“You and your brother will be transferred, ma’am,” the officer said tiredly.
“Could someone get my trunk? It’s downstairs in my room. The captain’s cabin, actually. He was kind enough to allow me to use it for this trip. All my clothes and things…. ”
“We’ll take care of it, ma’am.” The officer directed two of his men to bring up the trunk, but when it was on deck, he ordered it opened. The trunk was definitely large enough to hold a man, and the two sailors who carried it to the deck struggled with its obvious weight.
But when it was opened, they found only sloppily folded clothing. The officer delved into the deep trunk, shoving aside silk dresses and bits of lace.
“Please, sir,” Lily said, blushing. “I have… personal items in there.”
The officer’s hand was surely to the bottom of the trunk, and still he shifted the clothing aside until he was satisfied. Only then did he pull his hand back and stand.
Quint watched Lily’s face. There was something in that trunk besides dresses and “personal items.” Small droplets of sweat that had nothing to do with the humidity of the night air had formed on her upper lip as the officer rummaged through the luggage. Lily turned to Quint just once and smiled, and her eyes spoke to him of resignation and disappointment.
The Union naval officer was satisfied and willing to allow Lily to go, but he turned to Quint with hard, suspicious eyes.
“What is your name again, sir?” he snapped.
“His name is Elliot Radford,” Lily said, jumping in before Quint had a chance to open his mouth. “He’s my brother.”
Quint turned to Lily with an exasperated sigh. “I can speak for myself, Lily.”
The officer who was trying to interrogate Quint was tiring of Lily’s act. “See the lady to the ship,” he instructed his men.
Quint breathed a sigh of relief. With Lily gone, he could simply tell the officer the truth… part of it, at least. He could reveal who he was, but not that Lily was Captain Sherwood. Her career was over, anyway, with her ship seized. Even if she attempted to have another ship built, it would take months. With any luck, the war would be over by then.
Quint turned toward Tommy’s loud curses as the burly man was led, wrists and ankles shackled, by three men. Evidently he had not surrendered as easily as the younger crewmen. As Tommy passed by Lily and Quint and the Union officer, he broke away and faced Quint eye to eye. Toe to toe.
“’Ave you any other instructions, Cap’n?” Tommy asked in a low voice, but not so low that everyone in the vicinity couldn’t hear him clearly. The officer’s eyes lit up as he turned once again to Quint.
“Captain Sherwood.” It was not a question that came from the officer’s mouth. It was a satisfied statement.
Lily glared at a gloating Tommy. “He is not!” she said, but she knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth that not only were her pleas sounding hysterical, they were useless. Quint didn’t bother to defend himself, and she realized, as she watched the ensign’s face, that it would have done no good.
She watched helplessly as Quint was led away, surrounded by a watchful guard that matched Tommy’s, and then she was prodded toward the same ship.
“Oh, my!” Lily pivoted suddenly and slipped past her guards, running for the hold. “I’ll be right back,” she called to the sailors who had been assigned to see her on board the Union patrol ship. In a flash, quicker than she should have been able to move in the cumbersome dress, Lily disappeared into the hold.
She had to move fast, before the sailors followed her into the darkness. With sweaty hands she felt her way down the hallway and did what she had to do.
The sailors were just about to follow when she emerged from the darkness, nothing more than a book in her hands.
“I haven’t finished readin’ this, and it’s just fascinatin’.” She gave them each, in turn, a dazzling and flirtatious smile, and all was forgiven. This time she followed them obediently to the Union ship, humming softly a tune her father had taught her when she was just a little girl. She couldn’t remember the name of the song, or even very many of the words, but it had a bright and cheerful melody.
On the Union ship, Lily joined the ensign who had interrogated her and Quint, as the man leaned against the bow of his ship and watched over the Chameleon. Quint was nowhere to be seen, and Lily tried not to think of him in the brig, or shackled as Tommy had been. The sailors had been attempting to direct her below decks, but she veered, never ceasing her inappropriate humming until she was standing beside the ensign.
“What will become of us, sir?” Lily asked as she leaned against the railing beside him.
“You should go below…. ”
Lily gave him her brightest smile. It had worked on the sailors… and it worked on the officer as well. “What’s your name? You know mine, and it’s only fair that I learn yours.”
She flirted shamelessly, batting her eyelashes and gazing up at the officer with a look she hoped appeared to be awe.
“Ensign Delbert Davis.” The officer glanced down at her as if he could see through her act, just as Quint had. Damn! She’d thought she was good at this!
“A beautiful woman, such as yourself, should be safe at home,” he said in a low voice. “Not sailing with a notorious blockade runner.”
“What will become of us, Ensign Davis?” It didn’t take any effort at all for her to look worried.
“After interrogation, you will be released, Miss Radford.” He nodded to her in an almost courtly manner. “I would suggest that in the future you choose a safer method of travel or, better yet, don’t travel at all. These are dangerous times.”
“Yes they are,” Lily agreed. “And the crew?”
The ensign shrugged. “They all appear to be British. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to hold them for very long. Just until they testify at the prize court. They’ll be sent back to England.”
“And the captain?” Lily asked softly.
“Prison,” Davis said sharply.
Lily thought about trying to convince Ensign Delbert Davis that Quint was not the Captain, but she knew it would be hopeless, and she might damage her chances of helping him later on. She turned to the Chameleon, waiting.
“You should go below now, Miss Radford,” the ensign said, but his voice was kinder than it had been before.
“Just a moment more,” Lily begged. She couldn’t stand to be confined, and she wouldn’t leave the deck until she saw that her work was done. “Just a few moments more of this lovely night air.”
She returned her gaze to the Chameleon, trying to hide her impatience. She took a deep breath of the air she had begged for, then placed a puzzled expression on her face as she turned to the ensign.
“I believe I smell smoke. Do you smell anythin’?” She looked up at the ensign and fluttered her lashes.
“No. Nothing unusual.” But he turned his gaze back to the Chameleon, and a frown marred his face. Smoke was drifting from the hold.
“Damn! She’s on fire!” He grabbed Lily’s arm securely and dragged her with him. “Get below!”
“Ensign Davis?” Lily jerked her arm away from him. “Are your men on that boat?”
He nodded. “They’ll put out the fire.”
“You should know,” she continued, “the Captain said he had some barrels of gunpowder in the cargo place. Wouldn’t they… explode or somethin’ if the fire reached them?” Her voice was as innocent as an angel’s.
The Chameleon was soon abandoned, the fire Lily had started when she’d gone below decks to fetch her book hot enough and large enough before it was discovered that they didn’t want to risk lives to save the ship and her cargo. Lily was glad of that. She didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of the sailors, young boys not that much different from her own crew. But neither would she allow her cargo to fall into enemy hands.
She was forgotten in the excitement, and still on deck when, as the ship she was on pulled away, the Chameleon exploded, lig
hting the night and creating a wave of heat that washed over her as the blinding fire reached for the stars.
She was watching the end of a part of her life, and she was well aware of that fact as she watched the Chameleon burn.
A potent sorrow welled up inside of her, but she pushed it back. That was done. Now she had to think of a way to save Quint.
Fourteen
Lily stood on deck and watched as the Union sailors led her crew from the ship. She had been on the ironclad for three days and nights, long nights during which she had slept little and dreamed of Quint confined to the brig. Confined for her crime.
No matter how much she begged, how pitifully she batted her lashes, how unmercifully she flirted with the guards who were posted at the door of her cabin, they wouldn’t allow her to see Quint. She was allowed out of the small cabin only once a day, for a breath of fresh air, and during that time her guards watched her closely. Ensign Davis always seemed to be close by, though he didn’t approach her during the voyage.
But as she watched the prisoners disembark, he joined her, standing at her side silently as she tried to study her crewmen’s faces from a distance. They were all solemn, but Lily was pleased to see no evidence of abuse. Tommy was still in irons. He was a man not mellowed by his age, but incensed at the injustices that had been thrust upon him. Once, he lifted his face to Lily, but he gave no sign that he knew her, or even that he saw her there.
Lily was holding her breath, waiting for Quint to appear, and finally he did. He was last, and at a distance from the other prisoners. Quint was in shackles, just as Tommy had been, and he limped along without his cane, the weight of the irons making his steps more laborious. His jacket was missing, and the thin material of his shirt stretched across his broad back, the linen wet with sweat and clinging to his skin.
She thought he wasn’t going to notice her there, and then he turned his head slowly. He stared through her, and Lily’s eyes were riveted to his. How could she let him know that she would somehow find and free him? Did he believe that she would abandon him to pay for her sins?
And then Quint smiled at her, that crooked smile that made him look like a devilish little boy. He had stopped in the middle of the gangplank, and a guard pushed him forward with a heavy hand. Quint stumbled slightly, but recovered and turned his face away from Lily as he continued away from the ironclad.
Lily turned a frown on Ensign Davis. “He might have fallen in the water and drowned, chained as he is,” she snapped at the relaxed ensign who watched with relief as the prisoners left his ship.
Two sailors appeared on deck with Lily’s trunk between them. It was time for her to disembark.
“Where are they taking the prisoners?” She directed her question to the ensign, forcing a calmness she did not feel into her voice. If she wasn’t careful, she could ruin any chance she had of saving Quint.
Ensign Davis gave her a small smile that seemed to pain him. He would, no doubt, be glad to be rid of her.
“All of them, or just the Captain?” There was a teasing lilt in his voice.
Lily grimaced slightly. By this time she should be better at hiding her true feelings. “Just the Captain.”
Ensign Davis relaxed and leaned against the railing, turning away from her to look over the docks. He hesitated, and Lily was afraid he would tell her nothing. And then what would she do?
“I do envy your Captain Sherwood,” he said when he turned back to her. “I suppose it would do no harm to tell you where he will be held until his transfer to the prison at Fort Warren. Perhaps the soldiers there will allow you to see him before that departure. Perhaps not. I will tell you that once Captain Sherwood is imprisoned at Fort Warren, you will not see him again until the war has ended.”
A knot formed in Lily’s stomach as she listened to the ensign’s words, and she knew she had to get to Quint before he was taken to that prison.
Quint paced the tiny cell, the heels of his boots clicking against the stone floor, his jaw clenched. Six days. Six days of inedible food, questionable water, and complete deprivation of sunlight and fresh air.
He could handle the poor rations better than he could the lack of sun and fresh air. The place smelled stale, of sweat and piss and fear, the mingled odors of the other occupants of this jail, men in tiny cells of their own that lined the narrow and dimly lit hallway. They seemed to have given up, these prisoners of the Union. All were awaiting transfer to another place, and no one expected that it would be much better than their present accommodations. They were thin and weary and barely spoke. It was as if even speech was too much of an effort.
Quint knew what time of day it was only by the arrival of his two meager meals, one at mid-morning and the other late in the afternoon. Without even a small window to watch the passage of the days, they seemed interminably long.
His black cane had been taken away on the Union patrol boat. He still walked with a slight limp, but no longer needed the aid of the cane. Thank God. He had come to hate the damn thing.
He’d told them, on board the ship and again at the prison, of his true identity. On board the ship he was laughed at, and he didn’t try to convince the Union sailors again. It didn’t help that Lily’s entire crew had taken to calling him Captain. They would protect Lily at all costs.
Quint’s claims were taken no more seriously at the prison, but the warden had reluctantly agreed to send word to Colonel Fairfax in Washington. And so Quint waited, not knowing how long it would take for word to reach Washington and a reply to arrive at the prison in Baltimore. There was no guarantee that Fairfax would be in Washington.
No one would tell him what had become of Lily. Logic told him that if ever there was a woman born who could take care of herself, it was Lily Radford. But still he worried. There was a war raging, and he didn’t think she would hide from it. He thought—he knew—that she would walk right into the middle of it all, if she had the opportunity.
The sailors on board the Union ironclad had taken great pleasure in telling him that his ship had exploded and sunk to the ocean floor. They had all heard the massive explosion, and Quint had actually been relieved to hear that the Chameleon was gone. By the time they told him what had occurred, he had ceased his efforts to convince them that it was not his ship, and he accepted the news with no visible response. No one was hurt, by all reports, but the cargo was lost. On hearing that, Quint was certain that Lily was somehow responsible for the destruction of the Chameleon.
Lily. Damn her, he didn’t know if he wanted more to kiss her or to spank her. Perhaps he should do both. He’d had more than enough time to think in the past six days, and the more he pondered the more amazing it was. She was Captain Sherwood. A blockade runner. A soldier as fierce as any he’d ever known, with her own driving motivation. Revenge. A powerful force.
But he loved her. That was an emotion he had thought never to feel again. It was so much more powerful than anything he’d ever felt for Alicia that it boggled his mind. Alicia had been a proper lady, and he had felt an attraction to her. But at the same time his choice of her as a future wife was also based on the fact that she came from one of the county’s oldest families, that she was much like him, in many ways. He would have been content, if his life had not taken the turns it had, to marry Alicia and give her children. Content, but not happy. He would have bedded her, but not with the passion he felt for Lily every time he looked at her. His life would have been dull, and comfortable, and bloodless. And he never would have met Lily.
She was a part of him, as though the joining of their bodies had joined them heart and soul. A lifetime with Lily was not so much a choice as an inevitability.
All heads turned when a key rattled in the lock, and the heavy door that separated their hallway from the guards’ office was thrown open. It was too soon after the morning meal for any routine visit. That meant they were coming after someone.
It was as though every prisoner in the block was holding an anxious breath. Quint had already learn
ed that being singled out meant either interrogation or transfer, and as bad as their Baltimore prison was, they all knew it was better than most.
Quint had a glimmer of hope that word might have come from Colonel Fairfax or one of his aides, though it was probably still too soon.
The sergeant walked directly to Quint’s cell and turned the key with a clang that echoed in the close hallway.
“You’ve got a visitor.” The sergeant spat the words, his voice coarse and full of hate. Quint looked the man straight in the face, refusing to be intimidated by the short, burly man who seemed to take delight in strong-arming the Confederate prisoners.
Quint was relieved, and gave the sergeant a half-smile as he stepped from his cell. Colonel Fairfax had apparently wasted little time in getting word to the prison that he was who he claimed to be.
His first warning was the low mutter of the sergeant behind him. “Cocky bastard.”
The sergeant used what was an evident weakness, trying to kick Quint’s legs out from under him. There was a low chuckle from the sergeant, but Quint caught himself and turned to face the man, only to find a loaded and cocked pistol in his face.
“Go ahead, Reb,” the sergeant said in a low voice. “Give me an excuse to shoot that smug-lookin’ face clean off.”
The sergeant was disappointed, as Quint gave him a crooked smile and turned his back to the man who held the pistol trained on him, waiting for any excuse to fire.
“I’ll be givin’ you a thorough search when you’re done.” The sergeant whispered the warning as he pushed open the door to the warden’s office. “Can’t be too careful.”
Quint barely heard the threat as the door swung open and he saw Lily standing in front of a barred window. The harsh light hurt his eyes, but it was her all right, standing there in that ridiculous pink dress she had worn the night of the Chameleon’s capture.
Lily turned to face him as the door opened, and she appeared calm and cool as she clasped gloved hands at her waist. She didn’t even smile, but her eyes twinkled with excitement.
In Enemy Hands Page 14