Patricia Potter (32 page)

Adrian balanced himself in the rocking coach and stood slowly, feeling life seep back into his limbs. He kept his hands low, not particularly wanting to bring any more attention to his status as prisoner, but his eyes quickly shifted over the occupants in the coach. He saw Lauren was wearing the gray dress again, the one she’d worn the first time he’d seen her in Nassau, and her hat shadowed her face. Her dress was modest and her hair pinned back primly. She would excite little notice, except for Socrates sleeping contentedly in her lap. He had to smile at the picture and at the way she handled the mischievous little beast. No other woman would be doing this, planning and executing such an ingenious escape. No other woman would …

“Captain Cabot.” The words were curt, an order to sit. His gaze swept around the rest of the coach, taking in the number of uniforms. Escape would be difficult, but not impossible, not with a pistol. There was a door next to him, leading to a platform, and then to one additional passenger coach. He had noted everything as he was led to the train and then to his seat.

“Cabot!” This time the command was very plain. He sat back down, smiling wryly at the ensign.

Bloody hell, but he was tired of being ordered about, of irons and cells. Please God, he’d be quit of them soon …

“I need some air,” Lauren said to her seat companion.

Both officers stood as Lauren did, backing politely out into the aisle. She had watched carefully as landmarks came into view and disappeared. They would be slowing within a minute or two, and the coach would rock as it had when they’d left Baltimore.

She’d taken out the neat little sailor jacket and put it on a protesting Socrates, and her hand had felt the Deringer inside. Her heart fluttered like a startled bird taking wing. Her hand trembled slightly, and then something else took over, the same mysterious quality that had taken over her body before, a cold surety mixed with stimulation.

Her hand reassured Socrates as it loosened the hold on his leash.

She moved slowly down the aisle as if faint from heat, waiting for the moment she needed. Socrates trailed obediently on his leash behind her. Suddenly the train lurched, and she aimed herself for the ensign sitting at Adrian’s side. The man’s arms reached out instinctively to catch her. Socrates reacted, leaping to protect her, his teeth sinking through the ensign’s uniform jacket. And then Socrates saw Adrian and, with a shriek, leaped on him.

Confusion reigned. Lauren screamed and held on to the bench as if she were to faint, and the ensign instinctively moved up to steady her as the other guard’s eyes followed their movements. Lauren couldn’t see. She could only hope that Adrian had the minute he needed to find the small pistol.

She gave him as much time as she could, swaying against the ensign as the train slowed, grinding against the tracks.

The movement suddenly halted, and she fell against the naval officer, the two of them tumbling back on Adrian. Socrates shrieked again, and the whole coach was now in an uproar.

Lauren allowed herself to be righted, and she grabbed Socrates, who didn’t want to leave Adrian. But Adrian pushed him toward Lauren as best he could with his shackles. “Damned beast bit me,” he said indignantly.

Lauren grabbed Socrates and eyed Adrian’s handcuffs accusingly. “You probably poisoned him, you … you criminal.” She glared at him.

Socrates added his own wrathful chattering to the chaos.

“Miss,” the ensign tried, “you must leave. This is a naval prisoner.”

“He tried to kill my monkey.”

Adrian turned to the ensign. “Wild animals on a train! What kind of country is this? No telling what kind of disease an animal like that is carrying.”

The ensign looked like a man bedeviled. “For God’s sake, Captain, it’s just a … monkey.”

Lauren knew she had to leave. Adrian’s lips were twitching, and her own laughter was not far behind. She could tell from his expression that he had found the gun; there was no sense in carrying this any further.

She tightened her grasp around a protesting Socrates. “I hope you hang him,” she said righteously and turned back toward her seat, grabbed her portmanteau, and made for the door.

Adrian felt the comforting pressure of the Deringer against his waist, tucked now in his pants. Less than four inches in length, it was easily hidden under his jacket.

Timing was so important now. Lauren had told him exactly where to go from the train station. He wanted to leave just as the train started; it would take time to stop it again, even more time to arrange a search.

He looked down. Socrates, in his anxiety, had bitten him, and blood was running down his hand. Nothing could be better. He blessed his cantankerous little friend.

He heard a change in the sound of the engine, as if it were being fired up to move again.

Adrian lifted his chained left hand. “I’m going to bleed all over the train if you don’t do something.”

The young officer escorting him looked at Adrian’s hand with dismay. His own hand was also hurting from the monkey’s bite, but it wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as that of his charge. He turned to his companion. “Go find the conductor and see if you can get some water and some bandages. I’ll stay with him.”

The older man nodded, squeezing past Adrian and the ensign. As he disappeared up the aisle, Adrian slipped the Deringer from his pocket and pressed it into the ensign’s side.

“I also need some air.”

The officer stiffened.

“Get up very slowly, Ensign,” Adrian said in a low voice, audible only to the man beside him. “I’ve already shot one man; I have nothing to lose by shooting another.”

The officer rose, his face a study of chagrin and anger.

“Out the door and onto the coach platform, side by side with me,” Adrian said, moving alongside him, his hand covering the Deringer. They reached the door, and Adrian pushed the small barrel into his escort’s side even tighter. “Slide the door open. Very, very carefully.”

Then they were outside on the small coach platform in the stifling summer heat. The train started to move slowly as the Union officer turned to face him. “The other way,” Adrian said. “Turn the other way. Now!”

His face bleak, the ensign did so, and Adrian, glancing quickly around and seeing no one, lifted the small gun and hit the officer at the back of his head just as the train started gathering speed. Adrian caught the falling man and propped him against the side of the rocking coach, making sure he couldn’t fall off. He quickly found the key to his handcuffs, unlocking them as quickly as possible. The train was moving out of the station now, the coach passing several cars on a side track.

Adrian swung off the coach platform, just barely keeping to his feet. He took momentary refuge behind the vacant, silent cars, and then quickly made his way to the back side of the station, straightening as he started to mix with the crowds. His clothing was that of a sea captain, not identifiable as belonging to one army or the other, and he knew he should be safe enough in that regard until his former captors sounded the alarm.

He followed Lauren’s directions and hurried down the street of what he supposed was formerly a sleepy crossroads. But now its position between Baltimore and Washington had turned it into a bustling hospital and military center, and it was swarming with people and uniforms.

Adrian heard the distant whistle of the train. It was still moving away from them. How long did he have? Would the engineer stop and return to retrieve one lone prisoner?

He rubbed his sore wrists, realizing they were ringed with red from the chafing of the irons. But his feet kept moving. This turn? He found the alley Lauren had mentioned and turned into it. It ran along the back of the businesses that faced the street, and he followed it until it ended at the back of a large house. Lauren slipped from the shadows of a large tree as Socrates hurled himself at Adrian.

Holding the animal, Adrian went to Lauren, his hand touching her cheek for a moment to make sure she was real.

Her face was anxious, but her eyes sparkled with an excitement he understood. “Your guards … ?”

“One is unconscious … I suspect the other is looking after him. I dropped off just as the train was pulling away. It will take some time to stop it.”

Lauren bit her lip. She had done it, had made good his escape. And no one knew her name; she had used the name of Elsie Brown everyplace. Once she knew Adrian was safely on his way South, she would return to Delaware, stay a week, and then tell Mr. Phillips she’d decided not to return to Nassau. No one would connect her with the escape. Socrates was the only connection between them, and hopefully no one would ask the officers of the
Allegheny
who took possession of a wayward monkey. If necessary, she could say a friend of Cabot’s took the animal. Moreover, since she was responsible for Adrian’s arrest, surely no one would suspect her now of aiding his escape.

“You must hurry,” she said. She leaned down and opened the portmanteau he had seen her carrying. “Change your clothes, and I’ll wrap a bandage around your head. Try to look dazed when we go by the livery stable.”

He reached out and caught her hand. “You keep surprising me, Miss Bradley.”

Lauren averted her eyes and turned away from him. “Just hurry.”

Adrian did just that, making use of every movement, buttoning the cotton shirt over his chafed wrists. The clothes were snug but would do. “Lauren,” he said, as he completed buttoning his trousers.

She turned around, holding a white bandage that she rubbed against the blood on his hand. Smearing the blood on the clean surface of the bandage, Lauren then stretched up on her tiptoes to tie it around his head and over his left eye until she was satisfied he looked sufficiently wounded.

Lauren tipped her head, admiring her own handiwork. She then handed him a small, wrapped bundle. He raised an eyebrow. “What do we have here?”

She bit her lip. “A … gun and some food.”

Adrian shook his head in wonder and looked at the portmanteau. “And that?”

She tucked it behind some bushes. It would be awkward to carry it on horseback. The portmanteau had served its purpose.

“Come with me,” she said, “and don’t talk. Your English accent is … distinctive.”

He grinned and gave her an abbreviated bow. “You got me this far. I’m ready to do your every bidding.”

His gaze stayed on her for a moment. Her eyes were so large and serious, and her mouth trembled as her teeth bit on her lip. The sudden uncertainty didn’t go with the meticulous planning he’d experienced in the last few hours. She’d been a superb actress on the train, sure and competent, and she had continually surprised him … from the visit in the jail to the skill with which she bandaged his head. He was being forced to accept the fact that Lauren Bradley had talents he’d never suspected, making him ever surer that she had been involved in the taking of the
Specter
.

But it was not the time to bring up the issue.

She was already moving, and he matched her quick movements, turning the corner into the main street. She took his arm, as if assisting him, and they came to a livery.

Two horses were already saddled, one with a sidesaddle. He knew she must have left the train, ordered the horses saddled, and then met him. Again, he marveled at her competence and efficiency.

But her voice, as she addressed the stable owner, was completely different, full of soft pleading and gratitude. “Thank you, Mr. Simmons. You are so kind. This is my husband, Lieutenant Brown. You must forgive him, but he’s still … a bit …” Her voice fell off, and a tear slid down her face.

“Of course, Mrs. Brown,” the man said, “but are you sure he should ride?”

“The best place to heal, Mr. Brown, is in one’s home,” she said softly. “It’s not far, truly it’s not.” She took some coins from her reticule and passed them to him, and his face lit even further.

“Allow me to help you mount.”

Lauren nodded her thanks. “But could you help the lieutenant first … he’s still … very weak.”

Adrian had to fight to withhold a smile and continue to look befuddled. Lauren went over to him and took Socrates as the man cupped his hands and helped Adrian up. Lauren handed the monkey back to Adrian, and then waited prettily for the stable owner to help her into the sidesaddle. From the uncomfortable way Lauren settled on the saddle, Adrian knew she was not the best of riders, and again he had to privately applaud her courage and determination.

He maintained a blank stare as Lauren gently urged her horse forward and he moved alongside her. They were almost out of town when three blue-coated soldiers approached from the other direction. Adrian had been listening for the train whistle, for a sign that the train was returning or that an alarm had been raised. There was none, not yet. But he felt himself stiffen, felt every nerve tingle, as the lead officer pulled up when he reached Lauren.

“Lauren,” he said, a smile stretching across his face. “It’s good to see a face from home.” His gaze wandered to Adrian and regarded him curiously.

“Michael,” she acknowledged. “I’m helping at the hospital. Lieutenant … Brown is one of the patients.”

“And … Larry? I haven’t been home in months.”

Adrian watched Lauren’s face go white. “He … died.”