She helped him slip off his coat, and what seemed like a fraction of a second later, she was soaping up his cheeks and scraping with a straight edge razor. He’d never really noticed how much he liked the feel of it.
“While you talkin’ to them ‘bout Miss Charlotte,” Tillie prompted, “you gotta keep her name straight. You can’t keep callin’ that girl Emma. Not unless you want ‘em to slap you back into retiracy.”
“Our poor Emma,” Branard whispered. Sometimes the sadness welled inside him enough to make him want to weep. Dimly, he remembered how he’d always considered tears unmanly. Only now, he wasn’t quite sure why.
“Old man,” Tillie snapped, “you rememberin’ nothin’ but a lie. Our lie. Emma ain’t dead; she just passin’.”
“Emma’s passed on?” The words confused him.
“You onto a bad spell now. Maybe you oughta have your meetin’ later.”
He shook his head. This meeting was important. He wished, though, Ben would come and remind him why. Something to do with . . .
Abruptly, the mist lifted and he knew. He had to determine which officer had passed Charlotte Randolph information. It was inconceivable she’d gotten so much on her own.
“Remember,” Tillie continued, “we decided Emma light enough to pass. You wanted her to have a better life than I could give her with a mulatto mama and no daddy. So you give her to your white friends – that minister and his wife.”
General Branard nodded. He remembered. It had been a decision that had haunted him for years. Though Tillie had agreed with his choice, had wanted their child to live within the world she’d only glimpsed as an outsider, the loss of Emma had altered her forever. The laughing girl he’d loved had gone away.
And so had Emma. The minister and his wife had moved back to Vermont, and Hank had never again seen his blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter.
Time to put the past aside now. Time to bring to a close the problem caused by the blond daughter of this household, Charlotte Randolph.
o0o
The closer Ben drove the Randolphs’ mare and phaeton toward Memphis, the louder Charlotte’s silence grew. Beside him on the carriage’s front seat, she held her body with an unyielding stiffness more in keeping with the stone goddesses that flanked her home’s staircase than with the woman he had loved the night before.
Ben tried to keep his gaze from straying toward her, tried to keep the images of passion from overlaying the statues' unyielding features and their tight, controlled chignons. But time and again he found himself contemplating Charlotte, then drowning in the memories of how firelight and arousal had warmed her smooth, soft skin, and how her hair had spilled across her shoulders in a tangle of gold silk. Memories rose like bubbles in the pool of her stillness: each breath, every murmur, and at last her cry of joy.
The irrational part of him wanted her again, wanted to make her his in ways that lasted, to claim her and her son as his. To bind them as a family. To leave the war behind and take the two of them to Texas.
But Charlotte’s silence stilled the impulse and made him watchful, cautious. Made him wonder if he’d compromised his honor on a delusion borne of lust. He tried to push aside his curiosity, tried to resurrect the faith he’d felt last night.
Even so, he was glad he’d tied his gray gelding behind the phaeton and taken up the driving lines himself. Though he figured her too smart to try it, he could not discount the chance that she might attempt to flee.
Guiltyguiltyguiltyguilty. The word repeated in the horses’ hoofbeats, in the squeaks and rattles of the carriage as it jounced along the rutted road, in the endless accusations of his conscience. As hard as he’d worked to convince himself that she was innocent of spying, Charlotte’s growing anxiety spoke louder than every argument his mind concocted.
The spell of stillness broke as she glanced over her shoulder and into the back seat, where Alexander sat stroking Honeybee and staring at the passing homes and businesses. She turned her head toward Ben.
“You aren’t still planning to take us to see those . . . men?” she asked, her face pale and her expression pleading.
He realized she imagined he really meant to make her view the ambushed soldiers’ bodies, that she still feared he would take Alexander, too. He would bet his last half eagle that most of her apprehension was on the child’s behalf.
The horse apparently sensed its proximity to home and hay, for it quickened its pace and turned the corner without prompting. As they progressed, the sizes of the houses gradually increased.
As he held the mare to a quick trot, Ben shook his head. “What would it prove, really?”
“There’s nothing to be proved.” Her gaze caught his and held it. “Faith isn’t earned; it’s given.”
“So the preachers say,” Ben agreed. “But they also claim that God’s the only one a man can trust so blindly.”
“You trust God blindly?” she asked lightly. “I’m surprised you haven’t demanded written proof.”
He risked a half-smile. “Found that in the Good Book. Are you saying you can do as well?”
“You can’t expect angels with trumpets to come from on high and give their blessing. Sometimes the human heart must take a risk.”
It was a good thing the horse knew where it was going, for her statement so distracted Ben that he might have driven up a tree. Recovering, he wondering exactly what she was suggesting.
And if his desire to find out made him a traitor to his oath.
o0o
Delaney McMahon had proof that she was innocent, proof that was burning holes in him, demanding that he share it. Ever since Charlotte had disappeared, he’d spent every hour suffocating in guilt, wondering if she’d used the information she had tricked him into sharing to aid the rebel cause. And then, remembering the sweetness of her kiss, the fragile innocence written in her eyes, he’d spent the remainder of his time torturing himself for doubting her and imagining some evil had taken her away. Now at last he knew for certain she was guiltless, and they could focus the investigation on finding and protecting her from harm.
If General Branard ever let him speak. Instead, the old man had ordered him to wait his turn while he rattled on importantly across the dining room table, where he’d assembled that arrogant schemer, Lieutenant Snyder, along with Colonel Williams and himself. As usual, Branard had started his meeting with one of his brain-numbing stories, this one some ancient drivel from the War of 1812.
Impatience prompted Delaney to fidget until Branard pinned him with a needle-sharp blue gaze. Confound it all. He’d figured the grand mugwump had been off on another of his endless tangents. Apparently, he had drifted into a clearer patch instead.
Delaney stilled his twitching hands and forced himself to attention. When Branard got his head out of the old days, he could still be a regular Philadelphia lawyer. Besides, the quicker the old man finished, the faster Delaney could share the important evidence he’d found.
o0o
Lieutenant Jonathan Snyder could swear the old man was looking at only him as he was speaking. Sweat prickled beneath Snyder’s woolen uniform, and he felt the unmistakable beginnings of another itching rash.
“Someone, likely someone here among us,” Branard stated baldly, “had to have helped Charlotte Randolph get that information. What I want to know is who.”
Snyder glanced toward Gideon Williams, whose gaze caught and held his. That damned immoral menace had better not accuse him of a thing, or he would tell the world what he’d seen the philanderer doing with his superior’s sixteen-year-old daughter down in New Orleans. To get then-Captain Jonathan Snyder and his unwelcome knowledge out of harm’s way, the colonel had trumped up enough false charges to ensure Snyder’s demotion and a hasty transfer. Ironically, rumors from another quarter must have prompted Colonel Williams’ removal to the same city as his former aide.
Lieutenant Snyder had no intention of forgiving or forgetting anything. Sooner or later, he meant to pay out Gideon Williams for his
falsehoods – but first he had to find a way to distance himself from this mess with Charlotte Randolph.
o0o
Under other circumstances, Colonel Gideon Williams would have been pleased to see his former commander and old friend shrugging on his shrewdness like a well-tailored frock coat. Today, unfortunately, Gideon would have welcomed the lack of focus that had marked his last few conversations with the man.
God help him if Branard ever learned that he had been the one to show the girl those orders. And there was Jonathan Snyder, glaring at him, waiting for the slightest chance to cut his throat.
And all over that disgraceful business in New Orleans. He wouldn’t have cared about Snyder’s gossip so much on his own account, but young Alice Pendergast had been ruined by the talk. Young, delicious Alice, he recalled. Though she lacked both Charlotte’s beauty and her brilliance, she’d had several attributes he valued: tender youth, sweet innocence – and a willingness to be parted from the latter.
He’d been almost to that point with Charlotte, or at least he’d thought as much, before she dropped from view. The scheming Jezebel!
He still could not believe the way he’d been taken for a fool. But this mistake was nothing he could outrun with a transfer. What he’d done, if it came to light, could well cost him his life.
“If you were fooled,” Branard told them, “take comfort in the fact that we all were. But be man enough to admit to your mistakes. Now which one of you did it?”
Tension took on the ticking beat of a wall clock, the pulsing rhythm of its swinging pendulum. Though noon was still more than an hour off, the room’s heat felt oppressive. He could swear he smelled the sweat of every man among them.
He looked Branard in the eye in an attempt to appear honest. He slouched ever so slightly in the hopes of seeming unconcerned. But his full attention was focused on that ticking, so much so that when the red-haired Lieutenant McMahon rocketed from his seat, Williams nearly jumped out of his skin.
“It was none of us!” The words burst from the red-haired lieutenant in the same tenor voice in which he sang. “None of us passed information to Charlotte – because she’s not the spy!”
o0o
As Jonathan Snyder stared transfixed at his fellow lieutenant, his hope climbed. If the noxious little weakling could pull their fat out of the fire by throwing the general off Charlotte’s scent, Snyder swore he’d kiss him on the lips.
General Branard stood, as had McMahon. “What’s all this, Lieutenant? And why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me before?”
“I – I tried this morning, but you wouldn’t --”
Branard shook his head. “Doesn’t matter now. Go ahead. You have our full attention.”
“Early this morning, I saw one of the contrabands – I think her name is Ida April – copying something onto a piece of paper --”
“Copying?” Snyder demanded. “That’s ridiculous. An illiterate Negress, writing?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Colonel Williams told Snyder. “What do any of us know about these contrabands? For all we know, her owners trained her as a spy.”
Snyder noticed that the color, which moments ago seemed to have leached out of Williams’ face, was returning. He marked, too, how quickly the man had jumped on the possibility in McMahon’s story.
Another thought occurred to him, a bolt out of the blue. Charlotte Randolph was a prettier, more charming version of the New Orleans blonde the colonel had ruined. What the hell was her name? Oh, yes, it had been Alice. Alice Pendergast.
A suspicion formed and festered faster than an open wound in southern heat. His bowels seemed to twist inside him.
“What was she transcribing?” General Branard asked Lieutenant McMahon.
“I found this afterward, tucked beneath the hall runner on the third floor.” McMahon drew a folded page out of his pocket and handed it across the table. Branard frowned at it, then set it on the smooth, mahogany surface, where all of them could see it was the draft of a letter Branard had written to General Grant.
“Another spy,” the general said. “Did you say anything to her?”
“No, sir,” McMahon answered. “She’s still upstairs cleaning. I thought I’d discuss it with you first. I thought perhaps you’d want to have her followed when she leaves this afternoon.”
Branard shook his head. “I want her arrested now. I’d just as soon interrogate her before she has the chance to run away. Like Miss Randolph.”
“No! I can’t allow you to continue talking about Charlotte that way.”
McMahon seemed to have forgotten he was the junior man here. Despite himself, Snyder was impressed. He hadn’t thought the milksop had such an outburst in him. But the lieutenant wasn’t finished.
“Don’t you see?” McMahon asked. “Charlotte’s innocent. I know it. I trusted her – I trust her with – my heart.”
Snyder’s intestines gave another painful turn. He wanted to get up, to squeeze McMahon’s neck to stop him from saying one more word.
But he was already too late. The red-haired lieutenant burst out, “I’m going to marry Charlotte. I’ve asked her, and she told me yes. And I aim to do it, too, just as soon as she’s been found.”
In spite of his discomfort, Snyder, too, leapt to his feet. This – this Irish upstart had poached upon his woman. “The hell you are!” he shouted. “Charlotte’s my fiancée!”
Across from Jonathan Snyder, Colonel Williams’ face went gray a moment before he laid it upon the gleaming surface of the table.
Branard’s eyes widened as his gaze flicked from man to man to man. Not a wisp of cloudiness obscured the alarm in his expression.
“Oh, holy hell,” he said. “There’ll be a damned flapdoodle now.”
o0o
Josephine Martin yanked the weeds that had infested her peonies with a vengeance. Her knees throbbed at the unaccustomed pressure of her kneeling, but she didn’t dare ask that featherbrained Negro of hers to do the job. The last time Cyrus had been set loose among her flowers, he’d pulled out more hollyhocks than henbits. If the Union completely disallowed slavery, as seemed likely, she swore she’d count it a relief to be clear of him.
For a while, Mrs. Martin made her job more pleasant by pretending she was tearing hanks of Charlotte Randolph’s hair. But she thought of Alexander, and Captain Chandler’s words returned to haunt her.
“You’ll never win his affection unless you make peace with her.”
She scowled as she ripped loose a clump of dandelions. What did that man think he was doing, presuming to give her such personal advice? She thought his accent rather uncouth – perhaps Texan, so it should come as no surprise that he had frontier manners.
She had shifted her attack to the nut grass that poked out among the red blooms of snapdragons when a curved tan surface caught her attention. Reaching in among the flowers, she drew out a ball. One of Alexander’s toys, she was certain.
Her knees crackled as she stood. Ordinarily, she would have thrown away the ball and complained about the nuisance, but today – today, she thought she might just walk next door to return it.
No one could prevent her from hating Charlotte, but perhaps – perhaps, for the boy’s sake, she could behave in a civil manner. She brushed the dried grass from her skirt and removed her garden gloves. Yes, this morning she would take the first step.
Heaven only knew that poor child could use one good influence in his life.
o0o
Charlotte fell silent as the Randolph mansion came into view. With its central tower, its Italianate arches, and a scale that dwarfed the other fine homes of the avenue, it stood as proudly as a king among his courtiers. Yet as they approached, Charlotte wore an expression more in keeping with a fugitive being hauled back to a prison.
Ben could not help but wonder, was the guilt he saw an illusion manufactured by his own mind? Maybe part of it was a stubborn disbelief in the notion that he loved her. Or more likely, he supposed, a basic mistrust of the idea t
hat Charlotte Randolph might love him. He thought of what she’d told him last night, of how she appeared to see something in him invisible to all other eyes. Even, somehow, to his own.
One of the carriage’s wheels caught on a stone as the mare turned into the yard. With a lurch, the phaeton continued its brief journey. As Ben stopped the horse and tied the driving lines, Alexander and the puppy scrambled out.
“I’m goin’ to check and see how much them polliwogs have grown,” the child called as if they’d never been gone.
Ben stepped around the phaeton to help Charlotte out its door. As he lifted her down, he caught sight of Tillie’s face at a back window.
Only moments later, the back door opened and four men filed out: General Branard, Colonel Williams, Lieutenant Snyder, and – lagging somewhat behind because of his short strides – Delaney McMahon.
“Dear, God,” Charlotte breathed as she watched them striding toward her, each expression harsher than the one that came before. “They’re – they’re coming to kill me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ben said, thinking that in spite of their suspicions, his fellow officers were as likely to feel relief as anger. But the fury etched into their faces cut short his argument. Confused, he edged in front of Charlotte, his instincts demanding that he ward her from attack.
o0o
“Step aside, Captain,” General Branard demanded. “Or will you tell me this Jezebel is your fiancée, too?”
Charlotte flinched as though she had been struck. Her knees loosened so that she had to hold onto the phaeton’s side to remain on her feet.
She would have rather grasped Ben’s shoulders – or covered up his ears. But it was too late to do either. He had heard and understood. She saw it in the way his stance went rigid, the way he turned to look her in the eye.
She saw, too, a desperate need for her to say something, anything, to correct what he’d just heard. Within moments, his expression hardened into a grimness that murdered her hope.
“To which one of them, Charlotte?” His voice was as slate gray as his eyes. “To which one did you give your promise?”
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