Kiss of a Traitor (31 page)

“Morgan sent Georgia and North Carolina sharpshooters into the trees. Behind them were militiamen under Andrew Pickens’s command. Riflemen from Virginia protected the right flank. The main body of his force sat on a rise about a hundred and fifty yards from the riflemen. And behind the rise in a gully were the cavalry and additional volunteers as reserves. Ready for Bloody Ban, he rode out along the lines of his men, shouting encouragement and shoring up their courage.”

Ford expressed his admiration for Morgan’s tactics. The general had made a shrewd deployment of his troops.

“Tarleton attacked at dawn. He made a mistake in expecting the militia to immediately retreat as they did at Camden when faced with well-formed lines of British scarlet. But Morgan hadn’t forgotten his promise to protect the militia if they held their place. He ordered the cavalry to attack and drove back the dragoons. When Tarleton attacked again, Morgan and Pickens rallied the militia and met them head-on. Then Morgan moved some men who were being flanked, and Tarleton believed they were retreating. He allowed his men to break ranks in pursuit. Bloody Ban thought he’d won, but he underestimated Morgan.”

McFee halted his discourse to sip at his ale and spear a chunk of mutton with a hunting knife he drew from a sheath on a belt around his waist.

“What happened then?” Ford prodded when McFee commenced to chew the piece of tough meat he popped into his mouth.

“Morgan whupped Tarleton’s arse is what happened,” McFee said around a mouthful of mutton. He washed it down with ale. “When the militia turned and fired, holding their ground, the redcoats threw down their arms and pleaded for mercy.”

“Did Morgan grant it?”

“Yeah.” McFee’s burly face expressed disgust. “The troops called for ‘Tarleton’s Quarter,’ you know, referring to when the Butcher murdered those surrendering patriots, but Morgan wouldn’t stand for it. He told them he would sanction no brutality.”

“What happened to Tarleton?”

McFee lifted a bushy brow. “Oh, he wouldn’t give up. Not Bloody Ban. You know how he is, puffed up with his own pride. Neck or nothing, all for the glory of the Empire. He tried to turn his retreating men, shouted and sweared at them, but his soldiers ignored him. When his horse was shot out from under him, Doctor Johnson gave Tarleton his own horse, then marched over to Morgan’s army under a white flag and offered his services to the patriots.” McFee guffawed. “Can you imagine? The Butcher’s own surgeon offering to tend to the enemy?”

His hunger satisfied, Ford smiled and slouched back in the chair. “I would expect Tarleton had no liking for the good doctor’s compassion toward the rebels.”

Still chortling, McFee shook his head. “No, siree, he didn’t. He still had forty regulars of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons. He led them and fourteen officers in a charge to recover his artillery. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Washington and his cavalry stopped them and took off after Bloody Ban and a couple of officers getting away. When Washington caught up to them, they fought like a roomful of scrapping bobcats. Tarleton shot at Washington, hit his horse instead. Then Bloody Ban took off, his tail between his legs. In all, the battle lasted only one hour.”

“What was the tally?”

“Tarleton lost a hundred and ten, and Morgan captured another seven hundred and twelve. We gained quite a bit more than prisoners, however. Morgan took two artillery grasshoppers, thirty-five wagons, a hundred horses, and eight hundred muskets. He even captured the British officers’ slaves. Best of all, Cornwallis lost his entire light troops. When Tarleton returned to Cornwallis’s camp, though the old man didn’t accuse him outright, he made Tarleton understand that, as commander, the Butcher held responsibility for the defeat.”

Ford thanked McFee for the information, as well as the food and ale, and made his way back to the garrison. As he walked, he digested the importance of McFee’s words. Without British light troops to stage sudden attacks on the militia and with Tarleton virtually out of the picture, it seemed, for the first time, that Marion and the patriots had a genuine opportunity to drive the redcoats into the sea. The war might end sooner than any of them imagined. That revelation led to bitter thoughts of Willa, her bewildering bullheadedness, and marriage.

As soon as Willa walked through Willowbend’s front door, Marlene descended like a winged fury. With rage contorting her features, Marlene drew back her arm, striking Willa across the face. “You ungrateful chit,” she screeched. “Where have you been? Your father is lying upstairs near death, and you are nowhere to be found.”

Willa raised a hand to her cheek as the blood drained from her brain. She threw a bewildered glance at Quinn, who scurried to Marlene’s side.

“Now, Lady Bellingham,” Quinn said soothingly. He took the woman by the arm. “You know full well the doctor instructed you not to excite yourself. Allow me to handle this situation with Miss Wilhelmina while you retire to your bedchamber.”

Blue bolts of fire shot from Marlene’s eyes. “Indeed, Quinn,” she said in a calmer voice. “I expect I shall do that. Do not allow that girl to leave the premises. Lock her in her room if you must.” Gathering up her skirt, she pivoted on a heel, and swept up the stairs.

Willa faced Quinn. “What did Marlene mean? What happened to Papa?”

Quinn hugged an arm around her shoulders and led her into the parlor. He urged her to sit, perched beside her, and took her hands in his.

“You are frightening me,” she said at his doleful expression. “What happened?”

“Your father had a seizure of the heart, Willa.”

Tears flooded her throat. “Is he dead?” she whispered. She silently cursed Aidan for taking so long to escort her home. Deep inside, however, she knew he was not at fault. She had left Willowbend of her own free will to search for the Swamp Fox. And were it not for the snakebite, she would have returned weeks ago. She could not blame Aidan for the accident and her subsequent decision to remain and nurse him back to health.

Quinn shook his head and squeezed her hands. “He is alive, though he can neither move nor speak and seems unable to recognize any of us.”

Her throat worked painfully. “When did this transpire?”

“Early last week. The doctor had warned Colonel Bellingham about his heart. He recommended your father resign his commission and return to England. I gather the doctor also disapproved of Marlene, feeling such a young wife would put an additional strain on your father’s heart. His lordship, being the man he is, declined to follow the doctor’s advice regarding either his military position or his … marital activities with Marlene.”

Willa nodded. Her father revered his military service. As to Marlene, he would allow no criticism of her.

“Then last week when he received news from Cornwallis of Tarleton’s defeat, the shock sent him into a fury. His wife was with him at the time he read the letter. She reported that his lordship simply clutched his chest. His face turned red as though he were suffering an attack of apoplexy, and he fell to the floor. She waited several hours before calling for the doctor. She said she was too stricken and distraught to leave him.”

Bile surged up from Willa’s gut. “And had she sought medical help sooner, he would not be in this state.” She turned to gaze out the front window, her body stiffening to marble.

Quinn grasped her chin to bring her back around. “Look at me, Willa,” he said sternly.

Though wrath rode her hard, she raised her eyes to his face.

Quinn frowned. “I realize you desire to blame your father’s condition on Marlene. I must tell you that you have no reason to do so. According to the doctor, once Colonel Bellingham suffered his seizure, immediate medical assistance would have produced no better results. His lordship’s state is a result of the attack, not neglect.”

She listened with half an ear, unwilling to accept Quinn’s words. Yet no matter how fervently she longed to lay the disaster at Marlene’s dainty feet, she had no doubt Quinn spoke the truth. He had no love for Marlene and would not lie. But her grief demanded an outlet, and her stepmother made a suitable target.

“You should know something else,” Quinn said.

“Miss Wilhelmina!”

Willa jerked up her head at the voice, one she immediately recognized and had no desire to hear at this moment or any other. Thomas Digby stood in the parlor doorway, his uniform pristine, his blond hair curled to perfection. His inappropriate presence and insolent air elevated her anger to the boiling level.

Digby strode into the room, a saber swinging at his side, and stopped in front of her. He clasped his hands together behind his back. “I’ll not have you upsetting your mother any further,” he said in an icy tone.

She turned to Quinn. An unreadable expression settled on his face. “What is
he
doing here?” she hissed under her breath. But she knew; truly she did. Her stepmother’s lover was Digby, not Banastre Tarleton or any other officer. Digby was sharing Marlene’s bed while her father lay paralyzed in his sickbed. She raised her chin and glared at Digby. “Your words expose your ignorance. Marlene is my stepmother, not my mother.”

“You are insolent, child,” he said with a snort like a penned bull.

Child?
At one time Digby had courted her. Now the slimy toad dared to call her a
child.
Her thoughts flashed back to her time with Aidan. She was most certainly no longer a child.

Digby flipped aside the tails of his regimental coat, took an armchair across from her as though he—not her father—were the master of the house, and crossed his legs. As Quinn had fallen silent before answering her, she now sent him a questioning look.

“Lady Bellingham asked me to assist with your father’s correspondence and business,” Digby replied instead, “such as the running of this estate, since Colonel Bellingham is incapable of tending to those matters himself. She graciously offered me residence as a guest to spare me the ride from town each day.”

Willa fixed him with a hard stare. “And you could not wait until after Papa died to crawl into Marlene’s bed, could you?”

“Willa!” Quinn said.

She’d not quite finished. “And Marlene, gracious lady and loyal wife that she is, welcomed you with open arms … and legs, did she not?”

Digby’s face turned purple. He surged to his feet, his hands balled into fists. “You will hold your tongue, you willful bitch, and take yourself to your bedchamber.”

She jumped up, stopping inches from him. Her hands shook, not from fear but from the rage pulsing through her blood. Even now she had weapons hidden on her person and weighed the wisdom of planting a knife in some vital organ of his. On reflection, she resolved to leave that pleasure to her father. “You have no authority to issue dictates to me. I know what you are and what you and Marlene have done behind Papa’s back. When he recovers from this setback, I shall inform him of your trysts with his wife in the gazebo and the stables and her cries as she urged you on. Your military career is finished, or it will be when the colonel learns of your treachery. He is not so old he cannot call you out on the field of honor and put a bullet through your sinful heart.”

His body went so still and stiff he resembled one of the garden’s Greek statues.

Quinn came quickly to his feet, grasped Willa’s arm, and pulled her away, as though he knew she was perfectly capable of killing Digby where he stood. He rushed her from the room and up the stairs. She gave no protest, not caring where they were going.

“Jwana has fretted herself to a nub,” Quinn muttered as he moved her along beside him. “We received your note, of course, but expected your return long before now. That was a foolish action, taking off after Francis Marion alone.”

She grasped not a word of what he said, although some corner of her mind registered his voice. After throwing open the door to her bedchamber, he gently pushed her into Jwana’s arms.

A half moon sailed through the black heavens to spill its silver light through Willa’s open balcony doors. She could not sleep … a recurrent situation, it seemed. As she stood by the doors in her bare feet, a blanket swathed about her, she savored the caress of the cold air on her cheeks and looked out over her moonlit home.