Spy of Richmond

by Jocelyn Green

  “Amen.”

  Bella rounded on Preston Kent, whose gaze had already moved to Sophie’s swollen lip and to the handprints on her wrist.

  “This slave struck—”

  “You struck my daughter? Left your mark on her?” His voice rattled the windows. “You have five seconds to vacate the property, and if you dare bring Daphne to court”—he extended his arm toward Bella—“I will roast you in the papers until you think you’ll never be able to quench the fire. I never want to see you here again.”

  Lawrence Russell stormed away.

  Kent House, Richmond, Virginia

  Thursday, June 30, 1864

  After three weeks of digging, building, and marching in stifling heat and sizzling rain, Harrison Caldwell climbed stiffly up the front porch of the Kent House. He shook Preston’s hand in greeting before easing into the rocking chair beside him. Crickets chirped and cicadas whirred against the thick summer evening, while tree frogs twanged from the dogwoods.

  “Good to have you back, son. See any action?”

  “Afraid not. We marched in support of the ironclads as they went down the James, and built four miles of fortifications out to Deep Bottom, near Chaffin’s Farm. Hard labor, but no fighting.” Harrison leaned back against his rocker and inhaled the scent of wisteria puddling in the air. A welcome change from the stench of the battalion latrine.

  “Well, you missed the excitement here. None of which had to do with the war.”

  “Did I?”

  “We had a bit of a skirmish of our own. That Lawrence Russell fellow proposed to my Sophie.”

  “Did he.” Harrison looked straight ahead, heart sinking.

  “She refused him.”

  Harrison whipped his head around to face Preston. “Did she?”

  Preston clapped him on the back and bellowed in laughter. “What’s the matter? Did you leave your entire vocabulary out there in the ditches? What happened to your store of words, Shaw?”

  Harrison laughed with him. “Sorry, I—she said no? So it’s over?”

  Preston nodded. “If I ever see that man come around here again, I’ll shoot him myself.”

  “He hurt her?” Dread coiled in his belly. If anything happened to Sophie, after Harrison had urged her to keep seeing him …

  “Some. Could have been worse. Much worse.”

  “Well, sir, if he’s out of the picture, I’d like to ask you something.” Harrison swallowed, removed his hat. Passed a hand over his unkempt hair, ruing his untidy appearance.

  “Permission to court her.”

  Harrison hesitated. “Is it that obvious?”

  “You two were made for each other. And there’s no way a man would go out of his way to avoid Sophia Virginia as much as you have lately unless it was a deliberate attempt to extinguish your feelings for her. I just can’t figure out why it took Goldilocks so long to figure that out. You’re a fine fellow. A man of character, I can tell. Even if you weren’t born in Virginia.” A smile quirked beneath his mustache.

  “So it’s all right with you?” Harrison rose, muscles no longer sore. “I may court her, truly?”

  “I wish you would. That girl deserves every happiness she can get. But may I make one suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “A bath, Mr. Shaw. It goes a long way with women. Trust me.”

  “You’ll feel better with some rest.” But Bella was worried for Sophie, even as she said it. She hadn’t been eating much lately, not since Harrison had gone away, and even less since she’d refused Captain Russell. Then again, no one ate much anymore, even if their appetites were healthy—not with flour up to $500 a barrel, cornmeal $125 per bushel, and no beef to be found in the city. Bella unfastened the last button of Sophie’s day gown and slipped it off her shoulders, holding it so Sophie could step out of it. Next, she untied the tapes at her waist and let the hoops fall to the floor. Layer by layer, Sophie came undone until she could finally don her nightgown. It was only half past eight.

  Sophie pressed her hands to her temples, as she always did when her head ached, then plucked out the pins in her hair. “Tell me again what Abraham told you.” Her voice was low as she brushed out her hair, and her eyes flashed in the mirror at Bella’s reflection.

  Bella repeated the news from Tredegar as simply as she knew how. As she did so, she could almost see the gears spinning behind Sophie’s eyes as she mentally synthesized this information with what she’d learned from assisting her father with the news.

  Finally, Sophie nodded thoughtfully, and plaited her hair in a thick golden braid for the night. “I wish I knew how much of this is helpful,” she confessed. Bella, too, had wondered. Weekly, and more often than that, Sophie sent coded messages through Bella and her hollowed eggs to Miss Van Lew, who passed them to Colonel George Sharpe, who’d replaced Butler as the point of contact at Fortress Monroe. Attached to every message was the risk of discovery, for the chance that what they sent was worthwhile.

  “At least we know Abraham’s information made a difference,” Bella offered.

  Sophie smiled as she tied a blue silk ribbon at the end of her braid. “That was invaluable, as Captain Russell was so kind to point out.” Her smile slipped then. “How are you faring, Bella? With Abraham at Tredegar?”

  A sigh feathered her lips. She’d rather be home, with him, with Liberty, and Silas too. Still, “He’s not in prison. They feed him, clothe him, and the supervisors do not whip the laborers.” The slaves. She could not bring herself to frame the words. Could not stomach the fact that her husband was no longer free. “I hear from him regularly. And if he keeps giving us good information like he has, the war will end and we’ll all be free.”

  Sophie tilted her head. “If you wanted to leave sooner, we can try again, you know.”

  “Won’t be long now,” Bella said, again, for the hundredth time. “I go with Abraham or not at all.” She could not leave him here in bondage, no matter how reasonable Joseph R. Anderson was with his laborers. “Besides, whatever would you do without me?” She smiled, but she was only half jesting. It was Bella who went to market every day and conferred with other colored folks, slave and free, filtering intelligence and delivering it to Sophie. And she was the one who passed the messages to Miss Van Lew’s slave at market, too. Robert Ford had escaped North, thank God, and so had a handful of white Unionists. Those who remained shouldered the work, and there was much to do.

  “Without you, Bella? I shudder at the thought.” Moving to her writing desk, Sophie took out a thin sheet of foolscap and her pencil, and retrieved the cipher from the locket around her neck. “Thank you. I’m turning in early after this. Come back for it in an hour.”

  “See you then.” Bella quietly left the room and glided down the stairs. She left the house from the rear door and ran smack into Harrison Caldwell.

  “Bel-Daphne!” Harrison shook his head and smiled apologetically. “How are you?”

  Bella couldn’t help but smile at the reporter turned spy, even though his original “fool-proof” plan had brought them where neither could have possibly foreseen. “I’m fine, I suppose, but not as fine as Sophie’ll be when she sees you.”

  His eyes sparked as he looked past her toward the house.

  “Come on, Romeo.” She took his elbow and led him to the kitchen house. “You aren’t going to see her like that.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Say now, that’s the smell of hard work, right there. Laborious, tedious, backbreaking work.”

  “Defending our Confederacy, no less.” She cocked an eyebrow, and he spread his hands.

  “You would expect no less from a battalion of pencil-pushing clerks, now would you? We’re rather stalwart, as it turns out, though you may not guess it from the circumference of our necks.”

  Bella laughed. “Well. You’d smell a whole lot prettier if you’d scrub some of that stalwart off your Rebel self.”

  “Agreed.” Fireflies pulsing around him, Harrison pumped his water and carried it to t
he tub behind the kitchen house to bathe beneath an amethyst sky.

  “Ready.” Harrison appeared in the doorway to the kitchen house, still slightly flushed from scrubbing. “Will you—ahem—announce me?”

  Bella propped her fists on her hips. “I don’t know, Mr. Shaw, the hour is getting on. You may just have to wait until morning.”

  The smile slid from his face. “You wouldn’t.”

  No, she wouldn’t. Shaking her head, she led the way back inside the Kent house. “She has a headache.”

  “Maybe I can make her feel better.”

  “She’s tired. Might be sleeping. And if she is, I will beat you back if I have to. That girl needs rest.”

  “Spent all day marching in the glare of the sun, did she? After weeks of hard labor?”

  Bella swatted his arm, and he bowed in deference.

  “If she’s sleeping, I’ll not disturb her.”

  “That’s right.” Bella paused at the bottom of the stairs. “You stay here. I’ll send her down if she’s awake.”

  Bella climbed to the second floor and knocked lightly on Sophie’s door before pushing it open a crack. “Sophie?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Still up?”

  “Yes, just finishing. Come in.” Sophie’s muffled voice beckoned.

  “You have a visitor,” Bella said as she entered. “Unless you want me to turn him away.”

  Sophie froze. Looked up, eyes wide. “Harrison?”

  Bella nodded, and Sophie jumped up, scrambled for the layers she had so recently shed. Quickly, Bella slipped in the room to help her.

  In record time, Sophie was back in her drawers and chemise, and laced back into her corset, surrounded by hoops and petticoats, and draped in a fresh, if simple, at-home gown of cornflower blue linen. Cheeks flushed, Sophie’s hands flew to her braid.

  “It’s fine,” Bella said. “You’re decent, and that boy’s been waiting on you.”

  “I suppose he has something to tell me.” Sophie glanced at the message she had almost finished encoding. “I’ll encode his information and bring it to you when I’m done, all right?”

  “Just fine. He’s waiting downstairs. Your father just crossed the street for a front porch visit with Mrs. Blair. You won’t be disturbed.”

  Downstairs, Sophie slipped into the library and Bella fetched Harrison from the parlor where he waited. “Library,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  Bella jabbed her finger on his chest as he rose. “Be good. Or else.”

  His eyebrows bounced. “I know better than to cross you.” He grinned. “And I promise, I’ll behave. I won’t be long, I just—I just have to see her.”

  “I know you do.” Bella smiled and swept away.

  Sophie stared at the half-closed door to the hallway, waiting almost breathlessly. A tapping sounded from the other side, and she bade him come in.

  Harrison entered, leaving the door ajar a few inches. Looked up. Arrested her with his gaze.

  “You’re back,” she murmured. Warmth flooded her cheeks at such an inane greeting.

  “I am.”

  As he closed the distance between them, she worried the locket between her thumb and forefinger, and gestured toward the cipher grid she had brought with her to capture his news. “I was just … writing … Do you have anything to add?”

  “I do.” He told her of the position and strength of the fortifications he spent weeks building and of the departure of the ironclads from Richmond. Surely, this was exactly what Sharpe would want to learn. His clean linen scent ruffled her concentration. So did the depth of his brown eyes. If she didn’t encode the information now, she would surely forget it.

  But when Sophie pulled out the chair, Harrison laid his hand on hers. Lifted it. Kissed the ink stain on the right side of her hand. “It’ll wait, Sophie,” he whispered. “But I can’t.” Slowly, he laced his fingers through hers. “I heard.”

  “About Captain Russell?”

  He drew her closer, anchoring her against him until she wondered if he could feel her beating heart against his chest. “I spoke with your father.”

  Already? She drew a deep breath, sure her knees would give way if she were not held fast within his hold. “What did he—”

  His lips met hers in silent answer, and she indulged willingly in the kiss she had been waiting for. Eyes closed, she breathed him in, tasting his love for her in the sureness of his embrace. Sophie’s hands glided along the muscular curves of his biceps and shoulders before circling his neck with her arms. Firmly, tenderly, his mouth trailed to her cheek, her ear, her neck, and again to her lips. “I love you,” he whispered, “and have loved you, for so long …”

  Warmth spread through her and she melted against him, returning every sweet kiss he offered. “I love you, too,” she murmured, and he covered her mouth once more, lingering. In his arms, she was both lost and found. With his left hand firmly on the curve of her waist, Harrison cradled her head with his right, then stroked her hair downward along the length of her braid. A gentle tug, and she felt her hastily tied ribbon come loose in his hand, her braid unraveling. Desire, unfurling.

  Until, seized with a sudden sense of impropriety, she wrenched away, though her longing for him was so intense, it startled her. Breathlessly, she twisted her wayward tresses into a loose rope and tossed her braid back over her shoulder.

  “Forgive me.” Harrison’s voice was gravelly. “I should—I ought to—I am overcome.”

  Sophie nodded, her breath skittering over her lips. Her own heart was full to overflowing. But she would not have their love cheapened with indiscretions and regret. That was Susan’s way, not Sophie’s. It wasn’t Harrison’s, either. All those moments he could have kissed her but didn’t. His intentions had always been honorable. “Court me,” she whispered, “but not temptation.”

  “Then could you please not be so … tempting?” He grinned. “Truly, if you were not so altogether lovely, self-restraint would be a far easier task.”

  Her cheeks warmed beneath his admiring gaze. She folded her hands behind her back to keep them from wandering behind Harrison’s.

  Blowing out a sigh, he ran a hand through his hair. “Nonetheless—you are right. I take my leave.” Backing away from her, he flashed her a smile, bade her good night, and left the room.

  Her ribbon still trailed from his hand.

  Summer marched by in a cloud of dust to the beat of fife and drum as Richmond remained under siege. The tocsin cried danger, the militia followed, and sounds of battle became as common as shouting at auctions for used shoes. Harrison’s battalion ebbed and flowed into the trenches like the tide, and Sophie’s heart went with him. Each time he returned, he had new information to supplement what he learned in the War Department. Bella’s weekly visits to the market garnered snatches of intelligence as well.

  Sophie listened to her sources, digested each report, condensed it into rows of coded text, and sent it on its way. Her head pounded, and her hands had taken to shaking, though she hid that from Mrs. Blair and her father as well as she could. Two more Unionists had fled Richmond. One was cast into Castle Thunder. No one knew who was next.

  Whether it favored the Union or the Confederacy, the news from all quarters reeked of suffering. Sherman pummeled Atlanta, while civilians remained inside. At Petersburg, where the Blair boys were stationed, the Union army exploded a mine in Confederate defenses, then spilled into the crater they’d created where they were killed like fish in a barrel. Waiting for word from her sons whittled lines into Mrs. Blair’s face.

  Just beyond the Blair and Kent parlors, Rebel wounded and Yankee prisoners choked the crowded city, as they had during the summer of 1862. Was it only two years ago? Rumors that Union General McClellan was coming to take Richmond had buoyed her with hope then even as the nearby battles turned the city into a charnel house. Surely, the war is about to end, she’d said. But her mother, unable to discern the sounds of battle from the echoes haunting her mind, had been r
attled, even more than the windows. The tapping, she had said of the popping musketry, it’s Esther in the hiding place! You see, she made it North again! I knew she would, I knew it! She’d been as wrong as the rumors of Union victory. And then Eleanor had hidden in the secret room herself. Rocking, singing, moaning, crying.

  Sophie shook her head to dislodge the memories. Dwelling in the past was futile.

  The Union is at the gates, she told herself, again. Surely, the war is about to end. Sophie only prayed Richmond would not meet Atlanta’s fate. And that if it did, it would not be because of her.

  Richmond and Danville Depot, Richmond, Virginia

  Monday, August 1, 1864

  Susan Kent wiped beads of perspiration from her brow and tumbled out of the railway car along with every other miserable refugee. Staggering away from the hissing train after a harrowing journey from Atlanta, a whoosh of steamy, rank-smelling air assaulted her. Dust and grime caked her sweat-glossed skin.

  Having no baggage, Susan elbowed her way out of the station yard and inhaled that familiar smell of the James River, over which she had just crossed on the railroad bridge. For better or for worse, she was home.

  Not that I recognize it, she thought as she made her way east through the crowd to Cary Street. Strangers of every shade of means, from poverty to extravagant wealth, wore every variety of clothing, and spoke in a tumultuous array of accents. The spicy aroma of tobacco that had once spilled from the riverside factories was replaced with the odors of human confinement: sweat, disease, waste. Susan hiked north to Franklin Street to put their stench behind her.

  Shading her eyes against the summer sun, she did not see a single face she knew, and was glad of it. Surely no one would see “the stunning Susan Kent” in hers. Smallpox had seen to that.

  Her fingertips fluttered over her face, dipping into the small craters the disease had taken from her body in exchange for her life. Tears of shame bit her eyes. No one could call her a beauty ever again.