Hearts Under Siege (Civil War Collection)

She pulled back, and, blinking through the tears, looked into his eyes. “Do you really think he’s alive?”

“Do you believe it?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s my brother. My twin. If something happened to him, I would know it.”

“Then together we’ll find him. At first light. I give you my promise.”

Her lips formed a faint smile.

His face was so close that his breath touched her skin. He was a handsome man, but it was his eyes that drew her to him. Even in the dim moonlight, they were clear and sparkling. Drowning in the intensity of his gaze, she couldn’t pull away, yet she sensed that he could devour her with a mere touch.

He moved even closer. His breath caressed her cheek, and a shiver ran up her spine. Her eyes fluttered closed.

He placed soft lips against hers. She half gasped and half moaned, swaying almost imperceptibly. When he released her, her eyes flew open, and she was left with a feeling of emptiness.

Hearts Under Siege

by Kathryn Kelly

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Hearts Under Siege

COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Kathryn Kelly

http://www.kathrynkelly.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

Published in the United States of America

Chapter One

Spring, 1863

“He’ll be here,” Alexandra Champagne whispered, standing alone on the riverbank.

The steamboat was nowhere in sight. Alexandra shaded her eyes with a gloved hand and stared at the horizon. The Mississippi River appeared still and smooth as glass, disguising its fierce undercurrents.

The sun shifted position, drifting downward to meet the murky waters.

Still no sign of it.

A drop of perspiration trickled down Alexandra’s back, underneath her corset. Last evening, when she stood here near her family’s private dock on the riverbank, it hadn’t seemed this hot. Now not even a hint of a breeze stirred. Even taking a breath seared her lungs.

The air was too still, as if it too were waiting.

It was almost like the spring of ’53…

Over the cotton of her bodice, she reached up and clutched the silver locket hanging from around her neck. She shook off the morbid thoughts of a summer long ago, before they could take hold of her, and looked over her shoulder toward Chene Ruelle, her family’s whitewashed plantation manor. Two dozen huge oak trees flanked the house. The trees were so old that several of their branches, draped in gray Spanish moss, dipped down to sweep the ground. An unknown Frenchman planted the oaks sometime in the seventeenth century.

Chene Ruelle now stood where the Frenchman’s cabin once sat. Ground-to-roof columns and spacious wrought iron galleries surrounded the house on all four sides. The massive house had three wings attached to the main structure, giving it a total of nineteen rooms.

Alexandra lifted her chin at the surge of pride that ran through her. This was her home. No one would ever take it away from her. Not even the Yankees. She had no desire to leave it. Even at the age of eighteen, when the war began, she turned her suitors away because they would have taken her from her beloved home. She would lay down her life to protect this house and land.

Squinting into the blinding sun, she turned her attention back to the river and searched the horizon. She lowered her straw hat over her forehead and adjusted the white bow tied beneath her chin. If only she could shed some of these layers of clothes.

Then she saw it.

It was only a speck against the domed sky, but Alexandra had spent enough hours of her childhood along the river to know a steamboat when she saw one, and one fast approached.

The blood rushed through her veins. She’d thought it would never happen, but Jeffy was coming home.

She and her twin brother had been inseparable until he’d left for West Point. Then he’d been home less than a month when the call for arms came.

Alexandra missed him. She missed their horseback rides through the fields and along the river. She missed their quiet study hours. Besides traditional subjects like French, music, and needlepoint, she studied history, geography, and arithmetic right alongside her brother. But most of all, she missed their long talks.

After a long day of arduous chores and tedious studies, they would lie out beneath the towering oak trees and share dreams of limitless futures and distant lands. He was a medieval knight rescuing damsels in distress, and she was a free-spirited artist traveling throughout Paris. They were alike, she and Jeffy. Nothing could ever come between them.

The rumble of gathering wagons dampened her anticipation at seeing her brother. It reminded her of the real reason Jeffy was coming home. It wasn’t to see his family, but to gather supplies for the war; servants brought out anything from gunpowder to hand knitted socks that they and neighbors had scrimped and saved, hoarded and hidden. They placed them in wagons. Alexandra’s insides twisted as she thought about the war. All Jeffy’s friends had been excited about going off to fight. But Alexandra had paid attention to all those history books their old tutor, Nate Basil, had them read and analyze. In fact, Mr. Basil was the only person she knew who had shown any reluctance at fighting. Though he had written the family at first, and kept them abreast of his location, they hadn’t heard from him in over a year. It was through his teaching and his observations that Alexandra knew war told a bigger story than glory and adventure.

War was fighting.

And fighting meant death.

They had been wrong to want war. They knew it now. She hadn’t seen many of her or Jeffy’s male friends since they’d ridden off to battle. Most of them wouldn’t be coming back.

Even her grand-père, whom she adored with every fiber of her being, seemed different these days. He shut himself up in his study with men she’d never seen before. Though she didn’t know what, she knew it had something to do with the war. Her world broke apart around her.

Again.

A rider on horseback turned away from the wagons and cantered in her direction. She recognized Grand-père astride his temperamental stallion, Lancelot. Despite his years, Ernest Dumon sat tall in his saddle and easily maintained control of the horse. When he removed his hat and waved to her, she saw the row of gray hair that rimmed his bald head.

Grand-père was too old to be riding, but no one would try to take that away from him. Horses were his life. He continued to raise fine, prize horses long after he’d grown wealthy beyond imagination off sugar cane and cotton. Even now, with Confederate money practically worthless and most everything lost but the house and land, he managed to hold onto half a dozen of his best horses.

Climbing the gentle levee, Grand-père reined up beside her and nodded toward the boat. He looked more like his old self today, with a smile on his face and a light in his eyes.

“I told you he would be here today,” Grand-père said, with a wink.

“I hope he’s on the boat.”

“He’s on it. A rider came by this morning with a message.”

“A message,” she repeated, grabbing his sleeve, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Grand-père’s gray eyes twinkled. “It seems he spent last night in New Orleans. You’ll see your brother soon enough.”

“I miss Jeffy so much, Grand-père. Now everything will be the way it was before.”

A shadow crossed Grand-père’s features, and his tone was distant. “Time stands still for no one, Kitten. Those tranquil days of old are memories now. Fond memories to guard carefully.”

“I know, but I miss him so much,” she said again.

Grand-père smiled. “Hop on up, and we’ll wait for him at the dock.”

He reached down, swept Alexandra up in front of him, and settled her upon the horse. Though petite for a twenty-year-old, she felt him strain with the effort and heard his rapid intake of breath.

As Grand-père guided the horse toward the dock, Alexandra shifted and slipped her arms around him in a hug. For the moment, she was a little girl again, safe and protected. There was no war. No pain.

She knew Grand-père had tried to show no favoritism between his two grandchildren, but Alexandra suffered no guilt over claiming more than her share of his time and affection. He’d personally taught her to ride and shoot as well as any lad, maybe better. She turned and faced forward.

Grand-père stiffened, and the steamer’s whistle shattered the silence. Grand-père tugged on the reins and turned Lancelot around in the direction of the boat. The steamer wasn’t alone on the river. Only a few feet behind it appeared another steamer, hidden from view only minutes earlier. Now, it pulled forward enough for them to see.

Glancing back at Grand-père’s furrowed brow, she swallowed. Something was wrong. His arms tightened around her. The steamers went too fast. At this rate, they wouldn’t be stopping at this dock or any other within miles.

Flames shot out of the top of the steamer seconds before the explosion sounded. The first steamer listed and turned sideways, crashing into the water with a terrible splash. Alexandra and Grand-père watched in a helpless trance as the second steamer rammed sideways into the first. The flames fed on each other, leaping skyward. A dozen or so people managed to leap overboard only to trade a fiery death with that of a cool, wet one. No one could fight the currents to swim that far to either bank.

Distantly, Alexandra heard herself cry out, and her hands flew to her mouth. Then she was off the horse, running back the way they had come toward the muted shrieks.

She crashed through the tall grasses, sending small animals scurrying, whether gators or snakes, she neither noticed nor cared. Tripping, she caught her foot on the hem of her skirt, ripping it and soiling her white gloves on the grass and dirt as she threw out her hands to keep from falling. Not stopping, she reached the site, but the boats were half a mile out on the water. She stood at the edge of the water.

“Jeffy!” she screamed.

A whimper in her throat, she squeezed her hands into fists, itching to dash into the water. Only a lifetime of breeding kept her emotions in check…and the irrefutable knowledge that there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop the tragedy unfolding before her. Grand-père stood several yards behind her, waving his arms at the slaves and yelling for help.

Cries rent the air. Flames engulfed the floating palaces, their passengers trapped. No one surfaced from the water for long before being sucked along in the current.

Falling to her knees, Alexandra broke into sobs.

“Not Jeffy, too! Please, God, not Jeffy.”

Then through the haze of shock, she realized Grand-père bent over her. For an instant, her mind rejected what had happened. Then the smoke burned her eyes, making her squint. The smoldering mass seemed to swim downstream like an alligator surfing for prey. As it drifted, its horror stood out against the murky water.

“No,” she sobbed, embracing Grand-père and burying her face against his chest.

He remained silent and unmoving as he held her.

It must be a mistake! Jeffy hadn’t been on the boat. He couldn’t have been.

Alexandra’s mind raced. She’d read about steamboat explosions before. They happened all the time, and there were always survivors. Weren’t there?

By now the plantation bell rang, and at least a dozen slaves descended upon the levee, from all across the plantation. Alexandra wanted to scream at them, to tell them to go away. Her brother was out there somewhere. He could be dead, and they could do nothing but gawk.

Silently, Grand-père moved from her side, his face hard and unemotional. “Jackson,” he commanded, “get your boat. You and two others cross the river and see if you can find anybody who made it ashore. The rest of you can check this side of the river.”

The sun’s glare was muted now, and Alexandra stared at the wreckage. A movement beyond it caught her attention. Human? Or just a piece of wood splintered from the ship, or someone’s baggage drifting ashore?

“Grand-père,” she said, keeping her eyes on the object. “There’s something moving out there. I think it’s a person.”

Grand-père sent people up and down the bank to search. He took a step, closing the distance between them, and wrapped gentle fingers around her arm. She pulled her attention from the river and met his unreadable gaze.

“I’m sending the servants out to search. Though I doubt anyone could survive that explosion, and even if they did, they wouldn’t make it ashore. The river’s too wide here. Some of the bodies will eventually wash ashore.”

“But it could be Jeffy. I know it could.
”
Not bodies. Please don’t say bodies.

“Alexandra, go to the house.” He turned to a slim black woman standing nearby. “Sadie, take Alexandra back to the house.”

“No,” Alexandra cried, pulling away from her grandfather. “I’ve got to see. I have to know.”

“Come on, child. Your Grand-père’s right. You got no call to be out here in all this commotion,” Sadie said.

Alexandra scanned her grandfather’s face and swallowed her protests. His jaw was set. She’d seen him this way only once before, during the 1853 wave of yellow fever.

Dismissing her, he sent a rider into New Orleans to report the disaster. Even running the horse nonstop, it would be well after dark before anyone could come to help, if anyone came at all. With the war going on, even the best of neighbors didn’t venture far.

Walking backwards, Alexandra took a few steps toward the house with Sadie at her side.

“You ain’t got no call to be involved in this, Miss Alexandra,” she stated again.

“And why not? Those men don’t know how to help anyone. What if they find Jeffy and can’t help him?” Turning toward Sadie, she stood still.

Alexandra’s eyes stung with tears as she recalled all the time her mother had spent teaching her the basics of healing. Since then, Alexandra had used her skills to save half a dozen injured people on the plantation and helped more sick ones than she could remember.

She could have saved her mother, too. But her father hadn’t let her go near the fever. Then when her father had contracted the disease, Grand-père had literally locked her away from the sick room.

She hadn’t been too young and innocent to help then, and she certainly wasn’t now. And no one, not even Grand-père, would keep her from trying to help anyone else she loved. And she loved Jeffy.

People ran everywhere. The closest neighbors, an elderly man and his wife who had been riding by in their wagon, had stopped to see what was going on. Despite good intentions, no one could do anything but watch.