No Other Man by Shannon Drake Page A

and
injustice against his people.
    The longer he rode toward the lodge on the far eastern border
of his property, the more heated his temper grew.
    He was ready to do battle.
    Dreams of the distant past had haunted her
most of her life. Not continually. Just upon occasion.
    The dreams always began the same way. She saw the gray swirls
rising before her eyes once again.
    Just as they had before. Long ago.
    The night air had been thick with a low-hanging fog.
footsteps could be heard falling upon the streets, but no forms could be seen.
It was a perfect night for clandestine meetings. For secrets in the darkness.
    Maryland had been full of secrets.
    A border state, it had teemed with spies and conspiracy.
There were those who were openly Southern sympathizers and those who were
vociferously pro-Union. There were those who pretended to be Southern
sympathizers but spied for the Union. There were those who publicly supported
the Union who were really Southern spies.
    And there were those who were just caught in between.
    Robert Connor had lived down in Williamsburg. Before the war,
he'd taken a job as a young attorney there, and when the war had broken out,
he'd wound up in the army.
    And after Gettysburg, he'd wound up in a Union prison in D.C.
Only he'd managed to escape. And he'd managed to get a message to his brother,
Richard, that he needed help.
    Richard Connor lived with his wife, Jill, and their two
daughters, Skylar and Sabrina, in a fine house in Baltimore. He'd spent the war
years in torment himself, having been wounded early in '62 and sent home with a
limp that would never go away. He'd been glad to come home. He'd believed in
the sanctity of the Union, but he'd never believed in killing his Southern
brethren. And when his brother had called him for help, he'd immediately given
it.
    So Robert had come. And he'd played with the girls while he
lay hidden in their attic, and Skylar had come to love him nearly as much as
her own father. But word finally came that he was to be met by plainclothes
Southern spies and spirited back to the Confederacy, where he would be safe.
    And the fog and the mist had come....
    Skylar had been sent to bed, but she'd known what was going
on that night. Her father and his best friend, Brad Dillman, were to take
Robert to meet the Southerners. They'd all act like drunks down by the docks,
then Robert would be spirited away and Richard and Brad would stumble back to
the house, apologizing profusely to Jill and the girls, and promising to mend
their ways.
    Skylar never knew what possessed her to sneak out of bed that
night, dress up in shirt and trousers, and follow the men out. Maybe it was the
excitement.
    Maybe it was some strange trace of fear within her.
    She hastily raced behind them, a scarf pulled around her
throat and lower face, a cap pulled down low on her head. She twisted through
the streets by the water. She followed the men into an alley and down the docks
where a small ship waited.
    She heard conversation.
    The mist settled down more heavily.
    Suddenly, she heard someone crying out. She realized that the
ship was slipping slowly from its berth in the harbor. She raced down the
dock, not seeing any of the men.
    She tripped and nearly stumbled over a body lying on the
dock. She fell down beside it and realized who it was. "Father?" she
whispered. "Father!" She tried to wake him, turn him. She touched his
back and drew her hand away, shrieking when she discovered that it was covered
with blood.
    "Father—"
    "Skylar!" It was a broken whisper, hissed out
sibilantly. She didn't care. She tried to hold him, turn him, help him, stanch
the flow of blood. He looked at her, but she didn't think that he saw her. But
she felt the warmth of his bloody touch on her fingers, squeezing in turn. '
'Love you, careful, baby, careful, be a good soldier. I—betray—"
    "I'll never betray you!"
    "No, I was—"
    "Father, she'll get help, I promise,
don't die, don't you leave me—"
    His hand fell