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  Praise for An Extraordinary Union

  “The perfect blend of history, adventure, and heart-stopping romance, with a courageous heroine you’ll love and a hero you’ll fall in love with.”

  —Susanna Kearsley, New York Times bestselling author

  “Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union is as extraordinary as the title suggests—riveting, romantic, and utterly remarkable.”

  —Courtney Milan, New York Times bestselling author

  “With its richly detailed setting, heart-stopping plot, and unforgettable characters, An Extraordinary Union is everything you can ask from historical fiction. Alyssa Cole has taken an unforgettable hero, a uniquely resourceful heroine, and mixed them together for some truly combustible chemistry. Brava!”

  —Deanna Raybourn, New York Times bestselling author

  An Extraordinary Union

  ALYSSA COLE

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for An Extraordinary Union

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Teaser chapter

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  AN EXTRAORDINARY UNION

  Discussion Questions

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Alyssa Cole

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0745-1

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0745-1

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: April 2017

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0744-4

  For Isabell, the last enslaved person and

  the first emancipated person in my family’s history

  PROLOGUE

  April 1861

  Baltimore, Maryland

  “It will be an easy assignment, a simple passing on of information. One that even a girl such as yourself should be able to handle.”

  Elle suppressed a bitter laugh as she recalled her Loyal League master LaValle’s briefing from a few days before.

  Easy?

  Either her superior had dreadfully underestimated the Southern male’s love of an opportunity to do violence, or he’d purposely set her in the middle of danger. She doubted it was the latter, but the man was unduly annoyed at her for having the gall to aid her country without virtue of a certain appendage hanging between her thighs. As if a penis would somehow prove more useful to the Cause than her peculiar “gift.” From what Elle had discerned over the last few months, whatever supposed benefits the organ conferred were canceled out by mulishness and a propensity for tomfoolery. The scene around her proved that well enough.

  Her skin prickled with unease as she watched men stream into Baltimore’s Bolton Street Station, egging each other on as they awaited the train carrying those first brave souls to answer Lincoln’s call for volunteers after the abomination at Fort Sumter. Hats were pulled low and the rumble of deep voices plotting mischief filled the air. The crowd continued to grow, filling with plug uglies and longshoremen and aristocrats alike, until the air was thick with the smell of tobacco and unwashed bodies. The possibility of an easy assignment had been trodden under the boots of these scoundrels with hate in their hearts and excitement in their eyes.

  Elle pressed her back to the wall and hoped the dingy gray frock and head wrap common to slave women would help her blend into the shadows.

  “Gonna give these Yankee bastards a taste of my prick,” a homely man a few feet away from her said, tossing a small, sharp knife from hand to hand.

  Something akin to fear shivered down Elle’s spine—but true fear was rooted in the unknown. The secessionists of Baltimore had already ripped up the railroad tracks and torn down the telegraph lines, cutting off the city from the Capital and showing that they meant every threat they uttered. They were plotting death and discord. Elle knew exactly what would happen if any of them suspected the black woman in the corner was in possession of ciphers that, once decoded, would bring many of their ilk before the justice of the Army of the Potomac. Baltimore had a secessionist problem, and Elle was there to solve it—if she wasn’t found out first.

  Her stomach lurched as a man brushed past her, and she chastised herself. She’d survived weeks on the stormy seas during her ill-conceived voyage to and from Liberia the year before; she should be able to gird her loins a damned sight better than that. Hell, she’d lost Daniel and survived that, too. She felt a wash of heat at her eyes and pushed away thoughts of her best friend and the rejection in his spun-honey gaze the last time she’d seen him. That was the past. She’d experienced a sight more danger than seasickness and men’s broken hearts in the last few months.

  She was a Loyal League woman now. Her gift had gained her entrance into the society of blacks, freed and enslaved alike, with networks across the country funneling as much information to the North as they could gather. It was her quick wit—and quick draw—that had ensured her place as a detective, working to prevent utter chaos across the country as it slipped further into disunion. The nation was now embroiled in a war that would either see her people freed or forsaken. Whether LaValle had downplayed the Baltimore situation was unimportant; this was her first solo assignment and she refused to give anyone, Union or Confederate, the pleasure of her failure.

  Elle looked at the large clock face in the central hall of the train station, willing the minute hand to move faster and the train bearing the regiments to arrive. Her target was the Washington Artillery out of Pottsville, Pennsylvania; she sought their manservant, Nick Biddle. While Biddle was seen as a capable aide to the company’s captain, like many of her brethren he was much more than that. He was another who had sworn the Four L’s: Loyalty, Legacy, Life, and Lincoln.

  There was a sudden commotion from the swath of men closest to the tunnel. The realization of impending action throbbed through the crowd from one end to the other just before the train whistle cried out, announcing its arrival. The men all around Elle surged forward, as if the train emitted some magnetic force on them, drawing hatred to righteousness. Elle’s stomach twisted again and she closed her eyes against the ugly scene before her.

  Men shouted and showered the train with garbage and rocks. Animal entrails and other waste slammed against the impervious metal with little effect, but inside there were men made of flesh and bon
e who would have to march though this madness.

  Why must it be like this? Elle suddenly felt small and insignificant in the face of the pure hatred filling the air around her. She missed her home. She missed her parents. What was her purpose in this fight in which neither side could truly be trusted?

  She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts inward, taking a deep breath to quell her racing thoughts. She would reach Biddle and relay the message, crowd be damned. She was no simpering miss. She was Ellen Burns, and she was going to help destroy the Confederacy.

  She lifted her skirts to move toward the train, but a man stepped in front of her. He was taller and broader than the ragtag group who had occupied the space before him. He, too, exuded a kind of magnetism, drawing Elle’s gaze to him when she should be looking away. His clothing, tight britches and a rough-hewn coat, suggested he was a dock worker. The odor of fish further supported her supposition.

  The men around him seethed, becoming more riled as they watched the actions of those already attempting to storm the train, and he joined them in their anti-Union rants. “Jeff Davis is the true President!” he cawed over his companion’s heads. He shifted position, allowing her a better view of him. Most of his face was obscured by a heavy black beard that needed trimming, but his eyes were visible. Unlike the other men around him, whose gazes were dark with a kind of feverish mania, his intense blue eyes were clear and attentive as he surveyed the crowd. He seemed of them but not one of them, something Elle could pinpoint with accuracy since she had spent a good portion of her life in just such a position.

  His head swiveled a bit more and his gaze locked on hers. She froze like some creeping thing that hopes if it doesn’t move it can go undetected by that which would prey on it. Their gazes held for an infinite moment, and the roar of the crowd faded into the background. A disquiet she’d never known gripped her; the man didn’t leer or hurl abuse or look right through her. He saw her, and that was the most dangerous turn of events that could have befallen her.

  Their staredown was broken when he was jostled by another surge of the crowd, which was slowly but resolutely pushing toward the door of the station. Everything came back into focus and Elle released the breath that had been caught in her gullet. The soldiers had disembarked and were marching from the station toward the street now, and the angry men searching for targets followed right along. The majority of the regiments who’d arrived were heading to Fort McHenry, save Biddle’s, which was heading to the Capital. Elle held many ciphers in her head; the ones she needed to get to Biddle were only a small portion. She couldn’t risk passing such information by post, and telegraph lines were down or unsecured. Biddle was the only man present who had sworn the same oath as she, and thus he was the only man she trusted to get her information to the Capital.

  Elle slipped out of the station through a side door and pressed along buildings behind the seething crowd as she tried to follow the path of the regiments. Biddle should have been easy to find, being the only Negro, but in the midst of the unruly mob hurling invectives and the police officers halfheartedly trying to protect soldiers, it was hard to make him out. The crowd did her work for her. As a group of men split off from the other Penn regiments, she heard one voice and then another shout “Nigger! Nigger in a uniform!”

  All hell broke loose then, with the barely restrained mob converging on both the regiment and their own city police officers. Fists began to fly, as did bottles, bricks, and anything the incensed men could get their hands on.

  Elle froze for a moment, fear robbing her of her purpose; then she remembered her first night of training with the Loyal League. LaValle had shoved a small book entitled The Art of War at her with the command, “Read this tonight. You’ll recite it to me word for word in the morning or you’ll return to the North where a woman like you belongs.” That he’d thought it a difficult task showed his limitations, not Elle’s. In the end, the ancient strategies had proven more useful than anything LaValle had tried to impress on her. As the rioting men whipped themselves up into a fervor, it was Sun Tzu’s words that spurred her forward:

  “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

  She scurried into the mass of people, her small stature allowing her to slip through the roiling crowd like a sleek catfish through the river grass. Biddle was in her sights, and she aimed straight for him. He turned just as she skidded to a halt in front of him. Elle was shocked to discover the man was older than her father. “I see you have traveled far,” she said.

  His reply was quick, given with just a hint of paternal indulgence that should have annoyed her but comforted her instead. “I have, and it has been a lonesome road, my child.”

  Elle felt relief splinter through her. The task was almost complete.

  “Remember this, and pass it on to those who would aid our cause when you reach Washington: Eight to sixteen as the crow flies. Thirty to forty-five as the sun sets,” she rushed out, then took his hand and bade him repeat it. She didn’t think it took a spectacular memory to remember two short ciphers, but she had no personal reference point given her own stupendous ability. She hoped she was right.

  “I will see that this gets to Pinkerton’s ears,” he said, then turned and continued on with his regiment. As he walked away, Elle’s knees began to shake with relief. She had waited days to complete a mission that had taken perhaps thirty seconds.

  Biddle was walking ahead of her, then suddenly he wasn’t. He was flat on the ground, a deep gash on the side of his head. He’d been felled by one of the bricks that were still being hurled by the secessionist bastards as they rioted. The fear that had stalked Elle her entire mission pounced then, crushing her under its weight as she looked at Biddle’s prone form in disbelief. For a moment she thought he must be dead, surely he must. But then he staggered to his feet, looking back at her with dazed eyes before being hustled off by members of his regiment.

  She snaked her way back into the crowd, heart thumping and lungs finally filling with air.

  Success. Something akin to a smile tugged at her mouth, but it was just a physical response to the adrenaline and pride that coursed through her veins.

  She spied an opening in the melee, an alley used by slaves as a shortcut while running errands. It would lead her out to a street that would be free of the vile men who surrounded her now. She’d almost made it to the alley’s opening when a man’s grip closed around her arm, tightening like a vise. She tried to pull away, but she could not escape the strength of his grasp.

  “Why did you run to that man?” The accent was a strange mélange of country boy and foreigner—German?—the same as so many lower-class men as to be unexceptional. She turned and her breath caught in her throat—again. It was the blasted dock worker from the train station.

  How was it that she was invisible to men like him, except in the exact moments it would cause her the most trouble?

  “I ran because walking isn’t prudent when in the midst of a mob, you fool. Now release me at once,” she demanded before she could stop herself, then growled in agitation. She was supposed to be meek and unassuming if accosted, but her natural inclination got the better of her. It wouldn’t be the first time, and if LaValle got wind of it he wouldn’t be pleased. She modulated her tone to pleading, her accent to one that matched her clothing. “Please let me go, sah.”

  His eyebrows rose, but his expression was one of amusement, not anger. “Not until you answer me. Either you’re an uncommon hussy, hoping to circumvent your competition, or you sought that regiment out with some specific purpose. You can tell me now, or I can ask those fellows knocking skulls over yonder for their opinion.”

  Humiliation scalded Elle to her toes. It wasn’t that no one had ever spoken to her that way before—plenty of people had belittled her in her lifetime—but the insinuating smirk on his face was too much to countenance. She kept her gaze locked with his, but she let it soften just a bit to throw him off kilter. It worked, in her favor not his. The moment she fe
lt his hold give slightly, she jabbed a fist forward, connecting with his side, near the kidney. Hitting a white man was dangerous, but no more so than her mission being discovered if she was arrested.

  He released her in that first split second of surprise, and that was all she needed. She turned and took off. She would outrun him. She would make it back to her safe house.

  She’d gotten a few feet away when pain exploded at the base of her throat, the tender hollow where neck meets clavicle. Sharp, slicing heat and then a jagged chunk of brick tumbled down the front of her dress, edged in red. She couldn’t breathe, and when she brought her hand to her neck, blood flowed over her fingers.

  No.

  Elle prided herself on having never fainted, but the world started to go dim around the edges, and although it was a cool spring afternoon she was sweating like it was midday on the plantation in Georgia.

  “You dagnabbed wench. Why didn’t you just answer the question?” a deep, rich voice asked. Then her feet were no longer touching the ground and she couldn’t tell if it was because she had passed out or been pushed over. Everything was growing hazy, even the pain at her throat. For a moment she floated in nothingness and then she was crushed against something warm and solid and scented with the tang of the sea. After that, darkness edged in and consumed all....

  * * *

  When Elle awoke, she didn’t know where she was or how much time had passed. She was in a dark room, lit by the dimmest candle, and she supposed that some would call the hard surface she lay on a bed. There was something at her throat that smelled of hospice. She groaned.

  LaValle’s face appeared above hers, and although she knew she often vexed him something awful, his relief upon seeing her awaken was clear.