You Belong to My Heart (18 page)

“Mmmmm. And is there a sweet-faced little wife waiting patiently back in Tennessee?” She handed him a snifter of brandy, then touched her own to his. The glasses clinked. They drank.

“No. I never married. Will never marry.”

“I see.” Dawn Campango liked his answer. She swayed closer, seductively licking the brandy from her ruby red lips as she raised a hand and withdrew the gem-encrusted pins holding her heavy dark hair atop her head. Freed of its restraints, the lustrous locks spilled around her bare, tawny shoulders.

The brandy and the woman warming his blood, Clay reached out slowly and wrapped a thick portion of her unbound hair around his hand. A muscle leaping in his jaw, he forced her head back, bent, and kissed her tempting red lips.

But then he told her candidly, just as he told every woman to whom he was about to make love for the first time, “Mrs. Campango, you’re a very beautiful woman, and I want you. But if you’re looking for love and commitment, you’ve got the wrong sailor.” His hand staying tangled in her hair, he turned his head and leisurely drained the last of his brandy, giving her the opportunity to think it over.

Dawn Campango drank the last of her own brandy, lowered her hand, and let the empty crystal snifter drop to the Persian rug below. She put her arms around Clay’s neck and, smiling, said, “You are not my first naval Captain, Captain.” She moved closer, pressed her full, soft breasts against his chest, bent a knee, rubbed it against his groin. “Keep your heart; it’s your body I’m after.”

Clay grinned at her. “My kind of woman. What are we waiting for?”

In seconds they had shed all their clothes and stood naked amid the discarded garments, eagerly kissing and touching. His hot lips never leaving hers, Clay drew Dawn Campango to the round bed and fell backward onto it, bringing her down with him. Delighting in the cool caress of soft silky sheets against his bare back and the warm weight of the woman’s big-nippled breasts against his chest, Clay sighed with pleasure.

His lean, dark hands moved over her voluptuous body, breasts and waist and hips; his mouth was hot along her throat and ear. Dawn lifted her face for his kiss and met his tongue with her own, attacking and retreating as her hunger, like his, flamed brighter.

She wedged a hand between their bodies and took hold of his throbbing erection, rubbed the bursting tip back and forth across her bare belly, then up and down her pulsing mound. Clay let her have her way. She was not the first aggressive woman he’d had, but she was certainly one of the hottest.

He spread his legs wider apart when she rose up on her knees between them, her hand enclosing his jerking tumescence, her emerald eyes wild with passion. When she climbed astride his hips and eagerly impaled herself upon him, Clay settled his hands on her hips and flipped them over agilely, reversing their positions.

When the throbbing length of him was buried deep inside her, the highly aroused Dawn Campango looked directly into Clay’s gray eyes and murmured huskily, “I am the wild untamable sea in a storm and you are the Captain of a mighty craft being tossed about by my raging waves. I am highly dangerous to all seagoing craft, and only the most capable of Captains can keep his precious vessel riding in me.” Her eyes catlike and wicked, she warned, “Be careful you don’t capsize and crash to your death.”

With that she made the first deep rolling thrust of her hips, tipping her powerful pelvis upward and setting Clay’s heart to thundering.

Clay played the naughty nautical game with heated enthusiasm. He derived wave after wave of pleasure as the battling, boiling sea surged up and down against him, attempting to dislodge him and at the same time suck him under.

Dawn Campango would rock violently against him, clench him tightly, attempt to swallow him up with the strength of her hips and firm thighs. Then she would go totally slack, loosening her pinioning thighs, pushing to expel him from her slick, slippery warmth.

There was never any danger of Clay losing the stormy battle. She was a hazardous turbulent sea, but he was a cunning and accomplished Captain who could deftly steer his powerful vessel in the most perilous of straits.

The fierce storm continued with the two of them rolling and arching and plunging and rising until they were slippery with perspiration and their shared carnal excitement was at a fever pitch. At last they exploded in spine-melting release and the sea cried out loudly in her ecstasy while the conquering Captain groaned in his hard-won triumph.

The winded Captain fell over atop the mastered sea, and she sprinkled kisses of gratitude over his dark, sweat-streaked face. Clay sighed with satisfaction and couldn’t believe his right ear when Dawn Campango whispered into it, “Now let’s change places. You be the wild sea and I’ll be the Captain.”

T
HE WAR CLOUD THAT
had appeared on the horizon in the late 1850s now hovered ominously over the nation. The hotly debated issue of states’ rights was a powder keg that could blow at any minute. Alabama, Georgia, and other states had followed South Carolina in seceding from the Union, and in early February the Confederacy was formed in Montgomery, Alabama. Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis was chosen to be president of the provisional government of the Confederate states.

The mood of Memphis that cold winter of 1861 was tense, anxious, uncertain.

Fear and unrest were prevalent across the Southland. Moreover, Memphis was plagued with an added dilemma. It was a city divided. There were those—mainly landholders and slave owners—who railed loudly against the North’s economic stranglehold on the South and vowed heatedly they would
never
allow the arrogant Yankees to dictate how the Southerners should conduct their lives. They would fight to the last breath if necessary.

Others—mainly men who owned neither land nor slaves—were just as passionate in their belief that individual financial interests should be put aside for the good of the country. If war came, they swore adamantly, they would throw all their weight behind the Union.

Arguments and fistfights broke out daily on the crowded streets of Memphis as citizens divided into two different camps, much as the country itself was divided.

Of those who believed the meddling Yankees needed to be taught a lesson, none was more fervent than John Thomas Preble. Mary Ellen was that glad her father had finally cast off the debilitating lethargy of grief, but now she worried that if war came, he would foolishly think he should fight.

She expressed her concerns to Leah Thompson, the likable Nashville native who, along with her big, strapping husband, William, and their four children, now lived next door in the mansion they’d bought from the fleeing Pres Templeton.

Mary Ellen liked all the Thompsons immediately. Leah was a friendly, good-natured, plain-looking woman of thirty-eight who genuinely cared about people, loved her new Mississippi River bluffside home, doted on her four healthy, happy children, and clearly adored her big, rugged redheaded husband, William.

Mary Ellen quickly learned that she could confide in Leah and never worry that her confidences might be betrayed. The two women shared secrets and insights and sometimes fears.

On a chilly afternoon in February, Mary Ellen grabbed a woolen shawl, swirled it around her shoulders, and walked down River Road to the old Templeton estate to visit Leah Thompson.

“I’m really worried about Papa,” she told the older woman as soon as she was inside the warm, fire-lit parlor. “He’s gone out to Martin’s horse farm to buy a mount of great speed and stamina.”

Leah looked puzzled. “Your father’s an experienced horseman, Mary Ellen. I’m sure he can safely handle a speedy mount.”

“Leah, I know him. He’s hunting a horse to ride into battle.”

Leah Thompson laughed at such an absurd notion. “I wouldn’t worry all that much if I were you. Even if we go to war, the Confederacy surely won’t be needing men Mr. Preble’s age. Besides, William says the war won’t last long and we’re sure to be victorious. He says the Southern leadership is far superior to the Union’s because most of the nation’s finest officers are Southerners. I’m sure they’ll all elect to go with their native Southern states.” She smiled confidently. “Think of all the fine men from the South who went to West Point and the Naval Academy at…”

Mary Ellen’s thoughts immediately flashed to Clay Knight. When war came, would he resign his commission and come home to fight for the South? Or would his loyalty lie with the Union?

“…and would probably be an easy victory,” Leah Thompson concluded.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re right,” Mary Ellen said distractedly. Then: “I’d best get back and see if Papa’s home yet.”

On a cool April afternoon, Mary Ellen was at the cotton office with her father when a dispatch rider thundered down Front Street, shouting, “Beauregard’s fired on Fort Sumter! The general demanded surrender of the fort, and President Lincoln has issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to fight for the Union. We’re at war!”

As soon as he heard Virginia, the old Dominion, had cast her lot with the Confederacy, John Thomas Preble formed and armed a company of Shelby County’s best and called them the Bluff City Grays. He saddled up his newly purchased roan stallion and led his Bluff City Grays north to join Lee’s army.

Mary Ellen stood on front veranda of Longwood and watched them ride away.

The saber his grandfather Preble had wielded against the British in the Revolutionary War was strapped to John Thomas’s waist, its long blade gleaming in the bright Tennessee sunshine. His shoulders were erect, his bearing proudly military.

Riding at the front of his troop, John Thomas Preble turned in the saddle and waved merrily to his daughter.

The years had magically slipped away. He no longer resembled the broken, gray-haired fifty-eight-year-old man who’d buried himself in his suite for so long. He looked like a dashing young blade off to do battle for his beloved homeland.

Mary Ellen bit her lip.

Tears filled her eyes as she stood on the wide veranda of Longwood and watched until her father had ridden completely out of sight. She felt a definite chill despite the warmth of the sun. An awful sense of loneliness swept over her, and she was shaken by a strong premonition that she would never see her father again.

Mary Ellen swallowed hard, turned, and went back inside the silent mansion.

In June the state of Tennessee held a referendum and, despite some strong Union sentiment, ratified the Ordinance of Secession. Tennessee was proclaimed a Confederate state, the very last one to secede.

In late July, three months after he had ridden away, word came that John Thomas Preble had been killed. He had lost his life in the First Bull Run, the initial major battle of the war.

Mary Ellen was left alone.

There was no time for the luxury of grieving.

The Preble fortune, on the wane well before the war, was materially reduced by the events dividing the nation. The Union naval blockade had destroyed the British cotton market. Mary Ellen realized she was in deep financial trouble when outstanding loans were called in. Little cotton had been planted on the vast outlying plantations that spring. By late summer most of the slaves had run away.

The war raged on into early autumn, with no end in sight. Reports of a shocking number of casualties reached Memphis, and by Christmastime there was hardly a family who hadn’t lost a son, father, brother, or sweetheart.

The sound of marching feet and the roll of drums became a constant, as did the moans and screams of the wounded and dying who’d been brought from the battlefields to the Shelby County Hospital, where Mary Ellen was a volunteer. Determined to do her part for the Cause, she tirelessly tended soldiers who’d been maimed and crippled. Her face bending over a poor, suffering soul was the last thing many of them saw this side of heaven.

The war moved closer to home when Grant’s army met General Albert Sidney Johnson at Pittsburg Landing less than a hundred miles east of Memphis. The Battle of Shiloh ensued, and the Tennessee River ran red with the blood of the Confederacy’s finest young men.

Later that same month, New Orleans fell into enemy hands when the city surrendered to Flag Officer David Farragut. It was the greatest blow the Confederacy had suffered. And Mary Ellen, along with the rest of the Bluff City, was terrified that the Yankees would come right on up the Mississippi to Memphis.

The Yankees came, but not upriver from New Orleans.

They came downriver from the North.

In May Captain James Montgomery led his Confederate River Defense Fleet in an attack on Union gunboats and mortar schooners that were bombarding Tennessee’s Fort Pillow. Montgomery and his men tried valiantly to turn back the advancing Federals.

But the Rebel fleet lost the battle.

Hammered by the fire of Union vessels on the Mississippi, the Confederate forces were forced to evacuate Fort Pillow.

Fort Pillow was the last fortification above Memphis, Tennessee.

Memphis braced for the worst.

The worst came on the hot, muggy early morning of June 6. Messengers quickly spread the word through the sleeping city that the Yankee ironclads had been spotted on the Mississippi a few short miles upriver from Memphis. Citizens leapt out of bed and streamed down to the river bluffs.

Mary Ellen, Leah Thompson, and the four Thompson children watched as the Federal gunboats and rams approached Memphis. Just as the full red ball of the sun rose above the horizon, the first Federal ram,
Queen of the West,
steamed ominously into view.

A pair of powerful field glasses raised to her dark eyes, Mary Ellen focused on the approaching steel ram. And on a tall, dark Union officer—framed against the pink of the dawn sky—standing alone on the hurricane deck. The confident stance, the supreme air of command, were not all that attracted Mary Ellen’s attention. There was something else. Something that caused an involuntary shiver to surge through her slender body. Something was eerily familiar about the Yankee naval commander.

Then he moved. He sprang forward agilely and brought down his right arm with swift military authority.