Mischief and Magnolias (29 page)

It turned out to be surprisingly easy to slip up to the Texas deck. No one paid any attention to them as they stepped into one of the cabins not far from the huge paddle.

Shaelyn crossed the deep-pile area rug covering the floor, Brenna trailing behind her, saluted the portrait of George Washington on the wall, and pressed her hand against the wood paneling above and to the right of the first President. She heard a click before the section of wall moved a fraction of an inch, just enough space for her to slide her fingers in and push the panel open all the way to reveal a small but comfortable room.

Two cots, like those issued by the army, were placed against the walls, blankets folded neatly at the bottom. The narrow space between the cots made maneuvering a little difficult, but it didn't matter. This little hidden room contained everything they'd need for a few days, including a commode hidden behind a curtain. “We'll be safe here,” Shaelyn said, “as long as no one decides to take the other cabin for the duration of the trip.”

Brenna sucked in her breath as they stepped inside and Shaelyn closed the panel behind them. “What is this? I've never seen this before.”

Shaelyn shook her head. “Oh, Mama, you're so funny. You know what this room is. It's where Papa hid the goods he smuggled.”

“Your father was a smuggler?” Disbelief colored her tone and her eyes widened. “You mean—oh, I don't believe that for a minute, Shaelyn. You're making that up.”

Shaelyn turned in the small space between the cots and stared at her mother. “You didn't know?”

Brenna said nothing, but she didn't have to. The expression on her face spoke for her.

“I'm sorry, Mama. I thought you knew.” She took her mother's hands in her own and offered comfort against what had to have been a shock. “I found out quite by accident on a trip to Memphis. When I confronted Papa, he confessed everything. Our other steamers have rooms like this, too. Not only did Papa smuggle goods, he helped people get north before the war. This is where they hid.”

“People? What people?”

She winced, realizing that Brenna truly hadn't known any of Sean Cavanaugh's ventures. Too late to take back her careless words, Shaelyn said, “Slaves, Mama. Papa helped slaves longing for their freedom.”

Again, Brenna sucked in her breath. “Sean was part of the Underground Railroad?”

Shaelyn nodded, but didn't say another word. Weak sunlight filtered into the space from a small, round window covered with a heavy curtain. It illuminated the expression on her mother's face.

Brenna sat heavily on one of the cots and removed the cap from her head. “Well, that explains so much.” A slow smile curved her mouth. “I didn't know, but I should have. Your father had some very definite ideas.”

Boredom was her enemy. Shaelyn wasn't used to inactivity, and she hated being cooped up in the small room aboard the
Lady Shae
. She wanted to be out in the fresh air or standing at the wheel in the wheelhouse, caressing the worn wooden spokes, the wide Mississippi spreading out before her. She wanted to be in the boiler room, helping to shove cords of wood into the boiler to keep the steam coming.

Instead, she blew out a breath, dealt another hand of cards to her mother, and tried to remain calm. She should take lessons from Brenna, who had not once complained. She did, however, make a humorous comment regarding the uniform she wore and how much different the long trousers felt against her legs…and how freeing it was not to be covered by yards and yards of fabric.

As Shaelyn discarded the ace of spades, the same sense of dread she had experienced before settled in her stomach. Icy cold fingers of fear wrapped around her heart, squeezing hard. They skipped up her spine, one vertebrae at a time. She shivered beneath the onslaught.

And then she heard it—the ringing of the bell in the wheelhouse just before the
Lady Shae
changed course. The steady rumble of the engine thumped as the blades of the big paddle wheels shifted into reverse, slowing the steamer down, the shush of water pushed by the blades dying in the silence of the night when the engine shut down completely.

They shouldn't be stopping, as they'd picked up fuel earlier in the day. Judging by the landmarks they had passed, New Orleans wasn't far. A few more hours at the most. Unless…

Had they hit a snag? She hadn't heard the telltale thump and scrape of a log hitting the hull. The
Lady Shae
didn't list to either side as if she took on water.

Had she struck a sandbar? No. Shaelyn had been traveling this river long enough to know the sound and sudden jerk of becoming stranded on a hidden sandbar.

No, the
Lady Shae
went off course for a reason, the engine shutting down with purpose and not due to something else.

Had someone spotted something along the shoreline?

“Dim the lantern, Mama,” she requested as she climbed up on a crate for what seemed like the hundredth time, moved the heavy curtain covering the porthole window, and glanced outside. She couldn't see much in the darkness, but she heard the landing stage drop and men running on the deck, their boot heels heavy on the wooden planks. A frisson of fear raced up her spine to settle at the base of her neck.

“What's happening?” Brenna asked, her voice tinged with the same anxiety Shaelyn felt.

“We've stopped, but I don't know why.” She climbed down from the crate and squeezed past her mother in the confined space. She tapped the wall panel in the proper place, waited while the false partition slid open, and stepped into the cabin proper. “Stay here. Don't make a sound.”

Brenna nodded. The last things Shaelyn saw as the panel slid closed were her mother's wide, fear-filled eyes.

Shaelyn let herself out of the cabin and stood on the deck, her back touching the wall. She took a deep breath, stepped away from the wall, and clutched the brass railing surrounding the Texas deck. Lantern light bobbed in the darkness and her eyes followed the bouncing lights until she saw the reason the
Lady Shae
had stopped. Her heart thudded in her chest as she sucked in her breath. The
Sweet Sassy
loomed south of her, close enough to almost touch, close enough that someone could swing from one of the landing stage ropes and land on her deck! She hadn't sunk after all, hadn't exploded!

Tears stung her eyes even as a storm of questions skittered through her mind. If the
Sweet Sassy
was here, where was her crew? What happened to them? Had they walked into the heavy wooded area along the riverbank in hopes of finding help? A plantation at the end of the dirt path she spied between the trees, perhaps? Why had the steamer been abandoned in the first place? Had she been damaged? Run into a snag?

No answers presented themselves. Her questions only brought more questions, but she had no time to dwell on them. Conversation from above floated to her ears—Jock's heavy brogue and Remy's smooth-as-molasses accent as they stepped out of the pilothouse and started down the wooden stairs, the warm glow of a lantern spilling golden light.

And just her luck, they chose to exit the wheelhouse on the port side.
Right above her
.

Each heavy footfall sounded like a death knell in her ears. If she didn't move, and move now, they'd see her. She glanced around. There wasn't enough time for her to head down to the cabin deck below or run to the end of the Texas deck and hide in the lifeboat suspended over the wooden planks by heavy ropes.

No matter what she did, even if she tried to go back the way she came and slip inside the cabin, she might be seen. Her heart beating a crazy tattoo in her chest, she did what anyone else would do—she plastered herself against the wall beneath the stairs.

And prayed the shadows would protect her.

Fear reached deep within her and left panic in its wake. She didn't move. Didn't dare even breathe, not until Remy and Jock stepped onto the Texas deck and continued on to the next flight of stairs to the cabin deck below. They didn't even glance in her direction. At least she didn't think so. They would have stopped, wouldn't they?

Relieved she hadn't been caught, Shaelyn exhaled and crept out from her hiding place in time to see both men step across the landing stage, which had been lowered, and leave the
Lady Shae
.

Without a thought to the consequences, Shaelyn ran around to the starboard side of the steamer and slipped down those stairs to the deck below. She made it all the way to the cargo deck, but could go no further. There were too many soldiers milling about, waiting for direction. She couldn't cross the landing stage without being seen.

The only thing she could do was conceal herself.

And wait.

Knowing the
Lady Shae
as well as she did, Shaelyn found a convenient hiding place, one that enabled her to still see and hear what went on around her without drawing undue attention to herself. She hunkered down to consider her options, which weren't many to her way of thinking.

Could she be bold and slip unseen into the water? She could swim, but the Mississippi's currents might pull her away or worse, pull her under, if the icy cold water didn't sap her strength first.

As she debated her choices, the decision was taken out of her hands. She watched Remy and Jock cross the landing stage and step aboard the dark and abandoned
Sweet Sassy
.

Something just wasn't right. She felt it in her bones. She wanted to scream at them to get off the
Sweet Sassy
right now, but the words died in her throat.

The knot in Shaelyn's stomach tightened and fear made her draw in her breath as Vincent Davenport stepped out of the shadows of the
Sweet Sassy
's cargo deck. He carried a pistol in his hand, the bore pointing toward the deck until he raised his arm and aimed at Remy's heart.

Neither Remy nor Jock could do anything, surprise rendering both helpless as another man joined Davenport on deck and came up behind Jock, his revolver pointing at the captain's head. Davenport took a few steps closer and carefully slid Remy's army-issue Colt from its holster. He slipped it into the belt around the waist of his Confederate uniform. “So nice of you to join us, Major,” he said, his clipped Boston accent replaced by one dripping in Southern charm. “Don't even think of doing anything foolish. The first man I kill won't be you. It'll be your good friend Jock.” He nodded toward the older gentleman, a wicked grin stretching his mouth.

“You bastard,” Jock hissed, and received a sharp rap to the back of his head. He staggered beneath the blow and dropped to the hard planking of the deck.

Davenport grabbed the lantern from Remy's hand and raised it high over his head. A mighty roar came from the darkness beyond the river as men poured from the shelter of the trees, their gray uniforms almost white in the moonlight. They clambered over the landing stage of the
Lady Shae
, their rifles pointed at the soldiers waiting on the cargo deck. There was no time for the soldiers to draw weapons, even if the men had been so equipped, or for her to leave her hiding place and rush back to her mother.

Shaelyn shrank further into the shadows and sucked in her breath as the implications became a little clearer. The
Sweet Sassy
had been left where she was to entice the
Lady Shae
to stop. Davenport, who had stormed from the house just a few days before, had orchestrated the whole thing, of that she was certain. But why? Had he known Remy would search for the missing steamer?

Rage radiated from Remy. She could see it in his rigid posture and the set of his jaw, both visible in the glow of the lantern. His hands curled into fists at his sides. Given the opportunity, Remy would strike the man, but he could do nothing now, not with a pistol pointed at his chest and innocent lives in the balance. Neither could Jock, who faced his own mortality as he sprawled on the deck, the revolver pointed at his head shaking just a bit. The Scotsman's features glowed a deep, dark red in the light of the lantern. Shaelyn could only imagine his anger.

“Traitorous bastard!” Remy hissed, his voice low enough to make Shaelyn strain to hear. “It was you the whole time. You who gave up our plans. You're the spy. It was never Shae.”

He thought I was a spy?

If the circumstances weren't so dire, she'd have found that fact amusing. Or perhaps not. She had no time to absorb the information or to become upset over it. As it was, she missed part of the conversation. She didn't miss Davenport's cruel laughter though.

“You both played into my hands so effortlessly.” Vincent's tone mocked him. “She was perfect. So angry with you, so spiteful, but even I couldn't have predicted you'd marry her or fall in love with her.” His teeth gleamed in the beams of moonlight as he began to pace along the deck of the abandoned steamer. “It was easy to make you think she spied for the Confederacy. So easy until I made the mistake of suggesting you follow her. How could I have known she'd become a saint in your eyes?”

Followed? Remy followed me?

“Why?” Remy asked, his voice filled with confusion and sorrow. “Why did you do this? I thought we—”

“Ah, you thought we were friends. At the very least, good acquaintances. There are no friends in war, Major. There are simply people to be used. And you were so easy to use.”

Again, Vincent grinned, but he said nothing more. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, then moved with the speed of a copperhead, bringing the butt of the pistol against Remy's head. Blood spurted from the wound as Remy sank to the wooden planks beside Jock, his cane clattering to the floor. Davenport took the opportunity to kick him—in the thigh—not once but three times in quick succession. Remy grunted with the impact each time and tried to protect himself.

A cry of anguish built in Shaelyn's chest, threatening to spill from her lips. She tamped it down, although her inclination was to attack Davenport as viciously as he attacked Remy. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to stay exactly where she was.