learned his name was Jake—returned Hattie to her cell, Lucy was sullener than ever.
“I thought you’d gone and left me, like everyone else.”
Hattie almost blurted out that she wouldn’t mind leaving her, if such a thing were possible, but she checked herself. As Thom had pointed out, it was crucial their stories matched when they were called in for questioning. To ensure that, she couldn’t risk antagonizing Lucy any more than she already had.
“I went to see Thom,” she said as simply and evenly as she could manage. “He’s in the Castle Thunder Hospital, a few blocks from here.”
Lucy pressed her lips in a thin line, offering no response. She turned her gaze to a corner of the cell where Loreta Velazquez was holding court.
“I’ve never passed such a miserable night as that one I spent in Tennessee, dressed as a Confederate soldier,” she told the women gathered around her. “Rain fell in torrents over the living and the dead alike. I could have withstood the cannon better than that awful weather. Between the booming of thunder and the shells exploding all around, launched by Yankee gunboats, not a person slept, I assure you. I was lucky to escape with my life. The shrieks and groans of the wounded haunt me still.”
“How’d you manage to keep your wits about you?” asked a plump woman, her eyes wide with admiration.
“It wasn’t easy, I’ll grant you that,” Loreta said. “In such a situation, the most singular ideas run through a person’s mind. The past seemed to me but a happy dream, and the future as far off as a child’s rendering of heaven. The mental and physical engage in a contest for control, and more than once I felt myself slipping from fantasy into madness.
“But I managed, and the next day, in the fiercest of fighting, I held my own as the bravest of men did. It was undoubtedly one of the most terrible battles of the war. At every lull, the enemy advanced. Such a sickening spectacle of suffering I hope never again to witness. And yet Providence rewarded my bravery, for I encountered my very own father there on the battlefield, fighting for the same cause as I.”
Hattie caught the eye of the gap-toothed woman, who shook her head in disbelief. Like Hattie, she hung back from the group. There was no need to stand close, for Loreta’s voice projected as much as a preacher delivering a fiery sermon. She certainly did not lack for confidence.
“You and your daddy had a reunion, right there on the Shiloh battlefield?” the gap-toothed woman asked.
“Oh no,” Loreta said, sweeping her hand for effect. “My father didn’t recognize me. How could he, when I was dressed in the noble gray of our troops, with a dark mustache secured to my upper lip. It was enough to survive the day, though I became quite ill from exposure and fatigue. Yet my spirits soon regained their elasticity, and I found I could not remain inactive while so many exciting scenes continued to unfold around me.”
Lucy, who’d been staring blankly in Loreta’s direction, moved toward her. “Exciting scenes, you say.”
“Oh yes,” Loreta said. “It is not in my nature to brood over misfortune. Soon enough, I was ready to resume—”
Lucy lunged at her, fists flying.
“Lucy!” Rushing toward her, Hattie grasped at her flailing arm, but Lucy yanked away, grabbing hold of a chunk of Loreta’s gleaming black hair and tugging with such force that Hattie flinched.
Loreta twisted away from Lucy, yowling in pain. “Bitch!” she screamed, dark eyes flashing.
Jake came running. “What’s this hubbub?”
“She tried to kill me!” Loreta cried.
Her face red with anger, Lucy scowled. “She won’t shut up.”
“Calm down, Lucy.” Hattie touched her shoulder, but she flinched and ducked away.
Entering the cell, Jake took hold of Lucy’s wrists, pinning them behind her back as he led her away. The women gathered around Loreta began muttering over what they’d seen. “Thinks she’s queen of all she surveys,” one of the women muttered. Hattie supposed that meant Lucy, though it might have been said of Loreta.
Hattie wished she’d immediately done as Thom said, convincing Lucy that they both needed to tell the same story when they were questioned, instead of waiting until Lucy was in a better mood. She hoped it wasn’t too late.
All afternoon, Hattie waited for Lucy’s return. She was glad, at least, that Captain Alexander and his dog Nero hadn’t been the ones to respond to the altercation. She’d heard of him turning the dog loose on prisoners and the dog tearing them within an inch of their lives. Which of the captain’s punishments might be meted out on women, she didn’t know. She only hoped Lucy was able to compose herself once she got away from Loreta. If she was truly unhinged, she posed a danger not only to herself but to Thom and Hattie too.
It was almost evening when Jake returned. “You’re to come with me, Mrs. Welton. The captain wants a word with you.”
Following Jake, Hattie felt as if she was walking into a trap that was ready to spring. She pressed her hand to her bodice, feeling for the ticking of Thom’s watch that she’d stashed there, the metal warmed by her flesh. Be strong, he’d said. For all of us.
Jake led her to Captain Alexander’s office. He rapped twice on the door.
“Enter!” The voice from the other side of the door was booming, theatrical.
Jake swung the door open. “Mrs. Welton,” he announced.
Captain Alexander rose from his desk, and his dog Nero rose from where he lay on the rug. Nero snarled at her, baring his teeth.
“Good boy, Nero.” The captain patted his head, and the dog sat as Jake left the room, closing the door.
When Captain Alexander made his rounds, Hattie had done her best to ignore him. Now she met his gaze. His black hair fell nearly to the nape of his neck, and his black beard straggled nearly to the top of his chest. Across his black shirt, he wore a red sash, and the holster around his waist held two pistols and two pairs of handcuffs.
“Nero is keen on enforcing the rules,” the captain explained.
“I’ve broken no rules,” Hattie said.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Sit, Mrs. Welton,” he said, indicating a straight-backed chair facing his desk. “Or is it Miss Logan?”
Holding her expression so as not to show surprise, she sat. “My parents are the Logans of La Conner, Indiana, if that’s what you’re getting at. I hate to think of their distress upon learning I’ve been so unjustly apprehended.”
He cocked an eyebrow as he sat back down in his leather chair and Nero resumed his place on the rug. “Your parents would be upset to know you’re in a Confederate prison?”
She breathed deep. Thom was right, she knew. Her best hope lay in evoking the past she’d been desperate to forget. “My father is a loyal supporter of the Southern cause. My mother’s loyalties also lie squarely. Her father is helping fend off a Yankee attack on Vicksburg.”
The captain stroked his beard. “So I’ve heard. But then how is it you’ve associated yourself with Thom Welton, who has betrayed our trust through and through?”
“My husband has done no wrong, Captain. He has risked his life running letters for the South.”
“Your husband, if that’s who he is, has admitted to working for the US government. He claims he recently became disgusted with the job and has decided to leave it.” The captain shrugged. “And he’s got every right to, I suppose, as a foreigner.”
Hattie tensed. The captain was testing her. Thom wouldn’t have so easily admitted to working for the Federals, not after telling her to deny all charges. “Thomas Welton is indeed a British subject, falling under the Queen’s protection. I’m certain the British consul will vouch for him.”
Captain Alexander laughed, an ugly sound. “Her Majesty’s envoys will be of little help to him. The consul dispatched to Richmond hates Americans and is not inclined to intervene on behalf of British subjects who endear themselves to the Federals.”
“What evidence do you have that Thom is one of those subjects?”
He grinned, revealing small, yellowed teeth. “That’s not something I’m at liberty to reveal. Suffice to say I’ve got my sources.”
Blackstone, of course. It all went back to the doctor’s word against theirs. Having reached a dead end, Hattie changed tack. “What have you done with Thom’s sister?”
“Me? Nothing at all.”
“She was taken from our cell only hours ago.”
“Ah, you must mean Lucy Hamilton. She and I conversed earlier in the day. I believe you were at the hospital, visiting Mr. Welton.”
Dread spread from the pit of Hattie’s stomach. Her absence had given the captain a chance to catch Lucy off guard. “What did she tell you?”
With a light groan, Nero lay down on his side. The captain reached down and patted his belly. Withdrawing his hand, he opened his desk drawer and took out some papers written in what appeared to be his own hand. “Do you like poetry, Hattie?”
She shifted, uneasy at the familiar way he addressed her. “I like it well enough, I suppose.”
“Then indulge me, if you will, in listening to a bit of the verse I’ve penned.” He shuffled through the papers. Selecting one, he held it up in front of his face. Squinting, he read in a bellowing voice, “For whom shall men fall, for whom shall they die, but for the love of a woman true. But suffer the lady bent on deceit, and the wrath that will be her due.”
He watched her face for a reaction. She had heard rumors of prisoners gaining favor with the captain by flattering him for what he perceived as his talent for writing verse. And she’d pretended her way this far, so praising a bit of doggerel did not seem out of line, though the lie somehow felt harder than the others she’d told. “You’re quite a skilled poet, Captain Alexander.”
He returned the paper to the stack, then straightened it. “So I’m told. With that prelude, I’ll admit that your friend Lucy had quite a story to tell about the three of you being on Allen Pinkerton’s payroll, working on behalf of the US government.”
So Lucy had betrayed them completely. Fury rose in Hattie’s throat. On its heels came discouragement. But she could not indulge either feeling. She owed it to Thom to stay the course. “My husband’s sister and I disagree on any number of things.”
“Truly, Miss Logan, there is no sense in you maintaining this ruse. Lucy Hamilton has disavowed relations of any sort with you and Thom Welton.”
“What have you done with her?” she asked again.
“Nothing nefarious, I assure you. You might say she’s under observation in the citizen’s room. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“I have.” Another prisoner had told Hattie about a spacious area where certain male prisoners with access to money were allowed to sleep on actual cots and eat meals purchased with their own funds, provided they first shared a portion of those funds with Captain Alexander. “I hadn’t realized you allowed women there.”
He folded his hands, large and pawlike, atop his desk. “Lucy is the first. I’ve arranged for separate sleeping quarters, of course, but she may mingle with the men during meals. Once I drew her out of her melancholy, your friend became quite free with her speech, though with women like her, there is always the tedious matter of sorting fact from fiction. She made some rather incredulous claims about her father being an important figure in the US government, saying he’d stop at nothing to secure her release. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”
Hands in her lap, Hattie worried her thumb over her palm. So this was how it would end. Lucy would be set free based on her father’s influence while she and Thom were left at Castle Thunder to rot, or worse. And yet, angry and disappointed as Hattie was with Lucy, she’d at least owned up to her origins instead of running from them as Hattie had. Not that Lucy had much to own up to. And yet her privilege hadn’t served her well. No matter the pain of Hattie’s upbringing, she’d learned from it. She’d become her own person, equipped to grapple with adversity rather than sell out those around her to save her skin.
In Hattie’s silence, Captain Alexander leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head. “Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to come to Lucy’s defense. Not after she’s exposed the lot of you. This business about her father is all a ruse, I’m sure. To tell the truth, it angers me. She will find a very unpleasant experience awaits her upon her release from the citizens’ room.”
Hattie took a deep breath. “Lucy Hamilton is exactly who she says she is, the daughter of a man of some influence in Washington. Even if, as my own father dearly hopes, we achieve a peace that recognizes the sovereignty of the Confederate State of America, I can’t imagine what consequences might unfold if Lucy’s father pursued an investigation into the circumstances of her arrest and imprisonment without substantive evidence. And truly, sir, I don’t know how long she can last here, even in the citizens’ room. She hasn’t the fortitude for it. I beg you to release her, sir. For her own good and your own.”
He slapped his palms flat on his desk, startling her. “Lucy Hamilton betrayed you. Now you want me to show her leniency? That won’t do a thing to help you or Thom Welton.”
Letting go of her worrying hands, she straightened. “I’m not expecting it would. But I urge you to consider Lucy’s background. In a prisoner exchange, she’d be worth quite a lot.”
He shook his head. “You’re a puzzle, Miss Logan. An enigma. I can’t reconcile your concern for someone who betrayed you, nor can I reconcile what I’ve been told about your duties with Mr. Pinkerton with what you say about your own family’s background. But that, of course, is subject to verification.”
She jutted her chin. “You might speak to Dr. Blackstone.”
“Dr. Blackstone has gone north, I’m afraid. And while he certainly confirmed before departing that you knew more than you should about Edgar Logan’s assistance to our cause, we have no way of knowing how you came upon that information. You can pretend to be his daughter as easily as you pretend to be a courier’s wife.”
An idea seized her then, a way to possibly secure her release and perhaps even Thom’s. “If you have a sheet of paper to spare, Captain Alexander, and if you’ll see fit to lend me your pen, I’ll write a note to my father, asking that he confirm our relationship. Your most reliable courier is indisposed at the moment, but there must be others running letters by now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Others with clearer loyalties, I should hope.” He reached again in his desk drawer, then presented her a paper and pen. “Write your note. I’ll address it to Chester Logan, and we shall see how he responds.”
She took the pen and, willing her hand to stop shaking, wrote as firmly and directly as she could manage.
Father,
I am in a bad place, being held at Castle Thunder prison in Richmond. Captain Alexander, the warden here, knows of your work and asks that you confirm that I am indeed your daughter.
I assured him that whatever our past differences, we are indeed bonded by blood, but he wants your word on it.
She hesitated, holding the pen slightly above the paper, trying to think how to close. Well wishes would come off as insincere. Forgiveness, if it came at all, would take time. One day, perhaps, she and her father might speak of love, but it was too soon for that now.
The captain drummed his fingers on his desk. “I haven’t got all day.”
She simply signed Yours, Hattie, then handed him the note and hoped for the best.