Rebel (34 page)

She refused to let his mood dampen her own evening. She watched wide-eyed, laughing and cheering with Sydney, enjoying the music and the spectacle.

It was long, long after midnight when the festivities at last died down.

And it was very late when she and Ian retired, saying good night to Sydney and Brent.

She felt awkward disrobing, and wished that she hadn’t excused Lilly to go about and enjoy the city. Her velvet cloak hid her condition; her mourning dress did not. Still, she was startled when she felt his hands upon the tiny buttons at her collar. Insecurity gripped her as she couldn’t help but wonder how she could possibly compare with another woman now.

Her buttons undone, she held the gown to her breast, murmured a thank-you, and slipped behind the dressing screen to put on her encompassing nightgown. He didn’t seem to notice. When she emerged from behind the screen, he was already in bed, hands folded behind his head, and he gave her little heed as she took her hair down, brushing it out at the dressing table.

“It’s not exactly my fault, you know,” she said softly, “that South Carolina has seceded.”

His eyes shot to her, and she froze uncomfortably, wishing she hadn’t spoken. “No, it’s not your fault. But I fail to see the joy in something being destroyed. Something that will probably mean the deaths of thousands of young men.”

Alaina sighed impatiently. “Ian, you’re being entirely unreasonable. You’re simply assuming that there will be war. Most of the North is anxious to let the ‘erring sisters’ go, if that is their choice! Ian, you can’t be so blind. I promise you, Florida will be right behind South Carolina. Our senators are already composing demands to
the War Department regarding Florida officers. They are making plans to seize Federal installations—”

“Oh, really?” he demanded. “And where do you get your information, madam?”

She hesitated just slightly, recalling just where she had gotten her information.

Peter O’Neill.

Not that his letter of apology had actually changed her mind at all regarding his disdain for propriety or his total lack of honor, but he had written and had profusely apologized, and then he had gone on to describe the many important changes taking shape in the state. He wrote with passion and patriotism, and Alaina couldn’t help but think that this great divide might force out the best in Peter—and she wished heartily that she could even begin to understand how Ian failed to see which way his state was leaning.

“Ian, I read the newspapers,” she said, then added, “and I am acquainted with other people in the state— despite Belamar’s isolation.”

“So you are all eager for secession!” he said heatedly. “If it is the state’s choice, it will be a great pity. It’s an ill-advised rebellion that will cost dearly in the end.”

“Rebellion? Yes, it is rebellion! Ian, it was rebellion when the thirteen Colonies broke from England. Tyrants were dictating to the Colonies, and the Colonies refused to accept rule by others. The South is doing no less now, Ian. This is no ill-advised rebellion; it is a quest for independence and self-rule.”

“So you would be a rebel, too,” he intoned coolly.

“You’re a Southerner, Ian,” she persisted, setting down her hairbrush. “Apparently, we’re not going to come to terms on this—”

“There are no terms to come to, Alaina. We’re not negotiating anything here.”

She stood. “Ian, you don’t understand. I won’t accept remaining in the North when Florida does break with the Union.”

“You won’t?” he said heatedly. He rose suddenly, walking over to her, and she saw that he had chosen to sleep in warm long Johns that covered him from waist to ankle. He braced his arms against the dressing table, pinning her there, eyes a deep blue fire as he told her,
“You won’t accept living in the North because there just might be war. But you know what, Alaina? If there is war, the South will lose. It will not be a ninety-day affair—which hawks are claiming on both sides. Let’s see, the population in the South is estimated at about eight million—there are nearly twenty million living in the North. Of the eight million living in the South, about three million are slaves. Southerners fear slave rebellions as it is, so that not only cuts the population of the South down to about five million rebels, it adds an element of danger. There are almost no machine shops, and no manufacturers in the South. What else? As of now, no government! An army must be raised, a treasury created. While this is all going on, the North will blockade the Southern ports, cutting off essential supplies.”

“They’ll never be able to blockade all of Florida.”

“Right. Neither will the South be able to defend it,” he returned quickly. “Trust me, the cause is doomed before it is born.”

“I don’t see it your way!” she cried softly.

He stared at her angrily, touched and lifted her chin. “But you’re my wife, Alaina. You’ll have to see it my way.”

“But Ian—”

“Wives support their husbands,” he informed her, his voice even harsher.

She tried very hard to control her temper, but could not.

“Not when their husbands are behaving like idiots!” she exclaimed.

He moved so swiftly that she cried out softly, expecting some violence from him.

But he did nothing other than pick her up and deposit her in bed, and she realized that he’d never offer her any real menace now.

She was carrying his child.

She was suddenly tired, and felt very keenly just how ungainly she had become. She wanted to curl up and sleep with his arm around her. She’d wanted to see him sobadly, and they were together and…

He turned down the gas lamp on the bedside table and lay down beside her.

And turned his back to her.

She curled up to sleep, turning her back to him as well.

And she lay awake forever, it seemed, completely uncomfortable, unable to find a position that allowed her any rest.

He didn’t move.

At last she tossed and turned so that she curled against his back. Almost immediately she felt the baby begin to kick. Ian felt the movement as well, for he turned to her. His long fingers extended over her abdomen, and he didn’t pull away. “Through everything, this little one has intended to survive,” he murmured softly, and with a sigh, pulled her to him at last. He was quiet then, and she was so glad to be held that she kept her peace as well. She thought that he slept, but he added after a moment, “The Union is going to survive as well, Alaina.”

She pretended she slept herself.

It wasn’t an argument she could win tonight. Time was going to tell.

And time was against him.

They had met on December 20, and since it was so close to Christmas, Ian decided that they should spend the holiday in Charleston with Brent and Sydney.

Secession excitement remained high in the air, and the city continued to surge with revelry, people coming and going.

Ian spent some time on Christmas Eve with old army friends he had come upon in the city. Men who were already planning on resigning their commissions.

He wondered how in God’s name they were all going to go to war against one another.

But it was going to happen.

After his first rather sleepless night, he managed to avoid further argument with Alaina, mainly by avoiding her, which seemed incredibly ironic. He wanted to be with her. Worse. Lying beside her night by night, even feeling his child kick and squirm, he felt the most painful urges to make love to his wife. The scent of her hair, the feel of her flesh, the entanglement of her limbs with his own … all seemed to taunt and tempt his senses, but he had sworn to himself that she was going to bear
a healthy child and completely regain her own health before he touched her again. And although he respected both his brother and his cousin very much as physicians and knew that they both believed childbirth was a very natural activity and that many of the restraints put upon women came from old wives’ tales, Alaina was very far along now—so much so that he decided they must go to Washington immediately following Christmas day. No matter what he had said to her, he would have been happiest if their child could have been born at Cimarron; the house he had rented in Washington was going to have to do instead. Although she wasn’t actually due until after the middle of January, Ian didn’t want his child born on the road between North and South.

He awoke early on Christmas morning, rose quietly, dressed, and left Alaina sleeping, to wander down the battery at Charleston Harbor. It was early, very crisp and cool. Ships moved lazily on the horizon, and he could see the various forts in the harbor standing sentinel to the city. It was a beautiful scene, extremely peaceful, and Ian wondered just how long it could last.

He leaned a foot against a rock and drew from his pocket the letter he had just received from his brother last night. Julian was practicing in St. Augustine again, and according to him, the city seemed to be as electrically charged as a lightning storm.

He tapped the letter against his leg, folded it, and returned it to the pocket of his frock coat. Another man, dressed in a lieutenant’s stripes, walked by him, started to salute, hesitated, then did so. “I imagine, sir, that your rank will remain higher than mine in the new army!” the fellow said, smiling and passing quickly by.

Ian stared out at the harbor again, then closed his eyes, as if he could imprint the peace and beauty of the scene on his mind. Then he turned away from the water and started back to the inn.

His cousins and wife were there, and had ordered dark roasted coffee to the balcony along with biscuits and gravy and scones. They were seated at the table. Alaina looked troubled, but she offered him a smile as he came around the table to join them. He stood behind her for a moment, lifted the heavy fall of hair, and kissed her nape gently. “Merry Christmas,” he told her huskily.

“Merry Christmas,” she told him gravely in return.

“Services are in forty-five minutes,” Sydney advised. “We should hurry along, since I’m quite certain, being Christmas, every erring sinner in all Charleston will be seeking entrance.”

“Sydney, how cynical!” Ian teased.

“Ummm, we’re bringing you, aren’t we?” she murmured sweetly.

Alaina laughed, and the sound was sweet.

But she maintained a strange expression as she watched him that morning, and even as he slipped his arm through hers, escorting her as they walked the distance to the Episcopal church.

The sermon was on revolution. The priest spoke constantly on the subject of “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,” saying if the Union had become offensive, then it must be thrust far from them, their stance must be strong against the forces that might oppose freedom in South Carolina. There was a great deal of cheering; Christmas services, Ian reflected dryly, seemed to have very little to do with the birth of Christ, and everything to do with an extension of the secession celebrations.

As they walked back to the hotel, Alaina asked him, “Ian, how can you begrudge these people their enthusiasm for freedom and self-rule?”

He hesitated; it was Christmas. He wanted it to be a day of warmth and goodwill. To all men. And women.

Including his wife.

“I’ll answer you that, Alaina, and then I’m going to refuse to argue with you. There is a fault line in all this; a schism. The whole of the civilized world is seeing the barbarism of slavery. If the states’ rights of the South are centered around the right to hold another man as a slave, then the South sits upon an archaic and decaying institution from the start. I begrudge no one, though I differ with the priest’s assertion that God will be on the side of freedom—God will turn from this fratricide. You know my mind, and that is that.”

“What of my mind, Ian?” she asked him softly.

“You’re my wife, Alaina. Support me,” he suggested broodingly.

Surely she noted his tone. But her eyes were suddenly downcast, and she didn’t reply.

“You do remember that you’re at my mercy, eh, my love?” he queried.

That brought a quick, fiery gaze from her. “Perhaps not for so very long to come!” she informed him.

“Oh?”

“The babe is nearly due, Ian.”

“Ah. So that’s it? You need only be obedient to my will if you’re expecting a child?”

“Of course not—”

“Hmmm. You never intend to be
obedient
to my will at all; you only find yourself at my mercy at such times as these!” he said, and laughed softly, but he wasn’t so certain he was truly amused. “I’ll have to keep you with child at all times in order for any hopes of sanity in my household, so it seems.”