Ashes in the Wind Read online

  “You mean Al?”

  “I don’t know his name. Don’t even know what he looks like. Every time I pass through the hospital, he’s on all fours scrubbing floors. If there’s any part of him I could recognize, it’s his hind end.”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll think about it,” Cole assured the man.

  The older doctor nodded understandingly. “Well, if you should decide in favor if it, bring him up.”

  When Cole left the hospital and came around to untether his roan, he found Al perched on the hitching rail. The captain raised a wondering brow at the lad. “I thought you’d be gone by now. What are you doing here this late?” Cole glanced over the back of the horses tied to the rail. “Where’s that nag you call a horse? Don’t tell me he threw you off his scrawny back.”

  “Ain’t got him today.” The answer was short as Alaina broke pieces from a twig and tossed them into the dust. “Roberta took the carriage, and Uncle Angus had to hitch up Ol’ Tar for hisself.”

  “So you’re left to find your own way back.”

  “Ain’t as bad as that. I was gonna catch the next streetcar over to the store. Uncle Angus should still be there.”

  “And if he’s not?” Cole peered at the lad questioningly.

  “I didn’t come here to beg no ride from you!” Alaina hotly declared, just in case the captain was suggesting it. She cringed at the very idea. Riding behind the captain without the wicker case between them might well get her into more trouble than she was ready for. Indeed, she was well aware that she was beginning to look more and more like a grown woman without her clothes to disguise her.

  “Then what are you waiting around here for?” Cole questioned.

  “I was wondering—” She found it hard to admit that she worried about a Yankee. “I was wonderin’ if—if ‘at last fella made it through all right.”

  Cole led his horse around and stood staring at the young, unkempt lad. Finally Al shrugged away her shame.

  “I gots my weak moments jes’ like everybody else.”

  Cole chuckled. “You do surprise me, Al.”

  “He did make it, didn’t he?” Shading her eyes against the lowering sun, Alaina tried to see his face.

  “Bobby Johnson made it,” Cole conceded. “If he survives the next few days, he just might make it home.”

  “ ‘At’s all I was wantin’ to know.” Al straightened herself to slide off the hitching post but in the process felt herself losing the heavy boots. In an attempt to keep them on, she raised her legs. It was surely not the most graceful descent she had ever made in her life, but it might have been the quickest. The hard ground was there to meet her soft backside when she landed unceremoniously in the dust. Her yelp of pain made Cole’s horse shy. Suddenly seeing that she might be trampled on by the huge beast, Alaina quickly forgot her agony and scrambled up, leaving her boots behind. It was all too much for Cole’s control, and he burst into amused laughter, winning Al’s outraged glare.

  “You sorry Yankee! You’d just as soon let that mule stomp me into the ground!”

  “Now, Al.” Cole chuckled, trying to stem his urge to levity. “I was just watching you dismount that hitching rail. You were the one who frightened Sarg. Don’t blame me.”

  Alaina ruefully rubbed her bruised posterior and wished she could groan her misery in her own natural tones.

  “You’re going to be sore.” Cole offered his wisdom freely. “If you would accept a Yankee doctor’s treatment, I’ve got some liniment in the dayroom I could massage—”

  “No, suh!” Alaina shook her head and was most serious in rebuke. “I ain’t taking down my britches fer no Yankee!”

  Cole was sure Al’s voice carried the whole length of the street and back. He sighed and painfully closed his eyes. “Now that you have everyone staring and no doubt think the worst, are you satisfied?”

  Al cackled gleefully and hooked her slim thumbs in her rope belt. “Gotcha, didn’t I, Yankee? Fer once, I gotcha. And you know somep’n?” She sauntered arrogantly close. “I’ll laugh when they hangs ya.”

  “Major Magruder warned me about you,” Cole remarked dryly. “I should have listened.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like him none neither.”

  “If you care for a ride home,” Cole said tersely and wondered why he should trouble himself, “I’m going that way shortly. You can wait at my apartment while I change my uniform—”

  Alaina looked at him narrowly. “Ya goin’ out to see Roberta?”

  “She invited me to dinner.” Cole leisurely raised an eyebrow. “I need not ask if you mind. Your feelings are apparent.”

  Irritably Al folded her arms across her bosom. “Ain’t no skin off’n my nose what critters Roberta fetches in fer supper. She always was one fer taking up with skunks and whatnot. Anyway, it ain’t my table. Just don’t figger on me joinin’ ya, ‘at’s all. I don’t eat with Yankees less’n I can’t help it.”

  “Do you want the ride?” Cole questioned impatiently.

  “I ain’t of a mind to ride the rump of ‘at high steppin’ nag clear to home,” she replied, rubbing her backside.

  “I had planned to take a buggy from my apartment.” Cole shrugged. “Suit yourself, though. I guess when a boy is as soft as you are, he might just as well take to wearing dresses. As to that,” he gestured casually to the slim, bare feet, “I’ve seen a lot of lady’s slippers bigger than your feet.”

  Self-consciously Alaina curled her thin toes into the dust. “You were gonna fetch up a buggy to ride out?”

  Cole nodded. “Do you want to come along?”

  “I’ll meetcha over your ‘partment maybe,” Al said sheepishly. She didn’t like taking favors from Yankees, but it would save her a penny or two, and nowadays a penny seemed like a fortune.

  “If you’re not there when I come out,” Cole said as he swung onto his mount, “I won’t wait for you.”

  Alaina retrieved her boots. “I’ll be there, Yankee.”

  And so she was, and early enough that she waited some moments across the street for him to appear. Keeping an eye on his apartment window, she strolled around the square until she was pushed roughly aside by several soldiers who brushed boisterously past. Through the gathering darkness, she glared at their backs, then turned to stare angrily at the words General Butler had added to the dedication on the base of the statue of Andrew Jackson—“the Union must and shall be preserved.”

  “Just like a Yankee to rub it in,” she sneered.

  Hearing the rhythmic clip-clop of horse’s hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels, she turned and, recognizing the captain in the buggy seat, waved and hastened toward him. He drew rein beside her. “I was wondering if you would make it.”

  She saw his face in the deep dusk and the soft yellow glow of the buttons on his uniform as they reflected the lights from the gaily illuminated apartments. It sometimes surprised her just how handsome he was. “You sure this is free?”

  Cole pulled a long, slim cigar from his blouse and leisurely rebuttoned the brass. “Seems to me, Al,” he spoke as he struck a sulfur match and puffed the long cheroot alight, “that you’d know when to keep that sharp tongue sheathed, especially when you could lose that which you want.”

  Al indignantly protested. “You was the one what offered! Did I beg ya? Did I, huh?”

  Cole raised the reins to slap them against the horse’s back. “If you don’t want the ride—”

  “Wait!” Alaina bit her lip as Cole leaned back in the seat and grinned. She yielded. “I wouldn’t mind a ride.”

  He tossed his head. “Hop in.”

  She took a step toward the back of the buggy where she intended to hike herself up on the luggage boot, but Cole’s terse inquiry halted her. “Where are you going?”

  When she shrugged lamely and gestured to the back, he slapped the seat beside him. “Right here where I can keep an eye on you. From now on I think I’ll heed Magruder’s advice.”

  Hesitantly, Alaina eased into th
e seat beside him. She didn’t like sitting so close, not when he smelled so fresh and clean, and she had the awful odor of rancid grease in her hair. Self-consciously she tugged down the floppy brim of her hat and sat mutely silent for most of the way home. The contrast between them was excruciatingly painful when she allowed herself to forget that he was a Yankee and remembered he was a man and she, a young woman.

  Chapter 7

  THE evening was laden with the sound of tree frogs and chirping crickets, of blended voices drifting up from the parlor below, and of masculine laughter, deep and rich. A cool, languid breeze gently swayed the branches of the huge oaks, rustling their leaves and sweeping the fragrance of sweet shrub through the open balcony doors of Alaina’s bedroom. The soft, silvery radiance of the moonlit night touched the delicate but pensive features as the girl stood in the open balcony doors. She was a prisoner in her own room, trapped by the presence of the Yankee below. And she was lonely, so miserably alone and forlorn she felt the sharp ache of it deep within her chest. Never before had she known such confinement, and the tinkling brightness of Roberta’s laughter made the very walls close in about her. It threaded its way with merciless mockery through her head, turning the room into a torture chamber.

  Alaina rolled her head against the door molding and with misty eyes stared back into the tall mirror that stood in her room. She found no comfort in what she saw. Despite Captain Latimer being in the house she had managed a bath in the pantry, then had slipped through the bushes skirting the house and stealthily climbed the gallery stairs to her bedroom. The solitary figure in the silvered glass looked more like a young woman than her usual attire allowed her, but the dark, softly curling hair was unsuitably short, and the loose, threadbare nightgown far from flattering.

  Alaina’s gaze roamed to the armoire that held her meager belongings, and she knew a strange yearning to dress in something pretty and feminine, to be treated as a woman, to be able to smile and laugh with her own girlish gaiety, instead of having to curb the softer looks and lower her voice to a deepness that made her throat ache.

  This guise of stripling lad was the charade she must play. Yet it was becoming increasingly difficult to don those wretched clothes and assume the personality that was more repugnant each morning. Bit by bit the masquerade was robbing her of her womanhood.

  An illusion increasingly haunted her. In her mind she saw the tall, lean form of Captain Latimer sweep past and on his arm, a woman clothed in deep red silk. His face was animated and alive as he paid court to the lady, and on his knee he vowed his love. The woman’s hand reached out as if bestowing knighthood upon the handsome head, and his lips touched the slim fingers and traced a path along the bare, white arm. The vision widened and the full red lips he kissed became the visage of her cousin, Roberta.

  Alaina wandered out onto the balcony, seeking the cool evening breezes and fleeing the apparition in which “Al” could have no part. Doubts drummed with heavy blows upon the already crumbling walls of her confidence. She could never hope to be the woman Roberta was, a woman who attracted men wherever she went. She was destined to be just plain Al, scrawny, boyish, unattractive. Painful as it was to accept, scrubbing floors seemed her future, while Roberta need do nothing more than smile helplessly and have the whole world offered to her.

  Slowly Alaina meandered down the balcony stairs until she could survey the lower gallery. A shaft of light streamed from the parlor, illuminating the lower steps, and she dared go no farther for fear she might be seen. At the far end of the portico sat the bench and chairs around which, on those rare visits to the city, she and her brothers had played as children, while Roberta tirelessly dressed china dolls in clever gowns and frilly bonnets.

  Roberta’s laughter intruded upon the stillness of the night, and joining it was the captain’s deep, rich chuckle and the reluctant chortle of Uncle Angus.

  “Captain, it seems you’ve been nearly everywhere,” Roberta crooned. “Besides your home, what is your favorite place? Paris perhaps?”

  Leaning down, Alaina peered through the parlor window and watched Cole as he responded with a gallant declaration.

  “There were none in Paris more beautiful than the one before me now, Miss Craighugh.”

  Alaina raised her eyes heavenward and made serious consideration about praying for his soul. It was Angus’s rather heavy clearing of his throat that prompted the captain to rise to his feet.

  “However, as much as I’ve enjoyed your charming company,” he took Roberta’s hand decorously, “the hour is late, and I must be going.” He bestowed a light kiss on the soft, pale hand, and self-consciously Alaina gripped her work-reddened hands between her knees. She was too caught up in watching Captain Latimer’s departure to think of escaping.

  “I hope you will come again,” Roberta murmured demurely, slipping an arm through Cole’s and walking him to the front door. Alaina drew herself into a small knot as she realized the captain was opening the door and stepping out. Roberta followed, and it was not so dark that Alaina could not see her cousin stroke his chest and lean into him provocatively, pressing her bosom closely to that blue uniform. “You will come again, won’t you, Cole?”

  Alaina’s cheeks burned as she found herself in the next moment an unwilling witness to the doctor’s passionate response. Roberta was crushed against that hard chest. His mouth came down upon those red lips with a fervor that made Alaina breathless just watching. She had never before in her life watched a man kiss a woman in such a fashion and felt much the intruder, yet at the same time a strange excitement began to pulse through her veins. Suddenly the thought of being kissed in the same manner by Cole Latimer made her warm and dizzy. When he touched Roberta’s breast, it was her own that tingled until the nipple rose taut beneath her nightgown.

  “You’ll come tomorrow, won’t you, Cole?” Roberta whispered the plea. “You won’t let me sit here all by my lonesome, will you?”

  “I have duty,” he breathed as his lips traveled along her cheek.

  “Duty?” Roberta’s appeal was soft and muted. “Can’t you forget duty for a while, Cole? I’ll be here all alone tomorrow. Mama’s going to the store, and Dulcie has to go to market. Won’t you come, please?” Her lily white hand covered his, pressing her bosom almost to overflowing her décolletage. “We’ll have the whole afternoon to ourselves.”

  It amazed Alaina that Roberta could remain so purposeful beneath his caresses when she herself, only observing, was as much atremble as a willow in a windstorm. The warm, yearning tide of feeling that throbbed within her loins was strange and alien to her, and reluctantly she conceded that if she were the one within his arms, she’d be nearly swooning by now.

  Footsteps in the hall intruded, and Roberta snatched free and began smoothing her hair.

  “I must be going,” Cole whispered. “Your father is growing fretful.”

  “I’ll be expecting you tomorrow,” Roberta smiled tenderly.

  About to turn away, Cole paused. “I’m sorry, Roberta. I really have duty.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Roberta pouting petulantly as she watched him ride away. Being caught alone in a house with the captain would have been a surefire way of bringing this spasmodic courtship to a quick marriage, and her mother would probably have been the one to find them, having expressed her intentions of staying away only an hour or two.

  “Daddy?” she called into the house. “I need a new gown, something real pretty.”

  “Roberta! I must protest!” Angus came to stand in the door. “You know how hard it is to come by even the few coins we manage to make at the store. I don’t have enough to spare.”

  “Oh, Daddy, don’t be such a worried goose. Alaina pays you tomorrow, and I’m sure Madame Henrí will wait for the rest of the money if you promise to pay her each week.”

  “Roberta, I can’t! It wouldn’t be right!”

  “Daddy, I’m going to catch me a rich man,” the young woman stated matter-of-factly. “And I’ll need all the help I c
an get. If I wear rags, he’ll think I’m just after his money.”

  “If you’re thinking about that Yankee—” Angus’s anger was genuine. “Rich or not, I don’t want him in this house again! This evening has upset your mother. And besides, what will the neighbors think?”

  “Oh, what do I care about them? They’re a bunch of old fuddies anyway.”

  “You should show more respect, Roberta,” Angus chided.

  “I know, Daddy,” Roberta sighed laboriously. “But I’m so sick of having to scrimp for pennies.”

  “Come in, and go to bed, child. No use fretting your pretty head.”

  “I’ll come in a moment, Daddy. It’s so nice out here, I’d like to enjoy the evening a bit longer.”

  “Very well, but not too late.”

  Roberta hummed softly to herself as she waltzed gaily about the gallery. She could almost imagine herself at a grand military ball such as Banks was purported to give, wearing the most beautiful gown there and, of course, having as her escort the most handsome man.

  Suddenly she gasped and came to a frightened halt as a pale apparition on the stairs took on human form. “Al!” she hissed, recognizing the small shape. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in your room.”

  “The name is Alaina,” the younger cousin corrected and turned on bare feet to climb the stairs. “Would you mind using it?”

  Roberta sneered bitingly, enraged that the girl had been eavesdropping. “You always did look more like an Al than any Alaina, anyway.”

  The younger cousin half whirled at the caustic comment, stared at the shadowed, smirking face, then continued on up the stairs, tossing back over her shoulder, “At least you don’t see me throwing myself at a Yankee.”

  “You’re just jealous!” Roberta followed her to accuse. “You’re jealous because you’ll never be able to catch a man like Cole Latimer. You and your scrawny—why, he’d laugh you right out of bed!”