The Southern Devil Page 4

  “Show them to me.”

  “Show me your money first.”

  Did Charlie have a copy of the orders? Probably not, if he wasn’t willing to show them.

  The audience was two paces behind Charlie, hidden in the shadows behind the posts. He seemed barely aware of them.

  “Is the gold all that matters to you?” Morgan’s Bowie knife thumped eagerly against his thigh, with his dirk up his sleeve. But if he killed Charlie, the city watch would throw him into jail and he couldn’t fulfill his mission. Perhaps there was another way to teach Charlie a lesson and still let Richmond keep its pet for another day…

  Charlie yawned, finished his glass, and poured himself another.

  “You’re a buzzard, feeding off the carcasses of better men, Charlie. You should be shot, just like that buzzard.”

  “Stop preaching, Morgan, and pay up. If you won’t be that businesslike, then get the hell out of my life and leave me to make a fortune in my own fashion.”

  Morgan pushed the table up into Charlie’s face, knocking him over into the human buzzards behind him. They jumped on him immediately and Morgan leaped for the closest window, leaving behind all the sounds of a spectacular fracas.

  Jessamyn followed Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Leggett into the Union Army’s Memphis headquarters, barely listening as they graciously thanked the young lieutenant for forwarding the Christmas packages to the Confederate prisoners of war. Her attention was split between the difficulties of carrying a heavy basket full of jellies and jams, while simultaneously trying to decide on the most fetching attire for her afternoon tea with Morgan. But when a sergeant nearly knocked her over as he ran a message down the hallway, she was forced to pay attention to her surroundings.

  The big brick building, once a hub of commerce, now buzzed with all the frantic chaos of an aroused wasps’ nest. Riders galloped up and barely paused long enough to toss the reins to anyone close at hand before they disappeared inside, shouting someone’s name. Men sprinted down the crowded hallways, elbowing their way through, barely pausing to salute. Mud splattered dandies’ once-immaculate uniforms and dark circles ringed everyone’s eyes. Jessamyn would wager that all of them, every officer and enlisted man, had no thought in their heads but to capture General Bedford Forrest.

  The small party, every woman laden with gifts to succor their relatives languishing in Northern POW camps, headed down the long corridor to the chaplains’ offices. Jessamyn glanced casually down the narrow corridor toward the telegraphers’ office and paused, caught by an odd sense of familiarity.

  A broad-shouldered man was striding toward it, his form so very different from the usual young messenger boys that went there. He moved gracefully, with the easy, fluid glide of someone who’d spent years in the saddle. He held his head proudly under that big slouch hat, too, the attitude striking a note that hummed through her.

  Someone slammed a door and the man’s head snapped around, showing his profile for the first time. It was Morgan—here in Union Army headquarters and wearing a Union Army uniform, to which he had no right.

  Jessamyn’s knees buckled as her breath whooshed out of her lungs. Her vision grayed. Morgan, a spy? He wasn’t just visiting her father?

  “Are you all right, Miss Tyler?” Mrs. Hutchinson asked, catching her elbow. The telegraphers’ office door shut, cutting off any sight of Morgan. “I knew you were carrying far too heavy a box.”

  Jessamyn fought for breath, determined not to cause a scene—not here, not now. Dear God in heaven, how could she have been so blind?

  The lieutenant frowned at her. “You can sit down in Captain Townsend’s office. It’s just around the corner.”

  The telegraphers’ office? “No!”

  Everyone looked at her in surprise.

  She tried again more temperately. At least she was breathing again, probably because she was terrified of letting them see Morgan. “No, thank you. I must have simply caught my foot on a rough spot. Please, let’s deliver these to the chaplains so they can be sped on their way as quickly as possible.”

  “If you’re certain you’re quite well,” Mrs. Hutchinson said slowly.

  “Just a momentary weakness,” Jessamyn assured her, praying that any attachment to Morgan was exactly that.

  How could she have trusted him, that dishonorable rat?

  She was silent throughout the rest of the trip, her heart choking her throat.

  Morgan was in Memphis dressed as a Union officer. He must have come to Memphis as a spy. If he was caught, they’d surely put her father in prison for harboring him and her father would die in one of those foul, freezing cells. Whether within a few days from pneumonia or a few weeks of starvation, her father would die—thanks to his dishonorable godson, Morgan Evans.

  It was an absolutely unnecessary thing to do. Totally selfish and lazy since he could have found out the information he needed in other ways.

  He was a lying dog, who was using her and her family’s connections, for his spying.

  He was worse than her mother. At least her mother’s betrayal hadn’t risked anyone else’s life.

  She wished bitterly that she could cry.

  At home, she refused Cassiopeia’s offer of tea and went straight up to her room. She rocked in her grandmother’s old chair, clutching herself lest the stabbing pain in her chest tear her apart.

  Morgan knew, thanks to her, exactly which staff officer would transcribe the orders for Grierson.

  Given that, he could walk into the telegraphers’ office and simply look for all messages sent by that staff officer. He’d know exactly where and when Grierson, the Union general with the best chance of catching that devil, would move against Forrest.

  Damn and double damn. It would be her fault if Morgan’s news reached Forrest and anything happened to those Union soldiers.

  But if she turned Morgan in, they’d execute him as a spy. Or worse, send him north to a prisoner-of-war camp. Mrs. Hutchinson had lost one son at Shiloh. Another had died of typhus in a camp. The third was starving in yet another camp—one could see it in his handwriting. Could she condemn Morgan, with all his proud, vivid alertness like a bird of prey, to such a living death?

  Jessamyn yanked herself out of the chair so hard that it banged the wall, and she began to pace, her hoops thudding against the furniture as she snapped through the turns. Tears dripped silently down her face but she ignored them.

  She couldn’t deliver Morgan up to certain death. On the other hand, she couldn’t just stand by while Union soldiers galloped into the ambush that devil Forrest would prepare, thanks to Morgan’s information. What was she going to do?

  A riverboat’s whistle sang in the distance, before being answered by another. Two riverboats traveling on the Mississippi this afternoon, both gunboats—a very strong display of force.

  Jessamyn stopped in her tracks. Grierson must be moving against Forrest very soon. He’d need every bit of support he could get. It would also explain all the chaos at the Union Army headquarters that afternoon.

  Today. Grierson must be leaving later today, since Chaplain Palmer had been wearing his second-best uniform, something he hadn’t done since he’d come back from the fighting at Vicksburg earlier that year. He’d been temporarily assigned to Grierson’s staff.

  But Morgan would have to wait until dark to leave town, to slip past the sentries. If she could delay him for only a day or two, then Grierson and Forrest would fight things out their own way. Morgan wouldn’t be arrested as a spy and Union soldiers wouldn’t be mowed down in certain ambush.

  How? She stared at herself in the mirror, her fingers tapping urgently on the dresser. A bottle danced, rattling against the wood, and she steadied it automatically.

  Her eyes lit. A Paris perfume bottle, only slightly different in shape from some of the laudanum bottles that allowed Father escape from his cancer long enough to sleep at night.

  Sleep.

  Cassiopeia could make Father sleep through anything. Or just make hi
m a little drowsy. She was able to do similar miracles with Jessamyn and others in the neighborhood, who came to her for help.

  If Cassiopeia could somehow drug Morgan into sleep and her husband carried him up, they could keep him confined for the next two days. Father and Plato would be gone to Somerset Hall, almost three hours distant, and wouldn’t return until Christmas Eve. Mrs. Hutchinson would be at her home next door; she’d stop by from time to time but it should be possible to keep Morgan’s imprisonment a secret from her and the Army.

  Two days. With Cassiopeia and Aristotle’s help, she’d drug and hold Morgan captive for two days. After that, she’d release him outside town, to return to his duties as a Confederate lieutenant, before Cyrus arrived.

  And pray Charlie didn’t do anything obnoxious before they left.

  Then she’d be free to start rebuilding her life.

  Chapter Two

  “Cake?” Jessamyn offered, extending the plate toward Morgan.

  He eyed the gilded, curved bit of porcelain and the lumps of sugary bread covering it. “Thank you, no.” Five years of almost continual warfare had taught him to value simpler pleasures: sleep, good whiskey, a full stomach more than sugar.

  He sipped his sherry cautiously, then more deeply when the rich, dry taste rolled over his tongue and down his throat. He purred softly and relaxed into the armchair. Irritated though he was at having to wait until dark to leave, at least he was doing so in comfort.

  The information he’d gained was priceless and he’d already memorized it. He’d leave at sunset, in time to save his friends—and protect those who’d sheltered him here.

  Jessamyn smiled at him over her own, smaller glass of sherry. The entire scene was everything his father had promised him for a happy home: the approving female, the fire crackling on the hearth, good wine, plenty of food, the distant storm beyond the windows. He swirled the pale golden liquid in its delicate glass, admiring how the lamplight glowed in its depths.

  A few minutes and a few swallows later, he laid his head back against the chair, eyelids drooping. “What time is it, Jessamyn?”

  “Past three, I believe.” Her voice was a little hoarse.

  Morgan frowned and forced his eyes open. He’d returned after three. “I need to leave at five for an engagement.”

  “As you please.” Her intense watchfulness didn’t match her words’ carelessness. Aristotle, her big houseman, entered silently and stood behind her, studying Morgan like a dispassionate sphinx.

  Something was very wrong. Morgan set his glass down but missed the table. It fell to the hand-knotted rug and rolled under the bench. What the hell was going on?

  He tried to stand up, holding onto the chair desperately. The room blurred and spun around him.

  Morgan collapsed onto the rug, still groping for something, anything, to pull himself up by. The last thing he saw before all went dark was the hem of Jessamyn’s skirt as she stood over him, as ardent as a Greek fury.

  Dreams crossed his mind after that but nothing he could ever clearly recall. He returned to sanity slowly, slipping in and out of consciousness several times.

  He didn’t open his eyes immediately, of course. He’d spent too long with Cochise and the Apaches to let his enemy know he was awake again. So he tested himself privately first.

  He was wearing only a nightshirt, with no sign of his guns or knives, dammit. He shifted his hands and arms a fraction. Nothing holding them down, at least.

  He tried to move his legs. Hell and damnation, an iron shackle was locked around one of his legs, with the cuff probably fastened to the bed.

  Morgan opened an eye cautiously, found no one directly in sight, and checked what he was lying on. The bed itself was an iron affair, so solidly built that Hercules would have thought twice before attempting to shift it, and bolted to the wall, dammit. He had as much hope of moving the contraption as he did of shifting the moon. He’d need to find some other way to leave this prison.

  A riverboat’s whistle blew three times, with the same volume as how it sounded at the Tylers’ home. A muscle twitched in Morgan’s jaw. Jessamyn might have drugged him, damn her pretty little head, but she hadn’t taken him far. As soon as he figured out how to escape, he could leave Memphis quickly and tell Forrest when Grierson was coming. He had to save the general and the rest of the men.

  And one day, he’d take revenge on Jessamyn for stripping his manhood like this. He’d have held his head high if Sherman’s men had captured him. But to be drugged and chained by a seventeen-year-old chit was intolerable!

  Morgan opened his eyes a little more and found himself in a large attic room, well lit by oil lamps. Two locked, large dormer windows showed leafless trees, with a crescent moon shining faint and far away. A few mismatched side chairs and a half dozen steamer trunks were scattered through the room. A cozy Franklin stove and painted canvas mat made for a comfortable, if simple, atmosphere compared to the Tylers’ principal living quarters. He must be at the back of the house, near the kitchen garden and the stables.

  “Evenin’, Mr. Evans,” Aristotle rumbled from behind Morgan, the harsh rattle of a man whose larynx has been ruined.

  Damn, not Cassiopeia’s husband and Socrates’s brother, the former dockside brawler who worshipped Jessamyn. That devil had probably known the instant he’d woken up. Tricking him would take both luck and considerable effort.

  Morgan controlled his disappointment and sat up slowly, his shackle catching on the linen sheets. If Aristotle intended to handle this politely, then he would do likewise as long as it suited him. “Good evening, Aristotle.”

  The big man eyed him impassively from an armchair near the door. Aristotle and Cassiopeia had come to the Tylers from Memphis’s underworld, although Morgan had never heard the full story, and Aristotle’s face displayed a hard past. He’d lost one ear and the lobe of the other, while his nose had been broken many times. But his eyes shone with intelligence above his branded cheek and his immaculate livery. He steepled his fingers and began speaking. “Miss Jessamyn asked me to explain the rules to you as soon as you woke up. First, either I or my brother Socrates will watch you at all times.”

  Damn and blast, he had little chance to get past either of them. He might be able to pick the lock on the shackle, given some tools. But fighting his way past one of them would take considerable luck. He quelled the flash of anger and tried to talk his way out. “Aristotle, I’m a guest in this house. It’s ridiculous for me to be locked up in the attic like a present for next year’s Christmas.”

  Aristotle chuckled deep and low in his chest. “That’s right, Mr. Evans, you’re a guest here so you’d better get used to this room. You’re shackled to the bed but you can walk ten feet or so in each direction, enough for exercise.”

  Morgan gauged the distance. Exercise, yes, but he couldn’t reach Aristotle’s chair, let alone the stairs. “Thank you but let’s talk about the shackle…”

  Aristotle inspected his immaculate fingernails. His hands looked more than capable of wringing a buffalo’s neck. “Don’t bother thinking about shouting. Mr. Tyler’s mother used to shout sermons about hellfire up here but she never bothered nobody. They won’t hear you either.”

  Morgan nodded grimly, his mouth tightening as he remembered the vehement old lady. Thunderstorms had frightened her more and more with age, triggering days of prayers and shouts to prepare for the end of the world. Finally, Jessamyn’s father had built her an attic room over the ballroom so none of his neighbors would be disturbed by her loud denunciations of modern morals. Morgan knew exactly where he was—and he reluctantly believed no one would hear him call for help.

  Aristotle tossed a two-finger salute to Morgan’s comprehension. “Your dinner’s on the table next to the bed. Chamber pot’s in the cabinet just beyond. It’ll be emptied when Socrates and I are both here.”

  “Of course.” The two men exchanged glances of reluctant respect. An obviously experienced jailer like Aristotle wouldn’t come near Morgan
without his brother to provide backup.

  “There’s books in the cabinet on t’other side,” his warden continued calmly. “Also a chess set and some other game pieces.”

  No weapons visible, nor anything he could pick the lock with. They’d only given him a spoon to eat dinner with.

  “Aristotle,” Morgan began, gentling his voice as if he were trying to coax a skittish mustang into accepting a bridle for the first time. “Miss Tyler is just a woman, a young unmarried lady at that. Surely the two of us, as men who’ve seen the world, know better how matters should be handled. Talk to me, man to man.”

  Aristotle’s expression chilled. His eyes hardened into black granite. “Five years ago, when my wife and I were owned by a Memphis brothel,” he began, every syllable clipped and precise, “my eight-year-old daughter was sold to Mr. Henry Chalmers for the performance of unnatural acts.”

  Morgan froze. An eight-year-old and unnatural acts? Why that…

  “Before she could arrive at Chalmers’ plantation, my friends rescued her and passed her to the Underground Railway. Miss Jessamyn hid her at Somerset Hall, where my uncle was head groom, which Chalmers and the sheriff’s bloodhounds searched from basement to attic without finding her. Today she lives safely with my sister’s family in Canada.”

  Morgan nodded, not trusting himself to speak. In truth, he was glad, once again, that he’d freed all the slaves at Longacres.

  “In return, my wife and I promised Miss Jessamyn that we’d give her our lives as long as there’s slavery. Whatever she wants, we’ll do.”

  “I would never dream of asking you to turn against your mistress,” Morgan assured him, a trifle mendaciously.

  Aristotle raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “I told Miss Jessamyn it’d be tricky hidin’ you up here in the attic like this. Still, she was dead set on doin’ this. But should you cause any trouble for her, any trouble a’tall—”

  Morgan met his gaze directly, braced for the attack.

  “There’s enough lye in the washhouse to melt your dismembered corpse before we dump you into the swamp. Even rats wouldn’t recognize you as a man after that.”