“I sent her away, Sophie, as soon as I awoke. Whatever she said, you must believe me.”
She nodded, but the lines of her face did not fade. “I do. But—she had the locket.”
Breath stilled in his chest. “Did she open it?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell.” She bit the edge of her lip.
“Has she acted differently toward you since then?”
“Honestly, I have no idea what she knows.” Sophie looked haunted by the suspense, but there was nothing he could do. If Susan accused Sophie in writing, could he intercept it? Possibly. If she went to Carrington in person, what then?
Harrison captured her hands in his. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Another lie, perhaps. But a sweet one.”
This, he could not contradict.
A sadness surfaced in her eyes. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!”
Harrison smiled at the familiar lines from Walter Scott’s epic poem “Marmion,” then countered it with two more lines from the same: “Where’s the coward that would not dare To fight for such a land?” He brought her hand to his lips and impressed a kiss upon it once more. Together, they headed home.
Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, August 21, 1864
Susan sat on the steps of the Washington Monument, masked by night’s darkness, and watched Captain Lawrence Russell thread his way through a messy knot of revelers. It wasn’t just his silhouette she recognized, but his commanding gait. Now here is a man who knows what he’s about.
“Well?” He sat down beside her. “How did it go? Did you break some hearts?”
“I believe I did.” She grinned behind the lace veil of her Leghorn straw hat. “Unfortunately, they put themselves back together again. But I sure had a lark trying.”
“I’ll just bet you did.” The flash of moonlight on his teeth sent a delicious ripple through her. That she had not even managed to get one conscious kiss from Oliver Shaw did not need to be said. Humiliating.
“And you?” she asked, her voice turning sober. “How’s your heart after my sister smashed it?”
Sighing deeply, Lawrence looked out over the square, smelling of sandalwood and tobacco and wool heated from a man’s body a long summer day. He stroked his hand over his beard. “Sore. To put it mildly. It would be easier to recover if … ”
“If you hated her.” Calmly, she smoothed the blonde satin bands trimming her white muslin gown. A perfect complement to her perfectly coifed hair.
“Exactly.”
She nodded, knowingly. After all, she’d been crushed before, too. Had given herself to a lover who promised to marry her, only to find his child growing in her belly and him already a married man. It had been easy to hate him. It was easy to hate her father for exiling her to a husband she didn’t love, just to hasten her away. She hated Noah Becker for being so foolish as to marry her in the first place, and for finding love years later, while she still slept alone. At first she’d even hated Ana, her daughter, for invading her body, but once she pawned the baby off on Noah, that hatred cooled to a comfortable apathy. But she still knew how to hate. Like the disease that had pocked her skin, hatred ate away at her still. It never stopped.
“So Captain, what would help you hate my sister? Would her obvious love of the Negro suffice?”
He rubbed the muscle in his jaw. “I don’t hate Negroes. It would have to be something really shocking. Something …”
“Criminal, perhaps?” she guessed.
He whipped to face her, eyes gleaming. “Why? What have you heard? What do you know? Is it treasonous?”
She’d struck a nerve. Lawrence’s eagerness to trap her sister startled her, but not unpleasantly. Rather insightful, really. Ah, so this is the way to your heart.
“Please.” He grasped her gloved hands firmly in his. She bowed her head, lest his penetrating gaze detect the flaws in her complexion despite her net veil. “Please,” he said again. “If you have any information, I would be indebted to you.”
Just how indebted? She did not ask.
“So do you? Have anything to share?”
Pedestrians and carriages swarmed through the square, the whine of their voices and wheels mingling with the chorus of crickets. Yet Lawrence hung on Susan’s every word with a desperate focus.
“I just might.” Her lips curved purposefully.
“What?”
“Something mysterious.”
“But is it treasonous? I always did wonder about her so-called Christian charity toward Libby Prison. You found evidence of her disloyalty? If I can’t have love, I will have justice.”
Justice, he called it. “You mean revenge.”
Lawrence shrugged. “A rose by any other name, and all of that. Do you have proof or not?”
Susan’s eyes narrowed. “She would have known right away it was missing. I’m biding my time, Captain Russell, until I have more tangible evidence. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” He laughed darkly, and Susan caught the joke. “I’ll trust you to hurt your sister and no further. Lucky for me, that’s my aim as well. We’ll meet again.”
“Of course.”
With that, he kissed her hand, making her forget for one slice of a moment how hideous she had become.
What a shame it would be when he no longer needed her.
Kent House, Richmond, Virginia
Thursday, September 29, 1864
Sophie’s stomach burned with secrets. Sherman had taken Atlanta earlier this month. If Richmond fell, surely the war would be over. As hope and possibility increased, so did risk.
Shading her eyes against the sun, she looked out over Church Hill, stubbornly ignoring the pounding headache that had only grown worse with each passing week, and with every message passed. From Harrison: Eight guns have been sent to Chaffin’s Farm … Hampton’s Cavalry remains on New Market Hill. From Bella: Richmond’s Fire Brigade was ordered throughout the city, rounding up able-bodied men to be sent to Petersburg. From John Taylor at Tredegar: Such a dearth of soft iron, it is said that no more is to be had for the manufacture of heavy ammunition. No iron suitable for making nails or spikes has been on hand for two weeks past.
Madeline Blair had read Asher’s letter from Petersburg to Sophie as well, but Sophie willfully let the words slip through her without weighing them for their value to the North. She refused to use her friend’s companionship against her own sons. Now Sophie set her hands to knitting for Asher and Joel as she rocked on the back porch, for Mrs. Blair’s hands were knotted with arthritis, and it pained the woman even more to think that come winter, her boys would suffer with cold. Truth be told, Sophie enjoyed the rhythmic work. Somehow it kept her from unraveling.
Wind whispered through linden trees barely tipped with autumn’s promise. Summer was ending the same way it had passed its sunburnt months. With strains of battle, and air tinged with smoke and sulfur. With riderless horses with boots reversed in their stirrups, with church bells tolling for the dead, and alarm bells predicting that more would soon be on their way. The clash of war rang in every home, and, Sophie suspected, every heart, as Yankees and Rebels locked and thrashed around Richmond. Union cavalry were destroying food sources in the Valley of Virginia, teaching Rebels, both civilian and military, just how few morsels it took to survive.
Sophie Kent was so tired she could barely coax her needles to knit and purl. Her nerves had been standing on tiptoe for so long they now seemed to collapse. Sifting through rumors, guarding against Susan’s prying eyes and questions, and working with her father had all taken their toll. If she could just close her eyes for a moment … A refreshingly cool breeze swayed over her face in silent lullaby, urging her to sleep …
“Sophie.” Harrison’s voice pulled her back.
She smiled as she opened her eyes to his handsome, chiseled face, squinting at the sun over his shoulder. “Home from work so early?”
Then she heard it. The tocsi
n. The church bells. Pealing in frantic alarm.
“Yankees have captured Fort Harrison. They’re advancing toward the city. I have to go.” His eyes held hers as he helped her up from her rocker. “I wish I didn’t.”
She shook her head, as if to erase his concern, but fear swam through her. If the Yankees came near enough to the fortifications, Harrison would be under fire. Forcing a smile, she tried to chase the shadows from his eyes. “The ‘dog-catchers’ would send you out for sure. I’ll pray for your safe and speedy return.”
His gaze shifted, scanning behind and around the porch. “Goodbye then.” The hint of a sigh, a lingering kiss, and tight embrace. A whisper in her ear: “Elizabeth Van Lew has been accused. She’s under investigation. Watch yourself.”
A tremor shot through Sophie’s body, and she sagged in his bracing arms. With unspeakable gentleness, he tucked her head against his shoulder, his other arm cinching her waist. Time evaporated as he buried a kiss in her hair.
“Our times are in Your hands, Lord, deliver us …” Harrison’s voice rasped over the prayer.
The bells of Richmond seemed to scream as he trudged heavily away.
Columbia Furnace, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
Friday, October 7, 1864
Abraham’s muscles strained against his scratchy homespun tunic. Heart pumping, he wheeled a load of iron ore up the hill next to the forty-foot-high stone pyramid furnace. After shoveling the ore into the pyramid’s mouth, he arched his aching back and indulged in the view.
It was magnificent. Though the area directly around the iron plantation was cleared of timber, the surrounding hills gently rose and fell, draped with forest’s bristled mantle. Distant blue and violet ridges backed green slopes dotted here and there with the hint of season’s change.
Expelling a sigh, Abraham picked up the handles of his cart and cast one more longing look into the country beyond. He was doing no good for Bella or for the Union from here. Worse, his labor was aiding the enemy. West Virginia beckoned to Abraham. Oh, to enter those folds of freedom. Oh, for the season of my life to change … There was a time for everything. But his time to escape had not yet come. He was as closely watched here as he’d been at the Richmond works, perhaps even more so. Praying for patience, Abraham descended the hill.
Thunder rumbled from a cloudless azure sky. Abraham jerked his head up. Dropped his handcart. Raced farther up the hill, though roots tripped his eager feet, and scanned the perimeter. Not thunder. Cavalry. And this time, the uniforms were blue.
Flying down the hill, Abraham did not feel the rocks shredding his paper-thin soles or the branches switching his arms. As the ground trembled with the approach of hammering hooves, chaos broke out at the furnace. White laborers shouted orders that Negroes did not heed. Mules and oxen stamped and snorted in their pens. And suddenly, mounted Yankees were upon them, with ropes, guns, and torches.
Courage surged in Abraham as he lit out toward the closest Yankee. “Abraham Jamison, 54th Massachusetts. Fought at Wagner under Col. Robert Gould Shaw.” He saluted the mounted officer as mayhem churned around them. “Sure would be grateful for a ride.”
Wiping the look of surprise from his face, the officer smiled. “Some furlough, Private. Ready to report for duty?”
“Yes, sir.”
Reaching down, the officer helped Abraham up onto the back of his horse, then spurred the mount into a gallop.
Kent House, Richmond, Virginia
Tuesday, October 18, 1864
Bella rapped her knuckles on Sophie’s door. “Thinking about getting up sometime?” The sun was plenty high in the sky. The girl might be worn out from worry for Harrison, but that was no reason to keep abed all day.
She knocked again. Still no answer. “Sophie?” She pushed open the door. A slightly sour odor pinched her nose as she approached the still form on the bed. Dread shivered down her spine.
Slowly, Sophie turned. Her color was high and the shadows beneath her eyes were dark, like bruises. “It’s you!” she cried, and reached up to take Bella’s hand. Sophie’s skin was as hot and dry as a hearth. “Daphne!”
“Sweet Jesus,” Bella whispered. “No, Sophie-girl. It’s Bella.”
Sophie’s face knotted. “You’re Daphne. And you were sick, and it was my fault. Yes, that’s right, I remember now.”
A frown rippled Bella’s forehead.
“Oh, you’re upset with me still. Of course you are. I’m so sorry, Daphne. But you look better now. Are you better?”
Fever talk. Oh, Lord. Bella rushed to the washbasin, soaked a cloth with clean water and brought it back to lay on Sophie’s brow. “Now you’re sick, and it’s my turn to take care of you.”
The quinine! The bottle she’d brought for Daphne last fall was almost untouched. It had been too late to be of use for her, but surely, for Sophie, it would work. It was early. It had to work.
Bella hurried out of Sophie’s chamber, and to the room where Daphne had been ill. She’d left it tucked inside the bureau, and forgotten it there. But certainly the medicine was still potent, being kept from the light of the sun. Hope swelled. She reached inside the bureau for the bottle.
And found nothing. She searched every inch of the room, and the quinine was nowhere to be found.
“Sophie, honey?” Susan poked her head inside her sister’s bedchamber. “Heard you weren’t feeling well, is that right?”
Sophie stirred, but made no other response. Perfect. Avoiding all the creaky boards in the floor, Susan stepped to her sister’s bedside and pulled the sheet down from her chin. The girl was shivering, but hot to the touch. Susan skimmed her fingers along her neck, in search of the locket and chain.
It wasn’t there. Blast! She needed it now. Lawrence was growing restless for it, and she feared he’d reached the limit of his patience. After their last meeting, she knew it was useless to string him along any further, though she lived for their nocturnal trysts. She’d hoped that he’d looked forward to them half as much. But Lawrence had become cold, distant. She wasn’t getting anywhere. If she could hand him something tangible, perhaps he’d give her something in return. Oh, how she longed for affection.
Boldly, Susan tugged down on the neckline of Sophie’s nightgown, searching for the necklace. She had no idea what that little scrap of paper meant, but if it was important enough to keep secret, surely Lawrence would want to have it. Only now, it was nowhere to be found.
Agitation ticked inside her. She moved to the bureau, opened the top drawer, felt inside for the small metal pendant. Ouch! She withdrew her fingers. A paper cut? She opened the drawer a little wider, carefully pinched a thin stack of papers and withdrew.
What a mess! That was Sophie’s handwriting on the pages, but the margins were crowded with undecipherable notes. What is this? Susan squinted closer at Sophie’s script. The fact that these papers had been hidden was a promising start, at least. Her eyes rounded in surprise as she flipped through one page after another. Essays? Confessions? Whatever they were, they were incriminating. Not just antislavery, but anti-secessionist rhetoric blazed forth as the dominant themes. More than enough for Lawrence, she was sure.
Sophie groaned, and Susan hid the papers behind her, backing toward the door.
“Daddy?”
She froze, curious.
Sophie turned onto her back but didn’t open her eyes. “Daddy, I miss Susan. Where did she go? I’m so confused.”
Obviously. Susan nearly slipped out the door.
Then, “Mother cries all the time. I don’t know why … you won’t let me write to Susan … She can behave so wickedly… But she’s my sister … Can’t I ever see her again?”
Delirious. Mad with fever. But Susan’s face was suddenly damp with tears. Furiously, she swiped at them and scurried down the hall, her precious evidence rustling in her hand.
Kent House, Richmond, Virginia
Friday, October 21, 1864
Bella stared at Susan’s pitted face, and felt her own harden wi
th a furied understanding.
“I have something you want, don’t I?” Susan held the bottle of quinine in her bony hand. “I can’t imagine how you came by it, though, since quinine is scarce as hen’s teeth in the South. But this time, I’ll lay that aside, since you have something for me. Care to trade?”
Bella narrowed her eyes, while her nostrils flared. “What do you want?”
“The locket. I see the chain around your neck plain as day. You might as well give it up. If you don’t, I’ll tell my father you tried to steal it, and then he’ll send you packing.”
“It belongs to Miss Sophie. I’m keeping it safe for her while she’s sick. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re the one trying to steal from her.”
“How can you say such a thing? That was my locket to begin with. I left it here by accident and she adopted it as her own. I only want it back. For sentimental reasons. It’s all I have left of my stepmother, God rest her soul.”
Bella’s lips flattened. Sophie needed that quinine. Without it, the locket would be useless, anyway. Unclasping it from behind her neck, she clenched the chain in her fist, the locket dangling. “Medicine, please.” She held out her hand.
Once the quinine was safely in her grip, she passed the locket to Susan’s greedy hands and walked away.
Behind her, Susan gasped. “There’s nothing in it!”
Bella turned. “Are the images of your father and stepmother not there?”
“No, no, you insolent witch. Something else!”
“What?” Bella’s eyebrows arched.
“I don’t know. Something!”
Bella shrugged, and pivoted away. “I simply don’t know what you mean.”
But as she tipped the precious medicine between Sophie’s lips, unease ripened in her gut. If Susan really wanted to know where the quinine had come from, there was no telling how much she’d be able to pry from Lois or Pearl about Bella’s true identity.
Spy of Richmond Page 31