[Continuing chapter 5]
“Captain Stewart. How lovely of you to
come see me!” Pauline Martin stepped back from the door she’d just opened, and
with a sinuous gesture of her finger invited him inside.
Stewart felt a shiver move through him. The
knowledge that General Magruder did not want him here only made the excitement
he felt seem more vital.
Miss Martin wore a purple dress of some shiny
material. Her shoulders were bare. When he touched her, the skin felt like
silk, but with some powerful force pulsing through it. The heat seemed to
course into, and then through, him.
She had just tilted back her head for him to
kiss her when shouting from outside her dressing-room door caused Stewart to
slip on a pool of blood that had suddenly appeared there. He fell to the
ground, to see Sergeant Fitzgerald’s head staring at him. “Wake up, boy,” the
sergeant said.
Stewart’s first thought on opening his
eyes was that the regiment was being mustered for an early march. It wasn’t
until he found himself on the floor, wrapped in his bed-linen, that he realized
where he was.
He remembered the dream he’d been having. It
had been so easy to touch her in his dream—what was the matter with the waking
Charles Stewart? Tonight he had actually spoken to her, walked with her—and
yet, when by her expression and her words she had invited him to go further, he
had withdrawn in confusion. Pity she’s not a Federal regiment,
he imagined Patton saying. You’d have no trouble advancing on
her then.
The shouting that had wakened him was coming
closer to his room. Cursing silently, he groped for the night-stand, then
fumbled for flint and steel. By the time he had a candle lit, the voices were
on his floor and approaching his door. Wrapping a dressing-gown around him, he
opened his door. The first face he was able to discern in the crowd approaching
him along the hall belonged to his superior, General Magruder. The general had
both his staff officer and his aide-de-camp with him—and there was Mr. Benjamin
behind him, and his subordinates too.
That explained the noise they were making. Must
have been some party, Stewart thought. Another look at the
general’s face, though, convinced him that whatever General Magruder and his
party had been up to, it hadn’t been recreational. The general’s face was
deathly white. His eyes were wide and shifted constantly, as though trying to
locate a hidden threat.
“Captain Stewart,” Mr. Benjamin said on
seeing Stewart in the doorway. “I’ve heard from the Canadians that you saw the
explosion of that riverboat this afternoon. Yesterday afternoon, I should say
now.”
“I did, sir. Captain Patton and I helped with
the injured.”
“Commendable, Captain. I’m also told that you
believe the explosion to have been deliberate, and aimed at least in part at
the Confederacy.”
Where had Benjamin heard that? Patton,
Stewart thought. The boy would never learn to keep his mouth shut. “A planter
from Mississippi was among the dead, sir,” he said, carefully. “The boat wasn’t
supposed to be carrying Confederate citizens or goods, but I’ve learned the
boat’s captain was engaged in smuggling goods and money between New Orleans and
the Confederacy. I wondered if someone knew that and decided to target the
boat.”
“That’s … interesting. A bit of a stretch,
perhaps, but an interesting conclusion nonetheless. I think that we should
consider Captain Stewart’s point very carefully before we speak again with the
Canadian authorities, gentlemen.”
The others didn’t look happy, but they
murmured agreement nonetheless. General Magruder said nothing, and Stewart
couldn’t even be sure that the man had heard any of the conversation. “May I
ask what’s going on, sir? The general doesn’t look well. Has he taken ill?”
“Would that he had,” Benjamin said. “A case
of dyspepsia brought on by too much Creole food we could deal with.” The
commissioner shook his head. “But it’s not that simple, Captain Stewart.
“Tonight, someone fired a shot at General
Magruder and came within inches of killing him.”
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