An Outlaw in Wonderland (2 page)

“Mikey can find anything,” Ethan said. “Sneak up on anyone. He’s been that way since
he could walk.”

“And you know this how?”

“He’s my brother.”

Law’s sharp gaze flicked back and forth between the two of them several times before
he murmured, “No one more loyal than a brother.”

The tight ball of fear in Mikey’s chest loosened. Everything was going to be all right.

•   •   •

“Matron!”

Annabeth Phelan paused outside the surgery. Dr. Ethan Walsh was up to his elbows in
a patient. Well, not literally, though from the blood coating his arms, it was very
difficult to tell.

“Don’t dally,” he snapped. “I need ye over here.”

She did as she was told, not only because he was a doctor and she was a matron, but
because his Irish accent sounded exactly like her papa’s. God rest his soul. And Mama’s,
too, along with those of nearly everyone else she knew.

Due to the Union advance toward Richmond, which had begun with the bloody battle in
the Wilderness nearly two months past, Chimborazo Hospital possessed far more patients
than the staff was capable of caring for. The surgeons were overworked, but at this
point, who wasn’t?

“Should I call a steward?” she asked.

The main occupations of a matron were to feed and comfort the soldiers. Thus far she’d
held hands, written letters, and called a steward to remove the dead. Having nursed
her parents, and many of their friends, through their final illnesses, Annabeth was
capable of much more. Not that anyone had asked.

“Shove yer hands in that bucket,” Walsh ordered.

Annabeth followed instructions, hissing as the liquid burned areas previously scrubbed
raw. Dr. Walsh insisted on cleanliness in his surgery to the point that most of the
other doctors sneered and whispered. However, fewer of his patients had died of gangrene
and fevers than any of the others.

“The sting will pass. But it’s necessary before you touch him, aye?” Annabeth nodded.
“I know the others laugh, but cleansing everything with alcohol seems to help.” He
lifted one shoulder. “At the least, it won’t hurt. Now, I need you to sew his wound.
He’s torn it open, thrashin’ about.”

“I’m not a nurse.”

Walsh lifted his gaze. His light gray eyes shone brightly in his sun-darkened face.
He was a striking man. The other matrons tittered whenever he walked past.

“That isn’t true,” he murmured.

Annabeth frowned, trying to remember what she’d said before his eyes had captured
her. “I’m merely a matron, sir.”

A status revealed by her dark gown and cap, along with the once-white apron. At Chimborazo,
nursing duties were performed by detailed and disabled soldiers or slaves. Although
at this point in the war, all able bodies were
in
the war. The assignment of soldiers to nursing had trickled to nearly none.

Walsh waved a hand dripping with blood. A few drops flecked Annabeth’s bodice. She
ignored them. She’d been flecked with worse. “I’ve seen ye work. You’ve nursed before,
and blood”—he eyed what he’d tossed in her direction—“doesn’t bother ye.”

She wondered if he’d flecked her on purpose, then shrugged. Blood
didn’t
bother her. Which, considering her life over the past few years, was a very lucky
thing.

“What do you need me to do?”

Dr. Walsh smiled, and the expression made him appear younger than she’d believed him
to be—nearer her own twenty-three instead of her eldest brother’s thirty-two. Or the
thirty-two he would have been if he hadn’t died at Sharpsburg nearly two years past.

Annabeth pushed thoughts of Abner from her mind. If she didn’t, she’d start thinking
of how James had died at Ball’s Bluff and Hoyt at New Bern, then Saul at Shiloh. But
nearly as bad as their names on the death rolls had been the lack of any news at all
of her youngest brother, Luke.

“If ye would sew the wound closed once more,” Dr. Walsh said. “I’ll be keepin’ him
still.”

Annabeth lowered her gaze from the doctor to the patient. She’d heard they’d started
handing guns to anyone who could hold on to them, but she hadn’t realized exactly
what that meant until now. This child didn’t even have a beard.

“You’d do a much better job than me with the needle,” Annabeth said.

“Doubtful. My samplers were never the rage.”

For an instant Annabeth stared at him. Then she laughed. “Nor mine.”

She was better at shooting than sewing. Not that it made any difference. Certainly
she could have cut her hair, worn her brothers’ clothes, and joined up, but she’d
believed she would be of more help here. If anyone would actually allow her to help.
So why was she hesitating now?

“If he comes about and thrashes,” Dr. Walsh continued, “ye’d not be able to hold him
still. He’s stronger than ye’d think for one who’s been gut shot. But that’s often
the case when the pain takes over.”

Annabeth had held her brothers still often enough. But that had involved underhanded
methods of pinching, hair pulling, and kicking areas no lady should know about, let
alone kick. A lifetime with the Phelan brothers had taught Annabeth to fight dirty
or lose. As she could not use those methods on a sick man, Annabeth retrieved the
suture needle and thread from the instrument table.

“Silver suture wire is a thing of the past,” the doctor said. “I’ve not seen such
luxuries since just after Manassas.”

“I’ve
never
seen suture wire.” Annabeth pressed the gaping belly wound together and shoved the
needle through the jagged edges.

“I miss it.” Walsh wiped the welling blood away with a cloth drenched in the bucket
of water that wasn’t merely water. “Doesn’t pull loose as easily as thread.”

“Mmm,” she murmured, concentrating on the wound, working quickly. The soldier stirred
now and again but didn’t awaken.

She finished the sutures, reached for scissors, and had Dr. Walsh slap them into her
palm. Startled, Annabeth nearly dropped the instrument. Her gaze flicked to the doctor’s,
but his remained on the patient. Several days’ growth of beard darkened his chin and
cheeks. Had he been on duty that long? Or had he merely lost interest, as so many
had, in things that did not matter?

Annabeth snipped the thread at the final knot and laid the scissors and needle on
the tray. Walsh leaned close, studying her work. “Ye’ve done this before.” His eerily
pale eyes lifted. “Many times.”

“I have brothers.”
Had
, her mind echoed . . . but she ignored it.

“Ah.” He straightened, his true height surprising her. Until now, she’d seen him only
bent over someone. “That explains it, then.”

Annabeth was considered tall for a woman. In truth, she was tall for a man. That,
combined with her bright red hair and tendency to speak her mind—not to mention this
hellish war, which had taken away all the boys and killed most of them before they’d
had any chance to become men—might be the reason she was still Miss Phelan rather
than Mrs. something else

For an instant she enjoyed looking into the eyes of a handsome fellow, imagining what
it would be like if she weren’t doing so over a bloody body, in a hospital full of
many more. She couldn’t quite manage it.

Annabeth stepped back. “If you don’t need anything else . . .”

“I’m keeping ye from yer duties.”

“This was more important.” And the type of work she’d much rather be doing. “Good
day, Doctor.”

“I’ve watched ye,” he murmured.

A trickle of unease made her pause only steps from escape. “Sir?”

“Yer talents are wasted writin’ letters and stirrin’ the soup.”

Steeling herself, she faced him. “No one else agrees.”

“Dinnae worry.” He gave her that smile again, the one that made her breath catch and
her cheeks flush. “They will.”

E
than watched Annabeth Phelan hurry out the door. There was something about her that
intrigued him.

“Fool,” he muttered. He had no time for courting. Especially as he was living a lie.
But she had healing hands that should be put to better use.

A sudden flash of the better uses he might have for them made Ethan grit his teeth
and count out loud in Gaelic.
“A haon, a dó, a trí, a ceathair, a . . .”

He struggled to recall the word for five, and instead remembered the fiery shade of
her hair, the cream of her skin, the dot of freckles across her nose, and the scents
of lavender and mint all around her. Perhaps he should count to one hundred, but he
didn’t know how.

He had been too long without a woman if the mere sight of one caused his body to stir
and his mind to forget what was important. He could wind up hung for a spy if he wasn’t
careful. And a man thinking with his
bod
was far from careful.

Ethan’s patient remained unconscious. While a good thing during the stitching, the
boy’s continued lack of awareness worried him.

Ethan sniffed the wound, caught no scent of bowel or rot. He would keep a close eye
on the youth. Not that there was much he could do about a gangrenous belly wound,
but he would not have the boy die alone.

The soldier still wore his trousers—homespun, not gray—but these days many of the
Confederate forces were fresh out of uniforms and everything else. Ethan quickly searched
the pockets, pulled out a small scrap of paper so stained with blood that whatever
had been written on it was as gone as the lad’s boots. This had been the case with
nearly all of the scraps Ethan had discovered so far. However, delirious ramblings
were often not as delirious as they seemed.

“Gotta cross,” the youth muttered. “Cross the river.”

Ethan, who’d had his hand in the boy’s back pocket, took it out. “Yer fine,” he soothed.
The soldier’s eyelids fluttered. “Not crossin’ the river anytime soon.”

“Rendezvous,” he blurted, and Ethan stilled. “Rangers to Rectortown.”

“Yer not speaking of the eternal river, are ye, now?” Ethan murmured. “Go on.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel Mosby, sir.” The boy groaned and reached for his wound. Ethan snatched
his hand before it could find the mark. “I delivered the message. Rangers are a comin’.”

Colonel John S. Mosby was one of the most wanted Confederates of the war. His 43rd
Battalion of cavalry were partisans, guerillas in truth, harrying Union supply lines
and disrupting transportation. They posed lightning strikes on their enemy, then rode
off on some of the best horseflesh in the country and disappeared, blending in with
the local folk.

Ethan chewed his lip as he frowned at his patient’s homespun trousers, which now took
on a whole new meaning. It was said that Mosby’s Rangers wore no distinguishing uniform
beyond a bit of gray on each man’s clothes. He lifted the boy’s discarded, bloody
shirt and spotted a single gray pocket.

The tide of the war had turned after Gettysburg, but the conflict was still far from
over. The end of Mosby’s raids would have a twofold effect—bolstering Union morale
even as it decimated Confederate confidence. Ethan had to get this information to
Mikey. If they could use it to find Mosby, they could stop him.

The head matron bustled into the room, stopping short at the sight of Ethan. From
her expression, the woman thought he was a lunatic. Most of the staff did. But they
couldn’t argue with his results—at least in his hearing.

Dr. Brookstone had believed in two things—the genius of Shakespeare and the necessity
of cleanliness in the workplace. He’d come to understand, and Ethan had too, that
putrefaction was a result of invisible particles in the air. If they entered an open
wound, infection set in. The particles could travel on the instruments used, the sutures,
even the surgeon’s, the nurse’s, or the patient’s hands.

Brookstone had washed everything that touched a patient, including the doctor, with
a mixture of alcohol and water. The practice had become second nature to Ethan. To
those who didn’t like it, he said,
Ag fuck tu,
though never out loud.

“Mrs. Dimmity,” Ethan greeted. “How lovely to see ye, me dear.”

Mrs. Dimmity had been a matron since the day of the hospital’s inception nearly three
years before. Chimborazo had begun life as a training ground for the Confederate forces.
When the soldiers marched away, they’d left behind more than one hundred new wooden
buildings, referred to as wards.

Dr. James B. McCaw had arrived with Mrs. Dimmity in tow and set to work turning those
empty buildings into a hospital. Rumor had it that Mrs. Dimmity had served as the
doctor’s nursemaid. Ethan found this difficult to believe. McCaw was thirty-eight.
If that rumor were true, Mrs. Dimmity would be nearing sixty.

Ethan did not doubt rumors of her age because she appeared young. She was as wrinkled
as an apple dried by the sun, yet she marched across the room, her step as solid as
Old Ironsides. Ethan doubted even a cannonball could make her retreat. She was on
her feet before the sun rose and long after it fell. There’d been days when Ethan
would have begged to sit down. If Mrs. Dimmity hadn’t still been standing.

“I have a favor to ask of ye,” Ethan began as Mrs. Dimmity reached for a cloth.

Ethan
tsk
ed and, though she scowled, the woman moved to the bucket and plunged her hands within.
She even hunted for a fresh rag with which to wipe the patient’s face instead of the
already-bloody one she’d originally chosen.

Though Ethan would have preferred to finish what he’d begun with the boy, the soldier
was in good hands—now that she’d washed them—and he had other duties.

“Return the private to the infirmary,” he ordered. “If there’s any sign of fever,
send someone to fetch me.”

“And where will you be, sir?”

“My quarters.” The muscle beneath Ethan’s eye fluttered, and he rubbed it absently.
“Resting.” Ethan headed for the door at the same nimble pace with which Mrs. Dimmity
had arrived.

“You had a request, Doctor?”

He was so intent on getting where he needed to be and then back to his quarters before
anyone knew he hadn’t gone there, for an instant Ethan couldn’t remember what it was.
However, when he turned and saw the patient, he recalled those clever, healing hands.

“See that Miss Phelan is relieved of her duties as matron.”

“Sir?” Her wrinkled face wrinkled even more. “She’s one of my best.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “I’ll have her as my nurse.”

Mrs. Dimmity gasped. “That is not done!”

“’Tis now,” he said, and left.

•   •   •

Despite his size, Mikey blended into the area around Richmond with ease—lots of trees,
plenty of streams, hills that rolled on forever. He’d spent a lifetime tracking animals.
If
they
hadn’t seen him, people certainly wouldn’t.

John Law’s instructions were simple. Mikey stayed in an abandoned cabin not far from
the Confederate capital. If anyone but the agent or Ethan arrived, he would pretend
to be mute. Mikey had attempted both an Irish and a Southern accent. Neither had been
convincing.

So far Mikey had always known folks were coming long before they arrived. He slipped
into the trees, listened, looked, waited for them to leave, then returned.

He always knew Ethan was coming, too. Not that his brother was overly loud or careless.
Mikey just heard things no one else did—from farther away than he should.

Ethan dismounted, led the horse to the water trough, then joined Mikey on the porch.
“Ye all right?”

Mikey nodded.

“Anyone been by?” Mikey shrugged, and Ethan sighed. “Ye can speak to
me
, ye know?”

Mikey had done so little talking of late, he’d gotten out of the habit. He cleared
his throat; his first few words came out quite hoarse. “And you don’t have to use
Da’s voice while you’re here.”

“I know.” Ethan dropped the accent. “You get used to it.”

Mikey was glad he didn’t have to pretend to be someone he wasn’t all the time. From
Ethan’s exhausted appearance, it wore on a man.

“John Law says he’s gonna start giving me more to do.”

Ethan frowned. “Law says a lot.”

“He teaches me things.”

“Like what?”

“Spy things. I can teach ’em to you.”

For an instant Ethan seemed interested; then his frown returned. “What does he want
you to do now?”

“He recruited a sniper. Fellow needs a spotter to keep an eye out while he has his
to the gun.”

“No,” Ethan said.

“I can’t just sit here all the time. I’d be good at watchin’ his back. You know I
would.”

“What if I bring information and you aren’t here?” Ethan asked.

“You leave a note, in that code of Law’s. Like we talked about.”

Ethan let out a long breath, and Mikey knew he’d won. Not that he’d planned to let
Ethan tell him he couldn’t work with that sniper. Or leastways, if Ethan told him
no, he hadn’t planned on listening. Mikey was almost eighteen—a man grown. Had been
for a while now, and he’d do what he thought was best.

“I have to get back,” Ethan said. “Before someone realizes that I’ve gone.”

“What’ll you say if they do?”

“I was out riding. I couldn’t sleep. I needed air.”

The lies tripped off Ethan’s tongue like Gospel. Mikey wished he could lie like that.

“Tell Law that Mosby’s called the Rangers to Rectortown.”

Mikey nodded and stood. Law ranted a lot about Mosby.

“Where is he?” Ethan asked.

“Not tellin’.”

“I’m your brother.”

“Don’t care.”

“What if someone sees you?”

Mikey snorted. That wasn’t going to happen.

“All right,” Ethan agreed. “Just . . .” He set his hand on Mikey’s arm. “Be careful.”
He started back the way he’d come. “If anything happened to you, I’d . . .” Ethan
spoke again in their father’s voice. “I’d kick yer ass so hard ye’d never let it happen
again, me boyo.”

Sometimes when Ethan spoke like that, Mikey felt as if ghostly fingers had trailed
across his neck. Other times, like now, it made him laugh.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “What could happen?”

•   •   •

When Annabeth reported for her shift the following morning, Mrs. Dimmity awaited her.

“You’re no longer a matron.”

Annabeth blinked at the woman, whose usually placid face had gone frighteningly florid.
“I . . . uh . . . What?”

“You helped the pretty doctor, didn’t you?”

Mrs. Dimmity didn’t have to explain which doctor she meant. There was none so lovely
as Ethan Walsh.

“He told me to,” she said simply. She’d do the same again. How could she peer into
the man’s pleading gray gaze and walk away?

But what if her behavior was cause for dismissal? At Chimborazo, women were maids
and cooks, letter writers and hand holders. Nothing more. The idea of spending her
days as she’d spent them before she’d come here—alone on the farm, waiting for the
army—blue or gray, what did it matter?—to confiscate her remaining half bag of flour
and the last scrawny chicken, if deserters didn’t first do worse—terrified her.

She had a gun; she even had a few bullets, and she’d learned to shoot, ride, and hunt
along with her brothers. But Annabeth was still a woman alone, and it was only a matter
of time until something horrible happened.

She drew a breath. “I’ll leave straightaway.”

“You will not!”

“But—”

“You’ll report to Dr. Walsh. You’ve been reassigned as his
personal
nurse.”

Annabeth frowned at the woman’s tone, which left no doubt what she thought Annabeth
would truly be doing. She opened her mouth to deny the unvoiced accusation, then shut
it again. Perhaps Mrs. Dimmity was right. They’d all seen women in Richmond who had
once been ladies become something else in order to appease that annoying need to eat.

“We’ll have more casualties soon.” The older woman shooed her toward the door. “Another
skirmish. Best be ready.”

Annabeth backed into the hall and had the door firmly shut in her face. She had the
feeling there would be many doors shut the same in her future. Unless—

She threw back her shoulders. She hadn’t worked this hard to let some handsome Irish
doctor ruin her. She would tell him no; then she would go home and do her best not
to die.

Annabeth marched through the surgery ward, the infirmary, and the offices with no
sight of her quarry. No one had seen the doctor since he’d left the night before.
She could go to his quarters—if she knew where they were—however, that would serve
only to prove to those who already cast her suspicious glances that the rumors about
her and Dr. Walsh were true. Instead, she returned to the room where she’d met him.
She did not have long to wait.

When he arrived, Ethan Walsh rushed to the bucket, washed his hands, face, and neck.
He appeared a lot dirtier than he should be for a night spent resting. His dark trousers
were damp, his once-white shirt sprinkled with dust.

His gaze lifted and he saw her. For an instant, she thought he might bolt—or maybe
that was her—then he smiled and dried his hands on a clean cloth. “I’m glad yer here.
We have wounded on the way.”

When she continued to stand where she was, his smile faded. “Is somethin’ amiss?”

“Everyone thinks I’m your whore.”

He blinked at her crudity, but she’d always found it best to say what she meant straightaway.
She blamed the war that she was alone, but in truth, she probably would have remained
a spinster regardless. She’d have been a dismal failure at dancing and prancing and
spouting pretty lies like a lady.

“I . . .” he began. “What?”

“Where are you from that you don’t understand what a request like yours means?”

“Ireland,” he murmured absently, then rubbed under his eye, which twitched as if something
lived and jumped beneath the skin.