Jesse could go hang! She had outgrown Jesse Cameron, outgrown that kind of infatuation, she told herself firmly that night in 1859 at Harpers Ferry. She wasn’t in awe of Jesse anymore. She had grown up—and she had grown up with definite opinions, so she was probably—to Jesse—more than ever a “wayward little dickens.”
Jesse could be amusing and polite. He could even be charming—when he chose to be so, she thought. He never minced his words or opinions, and he had never given a fig for popular thought. He was incapable of bending or compromising, she reminded herself. If she married him, he would surely never accept her advice the way Anthony did.
Nor would he tolerate indecisiveness on the question. Jesse would demand all or nothing if he demanded anything.
Anthony was by far the more civil man.
Jesse was really nothing compared to Anthony.
It was the feeling she had had for Jesse that she remembered. The excitement when he was near, the wild, challenging excitement, the shivers, the tremors. It was that feeling she missed with Anthony. It wasn’t Anthony’s fault. She simply wasn’t a child anymore, so naturally she did not feel those things.
“Look! Oh, Kiernan! Someone’s moving down there again!” Lacey called.
Kiernan hadn’t been paying attention. By the time she looked, whoever had moved—if he had moved—had disappeared.
“Lacey, I’m sorry. I just don’t see anything.”
“You’re not trying!” Lacey told her.
“All right, all right, I’ll keep my eyes open this time, I promise,” Kiernan assured her.
A moment later, they heard the whistle from the night train. It was about one thirty.
“Everything is all right. The midnight train has come through,” Kiernan said.
Lacey shivered emphatically. “I tell you, something is going on tonight.”
A fierce chill swept through Kiernan. She still hadn’t seen a thing, but she suddenly sensed that maybe Lacey’s fears were based on something real.
Kiernan looked from Lacey back to the window. She blinked, certain that she had seen a movement by the shadowy buildings. Little pricks of unease danced up and down her spine. Lacey was right—there was something going on.
But it didn’t affect them, she thought. Surely they were safe in Lacey’s home.
She turned back to her hostess once again. “Lacey, have we got a gun in the house?”
Lacey slowly shook her head, and Kiernan almost laughed. They were alone because the men were off to find a spot for a new weapons-productions plant, and they hadn’t a single firearm in the house.
“Oh, Kiernan! Do you think we’re in trouble?”
“Of course not,” Kiernan told her. “Maybe it’s just a late meeting down there or an inspection going on or something of that sort.”
“Then why would they sneak around? And why would I have heard a shot?”
Kiernan shrugged. She wanted to assure Lacey, but she herself was now convinced that something wasn’t right. The people below did seem to be slinking, or making movements that just weren’t right.
“I’m sure we’re in no danger,” she told Lacey. After all, why would they be? It was a big town. And as two women alone, they certainly offered no one any kind of a threat. Lacey and Thomas lived comfortably, but they weren’t particularly wealthy, so there were no great treasures in the house.
But whoever had come into Harpers Ferry hadn’t come for wealth or riches. Kiernan knew that, just as she knew that something was happening.
“Why don’t we go down and have a glass of sherry?” she suggested.
“We can’t see the town from downstairs,” Lacey told her. Kiernan smiled. “Then we’ll bring the sherry up here. How’s that?”
That suggestion appealed to Lacey. The two women lit the candle by Kiernan’s bedside and hurried downstairs to the parlor by Thomas’s office for the sherry.
They must look like a pair of wraiths, Kiernan thought. She had on a lace-trimmed white cotton gown that seemed to float as she moved, and Lacey wore a pale blue gown, an eerie color in the night. Harpers Ferry already had ghost stories. It was said that down by the old Harper house, a ghost could often be seen in the windows. It was supposed to be Mrs. Harper, watching over the gold her husband had supposedly buried somewhere in the yard. Some said that George Washington, who had been determined that this would be the site for the armory, still walked the streets upon occasion, checking out his interests.
And there were the Indians, of course. Potomac and Shenandoah were still shedding their tears.
Back in the guest room, Kiernan poured them each a glass of sherry. They took up sentinel in rockers on either side of the window, sipping the drink. Lacey seemed happy enough, either content that they were safe, or enjoying their impromptu party.
Kiernan was growing increasingly more uncomfortable. There was movement out there, by the firehouse, and by the armory buildings. And the night was passing swiftly. Looking out at the sky and toward the mountains and the rivers, Kiernan thought that the first pink streaks of day would soon reach delicately over the water.
Lacey was telling her about a party she had attended in Washington recently, marveling at how quickly the railroad had taken her into the capital city. Kiernan swallowed more sherry. She had just begun to relax when she heard a fierce pounding on the door below.
She and Lacey leaped out of their chairs at the same time, staring at each other.
“What do we do?” Lacey cried.
“Ignore it!” Kiernan suggested.
“What if someone is trying to help us?”
“What if someone is trying to hurt us?”
Wide-eyed, they continued to stare at each other.
And then they heard the glass of the office door below shatter as it crashed open. Lacey yelped, and Kiernan managed to swallow back a scream. It wouldn’t help to let anyone know where they were.
“Lacey, we need something, anything! Why is there not a single weapon in this house!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know—we never needed a weapon in the house!” Lacey countered, wringing her hands.
Barking at poor Lacey wouldn’t help a thing, Kiernan realized. She was just as terrified herself.
Then they heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
Kiernan saw a parasol in the corner of the room. She dived for it, wondering what earthly good it would do her. But she couldn’t just stand there and accept whatever happened. She couldn’t allow anyone to come in and harm poor dear Lacey. She would have to fight.
With a parasol!
They heard the door to Lacey’s bedroom across the hall being thrown open and footsteps moving about.
“Hide!” Kiernan whispered to Lacey.
“Where?” Lacey demanded.
There was nowhere to hide. It was a pleasant, comfortable room, warmed by Lacey’s special touches, but it was small and sparsely furnished. There was the bed, a wardrobe, the two padded rockers, and a nightstand.
“Slip under the bed!” Kiernan suggested, then realized that Lacey could not slip her round form into any such space.
“You hide, Kiernan Mackay,” Lacey told her. Her command was heroic, for Kiernan could see the frantic race of Lacey’s pulse above the ruffles at her throat.
“I’d never leave you alone—” Kiernan began, but the question suddenly became moot as the door to the room burst open.
Two men stood before them, and both were armed. One aimed a Colt at Lacey’s heart, and the taller of the two, a bearded black man, held a rifle pointed straight at Kiernan.
Her own heart leaped with fear, and she forced herself to stand tall and indignant.
“Who in God’s name are you, and how dare you burst into a private residence to threaten vulnerable women!” she cried out with vehemence that surprised her. Her hands were clammy. She’d never been more frightened in her life.
“We’re soldiers for freedom, miss,” the shorter, white man told her. “And you’re Kiernan Mackay, the da
ughter of John Mackay, slaveholder.”
“I am Kiernan Mackay,” she acknowledged coldly. “And you—”
“We’re the revolution. It’s starting here, tonight. The country will rise here, this very night.”
She swallowed hard, realizing that he was talking about a slave revolution.
Such things had happened in the Caribbean and South America, she knew. Slaves had risen against their masters and mistresses, and the carnage had been horrible. People had been butchered in their beds—little children, anyone.
But she couldn’t believe that that could happen here. Certainly not in Lacey’s home—when Thomas had always made it clear that he would never own another human being.
“You have no right to come here!” she said. “Revolution, indeed! You’d hurt anyone in your reckless endeavors.”
“We don’t mean no harm to Mrs. Donahue,” the man said, frightening Kiernan further. He knew them both! He knew that it was Lacey’s house, and he had known that Kiernan would be in it. Whatever was going on had been well organized. “But Miss Mackay, you’re to come with us.”
“No,” she said flatly.
Lacey wedged her plump body between Kiernan and the men in the doorway. “You’ll not touch this girl, you ruffians! I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with a young woman—”
“Nothing evil, ma’am,” the tall black man assured her. “We’ve come under the guidance of John Brown, and John Brown comes under the guidance of the Lord. But the war has begun, and Miss Mackay is to come with us—a hostage for John Brown.”
John Brown. Her blood simmered hotly, then chilled to ice. John Brown had ruthlessly butchered men. He was a fanatic, and he did believe that he killed men in the name of God. She badly wanted to disdain these men, but she was very frightened. Surely John Brown didn’t wage war upon women and children!
“We don’t want to hurt you,” the short white man told Kiernan. “If you’ll come along quietly …”
She didn’t want them to hurt her either. But if she went with them, what then?
She shook her head slowly. “No, I can’t come with you. I’m not dressed.”
“That’s right!” Lacey said. “You can’t take a young woman out on the streets like this!” Lacey played for time because Kiernan was playing for time. But what good was time going to do them? If they meant to harm her, Kiernan wasn’t going to allow them to do so without a fight. She still held the parasol. She wrapped her hands tightly around it. But what good was a parasol against guns?
“Miss Mackay, you’re to come now. If you resist us any longer, I’ll truss you up like a Christmas turkey, and Cain here”—the short man indicated his tall black companion—“will carry you over his shoulder.”
She must not be tied up, Kiernan thought. If she had any chance at all of escape, she couldn’t be tied up. “All right. I’ll walk down the stairs,” she said.
“Wait!” Lacey cried. “If Kiernan goes, you’ll have to take me too.”
“No, Mrs. Donahue, we don’t want you!” Cain, the black man, spoke emphatically.
“Lacey, please stay here,” Kiernan said, staring at Lacey and praying that the woman would understand that she would be better off without her.
“But Kiernan—”
“Lacey, please.”
Lacey stepped back, her small mouth pursed indignantly. She was holding up rather well, Kiernan decided.
Better than I am at this moment, she thought.
“Miss Mackay.” Cain stepped back politely for her to pass by. Kiernan did so, walking by him. She still held the parasol. She was wonderfully dressed, she thought to herself, with her laced and smocked white cotton nightgown and small blue parasol. She wasn’t even wearing shoes.
“Fine,” she said curtly. She stepped past them and started down the stairs. If she could leave the house ahead of them, perhaps she could run. These men seemed to know a lot, but they couldn’t possibly know this town as she did—the alleys, and where the trails led almost straight up to the heights.
She moved quickly, but they were right behind her.
She came into the parlor. In the growing light of dawn, she could see the poker by the fire. A much better weapon than a parasol! she thought.
Not that it could stop a bullet either.
She hurried through the parlor to the office. The shattered glass lay before the door. She stopped in her tracks.
“Gentlemen, since you won’t allow me shoes, I’d appreciate it very much if you could sweep up the glass before we proceed.”
“What!” the white man demanded belligerently.
“My feet,” Kiernan said flatly. “If you want to impress the rest of the world, you shouldn’t have your hostages bleeding and in pain.”
“There’s no need to hurt the girl now,” Cain said.
The other shrugged. “Oh, hell!”
The two of them stepped around her to collect the broken glass. Kiernan waited until they were bent over at their task, then turned and fled back through the parlor for the back-porch door.
She could hear swearing behind her. When she reached the back door, she found it bolted. Swearing to herself, she slid the bolt and rushed through.
She stood on the back step for a moment, surveying her options. She was almost dead center in the town, and the cliffs rose high above her. The Roman Catholic church jutted out almost straight above her, and the climbing pathway to Jefferson’s Rock and the cemetery were straight above that. She knew the area well—knew that a treacherous path hewn out of the foliage led precariously up the path.
She could leap from the steps and run quickly around the house for the street.
Or she could run for the footpath up the hill and try to disappear into the jutting cliff and dirt and the foliage that clung tenaciously to it.
The footsteps were close.
She threw the parasol behind her and raced across the yard, painfully aware that she was barefoot. She found the overgrown path up the steep cliff and began to climb, hoping that the foliage would fall back around her and hide her. She grabbed for bushes, for handholds as well as footholds, moving as quickly as she could.
“She’s started up!” one of them shouted.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” his companion warned her.
Was it an idle threat? She had a feeling that the two of them had been ordered to bring her back alive. She kept climbing.
An expletive rang out in the cool dawn.
And then someone was following her, climbing up behind her.
“Kiernan!”
Her name was called from the street. She could hear the sound of horse’s hooves. Someone was out there, calling to her in a husky rich voice.
But she was still being followed.
“I’ll kill the bitch!” she heard.
She kept climbing, nearly mindless as her desperation grew.
“Climb, Kiernan, climb!”
She didn’t need the husky warning. She could only pray that the rider in the street had dismounted and was following her own pursuer.
Her breath came quickly, and her heart hammered. She was gaining ground, though—of that she was certain. If she could reach the crest, she could race to the church. Perhaps she could wake Father Costello—perhaps he was already awake and at prayer. Maybe the church would provide a refuge.
As she reached the crest, her nightgown caught on a branch. Gasping for breath, she paused to tug it free.
Then hands fell upon her shoulders. She screamed as she was dragged to the ground. She struggled fiercely, seeing the hard-lipped white man atop her. She screamed again. His hand fell flat over her mouth, and she tried to bite. His fist went up in the air, and she knew that it would connect shortly with her jaw.
But it didn’t.
Instead, the man’s eyes went very wide. Kiernan was dimly aware that a leather-gloved hand had clamped onto the man’s wrist. Someone was behind him. The rider, tall and fierce, dragged her attacker from her.
She heard a
wicked-sounding blow connect with the man’s body.
But she screamed anew, for the earth beneath her had broken under the conflict. She couldn’t catch herself, and she started to fall over the side of the cliff, above sheer rock.
“Kiernan!”
For a moment she saw him, tall and in uniform, dark in the shadows, holding on to her attacker.
He thrust the man away and pitched forward to come rolling after her.
His body covered her, and his weight threw them both far to the left and back to the trail. They tumbled endlessly together back to the yard.
They landed with her on top. Coughing, dizzy, she tried to rise. And stared down into endlessly blue eyes.
“Jesse!” she gasped. “Jesse Cameron!”
He smiled his lazy, taunting smile. “Hello, Miss Mackay. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But then, a man never knows quite when he’ll run into you, eh, Kiernan?”
Two
“When you’ll run into me?” Kiernan repeated. It was too incredible that he was there. She was straddled over him in her white nightgown with its lace and smocking, now torn and disheveled. Her hands rested upon his chest, and her hair trailed over the navy blue of the uniform cavalry shirt he was wearing. His hair, like her own, was in reckless disarray, dark strands trailing over his forehead. “Oh, my God, it’s Jesse!”
“In the flesh,” he agreed.
She suddenly cuffed him upon the broad chest. “And rude and abrasive at that!”
He slipped his hands around her waist, lifting her to his side. She should have risen instantly, Kiernan thought, mortified, but he had only moved her in order to rise to his feet. Once he was up, he reached for her hands, pulling her up before him. “Kiernan—”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “How can you be here?”
“The night train spread the word,” Jesse said. “I was sharing a late whiskey with a general friend, and he ordered me here to tend to any wounded. Troops will be here soon.”
“What’s going on?”
“Kiernan, that will have to wait. I have to find that man.”