One Wore Blue (5 page)

Jesse stepped back with a weary look in his eyes.

“Kiernan, Turner
owns
Cissy. By law, he can beat her.”

“He’ll kill her!”

“Kiernan, you should have thought about Cissy’s position before you invited her along.”

“I just wanted her to have some fun. He works her so hard. She always looks so very tired. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I’d never hurt her! Oh, I’d like to tear his hair out!”

“A few more years on you, Miss Mackay, and you’d probably try,” he said lightly. Then he added, “All right, all right. Go on home, Kiernan. I’ll do what I can.”

She hadn’t gone home. She’d followed Jesse back to Turner’s farm, and she’d hid back in the bushes. Jesse had ridden in on the action, dismounted from his horse, and stripped the cane right out of Turner’s hands. Old Man Turner swung around, but even though Jesse hadn’t quite reached twenty, he was very tall and broad-shouldered and Turner wasn’t about to wrestle with him. Still, he had his say.

“You ain’t got no right, boy, you ain’t got no right. Even if you do come from Cameron money!”

“You’re going to beat this child to death, Turner!” Jesse had exclaimed.

“She’s mine, and she was a runaway.”

“She wasn’t any runaway, and you know it!” Jesse said angrily.

Turner’s voice lowered, and the two of them argued onward.

At the end of it all, Jesse produced a large wad of money, and suddenly Cissy, dazed and silent now except for her sniffles, was on the back of Jesse’s horse.

Jesse had bought her from Turner. A week later, the Camerons bought the rest of her family—her mother, her father—a rickety old field hand—and her baby brother.

Maybe it was then that her infatuation really began.

Ah, but Jesse could still infuriate her! He treated her like a child!

When her father had staged her coming-out ball, she’d thought that Jesse was off with the military, either in Washington or out in the West fighting Indians. It had been a wonderful night for her. She was tied into an incredible corset, wearing what seemed like a million petticoats. For the first time her father allowed her a fashionable adult gown with a daring, daring bosom. Her hair was curled and elegantly piled on top of her head. She felt beautiful and very grown-up—and more. She felt very confident with herself as a woman, and she had the time of her life flirting, smiling, and dancing. The young men flocked to her, and it was wonderful. She knew that she must never really torment a young swain, but it was certainly proper enough to be a very charming flirt, and she couldn’t help but enjoy her power.

That is, she had enjoyed it until she saw Jesse. He had been leaning in a doorway watching her, and she realized that he had been watching her for quite some time. There was a very irritating amusement in his eyes and in his lopsided smile.

And then he came to her to claim a dance and swept her
into his arms, even though she had promised the dance to someone else.

“Ah, but you are growing up to fulfill your every promise of beauty, Miss Mackay!” he had assured her. But his blue gaze had still been alight with laughter, even when he had bent over her hand and brushed it with a kiss. The kiss brought a flush to her cheeks, and she wanted to kick him even as she felt palpitations pulsing beneath her breast, right in the area of her heart. “So who are you out to dazzle tonight?” he asked.

“The world, Jesse Cameron,” she told him sweetly. But when he laughed again and released her, she had been careful to accidentally tread upon his toes with her new leather pumps.

Jesse could go hang! She had outgrown Jesse Cameron, outgrown that kind of infatuation, she told herself firmly that night in 1859 at Harpers Ferry. She wasn’t in awe of Jesse anymore. She had grown up—and she had grown up with definite opinions, so she was probably—to Jesse—more than ever a “wayward little dickens.”

Jesse could be amusing and polite. He could even be charming—when he chose to be so, she thought. He never minced his words or opinions, and he had never given a fig for popular thought. He was incapable of bending or compromising, she reminded herself. If she married him, he would surely never accept her advice the way Anthony did.

Nor would he tolerate indecisiveness on the question. Jesse would demand all or nothing if he demanded anything.

Anthony was by far the more civil man.

Jesse was really nothing compared to Anthony.

It was the feeling she had had for Jesse that she remembered. The excitement when he was near, the wild, challenging excitement, the shivers, the tremors. It was that feeling she missed with Anthony. It wasn’t Anthony’s fault. She simply wasn’t a child anymore, so naturally she did not feel those things.

“Look! Oh, Kiernan! Someone’s moving down there again!” Lacey called.

Kiernan hadn’t been paying attention. By the time she looked, whoever had moved—if he had moved—had disappeared.

“Lacey, I’m sorry. I just don’t see anything.”

“You’re not trying!” Lacey told her.

“All right, all right, I’ll keep my eyes open this time, I promise,” Kiernan assured her.

A moment later, they heard the whistle from the night train. It was about one thirty.

“Everything is all right. The midnight train has come through,” Kiernan said.

Lacey shivered emphatically. “I tell you, something is going on tonight.”

A fierce chill swept through Kiernan. She still hadn’t seen a thing, but she suddenly sensed that maybe Lacey’s fears were based on something real.

Kiernan looked from Lacey back to the window. She blinked, certain that she had seen a movement by the shadowy buildings. Little pricks of unease danced up and down her spine. Lacey was right—there was something going on.

But it didn’t affect them, she thought. Surely they were safe in Lacey’s home.

She turned back to her hostess once again. “Lacey, have we got a gun in the house?”

Lacey slowly shook her head, and Kiernan almost laughed. They were alone because the men were off to find a spot for a new weapons-productions plant, and they hadn’t a single firearm in the house.

“Oh, Kiernan! Do you think we’re in trouble?”

“Of course not,” Kiernan told her. “Maybe it’s just a late meeting down there or an inspection going on or something of that sort.”

“Then why would they sneak around? And why would I have heard a shot?”

Kiernan shrugged. She wanted to assure Lacey, but she herself was now convinced that something wasn’t right. The people below did seem to be slinking, or making movements that just weren’t right.

“I’m sure we’re in no danger,” she told Lacey. After all,
why would they be? It was a big town. And as two women alone, they certainly offered no one any kind of a threat. Lacey and Thomas lived comfortably, but they weren’t particularly wealthy, so there were no great treasures in the house.

But whoever had come into Harpers Ferry hadn’t come for wealth or riches. Kiernan knew that, just as she knew that something was happening.

“Why don’t we go down and have a glass of sherry?” she suggested.

“We can’t see the town from downstairs,” Lacey told her. Kiernan smiled. “Then we’ll bring the sherry up here. How’s that?”

That suggestion appealed to Lacey. The two women lit the candle by Kiernan’s bedside and hurried downstairs to the parlor by Thomas’s office for the sherry.

They must look like a pair of wraiths, Kiernan thought. She had on a lace-trimmed white cotton gown that seemed to float as she moved, and Lacey wore a pale blue gown, an eerie color in the night. Harpers Ferry already had ghost stories. It was said that down by the old Harper house, a ghost could often be seen in the windows. It was supposed to be Mrs. Harper, watching over the gold her husband had supposedly buried somewhere in the yard. Some said that George Washington, who had been determined that this would be the site for the armory, still walked the streets upon occasion, checking out his interests.

And there were the Indians, of course. Potomac and Shenandoah were still shedding their tears.

Back in the guest room, Kiernan poured them each a glass of sherry. They took up sentinel in rockers on either side of the window, sipping the drink. Lacey seemed happy enough, either content that they were safe, or enjoying their impromptu party.

Kiernan was growing increasingly more uncomfortable. There
was
movement out there, by the firehouse, and by the armory buildings. And the night was passing swiftly. Looking out at the sky and toward the mountains and the rivers,
Kiernan thought that the first pink streaks of day would soon reach delicately over the water.

Lacey was telling her about a party she had attended in Washington recently, marveling at how quickly the railroad had taken her into the capital city. Kiernan swallowed more sherry. She had just begun to relax when she heard a fierce pounding on the door below.

She and Lacey leaped out of their chairs at the same time, staring at each other.

“What do we do?” Lacey cried.

“Ignore it!” Kiernan suggested.

“What if someone is trying to help us?”

“What if someone is trying to hurt us?”

Wide-eyed, they continued to stare at each other.

And then they heard the glass of the office door below shatter as it crashed open. Lacey yelped, and Kiernan managed to swallow back a scream. It wouldn’t help to let anyone know where they were.

“Lacey, we need something, anything! Why is there not a single weapon in this house!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know—we never needed a weapon in the house!” Lacey countered, wringing her hands.

Barking at poor Lacey wouldn’t help a thing, Kiernan realized. She was just as terrified herself.

Then they heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

Kiernan saw a parasol in the corner of the room. She dived for it, wondering what earthly good it would do her. But she couldn’t just stand there and accept whatever happened. She couldn’t allow anyone to come in and harm poor dear Lacey. She would have to fight.

With a parasol!

They heard the door to Lacey’s bedroom across the hall being thrown open and footsteps moving about.

“Hide!” Kiernan whispered to Lacey.

“Where?” Lacey demanded.

There was nowhere to hide. It was a pleasant, comfortable room, warmed by Lacey’s special touches, but it was small and sparsely furnished. There was the bed, a wardrobe, the two padded rockers, and a nightstand.

“Slip under the bed!” Kiernan suggested, then realized that Lacey could not slip her round form into any such space.

“You
hide, Kiernan Mackay,” Lacey told her. Her command was heroic, for Kiernan could see the frantic race of Lacey’s pulse above the ruffles at her throat.

“I’d never leave you alone—” Kiernan began, but the question suddenly became moot as the door to the room burst open.

Two men stood before them, and both were armed. One aimed a Colt at Lacey’s heart, and the taller of the two, a bearded black man, held a rifle pointed straight at Kiernan.

Her own heart leaped with fear, and she forced herself to stand tall and indignant.

“Who in God’s name are you, and how dare you burst into a private residence to threaten vulnerable women!” she cried out with vehemence that surprised her. Her hands were clammy. She’d never been more frightened in her life.

“We’re soldiers for freedom, miss,” the shorter, white man told her. “And you’re Kiernan Mackay, the daughter of John Mackay, slaveholder.”

“I am Kiernan Mackay,” she acknowledged coldly. “And you—”

“We’re the revolution. It’s starting here, tonight. The country will rise here, this very night.”

She swallowed hard, realizing that he was talking about a slave revolution.

Such things had happened in the Caribbean and South America, she knew. Slaves had risen against their masters and mistresses, and the carnage had been horrible. People had been butchered in their beds—little children, anyone.

But she couldn’t believe that that could happen here. Certainly not in Lacey’s home—when Thomas had always made it clear that he would never own another human being.

“You have no right to come here!” she said. “Revolution, indeed! You’d hurt anyone in your reckless endeavors.”

“We don’t mean no harm to Mrs. Donahue,” the man said, frightening Kiernan further. He knew them both! He
knew that it was Lacey’s house, and he had known that Kiernan would be in it. Whatever was going on had been well organized. “But Miss Mackay, you’re to come with us.”

“No,” she said flatly.

Lacey wedged her plump body between Kiernan and the men in the doorway. “You’ll not touch this girl, you ruffians! I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with a young woman—”

“Nothing evil, ma’am,” the tall black man assured her. “We’ve come under the guidance of John Brown, and John Brown comes under the guidance of the Lord. But the war has begun, and Miss Mackay is to come with us—a hostage for John Brown.”

John Brown
. Her blood simmered hotly, then chilled to ice. John Brown had ruthlessly butchered men. He was a fanatic, and he did believe that he killed men in the name of God. She badly wanted to disdain these men, but she was very frightened. Surely John Brown didn’t wage war upon women and children!

“We don’t want to hurt you,” the short white man told Kiernan. “If you’ll come along quietly …”

She didn’t want them to hurt her either. But if she went with them, what then?

She shook her head slowly. “No, I can’t come with you. I’m not dressed.”

“That’s right!” Lacey said. “You can’t take a young woman out on the streets like this!” Lacey played for time because Kiernan was playing for time. But what good was time going to do them? If they meant to harm her, Kiernan wasn’t going to allow them to do so without a fight. She still held the parasol. She wrapped her hands tightly around it. But what good was a parasol against guns?

“Miss Mackay, you’re to come now. If you resist us any longer, I’ll truss you up like a Christmas turkey, and Cain here”—the short man indicated his tall black companion—“will carry you over his shoulder.”

She must not be tied up, Kiernan thought. If she had any chance at all of escape, she couldn’t be tied up. “All right. I’ll walk down the stairs,” she said.