Shadow of Dawn (27 page)

She caught the words “General Lee.”
Frustrated, she pressed hard against the wall and strained to hear.
The wind had begun to pick up in velocity and she could only make
out a word here and there.

“…near Fredericksburg…next engagement…hit
during confusion…hire rifleman…April or May…”

A sudden gust swept the cap from Catherine’s
head, and it flew away into the woods as though it had a life of
its own. She dashed after it, knowing that if someone found it, a
search would be made for its owner. She caught it and breathlessly
made her way back to her post, only to hear the sound of chairs
scraping against the floor. They were leaving.

She scrambled up and saw to her horror that a
door between her and her sanctuary of shrubs was opening slowly and
with a loud rasp of rusty hinges. She slid sideways in the opposite
direction until she reached the other end of the house and slipped
around it, flattening herself against the wall as if she could make
herself invisible. Muffled footsteps told her that someone else was
coming around the other side of the house.

Trapped, she thought. It didn’t seem real.
She felt a strange sense of familiarity, as though she had done all
this before, or dreamed it, and now it was coming true and she was
powerless to change the outcome—except she couldn’t remember the
outcome.

Did this mean she was about to die?

Her knees shaking, she peeked over the right
side of the wall. Two men were striding away, toward the horses
farther back in the woods. The man on the other side, who in a
moment would be in viewing distance, stopped at a call from within
and went back inside the house through the front entrance. She took
the opportunity to scoot around to the opposite side, passed below
the windows, and knelt down inside the heavy, prickly brush.

She could hear nothing but the rise and fall
of voices, then a sound exploded shockingly in her ears, rattling
the windows and scaring her so badly she fell backward, pricking
herself on the nettles.

It was so dark now that she could no longer
see the other two men, but they did not return to investigate. A
third man left the house hurriedly and she could only make out the
dim outline of a figure wearing a hat. He must have left his horse
at such a distance that she had not seen it.

She waited a long time but no further sound
came to her ears. The silence within the house was ominous. She
knew there had been four men, and only three had left.

The wind whistled and flapped a loose board
somewhere on the dilapidated structure. No one returned to the
house. Now the darkness was on her side, for she felt certain she
could no longer be seen. She climbed out of the bushes, still
clutching her cap in her hands. The braid had come loose from the
top of her head and hung down her back; the wind tugged out wisps
of hair that tickled her face. She couldn’t seem to get a full
breath of air, even without her corset.

Catherine propelled herself to the side
entrance and without hesitating went through the doorway, wincing
as the hinges squealed in protest. But she was safe now; no one
could hear anything with the wind roaring through the woods. She
stopped to look and listen.

The interior of the house was as still and
gloomy as a tomb. She stood in a tiny passageway, rooms leading off
from either side. The room where the candle had been lit was to her
right. She made herself move in that direction.

A figure darker than the darkness lay huddled
on the floor. She could make out the shape of a table near the
window. She went toward it, unpleasantly aware of the musty, dank
smell of the house and the acrid scent of gunpowder. She groped for
the candle and found it, and next to it a box of matches. After two
tries her trembling fingers managed to strike one and she lit the
candle. Quickly she moved away from the window. Staring downward,
she walked completely around the motionless shape on the floor. He
lay on his side, one arm thrown out, his eyes open and fixed on
nothing. It was Bart.

At the same time she became aware of some
stealthy sound in front of the house. The door creaked open.

One of them had come back.

I
nstinctively she
blew out the candle. There was no way to leave the house without
the rusty hinges betraying her. She moved backward into the
passageway. The space was so small that from where she stood she
could still see much of the front room.

A figure moved cautiously forward. The
masculine form of the intruder wore a dark cape and a slouch hat,
pulled low. She could barely see him moving about. The sound of a
match being struck made her flinch and she saw the man, his hat
shielding his face, go down on one knee beside Bart.

Why did he come back? she thought—but then it
seemed obvious. He meant to dispose of the body.

She had not been conscious of making any
sound when she saw the man stiffen. He dropped the match, but not
before she saw a pistol appear in his other hand. He got instantly
to his feet.

She threw her cap at him, dimly aware that he
ducked to avoid it. Taking advantage of the brief opportunity, she
pushed open the door and darted outside where she hoped she could
lose herself in the woods. But he was too fast. She could hear him
closing the distance between them. She turned to let the thick
candle she still clutched in her hand fly toward him and thought it
must have thudded off his chest. It didn’t stop him, but she had
lost momentum; she felt him grab her arm, jerking her around so
forcefully her feet almost flew out from beneath her.

Panting, she whirled again to run but he had
her in his grasp. Catherine felt his hands clamp around her waist,
his upper arms touching her breasts. She sensed his surprise and
felt his grip relax a little. She surged forward and he let go,
with the result that she stumbled and swiftly descended to meet the
damp, leafy ground.

“What the—” he began, and after a moment
said, “Catherine, is that you?”

She must be hallucinating. She pulled herself
up on her knees and turned to look behind her, her coat hanging
half off. She could not see him, but she would have known his voice
anywhere.

“Clayton?” It came out so plaintively that
she thought she might as well go ahead and burst into full-fledged
tears—and did. He came to her at once and pulled her to her feet,
gathering her in his arms while she sobbed into his chest. He
fished a handkerchief out of some inner pocket and handed it to
her. She wiped her nose and felt his arms go around her again. She
was safe at last; she could have stayed there forever.

Finally he said quietly, “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. The wind whipped around
them, shrieking through the branches over their heads. Without
another word he picked her up and carried her back to the house,
setting her gently down by the door so they could walk inside. He
left her standing in the passageway while he searched for another
candle and apparently found one, for the little room flickered into
life. Swiftly he returned to her and led her into the opposite
room. He set the thick, flat-ended candle on the seat of a broken
stool.

Clayton looked down at her for a long moment,
his eyes taking in everything, his hands smoothing her hair and
pulling the half-shed coat back into place. Then he kissed her,
pulling her tightly against him.

When he finally raised his head, he murmured
huskily, “Are you really here? Or am I dreaming all this?”

“I wish it were a dream,” she whispered. “And
that tomorrow we would wake up in our own bed, in our own house,
and there was never any war, and never—” Her voice trailed off and
she hiccupped.

“Wait here,” he said. He turned and went back
into the other room.

She heard him moving about and in a moment he
returned with two straight-backed chairs, which he placed close
together. He seated her in one and himself in the other.

“Tell me everything,” he urged. “What are you
doing here?”

The moment she looked into his eyes she knew
she had been wrong to doubt him, wrong to suspect he would lie to
her about something so vital as Andrew’s supposed death, wrong to
even entertain the thought that he might be secretly working for
the Union. She didn’t know how she knew. She just knew.

“I was following Bart,” she answered. “But,
Clayton, what are you doing here?”

“As a matter of fact, I just got back into
Richmond today. We already knew about this place. One of our men
found out through one of Bart’s friends that there was to be a
meeting here this afternoon. He wasn’t sure about the time. I got
here as soon as I could.”

“And your other mission? It’s finished?”

He looked away for a moment, leaning back
against the chair. “I got the information Lee needed. He’s asked me
to take command of a regiment.”

“You mean…no more spying?”

Again, he seemed to hesitate. “I had a
rather…narrow escape. I would be recognized. I think my days of
spying are over.”

“Oh, Clayton, I’m so glad!” She jumped out of
her chair and into his lap, hugging him heartily. He laughed a
little and held her close. She looped an arm around his neck and
rested her cheek on top of his head.

“How I’ve missed you, my beloved wife.”

Beloved wife.

He must have sensed the change in her, a
sudden stillness, and he looked up at her, puzzled. “What is it,
Catherine?”

She fought the urge to weep again, hating
herself for her weakness. She had wept more since she met Clayton
than she had in her whole life.

She rose from his lap and returned to her own
chair. “I wanted you so badly, Clayton, to tell you what happened,
and Dr. Edwards left the city and I didn’t know if I should try to
contact Mrs. Shirley, and—”

“Tell me what?” he said, straightening in his
chair and not taking his eyes from her face.

Catherine found it unexpectedly hard to say.
She took a deep breath. “Andrew is alive. He came back. He’s been
back for over a month now.”

For once Clayton seemed completely
nonplussed. At last he said flatly, “That’s impossible.”

“There’s no mistake, not this time. Someone
else was shot for desertion.

It must have been a case of…of
misidentification.”

Clayton stared at her, but it was as if he
looked through and beyond her. Abruptly he asked, “You knew, of
course, about Andrew’s brother?”

She widened her eyes in astonishment. “No! He
never told me he had a brother!”

“That’s odd. Maybe he was ashamed of him. At
any rate, Andrew had a twin.”

“Twins!” For the first time in weeks a ray of
light permeated the dark cloud that had hung over Catherine. “Then
he isn’t Andrew after all!”

“John Kelly disappeared before the war. He
was a gambler…it was assumed he’d been killed.”

“But he must still be alive. And now that
Andrew’s dead, he’s decided to take his place.”

Clayton did not reply. He got to his feet and
went to stare out the window into the wild, black night. For the
first time, Catherine noticed how the old house shook and rattled
in the wind.

“Clayton, that note of Bart’s I found about
this house had the word ‘clay’ written on it. What do you suppose
that meant?”

“What? Oh, that’s the name of the people who
used to live here. Listen, Catherine, we need to get out of here. I
don’t think he will, but Bart’s killer could come back, or for that
matter any of them could still be in these woods. I’m going to take
you home.”

“But I don’t want to go back there.
Can’t…can’t we be together?”

He turned to face her, and the hard
expression, which had appeared so suddenly, vanished. He moved away
from the window and took both her hands. “There’s nothing I want
more, Catherine, believe me. But there’s something more to all this
than meets the eye. What if this man
is
Andrew and it was
John who died, misidentified as his brother? A lot of mistakes have
been made in this war. It would be easy to mistake twins.”

“But that’s crazy. Why would he have gone
around saying he was Andrew?”

“Why,” Clayton said, “would he be doing it
now?”

“Because…because he knows Andrew is dead and
so he’s decided to become Andrew in order to hide his own past. If
he’s a gambler, maybe he’s in trouble with the law.”

“That’s a possibility. I hope that is the
case. But we’ve got to be sure. Because Catherine, if this man is
really Andrew, our marriage is not legal.”

“I beg your pardon!” she snapped, leaping to
her feet. “I’m a lot more married to you than I ever was to
him!”

He searched her eyes and a slow smile spread
over his face. “Yes, in our hearts and minds we are husband and
wife. But if he is Andrew, he has only to lie about the nature of
your relationship and the law will recognize him as your husband.
And if he is John Kelly, we must find a way to prove it.”

“How? He looks exactly like Andrew. He even
sounds like him!”