by Alyssa Cole
A bolt of fear passed through her even imagining what the behemoth of a ship would look like. She’d seen war boats in Boston Harbor, but the ironclads were different. Powered by gluttonous steam engines and lined with protective sheets of metal, the boats were nigh on invincible against an average naval fleet. For the South to have one while the North hurried to replace theirs . . . the Rebels could sail right up to the Capital and no one would be able to stop them.
“If it is, we should try to sink it,” she said.
From the corner of her eye she saw him stiffen in his seat. When he spoke, it was in an even tone that masked some much harsher emotion.
“If we find it, you should ride straight on to Washington to alert them of the danger. I’ll stay behind to do what I can.”
“You think I’d get in your way?” she asked. She knew she was getting her back up over a hypothetical, but it galled her that his first thought was to send her away. She thought they were a team now, but maybe she’d been mistaken.
“I know you wouldn’t,” he said, his voice conciliatory. “But one of us would have to stay alive and get word to the Capital.” He sighed. “And I couldn’t ride off knowing what would happen to you if you were caught.”
“I don’t know if I could ride away, either,” she admitted.
He sighed again, looking over at her. She could see his ocean eyes shining in the morning light.
“We’ll take things as they come then,” he said.
They rode on in silence once more. Elle focused her vigilance on the coach that pounded on ahead of them. The roads eventually became more crowded and they could follow the coach more closely. Regiments of troops nodded at Malcolm in passing, and their slaves did the same to Elle. They were approaching Yorktown, and the bay, when the coach made a sharp turn. Elle knew that a mile or so ahead were the banks of the York River.
One of the outriders turned back and locked his eyes on them in the thinning traffic and then turned back again. He motioned that he was heading back to his companion and turned his horse, his path heading directly toward them.
They’d been spotted.
Elle’s heart nearly beat out of her chest. They would have to bluff. She looked at Malcolm and he smiled at her. A lazy smile that broadcast such a lack of concern that Elle felt her pulse slow and the tightness in her neck ease up. She was excellent at what she did, and so was he. She thought back to their first meeting on the bluff.
They’ll be too busy focusing on charming old Malcolm McCall, he’d said, and Elle had seen firsthand that he had not been exaggerating.
“Is that one of your friends, sah?” she asked when the outrider was within hearing range. She could bluff, too.
“I think so, Earl,” he said, and added under his breath, “and if he isn’t, he will be soon.”
Elle could only hope he was right.
CHAPTER 15
The soldier’s eyes were narrowed in suspicion as he approached. He was young, too young to be facing death on a battlefield by Malcolm’s thinking.
“Where y’all two heading?” the soldier asked. Sandy hair poked out from beneath his gray hat, which was a size too big for his head. “I seent y’all a few miles back, and now here you are again.”
Malcolm studied the boy, who would surely back up his bravado with the gun at his hip but looked uncertain as to whether he was in the right.
“Well, you caught us,” Malcolm said, working some of the earnest good ol’ boy into his accent. “We was following y’all.”
The soldier’s hand went for his gun. Elle was stock-still beside him, although her horse pawed at the ground, probably sensing her unease.
Malcolm held up his hands in mock surrender.
“I’m not from these parts, and neither is my boy. We got turned around looking for a meeting, and when I saw that coach and you two riding with it, I thought maybe I’d follow and see if you was heading where I’m heading.”
“Why didn’t you ride up and ask?” the soldier asked gruffly, still suspicious.
“What man you know of who cares to admit he can’t make hide nor hair of where he’s at?” Malcolm asked with an incredulous laugh. “I’d rather be hogtied than ask for directions.”
The soldier cracked a grin.
Gotcha, Malcolm thought, then focused on looking repentant.
“I apologize if we gave you cause to worry,” he said. “I know these Northern men are everywhere trying to stir up trouble.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” the soldier said. “Running the blockade, ripping up the rail lines, and now you don’t even know who you can trust.”
“Bastards, the lot of them,” Malcolm said. His voice was limned with anger, just enough to get the soldier’s attention. “They killed my cousin up at Manassas, and that was the day I vowed to destroy every Northman I could. I’ve done my fair share to give ’em Jesse at every turn.”
The soldier nodded somberly.
“My uncle died there, too. Took a bayonet in the gut and bled out.” The soldier sucked in a breath and glanced off into the distance. Malcolm wondered how these grudges would be resolved when and if the Union prevailed. Would this war never end?
“You heading toward Mallory’s private meeting then?” the soldier asked finally. “That’s where we’re heading with this Dix fella.”
The soldier looked pleased to convey that he was involved in a mission of import. Mallory . . . the name sounded familiar, but the specifics eluded him. Malcolm glanced at Elle, saw her raise an eyebrow at him and give a surreptitious shake of the head.
“No, that’s actually not where we’re heading,” Malcolm said easily. “I guess I should’ve asked before, shouldn’t I?”
“Well, you can ask me now. I got kin from round here, so I know these parts a bit,” the soldier said easily. Malcolm searched his brain for any information at all about the area and came up blank. One mistake in direction could be overlooked, but not knowing the exact address of where you were going could get you killed at times like these. He would regret having to hurt this boy or starting a ruckus on the road because he couldn’t think quickly enough.
Elle made a sound beside him and then spoke, her voice lowered a few octaves and accent dropped by a few states, too.
“Marse, I believe that place we got to meet is at . . . at the corner of Maslow and West Street. Yeah, that’s it.” Her voice broke believably enough to be a teenaged boy’s. It appeared he wasn’t the only good actor.
The soldier glanced at Earl, then his face brightened.
“Oh, near the molasses factory! You must’ve took a wrong turn off of Main.”
The soldier gave them directions to their fictitious meeting and wished them an amiable farewell as he galloped off in the direction of the coach, which had ridden ahead without him.
Malcolm let out a deep breath.
“Have you visited this part of the state before?” he asked, hoping the adrenaline in his veins would evaporate soon. The rush of a near miss was a temporary high, but the jittery residue left behind from such encounters was taxing.
“The molasses we used to get back home when I was a girl, it came in a jar with a little map that showed its location on the label. We ate a lot of that molasses,” she said, as if that was why she’d been able to recall the street names that had just saved them from an interrogation, at the most optimistic outcome.
He was impressed, but he’d noticed her sensitivity about her skill. He imagined a lifetime of being treated like an anomaly had made her a bit wary of people expressing interest in it.
“Well, thank goodness for your parents’ fine taste in molasses or we would have been in a whole heap of trouble,” he said. “Why didn’t you think we should go? Who is this Mallory?”
“There would have been too high a chance of someone realizing we weren’t supposed to be there,” she said, patting her horse as it stamped impatiently. “The senator has recently received correspondence from a Stephen Russell Mallory, Secretary of the
Confederate Navy. At a meeting with big bugs like that, we might have gotten ourselves into a situation that we couldn’t get out of.”
“Well, we know that whatever it is, Dix is coming to Caffrey’s for the ball and we’ll have the opportunity to find out more then.”
“Will we?” Elle said, staring down the road after the soldier, her expression calculating. “Maybe we should ambush them.”
Malcolm nearly laughed. Not because he doubted her, but because it was probably the most arousing thing he’d heard in his life. The thought of her jumping into action filled him with fear, but he admired her strength of will.
“I think an ambush on high-ranking Confederate officials is something we need approval for, Detective,” he said. “We know that he’s coming to the ball tomorrow. We should head back. We have a ways to go, and we don’t want to be out on these roads too late.”
It wasn’t only the Rebel patrols he feared. These were desperate times, and there was many a man who had no loyalty to either the blue or the gray. They would rob you for whatever they could and leave you bleeding out in a ditch.
“Can we eat? I’m half-starved after all this riding,” she said, clutching her hands to her stomach.
They let the horses graze in a clearing far from the road while they ate day-old bread and a bit of butter from Elle’s sack, along with a few sips of whiskey from Malcolm’s flask. As he watched Elle gnaw at a hard corner of bread, Malcolm realized that this was their first meal together, or rather the first which she hadn’t been serving in some capacity. He wished it were under more pleasant circumstances than a brief respite while trying to quell the rebellion, but maybe one day things would be different. Was it insanity to hope that was true?
“What’s your favorite food? One day I’m going to make you a feast of everything you like best and then feed it all to you until you’re fit to bust.”
She let out a shocked laugh.
“You’re peculiar, you know that?” she said, but she looked up at him with appreciation. “Only my mama knows how to cook my favorite meals, but I like cornpone with cheese, and her special clam chowder.”
“Clams?” Malcolm scrunched up his face and a thought to match his grimace occurred to him. “What will your parents think of you being with me?”
Malcolm had already gleaned that Elle was close to her family. Would she be willing to face ostracization just to be with him? Would he let her? He’d fallen for Elle fast and hard, but hadn’t given much thought to the long-term logistics of their relationship. He’d never had to think of such things before, because he’d never imagined settling down. Her words from that first encounter on the bluff echoed in his mind. “I’m certainly not someone you would bring home to Ma and Pa, am I?” He realized that it was pure egotism that he hadn’t considered asking the same of her. A spike of fear much stronger than anything he’d felt while on assignment chilled his blood. And Elle still hadn’t answered.
And what did he imagine she would say? Since that first night on the bluff he could feel how she resisted her attraction to him, and with good reason. Yet there he was, already planning their future despite the fact that she might still think him a dalliance. When it came to people, Malcolm always knew when he had someone hooked. It was something he just felt, like hunger or thirst. He was more certain about Elle than he had been about anything in his life, yet he couldn’t feel anything tying her to him other than his will that she have him.
Elle chewed her food thoughtfully, for much longer than even the stale bread required.
“I can’t say they would be happy if I were to do such a thing,” she finally said. He chose not to comment on what her emphasis implied. “Think about it from their point of view: People who looked like you owned us. Like we were animals. And now they should just accept me giving myself up to you for free? I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing myself.”
She looked away from him, out into the clearing where the horses grazed. Malcolm choked down his food, his throat suddenly dry as he swallowed. He’d asked her to own up to some realities this morning, and it was only fair that he did, too. Could the hard facts she’d just stated ever be overcome? When they’d been entangled together the night before, he’d thought so, but now he wondered at how fair it was to even ask such a thing of her.
She took a swig of whiskey and wiped her mouth daintily. “I know you already think rather highly of yourself, but there’s something about you, McCall. Something that makes me want to know you despite what people like you have done. That doesn’t change the fact that my daddy might be inclined to shoot you if I brought you home for dinner.”
Her smile warmed him, just a bit, though it didn’t melt the icy fear that had settled in the pit of his stomach. Thinking of a future without Elle was a physical pain to him, an itching under his skin he was sure would drive him mad. He wondered again if it were a McCall curse to love a woman too much. Ewan appeared to be immune to the charms of women, more interested in his ancient philosophers, and Don was more focused on freedom than fellows, leaving Malcolm to test that particular theory alone. He prayed he was wrong.
“Remember the last time we were alone in the woods?” Elle asked suddenly, her tone playful. She was changing the subject, and not very subtly.
“It wasn’t very long ago, Elle,” he said. He remembered the accidental press of their two bodies, and how in that moment he’d felt that something more than chance had pulled them together in such a way. His cock stirred, summoned back to duty by the remembrance of the feel and scent of her. “I may not have your memory, but give me some credit.”
She smiled at him and even her shabby clothes and ridiculous hat couldn’t hide her beauty.
“Time for us to get a move on,” he said, squinting up at the sun. The sooner he was back on his horse, the sooner his arousal would be dampened by the uncomfortable saddle.
“We can linger a few minutes,” she said, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip as she regarded the tented bulge in his pants. She reached a hand out and stroked him through the heavy fabric.
“I don’t want to chance us getting back too late,” he said. He should have been ashamed at the tremor that shimmied through his words, but he wasn’t. “Someone might notice that one of us is gone from the city. Or that both of us are.”
Her hand on his cock was too distracting for him to continue speaking. He was already completely rigid beneath her palm, with trickles of pleasure coursing down his spine. Her hand moved to undo his pants, and his hips rocked up without his permission, urging her on. His member emerged into the cool winter air and was quickly ensconced in the heat of her hands, a delicious contrast.
“The ball is tomorrow,” she said, leaning forward. Her warm mouth slanted over his as her hand squeezed his penis, fingers clenching more and less tightly as they glided up and down. “Anything could happen between now and then. If this is the last moment we spend alone together, I’d like to remember something better than stale bread and cheap whisky. You’ve given me pleasure at your hand, and I won’t be denied the same satisfaction.”
Her words were sharp, but he was well versed in her expressions of annoyance, and it was something else that shone in her eyes now. He understood that when he’d pleasured her in the back room of the grocery, and even when he’d showed up in her quarters, he had taken a bit of her control from her, however much she enjoyed their lovemaking. She was asking for it back now, and far be it from him to deny it to her. To deny her anything.
“What if someone walks through here right now?” he asked. One hand was stretched behind him, propping him up, and he moved the other to her loose waistband, skimming his fingers beneath it and against her firm belly.
She trembled, but continued to stroke him. “We enjoy taking risks, don’t we? If not, we’re both in dire need of a more suitable profession.” She worked him more quickly, running her thumb over the head of his cock and gathering the fluid that pearled there.
Her technique had Malcolm ready to bl
ow quicker than if he had been brought pleasure by his own hand. She seemed to know just what to do to bring him to the heights of pleasure, or perhaps it was simply the fact that it was Elle, caressing him with a fierce tenderness that sent bliss careening wildly through his body. She alternated strong, tight tugs with short, quick, jerking motions. Her other hand scraped at the nape of his neck with blunted nails. Malcolm heaved a breath as her touch pulled him away from the harsh realities of war and into a warm cocoon of felicity.
He loved the way she looked at him as she stroked, with a confidence that was guileless. She wasn’t afraid to be open with him in that moment. More than that, she enjoyed pleasing him, as he had her. He was sure that if he slipped a hand into her trousers she would be wet and ready for him. She bent and licked along the sensitive rim of his ear and sensation boiled through him.
“Malcolm, I want to see you climax,” she said in a voice that reminded him she had been a teacher once. “I don’t often get to choose what memories I retain, but I want this one. Give it to me.”
Elle leaned back to gaze at him as she worked.
“Please, Malcolm.” She ran her tongue over her lips as she stroked him, and her breathy gasp as he thickened in her hand was too much to bear. He bit back a growl as he stiffened and then pumped up, his seed fountaining down over her knuckles as climax pulled him under. Brilliant sensation swirled through his body as he twisted and shuddered beneath her hand. The bright sunlight created a kaleidoscope of colors as it filtered through his lashes, a visual accompaniment to his pleasure that surrounded Elle in motes of light as he squinted up at her.
“Now we can go,” she said deviously as he caught his breath. “I do wonder what the Rebs would say if they knew our greatest detective makes sounds like a little kitty cat when he climaxes? It’s adorable, really.”
“Elle,” he warned, attempting to tackle her, but she evaded his grasp.
“It’s Earl, sah,” she called to him as she jogged off to gather their horses. Malcolm was giddy—he couldn’t recall feeling that way since his childhood. Before his father had gone and his mother had been left to care for three children on her own. He’d always thought working solo was a necessity in his detective work, but being with Elle made what could have been a dire situation rather fun.
