Surrender the Wind (19 page)

An officer in a smart blue uniform tapped her current partner and rudely broke into the dance. Catherine was about to protest when two steel-blue eyes bored holes into her. She lost a step then, before his arms circled her waist in a strong grip and swung her into the rhythm of the dance.

“Miss Fitzgerald, I presume?”

Catherine gasped. He looked so much like John, so similar in appearance, the eyes, the dark hair, the angled curve of the jaw, why they could be—

“Brothers,” he confirmed her suspicion.

“Lucas?”

He lifted an eyebrow in that same infuriatingly arrogant manner. “You have a lot of explaining to do,
Mrs. Rourke.”

Her mouth fell open. “How did you know?”

“I am curious about the woman who entrapped my brother. John confided everything. It was a matter of putting the pieces together—”

“You have seen him? Is he well?” Her voice rose in pitch. “You were the one who helped him escape. Thank God—”

“You’re happy he escaped?”

“Of course, except the fool is fighting again and is going to get himself killed. Couldn’t you have done something to keep him out of the war? That’s why I telegraphed you in the first place.” Catherine glanced over her shoulder. Mallory stopped conversing and came straight for her before he was waylaid by an officer.

She trembled in Lucas’s arms. When the music stopped and before the next refrain began, she begged, “Please keep dancing with me. See those men around the room.” She inclined her head toward some large well-dressed thugs. “Those are Francis Mallory’s men. My mistake was never telling John who I was. I thought he’d hate me for my association with Fitzgerald Rifle Works since our repeater rifles are used to kill rebels. My brother had disappeared during the war and with no one to protect me, and—I had to run away—”

She summarized her whole state of affairs from finding John and nursing him back to health, to her Uncle Charlie’s insistence they be wed. She then relayed Mallory’s finding her, his warped lies to John implicating her as a spy, Father Callahan’s kidnapping, John’s beating, and Mallory’s extortion. “I have never told Mallory that John and I were married. He would have killed him. My only hope had been to rely on his promise to release John, if I went along with handing over the Rifle Works and marrying him.”

“He didn’t. They were ready to hang my brother until I broke up their party,” Lucas said.

A cry of relief broke from her lips. “Thank God. Involving John and Father Callahan in my personal war has left me with nothing but worry and guilt. Mallory’s a dangerous man and has killed many people. I’m his prisoner, but until my sources come up with Father Callahan’s whereabouts, I must bide my time, and cause Mallory not to have any suspicions.”

Lucas eyeballed the guards holding up the walls. “The pieces of the puzzle fit well. My instincts tell me you are disclosing the truth and I always act on my instincts. I have a special position in the military with advantageous resources. After I left my brother, I did research, stymied by your background. A benefactress of an orphanage, raving reports on your work with Dr. Parks at Mac Dougall Hospital—did not fit the profile of a relationship with an underworld criminal with a reputation a mile long such as Mallory. Nor did you fit the description of a spy. I requested an invitation to this event to observe.”

Her mouth fell open. She had been observed? Of course, he’d have his suspicions.

“Everyone knows Mallory is a thug. How does he weave into society?”

Catherine exhaled. “Part what he has grabbed from the Mallory fortune, part from me, but I think there is an underscored celebrity to him with his powerful connections to the Tammany political machine. Boss Tweed’s ring is strong and solid, strategically deployed to govern key power points of New York City. They control the courts, the legislature, the treasury, and the ballot box. Their frauds are grandeur of scale and possess an elegance of structure via money-laundering, profit sharing and organization.”

Mallory barreled through the crowd. She dug her fingers into Lucas’s coat sleeves.

Lucas angled his head when Mallory was intercepted. “Don’t worry. My men have been ordered to keep Mallory busy.” Then Lucas narrowed his eyes on her. “You have a care for my brother?”

She looked into his eyes with all the sincerity in the world. “I love him.”

“You have a serious problem, Mrs. Rourke. My brother will not permit you to collect husbands.”

Her shoulders slumped…so little time. “Could you help me? My brother Lieutenant Colonel Shawn Fitzgerald is missing—I believe Mallory has had something to do with his disappearance. Please see what you can do to discover what happened to him. And my uncle, Father Callahan…he is hidden somewhere in Washington. Can you find him? Get with Jimmy O’Hara. Perhaps the two of you working together?”

Lucas smiled. “Of course. I will champion your cause. You have nothing to worry about. As my brother’s wife, I will do everything in my power.”

Tears of relief stung her eyes. “But how?”

“I have my devices.” He was succinct and would give no more.

“There’s one more thing,” she said, clinging to him. Oh, he was part of John, a life rope thrown to her. She didn’t want to let him go. “Mallory has been taking Confederate prisoners out of Capitol Prison for his personal bouts, except it is one sided and he beats these poor men brutally. I beg you to get the men who have been hurt by Mallory the medical attention they need. I’ll repay you as soon as I am able.” She felt his muscles tighten beneath his coat and a vein throbbed dangerously on the side of his jaw.

“Taken care of. Jimmy O’Hara—how do I get in contact with him?”

“Jimmy O’Hara will find you. And what of John? He believes I have deceived him.”

Lucas nodded. “In John’s present mood there will be no mercy. I’ll write him a letter and explain everything.”

“You can send him a message?” A warm glow of hope flowed through her as Lucas whirled her around.

“It will take some time. It’s been done throughout the war. You are an angel, Mrs. Rourke, caring for everyone around you to the point of endangering yourself. Your courage is admirable. My brother is a lucky man.”

Mallory broke in. “Catherine.”

He jerked her arm and when Lucas stepped in to intervene, she shook her head. She exhaled when Lucas backed off. “Thank you, Colonel Johnson,” she said, using a false name while Mallory pulled her away. “You dance divinely.”

“A pleasure, Miss Fitzgerald. I look forward to having the honor of someday introducing you to my family members. They will be most happy to meet you. Until we meet again.” He inclined his head with the briefest of smiles.

Since the temporary success of Cold Harbor the past few weeks had been hard on General Rourke and his Confederate soldiers. General Ulysses S. Grant, Army of the United States, had cleverly concealed the movements of his massive army south across the James River to begin a siege on Petersburg. Except for the failed two-corps lunge by Grant, the lines of Lee that protected the vital railroad center, supplying the capitol of Richmond, held fast. The eastern offensive by the iron-hammered General Grant had wound up in a stalemate and a digging contest between both sides resulted.

The future hinged on the turn of Grant’s strategy for there could be no denying that heroic Confederate defensive efforts demanded stout offensive measures against the Yanks. General Robert E. Lee clung to his lines by sheer will and wile against the massive numerical and material superiority of the North.

While Lee held off valiantly, the Kearsage and Alabama warships engaged off Cherbourg, firing at each other across the narrow circles they navigated in the choppy waters of the English Channel. In continuing the anaconda approach, General William Tecumseh Sherman, U.S. Army, maneuvered in Georgia, hounding Confederate General Joe Johnston’s army. General Jubal Early had been sent by Lee to check Yankee General David Hunter who had been terrorizing the civilian population by burning homes and fields along the Shenandoah. General Early removed Hunter from all tactical calculations, checkmating him at Lynchburg and chasing him over the Alleghenies. Lee now ordered Early to head north crossing the Potomac River on a daring raid to Washington.

“Strike as you can,” Lee ordered General Early.

Rourke and his men had left Cold Harbor, marching south to fortify the vulnerable entrenchments protecting Petersburg. Lee then sent John under General Early to bolster the Shenandoah, defending the crucial breadbasket of the Confederacy. John’s original optimism plummeted when he was left behind to guard the Valley and not allowed to proceed on with Early.

Yet he understood General Lee’s calculated maneuvering on two accounts. First, it was hoped General Early’s menacing attack on Washington would force Grant to send troops from Petersburg, thereby reducing the threat at the South’s vulnerable underbelly. Second, it would spur Grant into staging a reckless attack, Cold Harbor style, which would functionally bleed him down for being disposed of by a counterattack that would follow his repulse.

General John Daniel Rourke had made camp outside Lynchburg with steady patrols up and down the Shenandoah Valley, keeping a keen eye out for Sheridan’s Calvary. There would be no more abuse of citizens in the Valley under his guard. If he was to curb Grant’s bulldog grip to chew and choke, then by God he’d do it.

John sat outside his tent, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, and with a cigar clamped in his mouth. Enjoying a momentary respite with his men, he listened to the light banter.

“Boy, I sure do miss the chance to take a few potshots at Lincoln like Old Jube is going to get to do,” one of the younger officers said.

“Mind you, I’m chomping at the bit to see some of that action myself,” confided Lieutenant Johnson.

John rolled his cigar around in his mouth. He too, envied Old Jube but was content right where they were. Unlike their brothers at Petersburg, food was in great supply. In addition, many of the women of Lynchburg were happy with their boys’ recent victory and rewarded them with a steady supply of home baked items to fill their diet. His men were scrawny, ragged and needed time to recoup. Their boots, if they had any to wear, were falling to pieces, their gray uniforms were patched and over patched, and their worldly possessions reduced to what each man could afford to carry on a long march.

A mail carrier rode in and many of the men grew quiet, having a private moment, reading letters from loved ones’ back home. Absorbed in several dispatches, John rose to take them into his tent, but paused when the mail carrier interrupted again with several periodicals traded from northern pickets. John picked up a handful to glean critical information. The best spies were Northern newspaper reporters notorious in detailing Yank strategies and locations. Of late, Grant had put a stop to the practice.

A shrill whistle emitted from the teeth of one of his men. “She sure is pretty for a Yank.”

“Who is she?” A corporal asked.

“Why would you want to know? She’s getting married anyway.”

“I’d have a chance—”

“Like giving Lincoln a lecture on politics and him listening.”

The soldier’s friends laughed at him.

With a nose like a beak on a pelican, the indignant corporal persisted. “I’d bet she’d be the first to dance with me, finding me the fairest of you all.”

“If there’d be a hanging for beauty, rest assured, you’d be last in line.”

John allowed a slow rumble of laughter at the imparted truth.

“She’d be hard put to resist my charms.” Lieutenant Johnson boasted.

John’s lieutenant had a face wrinkled like a dried apple in the hot sun. Many called him Grandpa.

“And those charms are—”

“I’m witty, clever, intelligent…the list goes on, but I don’t need to bore you boys with familiar knowledge. Nor do I wish to pain you with standards you could not live up to.”

“I don’t recall any of those specific charms,” scoffed another officer.

Lieutenant Johnson stroked his beard at the rebuff. “Is it me? Am I getting wiser or is it the young who are becoming more stupid?”

“It’s just that those charms you mention are naked to the visible eye.”

“Then wallow in your ignorance.” Johnson protested and John grinned around his cigar.

“It says here she’s rich, too, an heiress to Fitzgerald Rifle Works in New York City. Why I’ve stolen a couple of their guns off Yanks. Repeater rifles. Good guns. They’re shiny and sleek—like I’d imagine dancing with this gal.”

“Ain’t she a beauty, General?’ drawled a West Virginian, pointing to a likeness of a woman in
Harper’s Weekly
.

Fitzgerald. John imagined there were a lot of people with the name. He chafed at the reminder of his wife…the liar…the spy. He finished the last of his dispatches and handed them to his adjutant to put in his tent. He stretched then lounged again in his chair.

“Here’s an article on the same woman in the
New York Tribune.
Bet her family made a lot of money on this war. It says here Catherine Callahan Fitzgerald is to be wed to Francis James Mallory both of New York and is to be the toast of—”

“What!” John exploded from his camp chair and grabbed the papers. With his cigar clamped between his teeth, he said nothing, confirming what the soldier had read aloud. All the eyes of his men were upon him.

“You bite that cigar any harder,” Ian MacDougal commented, “You’ll bite it in two.”

Ignoring him, John glanced at her photograph in
Harper’s Weekly,
and then the article in the
New York Tribune
, dated in late June. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His lying, cheating wife was marrying that Yankee scumbag? Just as diabolical, she owned Fitzgerald Rifle Works. How many of his soldiers had died from those rifles?

Many of her evasions made sense now. She had gone by the last name of Callahan. Yet, Father Callahan solemnized the ceremony using her surname Fitzgerald. Like a steaming locomotive, memories slammed into him, her fine manners and delicate ways, the way she spoke, cultured, intelligent, the way she carried herself. She couldn’t cook, crossed her fork and knife on her plate. Of course. She had an army of servants to wait attendance for her every waking need. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she no doubt took up spying from sheer boredom. He stared at the papers, burning with inner fury.