One Wore Blue Read online

  He sat upon his own coffin.

  He stepped from the cart with dignity and walked to the gallows the same way.

  A hush fell over the military crowd. Sheriff John W. Campbell pulled a white linen hood over the prisoner’s head, then set the noose around his neck. The jailor asked Brown to step forward onto the trap.

  “You must lead me,” Brown said, his voice steady, “for I cannot see.”

  The jailor availed him and adjusted the noose.

  “Be quick,” Brown said.

  A hatchet stroke sprang the trap, and with an awful sound, the body dropped through.

  John Brown was dead.

  There was complete silence. Suddenly, the voice of a militiaman broke the silence.

  “So perish all such enemies of Virginia! All such enemies of the Union! All such enemies of the human race!”

  Jesse felt no such sense of elation. By due process of law, John Brown had been hanged on a beautiful winter morning.

  Brown had said little enough at the moment of his execution, but Jesse couldn’t forget some of the things that the man had said and written earlier—especially the words he had written to one of his guards not long before his date with the hangman.

  “The crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away; but with blood.”

  John Brown was dead. It was over.

  It was just beginning.

  Jesse turned his horse.

  And in his heart, he rode north.

  2

  A House

  Divided

  Nine

  Near Cameron Hall, Tidewater Virginia

  December 20, 1860

  Kiernan sat on her dapple-gray mare high atop the forested ridge overlooking Cameron Hall.

  The morning sun had just risen. Dewdrops played upon the sweeping lawn like a carpet of diamonds. The main house, regal with its soaring white columns, stood in the center of the manicured portion of the property. Behind the house were handsome gardens that in the summer were filled with the scent of roses. The house was one of the oldest in Tidewater Virginia, the original structure having been built soon after the Indian massacre of 1622. Jesse’s great-great-great—she really wasn’t sure how many greats—grandparents had lovingly laid the first brick and set their names upon it. They had built with beauty and a deep affinity for their new land.

  The house had weathered the ravages of time to remain one of the most gracious plantation homes on the James River.

  There was a wide breezeway, and on pleasant days, the doors on both ends of the house were cast open so that the soft cool air from the river whispered throughout the wide-open hallway and into the house. The porches became an extension of the hallway, open, inviting, touched by the breeze.

  Two large wings had been added to the house just after the Revolution, and they extended gracefully to either side. The kitchen, smokehouse, laundry, bakehouse, stables, and slave quarters entended from the right of the house toward the cliff, from which Kiernan now looked upon the activity of the busy plantation. Close to where she sat upon her mare, near a copse of trees and foliage and the river’s edge, was the family cemetery. Camerons had been buried there ever since Lord Cameron, who had built the place, and his beloved Jassy had been tenderly laid to rest by their heirs. Now handsome monuments stood in the plot, enclosed by an ornate wrought-iron fence, with beautifully sculpted angels and madonnas and renditions of Christ. The cemetery itself was beautiful and graceful and spoke of a rich heritage.

  From where she sat her horse, Kiernan could see past the sloping lawns that fell from the left side of the house and to the numerous fields beyond, fields of the stuff that had built the South: cotton and tobacco.

  No one could ask for a finer home or a more prestigious heritage. The sons of Cameron Hall had always been held up to gentlemen of the state and beyond as fine prospects for their daughters. It was a home that any woman would envy. From her sentinel upon the mount, Kiernan thought it embodied everything stately and gracious and beautiful in the world. How she had missed it during her year abroad! With a tinge of shame she realized that she loved Cameron Hall more than she loved her own home nearby. It too, was beautiful, built of brick and mortar and stone, and it was gracious and pleasant. But it was barely fifty years old. It hadn’t weathered the centuries as Cameron Hall had. It didn’t have the personality of its James River neighbor. It didn’t seem to live and breathe and be so much a part of this world.

  She breathed in deeply. The air was sweet with the scents of early morning bread-baking and ham-smoking. The air that came in from the river was decidedly cold today, but she didn’t care. She knew the dampness and the cold of winter, just as she knew the humidity and heat of summer. This was home. She had been away a long time, and this morning she wasn’t at all sure why she had tormented herself for so long.

  At first, leaving had seemed to be the only way to escape marriage to Anthony without being downright cruel.

  It had also been a way to escape Jesse. His assignment had been Washington when she left, and that had been far too close. She knew that Jesse had wanted his assignment to be close to home when he was just out of West Point. His father had still been living then, and his father had been military all of his life.

  Then Jesse had traveled with the cavalry out west and had spent time fighting Indians at the tail end of the action in Mexico.

  And he had spent time in “bleeding Kansas” as the government tried to put some kind of restraint on the horror there. Kiernan had known a great deal of what was going on in his life then. She and Daniel had always been good correspondents. He had felt the need to put things on paper to her, and she had been more than willing to keep him advised about things back home. She had always scanned his missives for information about Jesse. She had always known what he was doing.

  And she knew now.

  The year she had spent in Europe had been a tense one on this side of the Atlantic—electric, frightening. In London she had avidly sought every piece of information about the states that she could find. She had read political commentaries by the dozens.

  Old John Brown had become a martyr. The northern abolitionists had rallied to make sure that his death would never be forgotten. They sang, “John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in his grave.” And Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Old Tom’s Cabin continued to fan the flames of fury.

  But the worse thing that had happened had been the election of Abraham Lincoln. The South just couldn’t stomach it.

  Before the election, Kiernan had hoped that the political climate would quiet down, that various sections of the country would manage to live with their differences—as they had been doing since the Revolution.

  But as soon as she had heard the results, she had come home. She had arrived in time to discover that South Carolina was planning a convention and that it would vote on the matter of secession. Other states were following that example—Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee, just to name a few. The feeling was that South Carolina would secede. So would the other states.

  So far, though, Virginia seemed to be watching the action. Careful, cautious, dignified, the homeland of so many of the founding fathers, Virginia would watch.

  Many Virginia sons, however, were not so cautious. Young men and old men everywhere were forming up into new militia units. Rich men were buying up horses and designing uniforms and purchasing arms. Poor men were seeking to serve beneath them.

  If it came to war, they would be prepared.

  Many of the South’s finest were either enlisted men or commissioned officers in the United States Army—Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart, among others.

  And the Cameron brothers.

  Daniel had written that he had been considering resigning his position, but neither he nor Jesse had done so as yet. Few men had resigned their positions. It remained to be seen just how many would. And of course, it remained to be seen what South Carolina and the other states would do.

  The sun rose further into the sky as
Kiernan sat upon her mare, surveying the scene below her. She had headed for home the moment that she had heard about the presidential election. From the time her ship had left the London docks, she had felt a growing excitement. Every step of the way, she had wondered why she had ever left home at such a crucial time. London was fascinating, her school for young ladies was entertaining, but she realized the moment she arrived that she had outgrown school. It had been a time of waiting for her, a time for reflecting.

  And a time for dreams, for she had not managed to leave Jesse behind. She had been disappointed the previous November to discover that she was not in the family way. Such a situation might have swayed her hand. Would have, she thought, a small smile tugging at her lips. Her father would have had Jesse walking down the aisle at gunpoint had it been necessary. But it was not necessary.

  How had she slept through so very many nights, when all she could do was remember him? She thought endlessly of him, reliving all that had happened between them. She had met many young men in London, some of them titled, some of them very rich. She had played the games by all the right rules that a young woman should play, and she had tried to fall out of love with Jesse and into love with someone else. She watched as many of her friends were married off according to the dictates of their parents, and she had been extremely grateful for her father’s leniency. But none of it mattered. She didn’t need a wealthy man, for her father was a wealthy man. She was unimpressed by titles, and she was, in truth, far more fond of Anthony and Daniel than she was of any of the young men she met in London drawing rooms or chose as escorts for a night of London theater.

  Perhaps Jesse was right about her, she mused. She had enjoyed the flirting. She had enjoyed having young men flock about her and marvel at her soft Virginia accent, lose their voices when they spoke with her, and tum beet-red in their attempts to be charming in turn. It had been fun to test her power, she reflected.

  Except that she had returned to her small school bedroom every evening to feel a painful ache where she should have felt triumphant. Games could never again be as innocent as they once had been. If she tormented others, it was because she was tormented herself.

  She was very afraid that she would be tormented until the day that she died. Jesse had done that to her.

  She sighed softly and heard the whisper of her breath join with that of the breeze.

  What now? What could she do? Stay in love with Jesse, hold Anthony off indefinitely, pray that he would find someone else himself?

  Or give up her own beliefs?

  No. She could never give up her passion for this place, for this land. Surely, surely, Jesse would never really be able to do that either.

  Now that events were growing critical, Jesse would have to change his heart and his mind. This very place, Cameron Hall, could be in jeopardy. Everything that he loved.

  “My, my. To what do we owe this fine pleasure?”

  Kiernan nearly leaped from her side-saddle when she heard the husky drawl. Her heart thudded against her rib cage as she turned quickly with surprise. It was Jesse. She knew it long before she saw his face. She would know his voice anywhere, she had heard it in her dreams a thousand times, she had felt the sensual whisper along her spine in long cold nights when she had fought hard against the memories of that she had sworn she would forget.

  She looked at his face. She wondered how he had come upon her so silently, or if she had simply been so lost in her reflections that her senses had betrayed her.

  He stood some distance from her, having dismounted from his horse, the fine huge roan, Pegasus. He had bred Pegasus at Cameron Hall, and he had brought him into the cavalry with him. Pegasus was impeccably trained, but no horse standing nearly seventeen hands high could tiptoe through brush.

  And neither could Jesse—but there he was, indisputably, almost upon her. Tall, striking, standing still in the tall grass, the breeze lifting his hair and pulling upon the cotton of his white open-necked shirt. He was dressed as a civilian in buff-colored breeches and high black boots, dressed as the master of Cameron Hall. His hair seemed exceptionally dark, and his eyes, even at this distance, seemed exceptionally blue. He held Pegasus’s reins and stood with his feet planted firm, his legs apart upon the incline of the mound, as a slow smile curved his lip.

  “So you’ve come home,” he said softly.

  “And so have you.”

  His lashes fell over his eyes and his smile was broad when he raised his gaze to her once again. “I’m not supposed to be here?”

  “I—I did think that you were in Washington.”

  “Please, don’t let the rudeness of my presence destroy your visit. Is my sister expecting you?”

  She shook her head. “No one is expecting me.”

  She had changed—and then again, she hadn’t, Jesse thought. She appeared more sophisticated than ever. Surely her riding habit was the latest in French fashion. The cut of the green velvet creation was a very tailored one, but the sharp-angled brim of her green-feathered bonnet lent both femininity and elegance to the outfit. Beneath the closely fitted jacket of the ensemble she wore a laced shirt that added to the very feminine grace of the habit, despite its almost masculine cut.

  She wore it well. Seated atop the dapple-gray mare, she was the very height of sophistication and beauty. In fact, she was stunning. Her eyes defied the emerald splendor of the dew-kissed grasses. Her hair, entwined in rich braids and pinned at her nape, took up the colors of the sun and shone with a fiery splendor. And she seemed older, and perhaps wiser, for there was a curious sadness about her gaze.

  Watching her, Jesse felt the pain that he thought he had buried come to life again. He clenched and unclenched his fingers, and a heat like the radiating play of the sun upon naked flesh in summer came upon him. It was bittersweet to see her, to have her here before him, to remember what it had been to touch her.

  Surely there was no difference among women, he told himself. One was surely the same as the other in the darkness.

  But it wasn’t true at all. No woman felt the same as Kiernan did, even in the dark. No woman carried the same sweet scent, no one whispered or sighed the same.

  With dark fury, he suddenly wished with all his heart that she had married Anthony. He might have purged her from his dreams and his life if only she had done so.

  “What are you doing here, Kiernan?” he said suddenly, fiercely.

  She stiffened upon her mount. “It’s wonderful to see you too, Jesse,” she said coolly.

  “You’re trespassing.”

  “My Lord, your manners haven’t improved—” she began, but he dropped the roan’s reins and strode toward her with long steps. She started to back her mare away, but his hands were already upon the mare’s bridle, holding her steady. Before she knew it, he was reaching up to her.

  “Jesse, what do you think you’re—”

  She fell silent, for she knew what he was doing. He was lifting her down and into his arms. All the winter’s cold was instantly dispelled as he wrapped her tightly into his embrace. He kissed her hard and savagely, suffusing her body with all the warmth of his own, and with the memory of all the splendor.

  His hand gently moved over her chin, exploring bone structure and texture. But his eyes were savage as his thumb caressed the softness of her cheek, and his body was rock hard as it pressed against hers. She was caught between the man and the horse, and she was vulnerable to the ferocity of his power.

  “My God, I have missed you!” he whispered. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like. In every drawing room where I have been a guest I’ve listened to the sound of rustling silk, and I’ve prayed that I could turn and see you there. And every damned night I’ve lain awake and thought of you, and even when I’ve slept, my dreams have been plagued by you. Every time I touched a woman’s hair, it seemed coarse in my hands because it was not yours, it wasn’t the color of fire, and it did not have the sheen of satin and the feel of velvet and silk. Words whispered have never been the same,
you witch! Damn you. Damn you a thousand times over!”

  She stared into his eyes, and she felt the heat and the hatred within them.

  And she felt so much more. She felt the need in his touch. She felt the hunger and tension in the body pressed so closely to hers. And when he ruthlessly lowered his mouth to hers once again, she parted her lips by instinct and responded with a sweet memory that swept away the time that lay between them.

  She was back in his arms again. Nothing else mattered.

  She broke away from him, aware of the fires that had been ignited between them. Desire that lay dormant when he was not near rose to the surface of her being. It felt as if her heart beat for him, as if her every breath was for him, as if her limbs flamed for him, as if she were split apart by the fires that burned and radiated from deep within her. She needed desperately to be with him.

  She moistened her lips and met his hot gaze. She struggled for breath, then for the sound to make a whisper. “Where can we go?”

  He grinned broadly, and she realized that he had voiced that question a year before.

  And that she had taken him to the haven.

  “I’ll show you,” he replied softly.

  They left the horses in the field atop the mount as he caught her hand and brought her running swiftly down the slope. It seemed in only seconds that they were racing by the cemetery and plunging into the dense foliage that lined the river to the left of the docks. They scurried through a trail of brush and trees until they came to a copse wherein stood an elegant white gazebo, a summer cottage. Like the manor, it was built with a breezeway. Octagonal in shape, its etched-glass doors would welcome the breezes from the river if opened, and yet warm the place against the damp chills of winter. She should have known the place. She had come there often enough as a child.

  Now Jesse opened the double doors, which had been closed against the December cold. He led her inside, closed the door again, and leaned against it. For a long time he stood staring at her, and she was suddenly afraid of why she had come, and at the same time she felt a growing pleasure and longing sweep through her. He looked so damned good. The white of his shirt emphasized the bronze of his face and throat. The simple cotton enhanced the structure of his shoulders and torso and arms. His face seemed more lined, she thought, etched more deeply around his eyes. But he seemed more handsome to her than ever, grave, taunting, demanding. They were both growing older, and Jesse was growing even more sensual.