by Mary Ellis
“Lila told you? The more people who know, the less safe the route will be.”
William crossed his arms. “You think I would blab about that? But I didn’t give Lila much choice. When I saw you leave with an extra horse, I was all set to follow you. She stopped me and told me where you were going. When people are fond of each other like me and Lila, they tell each other the truth.”
The implication was as subtle as a red hat on a mule. “I know that…or at least I’m figuring it out. That’s why I’m going inside, so let’s stop arguing.”
“No need to argue. We’re both going, Miss Harrison.” After William tied their horses across the street, they entered the garden through an arched gate. Emily stayed close to him, trying not to make noise on the stone path. However, they hadn’t gone ten paces when the click of a gun being cocked stopped them cold. With weapons drawn, Confederate rangers quickly surrounded them. Others who’d been asleep under the trees staggered up from their bedrolls.
“Well, look who we have. What do you suppose a Yankee schoolmarm is doing here?”
Emily froze at the voice of Nathan Smith.
Unseen thus far, William stepped into the moonlight. “It’s me, Captain Smith, William—valet to Mr. Alexander. I need to speak to him right away.”
“I know who you are,” snapped Smith. “What’s this about? Why have you brought this woman here?” He glared at Emily with ill-concealed contempt.
“It’s more like she brought me, sir.” William added an uneasy laugh. “She wants to talk to Mr. Alexander. Says it’s personal in nature.” Taking Emily’s elbow, he tried to lead her from the circle of soldiers.
“Hold up there. How dare you turn your back on me? State your business. Then I’ll decide whether it’s important enough to tell Colonel Hunt in the morning.” The icy tone of his voice brooked no further discussion.
“Begging your pardon, sir. If you’ll give me a minute to explain.” William took a step closer to Smith, intervening dangerously.
Seizing her opportunity, Emily bolted down the path and disappeared into the dark.
“Stop that woman and bring her to me!” shouted Smith.
With surprising courage she sprinted up the steps before the soldiers could give chase. Once she was inside the house, she ran smack into an ancient servant with a full white beard and a completely bald head.
“Ouff. Who are you, missy? Why are you calling on the Marshall House at this hour?” With indignation, the butler tugged down the hem of his waistcoat.
“I’m Emily Harrison,” she replied quickly, knowing her name would mean nothing to him. “I must speak with Mr. Alexander Hunt at once.”
The elderly man stared, bewildered. “Why did you call at the back door, Miss Harrison, and at such an indecent hour? If you come back tomorrow at eight o’clock, you can talk to the Marshalls and Mr. Hunt at breakfast.”
Exasperated, she grabbed the butler’s thin shoulders. “This is urgent! Where is Mr. Hunt?” Her voice rose in agitation. Overhead, she heard people stirring as they awakened.
The butler recoiled. A strange white woman placing her hands on him was more than he could handle. “Master Hunt sleeps on the third floor, the first room at the top of the steps.”
“Lock the door. Don’t let those soldiers inside.” Emily ran headlong through the house and up the stairs as though familiar with the mansion. Heavy boots sounded on the porch along with men’s angry voices. She didn’t slow down until she reached the top of the third flight, although it felt as though her side might split open. When she threw open the first door on the left, she heard a gun cock for the second time that night.
“Emily! What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” Alexander sprang from the bed. With his suspenders down and his chest bare, he stepped in front of a soldier dozing in a chair. “Put that away.” He pushed the gun barrel to the side.
“As you wish, Colonel,” said the guard, rising clumsily to his feet. He tucked the weapon into the waistband of his trousers.
“You could have been shot bursting into a room like that.” Alexander grabbed Emily by the arms.
“I thought the Gray Wraith had no need of firearms.” She averted her eyes from his chest, momentarily flummoxed in a room reeking of stale cigar smoke.
“This is war, Miss Harrison. My soldiers carry guns even if I choose not to.” He shook her like a naughty child. “Answer me. Why have you come? You could have been killed by Union pickets or by my guards watching this house.” He lowered his voice but didn’t lessen his grip. “I can’t believe you traveled from Front Royal alone.” Oddly, he made no mention of her reference to the Wraith.
“I’m not alone. I rode with William.” With nowhere else to look, Emily gazed into his gray eyes.
“William? I’ll skin him alive for bringing you here. It’s not safe—”
“William didn’t bring me,” she interrupted. “I came because I had to talk to you.”
“Whatever you had to say could have waited until I returned. You’re in great danger this close to Federal lines.” He smoothed her hair back from her face and rubbed a smudge of dirt from her nose.
“No, Alexander, it couldn’t have waited because you’re the one in danger—you and your men.” Emily tried to tuck the lock into her braid. Through the open window they heard the thundering hooves of approaching horses. Then she screamed as the bedroom door banged against the wall.
Nathan Smith and six rangers entered with guns drawn. Alexander shifted in front of Emily protectively. “What’s this about, Captain?”
“Yankees have us surrounded! That woman you’re soft on led them here.” Glaring at Emily, Smith cocked his long-barreled Colt.
“Holster your weapon, Captain Smith.” Alexander strode to the corner window and drew back the curtain. In the garden below, blue-coated soldiers marched up the path as though in a regimental parade, while horses whinnied and men shouted on the street.
“I did no such thing,” she said, not as forcefully as she would have preferred.
“Someone told them we were here.” Every drop of blood drained from his face as the colonel donned his coat and strapped on his sword and scabbard.
Then the crack of gunfire pierced the night. “What is happening?” she cried, trying to peer around his shoulder.
“Men are dying, that’s what. My soldiers are being shot down like dogs.” Alexander spat the words as though bitter to the taste.
“Lord, have mercy.” Emily watched a ranger level his revolver at a skinny bluecoat no more than twenty years old. Without firing a shot the boy crumbled to the ground.
“Death shocks your pacifist sensibilities?” Smith sneered. “This blood is on your hands, Quaker.”
“We have to get out of here.” Alexander pulled Emily from the window. With a firm hand around her waist, he pushed her toward the door. “Dawson, down the back stairs!”
Smith blocked their exit. “She’s coming with us? After she betrayed us and led the Yankees to your uncle’s home?” His eyes narrowed into slits as spittle collected in the corner of his mouth.
Emily mustered every bit of strength she had left. “No! I came to warn him—”
“Warn him? How could you know about the ambush if you hadn’t tipped them off in the first place?” Smith aimed the barrel of his Colt in the direction of Emily’s heart.
Drawing his sword, Alexander shouted with no uncertainty, “If you point your gun at her again, I’ll cut off your arm! We’ll sort this out later. Now move, Captain!” He pushed Emily through the doorway with Smith following them in a rage.
They took the three flights of stairs so fast Emily stumbled several times. Each time Alexander caught her with a strong grip. At the bottom they found themselves in the servant’s hallway to the dining room with the other rangers who had been sleeping in the house. No one seemed to know which way to go. Shouts could be heard in the kitchen, while something battered against the front door.
“This way,” whispered Alexander. “
Into the winter kitchen.” He opened a trap door that was used by servants to carry up food. Steep steps descended into blackness, but the rangers hurried down them without hesitation. Alexander prodded Emily to follow the last man and then pulled the trapdoor closed. They halted on the steps as voices in the hallway sounded above them. At the bottom soldiers clustered, waiting for their eyes to adjust to darkness.
“Our only hope is there.” Alexander pointed at a narrow shaft of light penetrating the dusty windowpanes. “The root cellar’s outside door. Quickly, men, slip into the garden one at a time. The shrubbery is dense here. If you don’t make a sound you may not be seen.” He motioned the first man up the steps.
Emily crouched on the dirt in the gloom, watching the men take their turns.
“I was a fool.” He spoke softly only to her. “I thought I could make a difference by supplying our desperate troops from your bloated army. It was like taking candy from a babe until greed got in the way. Now we have blood on our hands like every other soldier.” Alexander gazed everywhere but at her.
“You’re a man who valued human life and tried serving his cause without bloodshed. That doesn’t make you a fool.” Emily patted his arm.
“That kind of man has no place in war.” He shrugged off her touch. “My grandfather fought King Charles to free Virginia from England’s tyranny. How could I face my father if I sat idly by and did nothing? How could I face myself?” Pain radiated from his face as his last soldier vanished from sight. “It’s time to go, not the time to be discussing the merits of my behavior.” Muttering an oath, Alexander grabbed her arm and hauled her up the mossy steps into the November air.
There was uneasy silence on this side of the Marshall house as they wound their way through the garden. “I swear I didn’t betray you,” she whispered.
“We have no time to discuss your behavior either.” He tightened his grip as they ducked and bobbed their way to the stable.
Once through the door into the dim interior, Emily released a sigh of relief. William stepped from behind a stall wall with their horses’ reins firmly in hand. “I can’t believe you’re both safe,” said William, shock evident on his face.
“No one is safe yet.” Alexander unceremoniously hoisted Emily up on Miss Kitty’s back like a sack of grain. “Take Miss Harrison and get out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” William mounted his own horse, wasting no time. He wrapped Miss Kitty’s reins around his saddle horn.
Leaning precariously from the saddle, Emily grabbed a fistful of Alexander’s coat and clung tightly. “Why won’t you believe me?”
He removed her hand like a thistle burr and pushed her back into the saddle. “My men are surrounded by Federals, so I’m too busy to decide what part you played. But you have lied to me from the start. Why should I believe you’re telling the truth now?”
His expression rendered Emily speechless. She had lied over and over. But it never mattered before…because she hadn’t loved him. What could she say? I’m sorry? I’ll never lie to you again? I love you? What hollow incongruities those words sounded like now.
Captain Smith appeared in the stable doorway, leading Phantom by the reins. Smith never took his eyes off her, hatred boring into her like needles. In one fluid motion, the colonel mounted the huge stallion. Emily opened her mouth to speak, but Alexander smacked Miss Kitty’s flank. The horse bolted through the doorway with her rider clutching fistfuls of mane for dear life. As the Gray Wraith melted into the moonless night, Emily and William flew down the streets of Middleburg to the railroad station. At the depot they followed the tracks in the general direction of Hunt Farms, the report of gunfire growing weaker with each mile.
Neither spoke until the horrible sounds faded away behind them. Any of those bullets could have found their mark in the colonel, who everyone now knew to be Alexander Hunt. Throughout the night they rode, dozing fitfully in the saddle until a cold rain began to fall. Then Emily awoke with a start, and she glanced around at an unfamiliar world—one she had no place in. With little else to occupy her time, she prayed all the way back to Front Royal. She prayed that Alexander hadn’t been shot and had escaped safely from Middleburg. She prayed the Federals wouldn’t burn the Marshalls’ home.
But if he had escaped, what then? She’d seen his expression when he slapped Miss Kitty to send them on their way. It was not the look of a man in love.
SEVENTEEN
Alexander, will you not listen to reason?” Smith’s voice rose into the crisp, early morning air.
They had ridden hard and made camp miles away from the bloodbath of Middleburg. Some of the rangers who had managed to get away met up with them on the road. They were now sleeping close to the fire, exhausted from the fight and flight. The colonel had no idea what had happened to the rest of his men. He feared they had been captured or killed on the pristine, manicured grounds of his uncle’s home. “I’m listening, Nathan, but you know nothing for sure.”
“Someone told the Yankee cavalry who you were and where you would be. For heaven’s sake, that governess led them right to us.”
“How would she have known where I would be last night? I didn’t tell her.”
“She showed up with that black valet of yours. He must have told her and then brought her to Middleburg after they sent word to the Yankees.”
Alexander kicked a fallen log into the fire. “You’re wrong. William would die before he would betray me, and I him.”
“You are too gullible.” Smith hissed between his teeth. “Our entire regiment has been splintered due to that cunning, red-haired Quaker and your valet. William is a black man, a former slave. Do you really think he wants to see the South win this war?”
“William would never put my life in jeopardy or the lives of my soldiers!” Alexander shouted, not appreciating the way his captain was addressing him. They had been friends before the war. Now they circled each other with fists clenched and teeth bared, neither of them backing down.
“How could you be so sure that Harrison woman wouldn’t hand you over? Did you ever bother to ask what she was doing that night in Berryville? Or are you so smitten it slipped your mind? She has bewitched you for her own purposes.”
“Shut your mouth, Captain. You’ve bedded trollops for so long, you place every woman in that category.” Alexander began to rethink his vow not to harm another man.
“Think rationally for a minute, Colonel. That’s all I ask.” Sitting down on a log, Smith ran a hand through his long hair. “If you’re correct about William not betraying you—and you could be, at that—then consider this. I saw Miss Harrison and her maid leaving that same barn a few weeks back.”
Alexander felt his blood pulse against his temples. According to rumors among the men, Smith had a penchant for inflicting pain on women. He hated the thought of him anywhere near Emily. “You’ve been watching Miss Harrison behind my back?” he asked, stepping away from the fire. “You dared to speak to her?”
Smith nodded. “When I accidentally discovered them while scouting, I asked what they were doing. Miss Harrison said they were delivering medicine to Front Royal from the depot in Harper’s Ferry. That it had gotten dark, so they holed up in the barn until morning.”
“What does that prove? Uncle Porter often sent Miss Harrison and Lila on such errands until I convinced him it was unsafe.” Alexander glared at his second-in-command with ill-concealed contempt.
“Let me finish. I offered to escort them to Front Royal, but they refused. So I followed for a distance to ensure their safety.” Smith forestalled his commander with upraised palms. “When the ladies reached the crossroad, their wagon turned north toward Boyce, not south to Front Royal. Miss Harrison lied about what she was up to.”
Alexander pondered the information without a flicker of emotion crossing his face.
Smith snapped, gesturing wildly like a madman. “She was headed to the headquarters of the Second Corps, encamped not ten miles away.”
“She could have changed h
er route to Boyce for fear of one side or the other confiscating her supplies.” Alexander offered an alternative explanation for her actions in a cool, matter-of-fact tone.
“She’s a spy, an informant who’s probably warmed plenty of Yankee beds while laughing behind your back. I should have forced the truth from her when I had the chance in Berryville.”
The colonel closed the distance between them in two strides. Before Smith could react, Alexander’s fist had crashed into the man’s face. Blood flew everywhere as the punch broke Smith’s nose. Alexander drew back to strike again, but two of his soldiers restrained his arm. Smith landed a blow before soldiers restrained him too. The colonel barely felt the impact to his chest. All of his frustration over their botched mission, along with the interminable war, had been poured into that one punch. He might have killed Smith if their shouts hadn’t roused his rangers to intervene. Yet what would that have changed?
“Stay away from her or I will kill you,” he shouted, shaking off the soldiers’ hands. “Do you hear me, Captain? If you as much as come near her…”
He took a deep breath and tried to calm down a little. Doubtful that anyone within five miles didn’t just hear me. If Union patrols were searching for the scattered rangers, their melee would alert them for certain. The colonel faced his men, who clustered at a safe distance. “Mount up. We need to break camp and separate. Dawson, douse the fire and take half the men into the hills by southern roads. Stay out of sight for several months. Don’t even think about going home until all of this dies down. Federal patrols will be watching the roads. Because they know who I am, they’ll figure out who most of you are soon enough.”
“Yes, sir.” Saluting, Dawson started kicking dirt into the fire.
Alexander turned back to Smith, still restrained by two men. His eye had already begun to swell shut, and bright blood stained his white shirt. “Captain Smith, you will take the other half due west. If any of you are captured with me, you will be hung for sure. You’ll have your best chance of survival if I’m not in direct command. You men fought bravely tonight and made me proud. You’ve been a credit to the Confederacy. May God keep you safe until we are reunited.” He offered a final salute to the soldiers who until that night had served him without bloodshed.
