to Colonel Abernathy as well as that dratted sentry. She threw her arm across her eyes. When the paper in her pocket crackled, she shuddered and sat up. The man had called her by name, although he’d said it kind of funny. The message had to be from Harry, who was presently in North Mississippi, as far as she knew.
After leaving Mobile at the declaration of hostilities, Harry had chosen a different way to communicate with her each time. Once he’d placed a note in the spine of a book and sent it to Jamie. Her brother approved of Harry, even if her grandmother did not.
She staggered to her feet. Harry’s latest messenger boy was sorely lacking in manners. Yet she would endure the fright and indignity again to have a letter to read and dream over, to help her remember Harry’s face.
She glanced up as she crept toward the house. The night seemed to have lightened a bit. Thank God for the open sky. When she’d gone back into the hold of the boat to retrieve the bag, the darkness had seemed to reach for her ankles. No wonder that deckhand nearly caught her. If the ruffian who called himself Joshua hadn’t grabbed her and covered her mouth, she might’ve screamed.
At the edge of the porch she paused. Male voices murmured through the open windows. Papa was up late. That wasn’t unusual, but the summer draperies had been closely drawn, dimming the light from the room.
She pulled back into the shadows beside the porch and peered through the lace. Her father was as attached to open windows as she was. Why would he pull the curtains on a muggy spring night?
Her father spoke again, answered by another man. Gradually the conversation began to make sense. They were discussing boats, or maybe a boat. Transportation was the family business. Nothing to linger over.
Then Papa’s voice dropped so low she had to strain to hear. “You’re sure the Yanks don’t know about it?”
“I’m sure of it. We scuttled it hours before Butler followed Farragut into New Orleans.”
Papa grunted. “You have the plans?”
“Hidden in the machine shop. But remember the original model wasn’t fully operational. The propellers tended to lock without warning, and we hadn’t tested her with a full crew.” The man cleared his throat. “Finding men willing to go under water deep enough to test her distance—well, I’m not sure I’d try it myself.”
“Oh, balderdash! I’d get in the thing tomorrow, if I weren’t a foot too tall and twice that too wide.”
“I’m sure you would, Zeke.” The man sounded amused. “But even if we start building tomorrow, it’ll be a month before it’s ready to test again.”
“You will start tomorrow,” Papa said. “And I want it completed in three weeks. Money’s no object when we’ve got the chance to sink Yankee gunboats without risking our own men.”
“I suppose it could be done.” The other man paused. “Laniere thinks he can correct the problem with the propeller. If nothing else goes wrong, we could break the blockade.”
Papa chuckled. “Excellent. I intend to be situated in a place of influence when we send the Yankees back north where they belong.” There was a scrape of chairs, a mutter of goodbyes, and the light was extinguished.
Camilla leaned against the house. Her father was setting himself up to make pots of money off a vessel so secret that it had to be scuttled before the Yanks could get their hands on it. It was one thing for her father to comply with the Confederate army’s demands that he provide transportation for the troops—strictly a defensive service. But to invest family money in a deadly weapon…
Maybe she’d misunderstood.
On shaky legs she crept around the side of the house and climbed the wisteria. She pulled herself through the open window and collapsed onto the floor. Sitting against the window seat, she removed her filthy clothes and tossed them under the bed. The room reeked of turpentine.
She hoped Lady wouldn’t take a notion to visit. Her grandmother never let a thing go by, which was how she kept the household under control, but so far she didn’t know about the underground railroad. And she didn’t know about Camilla’s communication with Harry.
Camilla rose to light the lamp, then unbuttoned her shirt and yanked it off. With a little grunt of frustration, she picked the knots free and unwound the linen strips that bound her bosom. Gradually she could breathe more freely. She heaved a sigh of relief as the last strip fell into her lap. Then she remembered the folded paper in her pocket. Rummaging under the bed, she found it and eagerly unfolded it.
She frowned. This wasn’t a letter. It was a sermon. She skimmed to the bottom. Harry always signed his name, but there was no signature here.
She read the sermon again. It was taken from the biblical account of the Israelite spies Moses sent to infiltrate the land of Canaan.
Mystified, she slipped on her nightgown and tucked the paper into the lacy ruffle of her sleeve. The stranger on the boat had said her name. And she’d never forget that voice. Smooth and deep, like the cough syrup Portia poured down her throat when she had the croup.
The familiar way he had touched her mouth and her hair had been abominable, but he’d kept her from being discovered by the deckhand. His arms had held her gently.
Cross-legged on the cushion at the open window, she touched her lips. She could still taste a faint saltiness from his hand. He’d said she had a pretty mouth. How would he know that? It had been pitch-dark almost the whole time. Maybe Harry had described her.
What did he mean by asking her to deliver the sermon to the “Man Upstairs”? The whole scene had been so bizarre and confusing. She’d forgotten all about looking for Virgil’s bag. Maybe she could make him a new one. Sighing, she rose to blow out the lamp.
The doorknob rattled.
She nearly dropped the candle snuffer. She’d nearly forgotten Portia, who always brought her bathwater and something to eat after a running. She hurried to unlock the door.
Portia stomped in with a brass can of steaming water under one arm and a stack of clean linen under the other. “If ever I saw such a mess of idiots in all my born days!” She thunked the can down on the washstand and faced Camilla with a righteous glare.
Camilla shut the door, a finger to her lips. “You’ll wake up Lady—you know what a light sleeper she is!”
“You two hours late, missy.” Portia tossed the linen on the bed, reached for Camilla and yanked the nightgown off over her head. “Horace says you all nearly get caught by the graycoats, then by the grace of God you get the delivery to the station—then Miss Camilla ups and takes off again without a word of explanation!” Portia’s nostrils flared. “Bathe quick, before that smell sticks to you permanent. Then you can eat while you tell me where you been.”
“I’m sorry, Portia.” Camilla meekly began to wash.
“Hmph.” Portia dug under the bed and came up with Camilla’s stinking clothes. “You fall in a pigpen on the way home?”
“It’s the pitch from the boat.” Camilla completed her bath, hung her towel on a brass rack beside the washstand and picked up her hairbrush. It was going to take hours to get the tangles out of her hair.
Having already bundled the offending clothes
