In Enemy Hands

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Quint rolled to his side and rested on his elbow to watch her closely. The chain that joined them prevented Lily from moving away, as she would have liked.

  She wanted to move away from those probing eyes, those eyes that looked at her as if Quint knew everything she was thinking. As if he knew that she had laid her head on his chest and twined her fingers through his of her own volition, and not in some sleeping search for warmth.

  “Are you going to behave yourself today?” he asked suddenly, breaking the strained silence that stretched between them. He lifted his hand to massage a jaw dark with stubble and a purple bruise.

  Lily lifted her eyebrows haughtily. “Probably not.”

  Quint smiled as if he had expected no other answer.

  All eyes were on them as they left the tent. Lily ignored the stares and held her head high, behaving as if it was perfectly normal to arise in the morning shackled to one’s traitorous husband.

  After a quick, cold breakfast, the soldiers prepared to depart. Lily took no small pleasure from the fact that Quint’s limp was decidedly more pronounced as they walked around the camp.

  Lily glared down at the shackles, waiting for them to be opened so she would no longer be chained to the man she detested. If nothing else, she simply had to make a quick trip into the privacy of the forest that surrounded them. She’d be damned if she’d do that while she was chained to Quintin Tyler.

  As always, the soldiers tied a rope at her waist and stood much closer than she would have liked. It was mortifying, even for Lily. Her complaints only brought her an assurance from Lieutenant Hanson that if she tried anything, her next request for privacy would yield her a six-man guard.

  When she stepped from the shelter of the trees, she saw that Quint was mounted on his horse and staring straight ahead. Several other soldiers were mounted and ready to ride as well, their gear compactly stored and all but the smallest signs of their campsite erased.

  Her own mare was near the rear, rather than directly behind Lieutenant Hanson, as it had been the previous day. Her heart skipped a beat when the soldiers who guarded her turned her toward the waiting soldiers without tying her hands, then led her straight to Quint.

  “What the bloody hell is going on here?” she asked as they stopped at Quint’s side.

  Quint smiled down at her and offered her a hand.

  Lily scoffed and crossed her arms across her chest.

  “Like hell I will. I’d sooner walk than ride with the likes of you, you bloody bastard.”

  Quint continued to smile, but one eyebrow cocked itself in mild surprise. “There’s no time for that, darling.” His hand was still extended.

  A docile mask spread over Lily’s face. They hadn’t bound her hands with that damn rope. Maybe, if Quint felt confident enough, she would be able to slip from his grasp, jump to the ground, and disappear before they knew what had happened. Her escape would have to come at just the right moment… along the road, near a thick forest. She couldn’t stop the wide smile that stole across her face as she took Quint’s hand and he lifted her into his lap.

  And then Quint offered the guards his left hand, and hers as well, and the shackles were fastened, chaining her to her husband once again. Her smile faded.

  “You’d think you bloody well had John Mosby in your custody, instead of a helpless woman.”

  Her declaration brought a scattered and hearty bout of laughter from the troops.

  Quint leaned forward so that she had no choice but to look at his bruised face. “Sweetheart, no one here thinks of you as a helpless woman. Least of all me.”

  Lily couldn’t think of a sharp enough retort, so she fastened her eyes on the road ahead and ignored Quint’s remark.

  Nineteen

  They traveled quickly, and still it was dark before they arrived at their destination. Throughout the day Lily had ignored Quint as he attempted to talk to her, to assure her that he would find a way to get her out. Lies. All lies. He was doing nothing more than assuaging his own guilty conscience. She would be happy to be rid of him, even if it meant prison.

  Lieutenant Hanson himself loosened the shackles that joined Quint and Lily, wary eyes on her and her conniving husband as they dismounted. Quint stayed with her as she was led into the huge brick building. With Quint at her right and Hanson on her left, there was no opportunity to escape.

  Prison. Lily shivered as she was led into the building. It didn’t look like a prison, except for the barred windows and the sentries placed at the entrance. A small part of her, the part of Lily that was frightened and unsure, wanted to turn to Quint and beg him not to leave her there.

  But she didn’t even look at him as she walked down the dimly lit hallway with her head held high and her eyes straight ahead. Silently, she accused him of deserting her and acknowledged the fact that she was afraid. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end.

  With two sentries behind her and Quint at her side. Lieutenant Hanson stepped away from Lily and presented himself to the warden. It was then that Quint leaned toward her slightly and whispered in her ear.

  “I will come back for you.”

  Lily turned to stare at him then, trying hard to disguise her fear, not certain that she was succeeding. Quint looked awful. Guilty. Torn. A little afraid himself. But she could find no room in her heart for sympathy for Quintin Tyler.

  “Liar,” she whispered as she turned away from him again.

  Quint departed with Hanson, and Lily was left in the company of a sour Yankee warden and two sentries. She gave the warden her coldest glare as he recited to her the rules she would be expected to obey.

  She heard not one of them. Her blood was rushing so that all she heard was a roar in her ears. Lily was afraid that she might faint for the first time in her life, but she didn’t. She would not give them the satisfaction.

  She put on a stony, impassive mask for the Yankee warden. Lily would not allow herself to weep, or beg, or even to tremble. She’d always known capture was a possibility, and she had been prepared for that prospect every time she ran the blockade. But she had never expected to feel so utterly helpless.

  The sentries led Lily to her room. And it was a room, not a cell, though there were bars on the window and a sturdy lock on the door. One of the sentries lit a lamp for her and reminded her curtly that lights out came in less than an hour.

  When the door was closed and bolted, Lily sank to the narrow bed. Her bones had turned to butter all of a sudden, and her legs were shaking visibly. In wonder, Lily held out her trembling hands.

  “Get hold of yourself, Lily Radford,” she said softly. “You’re no coward.”

  Immediately, her mind turned to the possibility of escape. Her prospects were dim. She had no money and no weapon, and the prison seemed well guarded. Lily dismissed Quint’s final avowal that he would come for her. That was just another lie.

  Lily jumped from the bed and went to the small window. Silently, she lifted the glazed pane, wrapped her fingers around the iron bars, and tugged hard. The bars were firmly secured. One look out the second-story window told her that with a little luck, she would be able to work her way to the ground—if she were able to loosen the bars. She yanked again, then pushed against the bars, but there was no play in the obstacle. None at all.

  But that didn’t stop Lily from planning her escape. The bars would eventually work loose, somehow. She set her mind to work on the problem.

  It could be done. Lily knew now that nothing was forever.

  When a sentry returned to knock on Lily’s door and shout a loud “light’s out!” she doused the lamp and undressed in the dark. She ignored the nightgown that had been laid across the end of the bed for her and slid beneath the covers in her chemise. She still wanted nothing from the Yankees.

  Although her heart was broken and she felt a gnawing pain deep in her gut, Lily was true to herself. She told the interrogating Union officer nothing more than she had told the burly sergeant as he’d stood over her bed, aiming his
rifle at her and Quint.

  She was Captain Sherwood. That was all she would say. When she was questioned about those who had helped her along the way, her contacts, the supplies she carried, and most especially the other blockade runners and their schedules, she closed her mouth and smiled at them—the same insipid smile she had perfected in Nassau.

  More than three weeks had passed, and she hadn’t seen Quintin Tyler once. She was imprisoned in that small room, and yet she knew her fate was much better than that of her male counterparts. Her prison on the outskirts of Washington D.C. appeared to have once been a boarding school, with large classrooms on the first floor and small bedrooms on the second and third floors. The exterior of the prison reminded Lily of Sherwood, the red brick stately and elegant, the ancient trees now turning burnished gold and bright orange.

  The bars on the windows and the sturdy bolts on the doors looked to be relatively new additions to the facility.

  Her prison was as comfortable as one could expect a prison to be, but it was incarceration just the same. Silent guards escorted her to almost daily questionings. Occasionally Lily heard delicate footsteps in the hallway, surrounded by the heavier footfalls of the soldiers, and twice she had heard a woman sobbing, but she met no other prisoners.

  She took a small amount of satisfaction in the knowledge that her captors so obviously didn’t know quite what to do with her. No one had expected Captain Sherwood to be a woman. She couldn’t be sent to prison camp, but they were understandably loathe to release her.

  Lily had resigned herself to the fact that she might well spend the remainder of the war confined to the small room. Her room on the second floor was larger than her cabin on board the Chameleon—and had a window to boot, bars and all—but the idea of spending months, maybe even years, confined to the room made her break out in a cold sweat. No salty air. No sea. No sand between her toes. No sun warming her skin. Just the four plain walls that surrounded her, a narrow but comfortable bed, a dresser, and a chair.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about Quint—Lieutenant Tyler, she reminded herself when she remembered him with a trace of warmth. She could recall every moment they’d spent together, every scene etched into her memory. Her first sight of him in Terrence’s shop. The ball at the hotel. Playing chess. Loving him on board her ship. Their wedding. Every moment was crystal clear… up to the moment the Yankees had burst into their bedroom.

  Had there been a sign of his betrayal that she had missed? If he had given himself away at any time, she had been too blinded by love, or passion, or sheer stupidity, to see it.

  She cherished the satisfaction of knowing she’d had him fooled for a while. Obviously he had been using her to get to Captain Sherwood. She didn’t believe for a moment that he’d known before he’d seen her on board the Chameleon that she was captain of her own ship. It didn’t ease her pain any. Perhaps he had been caught in his lie. Maybe he really had cared for her and had been trapped by his own deceit.

  But if that was the case, why hadn’t he told her the truth? She had been willing to leave everything behind for him. A foolish mistake she wouldn’t make again.

  Nothing could drive him from her dreams. She woke in the middle of the night with the blood running as cold as ice in her veins, scared and reaching out for him. It always took a moment, a disoriented moment of total fear, before she realized where she was, and remembered what Quint—Lieutenant Tyler—had done. That was when she was forced to face the worst part of it all.

  She still loved him. If he were to come to her at night and climb into the narrow bed with her, she would let him love her. She would welcome him with open arms—and hate herself for it by the light of day. And that was the worst of it, acknowledging a part of herself that she couldn’t control.

  Lily paced the small room. There were books, a few well-read volumes of poetry, on the dresser. She had tried to read them, but her mind wouldn’t stay on the printed word. Her mind invariably wandered, and the book was discarded.

  She heard the familiar sound of the key turning in the sturdy lock, and the door was pushed open. Sergeant Hughes was the least favorite of her guards. He sometimes openly leered at her, when he thought no one else was watching, and once he had dared to lay his sweaty palm against the bodice of the gray wool dress she had been issued.

  Lily had responded with a boot to his shin, and he hadn’t dared to touch her again, though the look in his eyes warned her that he would like to make her pay for her unladylike response.

  “Let’s go,” he said curtly, waiting impatiently in the open doorway.

  Lily stood, as still and cool as a marble statue in the middle of the room. In truth, Sergeant Hughes still frightened her, but she refused to allow him to see her fear as she stared him down.

  “Where am I being taken?” she asked frostily.

  “Interrogation.”

  Lily sighed and moved with a lethargy she copied from Captain Brighton. The lazy steps, the slow pace, even the slant of her head infuriated the sergeant. He was a military man, efficient and deadly. Lily knew this was a duty he viewed as beneath him, guarding women. And still he ogled her, his beady eyes lingering on her breasts. She was tempted to give him another swift kick.

  Lily walked down the familiar hallway. More bloody interrogation. She couldn’t tell them anything that would be helpful, and even if she could, they should know by now that she wouldn’t. She took short, slow steps, purposely infuriating the sergeant. Even the walls of the hallway seemed to close in on her, suffocating her slowly. When she tried to take a deep breath, she seemed to feel a heavy weight on her chest.

  Lily stepped into the room, ignoring the two sentries who stood on either side of the door. She was familiar with the routine, and with the room. It had probably been the office of the headmaster, or the headmistress, before the war had closed the obviously exclusive school. Bookcases lined three walls, and a massive walnut desk sat in the middle of the room. The chairs were covered in burgundy leather, and a cream-colored rug softened her steps as she entered the room.

  She expected to see the white-haired naval officer who had questioned her so frequently over the past two weeks. He had pale skin, and her refusal to speak so frustrated him that he had occasionally turned an alarmingly deep shade of purple. She had brought him, more than once, to his feet with a shout of exasperation.

  But this man was new. She could tell even though she saw only his back, the blue of his uniform stretched across broad shoulders as he bent forward to study something on the desk before him. As soon as the door opened fully, he turned slowly, and Lily had to fight to keep from screaming.

  Lieutenant Quintin Tyler, with his hair cut short and his cheeks shaved smooth, stood before her. His uniform was perfectly fitted, and he looked wonderful. It was a shocking sight, her Quint in the uniform that had haunted her dreams for years.

  Lily did an about-face and ran into the sergeant, butting her head into his chest before she could make herself stop. “I have nothing to say to this man,” she muttered, her eyes on the shiny buttons of the sergeant’s uniform, her stiff back to Quint.

  Hughes didn’t move. He looked over her shoulder to Quint and then closed the door.

  “Sergeant,” Quint said crisply. “Wait in the hall.”

  “Sir, beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I wouldn’t recommend bein’ shut up in a room with this one, and no protection.”

  “Protection?” Lily could hear the smile in his voice. “From a woman?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lily turned to Quint, once again composed. The shock of seeing him was over. She had pushed it away. “He’s only saying that because I gave him a limp that lasted a day or two.” She smiled coldly. “And he knows that if he tries to maul me again, I’ll cripple him.”

  She wanted Quint to know what kind of situation he’d left her in. She wanted him to feel guilty, and it worked. Quint was glaring at the sergeant as the red-faced Hughes finally backed out of the room, closing t
he door quietly behind him.

  “Did he hurt you, Lily?” Quint moved toward her, but she quickly evaded him.

  “I’m capable of taking care of myself,” she said calmly. “What do you want?”

  Lily turned her back to him, unable to continue to look into that face and show no emotion.

  Quint sighed. Had he expected her to forget? “I’m going to get you out of here,” he said softly.

  Lily spun on her heel to face him. “A prison break? Won’t that hamper your career?”

  “Not an escape.” Quint picked up a sheet of paper from the desk beside him. “Sign this document, and you’ll be released.”

  Lily took the paper from his hand, being careful not to touch Quint’s skin. Being in the same room with him was powerful enough. She couldn’t allow herself to touch him. With a strength of will she summoned from deep inside, she grinned as she read the document, then laughed as she tossed it back to Quint.

  “Bloody hell,” she said brightly. “Do you really expect me to sign that?”

  Quint leaned on the desk, placing his face close to hers. “You damn well will sign.”

  “No. I will not swear allegiance to the Union, and I will not swear not to resume my business.”

  “Why not, for God’s sake?” Quint was clearly exasperated, and Lily loved it.

  “Because I wouldn’t mean it. It would be a lie. Some people may be able to take a vow lightly, but I do not.” She wondered if he knew that she wasn’t speaking only of the oath before her. “I have my pride, and my honor —”

  “Damn your pride to hell,” Quint seethed. “It’s what got you here in the first place. You never should have been on that ship.” He was angry, not only because she refused to sign the document, but because she looked so pale, and even thinner than he remembered. “It took me all these weeks just to get the government to agree to this. It wasn’t easy. I had to explain away the soldier I shot when you broke me out of prison. Don’t think they dismissed that incident without a second thought. If the man had died, I never would have made it back here. I’d be in a cell of my own, or hanging from a gallows.”