The Colonel's Lady (27 page)

Now at twilight she prayed silently as she finished her gardening, hoping the door would swing open wide and he’d walk out to join his officers for supper. But all that caught her attention were the spring peepers and whippoorwills in the distant tree line and the restless shuffling of the guard as they kept watch around her.

Oh, Cass, you’re just drinking yourself into a deeper tangle.

Taking up her hoe, she whacked at a stubborn weed encroaching on her peas, upending its spidery root from the dirt. Would that she could set Cass to rights as easily. Anger ticked relentlessly inside her. She could feel its heat in the rhythm of her pulse, all the more maddening because she was powerless to help him.

Lately he’d seemed to be turning a corner, and she’d glimpsed in him a kinder, gentler side. Since the cinchona poisoning, she’d detected a marked shift in him, a softening toward spiritual things. Though he never gave voice to his thoughts, she sensed the difference, and thankfulness suffused every part of her. There was, she felt, a fine man beneath his hardness. Her father had known it too. Finally her heartfelt, persistent prayers for him seemed to have found answer.

And now this.

Giving the green tendrils of peas and beans a final drink of water from her bucket, she thanked the guard as the last rays of sunlight touched the cold stone of the house on the hill. Turning her back on its beauty and returning to the fort, she felt like someone had thrown a black blanket over her. She was captive in this dark place—mired in her deepening feelings for Cass—and Liam McLinn was another dire reminder of the consequences that awaited her if she tried to leave.

She passed Nancy on the parade ground, heartened to see her on her way to the kitchen, another regular escorting her. The possessive way she clutched his arm and her bright smile reassured Roxanna that mourning Billy was indeed a thing of the past. High on the banquette above, the soldiers were changing guard, and muted talk and laughter erupted all around. With Cass holed up, discipline had dwindled and two more men had been caught stealing rum from the commissary. Everything unsavory within these high walls seemed to seethe and ooze in his absence, and she’d never felt less safe in all her life.

Too pent up to eat, she made tea at her own hearth, shunning the fine china cup for a plain pewter one and grating a brick of bitter Bohea instead of the fine, loose Congou he’d given her. A knock at the door sent her hopes soaring, but when Bella appeared, her buoyant spirits fell to her feet.

Bella’s dark face was knotted with concern. “I’ve brought you some supper. I know my cookin’ skills are lackin’, but you ain’t hardly missed a meal yet.”

“Thank you, Bella, but I can’t eat a bite. Female trouble, I’m afraid.” True enough, she thought, though
colonel trouble
was more accurate.

Nodding in sympathy, Bella turned toward the door with the tray, muttering, “I’d best send somethin’ to Colonel McLinn. He’s finally risen from the dead, Hank says.”

Roxanna stopped stirring her tea, hoping her relief—and delight—didn’t show. “Why don’t you let me take him his supper?”

A flash of horror crossed her face. “Law, Miz Roxanna, you been drinkin’ too? The only livin’ thing McLinn lets near him after one o’ his spells is Hank, and poor Hank has to tiptoe to do it.”

Inexplicably, the warning only hardened her resolve. Taking the tray, Roxanna said with more bluster than she felt, “Sometimes not even a colonel gets what he wants.”

Bella studied her with alarm. “You feelin’ all right, Miz Roxanna?”

“Never better.”

“Well, best stop by the kitchen and take him a hot plate. This un’s likely cold—”

“Army regulation is being on time for meals, is it not? If it’s cold, the colonel himself is to blame. He’s lucky he gets a meal at all.”

Bella took a wary step back. “Law! What’s got into you?”

“Fire and brimstone, I guess,” Roxanna said over her shoulder, crossing the threshold into the gathering gloom. “If I’m not back by midnight, best come after me.”

Cold johnnycake was palatable, but underdone potato, overdone elk, and greasy gravy were decidedly not. Yet Roxanna bore her burden with a steady step despite her slight limp, saying to the guard once she reached the stone house, “Please knock for me, as my hands are full. I’ll not take no for an answer.”

When Hank’s drawn face appeared in a crack of light through the barely open door, she bustled in. The foyer unfolded before her in all its austere elegance, a sconce banishing the shadows lurking in the far corners. For a moment she felt small and overawed by its polished grandeur.
Oh, Lord, don’t let me falter.
Yet she’d come up here without having the slightest idea what she’d say, only the burning desire to say something.

Yellow light pooled beneath a closed door to her right. His study? The sitting room? Without a word, Hank knocked lightly and she listened, stomach swimming. Why
had
she come? The answering growl behind the door seemed more ogre than McLinn, but she steadied her tray and entered in.

He was standing by an open window, looking down at the fort, his back to her. The sight of him in shirtsleeves, his uniform coat cast over a chair back, lent an unsettling intimacy to the scene. Her breath seemed to catch and not release, and all her poise took flight. Setting her burden on a table, she heard Hank shut the door, hemming her in. Slowly, Cass turned, the light calling out a dozen unkempt details about him—red-bristled jaw, buff trousers and boots, ruffled shirt open at the neck and lacking a cravat, lank hair loose and missing its ribbon tie.

Behind him the fire snapped and sent a plume of sparks past the dog irons onto delft tiles. The room reeked of tobacco—and brandy—and nearly made her wrinkle her nose. Instead she laced her fingers behind her and said, “I’ve brought you some supper.”

“And a double helping of condemnation as well, aye?”

“You’re welcome,” she said coolly.

His stiffness melted into a half smile. “Thank you.”

Looking away from him, she tried to puzzle out what color the walls were beneath the shadows, her eyes drawn to the twin wing chairs angled before the fire—just as she’d imagined them to be. And the books! The surrounding shelves seemed about to burst, rivaling the library at Thistleton Hall . . .

“Have a seat. Or are you needed back at the fort?” The steady lilt of his voice told her he was no longer intoxicated, just irritated.

She moved to the wing chairs and hesitated. “Which is yours?”

“Both,” he replied wryly. “I sit in one and put my feet up in the other.”

She nearly smiled. “I’ll take the one that bears your backside, not your boots.”

He gestured to the one on the right and she sat, sensing an undercurrent of bewildering things between them. Tension. Pleasure. Promise. Hope. She gazed upward to the curved mantel and painted panels and corniced ceiling while he leaned back in his chair, eyes on the fire. For a few agonizing minutes they sat in tense silence, and she did what she’d seen him do to his men—she said nothing and simply outlasted him.

“So, Roxie, why have you come?”

Despite his gruffness, she warmed to the thawing in his tone—and his familiarity. ’Twas Roxie tonight, not Miss Rowan. Not Roxanna. Pleasure seeped past her dismay. “I’ve come because I’m concerned about you, Cass—and I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up the hill.”

He turned amused eyes on her. “I’m sorry about the crick in your neck, but I’m glad we’ve finally dispensed with formalities. Hearing you call me
colonel
and
sir
was making me feel like an old man.”

“So how are you . . . truly?”

He passed a hand over his whiskers. “I’m
truly
dissolute.”

He looked it, though she’d rarely been around anyone who drank and wasn’t familiar with its effects.

Meeting her gaze, he said, “You’re looking at me like your father used to after one of my binges.”

“He used to say liquor ruined many a good soldier.”

“Aye, so he did. He also said, ‘Let your recreations be manful, not sinful.’ But to his credit, he never spoke in judgment or malice. Just concern. Like a father to a son.”

Yes, he’d known her father well. Hearing it brought his beloved memory back with such bittersweet ache she felt for her handkerchief.

He moved to stir the fire with a poker. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you by mentioning him.”

“I’d rather he be remembered than forgotten.”

“I’ll not forget . . .”

She waited for him to finish, but he left off, a look of such poignancy and pain on his face she felt doubly stung. The very air seemed weighted, and Micajah Hale’s words returned to her with a blunt force that nearly took her breath.

I was there when it happened. But I doubt you’d leap to his defense had you been.

Micajah had witnessed her father’s death. Yet this wasn’t what had upended her but the acrid bitterness of his tone. Dare she ask Cass about that fatal day? Here . . . now?

Chilled, she gathered her composure. “Since we’re speaking of hard things, I want to tell you I know about Liam.”

The telling vulnerability in his face vanished. “Bella told you, I’ll wager.”

“Bella and Micajah. But I’d rather you tell me so I can hear the truth of it firsthand.”

“’Tis not a pretty tale, Roxie. And I’d rather spare you the details.”

Their eyes met, and she found his sharp with irritation. But she wouldn’t back down, feeling the subject of Liam was what festered inside him and needed lancing. “Speaking of it might do you some good.”

“Or it just might drive me to drink again.”

“No man should have that kind of power over you, especially a brother.”

“He’s hardly that,” he said quietly yet with heat. “Rather the devil disguised as such. His intent has always been to send me straight to hell. And now, being Hamilton’s minion, he might well do it.”

Turning to a tilt-top table beside his chair, he retrieved a paper and passed it to her. She’d seen British handbills before—they were common enough in the colonies—but this one preached a coming wilderness war, advising the Kentucke settlers to abandon the Patriot cause and pledge allegiance to the king if they valued their lives.

“I’ve heard what British soldiers and Indians do to Patriot posts,” she murmured, passing it back to him.

“I’ll not let them take Fort Endeavor,” he said, crumpling the handbill in his fist and tossing it into the fire. “I’ll meet them in the middle ground, army to army, to spare as much settlement blood as possible.”

“When?”

“As soon as we’re able. I’m waiting for reinforcements, if they materialize, which I doubt. If they don’t come, we’ll march regardless. If we succeed in overrunning them in the middle ground, we’ll move on to Detroit.”

She turned to look at him again, and it seemed an icy hand gripped her heart. “It sounds . . . ambitious.”

“Aye.”

Knotting her handkerchief in her lap, she tried to make sense of what she could only call a sickening premonition. There were but two hundred men at Fort Endeavor, yet countless British and Indians in the middle ground. She saw an empty chair across from her and felt suffocated by such a sense of loss that she bit her lip to keep herself in check. If he went, her heart and head insisted, he wouldn’t come back . . .

He studied her, every angle of his face taut. “I will tell you this. It’s one thing to face an honorable enemy but another thing to deal with cutthroats and savages. Liam McLinn has earned the nickname of Lucifer by shooting men in the back. That is what I’m up against, and that is why I’ve been holed up in this house trying to forget.”

“Trying to forget how dismal your odds of winning are, you mean?”

“Aye, to put it bluntly.”

They fell into a sore silence, one she longed to mend but couldn’t. From the hall she could hear Hank’s soft tread as he climbed the stairs.

“I’d best go,” she said, though she didn’t want to. She felt at home here, away from the filth of the fort. She couldn’t blame him for seeking refuge in this house, though she abhorred his drinking.

He said a bit more gently, “Your father was often in this room. It seems right having you here.”

“Bella will wonder if I tarry.”

“Let her wonder, Roxie. Let them all wonder.” His tone was so mellow, so inviting, she felt her dilemma play plainly across her face. “I won’t offer you a drink, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Her eyes drifted to the brandy decanter on a far table, drained of all but an inch of amber liquid. “Perhaps a cup of tea.”

He got up and disappeared out the door, shutting it soundly behind him. The idea of him—so often brusque and stern and commanding—fetching anything lightened the heavy mood of moments before and almost made her smile. She ignored the nagging bite of warning that bade her go. She should leave now, before he returned. Yet this inviting room and all its amenities begged her to stay. There was no denying she was hungry for companionship. Comfort. Beauty. Surely there was no harm in lingering a while longer.

25

A delicious anticipation spread through her once she yielded. Free to look about, she let her eyes trace every lovely line of the room, from the intricate stitching in the floral carpet beneath her feet to the rich ivory curtains at the casement windows. Blue walls, she noted. A rich, Williamsburg blue.

The door opened, and Hank appeared, bearing a tray with a thistle cup and saucer that matched the one in her cabin, as well as a plump porcelain teapot and a dizzying assortment of tea. Hyson. Singlo. Sassafras. Mint. Even a pitcher of cream, a sugar bowl, a dainty silver spoon—and a plate of Bella’s beaten biscuits.

“Would you like anything else, Miz Roxanna?” Hank asked as he moved the tilt-top table nearer and set the tray where the handbill had lain.

She smiled up at him, thinking how pleased he looked to have her here, his furrowed face melting into relaxed lines. She felt equally delighted. “Oh, this is wonderful, Hank. Nothing more, thank you.”

Truly, she felt like a fine lady sitting in some fancy Virginia drawing room—or in a safer, more hospitable Kentucke years from now, when the war had been won and the Indian threat had lessened.

“The colonel’ll be back shortly,” he said, going to a corner chest and withdrawing a cribbage board and cards. These he placed on a second table. Seeing her surprise, he added, “Your papa was fond of playin’ games in this room. He gave the colonel this here board right before—” He broke off and shot her an apologetic glance. “Right before that last campaign.”

She took the cribbage board wonderingly, its polished lines all too familiar with its ivory pegs and Patriot markings.

“I think it’d please your pa to no end if he could see you here beatin’ the breeches off the colonel like he sometimes did,” Hank murmured.

“Is the colonel any good?”

He grinned. “He and your pa used to go round and round and stay up half the night tryin’ to outdo each other. And if memory serves, he said somethin’ ’bout teachin’ his daughter to play as good as he did.”

“But I haven’t played in years. Not since Papa’s last leave.”

“I bet it’ll come right back to you—and it’ll surely put a smile on the colonel’s face. Mebbe make him forget all ’bout his achin’ head.”

Head or heart?
she wondered. The door opened again, and Cass came in just as Hank let himself out. She kept her eyes on her steaming tea, stirring in cream and sugar, her heart doing absurd palpitations in her chest as he rounded the chair and sat opposite her again.

He eyed the cribbage board and playing cards. “Was this your idea or Hank’s?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, looking up, unable to stop a smile from stealing over her face at the sight of him.

Though still in shirtsleeves, he wore fresh, pressed linen, and his combed hair had been returned to its customary queue. His face was clean shaven and smelled of bergamot, not brandy. She was glad he’d taken time to do these things, yet any gentleman should clean up in feminine company. And since she was the sole female present . . .

“Do you want to play cribbage, Roxie?”

No, I want you to lean over this cribbage board and kiss me.

Unbidden, the bold thought seemed to leap between them and make itself known. He was looking at her so intently she almost squirmed under his scrutiny.

“Only if you do,” she managed.

She returned her attention to her tea, taking a sip and looking up just enough to watch his long, tanned fingers shuffle the cards with an easy grace. Best tuck away any blasphemous thoughts of kissing. At least any bestowed by him. Ambrose had kissed her just once, in a wisteria arbor back in Virginia. She could hardly remember the kiss, just how clumsily it had been given and how disappointed she had felt afterward. For days. And she knew, somehow, that if Cassius McLinn were to kiss her, he wouldn’t be clumsy or awkward in the least, and she’d not be left disappointed . . . just wanting more.

He dealt the cards and said quietly, “A shilling for your thoughts.”

Taking another drink of tea, she looked up over the rim of her cup. “They’re hardly worth that.”

“Oh, I’ll wager they’re worth a good deal more.”

“I’m simply trying to recollect the rules of the game.”

“All you need to remember is that it’s a fifteen-two game, and you score the most points when your cards add up to fifteen. The first to reach a hundred twenty-one wins.”

“I recollect that Papa and I used to play for a prize.”

His hands stilled from placing the ivory pegs. “Such as?”

She grew solemn. “If I win, you must abstain from all spirits for at least a fortnight. Not a drop.”

“Not a drop,” he echoed, eyes warm with amused light. “And if I win?”

She gave a little shrug and set down her cup. “Ask for whatever you wish.”

He grew thoughtful, all levity gone. “’Tis customary in Ireland for a man to take his pick of any woman present and kiss her as his prize.”

Lord, is he able to read my thoughts?

Unable to meet his eyes, she felt the heat bloom in her face again. “The stakes are quite high.”

“You can lower them, ye ken.”

The heady thought of losing was too sweet a temptation to resist.
Forgive me, Lord.
“I’ll not back down,” she told him, picking up her cards with an unsteady hand.

For a moment she feared, worldly as he was, that he could peer clear into her soul and sense her crumbling resistance toward him. Sitting there, staring at her cards without really seeing them, she knew they’d begun something far more dangerous than a simple game.

They started to play, he quietly confident, she bluffing and biting her lip till they were neck and neck. From somewhere in the shadows a clock struck ten times, but he seemed not to notice. He was ahead . . . she was ahead. And then suddenly she fell behind.

Her heart began to dance about and turn her breathless. If he kissed her,
where
would he kiss her? In this room? Would he simply lean over in his chair till he reached her? Or would he stand, arms about her like they were going to dance? Oh, the only thing that mattered was
how
he’d kiss her. Perhaps he’d simply brush her cheek or forehead chastely and be done with it . . .

It had been too long since she’d played the game. And he was the most maddeningly attractive opponent she’d ever had. Small wonder she was losing. She couldn’t keep her mind on cribbage or anything else . . . just him.

“One hundred twenty-one,” he said, moving his pegs to the finish.

She felt herself wilt. “Congratulations,” she said softly without looking at him, turning her remaining cards facedown on the table between them.

Reaching over, he extinguished each candle with his fingertips till there was only the fire’s golden glow. For a desperate moment she wanted to run. He stood, and with one firm, calloused hand he brought her to her feet.

’Twas just one kiss, she reasoned, certainly the last before full-fledged spinsterhood. Surely the Almighty would forgive her that.

Amidst the sweet confusion of her feelings came the realization once again of how feminine he made her feel. Though he towered over her, he seemed less intimidating out of uniform. Ever so slowly, he laced his other hand through hers, bringing her arm gently behind her back, anchoring her to him. He was so close, the firm line of his chest was flush against her snug bodice. Drawing in a deep, silent breath, she felt a bit faint and fastened her eyes on the fine stitching of his shirt.

“Roxie . . . how can I kiss you if you don’t look at me?”

His tender tone turned her heart over. She obliged, tilting her head back slightly and looking up at him in the firelit darkness. When he bent his head and his mouth met hers, she gave a little sigh, her lips parting slightly in surprise and expectation. He kissed her with the same sure decisiveness with which he did everything else, his mouth trailing to her cheek and chin and ear, returning again and again to her mouth and lingering there, his breath mingling with her own.

She felt adrift in small, sharp bursts of pleasure. Was this how a man was supposed to kiss a woman? Tenderly
. . .
firmly
. . .
repeatedly? His fingers fanned through her hair till the pins gave way and wayward locks spilled like black ribbon to the small of her back. In answer, her arms circled his neck, bringing him nearer, every kiss sweeter and surer than the one before. Soon they were lost in a haze of sighs and murmurs and caresses.

The clock struck again, and the somberness of the sound and the lateness of the hour brought her back to the blue room on this cool spring evening, the forgotten cribbage game on the table beside them, her hair spilling down, the skin of her neck and shoulders heated from his kisses. How they’d stayed standing
 . . .

With a sudden wrench, Cass pulled free, though his hands lingered on the soft slope of her shoulders. He sensed her sharp surprise and regret—but it paled beside his own. ’Twas all he could do to stem his need and let go of her. She was trembling and looking up at him with such a winsome vulnerability it seemed he held her very heart in his hands.

“Roxie, I—” The words were punctuated with pain. His throat constricted as he worked to say what he should have said from the first. He had no right to kiss her, declare his love for her, with such a fatal secret between them. But the practiced apology—his confession—seemed to stick in his throat. “I have to tell you something. But you won’t want to hear it any more than I want to confess it.”

In the firelit shadows her eyes turned a drenching blue—entreating, almost pleading—so unlike the day he’d first stood across from her in the blockhouse. Then, and now, he struggled and looked away, only to look back at her, nigh speechless. There was simply no way to soften the bitter truth.

Say it, man, just say it . . .

“Roxie . . . I shot your father.”

The horrific statement unleashed a firestorm of memories and emotions inside him. Gunshots falling like hail in the icy woods. Crimson flecking Richard Rowan from head to toe. His own anguished cry to cease firing. The crushing irreversibility of it all.

I shot your father.

It seemed to echo endlessly in the elegant room and deepen the darkness. Slowly, she began backing up, out of his reach, a look of utter disbelief—nay, horror—marring her lovely, tear-streaked face.

“’Twas a terrible mistake at twilight. I couldn’t see clearly and I thought—your father—I thought he was the enemy.” He stumbled on, eyes wet. “God forgive me. Please . . . you . . . forgive me.”

But she simply stared at him, lips parted in a sort of stunned wonder. He read unmistakable revulsion in her gaze and felt a deep, gnawing ache that he’d caused her such hurt. Stricken, he watched her frantic fingers try to return her hair to its chignon with the few pins remaining, the rest scattered on the rug at his feet. Wordlessly, she spun away, opening the door just enough to slip through, almost colliding with Hank in the foyer.

He watched her go, fighting his anguish, wanting to go after her. The room’s emptiness in her wake was barren as a winter field, blowing cold clear to his soul. He felt frozen, mired in a melee of emotions he couldn’t stay atop of. On the eve of his own demise, he had cast love away, and its loss meant more to him than his own life.