The Colonel's Lady (20 page)

His gut gave a slight wrench. Abby? Was she ill again? Or Roxie . . .

Without another thought of being in his shirtsleeves, he went below to meet her.

Roxanna stirred from under the covers, a delicious drowsiness receding as consciousness pushed her awake. The large square room was filled with light, for someone had left the shutters open. A hint of oil paint lingered in the still air. As she lay back on the bank of goose-down pillows, her eyes drifted upward beyond the exquisite crewelwork canopy to Wedgewood-blue walls. The color rested her, reminded her of the Atlantic and the Virginia shore.

It was midday—the clock over the door told her so, but a few moments passed before she remembered why she was abed at such a busy hour. Smiling, she expelled a half-amused, half-indignant gasp as a furious little foot jabbed her beneath the rib cage. This was why she was upstairs, her baking left to Bella in the kitchen far below. Rolling onto her side, she cradled the bulk beneath her bed gown with impatient arms.

Come out, wee one. Only at your appearance will we know if your hair is to be a Rowan black or a McLinn red . . .

Roxanna jerked awake. Had she been dreaming, then? If so, the dream was so sweet she didn’t want it to end. Stiff from sitting so long in the rocker, she opened her eyes, only to close them again in protest, the fine canopy bed far preferable to her present surroundings. But the rudeness of the room was too jarring, and she came fully alert.

With a cry she spied her trunk by the door, the lid open, linen undergarments and shoes spilling out. Her scrivener’s pay, a princely stack of shillings bound in an embroidered handkerchief to hasten her to Virginia, was missing, the cabin door ajar. Robbed? Hands trembling, she flew to the trunk and dug deep for the treasured teacup and letter and hair ribbon, her frantic actions revealing the state of her heart. Each lay unharmed at the bottom of the trunk and she breathed a prayer of thanks, then remembered the reason she’d fled Fort Endeavor—and her dream.

The two collided in a sickening rush—the latter so sweet, the former so base she sat down on the closed trunk and let a cold, hard numbness overtake her. She’d been dreaming about McLinn in a way she was ashamed to even recall, wed and abed, lying upstairs in a room she’d never seen but that had felt like home to her. Only the stone house wasn’t hers—’twas the Indian woman’s. She herself was at Smitty’s Fort, not only homeless and fatherless, but suddenly shillingless. Closing her eyes against the tears welling there, she leaned her head back, the soft knot of her chignon pressing against the rough log wall.

Lord, forgive me for my foolishness. I commit myself to You anew. Please deliver me and rescue me from the error of my ways.

She’d not yet said “amen” when the door swung completely open. Sitting beside it, she looked up, eyes widening.

Oh, Lord, Colonel McLinn is not what I meant!

Still, the tremendously tall figure filling the door frame, immaculate in buff and blue, cross belts and weapons in place, seemed every inch the rescuer. She fought the urge to fall headlong into his arms in relief, nearly forgetting the trouble that sat squarely between them.

He didn’t look at her or speak but surveyed the threadbare bed, the table and rocker, the glowing remains of Hank’s fire. His intense expression said he found it all lacking. She felt an acute embarrassment, as if she were somehow to blame for her sorry surroundings.

“I’ve come to escort you back,” he told her.

His ironclad tone nearly made her waver. “I’m not going back.”

He gave her a disgusted look. “You’ve just been robbed and you’re in the quarters of a dead man. Why would you want to stay?” He reached inside his coat and withdrew her hoard of shillings.

What?

Startled, she stood and faced him, watching as he deposited the money atop a table. His striking face was as resolute as she’d ever seen. She was going back, every hard line seemed to say, if only because he wasn’t going to waste time debating the matter when he had better things to do.

Folding her arms, she took a steadying breath, unable to resist one needling remark. “I’m sorry you came all this way, as I’m aware you have more pressing matters to attend to.”

His ice-blue eyes seemed to spit at her. “Sarcasm and innuendo don’t become you, Miss Rowan. I suggest you say what you mean.”

“You know full well what I mean.”

“Aye, I do, but I’m not going to discuss it with you—
and
them.” When he stepped clear of the doorway, she was astonished to see a small crowd gathering outside.

Their blank, bleak faces, hungry for any sort of amusement, showed not a smidgen of remorse for eavesdropping. Heat rushed to her cheeks, and she looked away. If it was a lover’s quarrel they wanted, they were to be sorely disappointed. Turning her back to them—and him—she folded her arms, fighting tears. The groan of the hinges and the ensuing shadows assured her he’d shut the door. It took her a full minute to realize he was no longer in the same room with her. He’d left.

Confused and frantic, she flung the door open wide again. He stood looking down at her, but the crowd had dispersed.
How had he accomplished that?
she wondered.

“So you do want to talk to me,” he said.

Bested—and humiliated—she looked up at him through damp eyes. She wasn’t sure just what she wanted. A stony weight settled in her chest as she motioned him in. When he shut the door soundly, yesterday’s spectacle returned to her in all its color and confusion.

The colorful chieftains and ensuing haze of tobacco smoke. Melodious Shawnee flowing from their mouths like music. Hours of translation and transcribing. And then the gifts—a horse, an elaborate buckskin jacket, a beautiful woman. She felt anew her own careening emotions, like she’d been riding in a carriage for far too long and lacked air. Her head and stomach swirled in such tandem she thought she might be sick.

She took the rocker while he straddled a bench facing the fire, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Even a few feet away from her, he was so physically imposing she seemed to be cast in his shadow. But he was a bit hesitant, she thought, as if as disinclined to talk and as tired as she.

Finally he said, “What are you running from, Miss Rowan, without so much as a by-your-leave?”

She bit her lip. “I couldn’t stay—after yesterday.”

“After the gift giving, you mean—that and the incident in your cabin.”

The incident.
It was more carefully put than anything he’d ever said.

“Yes.” She looked down at her hands awkwardly, surprised he’d risk discussing so delicate a matter.

“Things aren’t always what they seem in matters of love—and war. Yet you think me so base you believe the worst.”

The accusation made her want to crawl beneath the bench. “What else was I to think?”

“I never meant to demean you that night in your cabin, ye ken. And I took the Indian woman in the house to question her, not seduce her.”

Hearing it so plainly stated, she felt herself go crimson again and said nothing.

“You’re not even going to ask me what I asked her?”

“Nay.” She fixed her gaze on a crack in the floor, wishing the whole excruciating matter would melt away.

“Falling Water is not simply a chief’s daughter. She’s the daughter of the war chief of the Shawnee nation. As such, she is privy to all matters of war and the men who make it, particularly the British. I couldn’t risk the chief’s ire by refusing her outright.”

Slowly her confusion began to clear. She looked at him entreatingly. “You hoped she’d tell you who among the British are provoking the Shawnee raids on the settlements?” At his nod, understanding washed over her, along with the realization of how she’d misjudged him. “And did she tell you—even when the chiefs would not?”

“She told me a great deal more than I thought she would.”

“How do you know it’s the truth?”

“It confirms the intelligence coming out of Detroit and other places in the middle ground.”

She grew quiet, pondering it all. The respect she had for him was flowering again, save one final question. “Colonel McLinn, you are a man of considerable charms. May I ask how you were able to convince her to divulge such valuable information?”

“I have her lover in custody.”

“What?”

“The younger Shawnee chief—Five Feathers. I told her she could see him, take care of the old man.”

Shame tugged at her. “I—I thought—”

His dissecting stare told her he wasn’t going to let her escape so easily. “What exactly did you think?”

She took a deep breath and said in a little rush, “I thought you were an unprincipled officer whose loneliness finally got the better of him.”

His smile was tight, even wry. “I am lonely. And I’m tired of fighting Redcoats and redskins. But my honor is still intact.”

The honest admission—and her own rash judgments—made her more woozy. “Please . . . forgive me.”

“Aye, I will,” he said in measured tones, removing his tricorn. “If you’ll return to Fort Endeavor with me.”

She swallowed past the knot in her throat. “I think you’d be glad to be rid of me, thinking so ill of you.”

He looked away from her into the fire. “The truth is Fort Endeavor needs you.”

Confused, she shifted in her seat, darting a look at him.

“I need you,” he amended quietly. “Not just your services as scrivener. I need your goodness and gentleness and strength. Sometimes I think you’re the only one I can trust, even above my own officers.”

There was a degree of humility in his words that warmed her like the fire they sat beside. But his sudden honesty was also unsettling, making her recall matters she longed to leave behind. “You’re thinking of Papa’s journal. I didn’t want to show it to you—make you suspect your own men. Maybe he was wrong.”

“Your father wasn’t one to make rash accusations. I know I have an inside enemy working to aid the British. I don’t know who it is yet, but I’m narrowing the field. And I need your help.”

“Help?” she echoed. “What can I do?”

“Stand by me. Believe in me.” His eyes sought hers again. “Maybe even petition Providence for me.”

“I will pray for you—I
do
pray for you,” she said, feeling a new tenderness toward him. Yet her erstwhile words seemed to echo even now and push them apart.
Please, I don’t want to fall in love with you.
Looking away, she made herself say, “’Tis nearly spring. I need to be thinking of leaving.”

He gave an agitated move on the bench. “How can I, in good conscience, let you go? I can’t even keep a courier alive.”

She folded her hands in her lap, facing the truth of it, yet holding on to hope. “I’ll come back to Fort Endeavor with you today. And I’ll help you in any way I can. But I want to leave at the first opportunity.”

“Just promise that you won’t go away again without telling me.”

Surprised, she darted another glance at him. Today he seemed so . . . different. Suddenly it seemed what they weren’t saying to each other was the only thing she heard.

When, she wondered, had she lost her heart to him?

Simply sitting beside him in this dusty, infested, fire-lit cabin was so excruciatingly sweet she couldn’t speak.

“Promise me, Roxie,” he said again.

The way he said her name—low and slow and sweet—was like nothing she’d ever heard. She could feel his eyes on her in such a way it was as if he was tracing the oval of her face with his fingers. And all her halfhearted talk of leaving turned to ashes.

“I promise.”

20

They left Smitty’s Fort, he on the black Shawnee stallion, she on a borrowed mare. Her trunk, entrusted to the sutler, would follow when Hank returned to the fort later that day. Once outside the gates, she looked around, her high feeling of reconciliation—of being rescued—eroding like river sand. The ubiquitous guard that shadowed Cass was missing, though the brilliant sunshine made light of her fears. How could anything evil exist in the face of such bright beauty?

“Stay abreast of me,” was all he said.

She rode between him and the river, and the reason soon came clear. If an arrow or musket ball erupted from the brush, he’d buffer her. Was that his thought? But once he fell, what then? Her pistol packed small comfort, though he was fully armed, the sash of his sword a bold blue, with more weapons hidden beneath his uniform coat. Somehow the fact that they’d just discussed a spy made their traveling alone doubly ludicrous.

“Why,” she asked a bit breathlessly, “did you come without a guard?”

He eyed her beneath the shadow of his tricorn, every angle of his face wary. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate being returned to Fort Endeavor like a prisoner.”

“I
am
a prisoner, Colonel McLinn.”

“So are we all, Miss Rowan.”

She studied him as she bumped along atop the unfamiliar horse, trying to keep up with him. “To be honest, I’m nearly shaking in my boots. Yet you seem so fearless. ’Tis a curious trait among you Continental soldiers.”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’ve heard the bullets whistle, and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”

“I don’t fancy being under fire myself.”

“What do you fancy?”

Their eyes locked, and hers skittered away to the safety of the river.
Robust men in buff and blue. Cherry bounce. Fireside dances in dark cabins. Stone houses.
“Safety and civilization and peace.”

“You have a dim view of Kentucke, then. Your horizons need expanding.”

With a touch of his spurs, he turned away from the river. She had no choice but to follow, praying all the way as the forest’s green shadows swallowed them. Her straw hat was nearly swept off her head by a low-lying branch, but she pushed her fears down in the face of his stalwart shoulders and intrepid profile.

Colonel McLinn . . . please
, she almost begged in a plea to turn back.

Yet no matter how frightened she felt, there was no denying the exhilaration of riding free. Was this what he’d meant about the charm of whistling bullets? Every nerve taut, every sense stretched? Embracing every breath, knowing it might be your last? This was what life would be like with him, she thought—never quite comfortable or safe, always with an undercurrent of danger.

They crossed a little rippling creek with bluish-gray stones that reminded her of Abby’s eyes. Robins and cardinals exploded in song, raising the fine hair on her arms and the back of her neck.

She darted a look around. “Why do I have the feeling we’re being watched?”

“I have scouting patrols in these woods,” he said easily. “Ezekial Click and his cronies move about freely—not to mention Indians.”

Freely . . . yet hidden.

They climbed a greening rise where dogwood was about to bloom and mountain laurel showed a subtle peek of their scarlet splendor. Everything seemed to be waiting for spring—she most of all. Below in an open valley was a small cabin puffing smoke, near a patch of garden ground and a newly plowed cornfield. A far cry from the stone house, she thought, yet a promising start. As they skirted the hill, a woman came out onto the porch, half a dozen children scampering around her. A man was building a fence in a stump-littered clearing, musket propped against a post.

Awe threaded her voice. “Do they go on, day after day, oblivious to the danger?”

He pulled his tricorn lower. “Not oblivious, just in spite of. This family—the O’Hares—is from Ireland. There are many like them hidden in these hills and hollows. They come here for freedom—a chance to realize a dream.”

“And you’re here to defend that dream.”

“Well said, Miss Rowan. Even if it’s not quite so noble.”

“My father said you’re the reason these settlers stay on—that without a strong military presence, the British and Indians would have a field day and overrun the Kentucke territory.”

His expression was patently resigned. “I’m here because I’m expendable and cost General Washington a great deal of time and trouble in the colonies. No one else wanted the command.”

“No one else was qualified, you mean. You’re the only American officer I know of who’s been awarded a Badge of Military Merit for valor in battle, for nearly losing your life. Yet you refuse to wear it. Why?”

“Who told you about the Purple Heart?”

She hesitated, steeling herself against a rush of emotion. “My father.”

A flicker of distress marred his calm. He was looking pensively at the ground with such disregard for their surroundings she sensed he was about to tell her something momentous.

She stayed quiet, willing him to speak, knowing he couldn’t confide in or unburden himself to many. A new thought assailed her. Might the Lord have brought them together not for love but for simple companionship, however brief? She said quietly, “You are in need of a friend, Colonel McLinn. Let me be that friend.”

His head came up, and there was such unmistakable anguish in his eyes she nearly winced. And then his demeanor hardened and he was unreachable—and unreadable again.

“We must move on,” he told her with a jerk of his reins, turning away.

With a confidence akin to a surveyor’s knowledge of the land, he led her through thick stands of cane, past steaming mineral springs to a stony ridge rich in wildlife, with eagles soaring high above Fort Endeavor and the Ohio River. God’s view, she thought, looking down at soldiers performing all the routine functions she was so tired of. She spotted Bella near the kitchen, a splash of sunny yellow in the weary canvas of military life.

When they finally came down from their perch, she felt her senses quicken. Beneath the close confines of her linen dress, perspiration ran in itchy lines. Not from the heat, as there was none this chilly March day, but from sheer trepidation—from the danger she felt pulsing all around them. Though she didn’t want to return to the fort, she felt far safer within its walls.

The damp earthiness of the woods receded as she moved into a sunlit clearing just ahead of him. And then her hearing sharpened at a sudden
thwack
. Jerking her head around, she saw an arrow protruding from a near tree. Gasping, she watched as Cass turned and fired his pistol into the brush they were exiting before slapping the rump of her mare. It shot forward into the fort clearing, nearly toppling her. Everything in her screamed danger as she bent low, her hands tight about the reins, her thoughts full of him.

A second sound pierced her panic. ’Twas a musket ball, and its whistling brought every soldier on Fort Endeavor’s banquette to full alert. A volley of answering gunfire exploded from the pickets above her head as if welcoming the two of them in. Just ahead, the postern gate cracked open to admit her—and then him. Chest heaving, she nearly fell off her horse. He simply dismounted beside her, a model of calm, though his tricorn was missing.

“Are you all right, Miss Rowan?”

Their eyes met, and she was astonished to find that his were unmistakably enlivened.

“Nay, Colonel McLinn.” The words came out in breathless snatches, revealing her turmoil. “I have heard the bullets whistle, and believe me, there is nothing charming in the sound.”

“I apologize for the close call.”

Her thoughts were swirling, wondering who had meant him—them—harm. Reaching out, she felt for her mare, hoping to lean into its silky side, but a regular was already leading it away, and it was Cass’s coat sleeve she gripped instead. She was so close to fainting that dark spots danced in her vision. She barely heard his order to bring some cherry bounce to restore her senses but felt him pick her up as effortlessly as she’d seen him do Abby. Into headquarters they went, away from probing eyes and wagging tongues.

The blockhouse was blessedly dim and empty, and there she could nurse her shame in private . . . but for him. Depositing her gently in her Windsor chair, he took a seat beside her. She drew back a bit as he began untying the chin ribbon of her hat. There was something so intimate about his doing so that she wanted to squirm. In seconds he had the hat off and in her lap. She examined the wide, pansy-draped brim with its glossy leaves and ruched ribbon and felt her mouth form a perfect
O
—as perfect as the hole made by the musket ball that had passed through the hat’s crown.

Oh, Lord, was I one breath away from death?

His steady voice settled her. “Was it a favorite?”

“Nay,” she said shakily, thinking of Ambrose.

“’Twas a fine target,” he mused ruefully.

“Am I very pale?”

“Paler.”

“I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“There’s always a first time.”

He leaned near again—so close she shut her eyes, overcome by wooziness of a different kind. His searching fingers were in her hair—reminding her of the night in her cabin, taking liberties no man ever had—all in search of half a dozen hat pins . . . or a lead ball? He took her hand and deposited the pins in her palm just as Bella came in.

“Law, but you is white as washed wool,” Bella exclaimed, passing her a cup of cherry bounce. Her keen eyes ran up and down Roxanna, lingering on her hat. “But I reckon I’d be the same if I had a hole in my hea—
hat
.”

Clucking her tongue, Bella went out and Roxanna sipped the bounce, feeling an instant fire that all but paled next to the one the colonel had just kindled in her.

“Would you like some?” she whispered, offering the cup, thinking he looked a bit shaken himself.

He took it a bit absently, downing the remainder. A tense silence ensued—so protracted she felt on tenterhooks. He seemed on the verge of revealing something just as he had in the woods. Sensing it, she held her breath. And then he got up and went out without a word, leaving her alone in the chill and gloom of the blockhouse.