Riverrun (10 page)

“I think,” Eric said, “I was very much the whipping boy in this case, even though it’s obvious it was poor old Harry who had done us in, in a manner of speaking. I was supposed to be the bright one in the family, don’t you see, and even though Father’s death in ’57 gave control of the firm to Harry, it naturally fell to me to come over here to straighten things out and get the gold back into our treasury. It was, in fact, that same year, 1857—that I shipped over here.

“Being something of a farmer yourself, Cassandra, you’ll appreciate what happened when I arrived. Lambert, the overseer and manager Harry took on for us, had turned Riverrun into his own private empire, such as it is. It did not take me long to uncover dozens of instances of his selling much of the crop on his own and passing off the difference as potential profit being destroyed by inclement weather, poor help, and other such nonsense. The slaves, too, were appallingly ill-treated and Riverrun’s record of those who escaped to the North was probably, the worst in the state, if not the entire South. Immediately I fired him, of course, and set about righting things before it was too late. That, however, proved not to be possible. By the time I had the fields in proper order again and had reestablished our good credit with the right people, this bloody war of yours broke out and I was, in a very real sense, trapped here without recourse to aid or assistance from home.”

“Surely you’re exaggerating,” Cass said. “You make it sound as though you’ve been besieged in some castle or fort.”

Eric’s smile was rueful as he nodded. “I very nearly was, believe me. It was the curse of being British. In the South, I was not liked because Great Britain had not come out officially for the Confederate government, and that man Davis obviously needed the supplies Her Majesty could provide him with; in the North it was the same. Britain, it seems, has a devil of a time making up her mind whom to support in a fight. Not surprisingly, she wanted to see who would win before declaring herself the ally of one side or another. And I certainly wouldn’t do anything on my own. To declare for Davis was not only against my country’s policy, but also against my own personal belief. Frankly, slavery found no opinion in me one way or the other until I had seen for myself the dreadful conditions under which those people survived—I hesitate to use the word ‘lived’—and what they could do to a human being like Sara. As a result, my neighbors were not the most friendly people you would want to meet. So you see, I have been rather besieged here for the past several months. The crop will rot because I’ve no one to pick it. I’ve had to grow all my own food; and now, to get passage back to London, I’ve had to sell at an appalling loss most of the furniture and additions from the house. I’ll be leaving soon for England, sad to say. There’s no sense in staying on while the fighting continues, and I have a good friend in Philadelphia who will book me passage past the blockade.”

“But Riverrun,” Cass said suddenly. “Are you just going to leave it here unprotected?”

His expression was one of deep melancholy as he slid off the bed and moved to stand in -front of the near window, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. “There’s not much left of the old place now, I’m afraid. And it’s rather peculiar, because I feel as though I’ve been here for generations instead of a few short years. I worked hard to get her back into shape, all day, every day, week after week. Even after the first patrols came through looking for food and money, I wouldn’t give it up. I tried to pretend nothing had changed. I was no longer doing it for the firm, but for … for something I still do not yet quite understand. But things had changed. Martingale and Sons was no longer able to hold on in support, and just a few weeks ago Harry sent me the word to get out and away, as fast as I could.”

“Eric—”

“It’s changed. Just Sara and me now.” He turned toward her, then, and his smile was much more pleasant. “And you, of course.” He stroked at his jaw with his gloved hand. “I was riding, thinking, rather hoping I’d come across a miracle,” he explained without her prompting. “It’s something I do quite often these days. I was saying farewell to my favorite places, feeling quite childishly sorry for myself in addition. So you can imagine my surprise when I found you.”

Cass blushed suddenly and clenched the blanket tighter to her chest. Though she knew instinctively that Eric was not the sort to take advantage, unbidden images flooded her mind until he laughed and shook his head.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” he said, “I didn’t do anything untoward. I simply brought you back as soon as I saw how injured you were, and Sara took over.”

He was wonderfully enraged when Cass told him of her capture and humiliations, properly solicitous when he quietly examined her leg again, and the fading bruises around her face and shoulders. And his laugh was delightful when she displayed confused shock after being told she’d been fighting her injury and fever for nearly two weeks. Now she noticed that his humor had reverted to a soft, concerned pleasure that touched her unusually and made her feel uncharacteristically awkward whenever his gray eyes swept over her.

“I shall miss the place,” he said then.

“What … what are you going to do with me?” she asked.

The black glove waved idly through the still air. “Why, cure you, Cassandra—I may call you Cassandra, mayn’t I, after all we’ve been through?” His smile was mocking now, and she could not help but laugh. “I mean it, Cassandra. There’ll be no trouble for some days, I’m sure, and I will not let you go until I know you’re feeling better.”

“Go?” she said, suddenly apprehensive. “You mean, just turn me out? You can’t mean that, Eric! You can’t just let me—”

He laughed again, reached out and gripped her leg until she calmed, anger and fear mixing to renew the blush at her cheeks and bring a throb to her temples.

“Relax, young lady, relax! I’m certainly not heartless enough just to let you walk through the door alone.”

“But … but you said you’d let me go!”

“In the sense that you’ll be able to travel, nothing more. But—” and his voice softened, his eyes darkened again. It will be difficult. You’re the first in a very long while, Cassandra, to visit Riverrun. The first and, it seems, the last.”

Cass frowned slightly, not sure of his meaning, wanting to trust him as far as she could, yet still painfully aware that she was beyond question a Northerner hiding in the South. And after the defeat at Gettysburg, she had no illusions about the tenor of her reception if some of Eric’s neighbors should find her here. Suddenly, her feelings of comfort and safety weakened and she could not help glancing fearfully at the windows. They were little more than black rectangles now, and the candlelight cast wavering shadows into the far corners of the room, shadows she would just as soon not have noticed. Eric, in silence, began rubbing his gloved hand against his thigh, and she was drawn to stare at it by the movement. When he noticed her questioning look, however, he rose quickly and bowed.

“You must rest,” he said, eyes and lips smiling tenderly. “And tomorrow you must begin working that leg of yours. I’m sure it must hurt you considerably, but I suspect that a good deal of it comes from the fear of being in pain rather than the pain itself. I really think you’ll be walking about before you know it.” He smiled again, took her hand and bent over it, his lips feather-light and cool as they brushed her skin in a courtly kiss.

Then he was gone, and the room was hers again, drawn about her by the candles’ shadows and filled with the night noises that drifted through the windows.

Several minutes passed while she stared at the back of her hand, groping for a way to keep the memory of his touch, of his lips, from fading before she could draw every last delight into her lungs like the sweet, cool air of dawn after a storm. Reason told her the giddiness she’d felt at his closeness came only from her gratitude for his saving her life. But reason, she thought with a sly grin, wasn’t half the fun that dreams were, and she began toying with the buttons of her nightdress, wondering how rough or soft his palms would feel against the curve of her—

She shook her head sharply in silent self-scolding and pushed herself up to a sitting position again. Her hand reached out, then, to curl a finger around the slender base of the candelabrum. The silvered metal was cool, smooth, and she stroked it unconsciously, using her nail to scrape at the bits of wax that had spilled over the lip.

A strange man, this Eric Martingale, she thought. Practically an exile, living precariously on an island in the midst of bloody, turbulent waters. She made an attempt to imagine the grandeur of the house as it must have been when he had first arrived, and the rapid and— anguished decay as the war swirled around the plantation’s foundations. It must have been, and must still be, hellish; and she wondered that he had stayed as long as he had. Surely he could have seen that once the fighting began there would be little or no communication between himself and his homeland. Had he really been that smitten with Riverrun? Had he really become so attached in such a short time, or was there something else, something he hadn’t told her?

Not, she reminded herself guiltily, that he owed her more than he had already given. Quite the contrary, it was she who owed him her life. She hugged herself tightly then, and rubbed at her arms to rid them of the goosebumps that rose on her flesh. And the way he had looked at her! The kiss that had lingered a brief second longer than necessary. It was much the way that poor Geoff had kissed her hand on that first night when he and his men had visited the farmhouse. A welling of grief surged, subsided, and she took a handful of hair over her shoulder and began to caress it thoughtfully. Geoff. Eric. In all her life the only men she had seen, other than her father and brothers, were those from the nearby farms and from Gettysburg. Few, if any, had paid much attention to her, and those who did had their lumps to remember her by. Now, suddenly, a Union captain and a British gallant. But Geoff was dead.

She stared at her leg, frowned, and tossed aside the bedclothes. Carefully, she flexed her knee, turned her leg from side to side, tensed against the pain, and shouted silently when there was none. Cautiously, she eased herself to a sitting position on the edge of the mattress. Was it possible that Eric was right and much of her agony was more imagined than real? Carefully she tested her right leg, her toes curling at the touch of the cool floorboards beneath her sole. The leg would be weak from disuse, but she sensed that it would hold her, nevertheless. Then she eased down her left foot. Immediately a throbbing began to climb toward her hip, but she forced herself to ignore it, concentrating intently on a discolored patch on the wall directly opposite her. Slowly, gnawing at her lower lip, she pushed until she was standing with only one hand on the bed for balance. The pain was … she nearly laughed aloud! She expected the knifelike stabbing to return, the fire within to topple her like a felled tree, but though there was predictably a great deal of discomfort, it was nothing at all as it had been when she had first awakened. And how many years ago was that? she wondered, realizing she was grinning so broadly that her cheeks ached. And, for that matter, who cares?

She took a step, a timid one. Her arms were outstretched as though she were flying. A second step, and a third, before the injured knee buckled and she fell with a cry to the floor. Her hands caught her and she lay there waiting for the throbbing to subside.

But she did not stop smiling.

It was a healing pain that she felt now, and a welcome one. She had rolled onto her back, sat up, and reached out for the bed when Sara came in, yowled in surprised alarm and rushed to her side. There were several confused moments of laughing and weeping, then, until Cass finally got through to the old woman that yes, she was absolutely fine, she was only trying out her leg, and it was as much her idea as Eric’s. Sara, scowling doubtfully now that the shock had passed, leaned against the bedpost and shook her head.

“Sara, come on,” Cass said, reaching out her hands. “Help me to the window, would you?”

“But it’s dark out there, child!”

“Still, I want to see the world again. And if not the world, then at least something of Riverrun. I don’t care if it is dark!”

With a strong, thin arm about her waist, Sara shuffled while Cass hobbled until she could lean her weight against the broad sill and lean out. The moon was bright, and a vague glow from windows directly below her cast a faintly yellow haze over the ground. But she was not disappointed. The trees she could discern were tall and slender, thickly leaved and set as close together as fence posts as far as she could see. From the house itself to the edge of the darkness was a flower garden interlaced with a number of paths, which, from where she looked, seemed more a maze than a place for casual wandering.

I will walk there tomorrow, she promised herself suddenly. In that garden. With or without anyone’s help.

Her leg began to bother her then and she was about to call it a night and get herself some much-needed rest when a movement below caught her eye. At first she thought it merely a twist of a shadow in the night wind. She stared, rubbed at one eye, and realized that a man was standing down there and, though she could not see his features, she knew instantly it was not Eric.

“Sara,” she whispered, grabbing at the woman’s arm, “look down there! Do you see what I see?”

Sara moved to stand beside her, followed with her eyes the direction of Cass’s pointing finger, and immediately began a barrage of muttered curses, her hands tightly gripping the sill.

“Sara, what is it? Do you know him?”

The figure was indistinct, standing just to one side of a massive, storm-twisted oak. He wore dark clothes, but the occasional flash of his white shirt when he shifted marked him as clearly as if the sun had been shining. He apparently had no fear of being spotted.

“Vern Lambert,” Sara said, the name as much a curse as anything Cass had ever heard. She stared at the black woman, nearly recoiling at the dark face that seemed to have turned to stone.