She heard Cole rise, then felt him standing behind her. “Why, Devon?” he asked quietly. “What did you want so badly that you were willing to travel halfway around the world to marry a man you’d never before set eyes on?”
Devon took a deep breath, suddenly questioning the wisdom of telling him the truth. She should tell him that she was trying to steal money from the man. That was something Cole could understand, likely what he expected to hear from her. She could confess to that, and he would probably even forgive her for it. It would be simple and neat, and they could get this over with quickly.
But it wasn’t the truth.
Devon turned around, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, her hands tucked behind her. She stared up at Cole, lost in silent contemplation, wondering where to begin. She searched his rugged features, striving to find a similarity between her life and his, but there was nothing. No common ground, nothing she could point to that would make him understand what she’d felt. Why she’d needed to run from England, from everything. Finally she answered his question with one of her own. “Do you have many friends?”
He frowned, but replied with a shrug, “Yes, I suppose so.”
“I don’t,” she said simply. “As a matter of fact, I don’t have any at all.” She reached for a dry twig, poked it absently at the ground near her feet, then let it drop. “It’s not Uncle Monty’s fault. He would do anything in the world for me, but the way we lived, constantly on the dodge, moving from place to place, made things rather difficult. He had his cronies and his drinking pubs, but I’m hardly the sort that a respectable young lady my age would invite to tea. Or the sort that a respectable young man would want anything to do with. So when Uncle Monty was out, I simply stayed home by myself.”
“And you thought this Boris person would be a friend?”
“No. I’d hoped we would learn to get along together, of course, but I wanted more than just that. I wanted a real home, a family, a chance to meet other people and truly belong. Somewhere where I would actually be accepted, where I wouldn’t ever have to run again, or constantly look over my shoulder.”
“If that’s all you wanted, why didn’t you simply choose a man in England and settle down there?”
Devon flinched inwardly at his description of “all” she wanted. He had no idea what an impossible dream that was for her. “You don’t understand the way Uncle Monty and I lived. We would work our way into the upper echelons one week, dining at fancy dinner parties and drinking from fine crystal. And the next week we’d be squatting over an open fire in a dark alley with the most notorious burglar in the city. But there was no place we ever really fit in.
“Besides,” she continued, “even if I could convince someone that I truly was the lady I pretended to be, how could I ever relax in England? The specter of my past would always loom over me, the fear that one day I’d run into someone with whom Uncle Monty and I had had dealings. That would bring nothing but shame to my husband, destroy everything I’d worked so hard to build. And if there were children involved and my husband learned about my past and cast us out into the streets…” Her words trailed off as a small shudder passed through her frame.
“Maybe your husband would understand,” Cole suggested.
“He wouldn’t,” she countered swiftly. “You don’t know the way it works, but I do. Once people know, they never quite trust you again. Once you’re branded a thief, you always remain a thief in their eyes. My only chance was to start over, to leave everything behind. And marrying Boris Ogglesby seemed the perfect opportunity.”
“I see.”
Devon stared at Cole, wondering if he really did see, or if this all sounded like just another one of her elaborate ruses to him. She reminded herself firmly that it didn’t matter what he thought of her, and continued. “Since all of Uncle Monty’s dealings with Sharpe in the past had been legitimate, I thought there was no way he would suspect. But he did.” She reached for the branch beside her and began absently tugging the leaves and scattering them at her feet.
“What happened?”
“Sharpe saw through me immediately. Apparently I’m not half as good at pretending to be a lady as I think I am.” She paused, lifting her shoulders in a light shrug. “Or perhaps he’d known about my and Uncle Monty’s reputation all along and that’s why he selected me.”
“Did you know that Jonas Sharpe was involved in the sale of warships to the Confederacy?”
“No. I knew he was involved in a variety of investments, and that he made money running the blockade, but I didn’t look any closer than that. The truth is, I was too wrapped up in my own situation. Too excited, too nervous, too happy. And then later, too worried.”
Cole frowned. “Why?”
“Well, the Jonas Sharpe I met in Liverpool was very smooth and sophisticated, the perfect gentleman. But once we were at sea, I began to see a different side of him. He could be absolutely charming one minute, then fly into rages the next. One never knew what would cause his explosions of temper, but the results were horrifying. He’d punish his crewmen so severely for the slightest infraction, as if he derived a sort of twisted satisfaction from it. It was truly awful.” She pictured Sharpe vividly in her mind: immaculately dressed as he strutted around deck, the cloying scent of his spicy clove cigarettes drifting in his wake. She didn’t think she could ever smell cloves again without thinking of the man.
“Did he ever hurt you, Devon? Or touch you at all?”
Devon looked up. She had heard Cole angry before. But never had she heard the cold fury that filled his tone as he asked those two simple questions.
“No,” she answered.
“Are you certain?” He studied her intently, his expression grim.
“Quite certain. He never came near me. But then, I never gave him the opportunity either. Once I saw what the man was really like, I spent the remainder of the voyage locked away in my cabin. For those last three weeks, I told him I was too ill to come out. I told him it was my…” She paused, heat rushing to her cheeks as she finished in a rush, “I told him it was my woman’s time.”
Cole stared at her, then slowly grinned. She could feel the tension slowly draining from his body as he accepted the truth of her answer. He arched a brow and asked, “For three whole weeks?”
Devon nodded her head and studied the ground, mortified that they’d stumbled into such an intimate topic. “The week before I told him my nerves were overwrought, the week during was simply too unbearable, and of course I needed the week after to recover. Judging from the wide berth Captain Sharpe gave me after that, I believe my performance must have been quite convincing.”
Cole reached out and gently tilted her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his. “Good girl,” he said, his eyes glowing with both silent laughter and genuine admiration.
Devon felt a warm glow spread slowly through her, thrilled by his approval. “I think the man feared I might actually be contagious.”
His grin broadened. “Tell me what happened next.”
“Once we reached Bermuda, he arranged my passage on a blockade runner into Charleston.”
“He didn’t accompany you?”
Devon shook her head. “He said he had other business to attend in Bermuda. The runner made it into Charleston without difficulty, but Mr. Ogglesby never showed up to meet me. I waited a few hours, then decided to strike out on my own. I’d chanced to notice an address with my fiancé’s name next to it when I was in Captain Sharpe’s office, so I headed in that direction. But instead of finding a bank as I’d expected, the address led me to an old, abandoned warehouse. I was about to return to the docks when I saw Mr. Ogglesby and another gentleman enter the warehouse.”
“Are you certain it was Ogglesby you saw?”
“Positive. Captain Sharpe had given me a framed tintype of the man. A sort of wedding gift, I suppose.”
“So you followed them inside,” Cole continued for her.
“No, not at first. I was anxious to make a good
impression, and didn’t want my fiancé to believe I was following him around town or skulking on street corners waiting for him. I determined to return to the docks and send a boy out with a message that I’d arrived, when I heard the sounds of a struggle coming from within the warehouse.”
“At which point you should have run for your life.”
“True.” Devon smiled ruefully. “It may have escaped your notice, but I tend to be a bit impulsive at times.”
Cole frowned. “I presume that’s your way of telling me that you charged into the warehouse, determined to save your precious fiancé’s life.”
“I’m afraid so. I ran inside, but it seemed that Mr. Ogglesby and the other man had already left. There was nothing but darkness and absolute quiet. The interior was a mess, however, with broken crates and smashed furniture, as though a violent struggle had just taken place. I was about to leave when I tripped over something.” She paused and took a deep breath, fighting back the sick churning of her stomach. “It was a man’s arm. He was lying face down in a pool of blood, a knife dropped on the floor beside him.”
Cole braced his hands on her shoulders in a gesture of comfort and support. “What did you do?”
“My first thought was that it was Mr. Ogglesby, and that he might still be alive and need my help. I dropped to my knees and managed to roll him over. But it wasn’t him, it was the other man. I was so shocked, I couldn’t think. I didn’t think. When I heard a noise at the door I grabbed the knife to protect myself. But it wasn’t whoever killed the lieutenant. It was Union soldiers and they immediately arrested me.”
“Did you tell them what you’ve just told me?”
“Of course, but they didn’t believe me. My gown was covered with blood, I was holding the knife in my hand, the body of the slain lieutenant lying next to me. They retrieved my trunks from the docks and found the papers Captain Sharpe had planted inside. The prosecutor cabled to England and received a wire back detailing my rather colorful background—Uncle Monty and I, though we were rather good, did run afoul of the law a time or two—and that was it. Nothing I said made any difference.”
“What about Ogglesby?”
“I gave the authorities his name, of course, but they couldn’t locate him. Or any record of him. Given the amount of evidence they had against me, I doubt they put much effort into the search.” She took a step away from him and shrugged, striving to sound casual despite the fact that she was quaking inside.
“That’s it,” she finished. “Everything. The rest I believe you know. After my trial, the dubious honor of escorting me to Old Capitol was given first to a lieutenant named Kilgas, then Sergeant Coombs, and then you. And so… here we are.”
Devon waited for Cole to speak, feeling suddenly shy and horribly vulnerable. She’d said too much, she realized. She should have just told him about the events leading up to the murder for which she’d been convicted. Instead she’d told him about Billy, about her Uncle Monty, her shady past, and all her hopes and dreams for the future.
“It’s not too late to find Sharpe and Ogglesby, Devon,” Cole said. “We can bring them in and make them stand trial for what they’ve done.”
Bitter disappointment stabbed through her. Finding them was the last thing in the world that she cared about. It wasn’t until she heard Cole speak that she realized what she’d been hoping to hear him say. She wanted him to take her into his arms and tell her that her past didn’t matter. That he understood who she was and what she’d done. That he would be different from everybody else she’d ever met and not condemn her for the mistakes she’d made. That she really could start all over again and build a new life. But apparently mat dream was as unattainable as the rest of her fanciful hopes and wishes.
A puzzled frown crossed his face as be studied her. “I promise you, Devon,” he repeated, “I’ll find them both.”
She forced a tight smile. “I hope so,” she answered dully and moved past him, returning to the main house without looking back.
Cole stood in General Brader’s study two hours later, paying only partial attention to the discussion under way. Instead his focus was on Devon. She was across the hall, moving among the wounded. The men had been brought downstairs where it was cooler and rested in cots in the front parlor. She had said last night that she’d always known how to handle men, and as he watched her move among them now, he saw that that hadn’t been a vain boast.
Her presence brightened the room. She carried herself with natural ease and charm, as if there was no place in the world she’d rather be than in a stuffy sickroom full of wounded soldiers. Devon stopped here and there to chat, to offer a drink of cool water, to write a letter for a man whose hands were bandaged, then another for a man who simply had never learned to write. Occasionally someone called her over just to sit beside him for a few minutes, and even that simple act was enough to brighten the soldier’s eyes.
She was every inch a lady, he knew that now. She worked so hard to convince everyone of that fact, but deep down she still hadn’t convinced herself. And no wonder. Hadn’t every person she’d come into contact with thrown her past back in her face—himself included? In fact, he’d been the worst of all. He thought of the way Jonas Sharpe had twisted her dreams into nothing more than a means to achieve his ruthless ends. He thought of the trial she’d endured, only to be convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Then of her being delivered into the lewd, filthy hands of Sergeant Coombs, and finally passed on to him. No wonder she’d done everything in her power to escape.
But most amazing of all was that despite what she’d endured, Devon had never given up. Despite her father abandoning her, the cruelty of the asylum where she’d grown up, the loss of her brother, the meager existence she’d managed to eke out on the streets, she’d never given up. She hadn’t walked into that icy river on a cold winter’s day—a stark image that still filled him with horror. Instead she’d done what she’d had to do to survive, and done it with more grace and dignity than any woman he’d ever met in his life.
His resolve to catch Sharpe had increased tenfold after he heard Devon’s tale. While it was too late for him to change any of the past, he could still make amends for his own part, for not having listened to her sooner. Capturing Sharpe seemed the most straightforward means to solve her problem.
That way, he reasoned, he would be able to clear Devon’s name once and for all. He would do whatever it took to force Sharpe to confess that he and his man Ogglesby had been behind the murder of Lieutenant Prescott. That Devon had been nothing more than an innocent pawn in their scheme, in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the onus of murder removed from her shoulders, she would be able to do what she’d originally set out to do: to find a husband and leave the past behind.
Not that he was in the market for a wife himself. Lord, no. He had enough on his hands right now. The timing was too impossible for him even to consider it.
Cole frowned as he deliberated on the narrow confines of society, unable to deny the injustice of what Devon faced. A woman with her past would receive nothing but scorn from “proper” society. But with his backing and connections, finding a husband for her shouldn’t be too difficult. He thought of the men he knew in Washington, running over in his mind a list of likely candidates for her hand in marriage. After all, she had no one else to see to the task, and that made it his responsibility.
He searched his mind, listing the traits mandatory for a suitor for her hand. Definitely someone with money. Cole didn’t like the idea of Devon ever wanting for anything again, no matter how slight. The man also had to be a Northerner, simply as a matter of principle. What else? Someone who would protect her, certainly, and accept her fully for what she was. Someone who would be damned proud to have her as his wife. Someone who would give her children. Devon had said she wanted a family.
Cole frowned again, thinking of how she’d felt in his arms. So soft, so sweet, so giving. As in everything else, she was a
complete contradiction in that sense as well: a combination of breathtaking innocence and stunning sensuality. He remembered the feel of her hands as she traced them over his body, the honeyed taste of her lips, the enticing smell of her skin, and instantly vetoed the idea of another man ever getting anywhere near her. He knew he was being a bit dog-in-the-manger about the whole thing, but he couldn’t help himself. Until he found a man worthy of her, Devon Blake was staying with him. And as far as he was concerned, that was the end of the subject.
“Why are you glaring at me?”
Cole started at Devon’s question, abruptly realizing that he’d moved from the general’s study to the doorway of the parlor. She stood before him, her fists propped on her slim hips, her face flushed from the heat. It was hot and sticky in the little room, the air thick with the stale smell of sweat and illness. Even with the windows thrown wide open, it felt as though there wasn’t enough air for so many bodies. “Glaring?” he answered, “I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were. As a matter of fact, you’ve been glaring at me for the past twenty minutes.”
He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking?” Devon looked at him dubiously, then wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand. “Well, I don’t believe it suits you. You looked awfully unhappy doing it.”
Someone who finds her insults absolutely adorable, he mentally added to his list of traits for any suitor for her hand.
“McRae!” General Brader’s voice boomed out from within the confines of his study. “Where the hell did you wander off to?”
“Right here, sir,” Cole called over his shoulder.
The general lumbered out into the hall. His gaze moved to the wounded, then back to Devon. “You’ve been babying my men again, missy?” he demanded. “How the hell are they ever going to go back into battle with you giving them more attention than their mamas ever did?”
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