No Greater Glory Page 2

  As potent as the sting of whiskey poured over an open wound, the sight burned into memory. His stomach muscles clenched, and for one mind-numbing moment, Reece simply stared at the cascading cloud. Only God’s intervention, and his own self-control, kept him from burying his hands in the glorious curls.

  He fought for calmness.

  And won.

  Tight and controlled, his breath eased out in a low rush. “I understand you wish to speak with me?”

  “Yes, Colonel Cutteridge. Six hours ago to be exact.”

  “I’ve been busy.” He motioned to the glass panes that graced both sides of the massive front door. “I’m sure you’ve noticed from your many windows.”

  “How dare you stand here and state your duties take precedence over my concerns for my people?” Her hand rose and she fanned her fingers across a row of mother-of-pearl buttons. “It’s my property you’re destroying, and you’re stealing the very food that would have fed us the entire winter! Have you no heart, you…blackguard?” A gust of wind wafted the crisp bite of burning pine around them to underscore her words.

  Reece sharply exhaled. “I’m not uncaring about your situation, ma’am. Unfortunately, military orders take precedence over civilian concerns.”

  “Military orders such as securing Shapinsay as your spoils of war?”

  “As I’ve already mentioned, we’re bivouacking here to wait out winter and the arrival of the main army.”

  “The main army? So I can soon expect the whole Yankee nation to descend upon my home like a plague of locusts?” Her finger pointed eastward, the hair net a beribboned silk web dangling from her hand.

  “My regiment will be the only one here. And you don’t need to know the whereabouts of the rest.” Though she was a woman, this one had already proven dangerous.

  She tossed the netting and white shawl to the mirrored hall tree and then turned; it seemed she expected him to follow. She led the way down the wide passage toward a parlor and slipped inside. He waited at the doorway of the well-appointed room. Grabbing a pile of military vouchers from the side table, she whirled to face him, furiously wiggling the scripts in midair.

  “Explain to me how these scraps of paper your errand boys keep delivering can ever hope to correct your thieving ways?”

  Reece leaned against the doorframe. “They’re payment vouchers for the things I’ve confiscated.”

  Her hand froze in midair. “Payment?”

  “That’s right. They’re authorized payment vouchers. And you may redeem them for monetary compensation at the Quartermaster General’s office in Washington D.C.”

  She stared at him. With each breath, her chest rose and fell. Then, she drew the vouchers to her stomach and her sharp laugh filled the room.

  “Well, of course they are. How foolish of me. If you’ll please excuse me, Colonel, I’ll just go saddle my horse for the journey to your Yankee capitol to claim my…what was it you said? My monetary compensation? Yes, I’m certain to have no trouble at all crossing your main army lines to recoup my staggering loss.” She tossed the vouchers to the side table and they spread out like playing cards.

  Her voice swirled downward into a wicked whisper. “Do not mistake me for a fool. These are absolutely useless to me now and you know it.”

  Reece stepped through the doorway. In four strong strides, he loomed over her. Her attack on the war was one thing, but mocking him and his damned integrity, entirely another.

  “Look,” he snapped, his ire rising. “This war doesn’t sort out or spare those who are innocent, and I have no control over its course.”

  “This war is nothing short of idiocy!” Her index finger jabbed him in the chest near the row of eagle-faced buttons. “I repeatedly told my brother this fact before he rode off with Stuart’s cavalry. And I’m telling you now!”

  His heart thumped against the spot where her finger stabbed. Reece pressed closer, crumpling the slender digit back into her palm.

  “A well-championed point which matters little.” The evenness of his voice surprised him. Her hand dropped away, and Reece caught the haunting glimmer of anguish in her eyes. From somewhere deep inside, unexpected and unwanted, a spark flared. He struggled to deny the empathy that swelled upward. Instead, he affixed her with a trenchant glare. “My regimental surgeon has requested the use of your house for his wounded. I agreed with him, and requisition the lower quarters effective tomorrow morning. A detail of soldiers will move your belongings at first light, however, your privacy upstairs will be honored.”

  She stiffened, sucking in an audible gasp. They stood so close his breath stirred the wisps of dark silk that framed her face. Soft lines creased the corners of both eyes. Her head moved in denial as a groan caught deep in her throat.

  Trembling lips parted, and she whispered, “No…”

  “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it absolutely necessary.” Reece reined hard on his irritation and turned away. When he reached the doorway, he paused only long enough to add, “And by the way, Mrs. McDaniels, the government no longer requires us to issue payment vouchers. And most officers don’t bother.”

  He barely cleared the front door before she slammed it behind him.

  Chapter Two

  “The house is ready, sir.”

  Reece stood outside the command post under a large canvas tent fly, scanning the half-dozen soldiers clustered behind the junior officer. A myriad of weary expressions creased their faces.

  “Did you encounter any problems?” he asked.

  “Well, aside from her blocking us each time we entered a room and then following us up and down the stairs while we stacked her possessions in the attic, all the while demanding we remove our filthy Yankee hands from her cherished belongings, no problems to speak of, sir.”

  A sharp laugh filled the enclosure behind Reece and seconds later, the scent of burning tobacco melded with the aroma of frying bacon wafting across the encampment. Reece shot a glance over his shoulder before returning his attention to the courier.

  “And, sir,” the young man continued.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “We’re all wondering if in the future we might be assigned some other detail that doesn’t involve her.”

  Another deep chuckle spilled from the ten-by-twelve-foot enclosure behind him. Reece shifted his weight, his jaw tightening. He offered the soldiers a quick nod. “I’ll keep your request in mind, gentlemen. I’ve had my own run-in with the hellion, so I completely understand. Thank you for your hard work this morning. Please notify Doctor Evans his hospital is ready.”

  “Yes, sir. We will, sir.” The men saluted and Reece returned the gesture. He watched them head toward a row of Sibleys in the distance. The white canvas, teepee-shaped tents soared upward to resemble mountain peaks covered with snow.

  Reece drew a steadying breath and exhaled before turning to face his second-in-command sitting inside the headquarters tent. Jackson Neale teetered on a camp chair’s two back legs, his white teeth gleaming between lips pulled back in a broad, mischievous grin.

  “Why do you always have to laugh at the most asinine times?” The scowl Reece aimed at his friend never quite reached his voice.

  Jackson exhaled a thin stream of smoke into the air. A cigar propped between the two fingers he pointed at Reece waggled. “You know, if the Johnnies just recruited her, these bastards could win this war in no time.”

  Reece reentered the tent, then settled into a chair beside the table, pushing aside his coffee cup. The tepid brew sloshed over the side to pool beneath the battered tin. He stared at the widening puddle. “She’s reckless, foolishly so. And headstrong besides.” He swept aside the mess, and looked out the canvas opening toward the mansion, wiping his hand down his pants leg. A sliver of something real and raw curled inside his heart and sent an unexpected smile to his lips to disperse the contempt. “She is one hell of a woman, though…isn’t she?”

  His gaze cleared the front lawn and wide veranda, then skipped aro
und the side yard to settle on the edge of the rough-hewn stable visible from where he sat. The audacious upstart was nowhere in sight. Reece swallowed his rising disappointment just as a warning flag unfurled inside his mind.

  For someone who’d spent the past year ignoring the many fine northern ladies available at his beck and call, that he now should be searching for some rebellious southerner who surely despised him was rather discomforting. A wave of unrest spurted through him as he re-anchored his common sense. Engaging in an ongoing battle of wills with the widow McDaniels was nowhere on his list of responsibilities. Riding in and riding back out…detached and in control, that was his sole focus.

  His gaze returned to Jackson. Still leaning backward, the major tested both the strength of the wood and Reece’s uncoiling patience. An annoying, quizzical look furrowed his friend’s brow. “She’s quite the beauty, though, don’t you think?”

  Reece lifted the copy of D.H. Mahan’s Treatise on Field Fortifications resting near his elbow. His left hand splayed beneath the worn cover as he nestled the book against his open palm, and his right searched for the chapter he’d been reading before the envoy of soldiers had reported in from their morning assignment.

  “She’s beautiful, yes. More noteworthy, however, is her tenacity, her determination; an anomaly seldom seen in women.” He paged through the tactical, the words and drawings slipping by in a blur. That his heart raced at a ridiculous beat further frustrated Reece. And for some unfathomable reason, he couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut. “Not many women could handle the day-to-days of a plantation this size with a mere handful of workers.” The pages fanned past as his lips twisted into a wry grin, his voice deepening. “And not just any woman would’ve pulled that trigger.”

  Jackson lowered his chair to the ground.

  The thud drew Reece’s attention and he closed the book with a loud whoosh. Calloused fingers dug into the dog-eared cover as he realized, in that moment, where he’d slipped up in this conversation. Jackson’s inevitable rush of concern would most likely arrive with his next breath. In fact, all the man needed was a banner propped on the brim of his slouch hat that proclaimed, You’re making a mistake here, you damn fool.

  Just as Reece dropped the treatise to the weather-beaten wood marred by a dozen or more campaigns, Jackson placed both hands on the other side of the camp table and drew forward. The gold fob chain from a tobacco cutter snugged inside his vest pocket swayed, kicking a glint toward Reece.

  “Yes, she’s quite bewitching, I’ll grant you that,” he stated, caution painting his words a scarlet red. “A neat little package just ripe for the picking. But let’s not forget why we’re here, all right? And while we’re at it, let’s also not forget we’ll be moving out in a few short months.”

  Jackson’s apparent compulsion to counsel him only deepened the disquiet simmering inside Reece. Unfelt amusement pushed his lips sideways as his gaze bored into his best friend’s. “I’m well aware of my regiment’s purpose and I do believe I’ll know when it’s time to move, since I’m the one who issues the damn orders.”

  The air inside the tent grew thick with things unsaid as the cigar returned with a flourish to Jackson’s mouth. He settled back in the chair, smiling around white teeth that clenched the cheroot. The tip glowed red, just before another aromatic cloud bloomed into the space between them.

  “Well that’s good to hear,” he quipped, his words wobbling past the thin cigar. “Let’s just hope you don’t forget all that when her fancy little derrière starts twisting you around in circles.”

  “Oh I’m sure you’ll remind me,” Reece said, stifling a smile. He lifted the coffee cup and paused just before the tin met his lips. “Now get the hell out of my tent and call the troops into order for morning inspection before I decide to court-martial your sorry ass for insubordination.”

  Laughter trailed off behind Jackson as he left the tent.

  White clouds tumbled across the early morning sky to taunt the sunbeams streaming through Emaline’s parlor window. Sunlight splashed across her feet and pooled upon the poplar floor, the claret-colored carpet of wool now rolled up and carried away. Dust motes danced in the bright beam, their ghostly caper oblivious to the changes in her life.

  Soldiers earlier had stacked everything in the attic…everything except her beautiful Steinway. A gift from Benjamin on her twenty-fifth birthday, the piano was too heavy to lift so the blue-coated brutes simply pushed it against the twelve-foot wall and draped canvas over the magnificent instrument. True to the colonel’s words, the only rooms left undisturbed were the second floor bedrooms, the small upstairs library, and surprisingly, the winter kitchen at the back of the house.

  Emaline crossed through the empty sitting room and stepped into the center passageway dividing the house in two. The walls were bare, stripped of all paintings and portraits. The chandelier that had illuminated the entry hall was gone, its individual crystals either stolen or dumped into a box and carted up to the attic. Everywhere she looked, the area was devoid of furniture.

  Her footfalls echoed in the emptiness.

  Fighting back tears, she walked through the sitting room and into Benjamin’s downstairs library. All of his books and portraits, everything except the heavy desk was gone. With silent, serene dignity, her home now waited to embrace the dying.

  Emaline completed the circuit and reentered the front parlor just as soldiers added a plank of wood across two tables between the front windows. Flickering flames in the nearby fireplace drew her scoff. Not a single pot of water set to boil on the hearth. That absence told Emaline all she needed to know about the inadequacies of the colonel’s medical team.

  Years earlier, when Euley had trained her in nursing skills, the old woman insisted she boil things first. When questioned why, she answered, “’Cause I said so, dat’s why.” Even though Emaline never understood the reasoning, she still followed the woman’s sage advice. For without that step, wounds putrefied. These Yankee fools obviously knew nothing about Euley’s curative secret. Good! The entire multitude could rot together, and if God had any sense, he’d start with the colonel.

  A commotion outside drew her to the closest window. Three mule-drawn ambulance wagons lined up across the front lawns. Snippets of conversations about a cavalry raid near Kelly’s Ford that morning filled her ears. Her cheeks flushed; many of Benjamin’s business associates resided there. Soldiers lifted wounded patients from deep wagon beds, carried them inside, and in a matter of minutes, a sea of agony sprawled before her. Emaline found no victory in their suffering despite her search to find such feelings.

  She turned to flee when a sharp tug on her skirt caused her to jump in alarm. A wounded soldier, mumbling incoherently, had tangled his hands in the mauve-colored, bombazine folds of her day dress. A low gasp tumbled from her mouth when his pleading brown eyes met hers. Emaline winced. These were not her people, and these wounds were not the simple scrapes received while working Shapinsay’s fields. She stepped back, yet her skirt flowed outward. The soldier gave another frantic pull. Another garbled sentence followed. Emaline tamped down a surge of panic when his pitiful words finally registered.

  “…water, ma’am. Please. Help me.”

  Her bitterness melted.

  She scanned the area and spotted a water bucket sitting on the floor near the window. A battered tin ladle hung from its side. Impulsively, she reached for it and dipped the metal spoon into the liquid. Droplets splashed across her once-polished floor. The implement met his lips and he drank. Then his eyes slipped closed, yet his fingers still gripped her skirt. Emaline replaced the ladle and slowly stood, waiting for his clasp to loosen.

  A portly man shuffled into the room and nearly bumped into her.

  “There you are!” he proclaimed, his voice warm and gregarious. “You’re the mistress of this fine home, are you not?”

  She pulled free from the clutches of the now-unconscious soldier, and turned to face the new arrival. Shocks of silvery hair poked in
every direction from the man’s head and deep lines curved around his cornflower blue eyes, resembling an aged pair of parenthesis. She scanned lower. A cottony-white moustache spilled over his thin lips, and swept upward to join thick, mutton-chopped side-whiskers that hugged his flushed round cheeks. The man stood barely an inch above her height of five feet, and his military frockcoat gaped open to reveal a disheveled ivory-colored shirt. Splotches of dried blood encrusted the cotton. He clutched a weathered satchel under his arm.

  Is this bizarre creature their doctor?

  He smiled. And Emaline swallowed, so captured by his distinctiveness that she imagined his eyes illumined with some mesmeric inner force. “Are you deaf, woman? I asked if this is your home.”

  She restrained the impulse to salute. “Y-yes. I’m the owner.”

  He crossed to the surgical table and placed his bag upon the plank of wood with a resounding thump. “Name’s Thaddeus Evans, ma’am,” he brightly announced, “I’m the colonel’s regimental surgeon. I’m pleased you’ve come to offer your nursing skills. I’ll take all the extra help I can get.” He arranged the medical implements across the makeshift table, so entangled in his task that he failed to see the negative shake of her head. “I prefer doctoring inside as opposed to a drafty tent, but these damn fools keep forgetting that fact.” He glanced up. “Pardon my cursing, ma’am, but I’ve repeatedly told them I work best when out of the elements.” He returned to his chore. “Now the colonel, here, well he completely understands. And he’s a damn good man, the colonel.” He smiled at her again and then winked. “Pardon again, but, I’m relieved to get assigned to his regiment. These rooms here are exactly what I’ve been wanting.” He gestured around for emphasis, a wicked-looking saw clutched in his hand. The pecan casements and expensive wallpaper embossed with magnolias and twining vines, as well as the rococo texturing and plate railing that circled the top half of the walls now seemed grotesquely out of place. “But I’m glad you agreed with him, ma’am. Damn glad. So jump in and help wherever you can.”