The Radical Element: 12 Stories of Daredevils, Debutantes, and Other Dauntless Girls

The dining room of Drexel Hall was everything one would expect in a grand plantation home: miles of floral wallpaper, a cherry dining table set for twelve, a chandelier threatening to buckle under its own opulence. Rose Blake, exiled to the farthest end of the table — suitable only for visiting relatives — eyed the chandelier, secretly willing it to fall. Anything to end Aunt Edith’s latest tirade.

“It’s positively uncivilized,” Edith drawled from the better-lit end of the table. The primary victim of her attention was an officer who’d been recently stationed at Fort Sumter. A handsome young officer, Rose couldn’t help but note, tall and graceful as a mountain lion, with blue eyes and chestnut hair pushing the limit of regulation length.

“I haven’t had fabric from France in two years because of that dreadful Union blockade,” her aunt continued. “Tell me, Captain Austin, what material am I to use when Stella outgrows her dresses? The curtains?”

She motioned to Rose’s eleven-year-old cousin, Stella, who was wearing a worn yellow frock and staring at the handsome officer with big moony eyes. Stella was so tiny that there was no danger of her outgrowing anything anytime soon, especially not with the war reducing Drexel’s usual feasts to meager rations and wormy cabbage and granting all their ribs new prominence.

Captain Austin didn’t answer immediately, which secretly pleased Rose. There was nothing worse than a man who spoke the first thought in his head. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, which had once been expensive but was now unraveling, fading into disrepair like everything else at the planation. No wonder Aunt Edith kept the lanterns set low.

“But surely not for dresses,” Edith huffed, patting her rouged cheeks, more like a spoiled girl than a woman of thirty-six.

Rose held her tongue against the ugly words that flooded her mouth. People were dying, and all her aunt thought of was next month’s ball with the soldiers at Fort Sumter. Rose stabbed the sharp tines of her fork into a pea.

A young male slave dressed in ill-fitting livery waited by the servants’ entrance to clear the second course. His reddish-brown jaw was clenched, his folded hands tensing every time Aunt Edith complained about a triviality. Rose glanced over her shoulder to catch Pauline’s eye, wondering what her friend thought of it all. Pauline was seated far out of sight in the corner by the buffet table, her mahogany hair tidily braided and her homespun lavender dress freshly pressed. As far as Rose’s aunt and uncle knew, Pauline was her free colored maid, whom Rose insisted always be close by in case she needed her. Pauline met Rose’s gaze, her pretty honey-brown face wearing a carefully blank expression. An excellent actress, Rose thought. Acting skills would be required of both of them if they were to accomplish what they’d come to Charleston to do.

Rose’s uncle, Cornelius, leaned forward to speak with Mr. Fillion, the owner of the neighboring Mayfair Plantation. Rose strained to catch what they might be conspiring about. Union frigate just off the coast . . . Crates with blue crests . . .

Edith signaled for the slave in livery to refill her wine. “Captain Austin, you must tell your commander that we are suffering more than our fair share. That Union blockade is strangling us. We can’t get our cotton to buyers in London. Which means we can’t get the supplies we need from their agents in Nassau. And now even the blockade runners are too frightened to attempt a voyage because of that masked renegade.”

Edith clapped her hands together. “Ah, you haven’t heard! Why, Charleston has its own vigilante. A Northern sympathizer. He goes by the name of —”

Edith tsked. “Yes. A provocative alias, isn’t it? He’s made it his mission to destroy the last three cotton shipments from Drexel and Mayfair. They say he makes explosives from black powder. He always strikes just after sundown.” Edith dropped her voice. “Rumors are he’s an Englishman who’s come to America and taken up the Northern cause.”

“He dresses all in black and wears gloves and a mask to disguise his face,” Stella added, “because he’s a real, famous lord, and he doesn’t want to be recognized!”

“If he is indeed a rogue Englishman,” Edith continued, “then he’s terribly misinformed. The British, like the Northerners, don’t understand the realities of plantation life. They only read sensationalist slander in the newspapers. It’s a regrettable truth that some mistreat their slaves, but we don’t. Why, our slaves are like family to us.”

The young slave in livery shifted uncomfortably while pouring her wine, his jaw clenching tighter. Rose curled her fingers around the hilt of her butter knife, wishing she could stab it into something — or someone. Across from her, Captain Austin’s gaze shifted to the young man, and for a moment, her hopes lifted. His sinewy hands were squeezed around his butter knife, too. Just because he was a Confederate soldier didn’t mean he personally condoned slavery. Any reasonable person wouldn’t. . . .

Edith beamed, and Rose stabbed her dinner roll. She glanced toward Pauline, whose blank expression had slipped, showing weary eyes and a hard set to her mouth. Pauline nodded toward the window. Nearly sundown.

“What do you think, Miss Rose?” Captain Austin said. “You must have a strong opinion on the relationship between slave and master.”

“Your uncle told me your father is a clergyman,” he explained. “In my experience, the clergy always has a strong opinion, regardless of the subject at hand. And I believe Scripture can be particularly difficult to interpret when it comes to matters of slavery.”

She eyed him closely, trying to see past his devilishly calm smile. What else had her uncle told him? It was Cornelius’s secret shame that his brother, Rose’s father, had been linked to abolitionists decades ago. And living in Boston, a sinful Northern city where free people of color mixed with whites, made Rose and her father pariahs as far as their Charleston family was concerned. But as she watched, Captain Austin’s expression remained open and the slightest bit bored. He was just making conversation.

John 3:18, she wanted to tell him. Let us love not in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Captain Austin was still looking at her expectantly, so Rose forced a giggle. “I only know what dear Uncle Cornelius tells me about such matters. I find the war so unsettling to discuss. Though” — she leaned forward and gave an impish grin — “if I’m honest, I’ve always fancied dashing rebels. In literature, that is. The only character more romantic is a young man in uniform.” She waved her butter knife suggestively in the direction of his epaulettes, and he went very red for a man who must be used to female attention.

Aunt Edith tittered. “Forgive her, Captain. She’s young, and men are so scarce these days. All the Fillion boys are serving in the military, isn’t that so? It’s practically a nunnery around here. Except for you, dear.”

“And you can hardly blame the poor girl,” Edith continued. “Living in Boston, surrounded by all those hotheaded abolitionist fools. When she wrote asking to stay with us for the summer, we felt it was our duty to bring her to the South, where life is still civilized.” She took a long drink from her chipped wineglass. “Of course, the neighbors were shocked we’d let a Northerner in our home, even our own niece. But how could we have said no? After all she’s been through, the poor thing.”

Rose felt her stomach twist. The last thing she wanted was their pity — though it had its uses. But this time her aunt had gone too far.

She gripped the round wooden rims of her wheelchair, rolling herself away from the table.

She felt her face warm. Well, let him stare. Charleston was full of wounded soldiers — surely he’d seen a wheelchair before. If he hadn’t noticed that her seat wasn’t the same as the others at the dining table, then that was his own lapse in observation.

Pauline was behind her in an instant, the soft smell of her lavender soap comforting to Rose as she took the wheelchair’s handles and helped guide Rose out of the dining room and into the hall. When Rose had first shown up at Drexel Hall with Pauline, Aunt Edith and Uncle Cornelius had refused to have Pauline under their roof. They worried that a free colored woman’s presence might incite their slaves to revolt. But Rose had mustered tears and pointed to her legs and insisted that she needed Pauline, who had been specially trained to help those in wheelchairs. They’d given in eventually. Tears always did the job.

The tick-tick-tick of the mantel clock followed them down the long hallways, past her uncle’s locked library, to the first-floor parlor that Aunt Edith had made up as a bedroom for her.

Pauline closed the door, pressed her ear to the crack, then turned and let out a frustrated sigh. “Lord Jesus, slaves are like kin? I could have strangled them.” She paced around the room. “You did a good job throwing off that captain’s questions. His face was red as a beet.”

Rose fanned her own still-warm face. “It was a rather nice face to look at, wasn’t it?”

Rose ducked the pillow. “I didn’t say I approved of his politics. I don’t like cigars, either, but that doesn’t mean they can’t come in a pretty package.”

“Oh, never mind him.” Pauline knelt to drag the carpetbag out from under Rose’s bed. “He won’t be a problem as long as we run this mission while they’re still at supper. We have enough black powder, don’t we?”

“Half a pound, in the last stall in the stables.” The military had conscripted all but one of her relatives’ horses, making the nearly empty stables the perfect place to hide their supplies. Rose wheeled herself to her dressing table, trying to put the attractive enemy officer out of her mind. She opened the drawer and sorted through the glass bottles for a small vial that she’d hidden among her beauty tonics. She held it up to the light. Nitroglycerin — exceedingly hard to come by. They’d stolen it from the assistant to an Italian chemist who’d been invited by the Boston Society of Natural History to give a public lecture. One flirtatious wink from Rose and the apprentice had bounded after her into the coatroom, while Pauline rifled through the collection of rare chemicals he was supposed to be guarding.

Pauline opened the carpetbag and took out a man’s shirt and pair of breeches that they had stolen from neighbors’ clotheslines. She started to unbutton her dress. “Did you hear what your aunt said about Lord Firebrand being a real English lord? Did you start those rumors?”

Rose picked innocently at her fingernails. “I might have sent an anonymous note to the newspaper. We had to have some reason for why he covers his entire face and body.” She wrapped the vial of nitroglycerin in a handkerchief, thinking back over Uncle Cornelius and Mr. Fillion’s dinner conversation. “Mayfair Plantation is disguising its cotton shipment as war rations bound for the hospital. The boxes are marked with a blue crest. Try to blow them up with black powder first. Use the nitroglycerin only if you must — we’re running low.”

Pauline pulled the man’s shirt over her head, then tucked it into the black breeches and pulled on gloves. She reached for the vial.

Rose handed it to her, then grasped Pauline’s other hand and squeezed tightly. “Be careful, Pauline.”

Since coming to Drexel Hall, Pauline had risked her life four times to commit acts of sabotage, sneaking out under the cover of night, finding the cotton shipments, and laying the explosives that Rose had prepared. Each time, Rose had stayed home with her dreaded family, praying for Pauline’s safety. That Pauline wouldn’t be harmed by the explosions. That she wouldn’t be attacked by a stranger or raped on the five-mile walk to Charleston. And of course, Rose’s greatest fear, for which she prayed especially hard: that Pauline wouldn’t be caught by soldiers. A free colored woman in possession of dangerous chemicals, committing criminal acts . . . It made Rose sick to think of what could happen. They wouldn’t just arrest Pauline. She could be sold into slavery. There could even be a noose. And Rose wouldn’t be able to help her.

She squeezed her useless knees. “You shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”

Pauline gave Rose a hug. “I know the risk,” she whispered, though her voice was shaking. “Don’t worry. Lord Firebrand will never be caught.”

The first time Rose met Pauline had been in a graveyard when they were seven years old. Rose’s father had told her that they were going to a church outside Boston for a secret meeting with colored pastors, and it had sounded like an adventure. But the men’s droning talk of abolition wasn’t nearly as interesting as the butterflies outside. She wandered through the cemetery, chasing them, vaguely aware of the honey-brown girl her same age on the other side of the cemetery, the daughter of one of the colored preachers, Reverend Jacobs, a man born free and educated by Quakers. The other girl’s long braids swung as she also chased the butterflies. But Rose was white and Pauline was colored, and they were too shy to speak to each other until a trio of rowdy farm boys scared a rabbit into the cemetery, beating it with sticks. Rose had gasped. Pauline had jumped up. Their eyes had met and the two of them had rushed at the boys, screaming and wailing like ghosts, startling them so that the rabbit got away. Rose and Pauline had been friends ever since.

Now, two weeks after the interminable dinner with Captain Austin, Rose sat on Drexel Hall’s wide back porch, her wheelchair settled amid the row of empty white rocking chairs, watching a rabbit munch on Aunt Edith’s rosebushes. Tall white columns extended the length of the porch, creating a haven away from the bustle of the slave quarters on the other side of the house. From here she couldn’t see the cotton fields, half of which had been torn up and replanted with potatoes and peas, being worked by most of the plantation’s forty slaves. But she could hear them. Sharp, distant yells from the white overseer, cracks of his whip, a child crying until the whip snapped again. She’d peeked out her window night after night to see the slaves trudging back to their cabins clutching sore backs, clad in sweat-soaked dresses and pants, some still bleeding from the lashes. That was plantation life: tradition masking something uglier. If Rose had her way, it would have ended long ago.

Before she came to Drexel Hall, she had only met her aunt and uncle once. They’d come to visit her father’s church in Boston when she was just a little girl. Her uncle’s whiskers had been black then, but his voice had been just as booming. He’d made Drexel Hall sound like something out of a fairy tale: cotton like small wisps of clouds, the salty breeze from the coast, monstrous alligators stalking the swamps. Rose had dreamed of coming to Drexel. But now that she was here, it turned her stomach. It was beautiful, yes, but no fairy tale.

Pauline came onto the porch with a picnic basket. “Your family went to Mayfair Plantation for the afternoon; your aunt told May in the kitchen that you’d rather stay here and that she should make you lunch. I, ah, slipped something in there for you.” She opened the basket to show that beneath the sandwiches were crisp bundles of money. Rose glanced around the porch. Even with her family gone, there were still the slaves and the overseers, but fortunately she and Pauline were alone.

“Goodness! All this from your mission last night?” Rose whispered. The previous evening, Pauline, dressed as Lord Firebrand, had held up a stagecoach carrying Confederate funds.

“I’ll say.” For the past two months, Rose had been anonymously paying off the occasional guard or soldier to look the other way, and the Charleston newspapers to spread the rumor about the masked vigilante. “With this much money, Lord Firebrand could even —”

The rosebushes suddenly rustled and a round face popped out of the leaves with even rounder eyes. Rose’s red-cheeked little cousin, Stella. “Did you say Lord Firebrand?”

“Stella!” Rose gasped, slamming the basket closed. “Shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t you be at Mayfair?”

Stella scrambled up onto the porch and pointed to the basket. “Where’d your colored girl get all that money, Rose? Did she steal it?”

“Hush!” Rose cried. Heat was spreading up her neck. What had Stella heard? Who would she tell? Blast! She glanced at Pauline, who met her gaze and then quickly disappeared into the house. Stella tried to follow her inside, but Rose grabbed the girl. “Stella, wait. Let’s play a game!”

The screen door slammed. Pauline was probably hiding the money, and, Rose hoped, hiding herself, too. Rose’s hands were shaking. She had to think fast. Pauline was in enough danger already; Rose had to keep her cousin quiet. She heard the rattle of wheels and, with an increasing sense of dread, looked up to see a Confederate army carriage bouncing along the oak-lined path beyond the gardens.

“She didn’t steal it,” Rose said in a rush. “It’s . . . mine. Brought with me from Boston.”

Stella scrunched up her face. “Do you really know Lord Firebrand?” Her eyes suddenly went wide. “Are you secretly in love with him? Is the money so you can run away together?”

The carriage stopped on the far side of the house. A man’s deep voice spoke with the house slaves. Her pulse thundered. A Confederate soldier here, now, and her cousin blabbing enough to cause them all sorts of trouble!

“It’s true,” Rose said quickly. “I am passionately in love with the dashing Lord Firebrand. We are going to elope. But it’s a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone.”

Captain Austin appeared at the far end of the porch, smiling. “Good day, Miss Rose. Miss Stella.” He paused. “Am I interrupting something?”

Rose’s fingers dug into Stella’s arms. She gave Stella a long look, and Stella nodded.

“We were just playing a game!” Stella said, a little too loud. Then she giggled and scampered off.

Captain Austin, oblivious, motioned to the empty rocking chair beside her. “May I join you, Miss Rose?”

“What . . . what brings you back to Drexel, Captain?” she asked, trying to keep the shaking from her voice.

He held up a book. “Returning a volume your uncle lent me when I was here for dinner.” Something on the ground caught his eye, and he reached down and removed a piece of straw from the spokes of her wheelchair. “You’ve been in the stables?”

“Yes. I, ah, I like to visit my uncle’s horse. I used to be fond of riding.” She squeezed her knees hard, but as always, felt nothing. She swallowed a bitter pang, thinking of the accident: her mare Hurricane spooked by a snake, the fall that broke her spine. She drew a deep breath. “You can leave the book with me. I’m afraid the family’s gone to Mayfair.”

For a few moments, he said nothing, only rocked slowly. And then he cleared his throat. “In fact, it was you I wished to speak to, Miss Rose.”

Her pulse still hadn’t slowed from nearly getting caught; now it thumped even harder. Had he heard Stella yelling about Lord Firebrand? Or was this some sort of declaration of affection? Goodness, he was nice to look at, but the last thing on her mind now was romance.

“At our dinner,” he continued in a quiet voice, “you mentioned you attended Prestley School for Girls in Boston. Later that night, I remembered that I had a friend who went there. Belle Stafford. She’s in Wilmington now. I wrote her and got her response this morning. She said she knew you. That you were brilliant at chemistry. You even blew up a tree stump one summer.” He paused, and Rose squeezed her armrests. Why was this captain so interested in her schooling? And in explosions? “And then I ran into an officer who had spent some years in Boston and asked about your family. He said your father was rumored to be involved with abolitionists in the eighteen thirties. That he might even have been responsible for an explosion last year in Virginia that took out an important tactical bridge for the Confederacy.”

Alarm shot through Rose. But she’d gotten Stella under control and she could manage this captain, too. “That’s . . . that’s ridiculous!” She tried for a laugh. “He’s a man of God, not of explosives.”

Captain Austin took a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I found this in the stables. It’s the label for a container of black powder. Someone had hidden it in the straw.” He toyed with the piece of straw that had been caught in her wheels.

Rose gripped the chair’s armrests, feeling dizzy. How could she warn Pauline? What could they do if the captain arrested them? Bash him over the head and flee? They wouldn’t get far, not in her chair. Perhaps she could force some tears and beg his mercy. It had worked before, with a Confederate spy in Boston who had caught her riffling through his letters. She’d sobbed and claimed she fancied him and she’d only been reading the letters to see if he had a sweetheart, and he’d let her go.

She leaned in, trying to hide how her heart was walloping. “It almost sounds like you’re trying to suggest that I am that masked rebel, which is ridiculous. Lord Firebrand walks.”

His gaze fell to her knees. “You must have a partner. If I had to guess, I’d say your maid is the one in the black costume, and you’re the one preparing the explosives and sending anonymous letters to the newspapers. Together, the two of you are Lord Firebrand.”

She sucked in a quick breath, masking panic with indignation. “Have you gone mad?”

He rubbed his chin. “Deny it all you like, Miss Blake, but I know it’s true. And I know how dangerous it is for you, and especially for your associate. She’d be in far more trouble than you if you two were caught. A well-heeled, pretty white victim of a tragic accident might escape the hangman’s noose. But not a colored girl.”

Rose was quiet. She didn’t quite know what to make of Captain Austin. Once she and Pauline had grown up and become more interested in abolition than butterflies, they had joined their fathers’ clandestine organization. They had helped to arrange hiding places for escaped slaves from the South and seduced secrets out of suspected Confederate spies. But then Hurricane had stumbled. There had been weeks in the hospital, months of recovery, the crushing disappointment of never being able to walk again. Or spy.

Her father had shaken his head. You don’t need to walk to make a difference for the Union.

At Pauline’s urging, Rose had agreed to start up their work again. She’d missed it — using her talents for something she believed in. It had taken a while to figure out how they could continue their work with Rose in a wheelchair, but then she’d gotten a condolence letter from Aunt Edith and Uncle Cornelius, who were rumored to have ties to the blockade runners. Pauline had suggested she write her aunt to ask for a convalescence at their plantation, and thus Lord Firebrand was born.

Now Rose drew herself up to her full height in the chair. “Good luck convincing anyone of your theory. You’ll look mad, arresting a girl in a wheelchair.”

“I haven’t come to arrest you, Miss Blake.” Captain Austin dropped his voice. “Don’t you understand? I’ve come to hire you.”

He scanned the porch, the garden, the rosebushes. “I work for General McClellan. My brother enlisted for the Union, and I wanted to enlist, too, but General McClellan said my services would be more valuable as a secret operative. I made a show of breaking with my family so I could enlist for the Confederacy. I’ve been trying to uncover the identity of Lord Firebrand for some time now. That’s why I pulled strings to have myself sent to Fort Sumter.”

“And you are Lord Firebrand.” A smile stretched across his face. “Or perhaps I should say Lady Firebrand.”

“What more proof do you need other than the fact that I haven’t arrested you?” His eyes danced. “I’m very impressed, you know. You and Pauline must have suspected that everyone would underestimate you.”

She settled back in her chair, eyeing him with cautious curiosity. “But not you.”

“No, Miss Blake. Not me. And not General McClellan, either. If you and your associate would be willing to help us, we have a mission for Lord Firebrand. It could change the course of the war. We just lost the Battle of Winchester — that’s thousands of Union men captured or killed. General Lee is getting more aggressive. We need you now more than ever.”

She paused. What would Pauline make of this? If the Confederacy won, Pauline would likely be enslaved — or worse. Rose flinched, thinking of the plantation slaves with their crusty, oozing cuts from the overseer’s whip, and of Mr. Fillion’s leer as he ogled the brown women who worked in the house.

Pauline had every reason to want to see the South defeated. She would think it worth the risk.

Captain Austin — Henry — came to Drexel Hall often over the next few weeks under a variety of pretenses: a forgotten cap, a book to lend Uncle Cornelius, updates on the war. At every visit, he and Rose snuck away to meet in the stables while Pauline kept watch — keeping a particularly close eye on Stella.

It was maps that General McClellan was after. Specifically, maps of the sea routes that blockade runners were using to sneak between the Union frigates stationed around the port of Charleston. Through his spy network, the general had learned that Uncle Cornelius, a former sea captain, was the one charting the routes — and that blockade runners were planning a massive smuggling operation: ten thousand Enfield rifles, a million cartridges, and four hundred barrels of gunpowder. All to be delivered on the first of August. Rose and Pauline’s mission was simple: locate the maps, copy them, and turn them over to Henry so that Union forces could confiscate the weaponry for themselves.

Rose spent days pretending to read a book while she listened in on her uncle’s conversations. Pauline spoke to the carriage driver to learn where Cornelius went and who he met with. At night they ransacked the guest bedrooms, the bookcases, even the pantry.

“The maps must be in the library,” Pauline concluded. “It’s the only place we haven’t been able to search. He disappears in there for hours on end, and Mr. Fillion’s usually with him.” She tapped on Rose’s dresser and raised an eyebrow. “Nitroglycerin would break the lock.”

“Yes, and also make enough noise to rouse the dead. We used the last of it, anyway. But maybe there’s something else . . .” Rose rifled through the vials in her drawer. “Ah!” She held up a bottle of aqua fortis. “Henry gave me this in case Lord Firebrand needed it for one of his missions; Fort Sumter has quite a chemical arsenal. In the right conditions, it will silently eat away at a brass lock.”

Rose scrutinized the bottle, thinking back on the public science lectures she’d attended in Boston, throwing her friends off by claiming she only went because she fancied the museum’s handsome young ticket-taker. “It’s dangerous if mixed with organic compounds, like turpentine.” She mimicked an explosion with her hands. “But I don’t think they used turpentine on the door. It isn’t varnished.”

“There’s nothing to be done for it,” Rose said. “We’ll just have to hope he assumes it was a common thief or an army deserter, after hidden valuables.”

“I hope you’re right,” Pauline said. “The first of August is in two days. If we don’t have the maps when Henry comes tomorrow, the Confederates will get all those weapons.”

Since Aunt Edith had given Rose a ground-floor bedroom on account of the wheelchair, it was much easier to sneak around without worrying about squeaky stairs or having to enlist someone to carry Rose from upper floors. Once they were certain the household was asleep, Pauline pushed Rose quietly down the hallway.

Pauline held a candle while Rose measured five milligrams of aqua fortis into a glass eyedropper and applied it to the lock. An acrid smell filled the hall, along with a faint fizzing sound. Rose waved her hand in front of the door, trying to dispel the fumes. Worries cycled through her mind as she counted to one hundred, giving the metal time to cool. She kept glancing at the stairs, making sure Stella wasn’t eavesdropping again. But even so, she felt good. It was thrilling, directly helping the Union cause again.

“Hold the candle a little closer.” She leaned as far forward as she could in her chair, peering into the lock. The exterior portion was completely melted, and most of the tumblers, too. She twisted the handle cautiously open. “It worked!”

“Bravo!” Pauline squeezed Rose’s shoulder and pushed her inside. They searched the library quickly, Pauline checking the upper shelves while Rose took care of the lower ones. Opening books, shaking pages, pulling open drawers, sorting through cabinets.

Frustrated, Rose gripped her chair’s wheels and rolled backward, but misjudged the slope of the floor and rolled right into the umbrella stand. She cringed, expecting a crash that would wake her relatives, but it landed on the rug with only a soft thud. She let out a breath.

Amid the canes and umbrellas were a handful of long paper rolls. Pauline untied one and they gasped at the same time.

“Quick!” Rose whispered, wheeling herself to the desk. “Get some paper. We’ll make copies.”

They worked under the light of the single candle, Rose tracing the nautical lines, Pauline filling in the place-names in her small, precise handwriting. Dawn continued to rise outside. Something thunked in the kitchen.

Pauline straightened. “That must be May, making breakfast. I think we can trust her — I’ve overheard her and the scullery maid talking about sneaking food to a man who runs a safe house at the docks. But the family will be up soon.”

“Almost done . . .” Rose said, tracing the last route. “There. Finished!”

Pauline rolled up the maps and shoved them back in the umbrella stand. Rose shuffled the papers on her uncle’s desk and pocketed his silver paperweight, hoping that would convince him that the broken lock was caused by a thief.

Footsteps sounded over their head. Someone upstairs was awake. Pauline pushed Rose down the hall to her bedroom and closed the door just as someone came stomping down the stairs. Breathless, they looked at each other in satisfaction.

Pauline grabbed a handful of hairpins from Rose’s vanity table and crouched at the foot of the wheelchair. “I’ll pin the maps to your petticoats, like we used to do in Boston.”

Because of the wheelchair, Rose couldn’t wear the same bell-shaped hoopskirts as most Southern belles; she wore a modified corset and thick padded underskirts. Pauline lifted Rose’s dress — a soft pink cotton that, like everything else at Drexel, had been fine once but was now worn around the edges — and experimented with securing the maps to the copious folds of Rose’s petticoats.

“There,” she said, smoothing Rose’s skirts over the maps. “You can’t tell. Though you won’t be able reach them yourself, which means Henry’s going to have to root around beneath your skirts to free them.”

Rose patted the ruffles of her skirt. “Goodness. Well. We must all suffer in times of war, right? I suppose if an attractive young captain must root around in my skirts for the sake of a Northern victory, then I simply must allow it.”

Pauline gave her a pinch on the arm. “You always were a shameless flirt. Some things never change.”

All that morning, Rose waited anxiously on the front porch for a glimpse of Henry’s carriage. Pauline did the wash and the mending, a chore she loathed. Rose wished she could spare her that much, but she had no choice if they wanted to avoid suspicion that Pauline was anything but Rose’s maid. Rose wore a blanket over her lap despite the early-summer heat, to further disguise the rustle of papers hidden in her petticoats. Her cheeks warmed at the thought of Henry crouched in front of her, lifting her cotton dress, fingers sliding among the silk petticoats. For the past few weeks, she’d come to enjoy his visits more and more. The last time she’d seen him, he had let his fingers rest too long on her wrist, his lips close to hers as they had whispered plans. Would he ever kiss her?

Her thoughts darkened as she realized that, while unpinning the maps, he would see how thin her legs had become from lack of use. Would he be repulsed? No. He was the kind of man who would find every part of her beautiful. She started to imagine writing a letter to her father. Papa, I’ve met the most wonderful man. . . .

Rose pretended to read her Bible, her gaze darting anxiously to the road every few moments, but the only person who came was the post boy. Shortly after the clock chimed one, Stella came charging out the door like some wild creature, tears streaming down her face.

The front door opened again and Aunt Edith rushed out. “Child, come back here!”

Edith shook her head. “You know how she’s always hiding? Well, a moment ago a letter arrived from Fort Sumter, saying Captain Austin was arrested as a Union spy. Stella overheard your uncle and me discussing it.” She patted her rouged cheeks offhandedly. “Hard to believe. Such a polite young man. Most impressive jawline.”

Blood roared in Rose’s ears, and her heart started to pound. Surely she hadn’t heard right. “Captain . . . Captain Austin?” Her voice sounded strangely distant.

Aunt Edith gave her a sideways look. “Don’t tell me you fancied him, too. Oh, of course you did — what girl wouldn’t? Well, he’s being held in the Old City Jail until his trial. Cornelius was suspicious of him; he was a bit too rehearsed. Too careful in his words. And Stella had seen him acting oddly.”

Rose listened in a stunned silence, terror snaking up her back. She closed her eyes. Stella couldn’t have told about the money, about Pauline’s mission. She couldn’t . . .

“Stella told us she’d seen Captain Austin sneaking around the house, testing out a door on the first floor. It must have been the library, because this morning Cornelius discovered the lock had been broken and a valuable paperweight was missing. It must have been Captain Austin. Cornelius wrote to the general immediately.” Her voice dropped, heavy with lurid excitement. “He’s Lord Firebrand, don’t you see? He was likely trying to rob us to gain money for the Union.”

She had stolen that paperweight, not Henry. And the room Stella had seen Henry trying to enter secretly — had it been her own bedroom, perhaps, instead of the library? Had he been intending to find her, to talk in private? About the mission — or to finally share that kiss?

Aunt Edith turned and called back into the house. “May, we’ll have two fewer places for lunch. Stella’s run away, and Captain Austin certainly won’t be joining us!”

Rose rolled up and down the hallways, calling Pauline’s name. She found her in the wash yard, hanging up dripping sheets in the sun. As she managed to choke out the story, Pauline’s eyes went wide and she reached down to clutch Rose’s hands.

“Shhh.” Pauline nodded toward the four slaves at the well, only ten yards away. They were older women, their sleeves pushed back over brown skin further darkened by sun, their faces shining with sweat as they struggled to haul up buckets of water by hand, since the military had taken the pump handle for its metal.

“Not here.” Pauline pushed Rose’s chair through the gardens to the empty stables.

“It’s because of me,” Rose gasped. “Pauline, I can’t abide it! Henry isn’t Lord Firebrand — we are!”

“The last thing he’d want is for us to give up. He was going to take the maps to a contact in Milford, right? At the inn by the river bend? We’ll go there ourselves.”

“How?” Rose whispered. “I’m in a wheelchair, and you can’t walk to Milford alone in broad daylight. We can’t trust that your papers will keep you safe.” She glanced at the sun, still high. “If we could wait until night, you could go under cover of darkness in the Lord Firebrand costume.”

“It would be too late.” Pauline paced the length of the barn, looking at the big old draft horse in the next stall, the only one that hadn’t been conscripted. “We have to go now. Do this together, like we used to.”

“That’s impossible.” Rose followed Pauline’s gaze to the horse. “We can’t steal a carriage. We’d be found out immediately.”

“Not a carriage. Just the horse. We’ll be back in half an hour. Your family’s napping; we won’t be missed.”

“But you don’t know how to ride a horse, and I . . .” She clutched her knees. Bitterness rose again in her throat.

“Do you remember the military parade in Boston last January?” Excitement brimmed in Pauline’s voice. “There was a soldier whose legs had been amputated; he rode in a special saddle that kept him upright. He must have figured out how to modify it.”

“We don’t need it. Not if we both ride. I’ll sit in back and hold us on, and you take the reins and command the horse, and tell me how to signal him with my heels. You won’t need use of your legs.”

She pressed her hands against her legs, kneading them beneath her skirt. Pauline’s plan sounded dangerous — Pauline could fall, or Rose could fall again. Would she hurt herself even more?

She swallowed down her fear and thought of praying with her father by the light of a candle. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. It was Acts 17:26, the verse that always reminded her that all people were created in God’s image and all deserved justice.

She took a deep breath. “I suppose it could work if I tell you how to signal him with your legs. He’s an old horse — that’s why the army left him. There’s no danger of him bolting and throwing us off.”

Pauline squeezed her shoulder. “We need May’s help. Hold on.” Pauline disappeared to the house and soon returned with the cook. At six feet tall, May stood even-eyed with most of the men of Drexel Hall. When they explained to her what they intended to do, May shook her head.

“It’s for a good reason, though we can’t tell you why.” Rose added slyly, “If it works, it will hurt my aunt and uncle’s pride.”

Rose gripped the base of the horse’s mane in one hand and the back of the saddle in the other, and with Pauline and May lifting her, she was able to pull herself up so that her stomach rested on the saddle. Then Pauline helped her move one leg around the horse’s back, so that she was straddling it and could sit upright. Pauline arranged her legs in place, setting her boots into the stirrups. As soon as May had returned to the kitchen and they were alone again, Pauline lifted Rose’s skirt and refastened some of the maps that had come loose from the petticoat ruffles.

As Pauline worked, Rose knit her fingers between strands of the draft horse’s mane, feeling as though she were moving in a dream. She’d forgotten the earthy smell of a horse and the feel of its hair beneath her palms, like coarse velvet. Something tugged in her chest. Whenever she had ridden Hurricane, she’d felt like the wind itself, free and unyielding.

Pauline stepped on a wooden crate and climbed up behind her, sliding her hands firmly around Rose’s middle, squeezing her legs around the horse to keep them steady.

Rose took a deep breath. Right after the accident, her mind had gone to a dark place, defeated and frustrated. It had been her father’s belief in her that had pulled her out of it, and the lessons she found in the Bible, reminding her that she couldn’t sit by and benefit from an unjust system. She’d tried so hard not to let Pauline down after the accident. To prove that she was still useful, that she recognized the risks Pauline was taking, and that she would always help where she could. Now, Pauline’s presence gave her all the strength she needed. Ever since that first day in the graveyard, saving the rabbit by chasing off those boys, they’d taken courage from each other.

“I’m ready.” She picked up the reins. “Squeeze your heels into his side.”

She felt a jolt as Pauline signaled the horse, and, with a snort, it took a step forward.

Rose grinned. She and Pauline were a team again. She’d been so afraid after the accident that her missions were over, and that if anything went wrong for Pauline, she wouldn’t be able to protect her. But now she started to see a future where the two of them could work side by side to help the Union. Tears started running down her face.

“Pauline —” she started, but couldn’t finish. She wanted to tell Pauline how much this meant to her. The horse, their mission, and most of all, Pauline herself. Pauline and she, they were more than coconspirators. They were more than Lord Firebrand. They’d be there for each other in hard times and in good times, no matter the danger, always trusting in each other’s strong heart.

By the time they reached Milford, Rose’s spirits were soaring. The horse had obeyed their every command, almost as though he had sensed the importance of their mission. They spotted the inn as soon as they crossed the bridge, and guided the horse into a copse of maple trees tucked by the riverbank.

“Give them this note and the silver paperweight,” Rose said, “or they might not believe you.”

Rose handed Pauline the silver paperweight from her uncle’s library and a note she’d written while Pauline had fetched May. Pauline slid off the back of the horse and, after making certain no one was watching, ran around back. It was only a few moments before she came out with an elderly couple with pale but kind faces, the husband leaning on a cane, the wife with thinning white hair twisted in a knot.

The woman’s forehead knit together as she looked between the note in her hand and Rose atop the horse, half hidden in the maple branches. She glanced at the road in the distance. “Your maid says Lord Firebrand sent you?” she asked in a low voice.

The elderly couple exchanged a cryptic look, and the man cleared his throat. “You’ve wasted your time. We’ve no association with such a criminal.”

“Of course not,” Rose said. “But if you did, or if you knew someone who did, we have a message on his behalf. A certain military captain has been arrested, but we’ve brought the package he was supposed to deliver.”

The old man looked keenly around the trees, as though expecting the Confederate army to burst out from behind the bushes. “This isn’t some game you girls are playing?”

“It’s no game,” Rose promised. Her heart was pounding; she was risking just as much as the innkeepers. Pauline was risking far more.

Pauline lifted the top layer of Rose’s skirt, revealing the maps hidden in Rose’s petticoats. The innkeeper’s eyes went wide as he unfastened one of the maps and unrolled it, eyes tracing the nautical courses. “Nancy, look!”

The wife rested a hand on his shoulder, beaming. Quickly, she and Pauline unfastened the rest of the maps. Then the woman ran into the stable to fetch an old feed bag, which they stuffed the maps into. From high on the horse, Rose kept an eye on the nearby road.

“We will,” the man said. “By tomorrow, that Confederate shipment will be captured. Do me a favor and thank Lord Firebrand for his work. A wonder, that man is.” He lowered his voice. “Is he truly a British lord?”

The man chuckled to himself and carried the maps into the inn, but his wife lingered. She stroked the horse’s flank. “I have a feeling that the true thanks might be due elsewhere. After all, it isn’t an English lord I see before me now, nor a Union spy. It’s two girls.” She smiled kindly. “Whoever Lord Firebrand is, he’s fortunate to have you on his team. I daresay if I was in trouble, I’d turn to the two of you before any English rogues.”

They rode back to Drexel Hall in triumph and slipped into the stables. May helped Rose ease carefully off of the horse and into the wicker-lined seat of her chair.

Rose leaned forward to stroke the horse. She couldn’t stop thinking about the young man who had trusted the two of them, the young man with such delectable eyes and an even more attractive spirit. Was he worth one more risk?

She gave Pauline a sly smile. “How do you think Lord Firebrand would feel about a prison break?”

“I’m still in correspondence with that Italian chemist’s apprentice. He’s coming back to America next month for another round of lectures. . . .”

Pauline’s eyes lit up. “In that case, I pity the prison guards holding Henry. I think Lord Firebrand just found his new mission.”

Though the masked rebel known as Lord Firebrand is fictional, female spies during the Civil War were a matter of fact. Most notable was the Union spy and founder of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, as well as Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew and Confederate spies Antonia Ford and Belle Boyd. These women — especially if they were young, attractive, or of high society — used their position to gain valuable information from male officers, which they then might pass along to their connections by hiding notes in their elaborate hairstyles or hoopskirts.

I love writing about brave girls who are often underestimated, like Rose and Pauline. I hope you like reading about them, too. And I hope you feel inspired by these women who fought for what they believed in, not on the battlefield but in the daily choices they made to risk their lives to build a better world.

Special thanks to Dhonielle Clayton, Anna Henshaw, Daniel Pierce, Beth Revis, and Ryan Graudin for their thoughtful notes and expertise.