Angel in the Fog by TJ Turner

Author:TJ Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 2019-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE SMALL BOAT pitched and rocked upon the water. The air hung heavy, pressing in on Molly as if it were a blanket. Small ice crystals formed with every breath. It hurt when she breathed deep. The Potomac River ran swift here, and the boat caught the current as soon as they put out. Only in the small waves could she find the water. It flowed with an inky blackness under an equally dark sky as the wind cut through her coat and her dress.

She sat by herself in the back of the boat. Webster helped the boatman pull at a pair of giant oars in the middle of the small craft. With two men at the oars, they hoped to beat the coming storm, which already battered the canvas of the small sail. Two children huddled against an older woman at the front. She was the wife of a Confederate officer who needed a guide into Richmond. It seemed a small miracle that the children—one boy and one girl—tolerated the cold without complaint.

Webster looked different somehow, though it was hard to place. A sadness possessed him. At once she had recognized him, but his cold manner made her feel small—not how he met her before, in the brothel. Mrs. Warne must have felt it, too. As she saw them off, she wished Molly luck, with a tone that conveyed she understood the challenge. Mrs. Warne had pried her way into the Pinkerton agency and tirelessly built her reputation. Molly had to do the same.

In some manner that was lucky—exactly the reason Mrs. Warne wanted Molly in Richmond. Men talked around women, because they felt confident women could not be spies. They had not the intelligence, or the forethought, or the care of the business of men. So went the logic. Yet women heard everything and were privy to the deepest secrets. Around the sewing circles and sitting rooms they traded these secrets. They exchanged nuggets of information as they did patches of material. The key to some of the greatest men in the Confederacy came through their wives.

Webster strained at the oars. The travel weighed upon him. Molly had thought of him often over the past year. Even though Mrs. Warne had been the one to take her from the brothel, she still held in him the image of liberator. She hoped his energy waned because the war drew on—not that her presence was so distasteful to his sense of purpose. He had built his reputation as a trustworthy Confederate courier—a man who could smuggle messages north. The messages made it to their intended readers. But not before Pinkerton steamed open, read, and then resealed each one.

She yearned for more conversation with him, as their first meeting had been so curious. He remained the only man she had met who could hold a topic and make it worthy of discussion. But there would be no talking upon the boat. They kept quiet, hoping the Union patrols huddled somewhere warm and would not hear them from the shoreline.

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