Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (54 page)

Andrea swallowed convulsively, yet she did not
speak. Breathing seemed to be the only ability she possessed, and even that
took great effort.

When she did not answer, Hunter slammed the door
behind him and strode across the room like an angry bull. Grabbing her by the
shoulders, he picked her up out of the chair and shook her like a rag doll.

“Does your bitterness, your hatred, your desire
for revenge run so deep? Could you not allow me the opportunity to explain my
actions before taking your treacherous retribution?”

Andrea tried to answer, but he shook her so
violently her teeth rattled. She stared into the black anger gleaming from his
eyes. Though he had always appeared to her the image of massive power, today
that power was frightening.

“I do not understand,” she managed to say
despite the sudden thickness in her throat.

“Do not understand?” Hunter let her go, stepped
back, and looked at her incredulously. “My men were ambushed on the way to a
raid last night, Miss Evans, and I have a sneaking suspicion you are more
knowledgeable about what transpired than I.”

“Ambushed? But … I …” She stopped, not wishing
to risk a long sentence until her voice was under control again.

“But what,
Andrea? You warned them of the raid and did not expect them to go on the
offensive? I believe you know battle tactics better than that!”

Andrea tried to remain calm so she could explain
what she had done and why, but Hunter’s anger was so intense, his look one of
such pitiless contempt, she feared what he might do.

She remembered what his men had said about him
in battle, and now she knew what they meant. The ferocity that possessed him
when in the presence of the enemy had apparently overcome him now. His actions,
his face, even his voice, were no longer familiar to her. “I-I-I—”

“Are words suddenly stricken from your tongue,
Miss Evans? It’s so very unlike
you
to be speechless.” His voice, as
cold as the steel of the two guns he still wore, was more effective at
stripping Andrea of courage than if he had actually struck her. She could more
easily pull the trigger of a gun aimed at her own breast than face him now.

“Colonel, I—”

He turned away, the action sufficient to stop
her in mid-sentence. The room filled with silence, save his rapid, ragged
breath.

“Did you lose any men?” Andrea pushed the words
from her throat.

Hunter made a strange, angry noise that would be
hard to conceive by anyone who has never heard the growl of a wounded bear. He
whirled back around to face her, disdain shining from his liquid-gray eyes. “Of
course I lost men! That was your intent was it not?”

His voice had taken on the intensity of thunder.
Trembling, caused by suppressed rage, shook his frame. Andrea began
experiencing a strange choked feeling in which she could not talk or think, or
even feel. If she had it all to do over again she would not go. To hell with
sacred duty!

“Your talent for deception is remarkable,”
Hunter said, jarring her from her thoughts. “But how could I have envisioned
what deceit Yankee ingenuity could devise when you stood before me with a palm
branch in one hand and the sword of vengeance in the other?”

It was not a question that required an answer.
It was instead a statement that demanded an explanation. But Andrea could not
speak. Instead, she listened to his insults with her eyes closed.
I deserve
this
, she thought to herself.
This is war.
Yes, this is war, J.J.
… And it is no game.

“You came here with nothing but treachery in
your heart!” Hunter pointed his finger in her face like a pistol. “You would
use
any
means to get what you wanted, wouldn’t you?”

His words penetrated Andrea’s heart. Even though
his voice was no longer raised, the tone carried a cutting, painful edge. She
felt her body wilting like a flower too long without water under a merciless
sun.

“Have you nothing to say?” Hunter bellowed as if
shouting orders in the din of battle. Andrea’s lips parted, but failed again in
speech. Her eyes dropped and beheld the sight of the clenched fists he held
close to his side, both of them shaking.

He began pacing again, while Andrea followed his
every motion with her eyes. “This was your strategy all along, I suppose. Admit
it! You saw me merely as an advantage to your cause!”

Andrea lowered her head at his accusations. His
words slid through her like a bayonet, painful and deadly, twisting deep in
quivering flesh, impaling her like a blade of agony.

Hunter stood surveying her features. “I trusted
you,” he said, his voice raspy and barely above a whisper. “I trusted you, and
you deceived me.”

Andrea remained silent, refusing to increase his
wrath by speaking, even though she felt her very life draining away.

 Hunter backed away and threw his hands in the
air. “Our disagreement had nothing to do with my Command. It was between us.
Not my men!”

“You will not allow me the honor of an
explanation?”

“
Honor
?”
Hunter choked. Such was the disdain in his tone that Andrea’s legs suddenly
felt incapable of supporting her and she sat down numbly on the bed.

He laughed at the action. “Well, then, go ahead
if you have something to say.”

Andrea forced herself to meet his gaze. “It
appears you have it all figured out, Colonel.”

“Yes, I have it all figured out! I value knowing
how to put two and two together with confidence in the result of the addition!”

Andrea had no defense against his words, nor the
tone in which he spoke them. Nothing in her past had prepared her for this.
“What proof do you have that I’m guilty of this offense?”

“I have all the proof I need.” He whirled around
to face her. “Your deceit, your cunning, and your guile are sufficient proof of
your character for me.”

Andrea maintained a dignified silence, enduring
his probing, pitiless stare without flinching.

“Dare you deny that Justus was ridden last night
and returned in the not-so-distant past?”

Andrea gave a faint reply while staring at her
feet. “No, sir.”

“Dare you deny you studied my map?”

Andrea looked up in surprise, and then eyed him
in silent contemplation, an action Hunter apparently took as a confession.
“No,” she said exhaling, “but I—”

“And still you are
denying
it?”

Andrea trembled from the great battle taking
place inside. “If you believe I did it, what good would it do for me to deny
it?”

“Blast it, Andrea. I
trusted
you!” He
stared at her intently, seemingly waiting for her to admit her betrayal, or
deny her involvement, or beg for his mercy or forgiveness.

Only with the greatest effort did Andrea manage
her voice. “Sir, I do not believe you know the meaning of the word.”

“Do not tell me what I don’t know!” He stood
right in front of her, his breath coming in uneven gasps. “How could you do
this to me?”

There was such torment in his words Andrea
looked up and gazed into his unblinking eyes. The merciless glare was gone, but
the despair lingering there was so pathetic, her heart picked up its pace. She
lowered her eyes to his heaving chest, contemplating the necessity of telling
the truth. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and slowly lifted her gaze
to meet his.  “Alex—”

 “Enough!” He held up his arms as if to shield
himself from her words, his name on her lips seeming to open a new wound. He
took on a look of impatient intolerance and his seething anger revived.

The solid floor began to tremble beneath Andrea
now, and hopelessness to consume her. “Colonel Hunter, I believe you will
regret—”

 “The only thing I
regret
, Miss Evans,”
he said in a cruel, malicious voice, looking at her with dreadful calm, “is a
promise I made to my brother—and ever having met
you
.”

Andrea stared at his lips, forcing herself to
comprehend that the words she heard were the same ones he had actually spoken.
Words. She had laughed at their power. Now his almost felled her. This final
stab had caught her unaware and pierced all the deeper because of the
willingness with which she had exposed her vulnerable heart. 

She raised her eyes to meet his like a convicted
criminal receiving a death sentence from a judge. “You wish me to leave?” She
heard her own voice speak, rather dim and far away, while feeling herself
sinking fast in an abyss of unknown depth.

With his hand on the doorknob, Hunter paused. “I
not only wish it, Miss Evans, I
order
it. And I recommend you proceed
swiftly before I change my mind—and my capacity for leniency.”

He shot her a look of disgust. “And I hope to
your God you have sense enough to head North.”

There was no disguising the threat inferred. He
would show no mercy should they ever meet again. Andrea stood silent as the
door slammed closed, uttering no words of protest. She could not find the words
to speak, nor find the breath to speak them. She grabbed the bedpost for
support and closed her eyes, trying to block out the sound of his boots
stomping down the stairs. She jumped when his library door slammed shut with
thunderous finality below.

She had been willing to leave, but not like
this. How could she leave when she did not know if she could move? Andrea
raised her head and cast her eyes around the room she had grown to know as
home.

How ironic. I shall leave just as I arrived:
suffering, miserable, and hopeless.

Chapter
53

“Tis my reward for dearest victory won,

I did that love undo – to be myself undone!”

– Polyeucte by Pierre Corneille

Not even waiting to put her feet in the stirrups
Andrea pushed Justus into a gallop and ran away from Hawthorne. She barely saw
the house as it flew by, a streak of white followed by a splash of green. The
bridge appeared as a blur, then all was sun and shadow.

Andrea eventually looked back, but by then
Hawthorne was not to be seen. How far she had ridden or how long she had been
riding she did not know. She had been unconscious of everything around her,
numb. But now she realized it was useless to push Justus so hard. The memories
would pursue her no matter how far she went or how fast she rode.

Bending down
and patting her heaving horse, Andrea tried to console herself. She knew she
was well enough to leave—had been for some weeks now. It had only been a matter
of time. Yet his words continued to resound in her brain, buzzing and vibrating
like angry hornets trapped within the crevices of her skull, stinging her over
and over with venomous force. “
The only thing I regret
…
”

Andrea
inhaled deeply to clear her mind, and gasped at a sudden stabbing pain that
struck her like an explosion.
Clutching her chest, she looked down,
expecting to see blood.
Dear Lord, what is happening?
Her legs began to
tremble, followed by more tightening in her chest that made breathing
difficult. She spread her hand flat upon her bosom and felt her heart laboring
against her fingers. Something in there was torn. Broken. Something had
ruptured or shattered, and its shards were even now piercing the very core of
her being.

Dismounting
shakily, Andrea put her shoulder against a large tree trunk and sucked in deep
gasping breaths. Closing her eyes in agony, she felt again the sting of Hunter’s
words. The pain bent her in two and dropped her to her knees.

She began to cry then, softly at first, just a
low moan, like someone who is unfamiliar with the act of weeping. But the moan
swelled and grew until it became a gut-wrenching wail that sounded more like a
desperately wounded animal than anything of human origin.

Andrea gulped for air as decades of unshed tears
poured forth in a great surge of pain and loss. She cried for her country and
her enemy, for Daniel and her past. And then she cried because she was crying
and because she was hurt and confused and alone.

When she was done, she lay quietly, and listened
to a world that was intensely, painfully still.

Opening her swollen lids, Andrea took in the
scene around her. Justus stood beside her amid the funereal shadows of a
setting sun. He nudged her gently with his nose and she laid her cheek against
his soft muzzle. “It’s just us again,” she whispered.

After mounting and reluctantly heading north,
Andrea halted at the sound of a low rumble of thunder in the distance. Glancing
up at the clear sky, she turned back toward the sound. Slowly, almost
hesitantly, a smile grew upon her face. The din was not thunder. There was no
storm. It was the familiar, rolling, earth-shattering throb of cannon fire.

Justus pawed the ground, eager for her to make
up her mind.

Andrea’s decision came like a lightning flash.
For once, it was not a decision made of vengeance, nor even from hate.
Retaliation and revenge had drained from her along with hope and trust. With a
look of grim determination on her face, she turned her horse’s head toward the
sound of war.

And went forward to face the music.

* * *

Hunter stepped out into the bright sunlight,
squinting and grabbing his head at the horrific thudding the endeavor produced.
The liquor he had consumed the previous night had done little to deaden the
ache in his heart, and much to cause the pain and misery he now endured.

Opening his eyes, he watched a speck in the
distance turn into a rider cantering up the drive with a large gray horse in
tow at his side. He blinked in disbelief when he recognized John Paul and Zeus.

“Here you go, ol’ chap!” John Paul tried to
bring the powerful stallion under control, though it practically wrenched him
from the saddle.