Redeeming Gabriel (2 page)

The soldier leaned against the wagon. “What you darkies doing out here?” He reached out and whacked Camilla on the head with a gloved hand. “What’s in them barrels, boy?”

She cowered. “Nothing, sir.”

Horace drew the sentry’s attention. “We’s just coming back from market, sir. Mistress need supplies for baking.”

“In the middle of the night? I don’t think so.” The man laughed and walked around the wagon to plant the barrel of his musket in Horace’s ear. “You all holding a voodoo ritual?”

Close to vomiting from terror, Camilla felt for her newspaper bag. “Please, sir, we been delivering—” The bag was gone. She must have left it on the boat.
Think, think, think.
She struggled to her feet, and her toe struck one of the barrels already in the wagon before they loaded the other four. “Oh, please, sir, don’t look in them barrels!”

“What you got there?” the man demanded. “Moonshine?”

Horace again drew fire away from Camilla. “That against the law, sir.”

The soldier turned. “It sure is, you black rascal! But I might forget I saw you out after curfew if you let me have it.”

“Sir, Colonel Abernathy get upset if we let this load go. But we might could find you some more in a couple of days.”

“Colonel Abernathy, huh? Why didn’t you say so?” The man shouldered his gun and stepped back. “I’m on duty ever’ blasted night this week. You best deliver my load within two days, or I’ll have to remember I found two darkies and an idiot running around in the middle of the night. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” chorused Horace and Willie. Camilla was too relieved to speak. The wagon started up, pitching her on her rear, where she sat hugging the closest barrel and shaking like a blancmange.

Virgil was going to be in serious trouble if she didn’t find his bag.

In the quiet darkness Gabriel Laniere—trained physician, thespian and horse wrangler who presently found himself masquerading as a minister—leaned on the rail of the aft main deck of the
Magnolia Princess.
It was the only pleasure boat docked among the shrimpers, oyster boats and merchant vessels in the quay of Mobile Bay. He’d waited out the noisy leave-takings of the last of the gamblers. The only sounds on the boat now were the snores of the crew huddled behind the boiler and a faint scraping sound coming from the direction of the gangplank—most likely a straggler meandering home after being left behind.

Gabriel touched the full-blown red camellia in his lapel. It had been tossed at him with a wink a few hours earlier by the “incomparable” Delia Matthews—billed as the “star of
Simpson and Company,
” a pleasing comedy in two acts, as well as the laughable farce
The Omnibus
—a symbol of her code name. Miss Matthews had indeed proved to be an actress of some versatility and ingenuity. Gabriel hoped her courier skills would match her ability to bedazzle a theater full of drunken Southern gentlemen.

What he had to report to Admiral Farragut could not wait.

The scraping noise came again, followed by a muffled grunt. Frowning, he straightened away from the rail, but paused when a deckhand appeared out of the mist that swathed the gangplank. The man carried a soft felt bag, which he tossed from hand to hand with a soft
chink.

Gabriel retraced his steps and found the hatch down into the hold of the boat. As he descended the narrow ladder, rumors he’d dug up in New Orleans crawled through his thoughts. Even now he could hardly believe the words he’d encoded on the paper in his pocket.
Fish boat. Underwater torpedo.
Naval warfare was undergoing radical change, literally under Farragut’s nose, and Gabriel’s mission began with alerting the admiral to the fact that the engineers of this dangerous vessel had moved their secret enterprise from New Orleans to the unlikely backwater of Mobile, Alabama.

Then—search and destroy.

Some two hours later, he was still sitting on a barrel that smelled of sorghum molasses, his head clearing the overhead planks by a scant quarter of an inch. The hold ran the length and breadth of the boat, but it seemed to have been designed for the undernourished roustabouts who spent sixteen of every twenty-four hours loading and unloading bales, hogsheads, sacks and crates, and firewood for the ravenous jaws of the furnace.

He had been containing his temper by reciting the human bone and muscle systems. Which made him think of Harry Martin, who never could keep straight which was the fibia and which was the tibia. Last he’d heard, Martin was serving as a field surgeon with Grant. Probably hacking off limbs right and left.

He shifted his position and began on the muscles again. Delia Matthews had better have a good explanation for her tardiness. Admiral Farragut, who had recruited and trained him, insisted that intelligence work was five percent action, twenty percent listening and seventy-five percent waiting. Most times Gabriel did it by sheer force of will. And he didn’t mind when the objective was in sight. But endlessly waiting for a courier who should be right here on the boat—

A light tap of boots overhead interrupted his seething thoughts. Someone removed the square hatch cover, relieving the pitch-darkness. A pair of scratched and broken boots descended the ladder, then hesitated midway.

Gabriel slid off the barrel.

“Now where in creation is he?” The voice was lighter than he’d remembered it onstage. She was a cool one. Serve her right if he scared her.

He opened his mouth to utter the pass code, but a shadow loomed in the hatch.

“Who left the hatch open?” grumbled an unseen male voice. “Harley, I told you—”

The thumping of heavy boots, and Gabriel saw the woman’s panic in the tremor of her body. She was about to scream. He reached her in one silent lunge. Clapping one hand over her mouth, the other arm clamping her arms at her waist, he snatched her into the corner under the stairs. Sliding to the floor with the actress’s shaking body held close, he waited for disaster to strike.

But the mate stood at the top of the stairs, peering down into the murky darkness and muttering. Finally he turned and stomped back up the stairway. The hatch cover clanged into place, submerging Gabriel and his captive in darkness and silence.

The slim, lithe form in his arms continued to tremble. Fearing the return of the mate, Gabriel kept his hand over Delia’s mouth, his hold gentling as she relaxed. Her clothes smelled of turpentine and fish, and the small head was covered with a ragged knit cap that scratched his jaw. A good idea, as the luxuriant mass of hair would have given her away if she were seen away from the cabin area.

Squirming, she expelled a little sigh that tickled his hand.

He tightened his hold. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he whispered. “I’m not uncovering your pretty mouth until I’m sure you can keep it quiet.”

She nipped the palm of his hand.

He released her mouth, barely containing a yelp. “Why you little—” He lowered his voice. “Are you trying to get us both hanged?”

“Who are you?”

Good, she was careful. “Joshua.”

The boat breathed around them: creak of timbers, slosh of water, scent of pine resin drifting with the soft fragrance of lily of the valley. He yanked off Delia’s cap, releasing a tumble of curly hair. He lifted a handful to his face and breathed in, curling his arm more snugly around her.

“Stop pawing me and tell me what you want.”

He chuckled. “Try any more tricks and you’ll be sorry.”

Silence. Then, “I’m listening.”

“Good. I’ve got you a sermon to deliver, and you’d best do whatever it takes to get it in the hands of the man upstairs.” When she moved to get up, he tightened his arm around her. “Stay put. We have any more interruptions, I don’t want to have to dive for cover again.”

“Oh, all right.” She shifted in discomfort.

He reached into his coat for the sermon he’d composed that afternoon, then fumbled at the side of her coat. She stiffened, but allowed him to slide the paper into her pocket. “Too bad you wasted so much time getting down here, Camellia. I’d like to stay and chat, but I’ve got to get ashore before daylight.”

She gasped. Shoving his hand away, she snatched up her cap and crammed it down over her hair. She scrambled to his feet and backed toward the hatch. “I’ve got to go.”

Quietly she climbed the ladder, lifted the hatch cover and peeked out. Apparently finding the coast clear, she disappeared.

Gabriel rubbed his eyes and relaxed against the rough wall. He’d give it a few minutes before he risked his own exit from the hold.

The cipher was delivered.

Camilla scrambled over the wrought-iron fence bordering the rear of the Beaumont property. Chest heaving, she tumbled spread-eagle onto the grass and stared up at the still-black sky. She’d covered the distance from the riverboat to Dauphin at Ann Street at a flat-out run.

In four years they’d never come close to getting caught. Now they’d have to find a way to supply whiskey to Colonel Abernathy as well as that dratted sentry. She threw her arm across her eyes. When the paper in her pocket crackled, she shuddered and sat up. The man had called her by name, although he’d said it kind of funny. The message had to be from Harry, who was presently in North Mississippi, as far as she knew.

After leaving Mobile at the declaration of hostilities, Harry had chosen a different way to communicate with her each time. Once he’d placed a note in the spine of a book and sent it to Jamie. Her brother approved of Harry, even if her grandmother did not.

She staggered to her feet. Harry’s latest messenger boy was sorely lacking in manners. Yet she would endure the fright and indignity again to have a letter to read and dream over, to help her remember Harry’s face.

She glanced up as she crept toward the house. The night seemed to have lightened a bit. Thank God for the open sky. When she’d gone back into the hold of the boat to retrieve the bag, the darkness had seemed to reach for her ankles. No wonder that deckhand nearly caught her. If the ruffian who called himself Joshua hadn’t grabbed her and covered her mouth, she might’ve screamed.

At the edge of the porch she paused. Male voices murmured through the open windows. Papa was up late. That wasn’t unusual, but the summer draperies had been closely drawn, dimming the light from the room.

She pulled back into the shadows beside the porch and peered through the lace. Her father was as attached to open windows as she was. Why would he pull the curtains on a muggy spring night?

Her father spoke again, answered by another man. Gradually the conversation began to make sense. They were discussing boats, or maybe
a
boat. Transportation was the family business. Nothing to linger over.

Then Papa’s voice dropped so low she had to strain to hear. “You’re sure the Yanks don’t know about it?”

“I’m sure of it. We scuttled it hours before Butler followed Farragut into New Orleans.”

Papa grunted. “You have the plans?”

“Hidden in the machine shop. But remember the original model wasn’t fully operational. The propellers tended to lock without warning, and we hadn’t tested her with a full crew.” The man cleared his throat. “Finding men willing to go under water deep enough to test her distance—well, I’m not sure I’d try it myself.”

“Oh, balderdash! I’d get in the thing tomorrow, if I weren’t a foot too tall and twice that too wide.”

“I’m sure you would, Zeke.” The man sounded amused. “But even if we start building tomorrow, it’ll be a month before it’s ready to test again.”

“You
will
start tomorrow,” Papa said. “And I want it completed in three weeks. Money’s no object when we’ve got the chance to sink Yankee gunboats without risking our own men.”

“I suppose it could be done.” The other man paused. “Laniere thinks he can correct the problem with the propeller. If nothing else goes wrong, we could break the blockade.”

Papa chuckled. “Excellent. I intend to be situated in a place of influence when we send the Yankees back north where they belong.” There was a scrape of chairs, a mutter of goodbyes, and the light was extinguished.

Camilla leaned against the house. Her father was setting himself up to make pots of money off a vessel so secret that it had to be scuttled before the Yanks could get their hands on it. It was one thing for her father to comply with the Confederate army’s demands that he provide transportation for the troops—strictly a defensive service. But to invest family money in a deadly weapon…

Maybe she’d misunderstood.

On shaky legs she crept around the side of the house and climbed the wisteria. She pulled herself through the open window and collapsed onto the floor. Sitting against the window seat, she removed her filthy clothes and tossed them under the bed. The room reeked of turpentine.

She hoped Lady wouldn’t take a notion to visit. Her grandmother never let a thing go by, which was how she kept the household under control, but so far she didn’t know about the underground railroad. And she didn’t know about Camilla’s communication with Harry.

Camilla rose to light the lamp, then unbuttoned her shirt and yanked it off. With a little grunt of frustration, she picked the knots free and unwound the linen strips that bound her bosom. Gradually she could breathe more freely. She heaved a sigh of relief as the last strip fell into her lap. Then she remembered the folded paper in her pocket. Rummaging under the bed, she found it and eagerly unfolded it.

She frowned. This wasn’t a letter. It was a sermon. She skimmed to the bottom. Harry always signed his name, but there was no signature here.

She read the sermon again. It was taken from the biblical account of the Israelite spies Moses sent to infiltrate the land of Canaan.

Mystified, she slipped on her nightgown and tucked the paper into the lacy ruffle of her sleeve. The stranger on the boat had said her name. And she’d never forget that voice. Smooth and deep, like the cough syrup Portia poured down her throat when she had the croup.

The familiar way he had touched her mouth and her hair had been abominable, but he’d kept her from being discovered by the deckhand. His arms had held her gently.