Authors: Lightning
“His crew?”
“They’ll be held in Baltimore until the prize court makes a decision, and then they’ll be released on a ship bound for England.”
“But you said they would all be released,” she said.
“That was before Captain Cabot so conveniently changed the circumstances,” Phillips said, leaning back in his chair with a broad grin.
“He was protecting me,” she said, knowing that the real reason, the defense of a monkey, would probably bring little sympathy. “Wouldn’t that make a difference?”
“Not at all,” he said, missing the odd pleading in her voice. “Prompting him to use that gun was a stroke of genius, my dear,” he said. “I would like to send you back to Nassau.”
Lauren knew then that no argument would work. Mr. Phillips was obviously gloating. There was no way he would change his mind or intercede for her. If she protested anymore, it might put him on guard, and in the past few days she had developed an alternate plan, just in case.
Perhaps she was developing a talent for intrigue, after all. It was not a comforting thought, but still …
The chill that had invaded her at Phillips’s praise turned to steely intent. She had heard stories of terrible conditions in both Northern and Southern prisons. Death rates were high, disease and hunger rampant.
What if Adrian died because of her? Even if he didn’t, what would years of imprisonment do to him?
A part of her, the cowardly part, had thought never to see him again. She had hoped she could somehow obtain his release with the others of his crew, and by a third party return Socrates. She knew the guilt would show in her face, and she could tolerate anything but his contempt and hatred. But now she didn’t have any choice. She had to help him, and she could do that only by herself.
She would have to see him, and once she had won his freedom, she would tell him what she’d done and why. And then she would leave him, forever.
Lauren didn’t flinch when Phillips offered her payment. She would need money. And she didn’t feel guilty accepting it from him. She had done as she had agreed: stopped the
Specter
from blockade running. It was Phillips who violated their understanding, her understanding that Adrian would be freed.
She also asked for some official identification that she might need to show to federal authorities. She watched as he wrote something on paper, and then put a seal to it.
Lauren took the paper, scanning it quickly, wondering at her new ability for deception. Addressed “To whom it may concern,” the note simply asked that any Federal agent, civilian or military, extend all assistance and courtesy to Miss Lauren Bradley.
“When will you be leaving for Nassau?” Phillips asked.
“In two weeks,” Lauren said. “I want to go to Dover first.”
He nodded. “We
are
grateful, Miss Bradley.”
Lauren nodded and left.
Adrian stared at the tin plate of cold beans the jail keepers called food. They were accompanied by a piece of coarse bread full of weevils.
He shoved the rations aside. Bloody rot. He told himself he’d better get used to it. But he couldn’t. His tailored clothes were already loose-fitting. He suspected they would get a lot looser in the future.
He turned his attention to his cell. He already knew every stone that made up the walls, every dark inch of the dirty floor, every dismal corner. The six-foot-wide by eight-foot-long interior was bounded on three sides by stone walls and the fourth by iron latticework. The only light came from a dim lantern hung in the corridor.
He’d had to fight himself to keep sane. He could barely tolerate the closeness and darkness of the cell. He’d woken the first night in a cold sweat. He’d been a child again, a child who’d displeased his father and been locked in a closet. He hadn’t understood, just as he’d never understood his father’s dislike or the often violent punishments that had sent him seeking refuge in the green fields and woods of the estate. They had represented sanctuary. They still did.
Why hadn’t he been loved? Adrian asked himself. First, his father had rejected him. Then his brother. Sylvia. And now Lauren. She’d seemed so different, had looked at him in a way no one else had. He’d felt a sense of belonging he’d never known before, a sense of completeness …
Fool.
He had been separated from his crew. They had come together for several hours yesterday to attend the prize court. He’d been kept in irons during the short hearing during which his ship and cargo were confiscated. There was no argument to make. The ship was obviously carrying contraband on a hostile coast. Both the ship and its cargo were given to the U.S. Government.
The crew was ordered released, but his fate had already been decided days earlier by the U.S. Navy Department. Despite British protests, the government had declared Adrian a belligerent. He had already been told he would be sent to the Old Capitol Prison in Washington for the remainder of the war.
How long? He rose from the uncomfortable iron cot and went to the grated side of his cage, resting his fingers on the iron. He had been here two and a half weeks and was already going crazy. What would months and even years do to him?
And Ridgely. He could forget about ever fulfilling his vow now. Blockade running was the only way he could ever accumulate enough money to purchase the estate. While he sat in prison, Ridgely would fade further and further from his grasp. He should have known Socrates would be nothing but trouble. Yet he didn’t, couldn’t, regret stopping the lieutenant from killing Socrates. He would do the same thing over again.
The thought of Socrates inevitably led to thoughts of Lauren, of seeing her aboard the
Allegheny.
He’d heard Socrates and looked up to see her watching him, her face incredibly sad as she held the monkey close to her. Until then, he’d been quietly furious. The more he had thought about the ship’s sudden engine trouble during the long hours in the cabin, the more certain he’d become that she’d had something to do with it. Everything had been just too bloody damned convenient, and all the pieces fit. The machinery was kept meticulously clean by the crew; there had been no trouble until the worst possible moment, and Lauren had been in the engine room just prior to the trouble. Her silences, her aloofness, her reluctance to talk about herself, were all further evidence. He’d been a fool not to suspect anything. He’d damned her over and over again, and then he had seen her, and her misery was so evident, his fury dissipated.
He still didn’t know why he winked. Whether it was for her sake or his own. His pride, the deep pride that had been bred into him, couldn’t admit defeat to her. Nor could he bear the look on her face.
At least he’d been allowed to shave and change to fresh clothes before he’d been marched away under her eyes. But the shackles had galled him. Bloody hell, but he’d hated her to see him like that, bound like a criminal and led around like a bloody animal.
Would he ever see her again? He doubted it now. Some part of him had hoped she would visit him, or that she would be at the prize court. A letter, a message, would have lightened the bleakness he felt.
Over and over again, he had reviewed their conversations, had looked for a clue. It all came back to her brief mentions of a brother and father. She had said she lost them in the war, and her eyes had glazed with unshed tears.
Was that it? But had they been on the other side? Now he remembered that she’d never really said with which army her brother had served. Adrian had assumed …
That was the only thing that made sense. He would swear she hadn’t done it for money.
He sat back on the cot, tired of the incessant bumping against walls, of six steps one way, and then six the other. In two days, he’d been told, he would be taken to Washington. Perhaps he could find a way to escape. He doubted it, though. He’d been kept in very close confinement, as if he were a prize prisoner.
A prize prisoner?
A prize fool.
Lauren had rehearsed the scene for hours. She had sat with Socrates and went through it over and over again.
“Play dead,” she’d command. And he usually cooperated. But sometimes he didn’t.
Adrian had told her about the trick, how the monkey would usually remain still until his arm was touched, and then he would move ever so slightly. But what would Socrates do if he sensed Adrian nearby?
Socrates had to cooperate this time. He just had to.
Just as she had plotted Adrian’s downfall, she was now plotting his deliverance. She took a train to Baltimore, taking only a portmanteau and leaving her trunk and most of her new clothes in Washington. She didn’t need much.
She did not dismiss the possibility that she too might well be in a prison cell in the next few weeks.
Lauren had learned from Phillips that Adrian would be brought to Washington. She’d heard about the security at the infamous prison. She had even wandered by it, and had quickly been told to leave. Onlookers weren’t even allowed to stand across the street from it. And any visitors had to be approved by several sources. She suspected Phillips would be among them.
Lauren knew she had to act before Adrian arrived at the prison. He would, she suspected, be brought by train. If only she knew when. The Washington papers, filled with news of the capture of the famous blockade runner, had said Adrian would be brought to Washington within the week. No definite date was given, and the reason, Lauren suspected, was that some attempt might be made to free him.
Lauren visited two gunsmiths in Washington, purchasing a gun at each, pleading the need to travel in “these terrible times” to see her “poor wounded fiancé.” She tucked one weapon into a pocket she’d sewn into her dress and the other, a Deringer, in her portmanteau.
She bought a ticket for the train back to Baltimore. It was full of wounded men headed to hospitals in the North, and she was obviously a topic of conversation, a young lady traveling alone with a monkey. It had not been easy, keeping Socrates with her; she was beginning to understand what Adrian had undergone, and her admiration for him spiraled. Socrates went after two people who came too close, and would have bitten them if Lauren had not been quick. One advantage, however, was that few men bothered her after Socrates spit at them.
She found exactly the town she was seeking at one of the stops not far out of Washington. Some of the wounded were being unloaded, so there must be a hospital here. That meant a stranger would not be suspect. She counted the minutes they were at the station. Forty. Perfect.
Just before the conductor warned that the train was pulling out, she grabbed Socrates and her portmanteau and detrained, standing for a moment on the station platform. She asked a ticket agent about a rooming house and the location of the hospital.
Lauren had to visit three rooming houses, all of them private homes suddenly utilized to serve families of those hospitalized, before she found one who would accept Socrates’s presence.
“My poor fiancé's pet,” Lauren explained dutifully. “He’s a terrible little creature, but Adam just dotes on him and … well … I was told Adam doesn’t have long to live and his dearest wish is to see his little friend again.” As the woman’s face expressed surprise, Lauren hurried on. “After me, of course.” She wasn’t completely sure that was true now. It certainly wouldn’t be true in a few more days.
“Of course,” the woman said sympathetically.
The rest of the day went quickly. She visited the livery stable and then a mercantile where she bought some rough men’s clothes and packed them in the portmanteau. She refused to give any thought to failure. By the time she arrived back at the rooming house, she’d spent nearly half of the money Mr. Phillips had given her.
Tomorrow, she would see Adrian. Her mouth grew dry at the prospect. And she couldn’t sleep.
Had he guessed yet? Did he know?
She felt an iciness that had nothing to do with the weather. Socrates loped around the room aimlessly. She had found some fruit for him, and thin hard crackers, and after he’d finished eating listlessly, he had come and clung to her with desperation and need. He’d never stopped searching for Adrian, and would look at her with great sad eyes that broke her heart.
“I miss him too,” she whispered.
But Socrates would have him back. And she never would.
The key grated in the lock of Adrian’s cell door, and he looked up in surprise. He wasn’t to go to Washington until tomorrow, and the door was seldom opened; his food was passed through a small opening at the bottom of the cell, as was the limited water he was given.
He had been lying on the iron cot, staring into nowhere, trying to summon images of the sea and sky and sun. He had tried to do the same with Ridgely, but he found that too painful now. Also painful were the recurrent recollections of Lauren and the resultant beads of heat that formed in his groin. There was, too, a surprising perpetual ache in his heart.
He had taken off his shirt, and it lay at the end of the cot with his uniform jacket. It was infernally hot in the underground cells, where no air stirred in the high July temperatures. It was perhaps around noon now, he supposed. He had become rather adept at judging time in a place where the sun didn’t shine, reckoning from the hours his food was brought. There were two meals a day, a weak gruel and coffee in the morning, usually beans and bread at night, sometimes supplemented with a rare piece of tainted pork.