haircut would be less painful than Portia’s brisk strokes with the brush, but Camilla closed her eyes and endured. She deserved a certain amount of pain for her stupidity.
“You gonna tell Portia where you been for the past two hours?” The brushstrokes slowed and gentled. “I been just about out of my mind, worrying.”
Camilla rested her head back against the cushion of Portia’s bosom. “I had to go back to fetch something I left on the boat.”
“It better been something almighty important.”
“It was Virgil’s news bag.” Camilla waited for the explosion that didn’t come. Feeling a tremor under the back of her head, she opened her eyes.
Portia’s dark face was perfectly bland, though there was an amused spark in the back of her eyes. “Girl-child, you’re gonna put yourself out one too many times for that cockeyed old man. I sure hope the Lord makes good on that promise about ‘doing it unto the least of these.’” She snorted and began to brush again. “Virgil Byrd’s about the least of anything I ever seen!”
Chapter Two
Gabriel woke to the sound of a timid scratching at his door. Having long ago trained himself to sleep with one foot on the floor, he moved in one fluid step to the door, his derringer cocked and ready to fire. “Who is it?”
“Reverend Leland, it’s S-Sally. Sir.”
Reminded of his ministerial alter ego, he relaxed and lowered the gun. Opening the door, he found the young maid who had escorted him to his room yesterday twisting her apron into a white corkscrew. “A bit early in the day for spiritual counseling, my dear,” he said dryly.
Sally’s blood climbed to the ruffle of her mobcap. “Sir, I got an urgent message.”
Gabriel pulled his galluses up over his shoulders. “What is it?”
“They’s a lieutenant downstairs, told me to come get you on the double. Said tell you there’s a lady been took by Colonel Abernathy, and she needs you right away.”
Gabriel’s blood froze. The only lady he knew here was Delia Matthews. “Tell the lieutenant I’m on my way, and ask him to make my—ah, cousin as comfortable as possible.”
The mobcap bobbed and disappeared.
Gabriel dressed and shaved, managing to nick his chin with the razor in his haste. Irritated, he examined the cut in the mirror. Beards and mustaches were in fashion these days, but yesterday’s trip to the barber was essential to his disguise. He hadn’t been clean shaven since his sixteenth birthday; he hardly recognized himself. In fact, he’d forgotten about that arrow-shaped scar his brother, Johnny, had put on his upper lip when they were kids. He touched the scar. Johnny was probably dead by now. Ma always said the good died young.
Gabriel had every intention of living to be an old man.
Escorted by the young lieutenant, he fumed all the way downtown to Confederate headquarters. Delia should have been headed upriver with her troupe by now. If they’d left without her, he had no way to get the cipher into Union hands with any expediency. And what if she’d been searched?
His wait in the luxurious parlor of the Rice mansion, which housed Colonel Abernathy’s staff, did nothing to cool his temper. His only consolation was the proximity of his understuffed horsehair chair to the two yawning sentries lounging on either side of the front hall. He couldn’t help wondering why this war was taking so long. Grant or Sherman ought to stroll down here tomorrow and round this bunch up like so many hound dogs snoozing in the shade.
He was beginning to lose interest when the secretive note in the voice of one of the sentries brought him fully awake.
“You hear about the delivery coming in tonight?”
“Yeah. About time, too. If I’d known there wasn’t gonna be no whiskey allowed, I’d thought twice before joining up. Where’s it coming from?”
“Somebody caught a couple darkies with the Birdman last night. First time anybody’s actually seen ’em. Promised if they’d let ’em go they’d pass the next shipment our way.”
The first sentry chortled. “The Birdman may be crackers, but he knows his blackstrap.”
Hat over his face, Gabriel settled his head on the carved rosewood frame of the chair. So the Rebel army wasn’t above dealing in contraband whiskey. Idly he wondered about the identity of the Birdman, but a sudden series of piercing shrieks from the upper floor of the house brought his head off the back of the chair. The sentries jumped.
The shrieks escalated in volume as a door opened and a harried-looking junior officer appeared at the bend of the stairs. He mopped at some beige-colored liquid dripping from his eyebrows and mustache. “Is there a Reverend Leland down here somewhere?”
The shrieks ceased as Gabriel stood. He had his story planned out. “I’m Reverend Leland. I see you’ve made my cousin’s acquaintance.”
The young man glanced over his shoulder. “That woman don’t act like nobody’s cousin—except maybe Old Nick’s. I’m pretty sure she sprung straight from the gates of Hades. Colonel Abernathy wants to see you. Right this way, sir.”
They found the colonel in an upstairs bedroom, which had been converted into an office with the addition of a desk and a couple of bookcases. The colonel’s lank brown hair stood on end, a bit of egg yolk adorned his left sideburn, and grease stains marred the military perfection of his gray coat. He rose with an agitated scrape of his chair. “Reverend! Last night my men apprehended a young woman, and she—well, she’s what you might call a bit of a handful.” The colonel blushed. “She claims to be a gentlewoman, but we know she’s been traveling up and down the river as an actress.”
Raising a sardonic eyebrow, Gabriel took the proffered chair. “Working as an actress might not be the most respectable occupation for a woman, but it isn’t illegal.”
“Of course it isn’t, but one of my men claims Miss Matthews was pumping him for information.”
“And your man was completely sober?”
The colonel picked up a perfectly pointed quill in his inkstand and began to sharpen it. “You know as well as I do it’s against army regulations to sell whiskey to military personnel.”
“Of course.” Gabriel sat back. “Would you mind filling me in on the circumstances of my cousin’s arrest?”
The colonel huffed. “It seems Private Hubbard was enjoying a bit of leave aboard the Magnolia Princess last evening, and—well, Hubbard, being a strapping young man—caught Miss Matthews’s attention. She invited him to her room after her performance.”
Gabriel kept his tone cold and incredulous. “I think I have the picture, Colonel. The scarlet woman seduced your innocent young enlisted man, plied him with liquor to loosen his tongue and proceeded to pull information out of him in order to sell it to the enemy.” The accusation sounded melodramatic and silly—the plot of a riverboat play.
“That’s about it.” Abernathy ran a finger around his collar. “Unless you have some other explanation.”
Gabriel straightened. “I
