“Lily.” He whispered her name. What was she doing here? She should be on her way back to Nassau. At least, he had hoped she would be.
Lily didn’t move. She stood primly and properly, as any refined lady should. “Sergeant?” At last she smiled, at the sergeant who still held his gun on Quint. “Could we have a few minutes of privacy? Please? The warden has consented.”
The sergeant backed out of the room, obviously disgusted with this turn of events.
“Lily, what are you doing here?” Quint stepped toward her, but she looked down and started to push aside the large satin rosettes that decorated the bodice of her gown.
“Getting you out of this place,” she said with assurance, her fingers flying through laces that had been hidden by the satin flowers. The laces ran from her neck to below the waist of her pink gown, and in less than a minute she was stepping out of the dress. Underneath, she was wearing her sailing garb—dark pants and white shirt; tall, soft boots; her saber strapped to her thigh. She adjusted the saber, which had been lowered to accommodate the line of her gown, raising the weapon to waist level. Her hands flying, she unwrapped a Colt six-shooter that was strapped to her right thigh.
“It’s too dangerous.” Quint grabbed her shoulders and was greeted with a smile for his concern.
“I love you, Quint. I can’t allow them to keep you here.”
Her declaration was so heartfelt, he felt a swelling in his chest. But what he’d said was true. What she was attempting was much too dangerous. She could get herself killed. He didn’t waste any time telling her as much.
“I can’t die now. I’ve got too many things still to do.” She gave him a wide smile. “Sounds like nonsense, I know, but in my heart I know it’s true.” She laid a hand on his stubbled cheek. “But I would die if anything happened to you in this hellish place. I should shoot Tommy for this. What was he thinking?”
Lily planted a light kiss on his lips. “I’m glad they don’t have you shackled. That would have slowed us up a bit.” She placed the Colt in Quint’s hand.
“Lily.” Quint grabbed her hand and squeezed it. He should tell her the truth now—that in a few days, perhaps a week, word would reach the prison that he was a spy for the Union. He wouldn’t die in prison. He had only to survive a while longer. “You can’t. I want you to put that dress back on while I —”
The turning of the key in the lock startled them both. It had only been a few minutes. Lily moved to a position behind the door, and Quint held the Colt behind his back. The door opened, and the warden stepped inside his office, a stern expression on his face.
“Miss Smith —” he began, searching the room for Lily. His gaze fell on Quint, then on the crumpled pink dress on the floor. Before he had a chance to call out, Lily was behind him, the point of her saber at his back.
“Thank you so much, sir, for your cooperation,” she said softly. “But we’ll be leaving now.”
The warden stared at Quint with open disgust and balled his fists as if he planned to rush forward and attack. But he didn’t. He was an older man, gray-haired and too thin. His hands trembled slightly. Perhaps he had been a great soldier once, but now he was just waiting for the war to end.
“You’ve had this planned all along.”
“Don’t hurt him, sweetheart.” Quint was reluctant to use Lily’s name in front of the warden, even though he could remember saying it as the sergeant led him to her. “This will all be over in a few days. There’s no need for this.”
“I suppose you’re speaking of your bogus claim,” the warden seethed. “Don’t plan on any help arriving, you lying Reb. Do you think I’m stupid enough to fall for a lie like the one you spun for me? Did you really think I’d waste valuable manpower by sending a soldier off on a wild goose chase? All of my men are here, Captain. There’s no way you can escape.”
The warden had never sent the message to Washington. That much was clear. He’d thought it a trick, and all of Quint’s plans were for nothing.
Heavy footfalls were approaching quickly, plodding and determined steps that Quint recognized. He saw the sergeant behind Lily, and then he saw the pistol in the Sergeant’s hand. Before Lily could react, Quint brought around the Colt that had been concealed behind his back. His reaction was quick, and almost unconscious, as he cocked the hammer with his thumb and fired, his aim true, and the surprised sergeant grunted and fell.
Quint ran forward and grabbed Lily’s arm as he pointed the six-shooter at the warden. “The key.” There was no time to waste. The sergeant who had taken such delight in making Quint’s life a living hell was lying half in and half out of the doorway, and another guard could come along at any moment.
The warden grudgingly produced the key to his office, all the while staring at the barrel of the Colt. This had to be every warden’s worst nightmare—held by a prisoner bent on escape.
“Pull him into the room.” Quint nodded his head at the wounded sergeant, the man clutching a bleeding forearm. The bullet had gone straight through.
Quint’s first instinct when he had seen the sergeant aiming a pistol at Lily was to shoot him right between the eyes. Only a last-second impulse had saved the sergeant’s life. The warden pulled the wounded man into the office, the sergeant’s boots scraping loudly against the floor, and he looked up at Quint and Lily as they blocked the doorway.
“Captain Sherwood,” he seethed. “You’re no better than a damned pirate.”
Quint ignored him. “Are you all right, sweetheart?” he asked Lily without turning to face her. His eyes were on the men on the floor.
“I’m a mite better than these two,” Lily answered his question confidently.
Quint watched the warden’s eyes as the man studied Lily. There was fear there, and wonder. The transformation from Lily Radford, or “Miss Smith,” to the woman he faced now was amazing. Lily looked like a pirate, or a siren sent to lure her victims to their deaths at the hands of her captain. The warden paled as he looked up at her.
“Should we kill them?” There was humor in Lily’s voice. To Quint, it signaled that she was trying to scare the warden and the sergeant who had tried to shoot her. But to the men at her feet, it could have meant that she would kill them without a qualm.
“Not if they promise to be very quiet for the next several minutes.” Quint tilted forward and whispered, “We have men waiting just outside the door, and if they hear a sound—even a whimper—they’ll kill you.”
Quint and Lily backed out of the door and closed it solidly. Quint turned the key in the lock and bolted the door. Even if the warden and the sergeant started yelling for help right away, it would take a while for the barrier to be battered down. It was solid oak.
He grabbed Lily and pulled her into his arms. The kiss he gave her was passionate and violent and deep and filled with the frustration of the days they’d been apart. The missing. The wanting. Lily pulled away from him with a smile.
“There will be time for this later, my love. Right now, I’ve got two horses waiting for us not five minutes from here.” She looked down at his leg.
“They took away your cane,” she said, anger in her voice.
Quint took her arm and propelled her down the hallway. “Yes. But I don’t need it so much anymore.”
Quint looked down at her, at the riot of dark blond curls that fell over her shoulder and down her back. Damn. If anyone had told him that he’d fall head over heels for a woman who could do the things she’d done just that day, he never would have believed it. She was beautiful and strong and wily. Strong and wily had never been traits he’d looked for in a woman before. She looked up at him and smiled radiantly.
She loved this. It was all a game to her. The Chameleon, breaking him out of prison—a prison where he would have stayed until his transfer to Fort Warren, thanks to the warden.
But his heart had stopped when he’d seen the sergeant level his weapon at her. He had to convince her to stay out of this damn war, and that wouldn’t be easy.
<
br /> Lily noticed that Quint was walking with a less pronounced limp, moving at a steady pace with no apparent discomfort. His leg was healing, and that meant his wound had to be much more recent than he’d been willing to confess. Lily wasn’t blind. She had seen the scar and knew what that kind of wound meant, but there was no time to question Quint now.
Stepping into the sunlight momentarily blinded Quint, and he raised an arm to block the glare. Lily took his other arm and led him toward the gate.
“The guards?” he asked her in a low voice, unable to see clearly.
“Drugged,” she snapped, all her attention on getting Quint and herself away from this place. “They’ll wake in an hour or two with one ’ell of a ’eadache, and swear to never again accept a cool drink on a warm mornin’ from a British lass.” Her voice was an almost perfect imitation of Cora’s, and Lily smiled brightly. Everything was going according to plan.
Quint looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes, and he seemed to be thinner. She had arranged everything as quickly as she could, but it hurt her that he’d had to endure even a day in this place. And all because of her.
It was no more than three minutes before she was leading Quint into a dark alley where two horses waited. They weren’t fine horses, but they were sturdy and nondescript, saddled and hidden from the street.
Lily mounted the mare she had chosen for herself and watched as Quint stepped into the stirrup to take the saddle with ease. In spite of all that had happened, in spite of the fact that they were still in danger, she glanced across the charged air that danced between them and smiled widely.
She turned her mare and tossed her head to Quint. “Follow me.” She left the alley not with cautious prancing of hooves, but like thunder, her body low and her eyes sharp on the road ahead. Without looking, she knew that Quint was right behind her, would follow her until they came to the hideout she had secured for them.
Where they would go from there was undecided. Quint might know exactly where he wanted to go. He’d mentioned heading West, one night aboard the ship, as they’d snuggled on the narrow cot and whispered in the dark. With the Chameleon gone, her future was uncertain.
West. Unless they went clear to California, she wouldn’t have even a glimpse of the ocean. No salt air, no sand between her toes, no ocean breezes.
But it didn’t matter. Not as long as she had Quint.
Fifteen
No more than an hour later, Lily turned off the well-worn path she had followed faithfully and slowed her mare as they slipped through a bank of tall trees. With close observation, it was clear that the trail had once cut a clear path through the thick expanse of trees, but it was almost completely covered now by encroaching brush and weeds.
The charred remains of a small house sat bleakly in the near distance, its blackened skeleton the only sign that a family had once lived there. The destruction was complete and couldn’t hide from the harsh sunlight of late summer. Weeds grew through the charred boards of what had once been a front porch, and vines climbed a broken rail that reached hopelessly upward.
The barn showed the same signs of neglect, but had been spared the fire that had gutted the house. The barn door hung crookedly from the broken hinge, and weeds had taken over the ground on all sides of the structure. There were gaping holes in the roof, and gaping “windows” at sporadic intervals, where whole boards had fallen away.
Lily jumped from her mare and waited for Quint to do the same. When his feet touched the ground, she ran to him and threw herself into his arms. She never would have shown it, but she had been terrified for him. She lifted her face, touched a cheek that was rough with dark stubble, and smiled as Quint threaded his fingers through her hair.
He held her tightly, and Lily pressed her body against his, reveling in his warmth. She had missed him, terribly, more than she’d thought possible.
Reluctantly, Lily pulled away from him. There was feed and water in the barn for their horses, and together they unsaddled the mounts and led them into prepared stables. Quint actually seemed to be surprised that she had prepared their nest so well.
The shade of the barn was comfortingly cool, and shafts of sunlight that fell through the unsturdy roof marked the dirt floor.
Quint had decided that he had to tell Lily the truth. Soon. She deserved the truth, and she deserved to hear it from him. She would hate what he had done, but would she hate him? Did she love him enough to leave behind what she was bound to see as his betrayal?
He stood with both hands gripping the top of a stall, leaning forward with his head hanging slightly, the tension tightening his shoulders and his back. He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to see her face when she learned the truth.
Lily slipped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her head between his shoulder blades.
“We can’t stay here long,” she said softly. “But the horses need to rest before we head south, and I’ve got a change of clothes for both of us and a loaf of bread stashed in the loft.”
“You didn’t forget anything, did you?” he whispered.
“I hope not.”
“Jesus, Lily.” Quint turned and wrapped his arms around her. “You could’ve been killed.” He’d never forget the fear and helplessness he’d felt when he’d seen the sergeant aim his pistol at Lily, intending to fire. Intending to kill her.
“But I wasn’t,” she whispered, no anxiety in her voice. “I had to get you out. You didn’t belong there.”
Quint knew he should tell her the truth before they went any further. Lily was kissing the base of his throat, and if he didn’t tell her now he’d lose his nerve, because the thought of losing Lily was terrifying. The thought of losing Lily as she lay in his arms was impossible to comprehend.
“I love you, Lily,” he whispered. She had to know that was true. “But I have to tell you…. ”
“I already know,” Lily answered, never lifting her head from his chest.
Quint’s blood turned cold. He might have been lying on that frozen ground he remembered so well, the chill went so deep. “What do you know?”
“You were a soldier, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“For the Union?”
“Yes.” Quint’s answer was harsh and low.
Lily lifted her head and stared, unblinking, into his eyes. Her own eyes were as clear and as turquoise as the sea around Nassau. Bright and unflinching. “It doesn’t matter.”
“How did you know?” Quint asked, realizing that she still didn’t know the worst of it. That he was a spy.
“Bits and pieces. The bullet wound in your thigh. It had to have been a recent injury for your limp to have improved so much in the past few weeks. I wasn’t sure at first what side you’d fought for, though I suspected you would have told me if you’d been fighting for the Confederacy. But in the warden’s office, when he said he didn’t believe your claims, that’s when I knew.” Lily turned her attention to Quint’s neck and chest, and she wound her fingers through the hair that curled over his collar.
Quint couldn’t think with her lips on his skin, with her fingers brushing against the back of his neck. He lost himself in the sensations of her touch, the smell of her hair. It was impossible, but she still smelled of the sea and tropical flowers, as well as the sun. Any other explanations he had to offer would have to wait for later.
They half walked, half danced, to an empty stall and Quint lowered Lily to the straw-covered ground. They knelt in the broken shadows of the abandoned stall, knee to knee, thigh to thigh, lips bonded together with the reckless passion that had, in a matter of weeks, changed their lives, even the way they looked at the world around them.
Lily slid her hands away from Quint just long enough to disengage the saber from her side and toss it away. The weapon landed with a muted clank in the dirt far behind them. She moaned low in her throat when Quint deepened the kiss, probing hungrily with his tongue.
Quint drew the Colt from his waistband
and he cast it away with an unconcerned flick of his wrist, diverting none of his attention from Lily. She tasted as tempting as she smelled, and he closed his eyes to shut out everything else. Everything but the senses she aroused.
They had been apart too long, and their fingers flew to remove the clothing that separated them, burdens to be flung aside. Lily unbuttoned her own shirt and reached for the buttons that held Quint’s trousers fastened. His shirt was whipped over his head and dropped to the ground, and he turned his attention to the black boots and tight trousers Lily wore. Her boots flew over his shoulder to land with a thud that startled the horses. Her black trousers sailed through the air to join the saber and pistol, and the remainder of Quint’s prison garb landed in a heap almost as far away from them as Lily’s boots.
She was smiling at him, then laughing as he tossed their clothing aside. It was a laugh of pure joy and abandonment, and she was silenced only when Quint lowered her back into the straw, towering over her and kissing her deeply and thoroughly.
That was all they needed, and Quint buried himself in her quickly, deeply, sheathing himself inside her warmth as if she could save him.
Lily closed her eyes and sucked her breath in sharply, dazzled by the sheer magic of it all. To feel him inside her, to know that he was as lost in her as she was in him, was the only true magic she had ever known.
He stroked her, slow and fast. Kissed her deep one moment and feathery the next. What had been soothing became turbulent, and Lily wrapped her legs around Quint’s hips, lifting herself higher, raising herself to meet his thrust as that sharp release took hold of her body. She cried out his name, no longer forced to stifle her cries as she had been on board the Chameleon. And then she felt Quint’s completion, felt his seed released within her.
Quint didn’t want to leave Lily just yet. It was over too quickly, and he wanted more of her. He knew he would never have enough of Lily.
“Marry me, Lily,” he whispered, towering over her and scattering kisses over her face and her slender throat.
In Enemy Hands Page 15
