Innocent Deceptions Read online

  INNOCENT DECEPTIONS

  A Novel by

  Gwyneth Atlee

  Gwyneth Atlee is the historical romance pseudonym of RITA and Daphne du Maurier Award nominee Colleen Thompson. Colleen is the author of numerous novels of historical romance, romantic suspense and mystery, including her recent #1 Kindle bestseller Triple Exposure. Her passions include history and wildlife, the desert and the sea. Visit her on the web at www.colleen-thompson.com.

  Books by Colleen Thompson:

  From Dorchester Publishing:

  Touch of Evil

  Beneath Bone Lake

  Triple Exposure

  The Salt Maiden

  Head On

  The Deadliest Denial

  Heat Lightning

  Fade the Heat

  Fatal Error

  From Silhouette Romantic Suspense:

  Deadlier Than the Male (with New York Times Bestselling Author Sharon Sala)

  From Harlequin Intrigue:

  Capturing the Commando

  Phantom of the French Quarter

  Books written as Gwyneth Atlee:

  From Kensington Publishing:

  Touched by Fire

  Night Winds

  Canyon Song

  Against the Odds

  Trust to Chance

  Innocent Deceptions

  Copyright 2012 by Colleen Thompson

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors’ imaginations, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Colleen Thompson:

  Books written as Gwyneth Atlee:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  Preview of Gwyneth Atlee's Touched by Fire

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Let me whisper in your ear, sir,

  Something that the South should hear, sir,

  Of the war, of the war, of the war in Dixie;

  A growing curse - a "burning shame,” sir,

  In the chorus I will name, sir,

  Of the war, of the war, of the war in Dixie.

  -- from “The Officers of Dixie,”

  sung to the tune of “Dixie Land”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Memphis, Tennessee

  2:56 A.M., Sunday, June 8, 1862

  Charlotte was caught within the dream again, the one where all the Randolphs were at home together, arranged around the table like the spokes of a great wheel. When the banging started, the wheel turned, spinning her into the darkness of an inky black June night.

  The dream fragmented, yet the pounding remained constant, a rhythmic sound, as if the storm outside kept slapping the branches of the chestnut tree, blowing them against her bedroom window.

  No, that wasn’t quite right, she realized as she sat up in her bed and listened. Rain pattered on the porch roof, but the sounds that awakened her were too tireless to be thunder. The noises came from downstairs -- from someone beating at the door?

  Charlotte Randolph rose and felt inside her wardrobe for her wrapper. As she drew it on, a flicker of lightning shifted shadows across her bedroom walls. And still the sounds continued -- knocking. She was certain of it now.

  Something tightened in her chest and made it difficult for her to breathe. Any news that came this late must be bad.

  Someone ought to be here, answering that door for her, sparing her whatever grief awaited. Or at least delaying it awhile and helping her deal with the results. But no one remained to help her, for the day before yesterday, all three slaves had run off when blasts from Union gunboats reached their ears.

  The thought of their disloyalty lanced through her, but she shoved aside that worry. Instead, Charlotte lit a candle near her bedside and set a glass chimney over it. Carrying the light before her, she walked toward the sound, fearing that each step took her nearer to a message that her father or her brother had been killed in recent fighting. She paused for a moment to pray that it would not be true, that this war would not break apart her family the way the knocking had her dream.

  Though the pounding did not abate, Charlotte hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. If she did not answer, she would not have to know. She could return to bed, use her pillow to deaden the sound, and pretend that her life and the Randolphs would always be the same.

  “Ch – Charlotte?” a small voice descended from the top step. It sounded impossibly fragile against the echoes in the entryway.

  She looked up, but the sphere of candlelight did not reach the speaker’s face. No matter, for she knew each of six-year-old Alexander’s pale blond cowlicks and exactly which one of his front teeth had fallen out. She knew, too, his favorite wheeled horse would be clutched against his chest. Though Charlotte could not see the child, his presence cast her in a different role. There was no time for her fear now, no time for vacillation.

  “Wait for me in my room. And lock the door behind you.”

  Another time he might have argued, for Alexander would worry over who had come so late. But something prompted him to swift obedience, perhaps her tone or Friday’s glimpse of the Stars and Stripes unfurling above the courthouse. Charlotte was so attuned to Alexander, she could almost hear his bewilderment. Again and again, Papa had reassured the boy that he and Charlotte would be safe in Memphis, that Southern troops would never let the river city fall.

  Maybe, Charlotte realized, the knocking had nothing whatever to do with Papa or her brother. For all she knew, bluebelly soldiers waited at the door. The thought prompted her to draw her wrapper tighter, as if such a move might prevent them from doing anything they wished.

  A frisson of terror coursed along her spine, for she’d heard rumors that the Yankees had been quick to loot the finer homes in other Southern towns they’d taken. Attempting to regain control of her emotions, she told herself that no marauders would stand so patiently at her front door, waiting for someone to grant them entrance.

  Above her on the second floor, Alexander’s footsteps receded in the hallway. She strained her ears until she heard the click of her door as it closed. Only then did she cross the marble, cool against her bare feet and, after a deep breath and a silent prayer, unlatch and open the tall and heavy door.

  “Mrs. Martin! What are you doing?” As Charlotte looked down at the tiny woman, the clock in the parlor chimed once, twice, and then a third time.

  Dripping with rain, the woman slowly lowered a rolling pin, which she’d been using to hammer at the door. She turned her dark-eyed gaze toward Charlotte before answering. “I’m catching my death out in this weather and doing my best to convince you to open up, that’s what.”

  Charlotte’s fear transfigured into anger. It was hard to believe she’d ever eaten gingerbread with her brother in Mrs. Martin’s kitchen, had ever considered their closest neighbor sweeter than the molasses that once scented her brick mansion. These days, Mrs. Martin rarely passed an opportunity to insult the Randolphs in general and Charlotte in particular, but to come over here at this hour and frighten her half to death went far beyond the pale.

  “Don’
t you dare give me that cat-eyed glare of yours, young lady,” Mrs. Martin said before Charlotte could speak. Bold as brass, the woman pushed inside the open door. Wet black feathers from her bonnet hung like limp rats’ tails, framing her thin face.

  Charlotte winced as the rolling pin caught her above the knee. She was nearly certain Mrs. Martin had meant to hit her. “All your pounding woke my brother. Now what is it you want?”

  Her tone betrayed no hint of welcome. The sooner the crone left, the sooner Charlotte could check on Alexander. Mrs. Martin had doubtless scared the sleep out of the boy.

  “Mind your manners, girl, although why I should expect better from the likes of you I can’t imagine. Your mother would have been appalled. But I didn’t come to tell you what you know already. I’m here to warn you that the Yanks are coming.”

  Was that all? Charlotte wished she could shove the old gorgon out the door. “We already know the Yankees are in Memphis. Surely everyone has seen them in the streets by now.”

  The dancing candlelight fractured Mrs. Martin’s smile into wrinkles that radiated from her mouth. “I mean, my dear, that they’re coming to this house – to take it. I’ve gotten word it’s being confiscated because they know the Randolph men are off fighting with the traitors.”

  “What?” A blanket of numbness dropped over Charlotte’s mind. It isn’t real, she told herself. It’s just a nightmare.

  Yet within moments, tendrils of reality invaded her denial. Despite his reassurances to Alexander, her father had spoken to her privately about this possibility. As a prominent Confederate colonel, he’d known that there was some chance his family might be targeted. He’d tried to help her to prepare, advising her which valuables ought to be saved, outlining a plan by which she and Alexander could escape. He’d even considered the possibility that the slaves might abandon them, just as the small army of free servants had already.

  Charlotte had scoffed at the suggestion. Mama Ruth and her two grown sons, Ross and Moor, were family. The black woman had raised the Randolph children with undeniable affection.

  Yet, in the end, she’d run away, choosing the dangers of the unknown over Charlotte and Alexander’s love. How could it be that Mama Ruth had left them? How was it possible that Yankees would take the Randolph house?

  “You heard me right,” Mrs. Martin said, her words ringing with satisfaction. “They mean to use this place as a general’s headquarters – as soon as they’ve searched it top to bottom. According to my sources, soldiers will secure the house by dawn.”

  Charlotte’s gaze refocused on the old woman’s face, and in that moment she knew that Mrs. Martin had personally passed the Federals information. It was all too easy to imagine the old woman scribbling letters by the score reporting every move the Randolphs made. Many a night, they’d seen her silhouetted in her late son’s bedroom window, where she spent long hours standing like a sentinel.

  Suddenly, Charlotte wanted desperately to strike her, though she had never touched a soul in anger in her life. Mrs. Martin had meant for this to happen, and she had come tonight in the hope of seeing Charlotte’s tears.

  Charlotte decided she would be “good and damned,” as her older brother would have put it, if she would give the woman the satisfaction. Fighting back an impulse to clamp her hands around her neighbor’s scrawny neck, Charlotte forced her voice to icy calmness.

  “Just how many hours have you known this?”

  Beyond the open door, rain splattered on the flat rocks that lined the walkway.

  Mrs. Martin’s eyes glittered with reflected candlelight, reminding Charlotte of better times, when they’d been warm with welcome. “You’d best hurry, girl. Those Union boys could be here any minute.”

  Charlotte turned toward the stairs, meaning to get Alexander and whatever valuables she could carry. But curiosity made her linger to ask a final question. “You’ve never made a secret of the way you feel. Why did you come tonight to warn me?”

  “Don’t think a minute I did it for you. As far as I’m concerned, those Yanks can break the doors down and use you any way they like. But there’s that boy upstairs, and like it or not, I’m --”

  “Good night, Mrs. Martin,” Charlotte interrupted. She had neither the time nor the patience to stand here listening to ancient accusations.

  As Charlotte hurried up the stairs, the old woman’s voice followed. “You could always burn the place, make sure they never get it. After all, you Randolphs have been known to favor flame.”

  The door closed behind Mrs. Martin, leaving the echo of her suggestion hanging like a cobweb in the marble entryway.

  Charlotte hesitated, wondering for a moment if she should do exactly as she’d been advised. Her stomach clenched at the thought of filthy Yankees pawing through her family’s belongings, stealing heirlooms and looking for any evidence they could find against her father and her brother. She couldn’t imagine that Papa would have left damaging documents, but she supposed it was possible that he’d forgotten something. Yet could she set the house afire on that chance?

  She imagined Mrs. Martin smiling from her dead son’s window while gazing out over the ruins. At the thought, a new suspicion froze the blood in Charlotte’s veins. What if Mrs. Martin had made up the story of Federals coming just to talk Charlotte into burning her own home?

  She imagined the old woman’s laughter, thin and jagged as the edges of a broken pane of glass. Painful as it was, the idea sliced through Charlotte’s shock and sent her rushing up the stairs, holding a fistful of nightgown and wrapper high to keep from tripping. Instead of destroying the place, she would flee with Alexander and pray that the Southern army would quickly drive out the invaders.

  Alexander must have recognized her footsteps in the hallway, for he threw open the door. “Are they gone yet, Charlotte?”

  His eyes had dilated into obsidian pools, dark as the night around them. Once again, his fear chased hers into hiding.

  “It was only Mrs. Martin, come to trouble us again,” she explained.

  “Mama Ruth says she’s a witch. She says Miz Martin’ll pin back my ears and swallow me right up if I ain’t good.” Alexander held the wheeled horse closer to his chest.

  “If you’re not good,” Charlotte automatically corrected. “And Mrs. Martin’s not a witch, only a great nuisance. Far too bothersome for us to suffer any longer. We’re going to take a trip to get away from her. How would you like to go and see Aunt Lila and your cousins?”

  “Do you think Daisy’s had her pups yet?”

  “I’m almost certain of it.”

  “Papa promised I could have one!” At the mention of the puppies, every hint of tension vanished from his voice. “When can we go, Charlotte? When?”

  “Right away,” she said, forcing a smile. “Go upstairs to the nursery. Put on your brown trousers and your good striped shirt.”

  He stared at her. “You mean we’re going now? In the dark? Ain’t it -- isn’t it -- raining?”

  The worry had returned. Charlotte sighed. He knew very well that it would take something serious to convince her to drive the phaeton alone on a stormy night, especially to Aunt Lila’s farm outside of town.

  Charlotte saw no point in embroidering upon a lie that had unraveled. Instead, she told him, “Hurry.”

  Somehow he understood, and she trusted him to dress himself while she rushed to do the same. After hiding her cash supply into button pockets her father had advised her to sew into her petticoat, she stuffed a spare dress and several other items into the satchel she had fashioned to conceal her mother’s jewelry. When she went upstairs to the third-floor nursery, Alexander pressed close, silent as a shadow, while she added some of his things, too. She thought of tossing his wooden horse into the bag for safety, but the boy held it in a death grip.

  She’d just thought of Grandfather’s recorder, forgotten in her bedroom, when for the second time that night, she heard pounding against the front door of the house.

  This time, the blows sound
ed far heavier than Mrs. Martin’s.

  o0o

  If ever Ben Chandler made a list of things he hated, he figured pity would rank right at the top. For this reason, he refused to ask Lieutenant Delaney McMahon, who was carrying the lantern, to slow his pace. Instead, Ben struggled for balance on his cane and what must now serve him as a lower leg. The slick, rock walkway and the darkness had slowed his progress to little better than a crawl.

  As Ben forced himself to hurry, pain and frustration walked with him, but both had been his companions for so long that he churned them under like a plow turning the soil. He found it harder to push past the look on McMahon’s face when the wiry young man stopped short, then waited for Ben to catch up.

  “You all right, sir?” McMahon asked. The lantern light suffused the rain that fell around it to form a glowing mist, which illuminated the compassion in his dark gaze. “This walk’s uneven. If you could use a hand --”

  “Don’t you have eyes? It’s a foot I’m short of, Lieutenant.” He’d meant it as a jest, but even Ben could hear the acid in his words. Embarrassed, he shook his head and used his fingers to rake damp hair out of his face. “Never mind, McMahon. I’m still getting used to all this.”

  The lieutenant nodded in answer as if he’d seen it before. Probably he had, for men like Ben Chandler were everywhere, adapting to life without a limb, accepting pity posts like this one or going home to be a once-proud family’s burden. An army surgeon told Ben that the business of creating artificial limbs was enjoying a grand boom at the government’s expense.

  The same doctor had assured Ben that he’d been fortunate to get one of the newest models. Articulated at the toe and ankle joints, the false leg would eventually allow him to walk with only a limp – after he got past the adjustment period.

  At the sound of approaching footsteps, Ben glanced back to check on the privates who’d accompanied them. As the men awaited their instructions, all four tipped back their heads in an attempt to take in the mansion’s huge dimensions. Neither the distant street lamp nor their lanterns were equal to the task of illuminating the full height of the structure.