“’Scuse me, Miss Mackay,” Eban told her. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
Kiernan stayed at the edge of the crowd as the day waned. The sun began to set in earnest. She learned that Colonel Robert E. Lee had a detachment of marines stationed just outside of town, and that he’d be taking over from the militia soon enough.
She wondered if Jesse was with Lee.
She heard shots again, by the firehouse. The crowd was shoving. Before she knew it, she was being pushed nearer and nearer the firehouse.
Suddenly she nearly tripped over the body of a man, a man so filled with shot that he must have been heavy with the lead. His face and body were ruined beyond recognition.
She was pushed again as the crowd gathered nearer. She was almost shoved upon the man. She looked down at sightless holes where eyes had been, and she started to scream, panic growing within. Another shot was fired into the body. The young farmer who had aimed the rifle seemed heedless of the crowd around the dead man.
“No!” Kiernan screamed again. She had to get away from those horrible sightless eyes.
Suddenly, she was swept up high into strong arms. She looked up, her horror mirrored in her gaze.
Deep blue eyes stared sternly down upon her. Jesse. Jesse wasn’t with Lee at all. He was here.
With her.
Come to her rescue once again.
Her arms locked around his neck, despite the fury in his eyes.
“Jesse,” she whispered.
“Make way!” he demanded, and the crowd parted. His long strides brought them quickly through the crowd and to his waiting roan horse.
He set her atop it, then leaped up behind her. Within seconds they were cantering down the street, and the clean wind was blowing against her cheeks and washing away the scent of tragedy and blood.
And the chill that had seeped into her was warmed away by the heat of the arms around her.
Four
He didn’t take her back to Lacey’s house.
The well-trained roan quickly traveled through the town of Harpers Ferry, climbing the hill to Bolivar Heights with what should have been frightening speed.
She wasn’t frightened—not with Jesse.
She felt the muscled heat of his chest hard against her back as she rode, and the events of the past two days seemed to fade away. Nothing could happen to her now that Jesse’s arms were around her.
He didn’t stop in the town of Bolivar, but climbed up to the woods atop one of the hills. He spurred his horse all the way to the top, where the tall trees looked down at a great distance on the little cleft of land where the Shenandoah met the Potomac and old Harper had started his ferry service across the river. The townspeople seemed tiny now, and the buildings looked tiny, too, like toys.
Jesse leaped down from his horse and reached up for her. She set her hands on his shoulders and slid down into his arms. She was trembling, and he kept his arms tight around her.
“Oh, Jesse, the things they’re doing down there are so horrible!”
His hands moved gently, soothingly, over her hair. “It’s all right. It will all be over soon enough. A tempest in a teapot.” He stroked her cheek, meeting her eyes, then spun her around so she could see down the far distance of the cliff. Again, the people and buildings were like toys. The white rushing waters of the rivers could be seen, meeting. “Today will end. Shenandoah and Potomac will continue to shed their haunting tears, and the mountains will be beautiful again.” His arms were about her, his fingers entwined at her waist and over her belly. He must have felt that she had ceased to tremble.
His tone suddenly changed, and he swung her around so that she faced him again.
“And I told you not to leave the house!”
“Damn you, Jesse, you’re not my father!”
He uttered an oath beneath his breath, and she placed her hands upon his arms. She broke free of his touch, backing away from his tall, muscular form, a form that suddenly seemed threatening.
“If you’d stayed inside, you’d never have been exposed to all this!”
“But Jesse, so many people are down there! So many people I know are pumping lead and debris into a man’s body!”
“And with any luck, they won’t pump it into one another,” Jesse said. He came toward her again. She couldn’t back away any farther on top of the mountain cliff.
“Jesse—”
“You little fool!” he said heatedly. “You could have gotten hurt!”
“The whole town could have been hurt.”
“Some people were hurt! The mayor was killed, gunned down unarmed.”
“Jesse—”
He was really angry. But when he stopped before her again, his fingers gripping her upper arms and pulling her close, she couldn’t think of another argument. He stared down into her eyes, and his were alive with cobalt fire. Her heart suddenly seemed to flutter like butterfly wings against her ribs, and a weakness seized hold of her knees. She was just as angry as he, she told herself, and that anger made her weak.
“Jesse—” she started, but his mouth touched hers, smothering her whisper. His touch was both fierce and coercive, a sweep of dazzling fire, stealing away both breath and reason. Her fingers curled on his chest, her lips parted, fascinated, to the pressure of his. The hot sultry fever of his kiss pervaded her, touched her mouth, and stole and curled through her body like slow-moving nectar—or lava. Her senses seemed so very much alive. Her flesh burned to the slightest brush of his hand. His body against hers was hard but like the fever inside her, so very hot, and pulsing, and alive. The closer she drew herself against him, the more she knew about the fever that threatened to consume them both. For even as she tasted the texture of his tongue, she felt the pressure of hips hard against hers, and the fever of that touch that should have been so forbidden to her did nothing but entice and seduce her into a longing for further discovery.
His lips parted from hers, touched them again, parted, and touched—sweet, open-mouthed, hotter, and hotter. Her mind began to reel. She shouldn’t be here with him. She should be scandalized, horrified.
There was someone else in her life.…
Someone with whom things had never been like this.
Still, she had to draw away, she had to stop.
“Jesse …” His name was barely a whisper on the breeze, yet he heard it. He suddenly emitted a soft oath and drew away from her. To Kiernan’s surprise, he nearly thrust her from him. He walked away, placing a booted foot high on a rock as he leaned upon an elbow to stare out at the valley below them.
Her mouth was still damp from his touch. She could still feel the touch. He seemed to be a knot of fury again.
“Damn you, Kiernan!” he swore, spinning around to stare at her. “If you would just do what you’re told now and then!”
“Jesse, you’ve no right—”
“Your father isn’t here, and your precious beloved Anthony isn’t here either. Where the hell is he?”
She flushed, feeling her temper rise, and dizziness assailed her again. She should never, never allow Jesse to touch her. He was as volatile as a forest blaze, erupting in passion, erupting in anger.
“You know where Anthony is,” she began as primly as possible.
“Never mind, never mind,” he said suddenly. He strode back to her. “Just listen to me and stay the hell inside, away from the melee out there, will you? Look what you’ve done to us!”
“Me!”
“Kiernan—”
Her eyes narrowed, and she took a wild swing at him. He caught her wrist and their eyes met in a flame, and then he smiled slowly, ruefully.
“I’ll take you back to Lacey’s.”
“I’d prefer to walk!”
“It’s a very long walk.”
“I’d prefer a very long walk.”
He shook his head. “Sorry.” Before she knew it, she was up in his arms and upon the big roan, Pegasus. And he was up behind her, his arms wrapping around her.
; He nudged Pegasus, and the roan took them down the face of the mount.
Kiernan’s temper waned with the warmth of his arms around her. By the time he had delivered her to the front of Lacey’s house, she was aware only of a sense of desolation and loss. He dismounted from Pegasus to help her down, and she knew that he was leaving her. She should have been scandalized and horrified that he had kissed her so, touched her so, but she wasn’t. It was simply what came between the two of them. There had been something just and sweet and right about it, and she refused to be ashamed of it.
“Stay in,” he commanded her curtly.
She smiled, allowing her lashes to fall over her eyes. “Captain Cameron, I am my own keeper.”
“Kiernan—”
“But I choose to stay in,” she told him hastily. “Oh, Jesse, people are behaving so horribly!”
“Yes,” he told her simply, “they are.” He mounted Pegasus once again and looked down at her. “Things might get worse, and it’s getting dark. So please …”
She curtsied to him regally, then turned and fled into the house.
The shattered glass had been swept up, but where the office door pane had been, there was a big hole. She decided to patch up the door with some canvas and spend the evening reassuring Lacey. She needed to stem her own feelings of guilt for having deserted her.
“Who’s there?”
She heard the sharp call as she opened the door. “It’s me, Lacey. I’m back.”
“Oh, and just in time!” Lacey appeared in the doorway, holding a candle high against the darkening shadows of the night. “Thank heaven! I was getting so worried!”
“Everything’s fine, Lacey. Well, not really fine. Let’s go into the parlor, and I’ll tell you about it.”
Lacey nodded, her eyes wide, and preceded Kiernan into the parlor. Kiernan told her about the events in town, but she did so very carefully, softening the violence. Still, Lacey was horrified, and very nervous.
She insisted on serving Kiernan a cup of tea, then on making supper, so Kiernan went into the storage closet and found some canvas and a hammer and nails and set about doing a makeshift job of repairing the door.
The two women ate a quiet supper, all the while aware of the drama down the street.
“Didn’t the captain say that he’d be back?” Lacey asked Kiernan anxiously.
“Well, he may make it. Then again, he may not.”
“He should be looking after you,” Lacey insisted.
Kiernan smiled ruefully. “No, Lacey, remember? Poor Anthony is supposed to be looking after me.”
Lacey had the good grace to blush. “Never mind. Oh, I wish that this night would pass!”
“I don’t think needlework will do it tonight,” Kiernan murmured. In fact, nothing was going to ease the evening for her. She was torn between the horror of the sights she had seen, and the pulsing magic that returned to her lips when she thought of Jesse.
It had been a forbidden kiss, because of Anthony.
“How about some cards?”
“Hearts?” Kiernan said.
“Good heavens, no! Poker!” Lacey shocked her, and Kiernan burst into laughter. “Lacey! How very decadent. Wouldn’t your husband be shocked?”
Lacey sniffed. “And what about your father, young lady? You know how to play.”
“I grew up in my father’s company,” Kiernan reminded her, grinning broadly. “Get the cards and shuffle, Mrs. Donahue. You’re on. We’ll play for pennies.”
“Done!” Lacey agreed.
Playing did help to pass the time. Something about the taboo aspect of the game for ladies made it exciting. It would always be a secret between them that they had passed the night so.
The hour grew late. Jesse didn’t return.
Finally, Lacey yawned and admitted that she was exhausted. “But how will I sleep?” she demanded.
“Nothing is going to happen,” Kiernan assured her.
But Lacey was still nervous, so Kiernan suggested that they put on their nightgowns and bunk in together. Lacey enjoyed that idea. “We’ll sleep with Jesse’s Mr. Colt right by our bedside,” Kiernan said cheerfully.
“The bed in your room is nice and big. We should both be comfortable in it!” Lacey agreed. But when they were settled, she moaned again.
“I shall never be able to sleep!”
But to Kiernan’s amusement, Lacey closed her eyes as peacefully as a babe soon after they crawled into bed. It was early still, Kiernan thought, and that was why she couldn’t seem to close her own eyes. Or maybe she was frightened. She had come close to being kidnapped that morning, and she very well could have been one of those hostages still being held by John Brown.
John Brown must be desperate by now, she thought, with his few followers holed up in the firehouse. He must realize that his grand revolution wasn’t coming. The countryside had not been stirred to great revolt.
The United States Army was coming for him, and in the morning, he would have to face the fire. Would he kill the hostages because of his despair?
Or could the bloodshed be kept down? Kiernan fervently hoped that it could.
She wondered what John Brown looked like, and she wondered if he could really rationalize murder into a crusade. But then she remembered Uncle Tom’s Cabin and how furious she had been when she read the book.
Then again, she had to admit that some people were cruel and took much better care of their horses and their dogs than their slaves. She tossed about in bed. Then suddenly Lacey inhaled deeply with a shake, and exhaled with a long, low snore.
It was the end of trying to sleep.
She stood up and wandered over to the window. To her amazement, two men were standing below the window. They were both tall and dark in the shadows of the night. For a moment she held her breath.
One of them stepped forward and stooped low, plucking a pebble from the ground. He looked up and tossed it high toward the window. Just before she stepped back, Kiernan released her bent-up breath, smiling. The face that had turned upward toward hers was familiar.
Jesse was back.
The pebble landed with a little crack on the window. Kiernan stared down below.
Now both faces were upturned to hers. Jesse was with his brother Daniel, and both were dressed in the uniforms of the United States cavalry. Both were wearing their handsome plumed hats, and both were grinning broadly at her. They were very much alike. Like Jesse, Daniel had the ebony-dark hair and near cobalt-blue eyes that ran in the Cameron family. His features, too, were similar—handsome, well defined. His mouth was full and sensual. He was several years younger than Jesse, though, and his shoulders were not quite as broad. His manner was lighter—dramatically gallant. He was Kiernan’s good friend, and she loved him, while Jesse … ah, Jesse!
“Sh!” She brought her finger to her lip and shook her head when she realized that Daniel had a pebble, too, and was about to throw it up to her.
She threw open the window and called down softly, “Stop the rocks!”
“Then come down and let us in!” Daniel called. “There’s a nip in the air.”
“It’s downright cold,” Jesse corrected, casting his brother a wry glance.
Kiernan looked quickly over to Lacey, who was still sleeping soundly.
Kiernan waved to the Cameron brothers—a wave that promised she’d be right down. Daniel grinned and gave her a thumbs-up sign. Jesse’s easy smile curved into his lip.
Kiernan left the room behind, raced down the stairs to the back, and threw open the door.
Daniel was just on the other side of it. He swept her up high into his arms and swung her around as he came into the narrow hallway. “My Lord, Kiernan!” he teased, setting her down at last. “Every time I see you, you get prettier, more grown up, more sophisticated, more elegant. More—”
“Voluptuous?” Jesse suggested.
Kiernan quickly cast him a glance. As he leaned in the doorway, there was definite amusement in his suggestion. His eyes flickered over h
er, and his glance instantly warmed her.
His eyes could do things to her that actually seemed indecent.
Yes, he had always liked to tease her. This afternoon, though, he hadn’t teased. He had gotten caught in his own fire, she realized, and that was why he had grown so very angry with her.
They both realized it, she knew, as their eyes met and held.
“Yes, voluptuous,” Daniel said. He laughed. “Forgive us, Miss Mackay,” he said, stepping back and sweeping off his hat to hold it to his heart. “We army men do have our failings. Days on the trail, and all that.”
Kiernan tore her eyes from Jesse’s at last. “Days on the trail, indeed! Jesse came straight from a bar in Washington. What about you?”
“I was at a party at a friend’s house when a messenger came from Jeb Stuart.” Stuart was a dashing young cavalry commander and a good friend of both Camerons. “He knew that Jesse had already been sent in, and that Jesse was concerned about you when he heard about the ruckus here.”
“That’s what I imagined,” Kiernan said, looking from one to the other. “You’re both going to be with the troops challenging John Brown in the morning? Christa will be worried sick.” Christa was their sister, a year younger than Kiernan, the last of the immediate Cameron clan. Like Kiernan, she had trailed after Daniel as a child, and the three of them had always been very close.
And a bit in awe of Jesse, although Daniel denied it. Now the brothers were thick as thieves, and no brothers could offer each other greater loyalty or friendship.
“You wouldn’t have some apple pie here somewhere, would you? And some hot coffee for a frozen soul?”
“We do happen to have apple pie,” Kiernan admitted to Daniel. “And I’ll make coffee. But don’t try to side-step the situation, Daniel Cameron.” She swirled around and headed for the kitchen, the brothers following behind her. They both took seats at the kitchen table and spread their long legs beneath it, as she started the coffee and placed the pie and plates and Lacey’s embroidered napkins before them.
“What’s going to happen in the morning?” she asked stubbornly.
“They’ll ask John Brown to surrender,” Jesse answered flatly.