Surrender the Wind (21 page)

“Your skill at destroying is indeed legendary,” she said, imitating his sarcastic tone.

“I thank you for your flattery. It will be neatly done. I admire your courage. Most women in your place would be pleading for mercy. But you are not just any woman, are you, Catherine? A highly trained professional, proficient in your art, practiced.” He moved from her then, grabbed a black cape and threw it at her. “As much as I’d like to stay and have you practice your art on me, I feel compelled to put as much distance between me and your friend—Abe Lincoln and his cohorts.”

A brown-haired young woman entered the room and closed the door behind her. “And where do we think we be leaving on a dreadful night such as this?” The woman appraised him, and at that moment, a genuine look of surprise lit her face. “General Rourke!” She bobbed a curtsy. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“The pleasure is mine ma’am.” He tipped his hat with just the right amount of insolence. “But since I have another engagement, I have little time for paying my respects. Who is she?” He jerked his head toward the woman.

“Brigid—my maid.”

Brigid spoke up. “It’s a terrible night for travelling. Would you be willing to come back when the weather is more suitable?”

John clamped harder on his cigar, the ludicrousness of her statement almost laughable. “I apologize for the present state of the weather. But it’s out of my control.”

“I’m not going.” Catherine threw her cape at him.

“He is a handsome devil, just like you said, Miss Catherine.”

Catherine sputtered. “I never—”

“A bonny man, much handsomer in person than the newspaper allowed, and Irish too. My dear departed mother—”

“Brigid!”

“Catherine.” Rourke threw the cape back at her. “Is my directive too difficult for you?” he said, his voice sharp with annoyance. “Or shall I try to frame an easier one?”

“What an impatient nature your husband has,” Brigid said.

Catherine began to pace back and forth, undaunted by his tone. “Pigheaded, stubborn, conceited, arrogant—”

She spat out her words with such outrageous facility that John could nearly see the humor in it. “You’re right,” he admitted, gritting his cigar at the woman whose outrageous insults peppered him like a gatling gun.

“And just how are we to depart? Just fly out the window…parade right in front of Mallory’s men guarding the house?”

“Mallory’s men will have a sufficient enough headache to last a lifetime. He patted the butt end of his pistol.” John grabbed her, and she sunk her teeth into his hand.

He took hold of her then, wrapped the cape around her head and body, and threw her over his shoulder. “Do not test my patience again,” he bit out. “It will be your last.”

“I’m suffocating.” She shook her head, kicked her feet. Rourke smacked her bottom and she stilled from the insult.

That’s better,” he mocked. “Better you learn to fear me. Listen what I have to say,
Mrs. Rourke.
” He ignored her renewed terrified struggles. “Without a doubt, I am going to lower you out the window. If you give me anymore trouble—”

“The window? You are mad. It’s three stories high. If you drop me, I’ll break my neck.” She gulped air.

“Then I recommend you be silent.” He cinched a rope around her then lifted her out the window, lowering her, the rope burning his palms.

“Excuse me, General Rourke. You’re forgetting a detail.” Brigid said her fists dug into her hips.

John continued lowering Catherine out the window. He had assumed the maid would give him no trouble, but questioned now his earlier intuition. His Colt lay three feet away. “What is that?” he asked.

A moan arose from Catherine’s throat dangled between sky and earth. John kept releasing the rope, trying to think of something else to say to stall for time. Since there was no way to silence the maid without letting go, he prompted her into casual conversation. “You were saying—”

“I would like to make a deal with you.”

“What makes you think I make deals?”

“The fact, I could scream loud enough to wake the dead all the way to Tipperary. Of course, Mallory would be here in a heartbeat and he’d put a bullet through your head.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I am very loyal to my mistress. Most importantly, I’m scared to death of being left behind. Once Mallory learns Catherine is gone, there’s no telling what he’d do to me.”

John remembered Mallory’s warm reception in Pleasant Valley and held no doubt on what foulness Mallory would wreak upon the woman. It was none of his affair.

Her voice broke. “Besides I could help you.”

Rourke hated to hear a woman beg.

“I don’t need a lady’s maid.” He shot her a curious sidelong glance. “Can you cook?”

Brigid looked him square in the eye. “Does the sun rise in the east?”

Since John’s personal cook had been shot at Cold Harbor, mealtime had taken a downturn. He recalculated the benefits of taking the maid with him against the difficulties she’d create by slowing him down. He hesitated then jerked his head in a reluctant nod, cursing his stupidity for taking on the additional responsibility.

“You realize the journey will be dangerous. There are no guarantees.”

Brigid held her head so high she could paint the ceiling with her chin. “I could survive an invasion of Cromwell.”

John snorted. With certainty, the tough Irish maid could more than outlast the seventeenth century’s ruthless nunnery burner.

“I have one small request.”

Did he hear her right? “What is it you require?” He ground his teeth. Was he bargaining with a lady’s maid? What next the family dog?

“I need to pack a few things.”

John looked at her hard. Brigid could alert Mallory. He decided to trust her. “Make sure you pack light. You have one minute, not one second more.” He glanced over his shoulder, out the window. Catherine was almost to the ground.

Brigid was back in one minute, handing her bag to Rourke.

“This bag must weigh sixty pounds! What did you pack?”

“Some medicines, one whole cooked turkey and a ham.”

“You’re a woman after my own heart.”

For that he received a big smile from the Irish maid.

* * *

Huge arms grappled Catherine and snatched her out of the air. Her feet upon solid ground, her breasts were scraped. Someone untied her, spinning her around and snatching off the cape. Catherine pushed her hair back from her face. A tall brawny man loomed over her with thick bushy eyebrows pulled together into a singular frowning line.

“Who are you?” Catherine whispered to him, but he said nothing. Seeing which way the wind blew, she turned her back to him. Mallory’s men lay unconscious, tied and gagged next to the house. Other than the guards that remained in the house, John was thorough.

“Such a nice night for a stroll,” she said between bright flashes of lightening and rumbles of thunder. Or was it cannon fire?

A bag flew out the window and the Reb caught it.

Catherine’s jaw dropped. Was that Brigid dangling out the window? John had no morals. He kidnapped her maid too.

A scant few minutes later, all three were on the ground. John made cursory introductions to his dour adjutant, Ian MacDougal.

“Good Lord! He’s a Scot. Lord have mercy on us all,” cried Brigid as she stared at the expressionless face of the towering adjutant, and then crossed herself.

“What’s wrong?” John pushed Catherine up on his horse while Ian did the same with Brigid.

“He’s a Scot,” confirmed Catherine.

“What’s so bad about being a Scot?” John growled. “I thought she’d object to him being a Rebel.”

“It’s worse than Cromwell,” said Catherine.

“Lucky for her.” John put spurs to his horse’s flanks and she grabbed the horn to hold on.

“And why is that?” Catherine ventured to ask.

“Because you’re riding with the devil.”

Riding south then east, John spoke to his adjutant. “Our escape route from Washington has been cut-off by the arrival of Grant’s corps shipped up from Petersburg. General Early has succeeded with that part of his mission and may well relieve Old Abe of his arsenals. Lee will be pleased. But every minute that eclipses is valuable riding time lost. Washington is on full alert.”

There was a shout. Union soldiers yelled for them to halt. They wheeled around their horses and galloped in the opposite direction, gunshots whistled past. John bent over her to shield her from the bullets.

“Do you have a plan to get us out of Washington without being maimed or killed?” she hissed.

He did not answer.

“Well then, I guess the simple fact remains you don’t have a plan. What are you to do?”

“I think—” he spoke to his giant of an adjutant.

“Think! You should not try to think. One cannot think without proper machinery. Richmond is one hundred miles through Union lines. Why not sashay down to the rail depot and purchase train tickets or, ask Lincoln for his carriage?”

John cursed. “I have a better idea—”

“So you do have a plan. I am awestruck.”

“I always have a plan, it’s my peculiarity,” he drawled, his temper cool in the face of crisis.

“But is it a good one?”

“Excellent. All the priests and popes could not devise a better one.” The contempt in his voice forbade any further argument.

No doubt, his life training left so little space between decisions and action when an emergency confronted him that there was not even room for a shadow of uncertainty between them. He could not ride out of Washington, the way he had intended. Ten, maybe fifteen Yanks dogged them. John cut through alleys.

To Catherine, everything was a blur as they raced across the city. Hoof beats clattered on cobbled streets then gave way to the softer pounding of dirt-lined streets. She clung to the horse’s mane for dear life. She wrinkled her nose with the scent of sewage and garbage that spiraled through the air. They headed down a seedier side of Washington with rows of saloons, and brothels. Mallory had joked about the seamier side of Washington, nicknamed,
Going down the line,
where Union soldiers supported the over four hundred and fifty bordellos that had blossomed during the war for ‘horizontal refreshment’.

When John pulled up in front of an ostentatious storefront, her mouth dropped open. Overhead, a large marquee trumpeted,
Bouncing Betty’s
. He hauled her off his horse. For the first time she was speechless.

As their eyes met, she found her tongue. “I will not suffer the indignity of entering—”

John pushed her up the steps. “You should feel quite at home, don’t you think?” She struggled against his strong arms, helpless he dragged her into the dimly lit interior of Bouncing Betty’s establishment. Hair lifted on the nape of her neck. What did he intend?

She blinked.
Red.
Everything was cloaked in gaudy burgundy red. Red velvet wallpaper lined the walls. Red drapes hung over doorways and windows, red-globed lights, red stair railings and wainscoting, matching red spittoons and lush red oriental carpeting. Reclining on several red velvet couches were a number of scantily clad ladies all dressed in…red.

“Johnny,” hailed a husky voice from across the room.

“You have friends here?” Catherine shot him a look of disdain.

A woman moved toward them with red painted lips and cheeks, and corseted like a well-trussed turkey on New Year’s Eve. What was most remarkable was her flaming red hair and low décolletage, impossibly housing gigantic pendulous breasts that swung to and fro with the sway of her hips. This…must be the famed Bouncing Betty.

“What brings you in tonight, Johnny?” Bouncing Betty asked. “Our boys wrestling with the Yank Army? I reckon Old Lee be running Abe Lincoln out of the White House on one of his own fence rails.”

“For sure all the pale lawyers and plump politicians are long gone. No doubt only the good souls are left behind.” He smiled at Betty, his laugh, sardonic and scornful.

Betty threw back her head and gave a loud hoot. “You got that right.”

“My adjutant and I performed a detail for Lee. We wish we could have more time to visit, but the Union Army is close on my heels and I need a place to hide out. I’m sorry to put my troubles at your doorstep but I have no other recourse.”

“I can help you.” Betty smiled up at him, her rouged cheeks cutting wrinkles across her face. Inclining her head toward Catherine, she drawled, “But who’s gonna take care of her?”

“We’re together,” he emphasized. “I am also travelling with two friends. They are stabling our horses. We have no time to spare. Half a Yankee regiment is hot on our trail.”

“You’ve come to the right place. Girls!” She clapped her hands and mobilized several women up and off their red sofas. “We’re having several Yank soldiers as guests in a moment. You know the drill. Treat them real nice, keep them more than occupied, and you’ll get an extra tip from me in the morning.”

She cuffed an elderly man awake. “Gus, get Johnny’s friends in the stables and bring them upstairs. Fast.” She commandeered John’s arm and moved up the stairway. “This way—”

Catherine’s hands clenched. To think they were on a first name basis. What was his connection to the efficient and obvious Southern sympathizer?

Bouncing Betty hung on John, and when she leaned over to whisper something into his ear, Catherine swore her breasts were going to fall out of her corset and right into his face. When John smiled at Betty’s well-aimed charms, Catherine’s blood boiled.

“Why is your little friend glaring at you, Johnny?” Betty glanced over her shoulder and with condescension looked Catherine up and down. “Worried?”

“As a matter of fact, I am concerned.” Catherine stared back. “If you get any closer to him, he’ll suffocate.”

John chuckled. “There are worse ways for a man to die.”

“Your little friend sounds jealous,” Betty purred.

“Nonsense.” Catherine forced the scowl from her face. Never in her life had she felt jealousy toward another woman over a man, even if the man was her husband. No way would she fall prey to that urge now.

She addressed her comments to her husband. “You are mistaken. The loose women you dally with are of no consequence to me. So wallow in your frivolity with your insignificant acquaintance, it’s no concern of mine.”