Gwyneth Atlee (7 page)

But General Banks had not been interested in rumors, just in
Darien’s knowledge of the workings of New Orleans. Colonel Jeffers
should have let the matter drop, but the rude Kentucky native would
not let the matter rest.

Jeffers’s investigation had already cost another of Butler’s
former aides a death sentence. Remembering Major Stolz’s
hanging, Darien wished to God he’d had the chance to kill
Jeffers instead of the colonel’s lackey, Lieutenant Simonton. But
in doing Jeffers’s bidding, Simonton had gotten too close to evidence
that would incriminate Russell. Far too close, Darien remembered,
until he’d had no choice but to mix a poison into Simonton’s
drink to escape the gallows.

Disagreeable as it had proved, Lieutenant Simonton’s murder
turned out to be a happy accident, since Yvette had been the handy
scapegoat. If only she hadn’t shared her suspicions with Marie as well
instead of just Lieutenant Simonton, as Russell had first thought. If
only he could have avoided killing his beloved Marie, too.

Her white throat, mottled with dark bruises, flashed before his eyes.
He thought of how he’d kissed it, so many times before, when her
family believed she was visiting her insane friend Madame Bouchard.
How he’d kissed and touched her, how he’d charmed her out of her
long-guarded virginity. Before he’d had to kill her.

His fingers curled and clenched, as if they could not forget the sin
they had committed. Or been forced to commit by that damnable little
spy Yvette. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, his mind transposing
the dark splotches that ringed Marie’s pale throat onto her sister, his
plans drawing the noose around her neck to spare his own.

He smiled, envisioning Yvette’s swift fall through the gallows, the
sharp jerk as the rope stopped her, and the hideous death dance of her
limbs. Just as poor Marie convulsed as he’d squeezed tight—all
because of what Yvette had done.

What he intended would be in truth no murder; he merely acted as
the tool of justice, as blameless as the executioner. Yvette deserved to
die far more than Simonton or Marie. After all, she was the one most
guilty of their deaths. If she hadn’t been so damned suspicious, if she
hadn’t dug after his secrets so tenaciously, both of them would be
alive. Their blood was on her hands.

Or more accurately, her mouth. He’d close it now, forever. Close it
so she’d never sing one of her damned mocking songs again.
And then he would resign from the army so he could go home to
his wife. Only this time when he saw Constance, she’d realize that he
now had his own fortune. She’d be forced to admit that at long last
he’d made good his predictions of success.
Finally, Darien’s worries prompted him to abandon his comfortable
seat. After straightening his frock coat and sleeking back his hair, he
left the main cabin and ventured out onto the deck. It took him only
a few minutes to find a group of men talking quietly, apparently as
restless as he felt. One recalled a woman he’d seen on the wharf
boat earlier.
“Pretty little thing, dark hair and a pert figure. I knowed a girl like
that once back in—”
“I’m not interested in hearing how attractive she is,” Darien interrupted.
“The woman is wanted for questioning for serious offenses. I only
need to know where she is now.”
“Hell’s bells, Cap’n,” the short, slight young soldier answered. One
shoulder was several inches higher than the other, giving him a
distinctly lopsided appearance. “What kind of ‘serious offenses’ could
a gal like that get into?”
The fool didn’t think any straighter than he stood. Damned
imbecile.
“Is murder serious enough for you?” Darien growled. “Murder of a
Union officer?”
He could all too well imagine Yvette laughing at his frustration,
immortalizing it into more verses for her song. Back in New Orleans
they were still laughing at him. All except Colonel Jeffers, who was too
busy investigating. Darien had to find the girl before she managed to
contact that pious bastard and ruin everything for him.
The soldier’s expression sobered. “I hear tell them New Orleans
ladies did every goldarned thing they could think of to let our boys
know how they wasn’t welcome. But I never guessed they gone and
killed folks, too.”
If Darien were still headmaster at his own school, he’d box this
laggard’s ears for his atrocious grammar. But of course that was
ridiculous. No young man so obviously ill bred would ever meet the
standards of his august academy. Besides, the school had long since
closed its doors.
How could he forget how Constance had laughed at that failure? His
rage sparked hot against the memory. She’d never understood that he
was destined for great things. Oh, she’d claimed to believe it when they
were courting and he’d still had a healthy portion of Grandfather’s
money. But she’d never really shared his faith in his potential.
Darien returned his attention to the dolt before him. He had to be
certain the soldier would come running if he chanced to see Yvette.
“Miss Augeron is a danger to every man aboard.”
“A little thing like her?” His laughter died a quick death as he noted
Darien’s expression. “Sorry, Cap’n. Just hard to imagine, that’s all.
We’ll keep a lookout for her.”
“See that you do, man. See that you do,” Russell responded. “I’m
eager to take her back to New Orleans to face justice.”
Actually, he wanted nothing of the sort. If he had, he would not
have orchestrated her escape or chased after her so far. Though she’d
evaded him longer than he had expected, he had her cornered now—
and just the way he wished.
All alone. And as far from New Orleans—and justice —as she’d
ever been in all her life.

Gabe made his way toward the bow, keeping the starlit river to his
left. Each blade of the paddle wheel slapped its wet rhythm against
the dark waters, carrying him that much closer to his home.

The thought of home struck him like dissonant notes on a piano, a
chord that ought to resonate with sweetness but disappointingly rang
sour. For more than two years his every breath had been directed
toward returning there, to prove to his mother and his sisters he’d
survived. To face his father if only to show him he was man enough to
own up to what he’d done in his last battle.

But he knew now he’d been lying to himself. If he were really man
enough, the dark splashing of the steamer wouldn’t drench his soul in
dread and his conversation with Eve Alexander wouldn’t have
churned up so much guilt and fear—and want.

As he painstakingly picked his path among the men who crowded
nearly every open space, his mind navigated the varied feelings she’d
stirred up. First of all, gratitude. Almost certainly, Eve had saved his
life this evening not only by standing up to Silas Deming but by
listening to the story that had burned inside him, as hot and lethal as
a fire in a coal mine. He felt an undeniable attraction, too, a desire to
explore the surge of sweetness he’d tasted with her kiss.

He smiled, remembering the way she’d felt, the softness of her lips
and the warmth of her small hand as it held his. His steps faltered as
his mind replayed the little sound she’d made deep in her throat. Had
it been, as he hoped, a fierce hunger awakening, or was it instead the
voice a woman gave to regret, a desperate desire to take back what
had been too hastily offered? He sucked cool night air between
clenched jaws, sure that he’d been right the first time.

She’d felt the same strong current of attraction despite the fact that
she clearly saw him as an enemy. She certainly hadn’t been shy about
expressing her contempt for those soldiers who’d worn the Union
blue. He wondered if that beautiful mouth of hers had ever offered
comfort to a Rebel soldier, like the ones who had systematically
starved so many men in Andersonville.

Had she been going tonight to meet some secessionist among the deck
passengers? Why else had she been down below close to the boilers?
As a wave of nausea rolled over him, he wondered why it mattered.
Why should he care who she was, where she was going, whom she
loved? Certainly he owed her his thanks for being such a Good
Samaritan, but the last thing that he needed was an entanglement with
any woman, much less some damned Southerner.
His thoughts turned bitter as they circled back to Georgia, to the
things he’d had to do to survive the camp. He thought of the times he
and Jacob had worked their hands bloody using a knife and a railroad
spike to fashion buckets out of canteens, oyster cans, or whatever else
was handy. They’d sold these to other prisoners and then used some
of the proceeds to buy their way onto the never-ending burial details
so they could leave the camp and gain the chance to trade.
Gabe remembered digging those graves outside of camp, though at
times he felt so weak, he feared he might collapse inside one and then
be covered by another exhausted prisoner. The holes they dug were
never deep enough, for always, always, more corpses awaited the thin
comfort of their earthen shrouds and the prisoners hurried toward
their stolen moments with the local farmers. For a price, guards turned
their backs as food and money changed hands over corpses, even
those of men the prisoners had known. But never any of the four
friends. All of them shared whatever they could manage, their loyalty
surviving earth that oozed with maggots and air fouled by an
unspeakable stench.
And they’d all survived despite the damned Confederate guards,
and especially their superiors, the men who’d decided to withhold the
most basic elements of life: food, clean water, shelter. Gabe hoped to
God there was a hell so that Capt. Henry Wirz, the bastard in charge
of the prison, would burn there forever.
But even as the devil’s flames licked Wirz’s boots in his imagination,
Gabe knew that a young woman as kind as Eve knew nothing of the
real horrors of the war. Yes, she read the papers, according to what
she’d told him, but he’d learned the hard way that the stirring
accounts in the press bore little resemblance to the mud and blood and
mayhem that existed in the field. Hating Eve for Camp Sumter, the
Andersonville prison, made about as much sense as some Southerner
cursing Gabe’s mother for the Union soldiers who’d looted their way
across the South.
Still, if he had good sense, he’d stay away from her. He already had
trouble looking to throw him off this steamer and waiting for him at
home in Ohio. He could ill afford the complication of a tart-mouthed
Southerner.
“. . . pretty, dark-haired girl on board, with hazel eyes. About twenty
years old and stands about five feet one.”
The voice wrenched Gabe’s attention from what he was doing, and
he tripped over a sleeping prisoner’s outstretched arm. As soon as he
apologized, he moved where he could hear the man’s words clearly.
“Her name is Yvette Augeron, although she’s likely to be using an
alias. She’s wanted for serious crimes against the Union.”
He peered around a corner, toward the bow. Even in the dim lamplight,
Gabe noted the officer’s crisp blue uniform. A tall, elegant-looking
figure, he held himself as straight as the creases on his trousers, as if
he meant to demonstrate refined posture to his inferiors. As with his
stance, his light brown hair and slightly darker beard were so perfectly
well ordered, they looked like something from an illustration, not real
life. The jackass looked as if his grooming hadn’t suffered one whit
from the war.
Or, Gabe wondered, did his instantaneous dislike of the man
stem from his realization that it was Eve he was describing? Eve, or
Yvette Augeron, who was wanted for crimes against the Union.
Serious crimes, the man was saying. That must mean that he
planned to arrest her.
The image of Eve as a criminal didn’t sit right with him. She’d
helped him, hadn’t she? Even though he’d been a Union soldier, someone
she’d barely met, she’d stepped in at her own risk to save his life. Gabe
didn’t know what sort of charges this darkhaired officer might have
against her, but he did know he couldn’t let the fellow catch
her unaware.
He wished he could hear the other soldiers’ responses, but all Gabe
could make out was the soft rumble of their words. The next clear
voice was the officer’s.
“Capt. Darien Russell. If you hear anything, I expect a full report.”
With that, the captain suddenly strode around the bow’s curve and
rammed into Gabe.
“Watch where you’re standing, Private!” he snapped.
As if there were any other place where Gabe might step.
“Excuse me”—Gabe let the pause stretch out longer than he should
have, until the fellow’s face screwed up with indignation—”sir.”
“Salute,
you insolent laggard. You prisoners have forgotten everything
that was ever drummed into your thick skulls. With men like you, it’s a
wonder our side won.”
“I’m not sure we have yet,
sir.
I heard the guards say they’d seen
muzzle flashes on the shore tonight,” Gabe lied to vex him.
Captain Russell glanced quickly over his shoulder toward the east.
“Better watch yourself,” Gabe said. “I hear they fancy wider targets
than us prisoners. And those pretty gold bars give them something
good to aim at.”
“At which to aim,” Russell corrected primly. “Now stand aside. I
have government business to attend.”
He shoved Gabe into another sleeping soldier as he passed.
“Damn it! What the hell—!” the startled man yelped.
Apparently, Russell was in too much of a hurry to lecture the prisoner
about his failure to salute, for he rushed away. Gabe trailed in his
wake, leaving the soldier to continue cursing his rude awakening.
As Russell strode toward the main cabin, Gabe wondered how he
could conceivably prevent a captain from detaining a woman passenger.
He tried once more to reconcile what little he knew of Eve with the
notion that she might be some kind of criminal. His gut feeling told
him she was far less capable of wrongdoing than this pretentious fool
who meant to detain her.
His mind struggled desperately to form a plan to stop this captain
without getting himself in any deeper trouble than he was already in.