At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [83]
Did she really believe that all they had meant to do was frighten him? Or did she not care?
When she had finished, he asked the question that had waited at the back of his mind since the beginning. “Can you arrange for me to see Cavan himself, even if only for a few moments? I have to have a quote from him.” He watched her, wondering what she would do.
“You can’t.” She looked back quizzically, trying to judge whether he was testing her, or if he really did not know.
“Can’t I?” he said aloud.
“No one can,” she replied, her eyes unwavering. “General Northrup found the twelve men with the best cause to kill his son, and had them all arrested, including Captain Cavan. No one confessed, and no one denied it. We don’t know whether they’re guilty or not. General Northrup said he would try and get the charge reduced from mutiny and murder down to insolence, disobeying an order, and accident. But it hasn’t happened yet. It’s bloody chaos. He was our best surgeon, and men are dying he could have saved.” The misery in her voice was savage. He flinched at the sound of it.
“Why would General Northrup try to get the charge reduced?” he asked, puzzled.
She looked at him with a twist of defiance, even pride. “Because in order to prove deliberate murder he’ll have to show motive, of course! Why on earth would twelve loyal soldiers without a blemish on their records get together and murder an officer?”
“Because he’s a dangerously arrogant and incompetent idiot!” he responded.
“Exactly. Which I can prove. But General Northrup is not so keen to have that demonstrated. When he realized just how—”
“Yes, I see,” he said quickly. “Was it you who pointed out to him how unfortunate that would be?” He knew the answer. That was the source of the fire in her eyes, and why the men were toasting her in Dixie cans of tea. No doubt it was also why she was keen that Mason should write a piece just now extolling Cavan. Was it because she cared for Cavan with more than friendship, or simply that she was brave and driven by the same passionate loyalty to her friends that bound all the fighting men together? She had charged in blindly to the rescue, without thinking of the cost or the chances of success. That is who she was, like Joseph: all pointless idealism, and dreams that were fragile and idiotic, and desperately beautiful.
The lock of hair had fallen forward again across her brow. Without thinking, he reached across and pushed it into place, only afterward realizing how intimate the gesture was.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, feeling self-conscious.
She colored as well, suddenly aware of his physical nearness.
“You’re still going to write about him!” she said urgently. “Nothing that Northrup says changes that. And Cavan might have had nothing to do with it. They’ve just arrested the most likely twelve.”
Mason reflected that, in a different age, she would have been married to some nice local doctor or landowner by now, probably with a couple of children. Her days would have been spent in a little socially admirable work, probably connected with the church, and the occasional society party, or hunts ball. Instead she was watching the carnage of a generation. It was not happiness but a kind of sublime lunacy that kept her going. It was all pointless, and it would break her in the end, and that was something he dreaded. It would be like the very last lights going out as the darkness consumed everything.
He loved her for it with a kind of hunger he dared not face. It was precious beyond his reach and like the reflection of a distant fire, a warmth he could not touch or hold. It was an illusion, what she believed in was not real, and yet the beauty of it haunted him too fiercely to let it go.
“I’ll write the best I can,” he promised. “But it won’t change anything, Judith. I wish I could say it would. I expect it’s out of Northrup’s hands by now.”
Her mouth tightened;