Beguiled Read online

  Beguiled

  Paisley Smith

  www.loose-id.com

  Beguiled

  Copyright © November 2010 by Paisley Smith

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN 978-1-60737-891-4

  Editor: Jana J. Hanson

  Cover Artist: Anne Cain

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

  PO Box 425960

  San Francisco CA 94142-5960

  www.loose-id.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * *

  DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the servicewomen of the US military, both past and present.

  Acknowledgement

  I’d like to thank my fellow authors, Titania Ladley/Roxana Blaze and Naima Simone, for their help and suggestions in bringing Alice and Belle to life.

  I’d also like to extend my gratitude to plantation-life historian Amy Batton and military historian Heath Mathews for sharing their invaluable historical knowledge and research with me.

  Chapter One

  Pitchfork in hand, I stood on the steps of my ancestral plantation home, glaring at the throng of Yankees bearing torches. I knew good and well they’d looted every other farm along McDonough Road and that nothing would stop the brigands from stealing everything we had. Still, I wasn’t going to let them rifle Rattle and Snap without a fight.

  Burning a stare at each pair of eyes trained on me, I gazed over the sea of blue coats interspersed with the less common, colorful Yankee Zouave uniforms. There were too many of them, and though I knew I might tear into one or two of them with my pitchfork, resistance otherwise would be futile.

  The screen door croaked, and I glanced back just long enough to see my feeble-minded mother ambling out onto the porch dressed in nothing but her nightgown. She’d suffered from dementia since the birth of my fifteen-year-old little brother, Grayson. “Go back inside, Ma,” I told her, tightening my grip on the pitchfork handle.

  A sudden shot rang out from the upstairs window, and one of the Yankees dropped. In that instant, I knew my life had taken an irrevocable turn.

  Shots split the air. Glass in one of the upstairs windows shattered. My mother let out a mad screech and, pitchfork or no, two of the New York Yankees seized me, dashing my weapon to the porch, while countless others stormed past my addled mother and into the house. My heart hammered. All I could think was that Grayson had shot one of the soldiers. Our house would be burned for certain now, but worse—what would they do to Grayson?

  I struggled, but to no avail. The Yankees who held me reeked of muddy, wet wool and unwashed bodies. I gagged as the stench assailed me. “Take your hands off me, you filth!” I exclaimed, but my protests were met with even tighter, more familiar hands.

  Boots resounded on the wide planked floors inside. There was a scuffle, and all of a sudden, instead of Grayson’s dark head emerging from the front door, I saw my father’s weathered face as he was pushed onto the porch by the Yankees.

  I gaped, knowing my father hadn’t shot that soldier. He was protecting my little brother. “Pa!” I cried. “No!”

  “Hush up, Belle,” he warned, giving me a stern look as they manhandled him into the yard.

  But I would not be quiet. “What are you doing with him? Can’t you see he’s an old man? Release him this instant!”

  My pleas fell on deaf ears as the soldiers determined the Yankee who’d been shot was dead. I struggled as they talked in hushed voices. And when one of the Yankees threw a rope over the thick branch of my favorite elm tree, my stomach twisted into knots. They intended to hang my pa! This couldn’t be happening.

  But it was. I couldn’t tear my gaze from it any more than I could have ripped my gaze from the face of a corpse at a wake. I felt as if I were somehow standing outside my body, watching instead of experiencing, observing as if it were happening to somebody else. Anybody else. Not me. Not here. Not this day.

  As they slipped the noose over my father’s head, pitiful screams tore from my throat. Time seemed to move at half speed while I struggled to free myself. With my husband fighting in Virginia, my father was all I had left in the world to guide me. Without him, I would be utterly lost. He was the person I’d always gone to when I needed advice, when I needed a soft place to fall. He’d been the one who made the decisions, who kept this plantation running. And now…

  Panic roiled as three of the Yankees pulled the rope. Pa’s heels left the ground. From my vantage point on the porch, I witnessed his last moments. Hands tied, he struggled and kicked. The toes of his boots grappled for solid ground they did not find. Don’t look. Don’t watch this! But I couldn’t tear my gaze from the horrific sight.

  I’d never seen a man die before. The reality of it was far different from imagining it or reading about it—or even hearing an account of it.

  A dark stain appeared on my father’s breeches. His struggles slowed, then ceased while my heart wrenched with the ignominy of it all. Pa was dead.

  I wanted to faint, to retch, something, anything. Instead, all I could do was stare numbly.

  “Get your hands off Miss Belle!” my father’s grizzled old butler, Uncle Hewlett, barked in his booming voice at the Yankees.

  No one, not even the Yankees, dared cross Uncle Hewlett. I’d never had any idea how old he was, but he’d looked the very same all my life with his freckled cocoa skin, woolly gray hair, and deeply lined face. In spite of his years, he carried his six-feet-three-inch frame like a gladiator marching into the arena. At once, the Yankees released me into his lanky arms.

  I fell against him, sobbing. “What’ll I do now?”

  “Hush, Miss Belle,” he said, cradling my head close where I heard his own quiet sobs.

  But I couldn’t afford to hush or to be weak, as much as I yearned to do just that. I had to be strong. I had to pull up my bootstraps. I couldn’t let them take everything we’d stored for the winter.

  I tore myself from Uncle Hewlett’s comforting arms and scrambled to snatch up my pitchfork again. “The least you can do is leave us a place to live,” I called to the Yankee in charge.

  He spun on his heel and eyed me. Lifting my chin, I burned a stare into him, daring him to torch my house after killing my father right before my eyes. “My mother is touched in the head. There’s only my servant and me left to run this place. You’ve murdered my father. Leave us the house,” I bargained. I intentionally omitted the fact that my brother doubtless h
id upstairs.

  “Are you willing to take in our wounded?” the Yankee asked, catching me totally off guard.

  I swallowed. I had expected him to deny me. The last thing I wanted was a passel of Yankees I’d have to feed under my roof. I lowered the pitchfork. “How many are there?”

  “Only two who can’t be moved farther.” His mouth twisted downward in a grim line. His eyes reflected that he regretted hanging my father, but his remorse did little to lessen my grief. Pa was gone, and no amount of Yankee sympathy was going to bring him back.

  I didn’t want to do anything to help this man or his wounded soldiers. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow the lot of them. Realistically, I knew that wouldn’t happen. If it meant keeping the roof over our heads, taking in two injured men couldn’t be so bad. And if they were too frail to be moved, hopefully, they’d both die soon. “Very well,” I told him. “But leave us with something to feed them. We’ve no field hands left, and you Yankees have taken all our livestock.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to manage,” the Yankee said in his clipped northern accent. “I’ll have the orderlies bring them inside.”

  With that, he ordered the torchbearers to back down before he spun on his heel and left.

  “I’ll go cut down Mr. James,” Uncle Hewlett said softly.

  At least temporarily satisfied the Yankees were going to leave us be, I glanced at Uncle Hewlett. A big tear rolled down his dark freckled cheek. I’d never seen him cry before. Despite the difference in their stations, he’d loved my father as if he were his own brother.

  I had to be strong for Uncle Hewlett too. “I can’t let you do that by yourself. Come on. There’s no sense in putting off the inevitable.”

  * * *

  It had taken longer to bury Pa than I’d thought. Uncle Hewlett had blubbered like a baby while Ma, mercifully in her own world, had picked wildflowers at the edge of the family cemetery. I had taken one shovel and Grayson the other. We dug the shallow grave ourselves.

  The knowledge that Grayson had fired the shot and that Pa had given up his life to save his son hung like a storm cloud in the air, but I didn’t utter a word about it. I suppose I would have done the same as Pa. And poor Grayson had to bear his own guilt. He didn’t need me adding to it.

  But rather than crying, Grayson remained fixed on the task at hand. His sunburned face grew more and more mottled with red splotches. Whether it was anger or embarrassment or both, I didn’t know. He shook from head to toe, and as soon as we’d raked the last spade full of dirt over Pa’s grave, Grayson stabbed the point of his shovel in the ground. “I’m going to Jonesborough to join up with the Arkansas troops under Pat Cleburne,” he announced, resolved.

  Everything in my world suddenly lurched another notch off-kilter. I ached to slap him. I clenched my fist to keep from doing just that. “Don’t you dare leave!” I flung the shovel to the ground. “If you go, I’ll be left here with nobody but Ma and Uncle Hewlett. I’ll never be able to tend to the goats by myself.” That is, if the Yankees hadn’t found the dozen goats I’d hidden in a dilapidated house in the woods on the back of the property. If they had, we’d be without milk and butter and cheese or any way to trade with the neighbors for what they had to spare. After Pa’s death and Grayson traipsing off to join the army, I couldn’t survive one more tragedy.

  “I’m going,” he said. “I should have gone as soon as we heard the Yankees were marching into Atlanta!”

  Where I grieved, he raged. If only I were a man with the choice to snatch up a gun so I could avenge my father’s death.

  Uncle Hewlett intervened. “Mr. Grayson, Miss Belle needs you around here. Those goats aren’t going to milk themselves, and your ma’s not any help.”

  I could see that Grayson would not be dissuaded. He’d begged for years to join the army, and the only reason he hadn’t was because my father threatened to take a buggy whip to him if he even mentioned it.

  “See reason, son,” Uncle Hewlett said. “Give yourself a couple of days to grieve and to think about it. You’re needed here even more than you’re needed on the front. Mr. Dalton signed up to do the fighting for this family. Sending one man to the front lines is enough.”

  “And where’s Dalton now?” Grayson railed. His gaze locked with mine, and I shuddered at the cold accusation there—as if somehow this were all my fault.

  My palm went to my apron pocket as if the wadded-up casualty list might not be there, as if it had all been a nightmare. Missing…

  Not captured. Not killed. Not wounded.

  Missing.

  Uncle Hewlett seized Grayson’s arm, and he gave him a fierce shake. Grayson yanked himself loose. He raked a trembling hand through his black hair. Tears suddenly flooded his dark eyes, and with a sob, he took off, darting back toward the house as fast as his bare feet would carry him.

  I hung my head. “He won’t be there when we get back, will he?” I asked.

  “‘See first that the design is wise and just; that ascertained, pursue it resolutely,’” Uncle Hewlett mused aloud.

  “Don’t quote Shakespeare to me now,” I spat back, exasperated. My brother had run off, probably to be killed, hothead that he was. I’d just buried my father in a grave I feared would be ravaged by wild dogs. Right now, I simply couldn’t tolerate Uncle Hewlett’s eggheaded pontificating.

  He clapped his hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll go see to the goats, Miss Belle.”

  Numb, I nodded. Milking the goats was too much work for one person, but I just couldn’t face it right now. I dragged in a breath and lifted my face to the tender rain that had begun to fall before I took Ma’s hand and trudged wearily back toward the house. For the first time in my life, I thanked the heavens Ma didn’t have the sense to know her husband had just been murdered.

  Dalton could dig Pa a deeper grave when he returned from Virginia, and besides, Uncle Hewlett was right. I couldn’t worry about Grayson. I couldn’t control him any more than I could control anything in this godforsaken world. I felt as if the world were crashing down around me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. When would this war ever end?

  All I knew for certain right now was that Grayson would be gone by the time the rest of us returned.

  As the big Georgian house situated in the center of the Rattle and Snap plantation loomed into view, I sighed. I’d always loved the shelter of that cavernous house with its half-moon-shaped porch graced with soaring columns. The elegant balconies on each side of the house made it look like a giant decorated cake to me. Now the plaster flaked from the columns. The roof desperately needed repairs. Inside, the stench of dampness and rot pervaded rooms that didn’t have an eastern or western exposure.

  Rattle and Snap was weary too.

  My heart grew heavier with the load I now shouldered almost by myself. And to add insult to injury, there would be two stinking Yankees in my house when I returned. I wanted to collapse and didn’t know what drove me to put one foot in front of the other. All I knew was that I had to do it. I didn’t have any other choice.

  Immediately, Ma darted to the broken mirror in the entry hall and, singing, began inserting the flowers she’d picked into her wild gray hair. As I wearily climbed the stairs, it occurred to me that the sight of her behaving so childishly no longer shocked me as it had when I was younger.

  Before I reached the top, I heard the moans. Loud, heart-wrenching moans that left a horrid taste in my mouth. What the hell had those damn Yankees left me?

  To make the intolerable situation worse, the bastard lay entrenched in my father’s bed. “The pain!” he cried when he saw me. “Give me something for the pain!”

  He clutched the sheets and rolled from side to side in the bed. Realizing that he couldn’t be still, I stared in horror. I’d seen one of the servants carry on like that with labor pains, but it shocked me to see a man writhing in agony. Darkly, I wondered why I couldn’t thrash about like this to fight the hole left in my heart
from my father’s death.

  “Sweet mercy,” he gasped. “Help me!”

  “Did they leave you anything? Any laudanum?” If they had, I thought about taking it myself and letting the Yankee rot.

  Although I wanted to close the door and blot out his screams, I trudged into the room and prowled through his knapsack. Nothing. They’d left him with nothing.

  I went to my father’s chifferobe where I knew he’d kept his stash of whiskey. I stared at the amber liquid and took a deep breath before knocking back a draught of it myself. The acrid flavor curled the edges of my tongue and warmed as it slid down my throat. I’d never tasted anything so awful in my life, but the instant calm it offered overrode the foul taste. I carried it to the bed and held the bottle to the soldier’s lips. “Not too much,” I warned him. It wouldn’t do for him to drink it all up. As far as I knew, this might be the last.

  His screams faded into a pitiful sort of whimpering. The dirty bandages around his belly indicated he’d been shot in the guts. I didn’t know much about wounds, but instinct told me this man was going to die and that he would take his sweet time about it.

  Even if he was a Yankee, I couldn’t just leave him to suffer. I unfolded a quilt and threw it over him to keep him warm.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he mumbled before he fell into a feverish doze.

  I inhaled and immediately wished I hadn’t. The soldier reeked of rot and blood. Grimacing against the rancid stench, I left the room. I couldn’t face the other one. Not now. I longed for the days when Mammy would heat a bath for me, and I’d soak until my fingers and toes were pruned. But those days were long gone, and Mammy was long dead. I no longer had the luxury of relying on anyone but myself.

  It was as if I had been ripped into tiny pieces and spread as thin as the butter we strove to procure. I couldn’t rest. There was another damn fetid Yankee to see after. I said a silent prayer that I’d find this one already dead.