Surrender the Wind (28 page)

John cleared his throat.

“General Rourke, Sir!” They all stood at attention, caught like schoolboys, stealing a pie off the sideboard.

“Sergeant Putt? I want you to do some drills with the men. Ten would be a fine number.”

“Ten, Sir?” Sergeant Putt whistled between his teeth.

The men groaned.

“Make that twelve.”

“That will take all night,” the sergeant protested.

“That’s the idea. Now head out.”

After his men sallied off, grumbling from the prospect of all night marching, John took deep strides to his tent. He ducked in, tied down the flaps, his eyes riveted to the banquet before him. What had been left to the imagination, concealed by canvas, paled in comparison to what he viewed mere footsteps away.

With her eyes closed, and her head back, Catherine reclined in a copper tub—contraband he’d acquired, courtesy of a Yank camp in Maryland. He had not wanted to take the tub, thinking it too heavy when he preferred to have his army travel light. He thanked providence for the sin of his quartermaster’s greed. Such sights stoked a slowly growing fire. Her thick golden hair was caught up on top of her head in a blue satin ribbon. And even in repose, there was both delicacy and refinement. Hungrily he watched a drop of water trail down her neck and over her breast, tear-dropping at that soft enticing peak. With superhuman strength, he resisted the urge to lathe it with his tongue. That same drop crested then tantalizingly traveled down her slender waist where it met the water’s edge. The droplet was lost to him, but remaining beneath the waters of the bath was the flare of her gently rounded hips.

Catherine’s eyes flew open, and she jumped, water splashing over the tub. Her heart skipped a beat, as she searched for her towel. Damn. Behind Rourke. She sank lower and clasped her arms tightly around her legs to hide her nudity.

“I hope I am not intruding, Mrs. Rourke. I recall viewing every aspect of your delectable form during my convalescence.” A sardonic smile spread across his lips. He dropped into a chair, leaned back, his legs stretched in front of him.

He was half-naked, as if he’d just bathed, his dark hair, wet, clung plastered to his head. His muscles rippled across his abdomen where she had once so lovingly caressed and his damp trousers hugged his narrow waist and hips—and did nothing to hide the menacing bulge in front.

He meant to taunt her. She squeezed the sponge until flattened from dampness. She remembered how he’d kissed her earlier in the day, how he had humiliated her. She had cried for the better part of an hour, vowing to get away from him, and swearing not to let him touch her again. “Why are you not sleeping with your men?”

“Indeed. When I was young, I could have slept on a bed of rocks. I am older and care for the luxury of having my spine resting on a feather mattress.” Indifferent to her suggestion, he scented the simple dinner prepared on his desk. “My stomach has been cutting a few capers. May I indulge?”

“Of course, you are the commander. Your sustenance comes first.”

“My sustenance has yet to be filled,” he said and Catherine did not miss his double entendre.

“Then starve!” she cried, splashing a huge wave of water over the rim and soaking his pants.

He lifted his plate in time. “What a terrible temper you have.”

“Spare me, your provocations, General. You might come to the realization that I simply do not care.”

“But I think you do care.”

He was testing her. She cared not one whit.

But she did care. She felt guilty assuming the Rebels her enemy. They were the same, North and South. As Lincoln had said, they were brothers.

“The men are suffering terrible hardships. They are ill-dressed, some with no shoes, and barely any clothing to speak of. There is a shortage of food. The worms in the flour are as long as your finger. One has to skim the weevils from a substance they call coffee and the hard-tack is so rock-solid, it can stop bullets.”

“And—”

A cold knot formed in her stomach for she had dared much during his departure. She remembered what had transpired earlier in the day, and bar none, she feared John’s explosive nature and the fact she had overstepped her bounds. “There is an overall lack of medicine and proper medical care. The sanitation—there is no practice. The doctor I find appalling and—” She took a deep breath and looked John straight in the eye. “I took the liberty of firing him.”

John finished his meal and put his plate down. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and bit off the end of a cigar and spit it out. “Fine Virginia tobacco.” He rolled it between his teeth. With certainty, she could tell his degrees of temper and ponderance with the extent he clamped it between his teeth.

“The South, thanks to the northern blockade and other activities of your Yankee brethren, has been stripped of many needed supplies,” he said, considering her. “As to the doctor…he’s not really a doctor. I should have let him go a while back, but he was the closest thing I could get to a real doctor. Let’s hope—” he took his cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at her, “we’ll not be engaging your friends in the near future, for my men will have no medical care until he is replaced.”

Her friends?
Was he blaming her? She raised her chin and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The latrines have been dug in upstream and I recommend—”

“You will recommend nothing. This is my camp,”

“And the shortages? You’ll allow them to continue, the men to go without all because it is your camp? Your brilliance rivals your hubris, General. To think I am in the presence of Copernicus or Da Vinci himself.” She narrowed her eyes. “As long as your men starve—”

“The commissaries in Richmond are not fatted coffers for the taking.”

“You could go out and steal. You’re not so lofty in your morals that thievery is above you. In fact, pilfering is an art for you.” She swept her hand, palm-up to the bed and trunks. “Property of Colonel Briggs?”

John stopped and lit a match to his cigar, until it flamed a glowing red. The smoke spiraled, drifting, and was rather pleasant. He studied her, eyes darkening, a sultry look she well remembered.

“Spoils of war. Graciously donated by your Union Army.”

“Then go steal some more.”

He grinned, took another swallow, then stared at the amber liquid.

“You are a prisoner of war. You do not give orders and you do not run my camp. I take full responsibility for my men. I haven’t decided what to do with you yet. I’ve been thinking of turning you over to the military high command for sentencing.”

“I had hoped for some kind of reconciliation, at the minimum, a friendship, but you are set on Mallory’s lies and believing I’m a spy. Ask Brigid. She’ll tell you.”

“I did but she would back you up regardless, maybe help you escape.”

“Ask Lucas, your brother. I met him in Washington. He believed me. He was trying to help find Uncle Charlie.”

“I have sent messages. It takes weeks sometimes to get through the lines.”

Her breath stalled, the degree to which he had had her investigated. “I suppose you’ll do what you feel you have to do regardless of my innocence.”

John snorted. “I’ll no longer believe anything you tell me. I value my life too much.”

Catherine stiffened. “So without ever being in the military, I’m a prisoner of war?”

“You’ve got that right. Your name will be chiseled in stone among the betrayers: Lucifer, Judas and Fitzgerald.”

“As a prisoner of war, it is my duty to escape.”

With that suggestion, he pulled his cigar from his mouth. “That is not in the cards. I have posted guards on you around the clock. My men are excellent sharpshooters. They can shoot the eyes out of a pheasant at two hundred yards.”

Catherine pasted on a smile of nonchalance. “Are you planning to have your men come after and shoot me?”

“Heavens no, Mrs. Rourke. It’s war. I have sent my men into hell and back, through every battle this war has encountered. I am a sympathetic commander. I wouldn’t dream of sending them after you.”

Paying no heed to his sarcasm, she nearly smirked in calculating challenge. “Then be prepared, General, for I will do my best to subvert you at most any time.”

“I would enjoy that enterprise with the greatest recreation.” His eyes dipped to the water’s edge and he took another swallow of whiskey.

They were alone, except for the thousands of men camped in the distance. An owl hooted and a moth threw itself furiously at the lantern light. The water was cooling, chilblains rioted up her arm, her nipples popped. Catherine ducked lower.

“General Rourke, I am sure there is proper conduct in the treatment of one so lowly as a female prisoner of war. I am sure that even your genteel General Lee would afford me that small status.”

John smiled benignly, as if dealing with a temperamental child.

She curled her hands into fists. Oh, to play every trump card. “The Fitzgerald fortune is vast. It could buy my freedom. You could have money for yourself, and add to your little farm back home. You could even have money for your army. Think of the possibilities…”

“Do you think you could buy your way out? You are going nowhere. I know you for who you are—a clever manipulating, deceitful witch.

“My family is one of the North’s finest. I have political connections all the way to the White House. Your treatment of me as a common criminal is outrageous, and I won’t stand for it any longer. The northern papers will make public my plaudits and order my freedom. President Lincoln will demand my release. The Union Army under General Grant’s command will hunt you down.”

He launched to his feet. The chair crashed to the floor behind him. He grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her up, squeezing the flesh bloodless. She was only aware of the pain in her arms, and the tall dark man looming over her. Her husband. A total stranger. She gasped, fought back tears.

“You are speaking of Catherine Fitzgerald or Mrs. John Rourke? Neither exists. You have ceased to be. You are now my prisoner and servant.”

“To you, John, love seems like a bad joke and honesty seems foolish. I am the one wronged. And I promise you will rue the day. The truth will come out, but it is too late. For left in my heart is nothing but hatred for you. Your warped sense of revenge is misguided. You have no idea how much you have interrupted everything and will destroy what’s left of my family. My uncle will die at Mallory’s hands.” With a sob, she tried to extricate herself from his brutal grip where he was bruising her arms.

“He’s all I have left in the world…he was to be rescued the night you took me and now I’m going crazy with not knowing. Mallory is a thug, coming from the underbelly of an Irish underworld that you could not even begin to comprehend. He has murdered to become part of the new rich, the ones who have stayed behind to reap their fortunes on the war. In New York City, he controls the political bosses and influencers, spending their hideous fortunes on extravagant parties and garish homes, sparing no expense. But he craves the elusive polished spot and proper conventionalities of upper society. I am his ticket to the old money elite. Francis Mallory’s bid for the Fitzgerald fortune can be acquired through marriage to me. He promised my stepmother, Agatha, a sizeable fortune for my hand—”

“Enough. You weave a good tale. Your extraordinary intelligence, and exhaustion of every wile is used to cheat the hangman’s rope and calculated for your survival.”

Not that John ever intended to turn her over to the authorities in Richmond, but he entertained with pleasure the use of her wiles on him. How far would she go?

Why did he feel the need to believe her?
Brigid would back her story regardless. Lucas? Why had he not heard from him? Rourke spread his legs apart, seeking to redirect his thoughts. Could he let her go? Return her close enough to the border where she could rejoin the Union Army? His mind warred with reason. To allow her to spy against the Confederacy was out of the question. Too dangerous. With her talents, everything he had fought for over the last four years would lay in shambles. He had to keep her to protect the Cause.

He let her go then. “Get into bed.”

“I will not.”

He took a threatening step toward her. “Don’t even entertain that I would find comfort touching you. Indeed, I can find plenty of solace elsewhere. But since you are my servant, and since I have no morals, I will take you whenever it pleases me.”

Ignoring Catherine, he began unbuttoning his pants, until she gave a stifled gasp, and he stared at her in mild surprise.

“What…what are you doing?”

Her voice held a shred of terror. Good. “Undressing. Do you object?”

“You said…” she began, but he cut her short.

“Indeed your modesty is a little late if not contrived. You have seen every aspect of me.”

“You will never have me. I will scream so that General Lee will hear me.”

He cut her a sharp look that dared her to argue. “Even the Confederacy allows a husband his marital rights, willing or unwilling. I have no intention of taking you this evening, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I have traveled hard for many days and I’m exhausted. I’m going to sleep. You may join me in the bed if you wish, or, you may sleep in the chair in the corner. It means nothing to me, one way or the other. When I take you, Catherine, it will be when I am rested, and at my full strength, so that I can savor your delectable charms to the fullest. Believe me, you are quite safe tonight.”

He threw a towel at her, which she had laid out before her bath. She wrapped it around her, careful to keep concealed, dried off, and then yanked a gown over her head. She stalked to the straight-backed chair in the corner, and sat stiffly upon it, studying the rough plank floor.

“I’ll take no chances.”

“Suit yourself. That chair is as soft and yielding as the hickory it was made from.”

She continued with her stony silence while John, naked now, shrugged, and dimmed the oil lamp. He cursed the sheerness of the gown covering her. It wreaked more havoc on his senses than if she were completely exposed. The bed screeched beneath his weight as he settled between cotton sheets, and threw off the thick quilt that was too warm. For an hour, she shifted in her uncomfortable chair and sighed. No doubt, her back ached and dampness crept down her spine. Everything in the tent grew quiet. The single flash of a firefly brightened a corner.