Kiss of a Traitor (45 page)

From the stall where she curried Cherokee, Willa lifted her head at the disturbance in the outer aisle, peered over the side of the wooden boards, and saw Plato’s close-cropped cap of wiry hair. She dropped the brush and ran to him, throwing her arms about his tall body and hugging him. Raising her head, she gave him a questioning look.

A smile split his face. “Cap’ain Ford be fine. Took a might’a nursin’ though. He be a mighty stubborn man. Had ta tie him ta de bed so he be restin’ an’ healin'. Gonna be some bad scars on his back an’ shoulders. He be itchin’ ta join up wid de Swamp Fox ‘gain when I left. Reckon he be wid de partisans by now.”

A lump rose in her throat. She backed away, wrapped her arms around her waist, and gazed at the sawdust beneath her feet. Her heart rejoiced at Brendan’s recovery. Nonetheless, its core was heavy and scarred with the wounds of old hurts. She glanced up, fearing to ask the question but compelled to. “Did he send word for me?”

Plato’s eyes riveted on her rounded belly. “No message,” he said in a slow drawl, “but I be seein’ he done lef’ you a present.”

Heat crept into her face. “Indeed, he did.” She reached out and retrieved his mount’s reins. “Now hand over that horse. I shall care for it while you find Jwana. She has a great deal of news for you.”

Plato’s eyes lit like candles. “She be back?”

She threw a smile over her shoulder as she led the horse away. “Take yourself off. I know she wishes to see you as much as you want to see her, even should she pretend indifference.”

Plato spun about and left the stable, an extra spring in his step. Willa heard him whistling a tune as he emerged into the spring day.

April sunshine warmed his shoulders as Ford galloped out of the Great White Swamp to catch up with the general. Marion and eighty men had joined forces with Light Horse Harry Lee’s Legion at Black River to take Fort Watson. Harry Lee was a Continental army officer from Virginia with a superb education, polished manners, and well-trained men, yet he placed his legion under Marion’s command, and the two patriot commanders immediately made plans to besiege the fort. Fort Watson was a vital link in British communications from Charles Town, which lay sixty miles to the southeast. Situated on an Indian mound at the edge of Scott’s Lake, the fort was well protected from assault.

The night before the siege began, Ford steered Dancer through the American camp, which had settled in an old field behind Wright’s Bluff. He tethered his horse outside Marion’s tent and ducked through the open flap to report to duty.

“Captain Ford,” Marion said with evident delight. He stood and extended his hand. Ford clasped it firmly. “'Tis heartening to see you keeping well, Captain. We despaired of your recovery. But now that you are hearty and hale again, I have great need of you. My men are few, as seems to be the case lately, and every able-bodied man is a boon.”

Ford occupied a chair at Marion’s direction. “You could not keep me away, sir. In fact, Plato shackled me to the bedpost to keep me from the war this long.”

Marion glanced past Ford’s shoulder toward the tent opening. “And where is our talented Negro gentleman? Did he accompany you? We could put his medicinal skills to good use.”

Ford leaned back and steepled his hands on his chest. “I sent him to Willowbend to watch over Miss Bellingham.”

Marion’s brows lifted. “Then you and Miss Bellingham have resolved your differences?”

Ford smiled with tolerant amusement at Marion’s obvious interest in his officer’s love life. The general remained unmarried at forty-nine years of age, though gossip suggested he had a
tendre
for a cousin. “Not quite. Plato explained the reasons behind the trap she set for you and her part in my escape from Georgetown. He also mentioned I had some rather harsh words for her during my rescue. I trust she did not take my ravings to heart. To be perfectly truthful, I recollect naught from that night. I had been having hallucinations and may have seen someone else in my delirium. In any event, I managed to tame my pique at her penchant for placing herself in dangerous situations. I sent Plato home as I felt she was in need of protection.”

Marion’s lips slanted downward, revealing his personal fondness for Willa. “Do you judge her to be in some peril?”

“You mean other than from her own rash exploits?” Ford released a short laugh. “Not precisely. My action is driven by an uneasiness I seem unable to shake. She keeps constant company with Major Thomas Digby and her stepmother, Marlene Bellingham. Neither have any cause to feel affection for her. Quite the opposite, in fact. And I lately have come to the belief those two had a hand in Colonel Bellingham’s demise.”

Marion half-rose from behind the desk and placed his hands on the surface. “Have you proof of murder?”

Memories dribbled back of a conversation Ford overhead and a mention of poison. He pressed the fingertips of one hand to his temple as if to make the image clearer. “Not precisely, simply a vague recollection.” He dropped his hand to his lap. “'Twas more likely a figment of my imagination. Still, my reconciliation with the impetuous Miss Bellingham will have to wait until the war no longer requires my services.”

“Then we must end this war quickly, Captain,” Marion said with a wry smile as he sat back down, “so you may resume your courtship of the lady.”

The commander of Fort Watson, Lieutenant James McKay, had supplied well for a siege, with large stocks of food and ammunition. All he lacked were cannon, as Colonel Watson had confiscated the fort’s two artillery pieces for his pursuit of the Swamp Fox. But McKay’s men, with an abundance of muskets, managed to meet the attackers’ fire shot for shot. General Marion was in need of a strategy other than direct assault to overtake the fort. The defenders had stout walls to hide behind and more ammunition than the patriot army.

The fort drew its water from Scott’s Lake, and Marion cut off its supply by sending sharpshooters down to guard the lake. The snipers sat out of range of the enemy’s muskets and dared the fort’s defenders to come out for water. Undaunted, McKay set his men to digging a well inside the fort. They hit water three days later.

With no field artillery and despairing of success, Marion summoned a conference of his officers. “We cannot capture the fort by storm,” he told the assembled men. “We lack cannon, and our men see their companions wounded and killed in forays resulting in no visible damage to the fort defenders. Further actions will only give rise to more desertions. Should we be unable to devise another plan, I’m inclined to end the siege rather than tie up our troops in a fruitless effort when we can use them more effectively elsewhere.”

Ford bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his hands beneath his chin. “If I may make a suggestion, General? Perhaps we could steal a trick or two from ancient history.”

Marion, Harry Lee, and the other officers looked at Ford keenly.

He cleared his throat and straightened his back, uncomfortably aware he had become the center of attention, and the fate of the siege may well rest on his scarred shoulders. “Were we to build a siege tower, as soldiers did in biblical times, and construct it higher than the log walls, our sharpshooters should be able to fire into the fort.”

An expression of hope and excitement, the first seen in days, blossomed on Marion’s face. “Capital idea. To take the bull by the horns rather than sit here and rot of inactivity.” He sprang to his feet and threw out orders, directing the officers to dispatch their men to the neighboring plantations in search of pine saplings. Then he turned to Ford. “Take charge of this operation, Captain, since it was your inspiration,” he said. “Oversee the tower’s construction and choose the men to occupy it.” He rubbed his hands together. “By damn, I like this idea.”

Ford met the men when they arrived with the cut pine saplings and led them to a site within rifle range but beyond reach of the fort’s muskets. They worked into the night, dumping the poles, chopping, lifting, and forming them into an oblong tower. When the construction reached a point higher than the fort’s ramparts, Ford commissioned them to build a floor and reinforce the front with a shield of cut logs. As dawn broke, he selected McCottry’s Rifles, the best of the sharpshooters, to climb up into the tower and train their guns on the fort.

Daylight illuminated the fields, lake, and old Indian mound, and McKay found himself staring down snipers’ rifle barrels. Musket balls could not reach the log structure, while the sharpshooters’ bullets whistled straight and true into the fort. Pinned down, the defenders crawled on their bellies to evade the snipers. The remainder of Marion’s and Colonel Lee’s men advanced from outside to tear down the log walls. McKay hoisted the white flag when he caught sight of a sea of armed patriots ready to storm through the breach.

The taking of Fort Watson was the first patriot victory over a British entrenchment in South Carolina. Ford hoped it signaled the beginning of the end.

Willa awoke with her head spinning and her stomach cramping. She leaned over the side of the bed and fumbled around for the chamber pot, barely managing to find it before she vomited. She fell back drained. No sickness had plagued her pregnancy until this morning. Jwana told her she was fortunate. Most women suffered from nausea every morning for the first few months. Another cramp seized her, causing her to lunge for the pot again. Willa was on her knees beside the bed and heaving in violent spasms by the time Jwana entered an hour later.

“Dis ain’t right,” Jwana muttered as she ran to Willa’s side and held back her hair.

“Not right?” Willa uttered between wrenching bouts. Then her stomach seemed to calm. She crawled back into bed with Jwana’s help but began to shiver uncontrollably. Jwana pulled the covers up to Willa’s chin.

“How long you been like dis?” Jwana asked, worry clouding her eyes.

“Not more than an hour. What do you mean by saying this is not right?” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. “Am I losing my baby?”

Jwana shook her head and sat on the side of the bed. “No, chil'. I ain’t be thinkin’ so. But de sickness ain’t be comin’ dis late. You be a good four months gone.” A question formed on her face. “You eat somethin’ dat ain’t be agreein’ wid you?”

Lassitude and melancholia washed over Willa, making it challenging to think. “Not that I recall. I had little appetite last night and requested a tray of bread and tea.” As small tremors twitched through her shoulders and arms, something, some memory, prowled at the edge of her mind. Though she knew it held great importance, she could not quite grasp it.

“Maybe you jes’ be catchin’ de ague,” Jwana said, smoothing a hand over Willa’s forehead. “Lot’s be goin’ ‘round, wot wid de war an’ all,” she said in a soothing voice. “You jes’ rest, an’ when you be wakin’ up, I be havin’ a nice broth ready fer you.”

Willa’s eyelids drifted closed. She heard Jwana rise and walk over to the table by the fireplace. China clinked as the maid lifted and replaced the teapot lid. Then Jwana left, the tray of empty dinner dishes rattling in her hands.

Willa surfaced from a restless sleep hours later. A headache pounded against the side of her skull. Nausea coiled and tightened around her vitals. She could scarcely move her heavy limbs. Jwana’s words came back; something was wrong. Then that hovering memory slunk out into the light.

She tried to call for help but could only whisper. Her hand slid out from under the covers, and she struggled to raise it to the bedside table. Her fingertips caught on a crystal vase of cut spring flowers. By concentrating all her waning energy on the vase, she inched it forward until it fell off the table.

Her door burst open a few moments later, and Jwana hurried in. The maid’s shoes crunched on the crystal rubble littering the floor.

“I … I could not call you,” Willa mumbled. She clutched Jwana’s wrist in a limp grip. “I remembered.”

The maid’s brows lowered; her lips thinned. “'Membered wot?” Jwana eased down on the bed and picked up Willa’s hand to tuck it back beneath the covers.

“The bottle,” Willa whispered. Jwana leaned down to hear her words. “The laudanum.”

“Tell me ‘bout de bottle.”

“By Papa’s bed. Poisoned him.” Her eyelids drifted down, and she pushed out the words. “Hid it.”