by Alyssa Cole
Even as she warned him off, eyes blazing, all he’d wanted to do was pull her close and let the insanity of the war fall away. But it was that very insanity that made it impossible for them to be together.
Guilt had gnawed at him all night, along with worry over how Elle had fared after leaving him on the bluff. He was no ruffian, and he tried to be kind even to women who were simply another component of his missions, but he’d long ago decided on the path he would take in this life, and getting twisted up over a woman was nowhere on the map. He’d seen what caring too much could do to a man, and his various careers had always conveniently allowed him to avoid such entanglements. But something about the dad-blamed Loyal League detective had hooked him, and good.
He regretted having taken liberties with her, but he could still feel how the pulse at her throat had raced under his fingertips. The heat of her body against his in the cold winter evening had been a brand. She was a bold woman, Elle, not the mute shadow she playacted in Caffrey’s household. He knew a thing or two about playing roles, but it galled him that Elle’s effectiveness was partially rooted in society inherently seeing her as inferior. Because of that, she’d never believe that he actually felt something for her. And if she did believe it, if she reciprocated it, what then? What could become of the way her sharp words made him feel lucky to be at the receiving end of them?
Nothing, that’s what.
Not for the first time, but for the most selfish of reasons, he cursed the institution of slavery to hell.
As he walked, he scanned the shop fronts for the name Bitnam, the cousin of a lawyer who had kindly introduced Malcolm into many prominent Baltimore secessionist circles. His original reason for visiting Richmond had been to deliver correspondence from Maryland and to glean what he could from their recipients, and that was something he intended to make good on. He’d opened and read the letters of course, and any important information was jotted down; making good on the deliveries kept up appearances. There was no need to burn bridges unless absolutely necessary.
He stopped in front of a fabric shop with the name he sought painted onto the glass window. As he stared at the satin, lace, and tulle beyond the glass, his eyes adjusted to the dimness inside and a movement grabbed his attention. A hoop skirt wide enough for three bustled up to the counter, and its owner pointed to an ornately beaded fabric behind the counter.
Susie Caffrey.
Malcolm walked into the shop in time to hear her say in a voice sweeter than pecan pie, “That price is absurd, Mr. Bitnam. Extortionate. I doubt a true Southern gentleman would charge his sister-in-arms such a terrible price. That seems like something a Yankee would do, and I’m sure my fellow members of the Vigilance Committee would agree.”
She ran a fingertip over the pearl-festooned fabric, and Bitnam looked up, the worry lines creasing his forehead remaining even as he smiled at Malcolm.
“Good day, sir,” Malcolm said. “I have a letter from Baltimore for Mr. John Bitnam. Am I correct in assuming you’re he?”
“You are correct,” Bitnam said, his smile widening as he moved toward the counter. “I’m sorry, Miss Susie, if you’ll excuse me one second.”
Susie turned her gaze in his direction, annoyance narrowing her eyes to slits, but when she recognized Malcolm she flashed him with their full hazel glory. “Mr. McCall! How lovely it is to run into you here! Perhaps you regretted leaving so abruptly yesterday and sought me out?”
Malcolm had been looking forward to visiting Susie, but only because of the spy working in her employ.
“I can’t say that’s untrue, but I have a bit of business to attend to with Mr. Bitnam here as well.”
“Oh, no need to rush for little old me,” she said. “I was just buying some fabric for this week’s sewing circle. You know I’m always thinking of what I can do to make our boys comfortable.”
He almost admired the cheek of her—she’d packed a brazen lie and an invitation into two sweet sentences. He didn’t care who or how many men she cavorted with—one thing he’d found in his travels was that women and men weren’t as different as the preacher would have you think when it came to appreciation of the opposite sex. However, how easily she lied was something else altogether. He’d known she was a bully, but telling such an inconsequential falsehood on the tail of a self-serving threat rubbed him the wrong way. It was the height of hypocrisy given his profession, but lying came second to instinct in this field and his gut was telling him to tread lightly with Miss Susie Caffrey.
Still, he smiled at her like she was hot Sunday dinner after the sermon had run long. “There is nothing finer than a woman who throws herself behind the Cause, is there, Bitnam?”
Bitnam nodded his strong agreement, although his gaze was wary when he glanced at Susie. “The Caffreys are a fine family. I was just saying this over dinner at the Davis mansion the other night. It was so heartening to see my old family friend, especially now that Jeff has risen to such great heights.”
If Bitnam hadn’t been waiting for a letter full of bile about President Lincoln and the Union, Malcolm might have ceded the man some respect for that parry.
“Well, I do believe I’ll be going,” Susie said, withdrawing her threat by stepping away from the counter. “I’m going to watch the boys drill down at the fairground—I promised Ruf. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you came along, Mr. McCall.”
Another flutter of lashes. Another lie. This was one that could prove useful to him, though.
“That sounds like the perfect pastime. If you give me a moment, I’ll be right out,” he said, then turned to Mr. Bitnam.
The man’s eyes held a warning as he accepted the letter, but his words never turned to more than idle chitchat. Malcolm gave his regrets that they couldn’t talk longer, and Bitnam wished him an interesting afternoon.
When he stepped outside and saw the fine Caffrey carriage, and Elle standing beside it, he was sure interesting was going to be the least of it. Her hair was pulled back into a simple bun and she wore the same dress she had the day before, but she affected him regardless. She shivered in the winter cold, lacking even the cloak she’d worn the night before.
In his imagination, he offered her his jacket, but Susie wouldn’t look kindly on such an act, and neither would Elle.
She glanced up at him and then across the street where Susie stood talking with a dark-haired woman.
The women both smiled genially, and Susie was still smiling when she returned to the carriage and said, “I apologize for keeping you waiting, but I’ve been keeping tabs on that Owens woman for weeks. She claims to be for the South, but yet she gives medicine to the Yanks locked up at Castle Thunder. Her father was born in New York, you know. Blood shows.”
Malcolm had heard of what the prisons were like: conditions were terrible, no matter what side of the Mason-Dixon Line you were caught on. Still, he’d heard some tales from Union boys that would make the skin crawl.
“Giving succor to the Yanks? That is suspicious,” Malcolm said, taking note. “Perhaps she’s taken the Golden Rule quite literally. ‘Do unto others.’”
“Well, too bad for the Yanks God is on our side,” Susie said brightly. “And we all know that our God is a vengeful one. Don’t just stand there, open the door.”
Her last words were directed at Elle, who kept her head down as she took a step past Susie to reach the carriage door and pull it open. Malcolm handed Susie inside and almost waited for Elle to step in before reminding himself that it would be a breach of protocol. He squeezed in beside Susie and waited as Elle climbed in and shut the door. She placed the packages on the seat beside her and then stared out of the window, as if she were in the carriage alone.
“I so miss Martha,” Susie sighed. “Now there was a darkie who knew how to serve. I never wanted for anything. She was with me until right before we moved, but she fell ill and I had to leave her behind. Now I have no proper servant, and I’m forced to bring this sullen fool about with me.”
Malc
olm glanced at Elle, who showed no sign of hearing or understanding the conversation. Anger poked at his ribs and made the carriage seem too small for all of them and Susie’s animosity. He’d had some close calls during his detective work, but such blatant disrespect was one thing he’d never had to tolerate. Even when he’d posed as a lowly dock worker he’d been treated well for the most part. Was this what Elle had endured for weeks upon weeks? Not only the inherent violence of posing as a woman enslaved, but the constant barrage of unprovoked cruelty from Susie?
“Shall we go, miss?” the slave driving the carriage called out.
“Yes, Reibus!”
The carriage pulled off and Malcolm fought the urge to look over at Elle, to catch her gaze with his and let her know that this flirtation with Susie was a farce. But that would serve no purpose but to assuage his own guilt. Providence had landed him alongside Senator Caffrey as they’d waited for the ferry to Richmond, and he could not waste this opportunity. He was playing a role, and a Confederate soldier wooing a senator’s daughter wouldn’t give her slave a second thought in this situation. He inhaled sharply through his nose and then directed the entirety of his focus on Susie.
“How are you finding Richmond otherwise?” he asked, moving a smidge closer to her. His gaze was all for her. In these moments he usually imagined there was a delicious feast laid out before him, but this time Elle’s voice echoed in his mind. It was rough but sweet—like a nettle dipped in molasses. “Oh, it’s delightful,” Susie said. “There’s been such a sense of camaraderie since the war began.”
Outside the carriage, they passed by a crowd jeering up at the windows of a tobacco factory that had been converted into a jail for Union soldiers. The next building over was nearly dwarfed by the huge painted letters advertising slave auctions.
“Our refusal to lick the boots of the North has allowed the true ingenuity and kindness of the Southern people to shine. We’re not afraid of a little hard work,” Susie said, then prattled on about sewing and canning and other matters of little import to Malcolm. She finally paused as the whine of metal against metal filled the air, and when he gazed out he saw that they were passing the Tredegar Iron Works, where the sound of ordnance production was a constant. When they got far enough away to resume the conversation, she looked up at him with bright eyes.
“I wish you could have been here the night Sumter fell! There was such a revel! Men shot their guns in the air and everyone danced with abandon.” She leaned closer to him, her chest thrust up and out. “Women were grabbed and kissed in the street, which was quite nice as long as the fellow was handsome.”
The way she looked at him left no doubt as to whether she grouped him in that privileged category.
“That sounds like quite the revel, indeed,” he replied. He’d heard stories of how people had celebrated in the streets after Fort Sumter had fallen, but he had been in Washington, receiving updates of the terrible siege via telegram. In that moment, the war became a tangible, unstoppable thing.
And Susie had celebrated.
“Is that a battery over yonder?” he asked. They had moved out of the city’s busy downtown area now and were on a less occupied road, heading toward the fairgrounds.
Susie looked at him, surprised by the change in subject, and then turned to follow his line of sight. “Yes, they surround the city and protect us from attack by land or sea.” She moved just a bit so that the hoops of her skirt would press into his leg. “There’s something quite attractive about a man who has the safety of our nation always foremost in his mind, although I do hope you busy yourself with other pursuits from time to time.”
“Oh, I’m a man of many pursuits, Miss Susie, and earthworks are the least interesting by far,” he said. He had to fight every instinct to turn away from the woman and toward Elle, who sat silently but whose presence was a persistent physical sensation just outside his peripheral vision. What must she think of him after what had passed between them on the hill? For the first time, he felt foolish as he performed his seduction to gather information. He didn’t fear he would fail—failure wasn’t in his repertoire—but rather that the woman he truly wanted to trade flirtations with would never take him seriously in the aftermath of his success.
Again, he sensed the pull of Elle’s presence and fought the idea that so much as a glance was allowed him. Instead of risking them both, he forced his mind to the task at hand: pulling the wool over Susie’s eyes when she expected him to pull it down her thighs. He let his gaze rest on the swell of Susie’s breasts as he made a mental note to wake up early and check the earthworks to get precise measurements. It was likely that someone else had sent the information along already, but a glut of information was preferable to a lack of it.
“Although I have to admit,” he continued, “there’s nothing I enjoy more than exploring new terrain, searching out trenches and discovering what secrets they hold.”
He’d imbued each word with an insinuation that couldn’t be missed from fifty paces.
Susie’s eyes shone with mercenary joy. The expression was the same he’d seen glinting in the eyes of the men whose plots he’d thwarted over the last year: a taste for adventure, for something to elevate what would be a boring life to one filled with glorious exploits. He couldn’t fault her for that; he could have been a bursar as well as he could have been a spy—he lived for a good exploit, too.
Her fingers played with the braid of laurel pinned to her breast, highlighting her décolletage. “Well, Mr. McCall, if you’re done ogling the earthworks, I can help with—”
Her words were cut off by a loud bang echoing through the hills. The carriage shook violently from side to side, tipping perilously close to going over. The crack of wood splintered the concussive echoes that followed the initial blast. The calming voice of the carriage driver as he tried to steady the horse was outmatched by Susie’s frightened screams.
An instant later, the carriage rocked back onto both wheels and the horse pulled to a reluctant stop. Susie was curled under one of Malcolm’s arms, pressed against his chest. Malcolm looked down to find that his other arm was stretched across the carriage, holding Elle down against her seat. Her eyes were wide and wild, but she hadn’t broken character by emitting so much as a whimper. He was the one threatening their roles. He released her before Susie saw, even though pulling his hand away and using it to pat the back of the weeping belle felt all kinds of wrong.
The carriage door swung open to reveal the driver, Reibus. His dark brow glistened with sweat and his gaze scanned the cab, taking everyone into account. “I’m sorry. I never seen this horse take a fright before, but whatever that noise was spooked her good. Everyone all right?”
“No, I am not all right!” Susie pushed off of Malcolm and hustled out of the carriage, reluctantly taking Reibus’s hand as she stepped down. “I refuse to go another inch with you driving like a maniac!”
“The carriage broke, ma’am,” Reibus said, eyes downcast, hands behind his back. “Can’t drive it anywhere, nohow.”
Before Susie could express her displeasure at that, hoofbeats in the distance drew their attention. “Oh, thank goodness,” Susie sighed as she gazed toward an approaching carriage, one nicer than the one that was currently in a state of disrepair. She held up her hands and waved them dramatically. When the carriage pulled to a stop, Rufus and a few other soldiers spilled out.
“What happened here?” he asked, glaring at Malcolm.
“I was coming to see you and nearly lost my life in the process!” Susie said. Tears brimmed in her eyes anew as she approached Rufus, and he took her hand in a gentle way that seemed at odds with his ox-like nature.
“There’s room in our carriage,” he said. He shot Malcolm a cool look. “Room for one.”
“Is there room up front, maybe?” Susie asked. “My driver needs to go get some help to handle repairs.” She then turned to Malcolm, batting her lashes. “You don’t mind waiting here a bit, do you? There have been so many new people fl
ooding the city, one never knows what type of unsavory character could happen along and take advantage of my misfortune. That would be disastrous with all the purchases I made in town today! I need someone big and strong to protect the carriage. I know Daddy will be so happy you did.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Malcolm said. Susie had already flounced away and was being tucked into the carriage like a piece of fine china, but he was glad for her foolishness because in her haste she’d forgotten something more valuable than her shopping. As the soldiers’ carriage trundled off, he turned back and leaned against the door. A fine mist of snow fluttered down, sticking in his lashes.
“It seems we’re marooned,” he said. “I don’t mean to be forward, but if I sit inside with you, I think you’ll find it much warmer.”
Elle said nothing, and he wasn’t sure if it was because she was keeping up her role or because she despised him.
“Okay, I admit it. I’m the one seeking warmth.”
Her head snapped up and her furious gaze clashed with his.
“Platonic warmth,” he corrected. “Would you really leave a fellow detective out in the snow?”
Elle looked all around them, making sure no one watched, and then retreated deeper into the carriage until she was pressed against the opposite door. “You may enter,” she said. “But . . .”
Her hands went to her skirts and began to gather the fabric. Malcolm felt a pang of heat as the first patch of silky brown skin was exposed and then a sharp electric zip that nestled in his groin as her calf and knee were revealed—he almost didn’t see the shiny silver reflecting the winter sun. She’d slipped a knife from a sheath that was strapped to her leg. When he looked up, a harsh smile graced her lips. She ran a finger over the flat of the knife, then slipped it back into the sheath and lowered her skirt. “Lest you attempt to recommence your activities from last night,” she explained.