Anyone a little less drunk, a little less stupid, would have heard the threat implicit in Cole McRae’s voice. The sergeant, however, was oblivious. He leaned back in his chair, locking his hands over his fat belly. “She’s gonna hang anyway, right? So I figured, why waste it?” The loud guffaws from his men only served to encourage him. “She warmed up real quick though, once she got a good look at what I had to offer. I ain’t never had no troubles with females, once they seen—”
“Save it, Coombs. I said I wasn’t interested.”
The sergeant glared at Cole for interrupting, then took a deep swallow of his drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded to his men. “She wanted it though, a man like me can always tell—”
Cole reached across the desk, watching the sergeant’s chin drop with slack-jawed astonishment as he hauled him up by his grease-stained lapels. “All right, you want to talk,” he said with a growl, “then let’s talk. Let’s talk about what I heard.” He paused, pure disgust shining in his eyes. “I heard she got such a good look at what you had to offer that she left you tied to a tree, your drawers wrapped around your ankles and your bare ass a target for Reb sharpshooters. Then she ran so fast it took you and your men five days to find her.”
Coombs’s eyes widened, then narrowed to thin, ugly slits. Unable to deny the truth of Cole’s words, he struggled instead to release the iron grip the other man had on his clothing. But it wasn’t until Cole chose to let him go, shoving him roughly back into his chair, that he was once again free. The sergeant’s furious glare moved from McRae to his own men, who’d all come to their feet in a flash of drunken heat. But registering both the build and the dangerous air of the man before them, they backed down, soberly deciding they’d prefer to keep their teeth.
Realizing this, Coombs turned an even darker shade of crimson. “Harris!” he roared, “bring the little bitch out here. If the cap’n thinks he can do any better with her, let’s let him try.” His mouth worked in silent fury as he chewed the end of his cigar, then he turned and spat on the tattered carpet beside his desk. “I ain’t never had no taste for Rebel whores no how.”
Cole ignored him and moved to stand by the window. Jesus, he was tired of filth like Coombs. Tired of men like him who were almost certain to live through the war, while every day good men died. He pushed the thought from his mind. He wasn’t going to think about that now. He wasn’t going to think about the raw, blistering burn of gunpowder. The anguished sobs of wounded men. The hot, acrid scent of blood. God help him, not now. Not now.
Finding the windowpane stuck, he used his shoulder to push it open. The frame split like kindling, shattering into pieces and falling on the street below. The effort was not only excessive, but wasted. Like everything else, the soft breeze that blew in from the harbor seemed to die before it reached the sullen brick edifice of the stockades. Cole was greeted by a blast of hot, sticky air that did little to relieve the atmosphere in the room. The men shifted uncomfortably in their seats behind him but said nothing.
The sound of shuffling feet in the hall outside drew his attention back to the task at hand. He turned and saw his prisoner for the first time. She was smaller than he’d expected. That surprised him. He’d assumed that a woman capable of twisting a knife into a man’s back would be larger, more threatening somehow.
She stood in the center of the room, her posture stiff and erect. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in a thick sheet of dark mahogany. Her face was smudged with dirt, as was her gown, but she showed little concern for her appearance. Instead she tilted back her head and looked about the room, her gaze burning with unveiled contempt.
When her eyes reached Cole, she stopped, as if registering his presence for the first time. He watched a brief flicker of a question—hope perhaps—flash in her soft green gaze, then the light was quickly extinguished. Smart woman. But rather than turn away, she studied him a second longer, coolly sizing him up.
Her stare traveled down his uniform, then back up again. It wasn’t a look he was used to receiving from women. It was the look of an opponent before a fight, probing for strengths, hunting for weaknesses. Her gaze rested briefly on his cheek, taking in the raw, ugly scar that marred his skin. For an incredible second, he felt the scar tingle, as if she’d run her fingers over the wound. The sensation vanished as quickly as it came, and she returned her eyes to his. “Are you the commanding officer here?”
Her voice was low and steady, the soft, husky tone almost incongruous for a woman her size. The hint of a British accent clung to her words. She waited, but when it became clear that Cole had no intention of answering, she squared her shoulders and continued, “There has been a terrible mistake. I insist on—”
“Where are her things?” Cole interrupted, directing his question at Coombs.
“She ain’t got nothing. Her trunks was confiscated for the trial back at Charleston.”
“Trial,” the woman repeated acidly. “That proceeding was a mockery to anyone who—”
“Now, hold on there,” Coombs cut in, lumbering to his feet. “I ain’t gonna listen to you bad-mouthing the U.S. Army. You was found guilty fair and square. If they tried you again, they’d find you guilty again.” His chest swelled with self-righteous pride as his gaze traveled back to his men, eager to restore his former status. “That proceeding,” he mimicked haughtily, “was entirely legimit.”
“I believe the word you mean, Sergeant,” his prisoner informed him coldly, “is legitimate. Though I shouldn’t wonder that the term would be entirely foreign to someone such as yourself.”
“Why, you little—” Coombs sputtered, his face flaming once again. “Let’s just see if a little time spent in that prison up in Washington don’t bring you down a notch or two. Let’s see how you like them rats and fleas and eatin’ slop every day.”
“I can see that prison will have at least one distinct advantage,” his captive shot back. “You, sir, will not be there.”
The sergeant lunged forward, but Cole caught him and tossed him back into his chair. “Sit down, Coombs,” he ordered. “I don’t believe it’s possible for a man to look any more stupid, but if you open your mouth again, you might just prove me wrong. And I hate for anybody to prove me wrong.”
He fixed the sergeant with a dark glare, then turned to his prisoner, frowning as a startled whisper of a smile flashed across her face.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t,” Cole said. “You’ve nothing to thank me for, Madame. I was not defending you, I was merely sickened by the sergeant here.” If she had any ideas about his coming to her aid, now was as good a time as any to dispel them. “It is my misfortune to have been given the distasteful chore of bringing you to Washington. You’ll make the journey easier for both of us if you learn to keep your mouth shut and do as I tell you. Do I make myself clear?”
He watched her face freeze, her eyes turn to glittering shards of crystal-green ice. She drew herself up to her full height, the top of her dark head barely reaching Cole’s shoulder. “Perfectly,” she answered regally. “I am now fully aware that you are every bit as contemptible as the sergeant himself. You may consider your mission accomplished.”
The woman obviously had more guts than common sense. And apparently she wasn’t finished. “May I ask a question?” she inquired demurely.
Cole waited.
“Now that you’ve assaulted me verbally in a room full of people, shall I expect to be physically assaulted next? Or will you wait, as Sergeant Coombs did, until we’re in private for that?”
“You wanted—” Coombs cried.
“That’s enough, Coombs,” Cole said, his eyes never leaving his prisoner’s face. He let her question hang in the air, escalating the tension in the room to a nerve-shattering pitch. Finally he broke the silence. “I have no desire to either touch you or speak to you, Madame. I prefer that our journey, since it must be made, be short and uneventful. If you choose to provoke me and make it oth
erwise, you’ll suffer the consequences wrought by your own actions.”
To his utter disbelief, his captive smiled.
The woman was clearly insane, that had to be it. In a fit of insanity, she’d knifed a man in the back. Rather than being terrified by Cole’s vague threats, she merely looked amused.
“Well now, that is a difficult choice, isn’t it?” she said. “Allow myself to be passively taken to prison and locked away for a crime that I did not commit, or do everything within my power to escape and risk upsetting such a fine gentleman as yourself.” She shook her head, wringing her hands in mock despair. “Dear me. Whatever shall I do?”
Snorts of appreciative laughter sounded from around the room as their audience cast admiring glances at the petite woman who’d stood up to the rugged captain in a way that none of them had dared. Sergeant Coombs joined in the laughter. “What’d I tell you, McRae? The woman’s nothing but spit and fire. And now she’s all yours.”
Cole had had more than enough of the stale room and its drunken occupants. He reached for his prisoner, intending to lead her away, then stopped, frowning at the thick iron shackles that bound her wrists. He turned back to Coombs. “Give me the key.”
The sergeant produced it from his pocket and passed it over. He shook his head as he watched Cole reach for the prisoner’s wrists. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Cap’n. The woman’s a natural-born thief as well as a murderer. You’d best leave those on, show her who’s boss.”
Cole grabbed her hands and pulled them up, surprised by the woman’s sudden intake of breath. Good. Perhaps his warning had frightened her after all. He turned the key to strip the shackles from her wrists and froze. Her skin was bruised and swollen, rubbed raw in places from sharp, chafing contact with the coarse metal.
It was obvious what Coombs had done. He hadn’t merely shackled his captive, but dragged her along by a rope attached to the heavy cuffs, like pulling a dog on a lead. Cole lifted his gaze from her wrists to her face, but the prisoner’s expression betrayed nothing. She stared straight ahead, her slim shoulders thrown slightly back, her small chin tilted defiantly.
Either she was completely oblivious of the pain or she was one hell of an actress. Cole suspected that the truth fell somewhere in between. A grudging note of respect swept over him, but he pushed it away, refusing to let it take hold. Silently, he studied the shackles in his hand, then turned back to Coombs.
“That were the only way we could control her,” the sergeant blustered gruffly as thin beads of sweat began to form on his upper lip. “It ain’t like she didn’t deserve it. Me and my men was real patient with her. She brung it on herself.”
With every word, Cole moved closer. When he reached the sergeant’s desk, he stopped, calmly setting down the shackles. “Stand up, Coombs.”
The sergeant grinned nervously. “What?”
“Stand up.”
“What do you want me to do that for—”
Cole was once again reduced to hauling the man up by his greasy lapels. “Because I’m going to tell you something, Coombs, and it’s real important. I want to make sure you can hear every word. Can you hear me, Coombs?”
The sergeant’s head bobbed up and down.
“Good. Now listen. I left that port out there with a crew of one hundred men. I came back two weeks ago with less than twenty. Think about that, Coombs. Think real hard. That’s how many men dead?”
“Eighty,” the sergeant whispered hoarsely.
“That’s right.” Cole tightened his grip on the man. “Eighty men dead. You think it’s going to matter to anybody if I kill one more?”
Coombs swallowed convulsively. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
“If I could kill my own crew, just imagine what I’ll do to you if I ever see your ugly face again.” Cole let that sink in, then abruptly released him. “Now get out of my sight.”
The sergeant nodded feverishly. He inched sideways around the desk, his eyes never leaving Cole. Moving with a haste that was almost comical, he and his men scurried away, filing out the door in double-quick step.
Their abrupt exit left a heavy silence in the room. Cole turned back to his prisoner, expecting finally to see traces of fear on her face. Or, more likely, pure disgust. He found neither. She stood motionless in the center of the room, her features perfectly composed, her expressive eyes carefully blank. She lifted her chin and said in her soft, slightly husky voice, “My name is Devon Blake.”
Cole studied the woman a minute longer, then shrugged. It didn’t matter.
Devon Blake was in serious trouble. She’d known that from the first second she’d laid eyes on Captain Cole McRae. He hadn’t said a single word to her since they’d left the stockades, nor did it look as though he intended to any time soon. But clearly he had not forgotten her. His hand was locked around her upper arm in a steel grip that defied resistance, forcing her into a near-run to keep pace with his swift, long-legged stride.
She risked another glance at her captor, searching for some sign of weakness in the man, but found none. He was hard and lean, with a body beneath his Union uniform that looked to be made of rock-solid muscle. He wore his hair slightly longer than most men, the thick, golden-blond length reaching just past his collar. His profile could have been carved in granite, so devoid was it of any expression. She noted once again the deep, jagged scar that ran from his left temple to the middle of his cheek, standing out against the tan of his skin. It was a frightening addition to his rugged features, giving him a wounded, slightly dangerous air.
The scar notwithstanding, the captain would probably still be considered an incredibly good-looking man. Except for one thing. His eyes. They were cold, flat, and showed absolutely no trace of mercy within their tawny-brown depths. Cole McRae had the eyes of a man who’d seen death too often. Who’d caused death too often. And who’d simply ceased to care.
Devon silently cursed her luck. Her two previous escorts, Sergeant Coombs and the man before him, had been crude, stupid men, easily duped. Marks she would have plucked cleaner than a Sunday chicken had she met them in Liverpool. She’d managed to escape twice, only to be apprehended later due to an unfortunate combination of bad timing and bad luck. But that had been child’s play, she realized regretfully, compared to the work she had cut out for her now.
Devon knew how to lure a mark in, how to probe for weaknesses, how to maximize profit and minimize risk. But the man who walked beside her down the busy street, ignoring the fascinated stares of passersby, whose broad build and long gait spoke of complete self-assurance, was not a mark she would have chosen. In fact, just the opposite was true. Had the situation been reversed, where she was back in Liverpool, in her element, Cole McRae was a man she wouldn’t have said so much as boo to, regardless of the money involved. But as the choice was not hers to make, the best she could do was to get away from him as quickly as possible.
To that end, she scanned the crowded streets, looking for an opportunity. Despite the oppressive heat, they were surrounded on all sides by a maelstrom of activity. Messengers raced by on hot, sweaty mounts, dodging wagons, mules, and soldiers. Troops drilled to the north, filling the air with the sharp rattle of musketry. Just ahead, crates of foodstuffs and other provisions were being unloaded and carried into the general store.
So immersed was she in taking in her surroundings that she paid no attention to their path until she felt a sharp rock cut between her toes. With a startled gasp, she came to an abrupt halt, despite the iron grip the captain still maintained on her arm. He stopped as well, scowling down at her. Devon ignored him and took another step, only to feel more sharp rocks sting the soles of her feet. Much to her dismay, she noted that the smooth clay pavement they’d been on had slowly given way to a rough, rocky road as they neared the docks.
Before she could move again, he grabbed a handful of her skirt and tugged it aside to reveal her filthy, bare feet and dirty ankles. Humiliation swept over her, along with a healthy dose of ang
er. She yanked the thin fabric of her gown out of his hands. “Just what do you think—”
“Where are your shoes?” he demanded. There was an unmistakable accusation to his tone, as if she’d deliberately chosen to shame and debase herself by running through the streets barefoot.
“Sergeant Coombs has doubtless sold them by now,” Devon replied, bringing up her chin. “Apparently I’m considered far too grave a danger to the U.S. Army to be allowed the privilege of footwear.”
“The only danger you pose, Madame,” he returned coolly, “is to yourself, unless you learn to control that tongue of yours.”
“Oh, dear. Another threat. I suppose I shall have to begin writing them all down, lest I forget one.” Pleased at having gotten the last word, she turned and started walking, refusing to show the slightest hint of discomfort as the brittle rocks and pebbles bit into the soles of her feet.
Unfortunately her show of stubborn bravado was wasted on Captain McRae. Before she could guess what he was about, he grabbed her around the knees and tossed her over his shoulder like so much unwanted baggage, not even breaking his stride. Devon made no attempt to silence her cry of outrage. She beat her fists furiously against his back, demanding he release her. When that failed, she squirmed sideways in his grasp, threatening to bite off half his ear.
Her struggles drew a crowd of amused onlookers, whose bawdy shouts merely increased her fury. “Put me down this instant,” she hissed, her voice dripping venom, “or I swear I’ll…” She paused, searching for another suitable threat, when a rough bellow from the crowd caught her attention.
“Here now, what’s going on?”
Devon leveraged herself up as best she could, peering around the captain’s shoulder. Her anger disappeared like gin at a drunkard’s table, replaced by an overwhelming surge of giddy triumph. Her luck had finally changed.
The town blacksmith, drawn out of his shop by all the commotion, stood squarely in front of them, blocking their path. The man’s upper torso was naked beneath his apron, his huge body dripping with sweat from his labors. He held a twisted piece of iron in one hand and a heavy anvil in the other. Devon, glancing at the size of his thick arms, wondered if he bothered to work the metal over a fire, as most blacksmiths did, or simply bent it in half with his bare hands.
Captured Page 2