In Enemy Hands
Linda Winstead
Prologue
Spring, 1862
Past the tall window, beyond the barrier of glass, the soldiers—grave-faced men in blue coats—swarmed over the well-tended grounds. Before today, this house had seemed to be buffered from the war, but now Lily watched the horde of Yankees stake claim to her home with their threatening weapons always at hand—sabers that hung at their sides, pistols strapped to their thighs, rifles that even she recognized as all but obsolete, they were so old.
She watched through the window for a long moment, trying to shut out the argument that was taking place in this very room. If she didn’t calm herself, she would surely say or do something stupid and get them all killed.
When her heart rate had returned to near normal, Lily turned her attention to the captain who was standing so formally in her father’s study. His eyes had carefully examined the old books, the well-oiled wood, and her father’s favorite leather chair, but now it was her father himself who commanded the captain’s full attention.
“Those horses are my property,” her father insisted, his accent not that of a Southern gentleman, but of an Englishman who had long lived in the South. He had railed fruitlessly for over an hour, and still the captain’s men removed the horses from their stables and carried food from the house, everything from flour and bacon to her father’s favorite rum.
“They are being confiscated for the use of the Union Army, Mr. Radford.” The captain was stern, but his eyes were dull, his face haggard, even though he appeared to be a fairly young man—younger than her father, James Radford, in any case.
“If you cooperate, we will leave you and your family be.” The captain glanced at her as he spoke, then turned his eyes to Elliot.
Lily’s anger was, at that moment, directed at her brother. Elliot was old enough to be a soldier, but was not. He had avoided any confrontational stance or word, being almost polite to the invaders. He had a genteel way about him that at times infuriated Lily, from his softly curling hair, too long and too well styled, to the thin, elegant hands that were, even now, pale and soft. His eyes were vacant and washed-out as he observed the invasion of their home.
It was too much, and as if he knew what she was thinking, Elliot took her arm, his firm fingers warning her to hold her temper. How could she, while these men tore her home apart?
“You’ll not hurt my children?” Her father’s anger had faded, and as he spoke the captain turned his attention away from Lily and Elliot.
“We only want the horses and a few supplies,” the captain repeated. “I regret the necessity, but our horses are being shot out from under us, and keeping a mount healthy in these conditions is difficult, sometimes impossible.” To Lily, it sounded as if the captain was trying to rationalize his actions. “I need those horses,” he said in a low voice.
James Radford moved to the window and watched the soldiers removing his prize mounts from the stable. Lily wanted to go to him, but Elliot continued to hold her back. It was tearing her up inside, but how must it be for her father, watching a lifetime of work whisked away in a single afternoon?
He was a wonderful father, taking on the raising of two children after his wife’s death. Lily had been only four, Elliot seven, when their mother died. He had never pressured her to marry, even though she was twenty-four and considered herself an old maid. A happy old maid, with no wish to ever marry.
It was no wonder. James Radford had raised Lily to be the son he’d wanted Elliot to be. It was she who studied fencing with him, who raced the most spirited stallions across their fields. She beat her father at chess on a regular basis, and he’d told her more than once that she had the makings of a fine sailor in her blood.
James Radford raised his eyes to the portrait that hung high on the wall. He had told Lily so often that she was the picture of her mother, but Lily didn’t see herself in the serene countenance of the woman who watched over them all. True, she had her mother’s unruly dark blond hair and blue-green eyes, and her father had told her that her mother had been tall for a woman, like Lily.
Perhaps she did look like the mother she didn’t remember, but in her heart she was like her father. She could never be as content as the pale woman in the portrait.
James Radford turned to her and smiled, a half-hearted smile that told her to be still, to be patient—two virtues that were never easy for her to practice. But Lily ceased her mild struggle against Elliot’s hold.
She saw the resignation on her father’s face as he accepted the loss of his prize stock, ceded to the superior forces that overran his home.
He slid open the top drawer of his desk, and Lily knew he was reaching for his pipe. So many nights he had sat in that chair and puffed away, claiming that the smell of the tobacco soothed him after a hard day, that the feel of the smooth wooden bowl in his hand was a balm. The pipe had been a gift from his father, the last thing William Radford had given James before his death.
Lily heard the shouted warning and turned her eyes toward the raised voice just as an eager private, standing behind his captain and just to the left of the door, drew his pistol and fired as James Radford pulled his pipe from the drawer and raised it. The roar of the shot was deafening in the small room, and no one but Lily seemed to know what had happened.
Even the captain seemed to be surprised as the blood spread across James Radford’s chest, and he spun toward a white-faced private, who sputtered some nonsense about her father reaching for a weapon.
Lily wrenched away from Elliot and ran to her father as he fell, clutching the pipe in one hand and covering his wound with the other.
“Father?” she whispered, dropping to the floor and laying her hand over his.
He blinked several times, as though trying to clear his vision. “Lily,” he muttered. “Don’t frown so. You’re always so serious, and if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, you can’t take on the world.” His voice was fading, and Lily placed her face close to his.
“Don’t talk. Save your energy…. ”
“It will be all right, Lily,” he assured her. Those were his last words as he slipped away from her. His hand opened, and the pipe rolled off his fingers and onto the floor.
For a long moment she didn’t move, couldn’t move. Each breath was an effort. The room was silent. No one moved; no one dared even to breathe.
Lily laid her father’s head gently against the floor and stood to face the captain. “You bloody bastard.” She stalked away from her father’s body until she stood toe-to-toe with the captain. “Your man has killed my father.”
She saw several hints of emotion on the captain’s face—surprise, perhaps, that she was not hysterical, that she dared to face him, that she didn’t speak with the simpering and honeysweet accent of a Southern woman. That influence was there, but it was tempered with a bit of her father’s English manner.
There was also wariness, as he wondered what she would do. He’d spared only a glance for Elliot. There would be no trouble there.
Sadness, regret. Lily pushed away that conclusion. The man was a monster.
“The private made a tragic but understandable mistake.” The captain defended the soldier who had shot her father, all the while seeming to stare at her nose. Was he afraid to meet her eyes? Afraid of what he would see?
“You are responsible.” Lily jabbed him in the chest with a strong finger. “He is your man, and therefore whatever he does falls on your head. I demand that your soldiers return our stock to the stables and get off our land. Now.” Her voice was strong and unyielding. “And I want your bloody head on a platter,” she added in a low voice.
He cut his eyes away from her to watch Elliot stand over their fa
ther’s body. He was stunned and helpless, an ineffectual man who had no backbone.
“I’m terribly sorry,” the captain said, still not looking at her. “I’ll have my men bury your father…. ”
“You’ll not touch my father,” Lily whispered. For the first time, the full force of what had happened hit her, and unwelcome tears welled up in her eyes. “I’ll bury him with my bare hands before I allow you to touch him.”
Behind her, Elliot sighed loudly. “We would be grateful if you would undertake that chore, Captain,” he said wistfully. “You must forgive my sister. She can be quite difficult.”
Lily turned on her brother, her anger changing direction like a swift underwater current. “You spineless coward,” she hissed, and before he could stop her, she ran for the fireplace and reached for the saber that hung above it. Her fingers closed over the hilt, and the metal of the blade sung as she drew it from the housing. By the time she turned around to face the captain, she was staring at three pistols, all aimed directly at her. Elliot stood to one side, a horrified look on his normally impassive face.
Lily stood fearlessly before them all, the saber that had been her father’s pointed at the captain’s heart. She held the blade as steady as her unwavering eyes. Never had she imagined that she might hold the weapon trained on another human being. The war had seemed, until today, so remote, so unreal.
The captain lifted a hand to still his men. He held his hand aloft, and Lily could see something she didn’t want to see—that regret she’d denied moments earlier, a pain that couldn’t be expressed.
If he was waiting for her strength or her resolve to wane, he was in for a long wait. If he waited for her arm to tremble, for the tears to return, then he was a fool.
“Lily.” Elliot moved toward her, obviously intending to take the saber from her hand. His pale hand was outstretched, his eyes locked on hers. “We’ve lost our father today. I don’t want to lose you as well. Give me the saber. Please, Lily.”
Lily could not disguise her disgust for her brother. “How can you stand there and do nothing?” There was a pain born of hopelessness in her voice. No matter how deep her grief, how great her anger, she knew she couldn’t possibly take on the captain and all of his men, the damned Federals who swarmed over the house and grounds like great blue locusts. Lily lowered the saber and heard the captain’s sigh of relief as he dropped his hand.
Elliot placed his arm around her shoulder and, with his free hand, took the saber from her. Lily allowed him to take it, reluctantly loosing her grip. “Father never should have argued. If he had only given them what they wanted, this never would have happened.” His voice was tortured and gruff, but Lily couldn’t believe that even Elliot would blame James Radford for his own senseless death.
Lily ignored her brother and glared at the captain. “I hope you choose Star as your own personal mount. He’ll throw you so fast and so hard, you’ll break your bloody neck.”
She saw a flicker of some emotion in his eyes, doubt or pain or desperation. With a narrowing of his eyes, the captain bowed crisply, then turned on his booted heel to escape the confines of the room.
This room, her father’s retreat, had been filled with laughter and tears over the years, but never this. Never violence. It had changed in an inkling into a corner of hell, where nothing was as it should have been, where lives were ended or changed in a heartbeat.
Lily pulled away from Elliot, shrinking from his touch even as he directed the two soldiers who lifted their father’s body from the floor. Elliot had always been sweet and gentle, but sometimes he was too sweet. Too gentle.
“I’m going to join the army,” Lily hissed when the soldiers were gone and she found herself alone with her brother. “I’m going to cut off all my hair and dress like a man and join the cavalry. Then I’ll find that damned captain and cut his liver out.”
“Lily,” Elliot admonished, speaking to her as if she were a naughty child. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Elliot paced the small room, head down, hands behind his back. Lily saw him glance at her again and again with a frown on his face.
She knew very well what her brother thought of her, that on occasion, he detested her as much as she detested him. He enjoyed the finer aspects of the life their father’s money allowed them to live, but Lily had never, in Elliot’s opinion, been suitably impressed with their place in society.
Of course, if she had married as any respectable young lady should have by the age of twenty-four, if she had made any effort to conform to the rigid society they lived in, Elliot wouldn’t be pacing the floor bemoaning the fact that he was suddenly and unpleasantly in charge of not only his life, but Lily’s as well.
He stopped in the middle of the room and lifted his head as if he’d just experienced a striking idea.
“We’re going to England,” he declared finally. “We’ll wait out the war there.” He almost smiled. “It makes perfect sense. London. We’ve plenty of money, but if we don’t take it and escape this madness now, who knows when we might have another chance.”
“I’m not going,” Lily said sternly, her early tears returning with a vengeance. Her beloved father. Dead. One moment he had been standing there, and the next…. “You can go to England if you want. Gamble away your half of the money…. ”
Elliot grimaced and raised an eyebrow. Elliot, who avoided confrontations at all cost—especially with Lily—was evidently dreading what came next.
“It’s all mine, Lily. Father had assumed you’d be married before his death. Certainly none of us expected… that it would come like this.” He lifted his chin and faced her defiantly. “I’ll make you a bargain. Come to England with me. You’ll get half of whatever I have. Then, heaven help you, if you want to return to this godforsaken place, you can. I think you’ll find London very pleasant.”
He was so certain that she would prefer the safety and comfort of England… he didn’t know her at all.
Lily sat on the floor and buried her face in her hands. “He’s dead, Elliot. He’s really dead.” Her anger was gone, replaced in a twinkling by a deep, unbearable sadness.
“I know.” Elliot sat beside her and placed a brotherly arm around her shoulder. He was in shock, too, she knew, from witnessing their father’s death. Lily leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. He was infuriating, most of the time, but she did love her brother.
And he loved her. Even when she didn’t act like a proper lady. Even when she scared away any of his friends who had been foolish enough to attempt to court her.
They clashed so often because they approached life differently. Elliot always chose the easy path. He accused Lily of going out of her way to find the hard one.
“England, Lily,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled her closer. “England.”
One
December 1863
“Lieutenant Tyler!” The voice rose, tremulous and frightened, above the gradually slowing assault of gunfire. Private Louis Medfield was trapped, sheltered behind the stiff corpse of a cavalryman’s abandoned horse. “I can’t move!”
Quintin Tyler could see no more than a patch of blue from his position behind a stand of fallen trees. He and his men were retreating under attack of superior forces, as the Rebs bore down on them. For three days the battle had raged, and it looked to be a decisive victory for the Union and General Burnside. But a sizeable Confederate contingent had managed to pin down Quint and his men.
“Are you hit?” Quint shouted. The distance separating Private Medfield from the rest of his unit was probably no more than sixty feet—but it was a dangerously open sixty feet of nothing more than scrubby grass and sporadic patches of snow.
“Yes!” Louis Medfield was nothing more than a kid, a seventeen-year-old farm boy who hadn’t seen battle before this winter. His voice trembled even as he shouted. “Don’t leave me here!” he pleaded. “I can’t move!”
Quint cursed under his breath as the men around him watched and waited. The
y were waiting for him to make a decision. Most of his soldiers were no older than Medfield, and few had any more experience with the hardships of battle. Quint didn’t think of himself as a soldier at heart, any more than the men and boys who looked to him for answers.
He cast his eyes downward as he loosened the saber at his side and laid it on the ground. The patches of snow that dotted the landscape were remnants of a late November snowstorm. This was his third winter with the Union Army, and he still couldn’t get accustomed to the cold. Clouds blocked the sun that might have warmed his skin, and the cold seemed to penetrate his layers of clothing and travel through his very skin to the bone. Of course, he hadn’t seen snow until he was nearly thirty years old, and what he had called cold growing up would have been considered mild by many of the Northerners he fought alongside. It was hard to believe that he was actually in the South—Tennessee, to be exact. As close to home as he’d been in over two and a half years.
With a grimace and a slow exhale that fogged the air, Quint checked his pistols, two Colt Model 1860s, weapons he kept meticulously clean. With a Colt in each hand, he turned to the silent man at his side.
“Cover me, Candell.”
Quint burst from shelter and sprinted over the frozen ground. With his appearance, the enemy fire increased once again, and he heard the whistle of the balls in the air around him as well as the sharp reports of the weapons themselves. With a final burst of energy, he leapt over the dead horse and landed nearly on top of Medfield. He descended on the wounded man and waited for the enemy fire to stop. Then Quint took a deep breath and rolled to one side, quickly looking over the private, who was trembling badly.
“Where are you hit?” Quint asked briskly.
“My leg.” There were tears in Medfield’s eyes, tear tracks down his dirty cheeks.
Quint assessed the wound in Medfield’s calf without emotion. Painful, but not life-threatening as long as infection didn’t set in.
“Listen to me, Private,” he said sternly. There was no time for sympathy. Not now. That would come later. If they made it. “We’re going to make a run for it.”
In Enemy Hands Page 1
