The Sword Read online

  Belle had no desire to see them. She found that she was tired and bored with the evening and decided just to go back to her room and make an early night of it. A couple of her gentleman acquaintances spotted her and begged her to let them escort her back to the hotel, take her to supper, come back to their homes for after-theater parties. … But rather shortly Belle disentangled herself from them. They were boring, actually, and represented no interesting new conquests.

  When she reached the Planter’s Hotel, to her surprise she saw Clay Tremayne lounging outside, smoking a cigar. When he saw her, he grinned and threw the cigar away, as men never smoked in the presence of a lady. It was just that usually ladies were not out on the street at this time of night.

  “Belle! How wonderful to see you,” he said, coming forward to take her hand and kiss it.

  “Hello, Clay,” she answered coolly. “How are you? Did you go to see Hamlet?”

  “No, I was in the card room, but it got so close and stuffy. And I am heartily sick of hearing talk about politics and secession. So I decided to come outside for some fresh air,” he answered. “And to wait for you, of course.”

  “You lie, sir.” Belle studied Clay carefully. She liked his manly good looks, and he was fine company. On two occasions he had halfheartedly tried to take liberties with her, but she simply laughed at him and shoved him away. It had irked her that he had given up so easily. She added, smiling invitingly at him, “You had no idea I was even in town.”

  “I’m caught. I certainly didn’t know you were staying here at the hotel. May I invite you up to my room for an after-theater sip of brandy, perhaps?” he asked innocently.

  “I’d just be another notch on your belt,” she said drily. “You have enough of those already. Your belt is so notched there’s barely room left on it for another.”

  “Either you’re complimenting me, ma’am, or insulting me,” Clay said mischievously. “I choose to take your consideration as a compliment. Now, please allow me to return the compliment and take you to supper.”

  “I don’t know, Clay. I’m tired. I was just going to go to my room and go to bed early tonight,” she said.

  “It’s just supper, Miss Belle,” he said, grinning. He had a most attractive smile, full of devilment … and promise. “I heard a rumor that Wickham’s Restaurant got in a shipment of fresh oysters today, particularly for the theater-goers. I do recall, do I not, that fresh oysters are a particular favorite of yours?” Wickham’s was one of the few restaurants in Richmond that stayed open late on theater nights for the attendees to have a late supper.

  Belle did love fresh oysters, and they were a rare treat. Still she hesitated. Going to the theater alone was just on the edge of respectability, but dining alone with a man in a public restaurant went over that edge. Still … she was suddenly hungry, and Clay did look particularly handsome that night in a black suit coat and tie and a silver satin waistcoat. “All right, Clay. You remember correctly, sir, fresh oysters are my favorite, and I suddenly find that I am overcome with hunger,” she said, her smile dazzling.

  Clay bribed the maître d’ so that they would have a curtained booth to themselves. Clay encouraged Belle to order whatever she liked, and they frivolously ordered two dozen fresh oysters. Clay also ordered champagne.

  Belle had only drunk champagne a couple of times before, but she loved it dearly. “What have you been doing with yourself, Clay, besides being in jail?” she asked playfully between oysters and continual small sips of the cool, fizzy champagne.

  “You heard about that, did you?”

  “Everybody’s heard about it. I don’t see why your family puts up with you.”

  “They have to. Key word is family, you see. They’re sort of stuck with me.” He quickly ate one of the oysters while staring at Belle. “And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think, if you’d give me a chance, you might even like to get stuck with me.”

  “Oh? And whatever makes you think such an impertinent thing?”

  “I don’t know. But you really should give it a try, just to see, you know. I could start out by coming and calling on your father and sitting on your porch and courting you like the other young gentlemen do.”

  “I doubt you’d ever find a seat on my porch, Clay Tremayne,” she said primly. “I would guess all you’d see is it flying by when my father booted you out of the house.”

  “He doesn’t like me? That’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Belle laughed, a small ladylike tinkling laugh that she knew men liked. “I’m sure you think so. He wouldn’t think about it for a minute.”

  They finished all of the oysters and the entire bottle of champagne. Belle hadn’t noticed, but she had drunk most of it while Clay had merely sipped on two glasses. As they left, she felt light-headed, giddy—and reckless.

  When they reached the hotel, Clay said, “You must let me escort you to your room, Miss Belle. A gentleman would never leave a lady on the steps of a hotel.”

  “That is very true,” Belle agreed happily. “I am on the second floor.”

  “Are you? What a very great coincidence. So am I,” Clay said. They reached her room, which was several doors down from Clay’s apartments. “Why don’t I go to my room and fetch a nice bottle of old brandy that I’ve been keeping for a special occasion? I can come back, and we’ll have a toast. To Hamlet and to oysters.”

  A small voice in the back of Belle’s mind insisted that this was a very bad idea, but she felt so happy and careless that she ignored the little nag in her head. “Oh, that sounds wonderful. Brandy is a fine spirit to top off a wonderful meal.”

  He bowed deeply. “I shall join you shortly then, ma’am.”

  Belle hurried into her room, took off her hat, gloves, and cape, and quickly patted her hair into place. She saw that the color in her cheeks was high, and her eyes were sparkling like stars. She reflected with satisfaction that she was in particularly good looks this evening. Perhaps it had something to do with the very welcome attentions of Clay Tremayne.

  He returned with a bottle and two heavy crystal brandy snifters. She started to just drink from her snifter, but with a smile, Clay stopped her. “Fine brandy is much like a fine woman. You have to warm it up gently, savor its scent, breathe it in, before you finally partake of it.”

  Vaguely Belle knew that in another time and another place she might have taken some offense at this, but she couldn’t quite work it out. Giggling, she rolled the brandy in the snifter, holding the crystal in the palm of her hand as Clay instructed, breathing in the intoxicating scent, and finally sipping the liquid.

  The next drink, and the next, were not quite so polite and poetic.

  She never knew afterward when it got out of hand, but she found herself falling more and more under his spell. When he put his arms around her and kissed her, she seemed unable to resist. You don’t want him to stop, were the final whispers of that little warning voice in her mind.

  Things were going exactly as Clay had hoped. He had Belle right where he wanted her and continued to press his advances.

  “Clay … we shouldn’t,” she whispered weakly.

  “We should,” Clay answered in a deep voice, caressing her cheek and her neck. “Belle, I want you. I need you. You’re so very beautiful—”

  It was exactly at that point that the door burst open. Barton Howard, Belle’s eldest brother, was standing there. His face was flushed with rage, and his eyes were glittering.

  Before Clay could say a word, Barton drew a gun and fired. The bullet struck Clay in the side, and it turned him half around.

  Even slightly drunk, Clay was quick. His own pistol was hanging from his belt, draped over the back of a satin chair by the bed. He pulled the pistol and fired in the general direction of Barton Howard, who stumbled, reeled backward, and fell facedown.

  Belle stood and cried, “You’ve got to get out of here, Clay! They’ll hang you if my other brothers don’t kill you first.”

  Clay hesitated, starin
g down at Barton Howard. He was an excellent shot, and he surely never would have shot to kill Barton if he’d been sober. In fact, he had aimed just in the man’s general direction, more to scare him than shoot him. But he had been drinking too much, and his shot was wild. Had he killed this man?

  Belle knelt by her brother. She looked up at Clay, her eyes wide and horror-stricken, her face deadly pale. “He’s still alive, Clay, but that won’t matter to either of my brothers, Charlie or Ed. Don’t you see? Even if you haven’t killed Barton, you’ll have to kill them—or let them kill you!”

  Barton Howard, even now, was muttering and scrabbling vaguely at the floor.

  Clay was still frozen, rooted to the floor, staring down at him.

  Belle hissed, “Clay, don’t be a fool. Run!”

  Clay looked at her, and then his mouth tightened into a thin line. He knew she was right. He grabbed his pistol belt and his coat and shot outside her room. He could hear heavy footsteps pounding up the west stairwell and suspected that it was probably Belle’s other brothers.

  He hurried to his room and gathered up all his money. His side was red with blood, but he knew that the bullet barely grazed him. Cautiously opening the door, he could hear Charlie Howard’s angry roar from the direction of Belle’s room.

  Feeling completely like a coward and a heel, Clay silently ran down the east stairwell and to the livery stables. Quickly he saddled his horse and mounted up. His one thought was to get away. He spurred Lightning into a run and headed away from the city of Richmond.

  Entering his own sitting room, Dr. Ritchie said, “Barton’s not going to die.” The doctor was young for his profession, but he had a successful practice in Richmond. An earnest-looking man, he polished his glasses as he gave the news to Belle Howard and her other brothers. “The bullet hit him in the chest, but it bounced off a rib and missed all the vital organs. The surgery to remove it was tough, though, so he’ll need to stay in bed, probably for several weeks.”

  Ed and Charles stood tensely by the fireplace, while Belle sat in a straight chair, bent over, her face buried in her hands. She looked up as Ed said, “Thank you, doctor.” He then stared hard at her.

  The doctor glanced at Belle, then at her two angry brothers, and returned to his examination room, where Barton Howard lay, still unconscious.

  Ed muttered, “You’ve disgraced yourself, Belle.”

  Belle looked up at him beseechingly. It had been a horrifically long night. Her brother’s surgery had taken hours. It was still an hour till dawn, one of the bleakest hours. Her eyes were so swollen from weeping that they were barely open. “I—I—I just drank too much, Ed. It got out of control.”

  Ed Howard shook his head, a jerky, furious movement. “You know what kind of man he is. I’m ashamed of you, Belle. Tremayne is a no-good piece of trash. What I want to know is where he was going.”

  “I don’t know. How should I know? We—we weren’t exactly discussing future plans,” she said, burying her face in her hands again.

  With a last disgusted look at his sister, Charlie turned to Ed. “His people live in Lexington. If he’s hurt, he’ll probably head there. Belle did say that Barton got off a shot. Even if it didn’t knock Tremayne off his feet, Barton couldn’t have missed at that range.”

  “He was bleeding,” Belle moaned.

  Neither of them seemed to pay any attention to her.

  “He won’t go home. He’s the bad seed in the family, but he does keep them out of his affairs,” Ed said reluctantly. “What about Atlanta? He’s got Tremayne cousins there, I know.”

  “Why can’t you just leave him alone?” Belle said, looking up and feeling a spark of life for the first time. Her very first inclination had been to blame everything on Clay, but Belle Howard was a strong woman, and she had her own sense of honor, in spite of the way she had behaved. “It’s not like he blindfolded me and kidnapped me, you know. It’s not all his fault.”

  Ed glared at her. “You’re not going to be a tramp, Belle, if we have to keep you locked up, so you just stop that kind of talk right now. Tremayne is the one who has to pay for this. I’m not going to think any more about shooting him than I would about shooting a rabid dog.”

  Clay rode through the night, hard. He stopped once to check his wound. The bullet had hit him in the upper abdomen on the right side, had slid along a rib, and then had ricocheted out. He had a gash six inches long on his side, and he could see bare bone. Gritting his teeth, he poured brandy on it from a flask he always carried, thinking grimly, And this is the last time I’m touching this stuff! Then he tore up one of his white cotton shirts into strips and bound it up. It was extremely painful, but still he kept riding. He planned on riding straight through to Petersburg, where he could take a train to Charlotte, North Carolina. He had friends there, and some business connections. It never entered his mind to involve his family in this sordid affair.

  Just before dawn, Lightning started limping, and Clay knew he had pulled a tendon. This was not too uncommon for hard-ridden horses, and not really serious, but the only way for the horse to recover was to rest. He knew of a settlement called Lucky Way about a half mile off the main road to Petersburg. After he turned off on the rough trail that led to the little town, he dismounted to walk Lightning so as not to stress his foreleg any more. “Let’s just hope this really is a Lucky Way for us, boy,” he managed to joke.

  His plan was to stay out of sight, which he did. Ordinarily he would’ve gone to the saloon and gotten into a poker game, but he stayed in his own room in a dirty five-room boardinghouse. The only time he went out of his room was to stop at the general store, buy some horse liniment, and tend to Lightning.

  He slipped around the town at dusk. It was a small town, which made it difficult to keep from calling attention to himself, but he spoke to no one except the stable hand and the surly woman who ran the boardinghouse.

  After three days, Lightning had lost all signs of soreness in his foreleg. Clay decided to ride on to Petersburg. It was a hard ride, a day and a night straight through, and Clay knew that he shouldn’t put much stress on Lightning, but he realized that once they had gotten on the train, Lightning could rest up again. He left Lucky Way in a sad, blurry dawn that promised rain later.

  Clay thought of little else but of what had taken place in Richmond. He cursed himself for a fool, and a stupid one at that. He knew he had acted like the worst kind of scrub with Belle. I should’ve stayed away from her. She didn’t deserve all this. I hope Barton doesn’t die. That’ll get me hanged for sure.

  Once he got on the main road, he kept Lightning at a steady fast trot that would eat up the miles. During the day, he passed several wagons and other riders, but the traffic waned as night fell. The whole day had been overcast, but it had never rained. Now, dark ominous clouds scudded over the half-moon brooding above him.

  About three hours after sunset, he heard riders behind him. Clay was not the type of man to always be looking over his shoulder with fear, so he had wasted very little time worrying about the Howards. If anything, he thought they might search Richmond for him and maybe contact Morgan in Lexington, but it simply had not occurred to him that they might hunt him down. So, since the unknown riders were moving at a fast pace behind him, and the night was so dark, he cautiously pulled Lightning over to one side to let them pass.

  They drew nearer, two men, riding hard. They were still at least forty feet away from him when the black clouds cleared the moon. Even in the dimness, Clay recognized the bulk of big Ed Howard. At the same time Ed shouted, “That’s him, Charlie! Standing right there! Ride!”

  Clay spurred Lightning, and like his name, he bounded into a gallop so fast that the men fell farther behind. Still they rode, yelling like hounds baying.

  Clay barely heard the gunshot before it seemed as if a giant had simply kicked him in the back. He flew through the air and landed in the mud. He felt himself losing consciousness, and his last thought before the blackness set in was, I’m dead, Go
d. You’ve finally killed me …

  The two brothers rode slowly to the side of the road and looked down at Clay Tremayne, sprawled facedown, unmoving. Ed lowered his shotgun then slowly dismounted. He kicked Clay, not very hard, in the side. “He’s dead, Charlie,” he muttered. “Miserable dog.”

  Charlie didn’t speak. He dismounted his horse and stood beside Clay, then knelt down by him. He grabbed his hair and yanked up his face. Clay’s eyes remained closed. Charlie took his pistol then started working on taking a diamond signet ring off Clay’s finger.

  “Stop it, Charlie,” Ed ordered him in a harsh voice. “He’s dead. We had to kill him for what he did to Belle, but we’re no thieving trash. Just leave him.”

  Charlie grunted then stood and threw Clay’s pistol down to the ground. “You’re right, Ed. I’m not going to sink as low as he is. Was. Let the buzzards have him.”

  They mounted up and rode back north without looking back.

  But each knew Clay Tremayne lay in the mud without moving.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I think we need to celebrate, child.”

  Chantel sat loosely on the wagon seat holding the lines. Spring in the Southern states was lovelier than anything she had ever known. Sweet-scented breezes blew the trees back and forth so that they swayed like dancers. All along the back roads were foxes, rabbits, squirrels, and multitudes of butterflies. She turned to smile at Jacob, who was watching her intently. “What do we have to celebrate?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Well, I know things are going ver’ well. We’ve sold lots of goods, and I think, Grandpere, that we’ve made a lot of money, you and me. Is that what we want to celebrate?”

  “The Lord has blessed us exceedingly,” Jacob agreed placidly, “and that is always something to celebrate. But what I meant was, we should celebrate the two years we’ve been together. If I’m not mistaken, it was as the month of March was ending, two years ago, that you saved me.”