Alaina smoothed her hands over the sheets, willing herself not to fight or argue—she was determined that she wasn’t going to be humiliated further in front of Risa Magee. She had never quite understood why poor women were expected to bear their babies and go right back to work while ladies of society were confined to their beds for days after the fact. But she didn’t have her strength back, and she wasn’t going to risk falling on her face.
“He’s got quite a temper and he may not take kindly to baptism,” she said, smiling at Risa. “I hope he’ll behave.”
“We’ll be fine,” Risa assured her and left the room.
Ian stood in the doorway, staring at Alaina. Then he closed the door.
Alaina wanted to jump up and call him back. She felt so alone.
What else? she mocked herself. She had just told the woman he’d intended to marry that she hadn’t wanted to be his wife at all. She might as well have written out a permission slip for the two to commit adultery.
* * *
Despite Alaina’s fear, Ian couldn’t have been more courteous in the days that followed—though he kept a distance from her. The doctor had warned her that there would be “Ahem! No, er, intimate marital relations” for some weeks to come, and so she couldn’t argue with Ian’s determination to keep separate rooms. Besides, her pride wouldn’t allow her to insist that he come sleep with her. Still, she did her best to be amiable, and it was easy, because they were both so fascinated with being parents. They spent many hours with Sean laid out on the bed, assigning his various features to family members, then laughing and agreeing that he looked like Sean, and that was that. Sean Michael McKenzie.
Sean was a little more than three weeks old when an invitation to another of Rose Greenhow’s soirees arrived. Alaina realized that she had been living in a clamshell, in a greater isolation than ever. She had been so preoccupied with the baby and her own troubles that she hadn’t given a thought to the world around her. She hadn’t even glanced at a newspaper—her only reading had been the letters she had received from Ian’s family, congratulations from James and Teela, Jerome, Brent, and Sydney, and Jennifer and Lawrence. And since the day Risa and her father had been to the house, Alaina and Ian had received no visitors. She was aware that Ian had made a point of being home, and despite the warmth they shared regarding Sean, in other matters he had smoothly erected a wall of reserve toward her. Alaina was suddenly extremely anxious to get out and discover what was going on in the rest of the country.
Ian was working in his library, poring over charts and maps, when the invitation arrived, hand delivered by one of Rose Greenhow’s maids. Alaina brought it to him, hesitating in the doorway as she watched him work, then knocking softly. He glanced up quickly. There was a newspaper at his side which he folded and put aside, indicating she should come in. Wordlessly, Alaina handed him the invitation. He read it and handed it back to her.
“It’s too soon for you to be going to parties,” he told her.
“Ian, it’s not. Please, I’d love to get out for just a few hours. I’ve not left this house at all since the baby was born.”
He looked back to his work. “Alaina—”
“Please, Ian?”
“And what about Sean?”
The baby was a serious and legitimate consideration, since she had refused the services of a wet nurse. “Ian, we’re but a few blocks away from Mrs. Greenhow’s. I’ll feed him right before we leave.” He didn’t answer right away, and she thought that he was looking for excuses.
“Please, Ian!”
He hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged, as if this evening was going to be an unpleasantly he was going to have to face sooner or later. He turned back to his work. “As you wish,” he said simply.
Ian had never seen his wife more beautiful than when she came down the stairs that night. She still wore black, in Teddy’s honor, and he knew she would do so for a full year. But she wore black very well, her hair appearing like spun gold against it, her skin like porcelain. Her breasts were enhanced from nursing, and her waist appeared more slender than ever. She wore her hair swept up, with a few tendrils falling in evocative curls down her nape and over her shoulders. Watching her come down the stairs with her eyes flashing a brilliant topaz and her cheeks flushed, he felt his senses go into a spin. She reached him, and the scent of her perfume was completely intoxicating. But it would be several more weeks before he could touch her again, and he didn’t dare brush her cheek with a kiss or reflect too long upon her cleavage. For a moment, he wryly envied his son her breasts. Then he thought again with weary resolution that by the time it was medically prudent to make love to his wife again, she wouldn’t want to feel the least brush of his fingers.
“Shall we go?” he inquired, making no comment on her appearance. She nodded, and he noted that her eyes swept over the length of his uniform—with distance, he thought. She hadn’t liked his Union uniform since her father had been killed.
She caught him staring at her in the lamplight that trickled into the carriage, and she nervously looked to her lap, smoothing her skirt.
“Is there something wrong?” she inquired.
“On the contrary. You look dazzling.”
She looked toward the window. “I adore Sean, and you know it. I am delighted to be with him. But I am not accustomed to such inactivity.”
“And naturally you never did want to be married to me and dragged to the wretched North,” he reminded her softly, wondering why the words she had spoken to Risa still disturbed him so. They were no surprise. And he didn’t know why he was creating war between them now. It had been painful to keep his distance from her as her waist slimmed and her breasts swelled, but the time they had spent together had actually been quite domestic. Happy.
That was about to change. With or without his desire to make war.
Alaina continued to stare out the window. “I was merely trying to explain to Risa that I hadn’t intended to destroy her life.”
“I can’t see how you’ve destroyed her life,” he said flatly.
She looked at him with a peculiarly wistful smile, her eyes a shimmering topaz. “Really? Surely you are aware that she’s still in love with you?”
He didn’t mean to be cruel in any way; he just knew that she would be damning him before the night was over. “Do you think so?” he inquired politely, as if concerned and surprised, yet a raw pain seemed to tear af his heart. Yes, Risa cared. And he cared about her as well. But he had become consumed with his wife, and no matter what barriers he tried to erect around his soul, she slipped through them.
And as of tonight… well, he wouldn’t worry about it now.
“Ian,” she said huskily, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes upon them. “You are no fool. You are well aware of Miss Risa Magee.”
“We’re here,” he said as the carriage came to a halt in front of Rose’s handsome home. He stepped down, reaching for her. He should have told her more about his plans, he thought fleetingly. But he craved peace, as long as he could have it.
When he escorted her to the door, he felt as if something had lodged in his throat. He was going to choke on his own damned desire for peace.
As they entered the foyer, Alaina offered him a grateful smile—she was so glad to be out. She felt a sweet rush of excitement to be involved with life again. So many people greeted her like an old friend; everyone was concerned for her and the baby. Risa was there, naturally, as stunning and poised as ever in royal blue silk. Colonel Magee was grave and kindly, concerned with Alaina’s welfare, and quite solicitious. Yet after she had exchanged pleasantries with a number of people, she found herself becoming part of conversations that weren’t pleasant in the least.
“Major McKenzie, just what is the world coming to?” Jill Sanders, the wife of a young naval lieutenant, demanded. “Can you just imagine? They’ve gone off and formed a new country—the Confederate States of America!”
“What?” Alaina asked, startled.
“
Oh, my dear, of course, you’ve been busy with your precious little one and all—so soon after a babe, and you’ve got a waist like a my pinkie ring already! Ah, but domesticity does take one out of the news, eh? The cotton states have formed a government—there are seven of them now, though Texas didn’t manage to get a delegate to Montgomery in time to be in the forming of it all. Texas just seceded on February first, you see, and their mockery of a government was formed on the fourth. Major! Had you heard that Jeff Davis was provisional president? Why, the man was a senator, a soldier! He was Secretary of War for President Pierce, and now… and that Alexander Stephens! Why, I heard him say myself that he was dead set against secession, and just look at him—vice president of the Confederate States of America!”
Alaina stared at Ian, feeling as if a fire had been set inside her stomach. Not a word. He knew all this. And he hadn’t said a single thing to her.
“Stephens argued eloquently against secession,” Ian responded to Mrs. Sanders. “But Stephens is a Georgian. Apparently he felt obliged to follow his state despite the fact that the vote went against him.”
“Tell me,” Alaina interjected, “which of the Southern states have seceded so far? I’m afraid that I have been so very isolated in the last few weeks!”
“Well, now, you couldn’t have missed South Carolina’s secession!” Jill exclaimed, shaking her head. “Those rabble rousers! Then, hmmm, Mississippi, your own Florida, dear, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana—and Texas! Yes, that’s it—and in the right order. Isn’t it, Ian?”
Alaina felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at Mrs. Sanders, then at Ian. His expression was impassive; there was an edge to his eyes, a cold glitter as he returned her stare. Yes, he had known all this. No, he hadn’t felt it necessary to inform her. She started to move away from him, but a waltz was playing, and before she could protest he excused them and had her out on the floor among the other couples dancing. She stiffened in his arms, staring at him with hot contempt.
“Do I have this correctly? The state of Florida has seceded, and you have done nothing? Nothing?”
His cool blue eyes assessed her in turn. “My dear, you do have it correctly. The state of Florida has seceded— and I have done nothing—nothing.”
She inhaled sharply. “But Ian—”
“You’ve long known my opinion of secession,” he said curtly, cutting her off.
“But—but what is your intent?” she demanded.
“I have no particular intent at the moment,” he said. It disturbed him—and irritated him—that her anger brought such a flush to her cheeks and such fire to her eyes. More than ever, he wanted to hold her. Drag her against him, tell her that they did not have the force to prevent the winds of war that were beginning to blow.
But she was shaking in his arms. Shaking, because she wouldn’t tolerate his words.
Or his ideals.
“I don’t wish to dance with you,” she said icily.
“What a pity.”
“Ian, let me go,” she told him.
“Alaina—”
She was surely going insane, she thought, because she didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted him to hold her, and tell her that yes, this was all horrible, it was breaking his heart. But Florida, his state, had seceded, and he was going to be loyal to his state, he was going to resign. And they would go home. To Florida. To the Confederate States of America.
But he wasn’t going to say that.
“You’re a traitor, Ian!” she cried. “A traitor to your state, to your own people.”
“Alaina, stop.”
“No, I can’t stop! Let me go. I don’t want you touching me. Ever.”
“You’re my wife, Alaina—”
She shook her head. “I want to go home!”
“Alaina, you can’t—”
“I’ve got to go. I am going home!” she informed him.
He tightened his arms around her. “If you ever walk away from me and humiliate me in public due to your views, I will drag you right back. And if you decide to leave me, my love, you leave your son. If you think you can kidnap him and run to the swamp and hide, remember that I know your state far better than you ever will. If you think you’re going to take my child, be aware that I’ll hunt you down wherever you go, and in the end, I will win. You married me, Alaina. For better or worse. You’re my wife, and I will never allow you to forget that fact.”
She had never heard him speak so coldly. Nor with greater warning and conviction.
“How can you turn your back on your state, your own home?” she demanded furiously.
“I’m not turning my back on Florida; it will always be my home. But I am against secession. There will be war, and it won’t be over in ninety days, though eventually it will end and the North will be victorious, and the hard path will be to see the state back into prosperity when the bleeding is over.”
She shook her head, staring at him as if he had quite clearly lost his mind.
“I won’t walk away from you, but Ian, let go of me! In my eyes, you are a traitor. Don’t touch me!”
He released her then so suddenly that she nearly stumbled back from him.
“They called you a Yankee in South Carolina,” she reminded him suddenly. “An enemy. That’s what you are. A Yankee!” she hissed. “You’re a Yankee, and your wretched army did nothing about my father’s murder.”
“Your father died by accident.”
“Negligence.”
“Be that as it may—”
“You’re a part of their horrid bureaucracy.”
“You’re refusing to see, Alaina—”
“I refuse a Yankee!”
“Ah. But you’re married to a Yankee,” he said politely. Then he bowed briefly to her, turned, and walked away, pausing to smile as someone stopped and spoke to him, answering another man, laughing with a friend. Mrs. Greenhow tapped him on the shoulder and he turned, flashing his handsome smile to her as well, then drawing her out to the dance floor.
Alaina turned in dismay, feeling almost blinded as she blinked back tears of confusion and frustration. She tried to make her way to the door; she had wanted to come here so badly tonight. Now she wanted only to escape.
She wasn’t allowed to walk away from him, but he had managed to walk away quite easily from her.
She tried to escape, but people stopped to speak with her, congratulating her, asking her about Sean. They were kind; they were pleasant, worried that she was warm enough here in the Capital in such wicked winter weather. She smiled; she had to be as easy and nonchalant as her husband.
She made it to the door at last. A maid brought her coat, and she convinced the free black man Ian had hired as their driver to take her home; she was afraid the baby might need her.
That much was true. Her breasts were full, aching, sore. She hoped that Sean was hungry.
When she came in, she could hear Sean fussing, and she hurried upstairs to the bedroom, trying not to let Lilly see the misery in her face. But Lilly shook her head, tsking out a warning even as Alaina reached for the baby, taking him into her arms and quickly loosening her gown so that the baby could nurse.
“You’re upset, you’ll upset the little one as well.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t upset the baby.”
Lilly sniffed. “You’re in a tempest—you’ll make sour milk.”
“Oh, Lilly, please.”
“Now, you knew that it would happen, that Florida would secede. It has happened. What goes on in the world isn’t your concern. You’re a married woman. You support your man.”
“He’s a blind man!” Alaina hissed.
Sean began to cry. Lilly was right; she was upsetting the baby. She had to calm down.
“Shhh, shhh!” she whispered, rocking back and forth with Sean. She laid him down on her bed, struggling to get her clothing off. “Lilly, please. Just help me get out of this and into a nightgown—the beige one with the buttons down the front.”
Lil
ly sniffed and helped her.
“Thanks,” she told Lilly. “I’m fine now—I—I’d like to be alone with him.”
“You remember what I say,” Lilly warned.
Alaina wanted to remind Lilly that she was a servant, except that of course she was much more, and Alaina didn’t particularly want to make an enemy out of Lilly. Lying next to Sean, she closed her eyes, wishing she could find some rest from the misery that plagued her. But there was just so much she could endure! The United States army hadn’t done a thing yet to chastise the men who had killed her father. She couldn’t possibly support that same army now when her home state had decided that Florida would have no more of it!
She lay awake, nervously looking toward the door, wondering if Ian would come barging in, furious that she had left him at a party she had insisted that they attend.
But Ian didn’t come to her room.
She heard him come home about midnight.
And she heard him ride out again less than an hour later.
And she lay in tortured silence then, remembering that she had commanded that he not touch her.
And she knew that there were those who did not mind his touch at all.
Chapter 20
Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president of the United States of America on March 4, 1861.
Ian wasn’t in the city for the inauguration.
Alaina didn’t see him after she left Rose Greenhow’s party; Lilly told her later that she had still been sleeping when he had come up in the morning, spent time with Sean, and then departed. He had left her a note; he had gone “to fulfill my orders,” and he assumed he’d be back within a month. She wondered if he had asked for orders that would send him away.
She wondered if he had decided he really didn’t want a wife after all.
But he did want his child.
She considered leaving Washington herself, making arrangements to travel home. But he had said that he would come after her. And she knew that he would. He might not want her, but he did want Sean.