Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [42]
“Did you have much trouble in reaching the Confederate lines?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not really—one of the few advantages of a civil war. It’s so difficult to know your enemy when he’s out of uniform. When I rejoined the army, I asked to become an active cavalry officer. The Yankees had me on their list and obviously would not treat me as a noncombatant in the future, so I didn’t really have much choice.”
“It seems you had a talent for it,” she said, with a slight smile.
“Mostly it consisted of trying to stay alive. And of taking only calculated risks. Not like Morgan. He took the pitcher to the well once too often and raided into Tennessee. His command was cut to ribbons at a place called Granville. They caught him hiding behind some vines in a garden and shot him through the heart.”
He wrinkled his brow and narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce the limitless depths of the sky, as he thought of Morgan and his father, so much alike in their attitude to life. She sat quietly beside him and said nothing.
She stared out to sea, immersed in her own thoughts. He gazed at her dispassionately and it was as if he had never really seen her before. How could he possibly have thought her not beautiful? She was lovely, with the wind bringing the stain of roses to her cheeks, and the dark deeps of her eyes were places a man might drown in willingly.
She turned and discovered him looking at her, flushed and said hurriedly, “And what do you intend to do when you leave Drumore?”
He shrugged. “There’s no rush, I want to get the stink of war out of my nostrils. I came here to find a little peace, but already forces beyond my control are pulling me in several directions. Whatever happens, I’ll never return to Georgia. I’ve been considering California. Now there’s a fine country for you.”
He closed his eyes and she said slowly, “Sometimes we have to stand and meet the problem that faces us here and now, Clay. No man is an island. Isn’t that what a poet once said? I think in a way, that your father tried to live amongst other people and yet apart from them, and found in the end that it wouldn’t work.”
He sighed. It was only to be expected that she would think that way, that the problems of these people would be her problems. She was young and she was lovely and had the kind heart. Somewhere a lark sang high in the sky, but it only touched the edge of his consciousness. Her voice moved on and then began to rise and fall and finally became the timeless, sad sough of the sea.
He awakened suddenly. Above him, clouds turned and wheeled across the sky and hinted at a break in the weather. She had disappeared. For a moment, a strange irrational panic caused him to rush to the edge of the cliff and then he saw her down on the beach at the water’s edge. A crazily tilted path fell away beneath him and he began a careful descent.
She was standing knee-deep in the sea, and held the skirt of her riding habit bunched in one hand while she splashed in the water with the other like a small child. His boots grated upon the shingle and she turned at once and waded toward him.
“You deserted me,” he said. “I awakened to find you gone, like some enchanted princess in a fairy tale.”
“After you fell asleep, I came down to the beach. The water looked so inviting I couldn’t resist it,” she said.
Her boots and stockings stood on a boulder at the foot of the path. She started toward them and gave a slight exclamation as she stepped on a jagged stone. Clay swung her up into his arms without a word and carried her quickly across the shingle.
When he reached the boulder, he stood for a moment holding her, gazing down into her eyes, her warmth and softness quickening the blood in his veins, and after a while, she turned her face