River Magic

Book 0: Lovegram

by Martha Hix

Genres: Historical Romance

Synopsis

India Marshall took one look at the Union Army's Rock Island Prison Camp, on the banks of the Mississippi...and prayed for strength. The determined Confederate belle had vowed to set her brother free at any cost. If she could somehow entice Major Connor O'Brien into trusting her, she might be able to stage a prison break...until she found herself caught between fear and desire, desperation and a passion that promised to break her heart. West Point soldier Connor O'Brien fought for the North, even though his big, brawling family came from Tennessee. He had mixed feelings about guarding this prison camp, but no doubts about the southern charmer who was placing both their lives at risk. Now, as the dark currents of war and treachery swept them toward certain betrayal, Connor and India were trapped between the loyalties they held dear and the love they could no longer resist...

Release date: April 1, 1995

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 289

Sample

A tea party for three was a helluva place for a West Point fighting man to spend his thirtieth birthday. The War of the Rebellion raged to the South, but not here, not in the center of Major Connor O’Brien’s discontent.

The hostess had excused herself to fetch a fashion periodical. North wind tapped at the windowpanes, snowflakes clotting the sashes, and the fireplace overheated this drawing room, where foodstuffs sat uneaten and a Persian house cat snoozed in his lap. Connor O’Brien envied the cat’s sleep.

Medal of Honor territory this was not.

He eyed the other guest, a past-the-bloom member of the United States Sanitary Commission. India Marshall had arrived this afternoon.

The aged lady smelled of lavender water. Salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a bun at her nape, with tight curls springing to her forehead, she wore a lace kerchief above a squarish face. A shawl draped her shoulders. Rocking a Boston rocker, humming the battle hymn of the Republic, she busied her fingers with knitting a glove. Conversation didn’t seem to interest her, since she hadn’t said two words to Connor. Neither did she glance his way.

He sought to bring her out. “Ma’am, I understand you’ll be taking quarters with the Lawrences.”

“I will.” She shoved spectacles up her nose. “I’ve been told officials must stay with Colonel Lawrence and his wife.”

Officials, and a reluctant major.

Wartime housing being scarce, the Commandant of Prisons had mandated the mansion built by long-dead pioneer, George Davenport, be used as seat for Rock Island Prison Camp’s warden and his family. With many surplus rooms available to the childless Lawrence couple, Connor, as second in command of the newly constructed prison, had been afforded the luxury of the lodging. Some luxury.

Opal Lawrence had done her best to make the dwelling commonly known as the “Davenport mansion” homey, livable, and had given the place a woman’s touch by placing this inherited piece of furniture with that bit of the same. But Connor would have been happier bunking inside the prison than to have taken quarters with the commander he both despised and scorned—and sarcastically thought of as “Dimpled Darling”—Roscoe Lawrence.

The colonel was anything but dimpled or darling. Ugly didn’t begin to describe him. Inside or out. Lawrence’s negatives were neither here nor there, though. He was Connor’s commander. So be it.

Furthermore, the Army being the Army, no one had asked Connor for either his opinion or approval. Thus, he did his best to stay as far from this residence as possible, but such as Opal’s modest tea party in honor of his birthday chained him to the place.

He studied the sanitarian’s profile. “I’ve heard of the Sanitary Commission. Fine organization. They’ve sent nurses and doctors to staff military hospitals. But battlefield casualties are hundreds of miles away.”

While he had no use for his commander, it was his duty to keep abreast of everything that affected the prison compound located due north of the Davenport mansion, and Miss Marshall’s presence couldn’t be by chance. “What brings you to Rock Island?”

The humming stopped, but it wasn’t for an answer.

He asked, “Will you set up a collection stand in town for donations of cookies and mittens for troops in the fields?”

She cackled, as if his had been the most absurd question in the world. Her voice sounding old—too old?—she never missed a beat, knitting. “War’s work spreads near and far, Sonny.”

“Ma‘am, the name’s O’Brien.” He scratched Amelia’s furred chin, receiving a thankful yet somnolent purr. “Connor O’Brien.”

“Please excuse me. Age does peculiar things to a lady.”

He noted something peculiar, all right. The up-in-years Miss Marshall had an odd facial pallor, as if she’d powdered her cheeks with ashes. Still and all, Connor figured the petite woman had been comely enough in earlier years. Awnings of dark lashes porched her bespectacled eyes, and hers were nice features. Unwrinkled features.

She inspected the half-finished glove. “Mrs. Lawrence told me this camp is manned by decrepit veterans unfit for active duty. Grandfathers. What brought you to Rock Island Prison Camp?”

Apparently Opal hadn’t added “dregs of the Union Army” to her details. Dregs fit Connor. As it did her husband.

“Most of the officers, and some of the men, aren’t aged,” Connor pointed out, not at all eager to touch on his reasons for being assigned to a lousy outfit.

“All the better to keep the rowdies in line?” she asked.

“We do what has to be done.”

“That’s war for you. The Rebels are so desperate they’re sending lads barely weaned from Mother’s milk into battle.”

“President Davis ought to order surrender.”

“The war does drag on. Beyond decency.” She bent her neck to finish off a finger. In a sorrowful yet caustic voice, she muttered, “Shouldn’t have started.”

“It did.” Connor rested his wrist against the hilt of his saber. “The Union won’t back down.”

“ ’Tis a pity.” Knitting needles clacked. “So many young men like yourself, dying, dying, dying.”

Older women did tend toward the maudlin, and since he had a high regard for such women—he had two splendid aunts in their fifties—Connor settled on the benign. “You’re doing a fine job on those gloves.”

“Thank you.” She held them up, proud. “I’d be honored if you’d take them, once they’re finished. Well, maybe not.” Her gaze took a fleeting shift in his direction, and he got a brief glimpse of dark blue eyes. Her tongue clicked. “You may have the next pair. I believe these’ll be way too small for your big hands. You have nice hands. Broad, sturdy, strong.”

Again, she looked his way. Her lashes batted behind silver spectacles, flirting? He got uncomfortable. Connor liked women, but preferred them more his age.

“Yes, those hands are nice,” she gushed. “All the better to hold big ol’ rifles or heavy swords. That’s sure a nice sword you’re toting.” India Marshall lifted and wiggled a finger way too youthful for her overall appearance. “Naughty boy, have you been using that shiny saber to keep your prisoners in line?”

He scowled. What was it about her that didn’t ring true, over and above a questionable style in word choices? Connor stroked Amelia’s feline ear and sized up the sanitarian. Her hands grasped his attention. Tawny in hue, they were neither weathered nor overused, nor did they have a single liver spot.

Her shape didn’t resemble an older woman. There appeared to be muscle, and a pert bosom, beneath that crocheted shawl and ghastly gray frock. She called to mind a half-grown gray cat he’d found as a lad. Feisty, lynx-sly. No way was she akin to the fat lazy cat asleep in his lap.

“Sonny Boy, shame on you, staring at wizened old me,” India Marshall admonished, akin to a Sunday school teacher. “Why haven’t you answered my question? Are you cruel to prisoners?”

Cruel? The off-to-Washington commander of this post had enough cruelty to go around. Roscoe Lawrence had taken the eastbound train from Rock Island this morning, had left not two hours before India Marshall arrived. His absence being the sole reprieve in the six months he’d had the ill fortune to be assigned to Rock Island Prison Camp, Connor got the sneaking suspicion he’d come up against a whole new set of problems.

“Well, Major O’Brien? Are you cruel?”

“I do what I have to do.”

“That’s the coward’s way.”

“Those Rebels deserve what they get.”

The fingers of one hand covered her lips, a gesture of shocked disapproval. “What would your dear mama back home think, were she to know her sonny boy is mistreating penned prisoners.”

“‘Dear mama’ doesn’t think anything, she’s dead,” he replied, boiling hot. “Why are you goading me, Miss Marshall?”

“War’s purpose is to kill and maim. My purpose is to clean up the mess. You and I couldn’t be further apart in outlook.”

“Outlook you won’t get an argument on. My job is to fight. I am a West Pointer. We live for combat.”

“Pity.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Ma’am.”

“ ’Tis a pity you must battle fenced-in men. I should suspect a big strapping lad such as yourself would much prefer to lock horns with the likes of that Rebel, Robert E. Lee.”

His exact preference. Connor should have been on a battlefield, fighting the misguided Confederates, but he wasn’t, and if Stew Lewis didn’t come through for him, no telling how many more birthdays he’d spend in the harvest of disgrace.

With a war of sorts going on in this drawing room, he got back to it. “Better you should lock horns with General Lee. I get the impression you’re rarin’ for a fight.”

“My gracious, you are a sensitive whippersnapper. Why, I bet you’ve grown tired of being cooped up on this island, with little more freedom than your own charges. Are you hoping for magic to spring you from here?”

A miracle was exactly what it would take to spring him from the trap of bad judgment. His actions at the battle of Gettysburg got him transferred here, and Connor supposed he ought to be thankful for not getting a court-martial over it, but how could he look on the bright side while under the command of Colonel Roscoe Lawrence?

He had, nonetheless, written to a West Point classmate, petitioning Stewart Lewis to call him back to the fields. Lewis hadn’t replied. Alas, the appeal hadn’t escaped Dimpled Darling Lawrence’s notice. The camp commander, an ass of the first order, had objected. Loudly and profanely.

Connor slanted his gaze at the sanitarian. “There’s no such thing as magic. If it existed, why are these United States falling to wrack and ruin from within?”

“It’s never too late for miracles.”

“Right.” He gazed into hearth flames, rankled. “You’re trying to pull something out of me, Miss Marshall.” He extended a long leg, and at the same moment he intended to ask, “What is it?” Amelia refitted herself on his lap, and parked her chin on the hillock of his uniform-covered privates.

Purrs loud and noticeable drew the sanitarian’s eyes to the source. Miss Marshall’s lips curved in amusement. The tables had turned. It was her turn to stare at him, but he didn’t like the target of her line of sight.

“My gracious, Major, you do seem to be popular with the ladies.” Her comment obviously having little to do with the Persian, she added, “The young ones do like the conquering hero in a man, I reckon.”

Connor put Amelia to her paws. Quickly.

“Look, lady. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but I don’t appreciate it. Seven thousand men are here because they made war against the legal government of these United States. If you’re wanting to knit gloves and collect cookies for Union men, fine. If you’ve got something else in mind, like stirring sympathies against the war, move on.”

Her hands went still around the knitting needles. “I’ve offended you. I did so hope we could become allies.” She ducked her chin. “Forgive me, Major O’Brien?”

Allies? She’d taken a curious avenue to it. Why fight her, though? He’d been reared to show respect, not temper to his elders. Not doing so shamed him, brought him to his senses. Making war on little old ladies—and penned warriors, truth be told—as much appeal as quitting the Army to take over at Fitz & Son, Factors.

“No hard feelings,” he allowed.

“Thank you kindly, sir.” She gathered her knitting. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go upstairs and unpack.”

And so it was that on the blustery afternoon of his thirtieth birthday, Connor O’Brien rose by custom from the upholstered love seat in an overheated salon to allow a bothersome old lady her leave, and wished he could be anywhere else.

India rounded the wall leading from the drawing room into the foyer, and wished she’d used a different tack in finding out how the inmates were treated. The wall as support, she shivered, her nerves haywire. Usually, India could be described as bold as full rigging, but home lay a long way south of here, and survival rode on the success of her mission.

You played it all wrong, Indy. She’d tried to ape her grandmother, had mixed in her beguiling little sister, and what had been the outcome? Pure India Marshall.

She’d alienated that good-looking major.

Furthermore, Connor O’Brien had taken a too-close look at the young woman behind the get-up sewn by her nimble-fingered sister-in-law. The major’s suspicion had been as evident as that manly bulge in those dratted blue uniform britches.

Gracious, he did do justice to his vestments! Have you gone mad? Conquering heroes had never appealed to her. Her taste ran toward poetry readers.

Taste was not the issue, nor was this a good time for wilting. Or for unpacking.

India squared her shoulders, dragging in a breath of restorative air. Better. Maybe all wasn’t lost. After all, she’d apologized to Connor O’Brien, and he had been a gentleman about it. He might permit her inside the gates.

Permission or no permission, she must breach those walls.

It would be best if she cased the fence’s perimeter to find its weakest point. Yet breaking into a penal colony had about as much appeal to India as swimming or snakes. Her weakest points.

Stop dawdling, Indy. She thought of Tennyson’s poem. Yours is but to do and die.

She took a step. Her gaze caught on a tintype hanging on the wall. She eyed the opposite to the major’s attractiveness. This soldier’s image would knock the wind out of any sail.

Stringy hair, thinned by age, did nothing to enhance a frocked hog giving unpleasant decoration to the foyer. His upturned snout gave the onlooker a look at the cavities of his dime-size nostrils. To top them off, there was enough meanness in his beady eyes to send a tusk through anyone’s composure.

Without a doubt she gazed upon the graven image of Colonel Roscoe Lawrence, Union Army.

If India had anything to give thanks for at this moment, it was that the colonel had left for a protracted stay in the Yankee capital. Him she had no desire to tangle with.

The major, well, at least he had looks on his side.

She ventured a glance back into the drawing room. His casual pose retained military correctness. He stood with a forearm resting atop the hilt of his U.S.-issue saber, the other hand parked on the mantel. He brooded into the flames.

India grabbed the chance to study uninterrupted. Tall, way over six feet in height, he had the darkest of brown hair. Clipped short hair. Unlike many military men, he didn’t sport a mustache or beard, but then he had no bad feature to hide. She recalled hazel eyes. Wonderful hazel eyes. A patrician brow and a noble nose capped a sensuous mouth that she tried to imagine twisting into a grin. Somehow she couldn’t imagine it.

Unhappy man fit the major; she didn’t think their spat had much to do with it. Being billeted on Rock Island couldn’t be too satisfactory, not to a virile war hawk. Having figured as much during their debate, she’d tried to get an admission along that line, but he was one stubborn cuss, that Connor O’Brien.

Of course, she had come at him like Pickett’s Charge.

She’d been just as successful as that ragtag bunch of go-for-glory Confederates at Gettysburg. Unsuccessful.

Mrs. Roscoe Lawrence, an ear trumpet in one hand and a periodical in the other, entered the drawing room from the adjacent library. “Whatever happened to Miss Marshall?”

The major turned to the downtrodden woman, smiled—he was capable of it!—and answered when the half-deaf Opal Lawrence lifted the apparatus to her ear. “Unpacking. She’s unpacking.”

“She didn’t like the food.” The lady of the house eyed the untouched silver tray of petit fours and small sandwiches. “Is something wrong with it? Is that why she left early?”

India didn’t listen to more. Opal Lawrence was a fussbudget, and the poor woman looked older than the fifty years she claimed. From the looks of her husband, why wonder why?

Make hay while the sun shines, Indy.

The shawl crossed over her breasts, she grabbed her cape, then stole through the foyer and out a connecting hall to its rear, rushing to the butler’s pantry. A corporal sat on a stool and pared his thumbnail with a knife.

“Pardon me, Corporal Smith,” she said breezily, “I need a breath of air.”

She charged out the back door, down the six steps, and was met by a blast of cold air and driving snow that lanced right to her marrow. Before leaving Louisiana, she’d never even seen the white stuff, and hoped it would soon become nothing but a memory. Her thin blood didn’t like it one bit.

Illinois had a tendency toward the chilly, or so she’d been told, but this was ridiculous.

“Coldest winter in years, yep,” Deuteronomy Smith offered from the top of the stairs. He spoke with a funny accent, like she’d heard New Englanders use at Port Hudson. Before closing the door, the corporal gave advice. “Don’t freeze, lady.”

She wouldn’t. She just couldn’t! Marching through the snow, the weight of it dragging at her skirts, India directed her feet northward, away from the mansion situated south of the prison camp, both on an island in the upper Mississippi River.

A whistle blew, railroad cars trundling over the first bridge to span the great river, just south of where she stood. The North was surviving the War of the Rebellion better than the South. Commerce went on interrupted, money to be made by all. Aren’t they fortunate?

On her way to Rock Island India had asked question after question about this particular part of the North, asked anyone who could offer insight. One man said vicious rapids between here and the Iowa town of Davenport made northward navigation treacherous if not impossible.

She quivered, cold, fearful. For thirteen years, since her eleventh year, she’d hated water and the dangers it hid.

Her eyes took a wary swerve toward the Mississippi. The whole of the river, Davenport rapids and all, were frozen. If a prisoner escaped by riverside, he’d best be an ice skater. Southerners knew as much about ice-skating as India did about behaving as a winsome Southern belle.

She kept to a northerly course. The penitentiary loomed before her. Ringed by a twelve-foot picket fence with guard towers every hundred feet, the stockade hugged the banks of the iced Mississippi, facing Davenport town. It seemed impregnable.

No woman acting alone, armed with no more than a revolver, could break in and find the brother who held the valuable information that sent her on an odyssey through Yankeeland and had deposited her in this pit of perdition.

She must get in with permission.

India fought to turn around. Icicles burdened her eyelashes, and her breath made billows of steam. Fueled by the fire of achieving her goal, she marched back to the mansion. Somehow, someway, she must coerce that handsome, dashing major into letting her have her way. Exactly how would be the challenge for a fake sanitarian unskilled at beguiling.

Her weaponry, she decided after mulling her nettlesome nature, would have to be pure India. “Try to be nice about it.”

Nice would be a bigger challenge than fenced walls and armed sentries, or even snake-infested watery depths.

Dinner turned out to be boiled beef, cabbage, and potatoes, with rhubarb pie for dessert. Connor had an appetite, but not for food. He wanted facts.

Waiting to get to the truth, Connor sat left of Mrs. Lawrence, the sanitarian to her right in a position of honor. The ladies chattered about fashions and frippery. Chattered as best they could, the commander’s wife being partially deaf.

“Whatever has detained Roscoe’s niece?” Opal blurted, her voice out of tune. “Antoinette promised to join us for dinner.” She raised an ear trumpet for Miss Marshall’s reply. “How I wish she and Roscoe were here to share in our fellowship.”

The quintessential army wife, Opal. Loyal, faithful, true, she adored her unlovable husband. It had been a sacrifice to serve those refreshments gone uneaten this afternoon, thanks to her husband’s close watch on expenses and his pocketing of the War Department’s rations allowance. All along, Connor had slipped Opal money to augment her grocery allowance, but other purchases also stretched her pocketbook. Finery for a niece.

Opal needed frippery. Her looks had suffered from years of trying to spin class into her rude, crude, miserly husband. Unrequited love dulled her eyes. Frustration grooved her mouth. For putting up with Roscoe Lawrence, the lady ought to win a medal. It helped to be hard of hearing, Connor supposed.

Connor didn’t enjoy gossip, but he’d have to be stone deaf not to hear the stories that had circulated on Rock Island. Opal Lawrence had been reared in a wealthy home, had lowered herself to marry a boorish farm boy, and things weren’t quite cricket between her husband and his blond niece.

“Did I show you the ball gown I’m fashioning for Antoinette?” Opal asked the sanitarian.

“You did. Have you not fashioned an outfit for yourself? You’re tall. You’d look lovely in the new fashions. Me, I’m simply dumpy. Um, I was in my younger years. What difference does it make now?” Miss Marshall smiled at the hostess, who readjusted the ear trumpet to try to catch her remark. “I beg your indulgence. I’d like to discuss the war effort.”

“Such as your collection stand?” Connor quizzed.

Opal, uncomprehending, tried to get into the conversation. “I’m so pleased you’re having a good time on your birthday, Major.”

He wouldn’t hurt the lady’s feelings. Hand signals helping to get the message across, he elevated his voice. “You’ve done yourself proud, ma’am.”

Miss Marshall retreated to a subject she’d dismissed. “Tell me about the latest in fashion.”

The ladies again engaged in distaff chatter. Connor noted the sanitarian made no more mention of the “war effort,” but she did repeat herself over and again for her audience. When it came to talking with one of her own gender, the sanitarian had a lot of pleasantries.

This afternoon rushed back to his thoughts. She was a puzzle. Again, he detected a certain intrinsic slyness to her, like that of his boyhood pet. Lynx, though, had been smart enough to keep her mouth shut, since language could, and usually did, make a muck of things.

Connor made it a rule not to speak of himself, yet the nurse-sanitarian had gotten a lot out of him this afternoon.

“I intend to tour the prison barracks forthwith,” India Marshall suddenly announced, sending an alarm through Connor.

Opal readjusted her ear trumpet. “I didn’t catch that, Miss Marshall. What did you say?”

“I am a trained nurse.”

“Nurse?” Connor didn’t like this turn. “Miss Marshall, if you wish to tour the prison, you ought to know you need my permission, not Mrs. Lawrence’s. With her husband away, I am acting commander here at Rock Island Prison Camp.”

Opal appeared bewildered. Miss Marshall set her square jaw. And Connor waited for the nurse-sanitarian’s comeback.

None forthcoming, he pressed, “Miss Marshall, are you asking my permission?”

The second hand on the grandfather clock in the corner made a quarter sweep before the grayed woman spoke. “I certainly do not wish to circumvent your authority, Major O’Brien. May I, please, sir, have permission to inspect the prisoners’ barracks?”

“No. Not no. Never no.”

“Joe? Who is Joe?” Opal shook her head, perplexed.

Before Connor could put the lady at ease, India Marshall launched the cannonball of her tongue. “By order of the Surgeon General, I have the authority to inspect this camp, Sonny Boy. Nary a general in the Union Army can stop me, much less a mere major. As soon as the sun rises on the morrow, I will proceed.”

“No, you won’t. No female will enter the barracks. You may be up in years, ma’am, but you’d be the first female those Rebels will have seen in months, if not years.”

Out of loyalty Connor didn’t add the ancient Iowan reservists to his list, though some oldsters might show unseemly interest. On the other hand, it would give those guards something to do beyond complaining about hemorrhoids or bunions.

“There could be trouble,” Connor added on a prudent note.

“Then assign a soldier as my escort. Of course, I’d rather have the camp physician.”

“Vernon Hanrahan is busy.”

“Doing what? Building a snowman?”

Inwardly, Connor chuckled, but no way would he show it, and she did have the grace to appear embarrassed when he said somberly, “You, as a sanitarian, ought to know no medical man in these times is building snowmen.”

Actually, Hanrahan stayed busy nursing the bourbon jug, a habit not unfamiliar to the dimpled darling, Roscoe Lawrence.

Connor returned to the crux of it all. “Miss Marshall, you may not enter the gates without my escort.”

“Who hates? You don’t hate each other, do you?” Mrs. Lawrence fiddled with the trumpet. “Pity, why would you hate each other? We’re all on the same side.”

Connor compelled a smile at her. “Pardon our rudeness.”

“Neither of us hates the other,” Miss Marshall assured the lady, then took a different strategy, addressing Connor. “I beg your indulgence and prudence, sir. You would expose yourself to disease. I wouldn’t dream of endangering a United States Army officer. Provide a common soldier, one who’s survived smallpox.”

“I’ve survived smallpox. Got pockmarks to prove it.”

She set her cutlery down, and the appearance of her long, slender, unblemished fingers reinforced his earlier suspicions.

“Pulling you away from your duties is a needless expense of time,” . . .