Twenty-Six

 

It was over.

Quint had been present when Lee surrendered, had watched as that general’s troops had laid down their weapons and gone home. There had been no shouts of victory that day, nor any cries of defeat. Rather, the field had been cloaked in a reverential stillness, a hush that had touched even the most hate-filled soldier.

That had been more than one month past. The Union was preserved, but Lincoln was dead. The Rebel soldiers had been sent home, and Quint was filled with relief that it was over, and with uncertainty as well. There was still a lot of hate between the two sides.

There was an advantage to being an ex-secret service agent, Quint discovered. Colonel Fairfax was able to discover for him the fate of his brother, Dalton. Colonel Dalton Tyler, C.S.A., was alive. The plantation still stood, though it was likely not the home he remembered. There had been too many changes.

Alicia was there, along with both of Quint’s sisters, waiting for Dalton’s return. Perhaps she had fallen in love with Dalton after all.

And perhaps one day, when old wounds had healed, Quint could take Lily to Mississippi to make peace with his family. A year ago, he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but now it seemed important.

Colonel Holt, a barrel-chested officer who was fond of foul-smelling cigars and cheap whiskey, stopped in front of Quint’s tent, where Quint sat on the ground, lost in thought.

“Still determined to leave us, son?” the colonel asked in a booming voice. “Can’t convince you to come out West with me and fight the Injuns?”

Quint leapt to his feet. The colonel had caught him by surprise, and he felt as if he’d been yanked to the present, leaving behind thoughts of Lily and plans for the days to come.

“No, thank you, sir.” Quint ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, sweeping the strands away from his face. There had been little time for the amenities in the past several months, and he had neither shaved nor cut his hair since the morning he’d put Lily on Captain Dennison’s steamer. “I’ve had enough of fightin’ for a while.”

Colonel Holt looked as if he’d expected no other answer. He’d been trying for several weeks to convince Quint to stay with the cavalry, but the answer was always the same.

“Man like you, Tyler, you’ll be bored in six months with no one to fight with but the missus.”

Quint grinned, a rare smile. “Bored? I don’t think so, sir. Lily fights back.”

The Colonel laughed and slapped his leg. “Good for her. So, what do you plan to do with yourself, besides fight with Mrs. Tyler?”

“I was thinking of getting into the shipping business, sir. A base in Nassau, one in San Francisco, maybe one in Liverpool.”

“Grand plans, Captain,” Colonel Holt said with a nod. “But I still say you’ll be bored in six months.”

Quint knew better than to argue with the Colonel. The cavalry was Holt’s career, and the gleam in his eyes told of his excitement at the prospect of heading west. Quint couldn’t imagine anyone looking forward to more violence after what the country had just been through, but Colonel Holt was not alone.

“You got a brood, Captain?” Colonel Holt leaned forward, hands clasped behind his back. “Little Tylers?”

“Not yet, sir.” Quint smiled crookedly again. Children. His and Lily’s. He wondered, not for the first time, if either of their last nights together had resulted in a child. He would love to go home and find Lily sitting in the parlor, her stomach swollen and her face glowing. He shook his head. Of course, that wasn’t meant to be. Eleanor would have mentioned it to him in her letter if Lily had been in the family way.

Colonel Holt gave up on him with a dismissive wave of his hand. Quint was damn tired of Army life. In another month he would be discharged, and then he would concern himself with starting that family.

Quint crawled into his tent and lay on his back, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. He had such plans for the future, such dreams. Eleanor’s last message had given him hope, but there was no assurance that Lily would still be in Nassau when he returned, no assurance that she would want him back.

But deep inside, beneath the doubts and the fears, was the unshakable knowledge that Lily was his wife, his woman, and with the war behind them, the future was clear. So he closed his eyes and dreamt of her. He dreamt soft, comforting dreams of Lily.

 

Lily paced slowly, despite Cora’s repeated attempts to force her to lie down. It was time. The pangs had started that morning, spaced far apart and mild in nature, but as the day progressed, the pains came closer together and became much harder. Even now, as Lily stopped to wait out a contraction, beads of sweat formed on her face.

Soon she would have no choice but to lie down.

The war had been over for more than a month. The news had reached them weeks after Lee’s surrender, and since that day Lily had been waiting for Quint to appear at the door.

“Where the hell have you been, Quintin Tyler?” Lily asked under her breath.

“What’s that?” Cora nearly jumped out of her skin when Lily spoke. The great aunt-to-be was more visibly nervous than Lily herself, wringing her hands and holding her breath with each contraction Lily suffered through.

“You can send Tommy for Mrs. Pratt now,” Lily conceded. Cora had wanted to send for the midwife hours earlier, but Mrs. Pratt, a mother of eight who had delivered countless babies in Nassau, had told Lily what to expect. Hours of waiting.

Each pain was sharper, harder, and in spite of herself, Lily began to worry. Could she do this? Alone? Quint should be here, beside her, holding her hand, sweating with her.

Lily was in the bed, bolstered by a mountain of pillows, when Mrs. Pratt arrived. The midwife could have been forty or sixty, with her soft gray hair and lean frame. She held herself like a younger woman, back straight and shoulders back, but there were deep lines etched in her face, lines that spoke of years of sun and many days of wide smiles.

“There now, Miss Lily,” Mrs. Pratt said as she directed one of those wide smiles at Lily’s distended belly. “How are you feeling?”

Lily gave the woman a look that would have made a lesser person step back. It was a look she had once reserved for her crew and, on occasion, Quintin Tyler. Sweat dripped down her strained face, and with an impatient hand, Lily brushed back the hair that fell forward and stuck to her forehead and her temples.

“How the hell do you think I feel, you moron?”

“Lily!” Cora gasped.

But Mrs. Pratt continued to smile sweetly. “That’s all right, Miss Lily. I’ve been called worse. Much worse. And I imagine you’ll call me something more menacing than a moron before the night is done.”

Within minutes of the midwife’s arrival, Cora had to leave the room. It was too much for her to bear, to see Lily in such pain. She joined Tommy, who was pacing in the hallway, and they waited, listening with pounding hearts and withheld breaths as Lily screamed. Again and again.

Tommy cursed between screams. He vowed to find Quintin Tyler, wherever he might be, and rip the man’s liver out. See how he liked it. He swore that if it had not been for that man, Lily wouldn’t be in such pain, and if she died... if she died, he would hunt Quintin Tyler to the grave, if need be.

They stopped pacing as another scream filled the house. It couldn’t go on much longer. Cora didn’t know how Lily found the strength to scream, after the day she’d been through. The cry died away, and they heard Lily shout at the top of her lungs,

“Bloody hell!”

 

“Bloody hell!” Quintin woke as he cried out in his sleep, shooting up into a sitting position in the darkness of his tent. For a moment, he sat there, dazed. What had awakened him? His own voice?

He had been dreaming of Lily. That was all he could remember. Her face. Her voice.

Sweat ran down his face and trickled down his back. His heart was thudding hard, threatening to burst through his chest. It was too damn hot to sleep well, and even outside the tent there was no breeze to make the heat bearable.

With a frown, Quint lowered himself to the bedroll, resting his head in his hands. Whatever had jerked him from a sound sleep had brought him to such a level of awareness that he knew he would get no more sleep that night. His only consolation was that soon he wouldn’t have to rely on dreams of Lily to see her face.