Patricia Potter (31 page)

A tremor rocked him. Weakness. He had no room for weakness, and yet with her he forgot the past, didn’t think of the future. The only reality was her eyes that looked at him as if he were a god, her body that responded as if it were part of him, her lips that promised what words did not.

Her arms crept around his neck, her hands running through hair that was now ragged, her fingers kneading his skin as if she couldn’t get enough of him. He had closed his eyes for a moment, and now he opened them and saw her eyes glitter with tears.

He knew she’d betrayed him.

And he knew she loved him.

And he knew that, for the moment anyway, he could accept both realities.

Adrian guided her up, melding her body into his. He felt heat and arousal and tenderness as tears touched his cheek like pieces of wet silver. “You are an amazing woman, Lauren Bradley.”

He felt her stiffen in his arms, and he sensed her apprehension. “Coming here to the jail,” he explained. “Planning all this.”

“You … will do it, then?”

He nodded. He wanted to bind her to him. The last several weeks had demonstrated how important she was to him. No matter what she had done, or the reasons why, he still wanted her. He would discover the secrets she hid, but he would wait until she was ready to tell him. In the meantime, he would keep her with him. He would find a way. Because he was very, very sure that nothing else would mean anything until he solved the mystery of Lauren Bradley.

There was a shuffling outside, and Lauren swooped down and scooped up Socrates, who was watching them with great interest. A knock sounded at the door, and Adrian had just enough time to issue the magic words, “Play dead,” to Socrates before it opened.

As it did, he kissed Lauren on the lips, slowly and seductively and lazily, ignoring several coughs behind him.

“Of course I’ll marry you, my dear,” he said, a cocky grin on his face. “If only you’d told me about … this little fellow earlier. I’ll request permission in Washington.”

He turned to the sergeant, who was looking awkward and ill at ease in front of the affectionate display. “I thank you, Sergeant, for making an honest man of me, and I’ll accept your congratulations,” he said, with a grin that appeared sincerity itself as the jailer mumbled something.

Adrian’s hand lingered on Lauren’s arm, and he felt her trembling in reaction.

“Just a short time, my love.” The farewell echoing in the room, he turned and nodded to the sergeant, stepping quickly away as if he were captor and not the other way around, leaving Lauren feeling dazed and weak and strangely exultant.

CHAPTER 17

After Lauren left the jail, she returned to her Baltimore hotel room, her mind in an uproar.

So apparently was Socrates’s. He had a tantrum, breaking a porcelain bowl and pitcher. She knew it was because of Adrian, that he missed Adrian. Later, he crawled into her arms and made whimpering noises, and she quickly forgave him the extra money she would now have to pay for the damage.

When he finally went to sleep, she looked through the small pile of clothes she’d taken from the
Specter
for him. She’d learned Socrates’s clothes were not an affectation but a necessity, since the monkey had little modesty about intimate functions. She found what she needed, a small loose jacket and matching trousers. She sewed a pocket on the inside of the jacket and put the small Deringer inside, and fashioned a little tie that would keep it in place but that could be quickly released.

And then she’d brushed her hair, looking at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know who she was anymore. Certainly, a different Lauren gazed back at her.

How could she even think about helping the man who was responsible for her brother’s death?

How could she not?

The Lauren of a year ago didn’t have that gleam of excitement in her eyes. She’d been, as her father once said, “like the gentle twilight of evening.” Larry had been the glow of the morning sun, the adventurer. She’d stayed home and minded the fires, prepared the food, sewn the clothes. She had been the responsible one, until on impulse she’d agreed to Mr. Phillips’s scheme. Now she was on the crest of a wave she couldn’t get off.

And the fearsome thing was that she didn’t want to get off. She had found the thrill of challenge, of danger, addictive. Just as she found Adrian Cabot addictive.

“Forgive me, Larry,” she whispered into the mirror, and yet in some strange way she knew he would understand.

Yet soon it would all come to an end. She would leave Adrian, and he would never find her. Even if he wished to find her, even if he never discovered the real role she’d played in all this …

The train station was teeming with crowds, their voices surprisingly hushed and anxious.

A battle was under way not far distant in Pennsylvania, she heard. A place called Gettysburg. Hundreds of thousands of men were engaged. The telegraph said thousands were killed and wounded.

Lauren heard snippets of rumor. The Confederates were breaking out; Washington was in danger again. The Union was losing; the Confederacy was losing.

There was a sense of panic and urgency everywhere.

Cold desolation filled her as images came to her mind. The cannon, the smoke, the death. Some of the expectation she felt about today’s plan faded as the war once more became immediate. She had stopped some of the cannon from reaching the South, but had it then been used against Southern soldiers? Meeting Clay and some of the other Southerners in Nassau had robbed her of any personal animosity. Northerners or Southerners, they were all young men with hopes and dreams and sweethearts and families.

“Any man’s death diminishes me.” John Donne had written those words more than two hundred years ago. They had always been beautiful words to her, but now they were poignant and real and devastating, for she had in some way become a part of war. She had made herself a part of it.

The news also provided a needed distraction. No one was paying attention to a plainly dressed woman and baby. And immediate sympathy was given when she said she had to find her wounded husband.

She had hoped Adrian would be on the first train, but he wasn’t, and she walked to a small park and sat on the grass until she thought it time to return. Socrates grew heavier and heavier, as did her portmanteau.

She arrived an hour before the second train and watched for him outside the station, not wanting to be seen loitering inside. As if looking for someone, she kept moving, the apparent baby in her arms keeping men at a respectful distance. Finally, a prison wagon appeared, and Adrian descended in handcuffs, sandwiched between two men in naval uniforms. She’d seen neither guard before, and she uttered a prayer of thanks; her one fear had been that his guards might include someone who had seen her at the prison. She hurried inside to get her ticket, finding there was none available until her desperation finally touched an onlooker, who agreed to switch to a later train. Then she turned and watched Adrian, as did almost everyone else in the station.

He was taller than his guards, taller than nearly everyone in the station, and despite his now-soiled uniform and the irons circling his wrists, he was by far the most commanding presence. He was clean-shaven now, and his blue eyes were masked with apparent indifference. Several uniformed men muttered insults, others just stared at him; but he seemed impervious to it all, his expression never changing, not even when he saw Lauren.

His gaze cut to the bundle in her arms, and then up to her face. She nodded her head, almost imperceptibly, and he turned his head to say something to one of his jailers.

Lauren also turned away. She didn’t want Socrates to sense his presence as he usually, almost uncannily, did.

Ticket finally in hand, she boarded the train, settling down on one of the hard benches in the same coach with Adrian. Her bench faced toward the rear. Adrian was taken to the rear bench, which backed up to the wall, and faced her. They were, however, ten benches apart and, as the coach filled up, she could see only the top of his head.

Belching smoke filtered through the interior of the coach, and the train lurched forward, its whistle blowing, the wheels grinding against the rails. The passenger coach jerked forward in sudden movements and then gathered speed.

She was committed.

The bundle in her arms started moving. She had kept Socrates as quiet as possible, not wanting the trainmaster to prohibit his boarding. Lauren glanced at her seatmates. She had the space next to the window, and two uniformed men shared the bench with her. Directly across and facing her were a man and woman, and a boy of about twelve.

She never quite anticipated how people would take Socrates. She knew that Adrian hadn’t cared, but then Adrian had the self-assurance and confidence to readily meet any situation and the ability to charm anyone. Even now, she could see his head bent as he conversed with the men taking him to prison, and at the Baltimore jail it had been apparent that the jail officials, though cautious, had respected him.

Socrates’s head emerged first, the funny, charming little old-man head with its inquisitive expression, and then the bony fingers. He was wearing a pair of sailor pants. The jacket, with the Deringer inside it, was in her portmanteau, and not to be worn until just before needed. She’d put his collar on and leash, her hand holding it securely.

“My husband’s pet,” she explained to the sudden silence around her. “He was a sea captain before volunteering for the Navy. He’s been wounded …” It was the same story she’d told before, and it generated the same sympathy and interest.

The boy reached out to touch Socrates, and Lauren held her breath, but Socrates tolerated it, and then he scratched impatiently at Lauren’s reticule in search of a treat. He was contentedly munching when the conductor came by for tickets, and though the train official raised an eyebrow, he said nothing.

“Does he know any tricks?” the boy said after the conductor departed.

“He can pray,” Lauren admitted, charmed by the boy’s eager curiosity.

“Make him.”

“I’m afraid you can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do,” Lauren said. “But I can ask him.”

The boy grinned expectantly, and Lauren looked down at Socrates. “Say grace,” she said. As on the night Lauren had dinner with Adrian on the
Specter
, Socrates clasped his hands together and bowed his head. Her seatmates clapped, and others around strained to look.

Not the best way to remain inconspicuous, Lauren thought, but then how could one ever be inconspicuous with a monkey? She just hoped everyone would remember the monkey instead of her.

She gave Socrates another treat, and he settled down happily enough for the moment, pleased with the food and attention. Lauren leaned back on the bench, closing her eyes to prevent further conversation as tension balled in her stomach.

It was late afternoon. Adrian looked out the window at the countryside speeding by, and he tried to concentrate on the heavily wooded hills. Given any luck at all, he would soon be lost in them.

His stomach churned, not for himself but for Lauren. She was risking a great deal. The thought of freedom after the last dismal weeks was exhilarating, but he wondered now at his judgment in allowing this.

His hands rested in his lap, the heavy iron weighing them down. The key to the irons was in Ensign Woods’s pocket. Inside, on the right. His gaze had followed every move after two men came into his cell, introduced themselves as his escort, and locked the iron bracelets on his wrists with the quick, efficient movements that spoke of experience.

He had been cooperative, even friendly, and they had answered in kind, although he didn’t miss the fact that none of their caution relaxed. They adroitly kept him apart from the crowds, maneuvering him easily where they wanted him to go, and he realized this was not their first transfer of prisoners. The best had been sent to escort him.

The second man was an older enlisted man, but one with lean strength and experienced eyes. Eben, he’d said his name was.

Adrian had asked where they hailed from, had expressed interest in their families, and asked questions about Washington and his destination, the Old Capitol Prison. The latter brought only shrugs, and he deduced it was not a very pleasant place. Then he steered them to the subject of the sea, where they’d been and what kind of ships they’d served. Some of the tension eased as the three talked about ports and women and ships.

He occasionally caught glimpses of Lauren between the heads of others, and he heard the laughter and clapping for Socrates. His keen awareness of Lauren pounded in the core of his body. He had to force himself to keep the conversation light and bantering with his guards.

His fingers occasionally played over the chain linking his wrists. It was short, shorter than the one that confined him aboard the
Specter
. His movements were very limited, and he wondered whether he would be able to retrieve the gun from Socrates without being noticed. If only the chain were just a few inches longer.

But it wasn’t. He suddenly held his hands out, stretching his cramped arms, and he noticed that the ensign followed every movement.

“Can I stand for a moment?”

The ensign nodded. “Just don’t move quickly.”