Triumph by Heather Graham

feel assured for your personal safety—you’re with your boys here, and soon enough you’ll have the escort of larger forces.”
    “Are you insinuating that you’ve kept me safe in any way?” she inquired incredulously.
    “Godiva, I’m sure you really don’t understand all that’s out there!”
    “Enemies of my state, my country, are out there, that’s all I know!” she informed him heatedly.
    “I think I will be on my way,” the Yankee said. He saluted Trey, who saluted in return. Then he startled Tia by drawing her to him with a frightening strength.
    “A warning here,” he said, and his voice grated. “A warning with true wishes that you survive the war with mind, body, and soul intact. Behave, Godiva, for yourself—and lest your good Southern parents discover their daughter’s wanton ways!”
    She lifted her chin. “Well, I just have to thank God you don’t know them and that you will never darken their door!” she informed him. Oddly, her voice betrayed her—wavering just a hair.
    “Ah! I’ve touched a nerve, have I? I’d quite begun to think that impossible. My, my, ravished in the woods—and she would have endured! A fine sacrifice for the great Southern Cause! Yet mention Mother and Father and ... perhaps I do know them, my dear. Oh, Godiva! Do take care! You are far too reckless, and trust me, you never know just what wolves do lurk in the forest on the prowl for naked beauties!”
    With a deep, mocking bow, he turned from her.
    And disappeared into the pines.

Chapter 5
    December 15
    Northern Virginia
    “W HY, I’M TELLING YOU, sir, it’s the truth, this is God’s own free man, I swear it! And I promise you that I am a free woman myself, and have been since the day I was born!”
    “Listen, darkee, ain’t no person of color leaving here without a look over by the bounty hunters.”
    “I can’t be detained! And neither can my brother, nor his wife here! He’s one chance of a good job, and if I don’t have him spruced up by tomorrow morning—”
    “Get out of the line!” the white soldier shouted, his face turning red, the veins in his neck all bulging.
    Curiously, Sydney found herself walking forward. She knew the voice of the woman talking. It was Sissy.
    Sissy, with whom she had lived in Washington. A beautiful, extremely intelligent young black woman who had performed espionage for the Union. Who had worked with Jesse Halston, the man who was Sydney’s—
    Husband. Yes, and actually, Sydney was married to Jesse partially because of Sissy. Sissy had been privy to her moments on the night she’d been arrested; and so, in a roundabout way, she was partially responsible for the fact that Jesse had felt honor-bound to marry her—and get her out of Old Capitol.
    Sydney, not sure at first what she was doing, excused herself, cutting through the line. She addressed the balding, sallow-faced officer in charge.
    “What is the problem here, sir?”
    She saw Sissy’s eyes widen even as the officer stared at her, looking her up and down. Sissy knew that Sydney had gone to visit Brent, but perhaps she hadn’t been expecting her back on the same day she was evidently returning home from some trip south herself.
    A dangerous trip for a free black woman—especially one who had already been seized by slave hunters, and given over to a man with designs of becoming her master. A man responsible for the whip scars that littered Sissy’s back.
    “Ain’t no darkees goin’ by me, ma’am, and I don’t care how prissy their language might be. Book learning!” He spat into the dirt.
    “This darkee, sir, works for me,” Sydney said imperiously.
    “Does she, now?” the man demanded. “Thought you were a Southern woman, Miss McKenzie. You are Miss McKenzie, right? I seen you about a year ago, working down at the Chimborizo hospital then.”
    “Why, yes, I was there!” She smiled, grateful they’d hit common ground.
    “Ain’t no darkees getting by me, miss!” he insisted