Ashes in the Wind (19 page)

Alaina shook her head vehemently and clenched her hands into fists. She wanted so badly to find some flaw in his reasoning and escape her increasingly odious role, but she knew his logic was deadly true.

The week drew out, and still all Federal troops were held on duty. Even the new bride had to spend the evenings without her groom. Roberta chafed at this harsh cruelty and ridiculed Cole’s notes of apology. This was too much for her to bear, she whined, and retired to her room to sulk in solitude, much to the relief of everyone else in the house.

If Roberta fretted with the absence of her husband, then Angus chafed with the presence of Alaina. The latter’s cause grew more perilous with each passing hour. A tale was brought back by the soldiers who had set out in pursuit of the band of
rebels and what they reported fairly curled the hackles of everyone’s ire. All the wounded escapees from the hospital had been found not far from where they had left the riverboat. They had been shot in the back and left where they had fallen, all sixteen of them. Items of blue uniforms were scattered over the carnage, and the uniform of a medical captain was with the rest. The woman, the horses, the money, and the men who had lured the wounded soldiers out of the hospital were nowhere to be found. The trail could not be followed beyond where it plunged into a dense swamp. It was almost an afterthought that Captain Latimer’s roan was found wandering near the dock where the riverboat had been seized.

A hue and cry was raised among the Southern citizenry. Where a week ago, Alaina MacGaren had been touted as a genteel heroine of sorts, now she was branded as a vicious traitoress and even debauched as the common harlot of a mysterious band of brigands and pirates who, with unbiased cruelty, laid waste the stores of honest men, both blue and gray.

From the outlanders, the reward was raised to a staggering thousand Yankee dollars in gold, and from the residents the quiet promise of enshrinement as a hero of the city, all for the one who would point a finger and bring Alaina MacGaren to justice. The Briar Hill plantation was confiscated by the Federals, and notice was given that it would be sold. Until then, it would be boarded up to preserve it from those who, in hatred of Alania MacGaren, might be bent on destroying it.

On street corners angry citizens gathered and carefully watched passersby with open suspicion. It was fortunate they sought a striking young woman and not a drowsy lad on an ancient nag, when Alaina made her way to the hospital through the early morning mists. The general air was one of tension, and irate murmurings could be heard wherever a group collected.

The feeling did not abate in the hospital, and even the wounded Yankees were aroused at the callous butchery that had occurred. Alaina had just laid out her mops and buckets when a fully uniformed and armed corporal sought her out and insisted she accompany him. She was led at a brisk pace to the third floor again and was fairly panting when he stopped before a guarded door.

“Wait here!” he bade the scrub boy tersely, then knocked on the panel. The door was opened a crack, and the corporal leaned in to converse briefly with someone on the other side of the door.

“Come along.” He gestured to Al and, pushing the door wide, ushered her in.

A gasp came from Alaina, and the sudden panic in her eyes was not in the least feigned. She had never seen as much brass, blue, and braid as was contained in the long room. Cole sat at the near end of a lengthy table, and his face was taut with concern even though he gave her a reassuring smile and nod. Beside him sat Doctor Brooks, and the old gentleman’s face was pale with his own anxiety over Alaina being summoned. He and she bore the weight of a secret that could destroy them both, Captain Latimer, and untold others.

Alaina was agonizingly aware that much rested on her performance in the next few moments. She remembered what Mrs. Hawthorne had said and wiped her nose on a sleeve with a loud sniffle. As she was offered a chair, she seemed to stumble toward it in awed bewilderment.

Surgeon General Mitchell leaned forward in his chair at the head of the table, and Alaina fixed her eyes with a glazed stare at his stars.

“Rest easy, boy,” the general uttered in a kindly tone. “This is not a court or trial. It is merely a panel investigating this affair.”

Alaina nodded jerkily and wiped her nose again, scratching an ear with her other hand.

“We need to ask you a few questions. Doctor Brooks has informed us of your recent loss. I can only give my own humble condolences.”

The nose met the sleeve again, and the wide, frightened eyes never left the oversized gold stars on the general’s shoulder.

“I am led to believe that you rescued Captain Latimer from the river the night of the escape.”

“Yessuh!” The words burst out in a torrent as she plunged into her statement with an overanxious rush. “He was a-floatin’ on a tree down by the railroad levee. Kept goin’ under when the branches caught on the bottom. When ah got him ashore, he was in the altogether ‘ceptin fer his long skivvies, o’ course, an’—”

“Slow down, boy,” the general admonished with the barest hint of a smile. “We’d like to get this all straight. What time did you see the captain in the river.”

“Musts been afore eleven,” Alaina mused, chewing a fingertip as she rolled her eyes upward. “Yeah,
that old clock was strikin’ eleven when I got him in the house.” She stared at the star again and let her voice slowly pick up speed again. “Ya see, him bein’ in his skivvies an’ all, and what with the cap’n gettin’ me the job an’ all, I didn’t have much a mind ter haul him ‘cross the square, in his skivvies and all I mean. So’s I took him home with me. It were afore eleven. Maybe ten or so.” She nodded her own acceptance of her logic and pursed her lips in sudden surety.

“And Captain Latimer spent the entire night at the Craighugh house?” The general pressed for his point.

“Oh, yessuh! Ya see, suh, that there is the problem! I mean, he spent the night with—uh—I mean—Uncle Angus, he fetched his old pistol an’—uh—well—I was asleep some o’ that, ya know! An’—well, the cap’n got hisself hit on the head an’ maybe it sorta scambled his—uh—” Alaina waved a hand in a circle around her ear and glanced askance at Cole who had leaned his elbows on the table to rest his head in both hands, while Doctor Brooks was seized with a fit of coughing. Most of the rest of the officers present were steadfastly studying the ceiling.

“And—uh—well, anyway—he got hitched ter my cousin, Roberta, an’ well, yessuh, I rightly guess y’all could say he was there all night, I guess.” She let her voice taper off in growing uncertainty.

“That’s all, Al.” The general toyed with a stack of papers in front of him. “You can go now, and thank you.”

She rose to her feet with a mumbled, “Welcum, suh.”

The corporal opened the door for her exit, and it was not until she was alone in the dayroom that
her knees gave way. She sat trembling in a chair for some time, trying to compose herself. She had succeeded to a small measure and was just lifting the mops and buckets again when a shadow fell across her, and she looked up to see Cole. Slowly she put down the utensils and straightened.

“I guess I got ya in a lotta trouble.”

“No.” Cole stared at the urchin and let out a long breath as he ran a hand through his hair. “I had already told them as much as I remembered. They only needed your verification.”

“Huh?”

“You did fine! Look! Put that stuff away. I want you to run an errand for me. I don’t know when I’ll get out to Mrs. Hawthorne’s again, and”—he pulled an envelope from his blouse—“she may need this, though our friend Jacques will not be troubling her again. They have found the man who was responsible, and he is henceforth without employment. At least, by any bank around here, and her deed has been verified by the bank. It’s with her letter here.” He looked at Al closely and tapped his knuckles with the packet. “Do you think you can make it out there without getting lost or something?”

Alaina worried the button on her cotton coat. “I guess I really got ya in a lot o’ trouble.”

“No, dammit!” Cole snapped. “I got myself in a lot of trouble! And stay away from the river! I may try it myself this time!” He turned his back, then halted a pace away. “And you can take the rest of the day off.”

He went down the hall quickly, and Alaina did not hesitate, for at least with Mrs. Hawthorne, she could wash her face and act halfway human.

N
OW
, more than ever, Alaina felt the stricture of her masquerade. Her name was on everyone’s lips, and how cruel the brunt of the lie that shamed the family name. Alaina MacGaren, wanted by both the Union and Confederacy. Each side desired to see her hanged. The least of her punishment, if she were caught, would be banishment to Ship Island or Fort Jackson. But there, all-too-loyal Southerners were sent, and she would fare worse by their hands if they thought she had helped murder the escaped Confederate prisoners.

Both she and the Craighughs were caught together in this irony of events. Alaina could not leave, for their good as well as her own, and they were obliged to accept her company. After all, she was blood kin, and they did know her innocent of the deeds. Still, Angus found it impossible to stay for very long in the same room with his niece. Leala could only shake her head sadly, being the only one in the family who even pretended any sympathy for Alaina. Leala could not bear to see the young girl hurt. But even she worried what Alaina’s presence in the house would mean to the rest of the family. They had suffered enough since the occupation; she dreaded giving up anything more. To their neighbors,
who knew they were akin to one Alaina MacGaren, the family openly deplored the girl’s actions. They could not take the chance of denying Alaina’s guilt. If everyone else thought she was a renegade, then so must they.

It was the eighth night that Cole had been at the hospital, and for the eighth night in a row, Roberta had retired to her room to wail herself to sleep, making it virtually impossible for anyone else to find the peace of slumber until she had.

Sipping from a glass of buttermilk, Alaina strolled musefully across the foyer and paused at the door of the parlor to glance about the empty room. It was no more than eight in the evening, but the Craighughs had retired to their bedroom for the night, perhaps hopeful they could forget their troubles for a brief time or, behind their closed doors, reduce the noise of Roberta’s bawling.

Alaina stopped, her bare foot poised upon the first step of the stairs, as the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves leisurely rang on the cobbled drive. Peeking out the narrow window beside the front door, she saw the gold-trimmed blue of a Yankee officer’s uniform.

“Cole!” Her mind raced. “He’s finally coming!”

Alaina quickly checked her appearance in the ornate mirror hanging in the foyer. The boy, Al, wrinkled his nose back at her, much in repugnance, and for an added touch, Alaina held the glass to her lips, raising it high until she had a wide, buttermilk mustache to sport. Grimacing at herself, she mussed her hair, then sauntered to the front door. Casually she opened it and leaned against its frame to watch the captain dismount and hitch his horse to the post.

“Thought ya’d deserted us,” Al commented brashly. “And by all that yowling Roberta’s a-doing, I guess she figgered the same.”

Cole glanced at Al sharply, pulled the saddlebags off his horse, and threw them over his shoulder without comment.

Alaina was in such a mood to extend his discomfort to the limit. “That caterwauling’s been going on for eight days now—night and day.” She shrugged lamely. “Ain’t seen ya that much at the hospit’l to be sure ya was even around. Why, ya mighta gone someplace. Maybe upriver! Even clear to Minnesotee!”

“Wipe your mouth,” Cole said tersely, striding past her to enter the foyer.

Alaina backed around to lean against the wall, eyeing him speculatively as he laid the saddlebags in a chair. “Cain’t rightly see why ya’d come back to that bawling.” She nodded in the direction of Roberta’s bedroom where the wailing loudly continued. “But then, I ain’t sure jes’ how ya managed it all after I put ya to bed that night. You was drunk as an old coot. Why, ya nearly drowned me in the watering trough befo’ I gotcha in the house.”

Cole peered obliquely at the tousled-haired youth, recalling for himself a small memory of that event. “Seems to me you were intent upon drowning me.”

“Ah-ha! So ya do remember!” Alaina chortled boyishly and swaggered forth toward the well-groomed captain, hooking her slim thumbs in her rope belt and looking him up and down. “Weren’t so high and dandy that night, ya weren’t. In fact, as I recollect, ya looked pretty damned stupid—for a Yankee sawbones.”

Cole chafed beneath the lad’s gloating pleasure. “You haven’t wiped your mouth,” he reminded curtly.

Alaina drummed her fingers against her hips. “What I’m wondering is, would ya’ve rather stayed in the river now that ya find yerself hitched and all.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Cole snapped.

Alaina caught the uneasy, almost imperceptible glance he cast toward his bride’s chamber from which flowed Roberta’s droning whine. “Ya can relax,” she assured him impertinently. “Robbie’s almost finished. Cain’t go on much longer.”

Cole patted his pockets as if he had forgotten something and glanced about him.

“Ya ain’t looking for an excuse to leave, are ya? I told ya, you can relax.”

Cole shot the urchin a glare. “Don’t you ever stop talking?”

His rebuff brought a cackle of glee from Al. “Kinda touchy, ain’tcha?”

Cole opened his mouth to retort, but before he could utter a word, Roberta’s bedroom door was snatched open, and the woman appeared. Catching sight of only Alaina above the balustrade, she frowned. “I thought I heard voices—”

Then she saw Cole. With a glad cry, she flew down the stairs, unheedful of her skimpy silk nightgown that strained into transparency across her bosom. She threw herself into his arms and smothered him with ecstatic kisses.

“Oh, Cole! Darling! I’ve been so worried about you.”

Painfully Alaina averted her eyes from the exuberant bride greeting her groom. She wanted to be a
thousand miles from where she was now, anyplace but here witnessing this.

Cole glanced at the urchin’s forbidding back. There was almost a cringing attitude about the small shoulders, and he could see only one cause. “Roberta, we seem to be embarrassing the boy.”

“What boy?” Roberta seemed genuinely perplexed until Alaina’s brooding gray eyes turned, then she laughed gaily. “Oh, him! Why, I guess I was so thrilled when I saw you, Cole, that I just didn’t stop to think.” She feigned a blush as she passed a hand across her bosom, leading his eyes to the ripe, swelling fullness. In the past days she had been plagued by one fear, and that was the flaw in their marriage vows; they were unconsummated. She had worried that Alaina would fly to Cole and tell everything. After all, the twit had fallen into bed with him when he was too drunk to know what he was doing. She wouldn’t put it past her cousin to go a step further and try to separate them.

Now that the consummation was only moments away, Roberta’s dark eyes gleamed tauntingly at Alaina, boasting of the victory she had won. The younger cousin faced away again and disconcertedly jammed her hands in her pants pockets while Roberta crooned to Cole.

“Come, darling.” She slipped her arm within his. “You must be exhausted.”

“I should stable my horse.”

“Nonsense! Al can do that.” She threw a coy wave over her shoulder as Alaina glanced at her sharply. “He’s good at it.”

After a restless night, Alaina rose at her usual time and glumly donned her dirty garb. She avoided the mirror as she rubbed the soot from the fireplace onto her face and arms, not wanting to see her red-rimmed eyes and be reminded of the tears she had shed during the night. Like a coward, she had buried her head beneath a pillow for most of the night, fearful that some sound might venture from Roberta’s bedroom and remove any doubt as to the activity of the newly wedded couple.

Solemnly Alaina made her way down to the kitchen, her heavy boots dragging. The aroma of hot biscuits, mingled with the surprising but deeply appreciated smell of strong, savory coffee, hit her as she pushed through the door. Her amazement mounted still further when she saw Cole sitting at the table. She had thought that he would sleep late this morning and not return to the hospital immediately. But he was already dressed and ready to meet the day. At least, that was her first impression, until she drew nearer. He had not even glanced up when she came into the kitchen, and as she pulled out a chair across the table from him, she saw that he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he was stirring an empty cup, while he stared unblinkingly into the crackling fire that blazed in the hearth. Her questioning eyes turned to Dulcie who shrugged in bewilderment.

Cole had obviously brought the coffee, and he seemed in the greatest need of it. Thinking to be helpful, Alaina fetched the pot and poured the black liquid into his cup. She had never seen him so engrossed in his musings before, and she couldn’t help watching him. But in the next instant, Cole was torn painfully from his trance as his stirring overturned
the cup, spilling scalding liquid into his lap. He yelped and shot to his feet, wiping furiously at his lap with a napkin, while Alaina gaped at him.

“What are you trying to do, you young fool! Make a damn eunuch of me?” Cole shouted. The wool of his uniform was still steaming, and in considerable discomfort, he was nearly dancing.

Unable to think of anything better, Alaina grabbed a bucket of cold water and threw it on him where the coffee had spilled. It was a full moment before Cole released his breath. He glared at Al menacingly, while Dulcie beat a tactful retreat, her hand clutched over her grinning mouth. It was a rare day one could douse a Yankee and get away with it.

“I’m sorry,” Alaina shrugged lamely, drawing herself up into an even smaller form. “I didn’t know ya was gonna do that! You just looked like ya needed some coffee.”

“I don’t think I can bear any more of your favors,” Cole growled, jerking open the buttons of his blouse.

“All right!” Alaina’s own ire rose at his apparent ungratefulness. “Next time I’ll leave ya in the river.”

“I might fare better,” Cole muttered and winced as he picked at the wet fabric covering his groin. “Hell! I’ve been burned to the core.”

Alaina’s cheeks took on a vivid hue of red. “Guess it’s time for me to be leaving.”

Cole flung up a hand to halt her. “You’re not escaping so easily. Go upstairs and ask Roberta for my saddlebags. There’s some salve in them.”

“But she’s probably sleeping!” Alaina whined in protest, not wanting to venture near their bedroom. “An’ she hates to be woke up!”

Cole bit his tongue as a caustic comment threatened. After the first initial submission, Roberta had proven herself dully unresponsive in bed. Indeed, he had gotten the impression that she rather loathed exerting herself. She was certainly different from that warm and intoxicating creature his muddled mind remembered from that night.

A heavy frown came onto his face, and seeing it, Alaina fled, not daring to protest further. She had angered him enough for one day. There might be serious consequences if she persisted.

At her timid knock on Roberta’s door, a sleepy voice mumbled from the other side, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Al. The cap’n sent me after his saddlebags.”

In the next moment the portal was snatched open, and Roberta stood in the doorway, wearing a thin, silk gown. Her eyes narrowed as she questioned suspiciously, “Why didn’t Cole come for them himself?”

“Got hisself burnt,” Alaina stated bluntly. She gestured impatently. “He wants them saddlebags, if you’re of a mind to fetch ’em.”

“Really, Al, must you use that vulgar language when there’s no need?” Roberta chastened, portraying no concern for the depth of Cole’s injury.

“When there’s a Yankee in the house, I ain’t takin’ no chances.”

The older woman smiled superciliously. “I believe I forgot to thank you, Lainie, for bringing him home. Who knows but what you didn’t save me a considerable amount of time and effort.”

Alaina glared. “You got them saddlebags handy?”

Roberta stepped back into the room, and Alaina kept her eyes carefully averted from the bed while the woman searched about for the saddlebags. When she found them, Roberta came back to the door and handed them over. “You made it so easy for me, Lainie, I just couldn’t resist. And Cole will never know the difference. Just to make sure of that, I’d better warn you. If you think you’ll be able to tell him without having the Yankees know who you are, then you greatly underestimate me—Al.”

“You can relax, Robbie,” Alaina admonished mockingly. “Since I don’t want it spread about any more than you, it will be our deep, dark secret.”

“Then we understand each other.” Roberta raised a brow as she queried, “And you’ll stay away from him?”

“Not likely.” Alaina answered flatly and, turning, hurried toward the stairs, flinging back over her shoulder, “We not only work at the same place, but
now
we live in the same house.”

The noise of her boots on the stairs drowned out the comment Roberta hurled, and in a quick moment Alaina returned to the kitchen. Cole was in the pantry with the door closed behind him, and she called through the wood, managing to sound more brash than she felt.

“Got yer saddlebags, Yankee. I’ma leaving ’em here at the door. Now I gotta run befor’ them bluebellies dock my pay fer being late.”

Snatching up her floppy hat, she did a lickety-split scamper out the back door, not waiting to hear if Cole had anything to say.

When some time later Cole strode through the foyer at the hospital, Alaina jauntily braced her arm
on the handle of the mop and gave him the best of a boyish smirk. “You’re late, Yankee. Major Magruder’s been askin’ where you was at.”

Cole glared at her. “I’ve no doubt you explained everything with your usual relish.”

“You can bet on it, Yankee.” Al grinned and cackled gleefully. “Guess you’ll be known around here from now on as Mister Hotpants hisself.”

Cole briefly cast his eyes upward as if seeking some divine help for keeping his control. “If I let myself think about it too long,” he growled, “I might consider that you intended it as some sort of prank.”

“ ‘Tweren’t me what done it,” Alaina denied. “You done it yerself when you was a-moonin’ over Roberta.”

“I wasn’t mooning over Roberta,” Cole corrected sharply.