Only the Gallant (11 page)

“Judge Miller is determined to present the best possible face,” Jesse observed. The walls of the room were festooned with red and gray banners, trailing gracefully out to the chandeliers above the heads of the festive crowd.

“Why shouldn’t he? Just because some cowardly Yankee gunboats drop a shell in his garden from time to time is no reason not to be sociable,” Ophelia replied with fire in her eye. Though Dunsinane, the Tyrone plantation, was eleven miles outside Vicksburg’s fortifications, she spent enough time in this city of a hundred hills to consider herself one of its defenders. Like the majority of the townspeople, she was, above all else, stalwart. McQueen admired her spirit. She was as courageous as she was beautiful. In the two and a half months he’d spent in Mississippi, he had grown to care for Ophelia and her brave and noble brother. Yet he knew full well that such feelings could only place him in danger, for he had a job to do. A man playing the precarious role of a spy dare not risk dividing his loyalties. Jesse McQueen knew better, but it didn’t make any difference.

“Where are we going?” Jesse asked as Ophelia guided him into the front hallway, the grand entrance to a grand house. The front doors were of mahogany, sturdy enough to withstand a battering ram, Jesse warranted, and there were narrow windows on either side to admit light and of course permit a furtive glance at whoever might be coming to call. A twelve-pound solid shot had landed smack in the middle of the front walk a couple of yards from the front doors during an earlier evening’s bombardment from the river. Judge Miller had yet to have the shot removed. He allowed it to remain as if the projectile were a badge of honor to be displayed before his front porch. A black walnut hat rack stood beside the door, sprouting gray caps like so much foliage. The stairway itself was a graceful curve of white steps and a polished mahogany banister. This singular piece of sculpture captured the eye of the beholder and swept his gaze upward to the landing above.

“It’s been a week since I’ve seen Elizabeth, and I simply refuse to enjoy myself until I visit with the poor dear.” Ophelia tugged at Jesse’s arm. “Do you mind terribly?”

“And if I did?” McQueen grinned.

“Then I would suspect you are not the same dashing, considerate, and valiant officer who rescued me in Memphis.”

Jesse waved a hand toward the stairway. “Lead on.”

The minute he entered the bedroom Jesse regretted coming. The stench of illness permeated the air despite the sunlight streaming in through the unshuttered windows and the merry sounds of the orchestra below that had finally begun to entertain the guests. Elizabeth Miller Greene, ten weeks pregnant, lay propped against a veritable bulwark of pillows in a canopied bed trimmed with sea-green silk. Ophelia’s friend stirred and opened her weary eyes as the couple crossed the room to her side.

Jesse still carried childhood memories of a visit to his mother’s bedside when he was seven and she was sick with pneumonia, her frail body racked by a savage cough that filled him with horror every time he witnessed it. His mother had died shortly after his visit and left Jesse with an emotional scar that time had yet to heal. He shifted his gaze from the sickbed to the fire in the hearth; noticing that the logs needed rearranging, he excused himself. Elizabeth was no doubt a pretty girl, but three weeks of nausea had left her eyes ringed with shadows, her complexion swallow, and her cheeks sunken.

She kept a porcelain basin beside her on the quilt. The bedroom door opened again and a young mulatto, one of the household servants, entered. Seeing that Elizabeth had guests, she immediately excused herself.

Elizabeth ran a hand through her oily brown tresses.

“I must look a fright,” she weakly protested.

“Nonsense,” Ophelia replied. She picked up a brush inlaid with mother-of-pearl and began to stroke Elizabeth’s hair. The woman on the bed glanced across the room at Jesse, who was kneeling, stoking the fire.

“That must be the young man you have so often bragged on,” Elizabeth said in a hoarse voice, loud enough for Jesse to hear. Elizabeth was a year older than Ophelia and forever hounding her friend about the joys of marriage.

Jesse looked up. Ophelia blushed right up to the freckles on her nose. He added another log to the fire and returned to Ophelia’s side.

“Bragged on, eh?”

“Elizabeth, for one so ill, you do indeed prattle on,” Ophelia gently scolded.

The woman in bed managed a weak smile, then held up a hand. “Listen.” A woman’s voice, singing a sweet lament, drifted up through the hardwood floor. The party was directly below.

“That must be Rosalie DuToit. She arrived in Vicksburg only a few days ago. Father said she is to appear at the Magnolia Theater later in the week for an evening of song and recitation.” Elizabeth sighed and closed her eyes. “I wish I could attend. Still, isn’t it grand that father hired her to sing for us. She has such a lovely voice.” Her hand fluttered to her mouth, where she stifled a yawn. “Lieutenant McQueen appears to enjoy Mademoiselle DuToit.”

Jesse was indeed listening intently to the muted tones of the woman below. He knew that voice, and it didn’t belong to any Rosalie DuToit.

“Don’t waste your time here,” Elizabeth said, misinterpreting his interest. “Take the lieutenant downstairs. Parties are few enough these days.” She closed her eyes, resisting the sickness that had left her bedridden. Ophelia grew pale and her features betrayed her concern.

“I’ll be fine,” Elizabeth managed, her brow furrowed with the effort. “This is supposed to pass. …”

She shuddered, then continued. “Maybe I’ll be well by the time Henry Lee returns from Port Gibson.” Major Henry Lee Greene was an engineer charged with inspecting the redoubts and fortifications of Vicksburg and Port Gibson to the south.

“Elizabeth—”

“Please go, Ophelia dear. I love you, but please go. Maybe we can talk later. You’ll be spending the night with us, won’t you? Father will insist.”

“Yes.” Ophelia patted her hand and nodded to Jesse.

“A pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he said, and bowed to the bedridden woman. Plagued by his own painful memories, he couldn’t quit the room quickly enough. The servant, a slender young woman with a guarded gaze, brushed past them and hurried into the room as Elizabeth doubled up over the basin in her lap and began to retch.

It was, without a doubt, a happier house downstairs. There was sunlight and life, music, good food, merriment, dancing, and for Jesse McQueen, an old friend.

And an old enemy.

“Oh that this cruel war

Would only end and free

Sweet William from the battlefield

And send him back to me.”

T
HERE WAS SCARCELY
a dry eye in the ballroom. Jesse was the exception. Not that Rosalie DuToit didn’t have a lovely voice. It was just that Miss DuToit was none other than Caitlin Brennan, the last person McQueen had expected to see in Vicksburg.
Well, Jesse, you’ve been wondering how Abbot would contact you
, he thought.
Now you know.
He was glad to see her, yet dreaded Caitlin’s presence all the same. She was unpredictable and, unlike Ophelia Tyrone, left him on the defensive. As in New Orleans, one moment he’d wanted to make love to her, and the next to strangle her as she slept.

“Oh, Lord.” He sighed beneath his breath.

“And should my darlin’ boy

Be felled by shot or shell and

Ne’r return,

My love shall be a fire undimmed.

Forever may it burn,

Until that day when I by death will be

United with Sweet William

In eternity.”

Ophelia dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief she kept tucked up her sleeve, as did several other women standing nearby. The men shifted their stances, cleared their throats, and tried to hide their emotions behind sheepish glances and embarrassed silences. Then the room erupted into applause, and the tall, willowy woman clasped her hands and bowed. Ringlets of her thick, white-blond hair spilled forward. She glanced up and scanned the room with her emerald eyes and then settled on the sleek and powerful-looking Confederate lieutenant who watched her from the back of the room. She smiled. Then the orchestra began to play a Virginia reel and half a dozen unmarried officers in gray crowded forward, eager to have the honor of this first dance with the beautiful songstress.

That brief contact, even across the distance of the ballroom, had been enough for Jesse. Up until now, he’d lost himself in his role as a newly commissioned Confederate officer. He’d carried out his duties as a courier with the utmost efficiency. He had personally gentled many of the horses stolen from Doc Stark and his brothers, providing Bon Tyrone with much-needed mounts. McQueen had even joined the Gray Fox and his men on a raid into Tennessee to loot and capture a supply depot and rout the Yankee troops assigned to defend it. He’d done a lot of shooting but managed to keep from hitting anyone.

Caitlin’s presence had certainly brought him back to reality. He wondered what message she carried from Abbot.

“Well, Mr. McQueen, shall we try the punch and then take our chances and join the dancers?”

Jesse turned to Bon Tyrone’s fetching sister. Ophelia, for all her flirtatious ways, seemed innocent as spring. She waited for an answer, then tugged at his arm.

“Perhaps I should not have brought you downstairs after all,” Ophelia remarked. “It would seem you’ve fallen prey to Mademoiselle’s charms.”

“Not in the least,” Jesse protested a little too strongly, and turned toward the long, heavily laden tables. A crowd had already formed to sample the culinary delights Judge Miller had provided. Jesse found that all the Confederate uniforms tended to blur together, but managed to recognize a couple of officers he knew by name. Gentlemen and their ladies continued to approach the tables, the gathering of hungry guests gradually swelling. Jesse started forward and then froze as he glimpsed a shock of silver hair atop a stiff-necked, dapper officer. The Confederate finished sampling the wares and turned, balancing a plate of food in one hand, a crystal goblet of wine punch in the other. His sharply etched, hawkish features were split by a feral smile. Jesse felt an icy calm settle over him. And beneath his breath he muttered, “Colonel Henri Baptiste!”

“What?” Ophelia gestured toward the guests surrounding them with conversation. “Did you say something? Everyone is talking so.”

Baptiste! Here!
Jesse watched in horror as the Creole colonel lifted the wineglass to the light. Baptiste was studying its color when he noticed McQueen. The Union agent maneuvered Ophelia away from the tables and toward the garden. There were two sets of doors heading out of the ballroom. President Davis’s entourage blocked one, but the French doors nearest Jesse beckoned with freedom. Ophelia barely had time to pull her shawl up about her bare shoulders before McQueen steered her outside.

“Jesse, what on earth has come over you?” Ophelia sputtered, trying to catch her breath. The sky was deepening in hue and rays of golden light like the pillars of heaven lanced the clouds. The air was cool and especially bracing after the warm, crowded confines of the ballroom.

“A glass of wine did not seem so important,” Jesse said. “After visiting your friend Elizabeth, I needed to breathe.” He looked down into her hazel eyes, so open and trusting. He held her hand and momentarily checked the French doors. Colonel Henri Baptiste stood framed in the narrow panes. He was studying Jesse, trying to place the younger man. As yet he had not made the connection. McQueen was clean-shaven now and smartly attired in his lieutenant’s uniform, a far cry from the lawyer he had pretended to be in New Orleans.

Just to be on the safe side, Jesse continued on into the garden until he paused beneath a trellis archway covered with honeysuckle vines. At last he was hidden from Baptiste’s scrutinizing stare.

“You know, my brother has fought duels with men who have behaved improperly.” Ophelia guessed this brash young officer wanted to get her alone for romantic reasons. Had desire simply overpowered Jesse and clouded his judgment? Now, there was an intriguing thought. He had never been anything but a perfect gentleman with her, and Ophelia was beginning to tire of it. She stepped closer to him and tilted her head just so, her lips moist and inviting.

“Why, Jesse, have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Maybe I’m just tired of waiting,” he said.

“For what?”

“For this,” he replied, and took his kiss. It was long and ardent. He made the most of the moment in case it was his last. Then, because her wine-red lips were willing, he chanced another. The shadows deepened. Music drifted out to serenade the setting sun and the couple hidden in the honeysuckles where time no longer mattered.

“Oh my, I beg your pardon,” Caitlin Brennan said from the walkway, a bemused expression on her pretty face. Ophelia and Jesse bolted apart. Tyrone’s sister blushed. McQueen merely glanced at Caitlin, as if daring her to make light of her discovery. “I picked a poor time to escape the crowd,” she said. Jesse could read the wicked gleam in her green eyes and steeled himself for the worst. He’d seen that look before.

Caitlin, who wore no shawl, shivered as she stepped beneath the vine-covered latticework. “It’s so much warmer in here,” she observed dryly.

“It must be the honeysuckle,” Jesse testily suggested.

“Miss DuToit, you have a lovely voice,” Ophelia said. “I enjoyed you ever so much.”

“Why thank you, Miss … ”

“Tyrone—Ophelia Tyrone—and this is Lieutenant Jesse McQueen.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Caitlin pursed her lips and held out her hand for Jesse to kiss, a courtesy he performed in the most perfunctory manner. “And do you like my voice, Lieutenant?”

Jesse shrugged. “The voice—but not the song.” He met her stare. “I think you need to sing a different tune.”

“Maybe you could teach me. I can be found most days at the theater on Washington Street.”

“If I think of one,” Jesse said.

“Oh, try … do try.” Caitlin patted Ophelia’s arm, then returned to the walkway and started back to the ballroom. Jesse and Ophelia continued to stare awkwardly at one another, the moment they had shared irretrievably lost, courtesy of Caitlin Brennan’s timely intrusion. Their discomfort was brought to a merciful end by the thunder of a distant explosion as Union mortar boats braved the Confederate batteries to lob shells into the terraced city.