One Wore Blue (37 page)

“The Confederates will come back!” she cried out suddenly.

“They very well might,” he told her. “But until your Rebs come back, Mrs. Miller, it’s going to be share and share alike.”

He swept off his hat and bowed low to her with a mocking gallantry, with all the fury that still churned within him.

Then he turned very quickly on his heel and walked away from her, shouting orders to the men who still waited. His words came out normally, no matter what thoughts that raced through his mind.

Damn her, damn her, damn her!

It was, indeed, war.

Sixteen

Montemarte
October 18, 1861

Despite her insistence that she would stay in the house, Kiernan disappeared for much of his moving-in process.

The Miller housekeeper greeted him when he stepped into the hall of Montemarte. He didn’t see her at first in the shadows, and for a moment, it was as if the autumn twilight played tricks on his eyes. He could remember the hallway from better times. It stretched from the entry to the rear of the house, much like the breezeway at Cameron Hall. There was a fine spinet set at the end of the hallway, and there were groupings of elegant furnishings. Dead center in the hall was a fireplace. It was warm and inviting. During their balls and entertainments, the Millers had always ordered the furniture pulled back. Dancers in silks and satins and taffetas had waltzed through the evenings. He could almost hear the rustle of skirts now.

“So, Yankee, you’re here.”

The words made him start. He stared into the shadows and saw the woman. She was tall and handsome, ramrod stiff with graying hair. He remembered her vaguely. She had always held an important place in this household, since Andrew’s wife had died soon after the birth of Anthony’s younger sister and brother.

She knew him. She’d welcomed him and Daniel and Christa, and she’d accompanied her young charges to Cameron Hall.

She knew him by name. Yet she seemed to prefer calling him “Yankee” at the moment.

He set his hands on his hips and stared across the room at her. Janey—that was her name.

“I see,” he said. “You would just as soon the place be burned down too.”

She looked at him, then shook her head. “No, not me. I like a roof over my head. I like this roof just fine. But if you think I’m going to welcome you here, Yank, you’re wrong.”

He shrugged. “Fine. Don’t welcome me, but listen to me. If there’s anything of real value—”

“We done buried the silver a long time ago, Yank.”

“Good. But see that handsome spinet there? It just might be better off up in the attic.”

“I hear you loudly, Yank,” Janey assured him. “I’ll see to some moving right away.”

“Good.” He started for the stairs. He had to find a place for himself to sleep at night, and he wanted a room with good light so that he could maintain an office in it too.

Halfway up the stairs, he realized that Janey was on his heels. He paused and turned back, and she almost bumped into him. “I’ll give you a tour, Yank.”

“Oh?”

“That way I can warn you where not to sleep.”

They reached the second floor, and Janey hurried on by him. “Not there—that’s young Master Jacob’s room.” She went on down the hallway. “And this one is Patricia’s room.” She started onward again, but Jesse stopped. A doorway was open to a very large room with windows that faced the east and the rising sun. The massive bed in the room looked comfortable and, after the rush he’d gone through that day, very inviting. There was a desk across from it, and a very large armoire off to the side by the windows. It was perfect.

But it was a master bedroom, he thought. Anthony’s room? Or Andrew’s room?

Had it ever been Kiernan’s room? Had she ever slept with her husband in it?

“Yankee, are you comin’?” Janey demanded.

He ignored her and voiced his own question. “Is this Mrs. Miller’s room?”

Janey paused, her jaw twisting, and she hesitated to give him an answer. She spoke at last. “No, this ain’t nobody’s room right now. Used to be Master Andrew’s room, and it would have been Master Anthony’s room, except he done got himself killed. So there’s no one in there right now. But it’ll be Master Jacob’s room one day—”

“I’m not moving in for eternity, Janey,” Jesse told her, “just for the duration.”

“The duration of what?” she demanded.

“The war.”

She snickered. “You ain’t gonna hold this property even that long, Yank.”

“Right. But even if we lose this place, we’ll be back for it. The Union will keep fighting for this area. I won’t be here long enough for Jacob to grow up, get married, and bring home a bride—I hope,” he added under his breath. “This will be just perfect.”

Janey turned and started to walk away. Somewhat amused, Jesse called her back.

“What is it, Yank?”

“Where
does
Mrs. Miller sleep?”

Janey’s eyes narrowed sharply. “What do you want to know that for, Yank?”

“So that I don’t put injured men on her bed,” Jesse replied dryly.

Janey inhaled and exhaled with a long sigh. She pointed to the door next to his own. “There’s her room. So you’ll be all set. The healthy folk will be at this end, far down the hall, and you can put your injured in the rooms closer to the stairs. There’s five more on this floor. The one over there will be big enough for a ward. The others can accommodate two or three men.”

“Thank you for that information, Janey.”

Once again, she started to leave him.

“Oh, Janey?”

“Yes, sir, Master Yank?” Janey slung the field-hand accent at him with fake, wide-eyed innocence. He almost smiled. The woman was as feisty as her mistress.

“Where did Master Anthony sleep?”

Janey paused, and he thought she was hiding a smile. “Why, Yank? He ain’t sleepin’ there no more, so you don’t have to worry about puttin’ no injured man in his bed.”

“Curiosity,” he admitted.

Janey pointed across the hall to the room that she had said was large enough for a ward.

Kiernan wasn’t sleeping in the room that had been her husband’s.

Had she ever slept in his room? Jesse wanted to know, but he couldn’t ask Janey any more questions. Not if he wanted her to keep answering his questions now.

“Thank you,” he told her.

“I’m not gonna cook for Yanks,” she said flatly.

“I have a company cook,” he told her. She left, and started down the stairs. But before Jesse had stepped into the room he intended to make his own, she was back.

“Ain’t gonna be no Yanks in my kitchen. I’ll cook for the household, same as always. You can eat at the table if Miz Kiernan says—”

“No, Janey,” he corrected her. “I’ve taken over the house. And I dine late. At least eight o’clock because I need all the daylight hours. If Mrs. Miller wants to dine at that time of day, then she—and the children—may join me.”

Janey looked as if she wanted to stamp a foot on the floor, but she didn’t. Instead, she walked away, and Jesse inspected his new room at last.

Apparently, Kiernan had no interest in fighting him for the dining room. Nor did she fight him on much else during the days in which he took charge of the Montemarte mansion.

After looking over his sleeping quarters, Jesse had found two black men downstairs moving the spinet. One was elderly, and Jesse didn’t like to see him huffing and puffing
over the heavy furniture. He told them both to wait, rolled up his sleeves, and joined them in moving the spinet up the stairs, followed by several other large pieces.

He wasn’t trying to salvage Miller furniture. He needed the space for the cots that would be arriving in the morning.

He didn’t speak much with the two men, but he noted that their dark eyes were on him as they worked together. He learned that they were father and son, that the elder was named Jeremiah, and the younger, Tyne. Jeremiah was growing old. Tyne, on the other hand, was young and as strong as an ox.

From Tyne, Jesse learned that they were the only ones who remained on the estate—the two of them, another son, David, and Janey.

He also realized that they were loyal. Whatever came in the future, they would not be leaving Kiernan. That gave him a feeling of some relief. Irritably, he wondered why. After all, if everyone deserted her, then Kiernan might be inclined to travel farther south and keep herself safe.

Neither Kiernan nor the children dined with him at eight thirty that evening.

Janey, however, presented him with a well-seasoned chicken pot pie. It was one of the best-tasting dishes he had eaten since Virginia seceded from the Union.

He was exhausted by the time he climbed upstairs to strip down and stretch out on his bed, so exhausted that he should have slept instantly.

He didn’t.

He knew that she was there, just behind the wall. He could leave his room and burst in on hers, and he could force her into his arms, and …

No, dammit, he wouldn’t do it, ever. The choice had to be hers.

He groaned, turned over, and slept at long last, wondering if he was strong enough to let the choice remain hers. She had told him often enough that she would despise him if he went north.

He had ridden north, and he was wearing blue.

Sometime in the night, he finally slept.

*  *  *

Downstairs in the dining room, he breakfasted alone. Janey served him a stack of hotcakes while he read the most recent issue of
Harper’s Weekly
, brought to him by one of his new company, a man who had taken up residence in a tent on the lawn along with his fellow soldiers.

“Where is Mrs. Miller this morning?” he asked Janey.

“Why, she done gone into town, Yankee.”

“I see,” he said to her. He complimented her on her coffee, then went out to supervise the setup of his hospital facilities in the large entry hallway. Cots had arrived, bandages, and his surgery equipment contained in his special black bag—the one he refused to ride into battle without, the one with all his field instruments.

By afternoon, Montemarte had been transformed.

By early evening, the first of Jesse’s patients had arrived.

A middle-aged soldier who had weathered the war in Mexico and a great deal of action in the West was carried in by his company just as twilight came. Skirmishing was going on in the woods to the west of them. There would be more patients soon.

Jesse hadn’t expected help from the household at Montemarte, and he didn’t really need it. He had a company of twenty able-bodied soldiers to do his bidding, and two of his men were excellent orderlies.

But Tyne happened to be on the porch when the wounded soldier arrived, and Tyne helped carry him up and into the surgery he had created from the Miller’s downstairs office. Absently, Jesse told Tyne that it was necessary to keep the man still while he inspected his leg.

Later, after he had dug out the ball, found that the break was clean, and set the splint, he realized he had given Tyne orders through the whole operation, and that the powerful Negro had silently given him some of the finest help he had ever received in the operating theater.

Nor had he expected anything from Kiernan. She had insisted that she wouldn’t leave, but she gave him a very wide berth. When he finished with his patient at last, cleaned up, and came down to the dining room, Janey informed
him that Miz Kiernan had retired for the evening, as had the children.