Jack hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Major McCabe. I rescued him from the Castle Thunder evacuation.”
“Lordy, Miss Lizzie’s been waitin’ for news. I’ll go tell her you’re back.”
“No,” Braham said in a hoarse voice. “We need baths first.”
The women giggled.
“Guess they can smell us,” Braham said.
Jack pulled him to his feet. “Us? You’re the one who’s past ripe. If I ever smell as rotten, throw me in the garbage heap.” He dragged Braham into the room where Charlotte had washed after her visit to the prison. “Come on. Get cleaned up, then you can rest.”
A servant dumped buckets of steaming water into the tub.
“Keep the hot water coming,” Jack said. “And send for the butler.”
When the butler arrived, Jack explained the situation and asked him to get clothes for both of them from Jack’s wardrobe and to also bring the haversack containing his toiletries. “And don’t let the women know we’ve returned until we’re dressed.”
The water in the tub quickly turned dark brown as old blood and grime soaked off Braham. The tub was emptied and filled a second time. The third time, while heat seeped into his wounded body, he gobbled down a hefty bowl of chicken soup.
When the butler returned with clean clothes and the haversack, Braham washed his hair with Jack’s special shampoo. Clean and smelling good, he climbed out, feeling remarkably refreshed. He’d been blessed with a hardy constitution, and four years of war had battle-hardened what God had given him. Under the right circumstances—food, rest, and a little tending to his wounds—he could recover to fight again, but this reprieve would not last long.
He intended to use the reprieve to reacquaint himself with the taste and feel of Charlotte’s lips.
Jack stripped out of his torn, scorched clothes. “Are you going to shave your ugly beard off?”
Braham scratched at the bristly, four-month-old growth of hair. “Ye don’t like it? I’m getting used to it.”
Jack ducked to wet his hair. When he resurfaced he said, “You’re asking the wrong Mallory. I don’t care, but Charlotte will hate it.”
“She likes yer three-day-old whiskers look.”
Jack chuckled, tilting his head in a yes-and-no gesture. “I’m not sure she likes it. She’s merely stopped complaining about it.”
Braham combed back his shoulder-length blond hair. “Should I cut it? Most men wear short hair now.” He stopped combing and studied his reflection in the small shaving mirror. The cut above his brow gave him a somewhat menacing look. He snarled at it. “Do ye think I look fine enough?”
“Jesus, man. What’s wrong with you? Remember this. It’s all in the nose. Win over a woman’s nose and you’re halfway into her bed.”
Braham set the comb aside, picked up a clean shirt, and slipped it on. He only had a short time remaining with Charlotte and that thought triggered a quiver all the way through him. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, though. He couldn’t go home with her, and she wouldn’t stay with him.
“Hand me a towel, and don’t forget the cologne,” Jack said.
Braham collected a towel off the shelf and tossed it to Jack.
“I don’t know why you’re getting dressed. You know she’ll want to examine you. And when she sees your back, she’ll dope you up and put you to bed.”
Braham put on a jacket and straightened his tie. “As long as she’s next to me, I won’t object.”
“Elizabeth won’t approve of you sleeping together.”
Braham flapped his hand in dismissal. “I don’t plan to tell her.”
“I suspect she knows everything going on in her house, even what’s happening behind closed doors.”
Braham slipped his thumbs under his lapels, raising his eyebrows theatrically. “Ye forget. I’m a master of subterfuge.”
Jack tied the towel around his waist, roaring with laughter. “Which is why Johnny Reb caught you twice.”
Braham shrugged. “I admit I’ve had a string of bad luck, but I survived.”
“Oh, speaking of surviving, there’s a matter Charlotte asked me to talk to you about. Elizabeth spent most of her family’s fortune rescuing Union soldiers. She’ll die of old age in this house, penniless. I don’t have money to contribute, but I thought you might be able to set up a trust fund for her.”
“I’ve got more money than I’ll ever spend. I’ll take care of it, but wouldn’t providing for her change history?”
“If making sure a woman has food and shelter for the rest of her life changes history, then I’m all for it.”
Braham reached for the doorknob. “Consider it done.”
They found Elizabeth in the drawing room, staring out the window while fingering the cameo brooch at her neck. An uneasy foreboding stole over Braham. A servant in the room had her head down, watching as she poked at something on the carpet with the toe of her shoe. Braham checked. Nothing there. The uneasiness ballooned rapidly.
“I don’t believe the fire will reach this far,” Braham said.
Elizabeth dropped the curtain and turned to Braham. She seemed…not absentminded, but rather nervous and distracted. Her fingers fluttered about her neck like uncertain moths caught in a lampshade. “It’s good to see you, Major. Was there any trouble?”
“No. Did the other men arrive?” Braham asked.
She nodded. “They were taken to safe houses for the night.”
“Where’s Charlotte? Is she sleeping?” Jack asked.
“She went looking for you.”
“When—” Braham asked.
“Where—” Jack shouted.
“When you didn’t return”—Elizabeth’s fingers fluttered faster—“within a reasonable length of time, and she believed you intended to stop Jefferson Davis from leaving the city with the treasury. Did you?”
Jack collapsed into a chair and buried his head in his hands. “How in God’s blue blazes did she leap to such a conclusion?”
“How long has she been gone?” Braham demanded.
“Two hours, maybe more,” Elizabeth said.
“Where would she have gone?” Jack asked, moaning, “Oh God. Where is she?”
Elizabeth’s skirts swished as she strode across the room toward Jack. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. She only mentioned the depot.”
Braham paced, thinking. If she reached the depot and discovered the train gone, what would she do then? She’d come back…unless. “Is there a hospital in the path of the fire? Or an influx of wounded? A place where the injured are gathered for medical care? If she’s not out searching for you, Jack—”
“She’s knee-deep in somebody’s blood. But where? I’m not aware of any hospitals in danger, but there is a trainload of wounded housed in a depot.”
Braham paced his way over to the whisky bottle and poured a drink. “Which isn’t remarkable at all.”
The statement hung in the air for a moment. Then Jack said, “But it is, I’m afraid. The depot caught fire when the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad Bridge was torched. As I recall, the army doctors organized a rescue party. But Charlotte wouldn’t go there. Not tonight.”
“If patients were in danger, wouldn’t she move mountains to save them?” Urgency vibrated in Braham’s voice.
“The depot’s a tinderbox. When it catches fire, it burns…”
Braham had one foot out the door before Jack finished his sentence. If she survives tonight, she’s going straight home, even if I have to carry her through the ages myself.
Jack followed him down to Main Street, where they found the mob had deteriorated into total anarchy. Braham put his hands on his knees, panting. He had never seen such lawlessness. Every store had been looted, leaving behind destroyed buildings and empty shelves. Fires blazed from Fifteenth Street to Seventh Street.
“Come on. We have to hurry,” Jack said.
They ran with their jackets over their heads, do
dging collapsing buildings. Jack led the way across the short bridge spanning the canal at Seventh Street. Flames shot straight into the sky, and buildings blazed on both sides of the short, narrow street leading to the depot.
When Braham spotted the burning train station, he made a fierce gesture at Heaven, leaped over a pile of smoldering bricks, and ran like he was fire himself, yelling to Jack, “It’s burning. The depot’s burning. Run.” His heartbeat hammered in his ears over the roar of the flames.
Rows upon rows of wounded Confederate soldiers languished on the ground some distance from the burning building.
Braham pointed to his left. “Go that way. Ask everyone if they’ve seen her. I’ll try this way.” They separated and Braham darted in and out among the wounded men. “Have ye seen a woman with yellow hair?”
“She helped me get out, but I ain’t seen her since.”
Braham heard the same comment dozens of times as he continued to search through the rows of wounded men, all coughing from the smoke.
“Last time I saw her, she was running back inside,” a soldier told him.
One side of the building was engulfed in flames and fire was spreading rapidly to the other side. Black smoke poured out of the windows. Braham ran to the only entrance not in flames. “Charlotte. Charlotte,” he bellowed, covering his mouth to keep out the blazing hot smoke. Then he yelled again. “Charlotte. Charlotte.”
Heat blistered his skin and sweat streamed down his face. The overhead beams splintered and crashed down, cracking with fire. Glass exploded from windows and wicked shards turned into dangerous projectiles embedding in already-injured soldiers’ arms and legs.
Braham ran into the building, calling her name, until the roar of the collapsing ceiling jerked him to a standstill. And then his heart stopped. He spotted her dragging a man out of the flames, out of the path of the burning roof, but she wasn’t going to make it.
He pumped his legs faster than he’d ever run, but he felt like he was slogging, dreamlike, through a river of molasses. If he reached her, and they couldn’t escape the flames, at least she wouldn’t die alone. He’d carry her into eternity.
Time stopped. The fire stopped. The burning roof hung suspended. And in that briefest of seconds, he touched her arm and yanked with more strength than he could possibly possess. The momentum pulled her toward him in a perfect pirouette. Her body flattened against him. He folded her up into his arms and ran like hell.
A broken window with shards poking in on all sides of the frame was their only escape. He ducked his head, snugging Charlotte to his chest, and threw himself through it. An anguished, blood-curdling scream came from behind him as the beams hit the floor.
He and Charlotte landed on the ground, tumbled and rolled, but he never let go of her, protecting her head and her back. When they had finished their tumble and roll, he was on top of her, his hands under her, his mouth inches from hers. Her breath gusted on his face. She was alive. His eyes roved over her. Blood trickled down her forehead to her hairline. She was watching him intently, eyes focused and steady. Then she reached up, stroked his cheek, and mouthed thank you before dropping her hand.
“Braham.” Jack rushed over and knelt beside him. “Get up. We have to move before the building collapses.” Braham rolled over, revealing Charlotte beneath him. Jack gasped. “What are you doing here? I saw Braham plow through the window, but I didn’t know he had you in his arms. A man told me you had been sent to a tent set up for the doctors. Are you hurt?”
“Not fatally. Help me up.” Once she was sitting up, her mouth twisted abruptly. She cupped her elbows and shuddered, staring at the burning building. The pain glimmering in her eyes was heart-wrenching.
Braham touched her shoulder gently, aware she was, at this moment, as fragile as his Highlander figurine. “I couldn’t save ye both. I’m sorry.” He looked at her almost pleadingly, but her face had shut down completely.
A man wearing an apron black with soot dropped to her side and gathered her hands in his. “Doctor McCabe. Come this way, quickly.”
Braham stared at the man. McCabe? Then he glanced at Jack who shrugged.
“The entire building is going to collapse,” the man said. He supported Charlotte to her feet then sheltered her beneath his arm, brushing away flying sparks falling on her hair and shoulders.
“We’ve got to get out of here, too. Can you make it?” Jack asked Braham.
Braham’s heart was still thumping wildly “I’m bleeding from my head, arms, chest, and hands, and my entire body is screaming with muscle strain and aches, but nothing is cracked or broken. Yes, I can make it.”
They had only moved a few yards away from the building when it collapsed in on itself in an explosive whoosh, which sent Braham tumbling through the air again. He landed in a soft patch of grass littered with debris and more shards of glass. The heat from the flames alone would roast him if he didn’t get out of its path. Using his forearms, he dragged himself through the glass, now bleeding from both old cuts and new ones.
Familiar hands grabbed him under the arms. “Anything broken now?”
Braham shook his head. “Damned tired of being knocked on my ass. This keeps up, we’ll be crawling to Elizabeth’s door.”
“Let me help you.”
Braham shook his head, not wanting to move, stand, or attempt to walk. Jack, however, paid no attention to what Braham wanted, easily lifting him to his feet.
“Where’s Charlotte?” he demanded.
Jack looped Braham’s arm around his shoulder. “The man wearing an apron took her away, remember?”
Braham’s mind was a jumble of puzzle pieces darting here and there, trying to organize themselves into some semblance of order. While he was rooting for their success, he didn’t think they’d prevail. If an ax split his head wide open, the pain couldn’t be any worse than it was right now. He was almost thankful for the distracting ringing in his ears. “Where’s Charlotte?”
“The man…” Jack looked at Braham curiously, one brow lifted. “You’re in bad shape. I’ll take you to her.”
“Aye, ye’re a good friend.” Braham’s words were slurred, but he’d be damned if he could untangle them.
Leaning on Jack, he hobbled toward a tent on the other side of the street, safely away from the line of burning buildings. His progress was painfully slow, as if he had aged years in the past few hours. A corporal put a cup of hot coffee in his hands, and he drank greedily before collapsing into a camp chair, breathing heavily, clarity slowly returning.
Fire crackled upwind all around them. From the noise, Braham couldn’t tell if the fire, shells, and explosions were the result of the fires which had been deliberately set to destroy the tobacco and other goods or from Grant’s forces bombarding the city. He refrained from shaking his head in order to give the puzzle pieces time to organize themselves fully, but he needed to clear away the gathering fog of apprehension. Was there a safe way out of the fire’s path? They had to find one and get to safety.
Charlotte sat straight as bone on the small cot, clutching a coffee cup with a slightly quivering hand. “How’d you two get here?” she asked.
“Searching for you,” Jack said.
She sipped her coffee, then dabbed primly at her mouth with a filthy finger, as calmly as she would have in Elizabeth’s drawing room. “How’d you know where to look?”
Jack waggled his eyebrows. “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
The man who had brought Charlotte to the tent returned with a blanket. He wrapped it around her shoulders, and then he sat close by, holding his own cup of steaming black coffee.
“Doctor Mallory,” Charlotte said. “This is my brother Jack…um.” She stopped and licked her lips, then pointed to Braham. “And my other brother, Braham. We’re all McCabes from South Carolina.” She then pointed to the man and said, “This is Major Carlton Mallory. He owns a plantation several miles from Richmond, I think he said.”
“Did I? I don’t remember mentioning it.”
Braham detected a flash—just a flash—of possessiveness in Doctor Mallory. Had he, too, become one of her admirers?
Jack’s face went pale beneath a sheen of sweat, and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Thank you for taking care of my…our sister.”
Doctor Mallory smiled at Charlotte. “Your sister single-handedly saved a hundred or more men tonight. If she hadn’t warned us of the danger, most of the men would have burned alive in the depot. The Confederate Army owes her a great debt.”
There it was again; a familiar look of eagerness. If he flashed it again, Braham would introduce Doctor Mallory—who had a remarkable resemblance to the man Charlotte had impersonated—to his bloody fist. It was time to get out of here, even if it meant rushing into Dante’s Inferno.
Braham wobbled to his feet. “We need to find a way home. The fire’s moving fast. My thanks for the coffee.” He dumped the dregs outside the tent and handed the corporal the empty cup. Braham studied Charlotte closely: the exquisite lines of her face, the curve of her nose, the patches of soot below her eyes, the furrow of concentration as she negotiated her good-byes to Doctor Mallory. Her features, though pale, had lost their ashen quality. The shock had passed. Now she needed to get home and rest.
Charlotte tried to return the blanket, but Doctor Mallory insisted she keep it to wrap around her head, then he wished them good luck, and, as a parting gift, invited them to visit his plantation after the war.
After Braham, Jack, and Charlotte had gone several yards away from the tent, she asked, “Why aren’t we staying? Isn’t it safe here?”
Braham answered, “These men may be wounded, but I don’t care to spend another minute in the midst of two hundred Johnny Rebs. After a week in their prison, I’ve had enough of them. And besides, we have cuts needing treatment, and Elizabeth is very worried.”
She gave him a slight smile. “You’re right. Let’s go home.”
Watching her return to herself triggered a throb of affection in Braham. He took a deep steadying breath, then another. They had almost died in the fire, and they still might. He had to keep her safe. She was in Richmond because of him, and if something else happened to her, he would never forgive himself.
The Sapphire Brooch Page 40
