The Velvet Shadow (32 page)

Half an hour later, Alden Haynes cleared his throat outside the tent, waiting for permission to enter.

A bemused smile crept to Flanna’s lips. Here they were, in the midst of the wilderness, yet Alden still insisted on drawing-room manners. “Come in, Major,” she called, running her fingers through her
hair again. Odd, that she had stopped caring about her appearance until this moment.

He came through the doorway with his hat in his hand, then stopped and looked at her intently. Careful to keep any expression from her face, Flanna met his gaze. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but she didn’t want to anger him while he held authority over her life. While she’d been waiting it had occurred to her that he might feel personally offended by her deception. And while she doubted that he’d recommend that she be sent to prison, she might very well be confined to house arrest in Washington like the infamous Mrs. Rose Greenhow. If she’d wanted censure and confinement, she would have stayed in Boston.

Alden did not speak for a long moment, and Flanna finally broke the silence. “Should you be in here without a chaperone, Major Haynes? After all, you are an officer, and I an unmarried lady.”

“Forgive me for forgetting that you are naturally shy and modest.” His words were loaded with ridicule, and he arched a golden eyebrow as he settled onto Charity’s blanket. “But surely you can understand my lapse in memory. After all, you have been sleeping among some of the most thoroughly ill-bred men in Massachusetts. You, my own brother’s fiancée—”

“Not quite.” She lifted a finger to correct him. “We agreed that the engagement would not be discussed until after the war.”

“I see.”

They exchanged polite smiles, the type that men and women give each other at formal dinners and cotillions.

“In any case, I shall send you home.” Alden looked down and absently swiped at a leaf on his coat. “I don’t know how you managed to fool everyone, but this army is no place for a woman.” His voice gentled as he lifted his gaze. “I’m certain you see that now.”

“Tis no place for anyone.” She hesitated, knowing that she was treading on dangerous ground. “You’re sending me home—to Charleston?”

“To Boston.”

“No.” She met his gaze without flinching. “I left Boston, and I won’t go back there until I see my father. I’m going home.”

Alden closed his eyes, then exhaled an audible breath. “I thought you might be stubborn about this. All right—there may be a way. Once we get to Washington, I’ll talk to Colonel Farnham. Perhaps we can arrange a safe passage for you, or an exchange. I understand that others have crossed into enemy territory under a flag of truce.”

Flanna paused and considered his suggestion. If they returned to Washington within the week, she might be home by Christmastime…but what sort of Christmas would it be? Her cousins and brother were doubtless encamped in woods like these. Her father would keep the house dark and cold, not willing to enjoy any comfort while his loved ones suffered deprivation. But he’d feel better if she were home. And together they’d wait out the war and pray for the boys.

Flanna lifted her chin and assumed all the dignity she could muster. “If you can do that for me, Major, I promise to be a good soldier until we arrive back in Washington.”

Another thought abruptly occurred to her—one that had been pushed aside in her contemplation of the future. “Who have you told?” she asked. “Do my messmates know the truth about me?”

“No.” Alden leaned back, a frown puckering the skin between his eyes into fine wrinkles. “I’d be foolish to tell anyone that we were traveling with a young woman. Your messmates wouldn’t know how to handle the news. Half would curse you, half would want to manhandle you—though, of course, I’d have to shoot anyone who insulted you with so much as a rude glance.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to put you in this difficult position.”

“I haven’t even told Roger.” His voice deepened. “I suppose I ought to tell him, but Roger’s such a blustering sort, he’d make a fuss and the word would be out.” Flanna looked up, and the wounded look in his eyes pierced her soul. “Forgive me for not telling him. I suppose you’re worried and you want very much to see him.”

“Was he wounded in the battle?”

“No.”

“Then let him be, please.” She lowered her eyes from Alden’s direct gaze. “I wouldn’t hurt Roger for the world, and this—well, he wouldn’t be happy about it. You know him better than I do, and I trust your judgment. You are wise not to tell him.”

She leaned forward and lifted the edge of the canvas at her side, peering out at the camp. Her messmates would be sitting around the fire swapping stories, each man coping with the recent horror as best he could.

“What did you tell them about me?” She dropped the canvas and turned back to Alden. “My messmates, I mean. Where do they think I’ve gone?”

Alden rubbed a hand over his chin, and she heard the faint rasp of two days’ stubble. “They think you’re under guard for stealing medical supplies. They’re pretty aggravated with me, for you’ve become the hero of Company M. But I couldn’t let you keep living with them.”

“Yes, you can.” Flanna broke into an open, honest smile. “Major, you’re stuck with me until we get back to Washington.”

“But I’m going to send you away. You can’t stay in the army.”

“Very well, but why should you inconvenience yourself by trying to shelter me? Charity and I were faring quite well within Company M.”

He quirked his eyebrow. “You can’t mean that you want to go back there. I couldn’t allow it. First, I cannot be responsible for your safety among those fellows, and second”—he lowered his voice—“you are a known Confederate sympathizer. I’d be committing treason if I allowed you to return to your company. If anything went wrong, anything at all, they’d say you had something to do with it. They’d be blaming you for the ambush on Ball’s Bluff if they knew who you were.”

“No one will know.” She pasted on a nonchalant smile. “I’ve maintained my disguise thus far, and I can continue for a few more weeks or months, no matter how long it takes.”

“You will not continue one moment longer than necessary.” She heard bridled anger in his voice and knew she was testing the limits of his tolerance. “I should tell the colonel now.”

“Why? You can’t protect me alone, you have too many other responsibilities. And you can’t tell everyone I’m confined to the guardhouse until we get back to Washington.”

“You can’t keep up this disguise! If I had seen your face clearly even once, I would have known you were a woman!”

“You have a knack for recognizing women?” Flanna’s mouth trembled with the need to smile. “I don’t think you do. If you had, you’d have known that Henry Fraser was not from Carolina. Henry was really Henrietta Fraser, a poor country girl desperate enough for bounty money to enlist in the army. She didn’t call for me in Boston because I’m from the South—she asked for me because I was a woman!”

Alden’s face went blank with shock, and Flanna congratulated herself on a point well made.

“So you see,” she glanced out the doorway, “out there I can be a man and no one will know.”

Beneath the smooth surface of his handsome face there was a suggestion of movement and flowing, as though a hidden spring was trying to break through. “I would have known you,” he whispered, a trace of unguarded tenderness lighting his eyes as he looked at her. “I would know you anywhere.”

Flanna halted, caught off guard by his tone. His eyes seemed to hold more than brotherly affection and friendship, but she couldn’t consider any further complications now. She had other plans. She had to go home.

“You didn’t know me,” she said simply. “You saw me by the medicine wagon, you spoke to me, you ordered me to look you in the eye, but you didn’t know me.”

He shrugged off her objection. “I was distracted.”

“Please, Alden.” She transferred her gaze to her hands. “I want to see my father. I’ll do anything you say once we reach Washington, but please allow me to continue as I was. The men trust me, and I can help them, but only as a man. The sick ones wouldn’t let a woman near them.”

“You are the Velvet Shadow.” His eyes squinted with amusement. “I should have realized. You were tending the men in Company M’s sick tent.”

“I can keep on helping them if you hold your tongue. Dr. Gulick is inept, and usually too drunk to know what he’s doing. Please, Alden, for the sake of my comrades, don’t say anything. Not yet.”

He stared at her with deadly concentration, his smile fading. “You know they’ll drum me out of camp if the colonel finds out I knew the truth.”

Flanna flushed in shame. She hadn’t wanted to place him at risk; she’d never willingly bring him pain. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but he held up his hand and cut her off.

“After we reach Washington, you can go to the hospital and live with the nurses. We’ll find you proper clothing and make arrangements for an exchange with the Rebels.”

Flanna nodded humbly. “Thank you, Alden.”

He stood and moved forward, but paused to glance over his shoulder. “Go back to your company, but know that I will be watching.”

The men welcomed Flanna back with more enthusiasm than she had imagined possible. Paddy O’Neil sat propped up by the fire, his leg lying flat on the ground, his hands lifting in applause as William Sheahan and Herbert Diltz clapped Flanna on the back and welcomed her to their campfire. Apparently it was dinnertime, for most of the men had opened their haversacks and were nibbling on whatever they could find.

“You’re still here?” she asked O’Neil as she sank to a cleared space by the fire.

“Well, naturally, the hospital wagons aren’t coming till tomorrow.” O’Neil’s face flushed in the cooling air. “So we’re all goin’ back together.”

“But you’re not with the other wounded,” Flanna said, taking the tin cup someone handed her. She sniffed at it in appreciation. Coffee—fragrant and strong.

“Why would he want to be with the other wounded?” Diltz spat into the fire. “That fool Gulick didn’t want to see hide nor hair of our friend O’Neil, so he sent him back to us. And now that you’re here, O’Connor, we won’t have any worries about him at all!”

The men laughed, then Sergeant Marvin spoke. “Where’d you learn doctorin’?” He crossed one arm across his thin chest. “Some of the boys thought it kind of strange that you knew what to do. We
know you’re educated an’ all like that”—he looked at her, his eyes sharp and assessing—“but if you know medicine, why aren’t you with the medical detail?”