Kiss of a Traitor (57 page)

She assumed a look of innocence, causing him to scowl even more fiercely. “My children?”

He ignored the inflection in her voice. “You will never guess what they did to me this time.” Fishing a handkerchief from his pocket, he attempted to wipe the pond water from his face, but the cloth was as wet as the rest of him. “Blessed virgin,” he muttered and threw it to the ground.

Willa calmly reached into her cleavage, retrieved her handkerchief, and offered it to him.

He snatched it from her hand and mopped his face. She sat back and waited for him to continue.

“Gwen informed me that Killer somehow got over to the island and now could not return,” he said. “I expressed my opinion that the cat would make it back the same way he got there. ‘But, no,’ she insisted. And you know what a chucklehead I am for her pleading. Nothing else would do but I rescue that damned devil’s cat. Lance added his persuasion to his sister’s. And their cohort in crime, Ari, even managed to squeeze out a few tears. Of course, I was unaware they had sabotaged the rowboat. I should have suspected something when they declined to join me in the rescue.”

Willa stifled a laugh behind her hand. He glowered and pointed a finger at her. “This is your fault. You felt compelled to entertain them with tales of our courtship. Now they must outdo you in pranks.”

Willa forced her features into a semblance of sympathy. “Did you not notice the rowboat had a hole in the bottom? I collect that is what you mean by sabotage.”

He nodded curtly. “Indeed. Those children are geniuses at deviousness, Willa. They drilled out a hole and mixed up a putty of flour and water to plug it. They colored the plug the same hue as the boat with a dye of walnut stain. ‘Twas indistinguishable from the wood. I vow I could not have done a better job myself.” His tone gradually went from affronted to a grudging admiration. “By the time I was halfway to the island, the paste soaked up enough water to disintegrate, and—”

“And you sank,” she finished for him, her chest heaving with laughter.

He grimaced. “Like a rock. Hell’s bells, Willa, one would assume I would have learned my lesson after the incident with the exploding cigar.”

“Now, dear,” she said, “Guinevere had a perfectly adequate explanation. She felt there might be a commercial market some day for such a clever prank. ‘Twas incumbent upon her to test her theory.”

He flung his arms wide. “She damn near blew off my nose!”

She shook her head. “Brendan, you know you exaggerate. Guinevere takes vastly too much care in her chemical mixtures to do you any real harm. You had a mere blackened face.”

He rolled his eyes and snorted. “For an entire fortnight. Enlighten me, my dear, what did I do to deserve such hellions for children?” He suddenly swept his gaze over her figure, lush with her pregnancy, and lingered on her swollen breasts. “Oh, yes,” he said softly with a seductive smile. “Now I recall.”

Willa shouted with laughter when he scooped her out of the chair, sweeping her up into his strong arms. Her journal tumbled to the grass. “Stop it, Brendan! Put me down! You will make me wet!”

The devil danced in his eyes. “Indeed, my dear, I bloody well hope so.”

“You are an incorrigible flirt, Lord Montford,” she came back with a sputter.

His smile stretched into a grin. “And you love it, wildcat.”

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Though I come from good South Carolina stock and am distantly related by marriage to Revolutionary War Colonel Wade Hampton—or so I’ve been told—like most children of my time, I learned about the American Revolution through such battles as Bunker Hill, Lexington, Concord, and Yorktown, and was bombarded with the names of heroes like Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Paul Revere. South Carolina scarcely merited more than a page or two in my school history books.

My fascination with Francis Marion began with the 1959 television series
Swamp Fox
starring Leslie Nielsen (later of
Naked Gun
fame) as the wily partisan general. The image of Francis Marion as a man who was a forgotten hero in the annals of our country’s history stuck with me through the years. I knew that someday I would come back to him.

When I researched
Kiss of a Traitor,
I was shocked to my Southern toes. I discovered that of the one hundred eighteen battles of the Revolutionary War, sixty-seven were fought on South Carolina soil. And through the majority, including the first and last, Francis Marion was present. If not for the actions of this small, brave, deeply religious man, who never commanded a real army nor won a major battle in his own name, America would have lost the Revolutionary War. Without pay or uniforms, arms or ammunition, food or medicine from the Continental army, Francis Marion and his band of ragged partisans got the job done and kept South Carolina from being overrun by the British. He exemplified the virtues of humanity, judgment, benevolence, and courage. Despite his small size, quiet nature, and unassuming demeanor, he held the respect of his men and engendered an almost superstitious fear among his enemies. He wasted no lives nor took any unnecessarily. He was a genius at strategy and introduced the British to a method of warfare they could neither understand nor defend against.

Today Marion’s legacy lives on in the at least seventeen counties and nineteen towns throughout the United States named after him, and in Lake Marion, under which lies the grave of his beloved home, Pine Bluff. And most of all, his spirit resides (I would like to think) in Francis Marion National Forest, a 250,000-acre coastal forest along the Santee River in Berkeley and Charleston counties. This enormous protected area was established in 1936 by President Franklin Roosevelt, and its swamps and woodlands provide one of the few remaining refuges for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. I believe Francis Marion would have liked that.

Kiss of a Traitor
is a fictional account of a particular moment in history and not intended to be historical treatise, though I attempted throughout to follow, as closely as possible, the actual events of Francis Marion’s campaign in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War.

In all wars, atrocities are committed by both sides. The American Revolution is no exception. The winner, invariably, writes the history books, and, in ours the British are often portrayed as villains. Unfortunately, many gallant acts by British and Tory combatants have been overshadowed by the depravations of men such as Tarleton and Wemyss. Please forgive any seeming bias and rest assured that I, as well other Americans, am aware that there are two sides to every story. My depictions were taken, for the most part, from partisan accounts, written shortly after the conflict.

In some cases I found myself required to manipulate dates and people to insert my fictional characters into the events of the time. Many individuals in the story are true historical figures, such as Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, the major military officers on both sides of the conflict, and the Richardson family, though Emma Richardson is my creation.

Colonel George Bellingham’s character is based on Colonel (later General) Nisbet Balfour, a Scotsman who was the British commander of Charles Town from August 1780 until the end of the war.

Some of Brendan Ford’s accomplishments must be laid at the feet of others, most notably, Lieutenant Colonel Hezekiah Maham, a Continental officer from St. Stephen’s, who conceived of and built the siege tower that took Fort Watson. These devices became known as Maham Towers. During the engagement at Fair Lawn, which resulted in the loss of Marion’s ammunition wagon, Captain Gavin Witherspoon was the leader of the partisan patrol who clashed with British Major Thomas Fraser.

Banastre Tarleton survived the war, fighting his last battle in Virginia on October 3, 1781. After the British defeat at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, the American officers hosted a dinner for their French allies and the vanquished British. Tarleton was barred from the dinner and, when he questioned his exclusion, was told it was intentional because of his conduct during the war. Tarleton returned to England, was promoted to general, knighted, and elected to Parliament. But his reputation soon suffered due to the excesses of gambling and other vices, and his scandalous public relationship with an actress-poet, Mary Robinson. In 1798 he settled down and married Susan Priscilla Bertie. He died childless in 1833 and is buried in or near the chapel in Leintwardine, North Herefordshire, on the River Teme.

James Wemyss, the second most hated man in South Carolina, also survived the conflict, though not without cost. Due to injuries received during the skirmish at Fishdam Ford—Wemyss took a bullet in the arm, another in his knee, and at least four other wounds—he was lame for the remainder of his life. After being paroled and exchanged, Wemyss went to New York to convalesce and then to England. His wife, Rachel, died soon after his arrival, and he returned to New York in 1782. He was sent to Charles Town and was present for the British evacuation of the port city. He left again for England and remained in the military until 1789, upon which he retired to Scotland. After losing most of his property due to financial reverses, he married again and emigrated to America, settling on a farm on Long Island in the late 1790s, and remained there until he died. He suffered a stroke in 1832 and passed away in December 1833. He’s buried somewhere in or around Huntington, New York, on Long Island.