Rachel's Choice (25 page)

“Tell me about lawyering,” she murmured sleepily, cutting into his black reverie.

“Most is tedious work,” he replied.

“But not all.”

“Go to sleep.” He wanted to be alone with his demons. And most of all he didn't want to answer questions about tomorrow, about what would happen when he went into the prison.

She persisted. “How did you come to choose law as a way of making a living?”

He thought a moment and then chuckled softly. “I suppose I liked the challenge,” he admitted, “and I had a respect for the law.”

She caught his hand and gently massaged his fingers, kissing the pad of each in turn. “Tell me about some of your cases.”

“Only if you stop that.” Odd how such a thing could make a man's loins tighten. “You may be sorry you asked. Once I represented an accused hog thief who …” He gasped as her hand brushed his groin. “Rachel!”

“Don't you like it?” she teased.

“I like it fine, but …”

“But …” She laughed softly and began to stroke the length of his swelling cock.

“You're insatiable, woman.”

He lost his place in the unbelievable tale of his encounter with the Reverend Jacob Thomas and pulled her into his lap. “You want to play?”

“Do you know a good game?”

He crushed her mouth and slipped searching fingers under her skirt. “I'd love to play.”

Their lovemaking was slow and passionate. And later, when he'd brought her to climax twice and satisfied his own raw hunger, he held her and finished his story. After that, despite her protests, he followed with another about a rascal cleric who talked a parishioner out of a prize heifer.

Eventually, Rachel drifted off with her head in his lap, but Chance found no such peace. Blending flesh and soul with her was a touch of paradise, but seeing Fort Delaware had brought back memories that refused to fade.

He'd seen so many men die in their own vomit, helped carry too many gray-clad bodies onto the Jersey death ship. Some had slipped away quietly in their sleep; others had died hard. But worst of all had been young Jeremy Stewart.

Travis and he had stolen boards to build the boy a coffin, and they swaddled him in his threadbare blanket. They'd threatened to strangle any man—Union or Confederate—who robbed it from him. But Chance could still see Jeremy's blackened face, and his fingers ached to tighten around Coblentz's throat.

God rot his bowels! The Dutchman deserved to die. He'd been tried and condemned by a jury of good men. Every breath he drew was one too many. Killing him would be justice, not an act of murder.

But he couldn't explain it to Rachel … couldn't
justify what he meant to do. Some things were better left unspoken, no matter how the silence wore at a man's soul.

Carefully he rose and went up on the deck again. A breeze off the water helped with the mosquitoes, but being bitten was better than being trapped in that cabin with his regrets.

He set himself to finishing his disguise, wrapping his leg with splints and bandages, and then slipping a lead fishing weight in his shoe to insure that he limped when he walked. Rachel had wrapped a bandage around his head before they'd left the farm. Now he covered one eye and most of his face and neck, leaving only small holes to breathe. Again he would have to pretend to be mute. No amount of thespian skill could cover his Virginia accent, and one slip would mean disaster for their plan.

He didn't doubt that the two of them could reach the banking house, but if Benjamin Gordon was no longer with the Philadelphia branch or if the English solicitor refused to give them the money, they'd be in deep trouble.

That thought made him laugh. When hadn't he been in trouble since his horse had taken that spill in the forest at Gettysburg? Hell, since he'd joined the Confederate army. Any Virginian who could face down Rachel Irons and her dogs should be able to manage an aging English banker, shouldn't he?

The next morning they walked a short distance to Chestnut Street and Chance's imposing London Bank. After some urgent discussion, Rachel was able to convince a clerk that Mr. Gordon would be willing to see Mr. Irons without an appointment.

The stout, bespectacled clerk led Chance away, leaving
Rachel to cool her heels in the imposing marble lobby for more than two hours. She waited nervously while elegantly dressed patrons, police, and soldiers passed by. And each time Rachel caught sight of a uniform, she was certain the bank employees had discovered Chance's identity and the soldiers had come to drag the two of them to jail.

Finally, when she was about to demand to be taken to Chance, he appeared with the exceedingly proper Mr. Gordon. The tall Englishman was whip-thin with a florid complexion and a neatly trimmed white beard and mustache. In contrast, his head was covered with an ill-fitting jet-black wig, so ridiculous in appearance that Rachel nearly dissolved into laughter.

Chance took her arm and escorted her out through a side door, where Mr. Gordon hailed a passing carriage for hire. The three rode through the streets of Philadelphia to an inn where the solicitor had rooms.

There Mr. Gordon ordered a late breakfast for her and Chance. When they had eaten, Gordon handed Rachel a parcel and a sheaf of papers. “There is your five hundred dollars. A copy of Mr. Chancellor's will is enclosed as well.”

“His will?” she asked, confused. “I told him—”

“Nevertheless …” Gordon stroked his beard and stared fiercely at her. “Mr. Chancellor has named you and your minor child, James David Irons, as his sole beneficiaries—subject, naturally, to any later will. Our bank will act as guardians for the minor child until he reaches the age of twenty and one. Since Mr. Chancellor has also set up a stipend for the boy, you—as his mother—may petition the bank for moneys to clothe, feed, and educate him.”

“All I wanted was a loan,” she protested. “I didn't ask for five hundred dollars, and I never agreed to—”

“I believe the less said, the better,” Gordon replied. “You should consider yourself quite fortunate, Mrs. Irons. Considering the circumstances—”

“What circumstances?”

She turned to Chance, but he simply grinned and spread his hands.

“The driver will take you wherever you want to go,” Gordon said, “but if I'm asked, I dropped you a few blocks from the bank, and I never laid eyes on either of you again.”

“As you wish,” Chance said.

“I'm doing this for the family,” Gordon said. “But I don't approve.”

Chance nodded. “So you've already told me.”

“Your country's differences are none of my business,” Gordon continued. “The bank's position is strictly neutral.”

The solicitor left the inn by one door; she and Chance hurried out by another. On the way back to the sloop, Chance insisted the carriage driver make several stops; once at a shop that sold secondhand clothing, and again at a grocery, where he purchased a basket of fresh bread and several dozen eggs. Finally he halted the vehicle along the street to buy a child's wagon from a peddler.

“You'll need something to carry your wares in,” Chance had explained to her. “I won't be able to help you, seeing as how I'm so badly injured.”

When they reached the comparative safety of the
Windfeather
, she waited for Chance to explain his actions. Instead, he pressed the Quaker clothing into her arms and steered her toward the hatch.

“I'm not taking five hundred dollars from you,” she said. “I won't be bullied into it. And I didn't ask you to—”

“Just put on the dress,” he ordered. “You can pay me back the five hundred. We don't have time for this now.”

“A Quaker? Why do I have to be a Quaker?” Rachel demanded. She frowned as she inspected the plain gray dress and severe black bonnet.

“Hurry,” Chance insisted. “If you hurry, we can catch the outgoing tide at noon.”

“But I don't know any Quakers. I don't know how they're supposed to speak.”

“If you have fresh bread, the Yankees won't care what you say.”

“What's all this about a stipend for Davy?”

“I want to provide for him, for both of you when I'm not there to do it.”

“I can care for my own child. I don't need your charity,” she insisted.

“Please, Rachel.”

Chance was bandaged so completely that only one blue eye showed, but even that was hard to stare down. “Damn you, Chance Chancellor,” she muttered. She guessed that he was as nervous as she was about their coming attempt to get in and out of the prison. If they had the sense of a horseshoe crab, they'd sail right past Pea Patch Island and back to Rachel's Choice.

Against her better judgment, she shut the hatch and changed into the Quaker dress. It was large around the waist and high on her ankles, and it smelled musty and none too clean.

“This is your revenge on me for Abner's clothing,” she called up to him as she tugged at the offending material.
“This looks abominable,” she complained. “Am I supposed to ‘thee' and ‘thou' the soldiers as I peddle my bread and jams?”

“Hurry up,” Chance shouted. “I need you to help with the sail.”

She pulled the bonnet over her hair and stuffed a round loaf of raisin bread up under her skirt and tied it over her stomach. “We'll see how you like that, Mr. Chancellor,” she said. “If I have to be a Quaker, I'll be a pregnant one.”

Chance's eyes narrowed when she came on deck. “What do you think you're doing?” he demanded. “This isn't a game. We could both end up with our necks stretched.”

“You think I don't know that?” she snapped. “Who's got the most to lose here?”

“You do,” he admitted after a moment. “I'll understand, Rachel, if you want to call off the whole thing.”

“Would you?” She touched his hand. “It's what I'd like to do. But you wouldn't be satisfied, would you? You'd go on thinking about Travis, wondering if he's alive.”

He nodded.

Rachel went forward to pull the anchor. “Let's do it, then,” she said.

Chance turned the tiller, and the
Windfeather
drifted into the channel. The outgoing tide carried them past a tall clipper ship headed upriver and a barge loaded with salt hay anchored along the muddy shore.

Rachel took Chance's place at the tiller, and he raised the sail. The bright noonday sun reflected off the water, causing her to squint as she watched a great blue heron
flap up out of the reeds and glide soundlessly across the river.

“We won't have to go into the fort proper,” Chance said. “The common soldiers are housed in wooden sheds on the island. Only officers and civilian traitors are kept inside the stone walls.”

“That's comforting,” Rachel replied as she moved to sit beside him. “Is that where you were kept?”

His gaze met hers, and for an instant she thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he nodded. “I was a captain in the Fourth Virginia Cavalry. Am a captain,” he corrected himself. “I spent five months in an officers' cell, two of them in solitary confinement for trying to escape.” His features hardened. “Some of the guards were sadistic and the food was worse than I'd feed to pigs, but we were dry and we had bunks to sleep on.”

“I don't understand. If officers were kept in the main prison, how did you get out?”

“Stories began to filter in about the conditions on the island for the enlisted men. And after two attempts to break out, I realized that the only way off Pea Patch was from the wooden barracks in the common quarters.” A faint hint of a smile played over his taut lips. “I convinced them that I was a private, masquerading as an officer. My punishment was five lashes and exile to the common section of the island.”

“Is that where you found your friend?” she asked.

“Travis had used common sense. He'd gotten rid of his insignia before he was captured. He knew that our boys needed leaders to keep them alive once they got to prison. Travis was my first lieutenant, and a better one I never hope to see.”

She lay her head against him. “If you joined the enlisted men to help them, why did you escape?”

“Two of ours, Will and Charley, died of their wounds; Red Bailey was carried off by consumption; and the baby, Jeremy Stewart, hanged himself. Dave Pointer was the only one left of the Fourth Virginians, besides Travis and me. Dave was supposed to go with us that night, but he never showed up at the meeting place.”

“So they may both be dead?”

“Probably.” He squeezed her arm. “You don't have to do this,” he said. “I can put you ashore here and take the goods to sell myself.”

She scoffed. “And end up shot the moment you open your mouth?”

“Other Virginians have joined the Union forces.”

“And shown up at a federal prison selling bread and jam?” She made a sound of disgust. “You can't do it alone, and you know it.”

“Maybe not.”

In spite of the heat, she shivered. This was crazy, she thought. She should be home with Davy. What if she never saw her baby again? What good would Chance's money do Davy if he were an orphan?

She bit her lower lip and stared out at the black water. Until now she'd done nothing but hide an escaped rebel, something that might be explained away as the act of a foolish woman. This was different. She was assisting a Confederate soldier to spy on a Union prison, and the courts would show her no mercy if they were caught.

“I guess the trick is not to be caught,” she whispered into the wind.

“That's the idea.”

“God help us.” But would He? she wondered. What
they were doing was wrong, even if they were doing it for the right reason. She was risking everything for the love of Chance, and he for love of his friend. Surely that had to count for something with the Almighty.

Resolutely she pushed her apprehension aside, tightened her hands on the gunnel, and fixed her gaze on the river ahead.