Colter raced down the hallway and around the corner to Jenna’s room. He didn’t bother to knock. He kicked the door open. At first, he thought he was too late, that she was gone, for the bureau top was stripped clean and the wardrobe doors gaped open, revealing it was empty. It wasn’t until he stepped into the room that he found her portmanteau behind the door. He released a breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding.
There was nothing he could do about the splintered door molding, but he did manage to close the door to wait for her. He hoped for Jenna’s sake that she did not keep him waiting too long.
It was nearly an hour later when he heard her voice in the hallway. His patience had been stretched to its limit.
Jenna, so attentive to details, noticed the door frame and turned quickly to the porter following her. “Please wait in the hall for me, I won’t be a moment.” The man nodded and she took a deep breath, released it and walked inside, closing the door behind her.
“Colonel, I did not expect to find you here.”
“No games, Jenna.” But he had to admire her calm, collected manner, for as he continued to gaze at her, he realized that she was really not at all surprised to find him here.
“Games, Colonel? I don’t quite understand your meaning.”
Colter allowed himself a bitter laugh. “My dear, there is no need to ply your charm on me. It would be wasted. I’m not Hugh.”
“No, you are not my husband, but he is your dear friend. I believe he once mentioned that you valued your honor above all things. I have often wondered if that were true.”
Colter stared back at her. He could almost see the sharp working of her mind, and sensed that each calculated remark was setting him up for something.
“Where is Elizabeth, Jenna? I know she was here in the hotel.”
Her lashes lowered. “Why would you think I would know? Perhaps, she came here to visit another gentleman.”
Anger surged through him. He wanted to shake her and had to restrain himself from crossing the room.
“I warned you, no games, madam. I know she was here and it was not to see anyone. She left a note in my room. I believe she interrupted someone who was searching it.”
“Are you accusing me, Colonel?” she asked in a honeyed voice.
“No, Jenna, I’m not accusing you. I’m telling you what happened. But it is unnecessary for me to say more, isn’t it? You were there. Fact, not accusation. Fact, you have been steadily supplying information to the—”
“You go too far, Colonel. I would suggest that you think carefully before you say another word. My husband would call you out if I told him what you have dared. Breaking into my room and making these—”
“Do you believe that your empty threats are going to stop me, Jenna?” Colter stepped toward her, satisfied to see her visibly shaken. “I want to know where Elizabeth is. If she has come to any harm, I will see that you pay for it. You and your Yankee lover.”
She paled and shrank back against the solid wood of the door.
Colter smiled. “Surely you will forgive me for not acting the gentleman, but I haven’t time to waste. You will tell me.”
“And in return?”
“Ever the whore, Jenna?”
She tossed her head, her chin angled defiantly and her eyes blazing at him. “What would you know? I was forced to marry a man I didn’t love. Never once did he come to see me after I lost our child. What right have you to judge me?”
“Hugh couldn’t come to you. War had been declared and he was needed. You knew that. He wrote to you. And I don’t care why you’ve become a traitor. Do you understand?” he asked, coming closer and closer to her, until he was mere inches from her.
“I know exactly what you’ve been doing all this time. I have made sure that you were kept properly supplied with false information. You worked for us, against the Yankees, Jenna.”
“That’s how much you know,” she stated with a last show of bravado.
“Tell me about Elizabeth. I know you had something to do with her disappearance.”
“I won’t say a word unless you are willing to bargain with me.”
He assessed her with a frank scrutiny that should have made her blush. She met his gaze unflinchingly.
“Do we have a bargain, Colonel?”
“Tell me your terms, Jenna,” he said, smiling coldly, “but remember, I am not Hugh, so don’t count on my being a gentleman.”
“Get me a pass to Washington. That is all I want. No, wait.” She glanced around the room, avoiding his penetrating gaze. “You must think of something to tell Hugh so he won’t ever come after me.”
“A high price. Where is Elizabeth?”
“You’ll agree?”
“It will be my pleasure to rid my friend of you.”
Jenna trembled under the hardness of his voice and his eyes that suddenly appeared devoid of emotion. She tried inching away, but his arm entrapped her on one side and she stilled.
“There was a letter in your post about James Waring. Elizabeth read it. She’s gone to Petersburg to confront her mother-in-law.”
“Sweet Christ!” Colter closed his eyes. Whatever he thought, whatever he had expected, this had not entered his mind. “When?” he demanded, pinning Jenna with his fierce gaze once more.
“She was to leave at first light. And now, my terms.”
Colter spun around and walked away from her. He couldn’t bear to be near her any longer. What was he going to tell Hugh? The man loved her, loved her just as much as Colter loved Elizabeth. Raking his fingers through his hair, Colter paused before the desk.
“Have you paper and ink?”
“The top drawer,” she answered, afraid to move from the door. She watched as he hurriedly wrote out a few lines and turned to her, folding it.
“Take this to the War Office. You’ll get your pass. They know my signature, so you shouldn’t have any trouble.”
“And Hugh?” she asked, taking the proffered note and unfolding it to read.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“No, Colonel, I do not. This is my life that I have risked. For nothing, so you tell me. But there are a few things I have managed that I am sure you are unaware of.”
“Bragging now that you have what you want?”
“No. I am not. I’ve stolen notes from the Treasury Department. I must say, my forgeries were quite good.”
“Why are you telling me, Jenna?” he inquired with impatience stamped across his features.
“I want to make sure that you don’t change your mind. You see, Elizabeth helped me.”
“You bitch!” Colter started for her and barely stopped himself.
“Not really, Colonel. I know about it, and now you do. I just wanted to warn you that any revelations you make regarding this will implicate Elizabeth.” Jenna refolded the note and smiled. “You are going after her, aren’t you?”
“As soon as I rid myself of you,” he stated coldly, clenching his hands to his sides. Her laughter was mocking.
“Make sure that Hugh doesn’t follow, Colonel. My Yankee lover is quite jealous. He would likely enjoy killing him.”
“Stand aside.” The words came from between his gritted teeth.
With a sweep of her skirt, Jenna did just that. But as Colter opened the door, she added, “By the way, Colonel, it’s been reported that Yankee bands have been raiding the countryside around Petersburg. I would suggest that you hurry.”
Colter refused to answer her goad. He didn’t even slam the door closed. But at least he could justify to himself the lie he would tell Hugh about Jenna’s death. The man deserved better than Jenna.
Jenna watched his rigid back recede down the hall. Her ploy had worked but left her with a bitter taste. Colter’s Southern honor would force him to hold to their bargain. He would find a way to tell Hugh that she was dead and she would be finally free.
The cart had long since turned off the main road, and Elizabeth felt every jolt as the wagon dipped and swayed. She knew they were approaching the lane that would lead up to Twin Pines, for through the trees she had caught glimpses of half-hidden homes, set well back from the road. Fear had settled into a cold, hard knot inside her belly. And when they turned into a smaller lane lined with pine and hickory trees, she knew only minutes remained before she and Nicole would be set down.
It came too soon. She thanked the couple for the ride, listened to their warnings to be on watch for the Yankee patrols, and, with arms that ached from the strain, she lifted Nicole and began to walk.
There was a desolate air that slowly seeped into her, forcing her to examine her surroundings. The day had grown overcast and the entwined branches, laced into a canopy overhead, seemed to whisper warnings in their play of shadows. Elizabeth shivered and held Nicole tighter. She stumbled and Nicole cried out, hushed quickly by Elizabeth’s murmured voice.
The road curved and Elizabeth stopped for a moment to shift her daughter’s weight. The air had warmed and she could almost smell the damp coming of snow. The woodlands, where she once had sought refuge, no longer offered security. Elizabeth felt as if an unseen menace watched them.
From inside herself she dragged up the courage to continue.
The house emerged from a tall stand of pines and once again Elizabeth stopped. The house was of wood, with squared pillars ascending from the ground to the roof to support the wide verandas on both levels. She gazed around and frowned that there was no sign of life. The quarters and work buildings were beyond a small rise, close to the creek, and directly behind the house were the smokehouse and kitchen, along with the cabins that housed the servants. But all seemed empty.
“Mama, I’m hungry.”
“Yes, love, I know you are. And I promise you’ll soon be fed and warm.” But even as she offered these reassurances to her child, Elizabeth began to wonder if Alma was there. She started forward, noticing the gaping stable doors, half-torn from their bracings, and other signs of neglect. Fences, once neatly white-washed, were either missing or had broken gaps in them. Coming up around the curve of the driveway, she saw the peeling paint on the house itself, the shrubs and vines that had once graced the lower veranda ripped from the ground.
Elizabeth could not take another step, no longer afraid of confronting Alma but of what she would find behind the closed doors. She set Nicole down and took firm hold of her small hand, dropping the basket she had carried.
Nicole made no sound, but when Elizabeth looked down at her daughter, she knew she had to brave whatever waited and get Nicole out of the damp.
Together then they climbed the wide steps and approached the door. Elizabeth knocked, waited and then knocked again.
“Mama, no one’s here. I wanna go home.”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She gripped the door latch and to her surprise it wasn’t locked. Pushing open the door, she led Nicole inside with her and trembled at the rush of memories that took hold.
The lofty arched hallway was just as she remembered, with its fluted pilasters and carved paneling. The wide curving stairs that led up to the room where she had been held prisoner brought one shiver after another, until she visibly shook.
“Alma,” she called out. There was no answer. The doors to the drawing room were closed, and Elizabeth hesitated a moment before she opened them. The room was exactly as she remembered—the marble mantel crowded with figurines, the wallpaper from England, the richly shadowed portraits, the damask coverings on the windows, the ornate carvings on the furniture. The room oppressed her, but there was wood in the box and she hurried to get a fire started.
Once the kindling caught, Elizabeth settled Nicole with her quilt in a large wing chair and dragged it close to the blaze. She forced herself to smile, added small logs to the fire and began to talk to dispel the gloomy silence.
“Now, you be a good girl for Mama, and stay right here while I find us something to eat. We’ll have a cozy supper here where it’s nice and warm.”
“It’s a bad house, Mama.”
“No. This is not a bad house, Nicole. Mama wouldn’t—”
“I ’member this. You cried.”
Elizabeth couldn’t face her daughter. She closed her eyes, wondering if Alma was right and she was insane. All the reasons she had given herself to come here no longer mattered.
“Mama—”
“No. No, Nicole. I’ll show you this house isn’t bad. There is nothing here that can hurt us. Not anymore. Now, wait right here for Mama.”
Elizabeth searched each room on the lower floor. She couldn’t find anything out of place, yet there was a sense that no one had used these rooms for some time. It wasn’t the covering of dust on the furniture, just a deserted air that she could almost breathe. She stood in the hall once more, staring up the stairway, but nothing, no force could make her climb them. With a firm step, she headed to the back of the house, outside and across to the kitchen.
The smoldering coals in the massive fireplace first lent hope that someone was here. A few crumbs littered the wood table, but the pantry revealed bare shelves.
She called out for Alma repeatedly but received no answer. Drawing a bucket of water from the well, she set it to heat in the kettle and went around back of the building to the root cellar. The thick wooden slab took all of her strength to open it, and a rank smell that made her gag came rushing out.
Elizabeth peered down the few steps into the blackness below. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and thought of returning to the kitchen to get a candle to light her way. Only the thought of Nicole being hungry drove her to make the descent in the dark.
The smell of something rotting overpowered her. She lifted her skirt and covered her mouth and nose, trying not to breathe deeply. The light, overcast as the sky was, did not penetrate the cellar. She turned to the shelves built into the dirt wall and searched blindly with one hand.
The first few feet of shelving proved empty and she stepped deeper into the blackness, cautiously feeling her way. She nearly cried out when she touched the edge of a burlap sack and dropped her skirt to use both hands to lift it free. Tucking it under one arm, Elizabeth knew she had either dried beans or rice, but once again reached out along the shelves, ignoring the brush of webs that caught in her hand.
With every breath she took, nausea roiled until she couldn’t stand it. The rank damp chilled her and she spun around, losing her balance and falling.
Elizabeth dropped the sack, grabbed hold of a shelf and felt the wood splinter into her palms. She cried out as she hit not the hard-packed earth of the root cellar floor, but a large, tough object that bowed her back.
For a moment she lay stunned, her breath knocked from her. Elizabeth lifted her head, drawing air into her lungs at the same moment. Her eyes widened as her hand felt the shape of the thing beneath her.
A scream welled up but her throat closed, refusing to allow her terror free.
The icy chill of a bony hand met her searching fingers. She rolled to her side, unable to control the heaves that emptied her stomach. A body! She had fallen on a body. Her legs wouldn’t hold her, so Elizabeth crawled. Every move to free herself of this sickening grave shoved the wood splinters deeper into her palms. But she didn’t feel the pain. She frantically clawed the earthen floor to put distance between herself and the corpse.
She had to get out of there. Staggering, Elizabeth managed to find the stairs and climbed them. Outside, she collapsed onto the ground as heaves once again racked her body.
On her hands and knees, head bowed, Elizabeth refused to think about the body in the cellar. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, knowing that she had to reach Nicole.
Her daughter had been right. This was a bad house. And she was truly mad to have come back here.
Swallowing the bile that rose again, she stood up and dragged fresh air into her lungs, then ran back to the house. She threw open the door, pain slicing her again as the pressure drove the wood so deep her palms bled.
“Nicole! Nicole!” she screamed, driven now by the unnamed menace that she had sensed and so foolishly ignored.
The hall seemed to have lengthened in the few minutes—or was it hours—since she had deserted her child. Or were her own legs refusing to carry her forward?
Elizabeth came to a sudden stop. The drawing room doors were open. “Nicole,” she whispered. Not a sound answered.
“Dear Lord, no! No! Answer me, Nicole. Answer me!”
She slowly turned toward the stairway and tried to swallow the bile that coated her mouth. There was no moisture to aid her. For a moment she swayed, resisting her mind’s command for her to climb those stairs.
It was only the thought that Nicole might be up there, frightened, needing her, that gave her strength to overcome the remembered horror the rooms above held for her.
“Mama is coming,” she whispered, more to reassure herself.
“She cannot hear you, Elizabeth.”
“Alma.” Elizabeth barely mouthed the name. She stilled. The fear that almost paralyzed her crumbled into fragments. She held on to the one thought she could never deny: Alma would not harm Nicole. A strange calm seeped through her body and she turned to face her.
Elizabeth felt as if she were meeting Alma for the first time again, seeing her through a haze. The woman’s bearing was regal. Her stately height, her slender figure, every angular feature perfectly proportioned, all lent great presence, although she was no beauty. Her milk white skin, protected from the sun at all cost, took years off her age, as did the white blondness of her hair, pinned into a chignon.
Ice. Cold, chilling, ice. Just like the diamond ear-rings that flashed as she tilted her head, staring with eyes that were so pale a blue that they almost appeared devoid of color.
“Join me. I have been kept waiting far too long.”
Elizabeth watched Alma retreat into the drawing room. The order lingered, replaying its insidious command in her mind like so many others before it.
This is what you came here for, she reminded herself. Believe that Nicole is safe. Yet, she didn’t move.
She glanced down at her hands and saw them as if from a great distance. Slowly turning them over, she viewed her red, swollen flesh, unable to stop the trembling that overtook her body.
Coward. Coward. The litany of fear that she had often sung to herself, which had held her a prisoner here as much as the lock on the door, repeated its chanting now.
No. She was not a coward, but she would be a fool to underestimate Alma. The woman was evil. Even as the thought came to her, Elizabeth walked forward and entered the room.
She searched for a sign of Nicole. “Where is she, Alma?”
“Resting. I put her in your old room.”
She ignored Alma’s gesture to sit before the fire. Nicole was upstairs and likely locked in. Elizabeth cast off the far too familiar role of victim that Alma enjoyed seeing her play.
“Tell me, Alma, have you truly enjoyed your little game of power? I know about James. I know how he died. A coward, they called him. Shot by his own men when he ran from battle.” Elizabeth paused. Every word she spoke filled her with a sense of power, of freedom. Her voice was firm, lashing out again at the woman who watched her, unrepentant for the destruction she had caused.
“Lies, all of it,” she continued. “From the very first you twisted all of us—me, James, Colter and my daughter. How do you live with yourself? Did you truly grieve for your son? Or was all that a lie, too?”
“James was not worthy of my grief.”
“Dear Lord, you unfeeling witch! He loved you. James did everything to please you.” Elizabeth stepped nearer, staring at Alma, hoping for a sign, a small crack in the icy demeanor. There was none. “Did you really think I would allow you to mold my daughter in an image of yourself? I would die first.”
“You may well do just that, Elizabeth.” Alma lifted the hand concealed by the drape of her skirt. She smiled, then raised the long barrel of the pistol she held. “I believe you should retire, my dear. You have had a long journey.”
“Whose body is in the cellar, Alma?”
“That need not concern you.”
“Whose body is in the cellar?” Elizabeth repeated on a rising note, desperate now to keep her wits about her.
Alma gracefully stood up and, still holding the gun, began walking toward her. Elizabeth had no choice but to back up.
“Where are all the servants, Alma?”
“Run off with that Yankee trash that came ’round with promises of freedom. What would they know? Freedom carries responsibilities.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right.” Elizabeth reached the hall and thought of running, but Alma quickened her pace and was right there with her.
“You are going to be obedient, are you not, Elizabeth?”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
“Good. I am pleased to hear that.”
Elizabeth couldn’t take her eyes off the pistol. She measured Alma, gauging how strong she was, and wondered if she would have a chance if she made a grab for the weapon.
As if she had read her mind, Alma cocked the hammer. “Go upstairs, Elizabeth. I have already used this and found I am quite good. It only took three shots to finish Billings off.”
“Billings?” Elizabeth questioned, hating the quiver of her voice. Her heel hit the bottom step, and without turning, she lifted her skirt, wincing as her hands closed over the cloth, and began to back up the stairway. For a moment she thought Alma had forgotten her. The woman’s eyes held a glazed look. With a slight shake of her head, she directed her attention to Elizabeth.
“Billings is the man I hired to bring Nicole back where she belongs.”
“You…you killed him?” Elizabeth knew then that Alma was insane. Not just driven to keep what she believed was hers, but truly mad.
“He failed me, my dear. I cannot tolerate failure from anyone. It was just as well that James died. He failed me, too.”
“James loved you, Alma. Remember how he would bring you presents when he returned from a trip? You loved his gifts. You—”
“You were jealous.”
The underlying hate that crackled in her voice made Elizabeth hesitate. She didn’t know if she should agree. How was she going to keep Alma stable? How was she going to get Nicole and herself away from here?
“How did James fail you?” she asked, hoping to distract her.
“The fool exposed himself to mumps. He recovered but lost the only useful ability he had. James could not father a child. But then, we found you. A weak, tedious, witless fool. You were so ready to believe that Colter betrayed you. But even then, I had to convince James to offer marriage. The dolt had scruples. With all that was at stake, he dared to put his friendship with Colter before me. James would have seen me cast from my home. I am glad that he is dead, do you hear me? I am glad that I will not have to rid myself of that weakling like I did his father.”
Elizabeth was speechless.
Alma began to laugh.
The sound sent fingers of dread down Elizabeth’s spine. She turned and ran. She finally knew why James had lied about Colter.
A shot splintered the wall above Elizabeth’s head.
A shot that caused the Union captain leading his patrol to halt on the curving driveway that led to Twin Pines.