'I'm dying,' he said flatly.
The young Yankee surgeon looked at him unhappily. He knew when you could lie to a man and when you couldn't.
'Yes, sir.'
Pierre closed his eyes. They must have given him some morphine. The Yanks still had the stuff. He didn't see powder anymore, and he didn't see black. The world was in fog, but it was a beautiful fog. A swirling place of mist and splendor. He could see Eugenia. He could see the long trail that led from the beach along the pines.
She was running to him. He could see the fine and fragile lines of her beautiful face, and he could see her lips, curled in a smile of welcome. He lifted his hand to wave, and he ran....
She was coming closer and closer to him. Soon he would reach out and touch the silk of her skin. He would wrap his arms around her and feel her woman's warmth as she kissed him....
'General.'
Eugenia vanished into the mist. Pain slashed through his consciousness.
He opened his eyes. The surgeon was gone. He had moved on to those who had a chance to live, Pierre knew. A young bugler stood before him. 'Sir, is there any--?'
Pierre could barely see; blood clouded his vision. He reached out to grab the boy's hand.
'I need paper. Please.'
'Sir, I don't know that I can--'
'Please. Please.'
The boy brought paper and a stub of lead. Pierre nearly screamed aloud when he tried to sit. Then the pain eased. His life was ebbing away.
Eugenia, my love, my life,
I cannot be with you, but I will always be with you. Love, for the children, do not forget the gold that is buried in the house. Use it to raise them well, love. And teach them that ours was once a glorious cause of dreamers, if an ill-fated and doomed one, too. Ever yours, Eugenia, in life and in death.
Pierre
He fell back. 'Take this for me, boy, will you? Please. See that it gets to Eugenia Brandywine, Brandywine House, Fernandina Beach, Florida. Will you do it for me, boy?'
'Yes, sir!' The young boy saluted promptly.
Pierre fell back and closed his eyes. He prayed for the dream to come again. For the mist to come.
And it did. He saw her. He saw her smile. He saw her on the beach, and he saw her running to him. Running, running, running...
Three days later, an officer was sent out from Jacksonville to tell Eugenia Brandywine of her husband's death on the field of valor. The words meant nothing to her. Her expression was blank as she listened; her tears were gone. She had already cried until her heart was dry. She had already buried her love tenderly beneath the sands of time. When his body reached her, weeks later, it was nothing more than a formality to inter him in the cemetery on the mainland.
Pierre's second child, a girl, was born in October. By then the South was already strangling, dying a death as slow and painful and merciless as Pierre's. Eugenia's father sent for her, and with two small mouths to feed and little spirit for life, she decided to return home. Her mother would love her children and care for them when she had so little heart left for life.
One more time she went to the beach. One more time she allowed herself to smile wistfully and lose herself in memory and in dreams. She would always remember him as he had been that day. Her dashing, handsome, beautiful cavalier. Her ever-gallant lover.
She would never come back. She knew it. But she would tell the children about their inheritance. And they would come here. And then their children's children could come. And they could savor the sea breeze and the warmth of the water by night and the crystal beauty of the stars. In a better time, a better world.
Eugenia left in January of 1863. By the time the war ended and the young bugler--a certain Robert W. Matheson--reached Fernandina Beach in November of 1865, there was no one there except a testy maid who assured him that the lady of the house--Mrs. P. T. Brandywine-- had gone north long ago and would never return.
'Well, can you see that she gets this, then? It's very important. It's from her husband. He entrusted it to me when he died.'
'Yes, young man. Yes. Now, go along with you.' Sergeant Matheson, his quest complete, went on. The maid--hired by Eugenia's father and very aware that he didn't want his daughter reminded of the death--tossed the note into the cupboard, where it lay unopened for decade upon decade upon decade.
Chapter 10
Rex ran up to the house, Samson barking at his heels. 'Alexi!' he called, but all that greeted him was silence. In rising panic he shouted her name again, trying the door only to discover that it was locked. He dug for his own key, carefully twisted it in the lock and shoved the door open. Samson kept barking excitedly. His tail thumped the floor in such a way that Rex knew damn well there were no strangers around now. Rex was certain that if there had been a stranger about the place, Samson would be tearing after him--or her.
'Alexi!' He switched on the hall light. There was no sign of anything being wrong. Nothing seemed to be out of place. 'Alexi!' He pushed open the door to the parlor and switched on the light. She wasn't there. He hurried on to the library, the ballroom, the powder room, and then up the stairs. 'Alexi!' She wasn't in any of the bedrooms, he discovered as he swept through the place, turning on every light he passed.
He should never have left her. Something was wrong; he could feel it.
Maybe nothing was wrong. Nothing at all. Maybe she had just decided that it was time to call it quits with the small-town stuff, with the spooky old creepy house and the eccentric horror writer who seemed to come with it. Maybe she felt that Vinto was a threat and that she needed far more protection than she could ever find here.
Maybe, maybe--damn!
She hadn't gone anywhere. Not on purpose. She would have left him a note...something. She wouldn't have left him to run through the house like a madman, tearing out his hair.
He stormed down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. She wasn't there. Rex pulled out a chair and sank into it, debating his next movement. The police. He had to call the police. He never should have left her. Never. Or--oh, God, he groaned inwardly. At the very least, he should have left Samson with her. He'd blown the whole thing, all the way around. He'd gone out and gotten her a pair of kittens-- kittens!--when he should have come back around with a Doberman. Or a pit bull. Yeah...with Vinto, it would have to be a pit bull.
'Where the hell is she?' he whispered aloud, desperately.
Samson, at his feet, thumped his tail against the floor and whined. Rex gazed absently at his dog and patted him on the head. Samson barked again loudly.
Rex jumped up.
'Where is she, boy? Where's Alexi?'
Samson started barking wildly again. Rex decided he was an idiot to be talking to the dog that way. Samson was a good old dog--but he wasn't exactly Lassie. But then Samson barked again and ran over to the cellar door, whining. He came back and jumped on Rex, practically knocking him over. Then he ran back to the cellar door.
'And I said that you weren't Lassie!' Rex muttered. The cellar. Of course.
But he felt as if his heart were in his throat. He hadn't believed her. Not when she had told him that someone had chased her from the car. Not when she had been convinced that someone had been in the house. He had barely given her the benefit of the doubt when she had been certain that the snakes had been brought in.
And it was highly likely that John Vinto knew that she was terrified of snakes. He had left her tonight.
And now he knew that she was in the cellar. But the cellar was pitch-dark, and he was in mortal terror of how he would find her.
'Alexi!' he screamed, and ripped open the door and nearly tumbled down the steps. Samson went racing down as Rex fumbled for the light switch. The room was flooded with bright illumination. And Rex found Alexi at last.
She was at the foot of the stairs, on her back, her elbow cast over her eyes, almost as if she were sleeping, one of her knees slightly bent over the other. The kittens, like little sentinels, sat on either side of her, meowing away now that he was there.
