Susan Johnson Read online

  “As you see,” he replied with a charming smile acquired from similar conversations with highborn females eager to be seduced, “your attractions,” he went on in a husky rasp while his slender bronze fingers slipped down the fullness of pink flesh and slid inside a hot, slick moistness, “fascinate me.” He had not only learned to sip sherry and debate philosophy at Harvard, he’d learned every New England variation on the universal language of love. He then kissed her fingertips one by one and when he licked her thumb, she whispered, “Please, Hazard.”

  “Soon.”

  “Now, please, oh God, please.” His lean fingers had continued stroking deep inside her with a controlled expertise any artist would envy.

  “Hush.” He kissed her lightly, then teasingly ran his free hand over and over the sensitive full undercurve of her breasts, stopping just short of the peaked hard nipples waiting for his touch. And when, after what seemed a breathless eternity, his thumb and forefinger closed over one pink crest and pulled lightly, the lady groaned, a low, quivering whimper. Sliding upward swiftly, he carried her with him. His hair caught and he felt an abrupt tug as the leather tie that held his hair pulled loose.

  “Please!”

  And his thoughts of the hair tie waned. Effortlessly, he lifted the golden-haired woman with pleading eyes and slid her ready sheath of love onto his hard length. He pressed down lightly on her slender hips. Her head fell back as she cried out softly, a trembling pleasure sound, and her tiny hands brushed a restless, feathery path across Hazard’s chest. Lifting her lightly once or twice, he set the sensuous rhythm and then she took over, riding him, slowly, lingeringly. He lay back against the pillows, shut his eyes and, while his hands stroked her thighs, he luxuriated in the pleasure building by degrees.

  His ears, attuned by practice and necessity to the slightest sound, heard doors softly opening and shutting down the hall, and the reasonable part of his brain suggested he discontinue this exercise in pleasure for prudence’s sake … or at least turn out the light. The rash part of his mind knew there was neither man nor beast in Boston he feared, so he disregarded both alternatives. In addition, he was currently beyond reason and nearing an intensely felt orgasm.

  He did look up when the door opened to gauge the extent of the danger, and his dark passion-hazed glance locked for a brief moment with that of his hostess. A flash of anger passed over her face before the door abruptly shut. An explanation and tactful apology would be required there, he thought, just before the woman above him collapsed in his arms and he allowed himself release, pulsing into her, drenching her warm honeyed interior with the liquid warmth of his lovemaking.

  A HALF-HOUR later he was back downstairs, alone, his costume restored, his wide shoulders resting against one of the ballroom’s decorative pilasters, a glass of brandy in hand, his dark eyes roaming the gilded, bejeweled, costumed members of Boston’s refined society.

  One of its number was absent upstairs, her coiffeur thoroughly ruined. He had every confidence the harried maid attending her mistress would rearrange all to order soon and Mrs. Theodore Ravencour would reappear in all her Pompadorian elegance.

  Jon Hazard Black’s exotic attire shone with its full magnificence, and only the most discerning would note that the braided leather thong formerly confining the thick black hair was missing, incongruously replaced by a pale blue ribbon hastily purloined from Lillebet’s elaborately embellished gown. Somewhere in the rumpled disarray of silk sheets and comforters, a braided thong lay and, he hoped with an inner smile of pure mischief, it would be found by a servant straightening the bed rather than by the room’s night occupants.

  He’d been downstairs for no more than five minutes when his hostess, Cornelia Jennings, smiling and amiably chatting, gracefully crossed the crowded ballroom with no apparent destination in mind. Hazard knew better, knew he was her destination, and watched her slow progress with bemusement. She reached him after a time and when she was close enough to him not to be overheard, she said in a vehement whisper, “How could you, Jon! My God, she’s my sister-in-law! Don’t you care for me at all?” she hissed, her eyes suddenly bright with the glisten of frustration.

  Looking down at the beautiful, troubled face, Hazard very soothingly said, “Of course I care. I adore you, Cornelia.” As the tightness diminished slightly in her pretty face, he added in a low murmur, “You are, sweet, the loveliest … hostess … in Boston.”

  The fashionable young woman, swayed by the flowered compliment, became intent on more urgent matters at hand. Her pale grey eyes, gazing into his, lost their anger and flared hot with an emotion familiar to the tall man dressed in elkskins.

  “Oh, Hazard,” his hostess sighed as her hand, hidden by the folds of her voluminous skirt, stole into his. “It’s been four days. I’ve missed you.”

  Hazard nodded, his dark eyes understanding. “I know. Exams, love—and a tutor who refuses to be agreeable.”

  Aware of his finely tuned responses, her dainty fingers tightened on his and in a stirring of silk gauze she tugged him away from the wall. “I’ve your favorite brandy upstairs.” She met his teasing gaze with her own, ardent with inquiry, and moved slightly in the direction of the stairway.

  He looked at her sideways, considering, then smiled into the hot, pleading eyes. When it had to be done, it could be done, Hazard reflected. He’d acquired that type of courage as a youth. And with the smitten ladies of Boston, he’d discovered this new application. Taking a deep breath, he tossed down his brandy and allowed himself to be led upstairs once again.

  And for the second time in as many hours he found himself on silk sheets, doing his deft and imaginative best to assimilate the pleasant social civilities of upper-class Boston society.

  Chapter 2

  Hazard’s school years in Boston blended a dual existence. He was, without complaint, sought after for his charm and sensual appeal. Attuned to flirtation and dalliance as due an Absarokee warrior, he easily accepted the multitude of female favors cast in his direction. But aside from the casual idleness of his amorous enterprises, he devoted the major portion of each day to a scholarly regimen. Obedient to his father’s wishes, he utilized his time competently, faithful to his intended mission: to educate himself in order to aid his clan’s transition into the future. He never forgot why he was sent away.

  Encouraged by his uncle Ramsay Kent, relocated Yorkshire baronet, geologist, and adopted Absarokee married to his aunt, Hazard studied geology under the noted Swiss naturalist Agassiz, who had been invited to deliver a course of lectures at Harvard in 1847, subsequently had been offered a chair, and had stayed.

  The Agassiz Museum at Harvard, founded two years before Hazard matriculated, became his second home. As a volunteer, helping catalogue the newly formed collection, Hazard soon found in Louis Agassiz a warm and gentle friend. Already in his fifties, Agassiz was a pleasant voluble man with a childlike devotion to science and an eager interest in the politics of the day. Some of Hazard’s most genial times were those spent in the dusty museum work rooms talking with the professor. He learned from Agassiz, listened, and with the keenly bright idealism of youth, sometimes argued politics with him.

  Through Agassiz, Hazard met Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, and Longfellow, first learned about the “women’s rights” movement and was introduced to the antislavery and secessionist debates, a dynamic force in the society of the time. Social reform was in the air.

  When a hiatus was needed from his studies, Hazard occasionally gave in to the coaxing of his less studious classmates.

  “Come on, Hazard. Time to howl.”

  “Too much to do.”

  “Hell … stuff it until tomorrow.” The young man in evening dress advanced another step into Hazard’s neatly arranged room, dropped gracefully into an overstuffed chair and importuned in a softly shaded Bostonian accent. “Come on. We’re starting at Mama’s ‘Thursday evening.’ She especially made me promise to bring ‘that nice young man from the Yellowstone.’ ” A quick smile emphasi
zed his words. “You charmed her to the tips of her egret plumes last time with all that talk about Longfellow and Hiawatha.”

  “Maybe next time, Parker,” Hazard politely declined. “Really, I’ve lots of studying to do.”

  “My sister Amy’ll be there.”

  “She’s too young.” Hazard remembered a young girl dressed all in white, looking very marriageable. Not his style.

  “You’re remembering Beth, Hazard. Amy’s my sister married to Witherspoon. She particularly asked about you. Something about your dark brooding eyes, I think,” Parker teased.

  Hazard recalled the sister, even though he’d forgotten her name. She was ebony-haired, pale skinned, with a bosom that attracted attention and the kind of glance the term “bedroom eyes” had been coined for. She’d sat across the dinner table from him one night, but he and Parker hadn’t stayed long enough that evening for him to discover whether Amy delivered more than amorous glances. “I don’t know …” Hazard equivocated, his memory drawn to that unforgettable bosom.

  “Tell him he has to come, Felton,” Parker instructed the fair, slim man just crossing the threshold, equally resplendent in white tie.

  “Have to, Hazard,” Felton declared in the blunt delivery so characteristically his own. “Parker’s Mama’s At-Home Night is just for starters. Have a room rented at Shawdlings. It’s Munroe’s birthday today and we promised him Sarah and her friends tied up in a bow.”

  “Don’t need me for that.”

  “Who the hell else can keep Munroe from breaking up the place if you don’t? Have to come. He won’t listen to anyone else.”

  “Besides, Hazard,” Parker added, “Amy said her husband was out in Erie for a week. Don’t know why she wanted to mention that,” he said with a mocking raised brow.

  “Erie …” Hazard slowly repeated, digesting the interesting possibilities.

  “Two hundred miles away and no night train,” Parker reminded him.

  Felton and Parker exchanged entertained glances.

  Hazard looked first at one, then the other. He too smiled. “Give me ten minutes to rig out,” he said mildly.

  CONSEQUENTLY, between classmates, bedmates, and bookish ways, the spring of Hazard’s senior year at Harvard was extraordinarily busy. Schoolwork and papers required a certain amount of energy as did his simultaneous liaisons with the sisters-in-law on Beacon Street and an attentive Amy Witherspoon, all of whom he managed to satisfy surprisingly often.

  Outside forces intervened into this busy ménage when the tensions brewing between North and South exploded at Fort Sumter in April. The battle lines had already been drawn at Christmas. After the holidays none of the Harvard class from Dixie returned. South Carolina had seceded, a Confederate Congress had assembled, and Major Anderson was within the walls of Fort Sumter. South Carolina’s legislature authorized the seizure of all arsenals, arms, and forts within her limits. On January 3, Governor Brown of Georgia ordered the seizure of forts Pulaski and Jackson at Savannah; on the 4th, the authorities of Alabama seized Fort Morgan; on the 10th, the authorities of Mississippi seized the forts and other United States property within her limits; on the 12th, the navy yard and property at Pensacola were taken; on the 28th, the rebels of Louisiana took the United States revenue-cutter and the money in the mint at New Orleans; and to complete the list, General Twiggs of Texas surrendered the United States forces and property in his hands into the power of the rebels.

  The War of Rebellion was just a matter of time in coming and everyone knew it.

  As early as January 16, Governor Andrew, only eleven days after his inauguration, directed the Adjutant General to issue General Order No. 4, which brought the Massachusetts Militia into battle readiness. Concurrently, the legislature issued a statement that “it is the universal sentiment of the people of Massachusetts, that the President should enforce the execution of the laws of the United States, defend the Union, protect national property”; and, to this end, the State “cheerfully tenders her entire means, civil and military, to enable him to do so.”

  A few days later, on the 11th of February a great meeting was held in Cambridge. The City Hall was crowded. Hazard listened to John Palfrey speak briefly. “South Carolina,” he said, “has marshalled herself into revolution; and six states have followed her, and abandoned our government.”

  Richard H. Dana, Jr., made the speech of the occasion. He said that the South was in a state of mutiny; he was against John Brown raids and uncompromisingly for the Union. He was opposed to the Crittenden compromise and held to the faith of Massachusetts. This meeting uttered the sentiments of the majority of the state.

  When Sumter was fired on, Massachusetts was better prepared for war than most states. Her militia had spent the winter and spring nights drilling, recruiting, and organizing.

  On the 15th of April 1861, Governor Andrew received a telegram from Washington to send forward at once 1,500 men.

  Parker dashed into Hazard’s room three days after Sumter, followed two steps later by Felton and Munroe. “We’re joining up. You’ve got to ‘list up’ in Jennings’ Company!”

  “Jennings’ Company?” Cornelia’s husband? Not likely, Hazard thought. “No, thanks,” he said. “Besides, this isn’t my war.”

  “Don’t you care about the slaves?” they all exclaimed, practically in unison.

  He did, of course, and they knew it. Hazard had been quietly attending the antislavery meetings for some time, in sympathy with any human in bondage.

  “Jennings has the best damn uniforms north of Richmond,” Felton declared enthusiastically.

  “Not a great reason to get shot at.”

  “The war won’t be long.”

  “Over by fall, everyone says.”

  “Chance for glory, Hazard. It’ll be a lark!”

  Hazard had seen enough killing and death to disagree about the “lark” side of it, but he didn’t argue with his bright-eyed friends. “Have a good time, then. I’m heading west as soon as classes are over. If you’re ever in Montana, look me up.”

  “Hazard, we need you,” they pleaded. “Who else can track like you and shoot like you and ride a horse like—hell, like it was part of you?” Munroe finished, the excitement high in his voice.

  “Haven’t ever seen a man jump on and off a galloping horse like you do, Hazard,” Felton quietly remarked, “not even in the circus.”

  “Say you’ll come,” Parker demanded. “You’re perfect for Jennings’ Cavalry Company.”

  “Sorry, I can’t,” Hazard said.

  But when Major Jennings came personally the following day to ask him to join the company and offered him captain’s bars, Hazard had a harder time saying no.

  Jennings wasn’t deterred. “Let’s have a brandy,” he said, “and talk about it, Mr. Black.”

  And when Hazard said, “Call me Jon,” Jennings knew he was talking to a reasonable man.

  Neither mentioned Cornelia, masculine protocol concerning “discretionary affairs” functioning smoothly. Both understood women had their place in the society they frequented, but the coming war was strictly outside that sphere and its outcome depended on rational considerations, not emotion.

  Over a good brandy, they got down to business.

  “I need you,” Jennings said, “Very badly. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I’m putting a cavalry company together, and with you as scout I think we could operate damned effectively. Your reputation’s formidable.”

  “Thank you, Major, but I’ve already told Parker and Felton how I feel. It’s not my war.”

  “People in slavery are everyone’s concern. Certainly you, more than most, must sympathize—” Hazard’s cool look stopped him midsentence. “I’m sorry if I offended you,” Jennings calmly went on, pleased to see he’d struck a sensitive nerve and determined to press that sensitivity to the limit, “but it might be instructional to you in other ways. An understanding of the Army’s operation surely would be of use to you.”

  “I expect I could
read that in a book somewhere and save myself being shot at by Johnny Reb,” Hazard replied, equally calmly, although his dark eyes were not calm.

  “Would money make a difference? I’m prepared to offer you whatever you want.”

  “I don’t need money.”

  A heretical irreverence to one descended from eight generations of Boston merchant princes, but Major Jennings smoothly said, “Forgive me. As you see, I’m willing to try anything.”

  “I’m sure you can find someone else.”

  “Not with your qualifications. I’ll be blunt. You and I both know, under the circumstances (and that was the closest Jennings came to mentioning Hazard’s liaison with his wife), if I had any other choice, I’d take it. But my men need you and that’s why I’m here personally to speak to you. Wet-behind-the-ears pups like Parker and Felton and Munroe are going to be dead the first week unless men like you with experience can teach them some rudiments of survival. Our duties will be primarily raiding, picketing, and scouting, all unorthodox in tactics. It’s not something you learn in Boston drawing rooms.”

  “Where did you learn?” Hazard inquired, curious for the first time about the man Cornelia lived with. Jennings was as suavely polished as two hundred years of wealth allowed, but under the gentlemanly exterior was solid toughness—and a natural directness Hazard couldn’t help but admire.

  “Fought with Scott in Mexico in ’47. I was one of those green pups myself then. Just a damned lucky one, is all. I lived long enough to learn the ropes. And that’s what I’m asking you to do. Help me teach these friends of yours what it’s all about.”

  Hazard didn’t reply. He looked out the window at the cherry tree blooming across the street from Young’s Coffee House, thought of the wild plum trees in bloom in the low valleys back home, remembered Douglass’ fiery speech last week and the far more poignant narrative of the woman who’d lost her husband and son on their escape north. It didn’t seem right that a young child and his father should be hunted down with bloodhounds. Turning his gaze from the sunlit landscape outside, Hazard said, “I may go home from time to time.”