Lily’s face was impassive, infuriating him further.
“Damn it, Lily! I went to the president himself for you!”
“I’m still not signing.” To prove her point, she picked up the offensive document and tore it in half.
Quint had been careful not to touch her, not to anger her, but when she ripped the paper in half, he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her against him. “Why did you do that? Do you like it here? Do you want to stay in prison until the war is over?” His voice was low and threatening. “War was never meant to be fought by women…. ”
“What should I have done?” Lily glared into his eyes, staring hard, refusing to back away even though they stood thigh to thigh. “Should I have stayed in England with my spineless brother? Stayed at home and wrapped bandages and danced with lonely soldiers home on leave? That wouldn’t have been enough.”
Lily closed her eyes.
“I want you safe,” Quint said. She had her eyes closed tightly, like a child shutting out the world, and he never wanted to let her go. He expected her to pull away from him, but she stood very still, and finally he rested his cheek against the top of her head. She held her body rigid, but he found great hope in the fact that she didn’t move away. “I love you too much to —”
“Don’t say that,” Lily whispered. “You don’t mean it. You never meant it.”
Quint pulled away just enough that he could see Lily’s face, her full lips, the dusting of freckles on her flawless nose.
“Open your eyes, Lily Tyler,” Quint commanded gently, and she did. He was a little surprised that she responded so quickly. His heart broke a little when he saw the tears in her eyes, tears she fought to hide. “I wish I could tell you that I’ve never lied to you, but that’s not true. But I never lied about the way I feel for you. You don’t have to forgive me. I don’t expect you to. But I want you to know that I never lied about loving you and needing you, and in time I would have told you the rest of it myself.”
Lily searched his eyes, and he knew that she was searching for some sign that he was telling the truth.
“Now, sign the paper,” he said gently, “and I can get you out of here.”
Lily broke away from him suddenly. “Bloody hell, I almost let you fool me again—all for the sake of your bloody allegiance.” She glared at him, her eyes like blue-green ice. “I’ll die in this place before I sign anything.”
Quint gathered up torn pieces of the document that could set Lily free, the document he had worked so hard to get for her. Damn it all, he couldn’t leave her here! She talked tough and acted tough, but he could see the pain and the fear in her eyes and in her too-pale face. So much of Lily was in the sea and the sun that he feared she very well would die in prison if he didn’t get her out of here soon.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Quint said, the warmth in his voice replaced by a cold determination. “And the next day, and the next. You will sign this, Lily. I don’t care if you mean it or not.”
“But I do,” Lily whispered. “I care very much about the commitments I make.”
Quint strode out of the room, leaving Lily behind. But at the door, he grabbed the waiting sergeant by the collar and placed his face close to the wary soldier’s.
“Touch that woman again, and you’ll have more than a temporary limp to worry about.”
Lily watched Quint’s retreating back as he walked down the long hallway to the front entrance.
She was in for a fight. Quint was not one to give up easily, and neither was she. God help her, she could face anything… but Quint, every day?
Her beloved Quint, dressed in blue, glaring at her with those dark, deceptive eyes. Lily wanted to believe him when he said that he loved her, but she couldn’t. He would only hurt her again.
Sergeant Hughes was still staring down the hallway. He’d watched Quint’s retreat just as she had. What had Quint said to the soldier?
Lily quietly approached Sergeant Hughes, and when she was right behind him she let her foot fly, kicking him in his rock-hard calf. She wished they hadn’t taken away her boots after the last time she’d kicked the man and replaced them with soft slippers.
With a scowl, Hughes turned to her and grabbed her arm. “What’s your problem, Miss Radford?”
“You’re in my way, you bloody oaf,” she snapped. “Take me to my room.”
He scoffed at her. “You make it sound as if I’m your escort and this is a fine hotel rather than a federal prison.” Hughes tightened his grip on her arm and pushed her forward.
“No supper for you again tonight, Miss Radford,” the sergeant said as he propelled her forward.
Twenty
Quintin kept his word. For the next two weeks he came to the prison every day. He insisted that Lily sign the allegiance to the Union. She refused as adamantly as he insisted.
Lily watched Quint’s growing frustration with a small kernel of satisfaction. She had initially refused to sign the oath because it was against her principles. She continued to refuse because it infuriated Lieutenant Tyler.
Every afternoon Sergeant Hughes led Lily to the same room, where she found Quint waiting for her. He no longer carried a cane, though he continued to favor his right leg. Lily tried to convince herself that she didn’t care—about his leg or anything else—but the truth was, she looked forward to walking into that room every day. The sight of Quint made her heart stop, and she decided that love had turned her into a bloody fool, a sniveling twit.
Apparently, no one at the prison knew that they were married. The guards always addressed her as Miss Radford, and if the dense sergeant was puzzled by Lieutenant Tyler’s evident interest in her, he didn’t show any sign that he found it odd. The white-haired, purple-faced naval officer stopped coming; but for her guards, Quint was Lily’s only contact with the outside world.
Quint seemed as cautious as she about touching. She noticed that he sometimes placed his hands behind his back and glared at her with murder in his eyes, his feet planted far apart as if he had to will himself not to rush at her. Perhaps he was afraid that if he touched her, he would wring her stubborn neck. Lily rather liked that thought.
But the unfortunate fact was that when she saw him, she had the urge to throw her arms around his neck and sob like a little girl. The image disgusted her. She had never been given to sobbing, even when she was a little girl, and she certainly had no intention of allowing a man to drive her to such lengths. Even a man she dreamed of at night and wanted desperately to hold in her arms just one more time.
Sometimes, when that stubborn lock of ash-brown hair fell over his forehead, she wanted to reach out and smooth it back. To combat her urges, she clasped her hands behind her back and planted her feet as Quint had, and they stood face to face, no more than a few feet separating them, the air between them charged and crackling.
It took every ounce of strength Quint possessed not to grab her. Not to hold her and force her to sign the damn papers, then throw her over his shoulder and march away from the prison with her. And then what? Just allow her to go? Watch her sail for ports unknown, knowing that he might never see her again? No. There had to be some peace between them before that happened.
He was worried about her. She was pale and thin, and some days she had dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept at all. Prison hadn’t hurt her spirit. Her eyes still flashed green fire at him, and sharp retorts rolled off her tongue with no apparent effort. But physically, confinement was wearing on her. She looked tired and thin, with only the sparks in her eyes unchanged as she challenged him, daring him to best her.
Quint wanted to see Lily in one of her fussy gowns and silly hats, with a wide grin plastered on her face. He wanted to see her in her captain’s garb, unconventional trousers and boots, her saber dangling from her side. He wanted to see her with a pink flush on her cheeks from a windy day in the sun.
Instead he saw her grow paler every day. The gray woolen dress she had been issued had been ill-fitting to
begin with, and now it hung on her, bagging at the waist. He was afraid that soon there would be nothing left of her, that she would waste away before his very eyes.
Only once had they gone so far as to end up shouting, Quint accusing Lily of being a stubborn, ignorant child, and Lily calling him a bloody bastard, along with other inventive curses even he had never heard. The curses of a Liverpool dock rat.
Sergeant Hughes had burst into the room, another guard at his heels. It was clear that they were frightened, though whether they were concerned for him or for their prisoner was unclear. They had been reluctant to leave the room, even when Quint shooed them away with an impatient wave of his hand. They hesitated for a moment before they left, and Quint knew they would be listening just outside the door, waiting for another outburst.
He was running out of time. In a matter of days he was to report to his new regiment. The leg had healed well enough for him to resume his military career, but he couldn’t. Not with Lily in prison.
Quint arrived at the prison late in the morning, having made the familiar trip from Washington in less than an hour. The red brick building didn’t look like a prison—except for the iron bars on every window—but more like the girls’ school it had once been. On this particular morning there was an unfamiliar wagon in the yard. It was a rough-looking conveyance, the wooden seat splintered and warped, the bed of the buckboard haphazardly filled with rags and straw and flour sacks and a single water barrel.
He knew there were at least seven other female prisoners in the building, though he had never seen them. Spies, all seven, or so they’d been accused of being. Perhaps one of them was being released and would be going home in the less-than-sturdy wagon pulled by a single gray mare.
Sergeant Hughes and two other guards were posted outside the door of the office where he always met with Lily. One of the other prisoners was probably being interrogated—or wisely signing the oath of allegiance to the Union.
“Good morning, sir,” Sergeant Hughes greeted Quint curtly, straightening his spine and lifting his chin.
Quint grunted and paced in front of the closed door. He’d never been a patient man, and he most especially disliked waiting to see Lily.
“Go fetch Miss Radford,” he snapped. “I’ll question her in another room today, since this one is occupied.”
Hughes frowned. He didn’t appear particularly bright to begin with, and his puzzlement made him look downright stupid. “Miss Radford is in there”— he crooked his head toward the closed door—“with her brother. Shall I put an end to the visit?” Hughes reached for the doorknob, more than willing to interrupt Lily’s private moment with her brother.
“No,” Quint said quickly. “Let them talk. She hasn’t seen her brother in a long time, and I imagine she has a bit of explaining to do.”
Quint couldn’t stand still, so he paced the hallway outside the closed door. The other three soldiers stood perfectly still, their eyes following Quint’s agitated steps.
“You might be glad to know that Miss Radford has been much better behaved for the past several days,” Sergeant Hughes offered. “I haven’t had to withhold her supper for almost a week now, and the bruises on my legs… ” He became silent when Quint glared.
“Damn it all, is that why she’s so thin? You’ve been withholding her food?” His voice was soft but menacing, and he watched the color drain from the sergeant’s face.
“Only when absolutely necessary, and as I said, she’s been quite tame this week. To be honest, I think she’s a bit under the weather, and as soon as she’s all better, she’ll be battering my poor legs again for no apparent reason.” The sergeant’s face regained its color as he defended himself. “I have every right to punish the prisoner, and keeping back her supper is mild compared to…. ”
“You will see that she’s fed, Sergeant,” Quint seethed. “If I look at her and think that she’s lost even a single pound, I’ll beat it out of your hide. Is that clear?”
There was a short pause before Hughes answered. “Yes, sir,” he murmured, his normal military crispness absent.
Quint stared at the closed door. “How long has he been here?” He didn’t want to interrupt Lily and Elliot, but he was anxious to see her.
“About an hour, sir,” Hughes replied. “Yesterday he stayed for about that long before I made him leave. Put up quite a fuss, with that funny accent of his. Called me a bleedin’ arse, he did. I can see that Miss Radford’s temper is a family trait—.” Hughes stopped dead as Quint lowered his face to stare at the sergeant.
“When yesterday was he here?”
The sergeant frowned, then resumed a more military stance. “Late in the day, sir, after you left.”
“Tall man? Older than Lily? Bushy moustache?” He could just see Tommy now, passing himself off as Lily’s brother, plotting a way to get her out of her comfortable prison.
But Hughes was shaking his head. “Not at all. Young fella. Dark curly hair…. ”
Quint backed away, cursing his imagination. Still, what the sergeant had said didn’t fit what Lily had told him of her brother. Elliot Radford was supposedly a refined gentleman, meek and temperate, but Quint could imagine that finding one’s sister in such a predicament would incite the fire in even the mildest man’s blood.
“Well,” he muttered to himself, “I can hardly wait to meet this Elliot Radford.”
“Wrong brother, Lieutenant,” Hughes answered. “This one’s name is Roger. Roger Radford.”
Quint stared at the closed door. Roger Radford? There wasn’t any Roger Radford….
He heard the faint murmur of raised voices through the door. Lily’s he recognized, even as it rose to a new level. The mysterious Roger answered her in kind, as the two of them shouted curses at the top of their lungs. Quint threw open the door and stepped inside first, already suspecting, but not quite prepared for, the scene that was unfolding before him.
Lily stood with her back to the desk, hands clutching the desktop on either side of her. Quint was looking at her profile—and at Roger’s. Not Roger Radford, but Roger of the engine room, sans coal dust and sweat.
“Yer a disgrace, Lily Radford,” Roger shouted, ignoring the four soldiers who crowded in the doorway. His hands clenched and unclenched in apparent anger—or anticipation. “It shames me to call ye me sister.”
He spared a quick glance to the doorway, and to his credit he showed no surprise at seeing Quint there. “This is between the wench and me, mates.”
Lily ignored the soldiers. “And I am ashamed to call you my brother. You are a spineless coward, a liar, a shiftless bounder.” She reached behind her, and her hand fell on a crystal paperweight. Pale fingers curled around the smooth surface, and she swung it forward.
Roger ducked, and Lily’s heavy hand missed his head by no more than two inches. Quint saw Roger reach into his boot, the movement graceful and amazingly fast, and withdraw a knife smoothly, grasping it tightly in his left hand.
“’Old on there, Lil. Ye’ll be ’olding yer temper.” His voice was menacing, but he didn’t threaten Lily with the knife. He held it before him like a shield.
Lily cast a furtive glance at the stunned soldiers who flanked Quint, and then her eyes lit on him. He stepped forward to stop her—and that was a mistake. She wasn’t going to allow him to stop her. He should have realized that sooner. Lily fell forward and the knife Roger clasped in his hand pierced the gray dress she wore, staining it with dark crimson that turned the gray to black.
“’Eaven above us,” Roger whispered, suitably shocked and pale. “I didn’t mean… I just wanted to scare ’er. To make ’er back away.” He knelt beside her body. “Lil,” he groaned most convincingly. “I’m sorry, Lil.”
Quint shoved Roger out of the way. He knew what was happening. He had seen a version of this particular play on board the Chameleon. But still, the sight of Lily pale and motionless on the floor scared him, and he knelt beside her, touching the tear in her dress and pulling his hand away. T
his was no mixture of crushed berries and syrup—it was real blood.
“Lily.” Quint’s voice was low as he lifted her head and cradled her in his arms. “For God’s sake…. ”
Lily’s eyes fluttered open, and she fixed her gaze on him. He was kneeling on the floor, supporting her weight as she rolled against him. “Quint, my love,” she whispered in a raspy voice. She raised a limp hand and touched it to his cheek. “I loved you, once.” Her eyelids quivered and then closed, just as the guards came to their senses and rushed forward.
Quint lifted a blood-soaked hand and held it to the pulse at her throat. Thank God. There it was, strong and steady. She’d lied too well. For a moment, he’d actually believed she’d been stabbed.
“Blimey! She’s dead!” Roger shouted. “I’ve killed me own sister!”
Hughes tried to kneel over the body, his bulk close to Quint, but Quint shouted for the man to back away. The sergeant stood, and the other guards moved to their positions by the door, their faces white and solemn.
Quint struggled to his feet. His leg ached with the effort, but he lifted Lily and walked toward the door. Roger was directly behind him, and the young seaman was amazingly believable in his distress.
Damn, she was still! And her head lolled against his arm, her hair falling in a golden waterfall as he strode toward the guards.
Hughes stared down at the large puddle of blood on the floor, at Quint’s bloodstained hands and the black blood on Lily’s gray prison dress. Decisively, he stepped in front of Quint.
“I’ll take charge of the body, sir. It’s my duty.” The sergeant obviously found it an unpleasant duty, but one he considered to be his own.
There was no sign of life from Lily. No rise and fall of her chest. What if something had gone wrong, and she was really dead? Perhaps she’d been distracted and fallen on the knife so that it pierced her skin rather than the oilskin bag he knew had to be strapped to her side. Quint lifted his head to glare at the sergeant.
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