The Warriors (15 page)

“Too bad we didn’t have another gun,” she added.

Recovering, he said, “I’ll keep watching him.”

He had doubts about his ability to cope with the black on a man-to-man basis, though. He was rapidly regaining his strength. The bandaged wound on his leg troubled him less and less often. But he had no illusions about Price being a weakling. And he recalled the threat in the barn:
“Yanks gonna get you. If they don’t, I will.”

To impress her and reinforce his own determination, he added, “If any of those Yanks show up, we’ll just have to talk to ’em straight and tell ’em we expect decent treatment.”

Serena giggled.

“What’s so blasted funny?”

“Sometimes you
are
priceless! You think Yankees’ll act polite just because we ask?”

I have to believe that. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. Where I came from, there was no honor left. Not after your father died.

“Yes, I do. They damn well better respect civilian territory. They will, Serena. I’ll bet that every place there’s been trouble, people have provoked them.”

“Now you sound exactly like Catherine,” she sighed as the wagon rounded a bend.

The mules flicked their ears to drive off the huge blue flies. The slow, lazy rhythm of the hoofs, the fragrance of her cologne, the isolation, and the feel of her breast touching his sleeve drove him into a state of almost uncontrollable excitement.

At the same time he felt uneasy, endangered, somehow. But it was a sharp, sweet danger, tinged with the lure of the unknown. Tense as he was, he wouldn’t have stopped the wagon for a minute.

Yet he did stop it all at once, his tongue stuck in his cheek and his head cocked.

Serena frowned. “What’s the trouble?”

He put a finger to his lips. Cold-eyed, he pointed off to the right, whispered, “Thought I heard something.”

“Jackrabbits.”

“No. Louder. Heavier.”

They listened. He was sure he hadn’t been wrong. But the telltale rustling of pine needles and the rattle of disturbed underbrush wasn’t repeated. He hawed softly to the mules and set the wagon rolling again.

Serena gazed at dusty bars of sunlight slanting between the trees. “Getting late. It’ll be dark before we’re finished.”

“Maybe not,” he muttered. The notion of being alone with her after nightfall had become almost too nerve-racking to bear.

“Know something, Jeremiah? For a long time Catherine thought Price was the best buck on the place.”

“She made a mistake.”

A curt laugh. “Not her first. She always thinks the best of everybody. There was only one person she never thought well of.”

“Who?”

“My real mama.”

The words had an unforgiving sound. He let her go on. “I heard Catherine arguing about it with Papa once. He said my mama was a lady, a private music teacher, and Catherine wasn’t to forget it. But she said he was a liar. Said the kind of lessons my mama gave didn’t take place on any old piano stool.”

He nearly laughed, but was thankful he hadn’t when Serena turned to look at him. Her blue eyes were smoldering. “She called my mama a filthy name.”

“What was it?”

“I won’t repeat it. Why, you know a lady isn’t even supposed to say she has legs. She has
limbs.
Once Catherine and I had a real fuss over that, too. But she did call my mama a filthy name.”

He risked the question. “Did she call your mother that name without any cause?”

“Makes no difference! She was my
mama!”

Silence for a while. He’d overstepped. But Serena’s anger was evidently directed at Catherine for the moment. Sounding melancholy, she continued.

“I’ve never even seen a picture of her. There was a picture in the house at one time, but it was burned. Papa said Catherine burned it. Believe me, Catherine isn’t as pure and forgiving as she lets on!”

“I’ve never met a perfect person yet, Serena. You should be able to understand why your stepmother isn’t wild about your father’s first wife. When my mother remarried, my father felt the same way about her new husband.”

“But Catherine didn’t have to use a filthy word!
I can’t forgive her for that. Ever!”

She drew a deep breath.

“One of these days I’m going to pay her back.”

The soft, quiet statement sent another shiver chasing down his spine. He recognized the cruelty in the words because he was tainted with a cruel streak himself.

Serena stared straight ahead. “Guess it must have been true about Mama. But Catherine didn’t have to say it. That’s the point—she
said
it.”

“Did she ever say it to you?”

“Yes indeed. After I overheard the conversation with Papa, I marched right in to see her—she’d been helping herself to that wine she takes on the sly—and we went at it for the best part of half an hour. She called Mama that filthy name right to my face!”

“Well, I’m beginning to understand why you and Mrs. Rose don’t get along too well,” he said with a humorless smile.

Her teasing had a wicked undertone. “Why, Jeremiah Kent, you’re quicker than I thought!”

Stung, he retorted, “Thanks for such a kind compliment.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to anger you.”

She raised her head, pecked his cheek. Her lips felt warm and moist.

“Truly I didn’t.”

To cover his awkwardness, he batted at another fly buzzing near his ear. The pines were growing darker, suffused by the sun’s deep red. It seemed too early in the day for sunset, he thought, though it
was
almost December. Back home in Virginia, there might have been a light frost by now.

Serena perked up a little. “I won’t have to fret about Catherine forever, though. She’ll go to her grave eventually and I’ll be free of her. I’ll have a good husband—”

He was relieved to have an opportunity to drop the subject of Serena’s stepmother. In a lighter tone, he responded, “Got one picked already?”

She shook her head. “But I know what I want. A man with some money. Money he’s willing to use to make more money. Papa’s father and grandfather had the knack. They knew how to buy up land. Increase the crop yields. Papa bought a little more acreage for Rosewood, but he was happiest just standing still. He kept the place almost the same as it was when he inherited it. I want a man with bigger ideas. One who won’t be content sitting in an office going over books—or reading ghost stories for excitement in the evening. I want a man who can run Rosewood right!”

Jeremiah grinned. “You’re talking as if it’s already yours.”

“It will be when Catherine dies—same as with that California gold mine you spoke about. With Rosewood and my husband’s money, we’ll be able to build a really big place. Travel, too. Into Savannah to the Pulaski House. Maybe to Europe. I’ll find a man like that. I know I will. I know because I can offer a man a lot—”

She gave him an almost brazen smile.

“Rosewood and some other nice things. Provided he treats me right”

“I”—he was almost afraid to speak—“I think it’d be grand to treat you right. Take you places—I mean it’d be grand for that husband you’re talking about.”

Disappointment: “Oh.”

“Now what’d I do?”

“Nothing. Guess I had the wrong idea.”

“What idea?”

“For a minute I had a notion you might be talking about yourself.”

He couldn’t help blushing. “Oh, no. You’re older than I am.”

“But you’ve been to war! That ages a boy pretty fast, I’m told.”

He was at a loss to explain her sudden warmth except for one reason he’d been trying to forget: the Thanksgiving Day conversation about how he and his brothers would be wealthy men when Jephtha Kent passed on.

He’d always been aware in a vague way that his father would leave him a considerable amount of money. But he’d hardly ever dwelled on the consequences of the inheritance: what he’d do with it, or how it could make him important to others. Now, for almost the first time, he began to understand.

With the realization there came questions. How much money
would
be his? Thousands of dollars? Millions? He couldn’t comprehend
millions,
except that it must be a devil of a lot.

It would be good money, too. Gold, not cheapened Confederate paper.

Millions!

He was a bit overcome by the thought—then disgusted by the realization that he’d been right about the reason for Serena’s changed behavior. He wanted to let her know he was aware of the reason. Something held him back—perhaps the way she squeezed his arm again as the wagon creaked deeper into the hazy shadow of the pines.

Tell her you know!

He faced her but still couldn’t say it, overcome by the bold, almost inviting way she was gazing at him. Smiling—

Lord above, she was a beautiful girl! That was the problem.

Leaning near again, she whispered, “I imagine a boy becomes pretty experienced in a war, doesn’t he; Jeremiah?”

“Y-yes,” he said, not knowing how to respond to the obvious meaning of the question. “In only one day at Chickamauga, I learned how to stay alive.”

She made a moue. “I meant experienced in other ways.”

His tongue felt stiff. “Women—things like that?”

“’Course.”

“Well, I suppose—yes, it’s true,” he lied. Aware of the immorality of speaking to a female about the unspeakable, he still blurted, “How about you?”

“Jeremiah, that’s not a proper thing to ask a girl!”

But she was pleased.

Blushing again. “I—I was just curious.”

“Decent young ladies don’t do such things—and if they do, they don’t discuss them!” Tormenting him with her sly smile, she peered down the track and thrust out a finger. “Isn’t that your cache?”

Jeremiah squeezed his legs together to hide the stiffness, furious at her for leading him on, yet thankful at the same time that she hadn’t permitted things to go further. Something in his mind kept warning him:

Leave her alone. She’s too deep. Too devious.

And she’s not innocent—

A part of him longed to believe she was. He was frightened anew by the intensity of that yearning.

“I said, isn’t that your cache?”

He nodded, dry-lipped. He just didn’t know how to handle a girl like Serena Rose.

The mules meandered into the little clearing, all but dark now. Awkwardly, he separated his arm from hers, guided the mules to a stop.

“We’ll unhitch ’em and tie ’em, and I’ll fork out some of the fodder Leon and I brought in. Then you can give me a hand pushing the wagon out of sight.”

He spoke very quickly to cover his flustered feeling. He looped the reins around the brake handle and climbed down.

Serena slid to the side of the wagon where he stood. She bent over, her bosom touched by dull red light seeping through the pines. She looked down at him, her tongue licking slowly over her upper lip. She extended her arms. “You’ll have to help me.” He reached up, too eagerly. She stood, suddenly appeared to stumble or lose her balance—no accident, he was sure. Crying out, she tumbled on top of him.

T
HEY SPRAWLED ON THE
ground. He started to roll away, his neck prickled by a burr, only to feel her hand on his chin.

She pulled him close, so close they were lying side by side, thighs touching. Her hand slipped to his cheek.

“Jeremiah, you listen to me. The day you showed up, I thought you were just a boy. I was wrong. You’re a grown man.”

Her mouth came nearer.

“If you want, you can kiss me.”

He did—tentatively. All at once she pressed both palms against his face. With tantalizing slowness, she caressed his lips with her tongue.

Then she moved her body tighter against his, giggling again, this time because of the feel of his bigness.

“Here,
here!”

She guided his hand, closed it on her breast. His fingers were clamped so tightly, he thought he could detect lace beneath her faded dress.

“Maybe I could give you lessons like the ones my mama gave. But you were in the army. I ’spose you don’t need them—”

Another kiss, harder, deeper.

“You’ve probably had lots of girls.”

And another. Her wet mouth slid up over his cheek. The tip of her tongue teased his skin.

“You probably don’t even like me much because of the foolish way I treated you the first couple of days.”

They lay in almost total darkness. Over her shoulder, he glimpsed the mules’ ears twitching away flies.

Get away!
he thought.
She’s all tangled up inside. About her real mother, and her stepmother
—
and she doesn’t give a hang for you. It’s that money she found out about
—

“Jeremiah, Jeremiah,” she murmured, beginning to move her left leg beneath her skirt. The leg rubbed slowly, languorously against his. “Do you like me any at all?”

“A lot, Serena—a lot.” The feel of her leg turned him so rigid he hurt.

“You’re not fibbing to me?”

“No. No.”

All at once he knew they wouldn’t stop. Knew it as surely as he knew his name.

She’d had other lovers before, or at least there was reason for suspicion. The way she talked. The practiced touch of her hands. And he didn’t want his first experience to happen with a soiled woman. Despite the way soldiers bragged, no decent man wanted that.

Yet something perverse in him refused to call a halt to the kissing and fondling. He wanted to discover how experienced she was. And answering that question would answer a larger one: How did a man behave with a woman? Any woman?

Her lashes were soft on his cheek as she clasped his wrist and tugged. Somehow her skirt had hiked up.

“You can feel me if you want.”

He did, pressing hard against the cotton underclothes until she moaned. He almost yelled when she put her hand on him in a way he’d never imagined any woman would be so bold as to do. She kissed his ear, murmuring. “You’d be a good husband, I’ll bet. A fine husband.”

He tried to comprehend all the implications of that astonishing word. They were too many and complex. And now wasn’t the time. He flung a leg over her hip—

Instantly, she rolled her head to the side. He saw red light reflected in her pupils.