Beloved Enemy (21 page)

“It's a leap of faith,” Tom assured him, “though not as dire as you might think.”

One of the other men produced a small ladder made of rope and wooden rungs. Rose fastened the top of the ladder around the stove's legs, then climbed down into the hole. A few minutes later Rob saw a small glimmer of light at the bottom. Joe Grimwold nudged him.

“You're next. It's in the shape of a backward
S
. Keep your head low. You'll come out inside the fireplace of the old kitchen in the basement. From there, it's five rungs to the floor.” He arched one eyebrow. “Step down easy.
There's a lot of furry critters rustling around in the straw down there, and they don't take too kindly to us.”

Though Rob could not grasp the side of the ladder with his right hand, he linked his elbow around each step down in order to balance himself on the flimsy contraption. He marveled that Rose had been able to steal the materials to construct it. Despite Joe's warning, he clipped the top of his head on the
S
bend. When he finally reached the stone floor, he found himself nearly knee-deep in moldering straw. Tom held up a small candle.

“Welcome to Rat Hell, Major,” he grinned. “Gateway to Freedomland.”

A
week after she had moved in to live with Lizzie in her palatial mansion on Grace Street, Julia still did not know her eccentric hostess very well. Elizabeth Van Lew, known as Miss Lizzie to her few friends and Crazy Bet to the majority of the citizens of Richmond, was the spinster daughter of an enterprising businessman who had made his fortune in hardware. Since her father's death, Miss Lizzie and her mother were the only full-time residents of the house aside from a number of free black servants. Old Mrs. Van Lew kept to her bed most of the time since she suffered from a number of chronic ailments. However, the household was far from quiet.

Lizzie maintained a voluminous correspondence and her servants were constantly running out the side door on Twenty-fourth Street with messages, letters and copies of the
Richmond Enquirer.
Visitors of the strangest sort presented themselves at the side door all hours of the day and night. A country girl who smoked a pipe came several times with a basket full of eggs. A delivery man, known only as Quaker, from the bakery on North Eighth Street, called almost daily, even though white bread rarely appeared on the Van Lew's table.

Twice since she moved in, Julia had been awakened at night by the heavy tread of a man's feet going upstairs to the third floor. When she asked Lizzie who had arrived during the night, the old woman pretended that she misunderstood the question, and launched into a discussion of the proper feed for hens.

Lizzie spent many of her waking hours in the city, usually dressed in the oddest assortment of clothes. When Julia accompanied her hostess, she noticed that once in public, Lizzie commenced to mumble nursery rhymes aloud, or sing off key, or make the most peculiar conversation with passersby.

Once in a dry goods shop, a woman, dressed respectably in mauve taffeta, took Julia aside and whispered, “You look like a nice girl. What are you doing in company with Crazy Bet? Be careful, young lady. She's a witch!”

Once back at home, Julia related the matron's warning to Lizzie.

Her hostess laughed heartily. “My, my, my, what will they say of me next, I wonder?” Then she gave Julia a shrewd look. “Who do
you
think I am?”

Taken aback by Lizzie's directness, Julia said, “You are my kind benefactress. I don't know what I would have done without you.”

Lizzie waved aside the compliment. “Frivle-fravle, my dear, but you didn't answer my question. Do you think I am as mad as the proverbial hatter?” She poured some tea into Julia's cup.

Julia realized that Lizzie would accept nothing but the plain truth, though she might take offense, and toss Julia back into Richmond's crowded streets. She decided to risk it. “I think that you play-act very well, ma'am. At home, you are the most levelheaded person I have ever met, while
outside your door, you assume the character of Crazy Bet. I can almost imagine that you enjoy being called a witch.”

Lizzie's smile grew wider. “You are as sharp as I first thought when I saw you in the guard room.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me, my dear, when do you plan to marry that young man of yours?”

Julia nearly spilled her tea onto the carpet. She slowly replaced her cup on the side table while she allowed her heartbeat to return to normal. “Rob Montgomery is a dear friend, I admit. But I have no intention of marrying him. For all I know, he may be engaged to a girl in New York.”

“Fiddlesticks!” Lizzie snorted. “I can tell the real story by the way you two looked at each other.”

Julia lowered her head. Rob had been very cool at their meeting. How could Lizzie possibly see a spark of love in a man who hesitated to even touch Julia? She stroked the back of her hand where his lips had sizzled her skin. No, that wasn't a sign of his love, she told herself. He was merely being gallant, in thanks for the food she had brought him. She refused to examine her own feelings for the Yankee major.

“We have never discussed anything more personal than our childhood pranks,” she replied. “We are friends, nothing more.”

Lizzie shook her head. “Time's a-wastin', child! There's a war going on, if you haven't noticed.”

“But I have,” Julia blurted out. “I must confess that Richmond took me by surprise. In Alexandria, we thought all was going well down here, but when I walk about the city, I am alarmed daily by the sights I see, like that woman who was begging for bread with tears running down her cheeks. She was dressed like a lady, but she begged like a…” Julia bit her lower lip to stanch the pain of that encounter.

Lizzie lifted her eyebrow. “Like a gypsy? Yes, I agree. War is not as glorious or noble as our politicians painted three years ago when they inflamed our young men. War isn't flag-waving or “Dixie”-playing or handsome boys parading down the streets in shiny uniforms. As you have observed, Richmond is sagging at the corners now, but I venture to say that worse times will come before she falls.”

Lizzie cocked her head like a small, inquisitive wren eyeing a tasty bread crumb. “Which brings us back to you. Do you love this Robert Montgomery from New York?”

Julia had the uncomfortable feeling that Lizzie could read her heart as easily as a book. “Yes, ma'am, I suppose that I do,” she murmured. Her cheeks burned at the admission. “But I've not said a word to him about it. I highly doubt that he feels the same way.”

Lizzie chuckled. “Most men don't know what they feel until you hit them over the head with a hammer.” She consulted a diamond watch pin that she wore on her bodice. “Nearly noontime. I expect he's worked up an appetite by now. We'll fix you up a basket of dainties to tempt the major. Wilson will accompany you down to Libby and back. I don't want any of those loose women bothering you.” She rang a little bell to summon one of her serving men.

Julia uttered a gasp of surprise, followed by excitement. “You want me to go right now?”

“Of course!” Lizzie went over to her desk and scribbled a note in her flurried penmanship. “You have been champing at the bit to see your Rob again, and I expect he's been wondering what happened to you.”

“He must think I've gone back home.” Julia thought of Carolyn and the cozy room they had shared on Prince Street. “But I can't return now.”

Lizzie blotted her note. “Of course you can't. Your reputation is ruined there. You know it, I know it, and I am sure it has dawned on your fine major that you have tossed everything to the winds for him.”

She made Julia seem like some flibbertigibbet from a lighthearted novel. “I'll get my hat,” Julia said aloud, going into the wide hallway where the marble-topped coat stand held her things. Her fingers shook as she tied the satin ribbons of her dark-green velvet bonnet.

In the parlor, Lizzie instructed Wilson what to pack in the basket, then she came out into the hall just as Julia buttoned up her cloak. She showed her a sealed note addressed only to ER.

“Give this to Mr. Ross,” she instructed, stuffing the note into Julia's muff. Then she whispered, “His bark is considerably worse than his bite.”

Though Julia said nothing to Lizzie, she had very strong reservations about Mr. Ross. The man looked as though he ate nails for breakfast. Wilson reappeared from the kitchen with a large covered basket. Without further ado, Lizzie shoved them both out the side door.

As Wilson escorted Julia down Church Hill toward the prison, he looked behind them several times. The expression on his face gave her pause. In the week that she had lived with her, Lizzie had warned Julia incessantly that the streets of Richmond were barely safe in the daytime, and never after dark.

“Is someone following us?” she asked him in an undertone when they paused at the corner of Franklin Street.

“I'm not sure, Miss Julia,” he rumbled deep in the back of his throat. “But there's been some trashy no-account hanging out across from the house since yesterday afternoon.”

“Lizzie has many strange visitors,” Julia reminded him,
though his concern chilled her more than the wind off the river.

“Maybe,” he muttered, “but I know most of those folk. This one has a mean look about him that I don't like.”

“Oh!” Julia burrowed deeper into her cloak's fur collar.

Wilson shot her a grin. “You don't need to worry your head about that man, Miss Julia. That's what I'm here for.”

But Julia worried about him all the way to Libby's front door. Once inside the spartan guard room, she had to wait while the prison's adjutant, Major Long, organized a large party of Richmond's ladies and gentlemen who had come to gawk at the prisoners. Mr. Ross sat in the corner at his desk, wearing a thunderous look. After the visitors had been escorted upstairs, Julia stepped forward.

“Oh, you again,” he snarled. “Have you come to view the menagerie, too? You have just missed the tour.”

Swallowing her ire, Julia handed him the note from Lizzie. With anger and fear tying knots inside her stomach, she watched his face closely while he read it. For the flash of a moment, his expression softened, before he returned to his usual look of sarcasm and disdain. After reading the missive a second time, he wadded it up into a compact ball. Then he ambled over to the small cast-iron stove that attempted to heat the room, and pitched it onto the red coals. He watched in silence while the paper burned to cinders.

Meanwhile, Julia fiddled with the strings of her muff, trying to compose what she would say to Rob. She didn't dare declare her true feelings for him, no matter what Lizzie had suggested. He had never given her any indication that his friendship was more than a passing fancy.

Ross ignored Julia. Instead, he directed his attention to
Wilson who stood against the wall like an ebony statue. “Miss Van Lew wrote that you have something for me.”

Without so much as a flicker of an eyelid, the servant nodded slowly, then brought out a bundle of three cigars, wrapped in brown paper, from inside the basket. “Miss Lizzie says that you had better take your time with these, cause good ci-gars are getting mighty scarce nowadays,” he remarked, handing the present to Ross.

“She did, did she?” he snarled as he pocketed them. He cast a knowing grin at the sentry who stood near the stairway. “You tell Crazy Bet that I know
exactly
what I will do with my smokes.”

This man was insufferable. Without thinking of the consequences, Julia retorted, “Whatever happened to your manners? You should be more grateful for the gift, sir, and more respectful of the giver. Those Havanas came through the blockade, and they cost Miss Van Lew a dollar apiece.”

Mr. Ross laughed as if she had just entertained him with a vastly amusing anecdote. “You are a feisty little thing. It's too bad that your…ah…cousin has only got one hand, because I suspect that he'd need two to keep you in line.” Before Julia could compose an answer, the clerk glanced at the guard.

“Garland, sashay up those stairs and tell Major Montgomery that he's got a firecracker down here who's ready to explode.”

The soldier laughed, then disappeared up the steps. As soon as he was out of sight, Ross leaned over Julia and said in a whisper, “Before you open that pretty mouth again, Miss Chandler, listen very carefully. It appears that I have some business to conduct with the sentry when he returns with your precious Yankee…relative. You will have about five minutes alone with him. I expect you to
behave yourself, and not try to smuggle him out of here. It won't work and I'd have to confine the major in solitary—which, I promise you, is most uncomfortable, not to mention rat-infested. Do you understand me?”

Julia looked into the man's eyes. Again, a faint spark of human kindness flashed in them. “Yes, Mr. Ross, I believe I do.”

“F
ebruary 6th: Cloudy with some sun, temperatures milder, thank God. Beef—two ounces—for breakfast. Tasted moldy.”

Rob dipped his borrowed pen nub into the onion juice that pooled in the bottom of his tin cup. He studied the page that appeared to hold only Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXV. Since the first day of his incarceration in Libby, he had kept a secret diary in the wide margins of the little volume that he had intended for Julia. To idle inspection, the dog-eared sonnet book looked innocent, but around each short poem, Rob penned a running commentary of his imprisonment with an invisible ink that would reveal itself only when the page was heated.

He paused to read the sonnet's opening lines: “So are you to my thoughts as food for life; Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground.”
And so you are to me, sweet Julia. The memories of your sweet self sustain my soul in this pesthole.
He remembered how they met: he, stone-faced and self-pitying; she, radiant and slightly tipsy from the champagne. He smiled when he recalled her shocking proposition behind the alcove curtains, “Will you have your dastardly way with me?”

Just remembering the scene heated his blood and stirred his manhood. If she made him that same offer now, he might not be the gentleman she thought he was.

His pen dried. Rob dipped it again, then continued to write down the left-hand side of the thick, cream-colored page: “Rumor says that three more of our soldiers incarcerated on Belle Isle died last night from exposure. Have got to find a way to free them, too. Used up the rest of the firewood last night. If the Rebs don't give us more today, we'll have to break up the rest of the benches.”

His gaze strayed to the nearest line in the sonnet: “Now counting best to be with you alone.” He groaned under his breath.

Why had he acted like such an idiot when Julia came to see him? He should have tossed caution to the wind and taken her in his arms like he wanted to do from the first instant that he saw her in the guard room. He wouldn't make that same mistake twice—that is, if she ever came back. Had she returned to Alexandria, despite her scandalous flight? Or was she still in Richmond?

As soon as he was out of Libby and his mission completed, he would go to her, no matter where she was. Rob did not permit himself to consider marriage an option, since he had long ago given up on that state of happiness. Once with Julia, he would just let fate take its course.

He barely looked up when a group of well-dressed citizens swept by his corner. Most of the women held delicate lace handkerchiefs against their noses in an effort to keep out the odor that wafted up from hundreds of unwashed men.

Rob dipped his pen again. “The tunnel is going well, according to Stu. He is one of the diggers on the third rotation. It is hard to estimate the distance, but Tom Rose thinks we have another seven feet to go before we are
under the fence. Meanwhile, the list of escapees has been confirmed. Thirty men will go out the first night. If the tunnel is not discovered, thirty more the second, and thirty more on the third night if luck holds out. Have instructed the first group and part of the second on the route to take and where the food caches can be found. Pray that Lawrence has set them up or the boys will be in trouble on the road.”

Rob regarded the men around him who dozed, whittled bones, read the books and newspapers brought by Miss Lizzie, played chess and cards, and dreamt of food and home. The usual bunch crowded around the open windows over Cary Street to trade ribaldry with the local whores.

“Montgomery!”

Rob pulled himself out of his thoughts. Quick as a cat, he snapped the book shut and stuffed it into his breast pocket, dumped the onion juice between the floorboards and slid the pen under the sack of sawdust that served as his pillow.

“Montgomery! Get your backside here now! You've got a visitor.”

Was it Julia? Hope lifted in his spirit. He pulled himself to his feet, shook his head to clear the dizziness that had become a daily companion, and wiped his hands down his pants. “Coming,” he shouted, though his voice sounded more like a croak.

He picked his way toward the stairs amid good-natured guffaws and envious ribbing from his fellow prisoners. Despite the glare from the guard, he stopped at the wash bucket long enough to scrub his hands and face with a sliver of soap. His beard felt thick and coarse to the touch. He couldn't wait to visit his barber in Washington.

“Quit your lollygagging, Yank!” growled the Reb. “Nothing is going to make you look or smell any better.

The lady downstairs will have to take you as you are.” He chortled. “As if she could take you at all. I'll be glad to take your place.”

Rob balled his good hand into a fist at the gibe. He longed to push this runt down the stairs and pummel him into the ground, but that action would only land Rob in solitary confinement and defeat his sole purpose of being here. Instead, he glared at the youth with hatred in his eye.

“I will remember your face, private. How old are you, anyway?”

The boy swallowed and gripped his rifle. “Old enough!” he retorted.

On the fresh side of eighteen, Rob would bet. He said, “When this war is over, pray that we do not meet again.”

The young soldier momentarily dropped his shield of bravado. Looking away, he muttered, “We both may be dead before then, Major.”

Rob said nothing further. In a week or two at most, he planned to be back in his cozy room at Ebbitt's Hotel. That should give many a sleepless night to this insolent pup. Brushing off dirt, cobwebs and dust from his frock coat, Rob hurried down the stairs.

When he saw Julia standing in the guard room, he could not hold back the smile from his face. She was an answer to his innermost prayer. He started toward her when Ross intercepted him. Though the clerk was shorter than Rob by a good six inches, he had enough pure spite in him for a man twice his size.

Ross sneered. “I can't understand why Miss Chandler insists upon returning here to see
you,
Montgomery, but I trust that you will behave. Unfortunately, duty compels me to leave—but only for a minute or two. One slip on your part, one step outside that door yonder, and your life will
be forfeit. Do you understand me?” His dark eyes glinted like daggers.

Rob sucked in his breath. For some unfathomable reason, Ross was giving him a few moments alone with Julia. He would take that gift with no questions asked. Rob nodded. “Perfectly,” he snapped.

Then the clerk turned to the guard. “Garland! Come with me. There are discrepancies in the storage shed that I want to discuss with you.”

The boy's eyes bugged out. “But, Mr. Ross, sir…the prisoner—”

Ross snapped his fingers as if calling a dog to heel. “There are four men outside this door just waiting to shoot a wandering Yankee.” He sent Rob and Julia a pointed look. “I doubt that Major Montgomery would be fool enough to take a walk. Stop sniveling, Garland! I haven't got all day.”

With that, Ross all but dragged out the flustered private. Then a tall black man stepped from the shadows. Neither expecting his appearance nor knowing his intentions, Rob shielded Julia. “Who are you? What is your business?” he asked, wondering if the man carried a weapon.

The fellow grinned at him. “No harm, Major Montgomery. Miss Van Lew asked me to give you this, and tell you to make sure that you
read
the good books that she sends to you.” He held up the basket.

Rob understood immediately. Lizzie Van Lew smuggled messages folded inside the spines of the novels she sent the prisoners. She already knew about the breakout and her house would be safe for any man too sick to travel. He nodded to Wilson. “Thank Miss Lizzie for us.”

The man placed the large basket on the bench, then touched the brim of his brown felt hat. “I'll be right outside, Miss Julia, in case you might need some help.” After
giving Rob a pointed look, he opened the outer door and left.

Rob experienced a dizzy sensation—alone for the first time in a century, it seemed. He smiled down at Julia, at last alone with the woman he loved. “Julia!” He spoke her name like a prayer to heaven. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you.”

For the first time since that fateful night in the garden, a true smile shone through her uncertainty. “Oh, Rob! I was so afraid—” She breathed his name, then checked herself, biting her lower lip in the most provocative way.

He stepped closer to her. “Afraid of me? As you can see, I am kept under lock and key.”

She laughed. How good it was to hear her silvery laughter in this dank place! Julia lifted her hand and stroked his cheek above his beard. “I must confess, you do look very fierce.”

His skin burned where her warm fingertips touched him. He caught her hand in his and kissed the palm. Sweet clean flesh against his lips that were so chapped from raw windy nights. His senses reeled. “I promise to shave as soon as I can.” He interlaced his fingers between hers.

She tilted one slim brow. “Is that truly the very
first
thing you would do, Rob?” She stared at him with an expression of open longing.

He didn't know if she was teasing or chiding him, and he didn't care at this point. They were wasting precious time in trivial banter. He slipped his good arm around her waist. Pulling her against him, he held her tightly. How good she felt! His blood sang in his veins.

“Forgive my appearance, Julia, and forgive me, for I am a starving man,” he murmured, his voice husky with desire.

She parted her lips to reply, but Rob swooped down to
capture her mouth with his. Her startled gasp filled him with the sweetness of her breath. Warm chocolate! Frothy, rich cream! Their lips met and matched each other with a desperate savage intensity. Rob lost all sense of time and place. Julia's passionate response finally shattered the hard shell that he had built so carefully around his heart. In the depths of this purgatory, he had found his salvation. He held the only reality of his world within his embrace.

 

Julia forgot everything she had planned to say to Rob. At their sudden kiss, intense happiness exploded within her, and excitement shot through her veins. In his embrace, she felt as if she were floating off the rough-hewn floorboards of the guard room. She heard no sound but the harsh, uneven rhythm of Rob's breathing, saw nothing but starbursts inside her closed eyelids, felt nothing but some unfathomable ecstasy as his tongue danced within her hot mouth. Her lips burned with his fire.

Trembling, Julia twined her arms around his neck. She couldn't disguise her body's shameless reaction to his passion, nor did she care. The hunger of her desire for fulfillment threatened to overwhelm her.

“Julia, my love,” he whispered between his scorching kisses. His lips seared a path from the corner of her mouth, across her cheek, against her earlobe and down her neck to her starched collar. His beard tickled her skin. “Sweet, oh, so sweet.”

“Rob,” she gasped as his tongue explored her ear. No other words were sufficient for the moment.

He claimed her lips again. Rob's kisses grew more urgent, as if he feared she would dissolve at any moment. Then, like a summer storm passing, he relaxed in her arms. His lips softened then released her mouth to brush a kiss across her forehead. He held her close against him, his
uneven breathing fanning her cheek. Despite his thin, disheveled and dirty appearance, Julia had no desire to back out of his embrace. Instead, she savored every moment of their time together. The perplexing Mr. Ross and the guards would return at any minute.

As if he read her thoughts, Rob lifted his head and gazed down at her. “Forgive my lapse in manners, Miss Chandler,” he joked with an adorable, lopsided smile. “Your beauty has completely undone me.”

Then he grew more serious. “No, it is not merely beauty, but your sweet self, beloved. If I have frightened you, please forgive me.”

“I tried to tell you that awful night. I cannot forgive you, when there is nothing to forgive. If there is a fault, then it is mine as much as yours.”

A jumble of voices at the top of the stairs warned them that their time alone was nearly gone. Rob kissed her eyes, first one and then the other. “Here are kisses for you to dream on,” he murmured.

“And I will dream of you,” Julia replied, love spilling from her heart. She ached to hold him close again, but instead she stepped back as the sightseeing Richmonders clattered down the stairs.

Rob coughed, then grinned. “Well, don't dream of me like this or you will suffer a nightmare.” Then he shifted to a more serious note as the noisy crowd came nearer. “Quick! Tell me, where are you staying?”

“With Miss Van Lew,” she whispered back as several women attired in colorful carriage dresses with wide hoops sailed into the room.

“Another Yankee!” remarked one of the top-hatted men who accompanied them. “I thought I smelled something rank down here.”

Rob said nothing, but lifted his chin and squared his
shoulders. His inner strength shone in his flashing dark eyes and in the straight lines of his stance. Every inch of him proclaimed Rob to be a man of character, not a subjugated captive. Julia's pride swelled. The sneering gentleman retreated behind the barricade of gawking women. It amused Julia to see that the ladies recognized Rob's true manliness despite his ragged trappings. One of the younger members of the female party even fluttered behind her handkerchief in her best ballroom style.

The outer door swung open and Wilson stepped inside. “He's a-coming,” he announced in general, without seeming the least bit surprised by the sight of the crowded room. Not looking at Julia or Rob, Wilson returned to his spot in the corner where he waited in silence with patient dignity.

The outer door opened once again. Ross, followed by several guards and a Confederate officer, confronted the unusual assortment of people crowding his domain. A fiendish sneer spread across his face.