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"Excuse me," she said again, and all but walked up the back of a man who, by his clothes, was a drummer who hadn't drummed up much lately. He turned and gave her a dirty look. The answering frozen contempt she aimed like an arrow from her blue eyes made him look away in a hurry, muttering to himself and shaking his head.

Most of the passengers had to go back to the baggage car to reclaim their suitcases. A

"Yes, ma'am," he said, touching a finger to the patent-leather brim of his peaked cap. "Let me put your bags in the trunk, and we'll go."

Ford's Hotel was a great white pile of a building, just across Capitol Street from Capitol Square. A

A

After breakfast, she went to the lobby, picked up one of the papers on a table, and settled down to read it. She hadn't been reading long before a man in what was almost but not quite Confederate uniform strode in. A

"Miss Colleton?" asked the man in the butternut uniform.

She nodded. "That's right."

"Freedom!" the man said, and then, "Come with me, please."

When they went out the door, the doorman-a different Negro from the one who'd been there the day before, but wearing identical fancy dress- flinched away from the Freedom Party man in the plain tan outfit. The Party man, smiling a little, led A

The Gray House-U.S. papers still sometimes called it the Confederate White House-lay near the top of Shockoe Hill, north and east of Capitol Square. The grounds were full of men in butternut uniforms or white shirts and butternut trousers: Freedom Party guards and stalwarts. A

"This here's Miss Colleton," her driver said when they went inside.

A receptionist-male, uniformed-checked her name off a list. "She's scheduled to see the president at nine. Why don't you take her straight to the waiting room? It's only half an hour."

"Right," the Freedom Party guard said. "Come this way, ma'am."

"I know the way to the waiting room. I've been here before." A

She had the room outside the president's office to herself. Too bad, she thought; she'd met some interesting people there. A few minutes before nine, the door to the office opened. A ski

"Of course, Mr. Feath-uh, Mr. President," the man answered. "We'll take care of it. Don't you worry about a thing."

"With you in charge, I don't," Featherston answered.



The man tipped his straw hat to A

"Thanks," A

Featherston shook hands with her, a single brisk pump, enough to show he had strength he wasn't using. "Thank you kindly, Miss Colleton," he answered. Almost everyone in the CSA knew his voice from the wireless and newsreels. It packed extra punch in person, even with just a handful of words. He pointed to a chair. "Sit down. Make yourself at home."

A

"I expect you want to know why I asked you to come up here," he said, a lopsided grin on his long, rawboned face. He wasn't handsome, not in any ordinary sense of the word, but the fire burning inside him showed plainly enough. If he'd wanted women, he could have had droves of them.

A

"Nope. Matter of fact, I don't intend to send you back to South Carolina at all," Featherston said.

"What… do you intend to do with me, then?" A

She tried not to show the nasty little stab of fear that shot through her. She'd abandoned the Freedom Party once, when its hopes were at a low ebb. If Jake Featherston wanted revenge, he could take it.

His smile got wider, which meant she hadn't hidden that nasty little stab well enough. He did take revenge. He took it on everyone who he thought had ever wronged him. He took pride and pleasure in taking it, too. But, after he let her sweat for a few seconds, what he said was, "Parlez-vous franзais?"

"Oui. Certainement," A

"How would you like to take a trip to gay Paree?" Featherston asked in return. No, he didn't speak French at all. She hadn't thought he did. He wasn't an educated man. Shrewd? Yes. Clever? Oh, yes. Educated? No.

"Paris? I hate the idea," A

Featherston's gingery eyebrows leaped. That wasn't the answer he'd expected. Then he realized she was joking. He barked laughter. "Cute," he said. "Cute as hell. Now tell me straight-will you go to Paris for me? I've got a job that needs doing, and you're the one I can think of who's best suited to do it."

"Tell me what it is," she said. "And tell me why. You're not naming me ambassador to the court of King Charles XI, I gather."

"No, I'm not doing that. You'll go as a private citizen. But I'd rather trust you with a dicker than the damned striped-pants diplomats at the embassy there. They're nothing but a pack of Whigs, and they want me to fall on my ass. You know what's good for the country, and you know what's good for the Party, too."

"I… see." A

She saw she'd surprised him again. Then he laughed once more. "I already knew you were smart," he said. "Don't know why I ought to jump when you go and show me. Yeah, that's pretty much what I've got in mind. Alliance likely goes too far. Working arrangement is more what I figure we can do. Probably all the froggies can do, too. They've got to worry about the Kaiser same way as we've got to worry about the USA."