by Alyssa Cole
“That was . . . splendid,” he said, the feeling in his words enhanced by the laughter beneath them.
“I knew you would like it! Recite something for me now,” she said, looking up at him with unadorned desire.
He thought for a moment, trying to recall a line that would do for the moment. He glanced quickly at Elle—for her such a task would be quite simple, given the endless knowledge in that fine brain of hers. Then a line came to him, from a verse he’d had to repeat in front of the family hearth on many a chilly winter’s night. Elle seemed to have an aversion to quality Scottish literature, but he was quite sure she knew The Lady in the Lake.
“ ‘And seldom was a snood amid such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, whose glossy black to shame might bring the plumage of the raven’s wing.’” His eyes were on Susie, but every other part of him stretched out toward Elle.
Susie stood blushing before him, then batted him with her fan.
“My hair is brown, silly,” she said, then slid her arm through his again.
“Are you planning on monopolizing Susie’s time the entire evening?” Rufus stood at her other side now. His cheeks, and his courage apparently, had been warmed by whiskey’s sweet embrace. His gaze was fixed on where Susie and Malcolm’s arms were joined, and Malcolm was glad that a glare couldn’t cause bodily harm. If that were the case, his arm, and perhaps other appendages, would have been scattered across the parlor floor.
“I wasn’t aware that Susie had arranged to spend her time with you,” Malcolm said, withdrawing his arm from hers. “Far be it from me to cause strife between two old friends.”
“Where are you going?” Susie asked. “It’s just Ruf, I can see him anytime.”
“Not if I get killed fighting for President Davis. You’ll miss me then.” Rufus spoke these words with a wishful vengeance, as if he hoped for his own demise just to teach Susie a lesson.
“Too true, Rufus,” Malcolm said as he handed Susie off. “I’m sure she’d love to hear more about life on the battlefield. Indulge her in your tales of derring-do.”
“Don’t I get to choose whom I talk to?” Susie asked, indignant. Malcolm regretted his action instantly. Yes, she was a pawn in his quest for information, but he needn’t treat her as one.
“Do you really not wish to speak to me? I’ll go—” Rufus began, but Susie stopped him with a sigh and a pat of the hand.
“Ruf, you know I always want to talk to you. But I’m sure even you are a mite curious about our Mr. McCall.” Her eyes ran over Malcolm’s body suggestively; then she looked up at him, all pouty seduction. “But I guess I’ll have to get him alone one of these evenings and then I’ll see what he’s all about.”
Malcolm was shocked at her boldness, but Rufus was gazing at her as if she were the most angelic creature to have graced the earth.
“I think you’re overestimating how interesting I am, Miss Caffrey,” Malcolm countered.
“Not hardly,” she replied with a wink as Rufus pulled her away.
Malcolm began making his way toward the senator, who now stood with his wife and a few other of the Richmond elite. He heard the ringing noise of ceramic on ceramic and turned to see Elle rearranging the punch cups with her back to him. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes briefly landing on his before she turned back around. To anyone else observing, she had been scanning the room to see if anyone else required a drink. But when she reached up and pointedly adjusted her snood, Malcolm couldn’t help his victorious smile.
Perhaps the night hadn’t been a waste after all.
CHAPTER 12
Elle had tried to steel herself against Malcolm. She’d decided that she would feel nothing as she watched him play Susie’s escort, but then he’d managed to say just the thing to inspire that unbidden intimacy with him once more. She’d once seen a traveling show where a supposed Indian swami controlled a snake with just the motion of his hand, making it sway this way and that. Malcolm seemed to have the same power over the darkest, most volatile parts of her, calling forth forbidden feelings with the slightest touch. Unlike the snake-charming show, she couldn’t see the strings that bound her to him and didn’t know how to cut them—or if she even wanted to.
Elle cleaned up her area and carried the dirty glasses to the kitchen, where she was immediately pulled into a group of slaves chatting during a lull in their service. Althea’s round, girlish face beamed at her as she introduced her cousin Benjamin.
“This is her, Ben! The one who pushed Susie right onto that griddle cake behind of hers and didn’t even get a lash for it!”
A handsome man of average height with skin the color of oak stepped forward and took her hand. His smile was warm and open, and when he clasped her hand between his two work-worn ones, Elle felt her cheeks warm. For an instant, a glimmer of hope arose in her; perhaps this man could inspire the same desires Malcolm did. But as she looked up at him, all she felt was the pleasure of making his acquaintance and irritation that she couldn’t ask him any direct questions lest she ruin her disguise.
“Well, I guess they must have looked on that sweet face and decided it would be a shame to make her cry,” he said, and there was a chorus of agreement and a few sounds of encouragement at his flirting.
“Susie didn’t always used to be such a heifer,” Althea said. “We used to play together every day. But once she had her debut she became too much of a lady to talk to the likes of me.”
The girl tried to say the words breezily, but Elle could see the hurt in her eyes. Althea had lost a friend and gained a callous mistress. It was a story Elle had heard often enough to know that it was a pain that would never be healed. It didn’t always turn out that way, though: Her mother’s friendship with the master’s son had opened the boy’s heart, and eventually led to freedom for her family and the other slaves he’d inherited. But her family’s story was all too rare.
“You should be glad of that,” Ben interjected, his strong accent evidence of a Deep South plantation at some point in his history. “Massa Dix ain’t got no true friends of his own and he tell me everything. How he’s wishing for a family, but can’t find a woman to take him. How Davis is riding him like the devil to get finished with this ship he building. If I got to hear about that ship one more time!”
He shook his head, unaware that Elle’s attention had become totally focused on him. Ben worked for Dix, the man Malcolm had mentioned. What did he know?
She tapped his arm, and when he looked at her she raised her eyebrows to show she had a question. She first drew in her body small and mimicked rowing a boat. Then she raised her eyebrows again, hoping he understood that it meant there was a second part to the question. She threw her eyes wide to show she meant something large and pretended she was turning a large steering wheel, shading her eyes with one hand as if she were looking far out to sea.
The small group erupted into laughter.
“You silly, Elle,” Althea said, and Benjamin regarded her with a wide smile.
“You want to know if the boat is big or small?” he asked. “I ain’t seen it, but I think it’s big. Taking them forever to work on it, and it still ain’t ready yet.”
Elle’s heart kicked up for sure now, not because of the man smiling at her, but at what his words meant. His master was building a big boat, and if the conclusion she’d reached at MacTavish’s was correct, that meant the South was on the path to having a blockade-busting ironclad.
She jumped excitedly, the frustration of not having words forcing all her energy into her miming. She strutted back and forth, pretending to sip a drink and chat with a person next to her. Then she was suddenly in full battle mode, loading an imaginary canon and sticking her fingers in her ears as she waited for it to go off. She looked over at Ben and the others, who were still laughing as if she were a simple girl putting on a show.
“Oh, it’s a warship,” he said. “I don’t know much more than that since I shut my ears and start dreaming of the Promised Land when he gets to yapping.”
Elle’s heart sank.
“All I know is he’s mighty secretive with the plans for the ship. He don’t let no one into his office, not even me.”
Ben sounded offended at that. The connection between master and slave was a strange thing, indeed.
She inclined her head to him, sank into a mock curtsy of thanks.
“I best be goin’,” Ben said. “We have to head out tomorrow morning for some business he got to attend to and then we got to come back the next day for this silly party. I hope he don’t make me wear that fancy coat and tie. He always tell me I got to dress up so he don’t have to.”
“What time you heading out?” Althea asked, and Elle could have kissed her.
“Before sunup, so I got to go back to town with him to get him ready for bed,” Ben said, smothering a yawn. “G’night, y’all.”
There was a chorus of farewells, and Elle tried to be inconspicuous as she walked out with him to the coach he had to prepare. She had one more question for him, and hoped he would understand. It took her a fair few attempts, but finally comprehension illuminated his features.
“Where we headed?” he confirmed. “I don’t rightly know, Elle. Wait, you stay at town, right? Where’s your room? I can give you a ride if it’s close to us. We’re at the Lancelot Inn.”
Excellent, Elle thought. Finding out information was thrill enough, but now she couldn’t wait to tell Malcolm that they were on the right path.
Ben placed his hand on her shoulder in a friendly way, trying to pull her wandering attention back to him. Just then, a shadow fell over both of them, and she knew without looking that it would be Malcolm.
Ben turned and gave him a friendly smile.
“Need help saddling your horse?” he asked, his ebullient nature not alerting him to Malcolm’s dissatisfaction with the scene.
“No, it appears you’ve got your hands full,” he said.
Anger pulsed through Elle at the suggestion in his tone. He’d just spent half the night flirting with Susie. The woman had had her hands all over him, and Lord only knew what had happened when they left Elle at the punch bowl. Now he was standing before her all tensed and tightlipped, looking like he’d sucked on a crab apple, because she was talking to another man? The nerve of him.
“I’m just getting Massa Dix’s coach ready,” he said, letting go of Elle’s shoulder. “Seeing if this lady needed a ride into town. Won’t take but a minute to help you out.”
Ben’s relentless friendliness seemed to break through Malcolm’s anger.
“That’s very kind of you, but no, thank you,” he said. “Good night.”
And then he turned and headed for the stalls without giving Elle so much as a second look. Spiking anger made her feel hot and shaky despite the cool winter night. He’d chosen the worst possible moment to reveal he had a jealous streak.
The nerve!
Elle clenched her fists and bit back the words she wanted to shout after him. If she couldn’t speak to him of Dix’s departure, then she would just go by herself. In fact, maybe it was better that way. She’d done just fine gathering intelligence before she knew Malcolm McCall existed, and that didn’t have to change because of some unwise choices in a back room.
The disheveled man Susie had been insulting earlier in the night stepped up to the carriage and Ben helped him in.
“I’m giving this lady a ride to town, sir,” Ben said. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Mr. Dix said. “It’s not safe after dark for a woman in times like these. She can sit up front with you.”
Elle found it disconcerting that the man possibly responsible for the South’s resurgence was seemingly kind. Many slave owners would have told a strange Negro to walk on home, darkness be damned, but he hadn’t. Humans were a most confusing and incomprehensible species, that was one thing she knew for certain.
She was glad for the ride after the exhausting day. She spent the time listening to Ben do enough talking for the both of them, occasionally lapsing into snippets of song. By the time he dropped her off at the boardinghouse, she was about ready to pass out. She walked up the rickety steps and let herself into her small, dark room.
Elle didn’t know if she’d ever been as tired. Mostly from the work, but also from her disappointment in Malcolm. She didn’t want to be disappointed in him, because that would mean the emotion that had been nudging at her since she had met him wasn’t just a brief infatuation.
“Who wishes to fight must first count the cost.” She wasn’t exactly at war with Malcolm, but Sun Tzu was still right. What had happened between them before could be discounted as a passing whimsy, but if she acknowledged the way her eyes had burned with tears when Malcolm turned away, what then? What did she expect from him, and even if he weren’t playing her for a fool, would the uphill battle be worth it? It seemed that every aspect of herself was in conflict with another: free versus slave, loyalty versus duty, womanhood versus work.
Elle sighed, a deep and world-weary exhalation that was forced out of her by the worry and confusion that occupied the space in her lungs. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and drop into the mindlessness of sleep: She’d have a dangerous day ahead of her thanks to Ben’s information and she’d have to be alert. Losing sleep worrying over any man that wasn’t Jefferson Davis would be ridiculous. She started unbuttoning her dress and then stopped, struck a match, and lit a candle so she wouldn’t have to fumble about in the dark.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” she exclaimed, nearly dropping the candle. There, sitting quite comfortably at the edge of her bed, was Malcolm McCall.
CHAPTER 13
Malcolm didn’t give Elle time to kick him out.
“I’m sorry.”
He was sorry for getting angry in the stables and sorry for riding off without saying a word. He should have been for surprising Elle with her dress half-unbuttoned and her thin shift clinging to her bosom.
When he’d come upon the scene in the stable—her smiling up at a handsome man, a handsome black man at that—all reason had left him. He knew that men found her attractive. He himself could barely think if he looked upon her for too long. He knew that she inspired lascivious thoughts in white men who wished to use her for her body. But seeing her smiling up at Dix’s slave had driven home a harsh reality: that she might prefer another man over him, a man who might be able to understand her better than he ever could. One whom the world expected her to be with, like her Daniel.
The thought had been nearly unbearable. And even though he immediately recognized his mistake, that hadn’t eased the tightness in his chest. He’d felt too close to the man he never wanted to become—his father, who would spear his wife with his words because his love for her had been tainted by jealousy. Malcolm hadn’t been able to look at her, to let her see the raw emotion that had driven his foolish anger. But he let her see it now.
He stood and met her gaze, trying to peel back the layers of defenses that were necessary for his work—and the many that had been erected before he ever knew what a Pinkerton was.
“I was jealous and I was wrong,” he said, then repeated what he thought to be the most important thing. “I’m sorry.”
“How did you know where I’m staying?” she asked, setting the candle on the bedside table and crossing her arms over her chest. The flickering flame bathed her in warm tones, highlighting her high cheekbones and her sweet lips, which were drawn tight in anger.
Malcolm shrugged.
“I’m a detective,” he said. “You don’t know where I’m staying?”
“He’s staying at the Spotswood Hotel, Mother,” she drawled in a passable imitation of Susie. “It’s where the Davises stayed! I do believe that he’s a man of means. What do you know of the McCalls? There’s a family that’s made a sum of money in the railroads, do you think he could be one of them? I don’t care if he’s poor, though, I just want him to be mine!”
Malcolm shifted uncomfortably as she fixed her
gaze on him. He knew what was coming, and knew that he deserved it.
“I had to watch you making cow eyes at her all evening, to hear you talk about me like I was an idiot right to my face, but me merely speaking to a man is reason enough for you to treat me like a harlot and storm off,” she said. She was pacing back and forth now, her agitation growing more visible with each circuit she made. She stopped and faced him, eyes shining in the candlelight. “I needed you tonight, and you left me standing there like a fool!”
Her words didn’t surprise him, but the hurt behind her anger did. This wasn’t like the other times she’d chastised him, and he couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or if all was lost.
“Elle.” He didn’t know how to explain how the thought of losing her had knocked the sense out of him. It was madness, and if it frightened him this much, it would send Elle running for the hills.
“I’m here now,” he finally said, knowing it wasn’t the right answer but unsure of what to say in the face of his glaringly unkind behavior.
She stopped with her back to him, so he couldn’t see her face.
“You say we’re partners, and you’ve sure spent a lot of time telling me I’m wrong about you. You expect me to trust that you’ll stand by me no matter what, but the first little thing that sets you off, you’re on your horse and thundering down the lane.”
The betrayal in her voice stung, and the dread of losing her surged strong. He’d failed her, once again causing her pain instead of protecting her from it. It seemed the more he cared for her, the more easily he hurt her. Is that what love was? A finely honed blade that would cut at the slightest pressure?
“That’s the second time you’ve made me feel like a fallen woman with no provocation. I should take my knife to you for the hypocrisy alone.” He was surprised she didn’t brandish her weapon, but he could see how fatigue weighed down her every motion.
“I’m good at pretending, but when it comes to the real thing I’m compass-less,” he said, taking a step closer to her. “The way I feel for you, the quickness and intensity of it, that scares me more than anything else I’ve faced in this war. When I saw that man talking to you in what looked like an intimate way, it made my heart drop into my shoes, and I acted treated you unfairly because of it.” He twisted a hank of hair between his fingers. “I feel like I keep doing things that hurt you when all I want is to make you happy.”
