“My dear,” said my unreal husband, “do you want to retire?”
“No reason to, not yet,” I said with false gaiety. I could tell by the way he’d said it that he didn’t yet think it was time for us to leave. He was reminding me to pay more attention to my demeanor. He was right. This was no place for sentiment. I told myself I was just getting used to the assignment, and that once we’d settled in, I’d be able to regard Mrs. Greenhow and her friends with some dispassionate distance.
One could view these people as people—as I had with Cath Maroney, once upon a time—or as chess pieces, with the queen and the rook and the bishop all playing their parts but with no more will than a painted piece upon a painted board. The chess image was more soothing to my soul.
If they were all chess pieces, then I, a chess piece also, could do no harm. It was simply a game. No one knew whether black or white would win. But we would all play until the game was over, in hope of victory for our side, until the bitter end.
? ? ?
The bridges of western Virginia were burning. If there was a single action that would harm an army, it was to cut off access to the railroad. The Southern army was outnumbered and outgunned and smart enough to know it. Sabotage could turn the tide. I’d heard whispers that our men planned to corner and kill Jefferson Davis or General Jackson, but all those plans seemed like folly. Slaying a leader only gave rise to another leader. They were easily elected and installed. The building of a bridge was a much more complicated act and could have a more lasting impression on the future, all things considered.
There was nothing we could do to stop the burning. We did hear that McClellan, who I remembered well from the railroad embezzlement case, had promised in public that the Union military had no intention of helping slaves rebel and would even put down any such rebellions with our own might. It was a nonsensical thing to say. I could be certain it would infuriate Lincoln, who had enough to handle without his most trusted generals disagreeing with the fundamental operations of his war.
And danger seemed to draw ever closer. Virginia—mere miles away—announced its secession from the Union into the Confederate States, and its capital, Richmond, became the capital of the entire Confederacy. We hadn’t moved at all, but we felt an impossible distance from our home in Chicago, and the wolves were at our door.
We shook our heads. What else could we do? We had enough to deal with already. We could only try our best to solve the problem in front of us without worrying what lay beyond.
? ? ?
After establishing the Armstrongs in the city, Tim and I settled in, and I even came to enjoy having him to talk to at night instead of retiring to a solo room. We used the time to discuss plans, to perfect our strategy, and sometimes to jointly compose our bulletins back to Pinkerton. The room had only a single bed in it, and Bellamy, chivalrous to a fault, had set up a bed of sorts for himself on a fainting couch. One night, I absolutely insisted he let me take a turn sleeping on the couch while he had the bed. Whether he believed my argument that we were equal or whether he just wanted to teach me a lesson, he swapped sleeping spaces with me that night. I woke up feeling black and blue in my joints, my muscles, and all over. The next night, I walked to the bed and lay down in it with no protests. He smiled ruefully, said good night, and lay himself down in his nest of blankets again.
One night, we discussed possible new approaches to Mrs. Greenhow, things we hadn’t dreamed of trying before.
“I could seduce her,” he said.
“Could you now?” My voice was sharper than I intended.
“We need to think of all the possibilities.”
“And what would your wife think of that?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I mean your real wife,” I said, thinking of the pretty doll on his arm at Pinkerton’s party on the night DeForest proposed. It seemed a lifetime ago. I’d been wondering about her since we arrived, but I hadn’t ginned up the courage to ask him outright.
“I don’t have one. I had a fiancée, but she…”
“Didn’t like the work?” I prompted.
He nodded. “She…wanted more attention than I could give. Told me to choose the work or her. And you see what I chose.”
“Oh.” DeForest had been right after all. How I wished he were here to congratulate.
“Now focus. What’s my best angle to get close to Greenhow?”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I just—we’ve taken pains to portray a happy marriage for the Armstrongs, and that would certainly give her other ideas.”
“Which might work in our favor.”
“I suppose so.” I was beginning to see the sense in it, once I brushed off my irrational feelings of ownership. “If you do me wrong, she might turn more to me, feeling sorry.”
“Or I suppose it could go the other way. She could freeze you out as a response to her own guilt.”
“You’ve seen her. Do you think guilt plays much of a part in her thoughts?”
“We should think it through,” he said.
“You’re the one who suggested it.”
“Please,” he said. “It is not my intent to make your life harder, believe it or not. It never has been.”
I decided to address the contradiction head-on. “Even on the first night we met, when I solved that case, and you weren’t going to tell Pinkerton?”
“I was. Truly. Going to tell him. I meant to, anyway, in my head.” He looked down, tugging at a loose thread on his cuff. “I just started telling the story without you—I was so excited we’d pulled it off—and I—well, I’m sorry.”
“How can I trust that you’re telling the truth?”