“If you don’t trust me by now, I can’t imagine how much you must be suffering.” He smiled, but I could hear his worry underneath the joking words. He was right. We were in this together and no mistake.
He turned down the lamp, and we lay down in our sleeping places, but I was not ready yet for rest. I remembered how cruel I had thought Bellamy when we first met, but spending hours on end with him now, I realized what had given me that impression. He had a way of closing himself off, holding himself back, in public. Those piercing blue eyes were intent, but you couldn’t see any of what was behind them, not if he didn’t want you to. Either he couldn’t keep up the pretense around the clock, or he had made a deliberate decision, but when we were alone in the hotel together, his face was not closed off like that. I could see him feel things deeply. As an operative, he chose to act from a place of intellect, but it wasn’t because he lacked the heart to feel. He just knew when it would hold him back instead of moving him forward.
Bellamy was an excellent detective and a powerful ally. Pinkerton had made the right assignment, trusting the two of us to bring down Mrs. Greenhow. Now, all we needed to do was deliver on that promise.
Somehow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Study
In July, we were struck again with terrible news. We had spent the day apart, chasing intelligence from different quarters, and the first thing Tim said to me when I walked in the door of our hotel room was, “We’ve been defeated at Bull Run.”
“Bull Run? I hear Manassas.”
“Same thing. The Northern name, the Southern name.”
I said, with an attempt at gallows humor, “I supposed I should be used to multiple names of things by now.”
“We were winning,” he said, “and then reinforcements came. Turned the tide, and we were defeated. Terribly.”
“The numbers. You have them?”
“Five hundred dead,” he said, his voice tight. “Twice that wounded. The same number missing or captured. More almost than can be imagined.”
“Their losses?”
“Far less.”
I didn’t press him for specifics. Each individual life mattered to the people who knew the light before it went out. But we were already so deep into the war, and this would just press us in deeper. We would have to grow accustomed to losses in the hundreds and thousands. My gut ached, my heart ached, everything ached.
Tim said, “Only one thing I can’t figure. Why would they send reinforcements to that place? They shouldn’t have known we were coming.”
“But you think they did.”
“I think spies got word to the Confederacy of our plans.”
“You think it was Mrs. Greenhow?”
“Impossible to say.”
I said, with a slight edge of despair I couldn’t keep out of my voice, “We have to do something about her.”
“If it’s her.”
I had an overwhelming urge to lay my head against his shoulder. In public, I was so used to doing things like that, as if they were natural. Our cover was complete. We kept making physical contact, running our fingers along each other’s arms, clasping hands, gently bumping shoulders, from the moment we left our room in the morning until we returned to it at night. In private, though, we sat at a strict distance from each other. Together alone, we were impeccably proper.
No matter how much I wanted comfort, I wouldn’t get it from him. If the news from the front didn’t get better, I doubted I’d be able to get comfort from anywhere.
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Mrs. Greenhow was getting more comfortable with me or just in general. I knew the members of her social circle, insinuating myself with each over time, and they seemed comfortable as well. She was not the boldest of her peers. That was Mrs. Melanie Chalmers, the wife of a member of the House of Representatives from Kansas.
But even I did not know how far Mrs. Chalmers would go until I heard her say, “That fool Lincoln is forcing the manhood of the Union into service. Another five hundred thousand troops, they say. A million would not be enough to stand against us.”
I was shocked that she would be so open in mixed company and watched Mrs. Greenhow closely for a reaction. She gave none.
I said neutrally, “The loss of young men is a tragedy on both sides. Perhaps there will come a day again where there is only one side, and we can all be on it.”
“And who will be left by then?” asked Mrs. Greenhow. “Just us, the women. Not much of a nation, then.”
“America will always rise.”
“Well said, Mrs. Armstrong.”
“I believe it,” I said and sipped my champagne, wishing I did.
“And why does your husband not serve, Mrs. Armstrong?” asked the pink-cheeked older woman. Her champagne glass was empty every time I looked at her; this might account for her intemperate speech.
I answered smoothly, “He will be called soon. In the meantime, he is here on behalf of his brother’s estate, seeking a good price for his horses and other property. The transactions are rather complicated, I understand. We are trying to enjoy our last days together. I try not to think about it, truthfully. I will miss him so.”
“You poor dear,” said Mrs. Greenhow. “Times like this, it’s not so bad to be a widow. A woman without her husband has already lost everything she has to lose.”
I nodded silently, with a neutral expression, but inside, I was in turmoil. If that was how she thought, then I suspected her even more strongly of being a spy. If she was a wife only to her country, she might be capable of anything. Though of course, I was a widow too, and the same could be said of me.
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