back. The war in itself had created enough hardships to last two lifetimes. This latest tragedy with Jeffy brought back the raw pain of her parents’ deaths from yellow fever. Besides Grand-père, Jeffy was all she had left in the world. She couldn’t imagine a world without him in it.

Reaching up, she felt for the familiar locket hanging around her neck. Pulling away from Thomas, she gasped. It wasn’t there.

“Oh, my God!” She jumped up from the bed and ran to the door. Then she stopped and cam
e
shoulders. “Take hold of yourself, Alexandra. What’s the matter?”

“My locket. It’s gone. That man broke it from my neck.”

“The man who attacked you? Is he the one who took it?”

“Yes, he had to have been. I must find it. It holds the only likeness of my father that exists. He—he died before having a portrait done. I’ve worn his image for ten years.”

“We’ll get it back. It’ll be light within the hour.”

Alexandra took a deep breath. Even if she had lost the locket, the important thing was to find her brother. She had to keep her wits about her.

“Very well,” she said, sitting back down on the edge of the cot and studying her hands in the dim moonlight.

It was then that familiar voices called out in the distance from outside, and the light from a lantern glowed through the window.

“Miss Alexandra!” It was Ham and some others from the plantation.

“They’ve come for me,” Alexandra said, bolting for the door. “Now we’ll find Jeffy.”

She opened the door and stepped outside into the unexpected morning chill, calling for her servants. They were there within the minute.

“Captain Thomas,” she called. “We can go now. Ham and Washington have lanterns.”

Stepping back inside the cabin, she stood still. It was empty. The window on the back wall stood open.

Her Yankee savior had fled.

Chapter Three

Damn it. Why had he ever agreed to this assignment? He should have known it would only turn out badly. He just wasn’t cut out for this kind of duplicity. The whole thing twisted his stomach into knots. Circling back around toward the place he’d found Alexandra last evening, he scanned his surroundings in case the ruffians returned.

At last he’d met the popular Alexandra Champagne, and because of this damned uniform, he’d been compelled to desert her. She’d think him no better than a coward. No, he was not a coward, he thought, fighting down his demons. He had fled for Alexandra’s own good. Now finding the locket and returning it to her became the least he could do.

Swatting a branch from his face, he questioned his sanity. Here he traipsed through the woods in the dark in the middle of a war. Why in heaven’s name had he promised to help a girl, no, he corrected himself,
a
woman
he didn’t even know, find not only a sentimental locket, but also her brother who probably perished in the steamboat explosion? He needed to have his wits examined. The raging war called to him while he wasted valuable time searching the woods for a locket, of all things.

By the time he reached his destination, dawn filtered through the trees, allowing him to easily locate the exact spot he searched for. A pool of blood stained the ground where Jake Slidell died.

It was odd that Jake’s cousin, John Slidell, held himself up as a devoted Confederate diplomat while Jake displayed neither loyalties, nor integrity, but rather showed himself as the scum of the earth. The thought of that man laying a hand on Alexandra made Thomas’s blood run cold. If Jake weren’t dead, he would kill him.

Dismounting from his horse, Thomas searched for the locket, but without much hope. He guessed Jake’s cronies already located it. Thomas did not look forward to the inevitable confrontation in getting it back.

Then the glint of early morning sunlight reflected off something shiny and silver. Reaching down, Thomas brushed aside a leaf and picked up the locket. He fingered the strong, intact chain but sighed when his eye caught the tiny broken clasp. A tingle ran up his spine. Too simple. Uneasy, he glanced around, but the only sounds came from crickets and a squirrel nibbling on an acorn in the tree limb overhead. He guessed Jake’s cronies crept around nearby. Surely the men didn’t have enough sense combined to set him up for attack by letting him find the locket. Nevertheless, he remounted in haste and nudged Thunder into a gallop.

Now for the tricky part—getting the necklace back to its owner and keeping his promise to help her find her brother.

He couldn’t just waltz up to her front door. Not in this uniform. No, he had to catch her alone. The irony struck him that she wore his jacket. He could only wonder how much trouble his blue jacket had gotten her into. Though the thought of her wearing it warmed him, he longed to protect her from any harm or disparagement that his jacket might bring.

Alexandra thought him a Yankee, and for her own safety, she needed to continue in that belief.

So much for promises.

****

Alexandra experienced mixed emotions about her rescue. On the one hand, she no longer held high hopes for locating Jeffy. On the other hand, her mind whirled with thoughts of Thomas, leaving her disconcerted and confused. Ten minutes after she set out with Ham and three other servants, Grand-père intercepted them.

“Alexandra Andrea Champagne, where have you been?” Grand-père asked, getting down from his horse.

She had certainly seen that expression of sternness on his face before, but never directed at her. He loved her, that was clear, but this disapproval sent tears to her eyes.

“I was…I was attacked by Yankees, and I was rescued by—”

“I don’t want to hear it. You expressly defied my instructions. You could have gotten yourself killed. I want you back across that river and in that house this instant.” He pointed a finger at Alexandra then across the river.

“But I must look for Jeffy.”

Grand-pèreground his teeth and pointed to his right. “I sai
d
go
.
Do it now,” he shouted.

“Very well,” Alexandra said, deciding not to argue the point. “Will you keep looking?” She couldn’t resist asking.

“Go!”

Why can’t you just worry about m
e?
Why the anger?

Such anger seemed a little excessive. She needed time to sort it all out. Without another word, she set off behind Ham in the direction of the river. If the men didn’t find Jeffy by nightfall, she’d find a way to continue the search on her own in the morning.

“Ham, did you find Jackson?” she asked, dreading the answer. She didn’t want to tell of his friend’s tragedy. And she didn’t want him to experience the heartbreak of knowing.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Was he…?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“When did you find him?”

“We found him last night, and we ain’t slept none for searching for you.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t find me.”

“You were well hidden, Miss. If you hadn’t answered our calls, we probably wouldn’t have found you by now. We must have gone by that cabin twice last night and never even knew it was there.”

Alexandra shuddered to think of Grand-père’s reaction upon discovering her with a Yankee soldier. No doubt, in his eyes, she would be compromised after spending the night alone with a man. And especially after wha
t
that man
did.

Her cheeks heated with the memory of how he kissed her and pulled his jacket closed over her breasts, his fingers too close to her bare skin. And then she had to contend with her wanton response.

Rubbing her hands along her arms, she stopped, her feet frozen in place. She wore Thomas’s jacket. His blue Yankee jacket. Had Grand-père noticed it in the darkness of night? She gulped, imaging his ire. No, fortunately his vexation over her disappearance turned his notice elsewhere.

****

Ignoring her daily routine of supervising the servants in the kitchen, and assigning chores to them, Alexandra spent the remainder of the morning alternately perched on a chair by the window and pacing back and forth around her room. Though she couldn’t see the river for the oak trees, the view of the drive stretched clear before her. Her view afforded her immediate knowledge of any searchers’ return.

Her racing pulse and the sick feeling in her stomach spoke of Grand-père’s shouting episode, Jeffy’s disappearance, Jackson’s murder, and the um…incident with the Yankee soldier. Twice Alexandra found her way to the front porch before the threat of Grand-père’s wrath sent her scurrying back inside. It was so uncharacteristic of him; she couldn’t get past it.

She wasn’t afraid of Grand-père, she assured herself as she wandered to her bureau and retrieved her wooden paint box. She just didn’t want him to fret about her. She harbored enough guilty feelings on her own about crossing the river against his wishes. The consequences of Jackson’s death and that she’d ended up stranded for the night with a Yankee soldier only made her feel worse about the situation.

Sighing, she glanced about her room—her haven. In contrast to her own gloomy mood, a vase of spring flowers sat on her dresser along with her brush, comb, and a box of jasminescented soap. She never wore cosmetics or perfumes, a good thing since the blockade prevented purchase of these items.

Two of her pastel watercolor paintings decorated the walls. They weren’t elaborate, but rather simple, with diffuse lines softening the effect. Nate Basil termed them modern. Chene Ruelle graced one, with its tall white columns and moss-draped oaks. The other depicted a view of the river at sunset with one of the steamboat palaces in the distance.

Alexandra’s heart skipped with the realization that the scene she so happily painted portrayed one similar to the one she should have witnessed last evening. She took a ragged breath. She would wait until morning; then she would set out to resume her search for Jeffy. He was out there. She could feel it in her heart. She’d always thought that the bond they shared as twins kept them closer than normal.

In an attempt to soothe herself, she found a piece of drawing paper and a charcoal stub and settled on the window seat with her wooden lap desk across her thighs. She made random strokes on the page. The feel of the pencil in her hand smoothed some of the rough edges off her nerves. Her mind whirled with all she needed to do. Thoughts of making the proper arrangements for Jackson’s burial brought the uneasy tension back to her. Unless their families could be notified, she’d be the one to arrange burials for the deceased from the steamboat.

She should be dipping candles and tending the injured child. She’d checked on the unconscious girl several times that morning and sent for Doc Williams. Alexandra expected his arrival sometime that afternoon. All in all, except for the scars, Alexandra had given the girl a positive prognosis.

Her hand stilled, and her gaze wandered back to the window. Why hadn’t Grand-père sent word of their progress? She anticipated his appearance soon. She should get up and oversee the preparation of something hot for his supper. Being immobilized and full of nerves surprised her.

Glancing back down at the paper in her lap, her breath froze in her throat. She’d sketched the image of a man whose face was forever etched in her brain. While shadowy, the likeness of Thomas left no doubt as to his identity. She’d captured his strong chin and generous mouth. Most appealing to her, though, were his eyes. Though kind and understanding, she most vividly remembered their intense, clear blueness.

The odd tingle that traveled down her spine sent a heated flush to her cheeks. Although it had been at least a couple of years, she had kissed boys before. Tom Bennett even dared to kiss her on the mouth. So young and full of promises, he had fallen at Manassas. Devastated, Alexandra cried at his funeral, his memory, hopes and dreams, vivid in her mind. Just the thought of his tragic death brought tears to her eyes, and she turned her thoughts elsewhere.

Thomas’s simple kiss had sent her heart tripping faster than any of Tom’s ever had. Firm and soft, his lips brushed hers. She couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel if he kissed her again—really kissed her.

Shocked at the path her thoughts wandered, Alexandra reined them in. She simply missed male companionship, she admonished herself. Either that or she was going insane. Her country struggled with war, and she pined after one of the enemy.

She recalled his lies and his desertion, and her heart sank in her chest. He couldn’t be trusted. The blue jacket stuffed beneath her bureau attested to that. She bunched her fist in her lap.

Sighing with anger at herself, she knew her life would never be the same. Everything paled when compared to gazing into those blue eyes again.

****

Thomas gave little thought to Rafe during the night. He really hadn’t minded being assigned to the man, all things considered. A good man, he believed in Thomas, even to the point of him being a Yank.

At first Thomas considered abandoning Rafe and going his own way, but then after discovering his assignment, his curiosity took precedence. The Yankee commander wanted him and Rafe to spy on Ernest Dumon of Chene Ruelle. It seemed the old man had met with foreign diplomats, and rumor swirled of his involvement in a plot to secede from the Confederacy, along with Texas and Arkansas.

If these accusations were true, the man played with fire. He would get burned by both sides—Union and Confederate alike.

Now that Thomas found himself on his own again, he had to make a choice. He could try to find Rafe and return to the Federal Army. There he could pursue more information from them, or he could take advantage of his unexpected freedom and return to his own troops. At least in the gray uniform he knew whom he faced on the battlefield, and so did everyone else.

His stomach tightened in regret. He reflected on Alexandra, who doubtless thought him a coward for running out on her when he only wanted to protect her.

Thoughts of Alexandra’s soft voice and smooth skin distracted his attention from the problems of the war. She smelled of springtime—of jasmine. Thomas suspected fire lay beneath the cool exterior of that gently brought up woman. He’d seen it in her gaze and felt it in the way she had responded to his simple kiss. His body responded by reminding him how long he’d gone without a woman. He craved a long overdue trip into New Orleans to scratch that itch, as his mother used to say.

He smiled and thought of the brilliance of his mother, a true Southern lady with a mind and heart all her own. If anyone understood the masculine nature, it was Abigail Munroe
.
Thoma
s
, she would say
,
don’t even think about settling down until you’ve sown those wild oats to your heart’s content. Then when you commit, you do it with all your heart.

Wild oats and Alexandra Champagne didn’t exactly fit in the same sentence. Alexandra was definitely…

“Halt. Who goes there?” The sentry’s harsh voice jolted him out of his reverie.

The man in tattered butternut gray welcomed him back to his troops with a rifle pointed straight at him.

Damn. It seemed his choice had been made for him. He knew better than to let his mind wander while he traversed land in the midst of a war.