But she’d do so tonight, just to touch him. Except that, oh, God…
She leaped to her feet in a whirl of frustration. She had to set her mind to finding a way to escape. She couldn’t plead or cajole, because he wouldn’t believe a word she said. She couldn’t bargain, because there was no longer anything she had that he might want. Again, a soft sob of rising panic escaped her.
Then she heard footsteps on the ladder, and she swung around quickly. The door to the cabin opened.
And he was there.
He had changed to dry clothing. His skin seemed very bronze in the lantern light; his eyes did not appear blue at all, but rather a deep and penetrating black. He stared at her so long that she thought she would scream and beg him to shoot her and get it over with. Just when she thought that she would simply save everyone trouble and die on the spot, he spoke at last.
“The Moccasin,” he said softly. Then, “Goddamn you.”
“No!” she heard herself cry in return. “Goddamn you, Major McKenzie. You betrayed your state, not I!”
A lock of jet-black hair fallen over his forehead obscured what emotion she might have read in his eyes. Perhaps it was to her benefit; perhaps she didn’t want to know all that lay within their cobalt depths.
“Indeed. My state betrayed my country, madam. But that doesn’t matter now; politics don’t matter now. And whether God Himself is on my side or yours doesn’t matter, either. What matters, my dear Moccasin, is that you have been captured by the enemy, while I have not.”
Involuntarily, she sucked in a quick, fearful breath.
“Yes, I’ve been caught. So … Major McKenzie, just what do you intend to do with me?” she demanded with a false bravado.
He raised an arched, ebony brow. “What do I intend, madam? How does one deal with a deadly snake? Perhaps I should use against you every atrocity blamed upon the Yankees by such delicate hothouse belles as yourself. Plunder, rapine, slaughter!”
“Ian, surely…” she breathed.
But cobalt fires of fury remained in his eyes, in the wired tension of his lithe, powerfully muscled body.
And he had already started toward her.
A shriek seemed to tear apart the satin-rich darkness of the night.
One scream. Cut off.
Gilbey, having relayed his message and returned to the cabin in the major’s wake, leaped up from his position on the ground by the support pole.
“Did you hear that?” he demanded of Sam.
Sam kept whittling. He shrugged.
Gilbey persisted. “I know she’s supposed to be the Moccasin and all—”
“She is the Moccasin.” Sam remained calm. He had completely ignored the high-pitched, terrified shriek. Gilbey didn’t know how he could do such a thing.
“Sam, this is bad. I’ve never seen the captain so mad, and that’s a fact,” Gilbey said, shaking his head worriedly. “I mean, sure, she’s the enemy and all, but… the major always said before that we weren’t hanging anybody. He’s always said he wasn’t judge and jury, and he wasn’t going to head any lynch mobs. But I’ve never seen him so mad. Do we leave such a young—-a young…”
“Lovely?” Sam suggested without looking up.
“Lovely, sweet—why, she’s just a stunning young girl, and that’s that! Do we leave her to the major when he’s in such a temper? He could really hurt her. He looks as if he’s ready to kill her.”
“He’s not going to kill her,” Sam assured Gilbey, his words soft and assured as he sat whittling his wood.
Gilbey walked over to stand in front of him, hands on his hips. “How can you be so damned sure, Sam? How can you be so all-fired certain?”
Sam looked up at him. “Haven’t you guessed yet, Gilbey? He ain’t gonna kill her, Gilbey, ’cause she’s Alaina.”
“Alaina?”
“Alaina McKenzie Dammit, Gilbey, she’s his wife.”
Gilbey’s jaw dropped, then worked hard before he could manage to speak again. “Wife? The Panther— married to the Moccasin?”
“Well, now, they do say that all things are fair in love and war,” Sam murmured. “Perhaps passion ought to be added into that saying as well,” he added dryly. He looked up at the moon, then glanced toward the cabin above him.
It was the war. The war had done terrible things to them all. Especially to the McKenzies, all of them, even with their special brand of honor, loyalty, dedication, and love. Brothers who had stuck together through thick and thin, and plenty of bloodshed in the shaping of the state, were suddenly torn assunder in their beliefs. Brother against brother, father against son.
Man against wife.
He felt a great wave of empathy for both Ian and his Southern wife. Alaina McKenzie couldn’t know yet just what had been driving Ian so hard of late. Or why he’d be so ruthless now. And as to Ian, well…
Sam thought that the two of them might well be wondering just how and when they had started on this road so stained with bitterness and fraught with anger.
Had lover become enemy, or enemy become lover?
It had all begun quite some time ago….
Chapter 1
May 1860
Cimarron
“By God, what the hell…”
Ian first saw the strange party assembled on his lawn when he led Pye off the river barge and looked southward toward his home, Cimarron. A group of young men, several in uniform, faced a young woman. The woman held a sword, as did one of the uniformed men.
What rude and dangerous folly was taking place upon his father’s lawn?
He leapt upon Pye and raced wildly toward the fray, ready to rescue the victim.
Except that there was no victim. He heard her laughter just as he reached the perimeter of the group, and reined in quickly, and thus got his first good look at his unknown guest—and saw her in action.
“Parry, you say?”
“Aye, dear mistress, and still, it’s the strength of the thrust that gives man the greater advantage!”
Laughter rose from the male audience at the play on words.
“The strength, you say—of the thrust? Parry, thrust, parry, thrust, so?” Her voice was soft, sweetly feminine—with just the slightest edge to it. She was deceptively delicate, elegant and angelic-looking. She didn’t bat an eye at the innuendo. She played them right along.
Indeed, Ian thought, there was something about her voice and manner that should have warned the young swains that she knew what she was about. She held a borrowed cavalry sword in good form in her right hand.
The sword seemed quite incongruous, for she appeared to be the epitome of the most perfect, charming Southern belle. Her day dress was a white and teal brocade, suitably chaste for afternoon wear, yet stylishly underscored by corset and petticoats in a manner that evocatively pinched her waist, flared her hips, and enhanced her breasts.
Her hair was a soft tawny gold; her eyes, at this distance, were a color to match its splendor. Gold, as well, cat’s eyes, and right now… they carried the slightest sparkle of the predator.
She knew she could take her man.
She suddenly moved forward; there was a quick clash of steel as she met her opponent and dueled with lightning-swift speed, grace, and cunning ruthlessness.
Her opponent’s sword flew in an arc across the lawn and into the bushes.
Having reached his home just in time to see the strange confrontation, Ian McKenzie found himself quite curious about the petite and tantalizing beauty who had just managed to make a fool of the cocky young man.
The bested fellow wore the uniform of a cavalry lieutenant. His name was Jay Pierpont; Ian had met him briefly at the Tampa base. To his credit, he handled his defeat with grace and a rueful sense of humor. “Brava!” he cried. Laughter welled within the crowd. “Jay! You’ve been taken by a woman!” someone teased.
The woman in question turned to Pierpont’s tormentor. “Well, my good sir, naturally, for I’ve had ever so talented a teacher in Jay.” The lithe beauty appla
uded in delight. “We’ve proven that a man’s great strength is not his best weapon, but rather the quality of thought within his head.”
“Gentlemen!” Jay cried. “The damsel is an amazingly apt student.”
“Certainly. I learned everything I know from this soldier in the last ten minutes!” she agreed.
Laughter rose again, and the sting of Pierpont’s defeat was soothed. Pierpont bowed to her; she curtsied deeply.
The dozen or so young men who had been on the lawn then moved in more closely, all vying for her attention, fluttering like a swarm of moths about a flame.
Her laughter was like wind chimes on the air. Her smile, Ian decided, was absolutely lethal. Indeed, he couldn’t remember ever seeing such a vivacious beauty, so graceful—and so arrogantly confident in her wiles—in all his days. She had flirtation down to graceful science, a dazzling art.
The young men about her were fools, he thought. She was playing with all of them. He was, at that moment, ruefully amused to realize just what a tug she might have pulled upon his own heartstrings, were it not for Risa. But since he was contemplating marriage with the very poised and beautiful daughter of Colonel Angus Magee, he could easily take a step back from this little charmer and pity the men who might be caught in her web. Still, she was quite incredible—and he was about to leap down from Pye and insist upon an introduction. But he heard his mother’s call from the porch, “Ian!”
The maternal delight in her voice was such that she necessarily became the woman of the moment for him. He edged Pye from the crowd on the lawn and loped up the final yards to the house. Before he reached the porch he swung his leg over Pye’s sleek haunches and took a flying leap from the horse that landed him directly at the first step to the porch. He hurried up the steps, plucked up Tara McKenzie, and spun her about the porch. “Ah, Mother! I have missed you! As always, you are radiant.”
Tara laughed, landing breathless on her feet again, reaching up to take his cheeks between her two hands and study the depths of his eyes. “Ian!” she said, laughing, “my dear firstborn, my pride and joy—you are quite the consummate flatterer! I know that you’re deeply involved with your military career and the affairs of the world, and you probably haven’t given your doting mother a single thought. But that’s quite all right. I am so glad that you could make it here today!”
“I have three days’ leave—and two days travel time back to Washington, Mother.” He hesitated, growing serious. “I’ve some important personal matters to discuss with you, and I don’t like the way the nation’s going, I’m afraid. There may be some decisions to be made soon, and I want time to talk with Father.”
Tara frowned, and Ian was sorry he had spoken so quickly. His mother was no simpering belle, and most certainly no naive hothouse flower. She remained, as she approached middle age, a beautiful woman, her golden hair hadn’t dulled a bit from the time Ian was a child; she was slim and graceful, the perfect mistress for his father’s beloved Cimarron. But though she embodied genteel Southern womanhood, the scope of her world was much larger. The precarious position the McKenzies had always taken regarding the Seminole question in Florida had caused Tara to be very aware of politics at all times. Ian knew by looking at her now that she was probably far more aware that the country was holding together by tenuous threads than most of the male guests enjoying Cimarron’s hospitality.
“Things are even worse than they seem?” she inquired softly.
“Right before I was stationed down at Key West, I had been in Washington. I was at John Brown’s hanging. As much as I see the justice of his sentence, I think that his martyrdom will help shed much more blood than he ever managed alive. I think there is no way this breach can be healed…. We’re heading toward war,” he told her quietly.
Her frown deepened. She shook her head. Like many people, Tara didn’t want to believe that the country could split apart, that there could be war. “I know that there is a wild and furious faction in Florida. We are a slave state, after all, and men can be adamant about keeping their property. Still, people are so split here with all the military bases that the state could well go to war against itself. But, Ian, surely saner heads will prevail.” “Not if Lincoln is elected president, I’m afraid. Mother, you know the sentiments of most of our neighbors!”
“I doubt if Lincoln will even be on the Florida ballot,” Tara said. “Really, his being elected remains a long shot.”
Ian shrugged. Perhaps so. But the military had kept him traveling and he’d seen Abraham Lincoln speak when he’d gone on leave with friends in Illinois, and he was certain that those who had never seen the man were seriously underestimating him.
Ian shook his head. “Well, nothing is happening tomorrow. Nothing will happen until the election, that much is certain. But still … I look forward to your party today, though I do assume the Democrats and Whigs are at it already within!”
She shook her head suddenly. “There’s been some argument, but quite frankly, the majority of our neighbors are slaveholders who see your father as an eccentric—an important, powerful, wealthy and respectable eccentric, but an eccentric, nonetheless. Then, of course, there are those who claim they don’t give a fig about slavery; they are furious about the question of States’ Rights. As you say, though, it’s in the future—even if it is the near future. Tea is about to be served. Freshen up quickly, dear, and come down. You are the best birthday present imaginable for your father; he is like a child waiting to see you.”
“Are Julian and Tia home yet?”
“Julian has been working in St. Augustine, you know. He should arrive by nightfall, and he is stopping by Tia’s academy to bring her home as well. Hurry, dear.”
“Indeed, I will.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I shall be down directly, Mother.”
He hurried through the breezeway and up the stairway to the second floor of Cimarron, down the long hallway, and to his room. He meant to hurry, as he had promised, but every time he came here and looked out on the vista that was his home, he had to pause.
He loved Cimarron. Deeply.
As the oldest male offspring of Tara and Jarrett McKenzie, he was heir to Cimarron. He had always known it, and always taken the responsibility gravely. He wasn’t sure if his love for the house and grounds had been taught to him, or if he and his siblings hadn’t just been born lucky. His younger brother, Julian, quite naturally loved his home. But to Julian, the pursuit of medicine was everything, and so he had become a doctor. Ian’s baby sister, Tia, felt an equally warm pride in Cimarron, but Tia loved the world at large. Like their mother, she was intrigued by people and politics, and she was continually restless and anxious to travel. It had been quite difficult for his parents to persuade her that she must remain in Madame de la Verre’s Finishing School for Young Ladies long enough to emerge with at least the facade of a proper education.
Cimarron…
The house was grace itself. His father and uncle had designed and built it when this area inland on the river from Tampa had been nothing more than wilderness.
His room was exceptionally large, as was the entire house, which seemed a waste now that he made use of it so infrequently. His bed was a large four-poster, made of oak carved in England: a masculine creation with lion-carved feet and winged griffins upon the headboard. It sat against the far wall, facing the hearth on the inner wall. Upholstered chairs were angled before the hearth, and a massive oak two-way desk sat center in the room, with chairs on either side. A wardrobe and dresser filled the north wall, while the south was taken by his washstand and a second wardrobe with a full-length mirror. The colors were dark with the richness of the woods. The Oriental carpet that lay beneath the bed was in brilliant blues and crimsons, and the sash curtains a rich blue tapestry as well
The second-floor windows were actually French doors that led out to a balcony. Ian stepped out and gripped the balcony railing. From there, he looked out over the slope of the land, to the river to the north; and
to the stream that branched from it, habited by manatees and river otters, and some of the most glorious birds ever to touch down upon earth. He turned slightly, looking to the deep pine forests to the south that surrounded the little pockets of white civilization which had now sprouted here. At the far end of one of the forest trails was a copse, and within that copse, a freshwater pool created from springs beneath the ground. On the lawn, the grass, even in winter, was an emerald green. The river flowed a deep, dark aqua, the pines rose with majestic beauty toward a powder blue sky.
Ian watched a small eagle soar across the sky. A feeling of peace settled over him, only to be disturbed by a growing unease within him. He loved this place, this life. And he felt as if he were somehow tied to a boulder rolling pell-mell, out of control, that would crash into the very foundation of the house, and cause it to fall.
He gave himself a shake. Saner heads would prevail, his mother had said. But already, among so many of the well-educated and well-read men in the army, talk had grown very serious. It was quite odd, of course—if it did come to war, often the men who had fought together before would be the ones riding out against one another. The nation’s finest military schools had always drawn their cadets from across the country; naturally, now, the officers in the United States military all hailed from every region. If it did come to war…
Whichever side he chose, Ian would be fighting old roommates, classmates, teachers—and friends.
Possibly his own relatives. He winced, telling himself he had made no decisions yet. No decisions had been called for yet. The country had come to the brink of war before and compromises had been made. Still, what the hell should he do?
Keep praying, he advised himself.
He turned and reentered his room, found fresh water in the ewer on his washstand, and quickly freshened up. Still, he had tarried too long. He arrived in the breezeway just outside the dining room in time to see the servants clearing away the meal and to hear the company all lifting their lemonade glasses in a toast to congratulate Peter O’Neill on his engagement to Elsie Fitch.