The Colonel's Lady (34 page)

Roxanna shuddered despite the sweat beading her brow. She was aware of the other women shuffling in, Dovie leading the way. All were unusually tight-lipped, taking up their usual tasks with lowered eyes and careful hands.

Bella’s voice seemed to snap in the stillness. “Where’s Olympia?”

Dovie sniffed. “She’s abed.”

Bella snorted. “Alone?”

“Bella!” Roxanna’s whisper turned sharp. “She’s ill, and Dr. Clary’s on his way.”

“Clary ain’t gonna work no miracle,” she muttered darkly. “He’ll just dose her with mercury like McLinn does his men.”

Mercury?
Roxanna looked up in question and then wished she hadn’t. Bella started in again. “She’ll be droolin’ black bile before long, right before she goes out of her head completely.”

Dovie sniffed louder. “Captain Stewart’s in a bad way hisself, already mournin’ her.”

“He’s likely mournin’ hisself,” Bella said dolefully. “He’ll be next.” Taking up a sharp knife, she stepped outside to carve a piece of meat off a haunch of venison, leaving the miserable lot of them alone.

Were they all wondering if they’d follow suit? What, Roxanna wondered with growing dread, would be the fate of little Abby?

32

A more macabre spectacle Roxanna had never seen. Holding a frolic so soon after the keelboat’s disaster seemed tantamount to dancing on the rivermen’s graves. Though she wanted to blame Cass for the indiscretion, she couldn’t. He was trying to hold morale together for his men, and she knew firsthand what a little dancing and feasting did for Fort Endeavor.

Dressing for the frolic and helping Abby do the same, she tried to summon some enthusiasm as Abby twirled and hopped up and down. Though speechless, the child communicated bursts of joy with her every move. Bella had indeed outdone herself tonight. From the coffers of the stone house came a remade gown just Abby’s size. Roxanna was trying to work a slip of silk ribbon into her bouncing curls, and Bella was exasperated just watching.

“Hold still, Abby-girl! You remind me of a greased pig on market day!”

Since leaving the cabin, Abby seemed to flit about like a butterfly, and Roxanna tried to keep a careful eye on her in the exuberant crowd. A low bonfire burned on the parade ground, and a full moon gave plenty of light. She sat atop a small platform with Micajah and the other musicians, dulcimer on her lap. Across from her, somber and silent, Cass wasn’t dancing either. And the breathless, irrational hope that he’d ask her faded a bit more with every reckless reel. She wanted him to ask if only to refuse him, but he’d not given her the pleasure.

She danced but once with Graham Greer. Though Olympia kept to her cabin, Dovie and Nancy and Mariah went dutifully from one partner to the next, lacking their usual exuberance. Roxanna felt dizzy watching them—and doubly perturbed when Cass disappeared. Unable to sit still a minute longer, she waited till Micajah was fiddling and couldn’t follow her to fetch some cider.

But it was Bella who trailed her, face tight with concern. “The colonel wants to see you in your cabin. I’ll keep an eye on Abby. Now go.”

The vehemence in her tone underscored the unusual request. Cass in her cabin? Why? She raised cool hands to her flushed cheeks and prayed for composure. Would he ask for her forgiveness again?

Moving discreetly to her cabin door, she pushed it open just enough to slip inside, drawing the latchstring in after her. A single taper glinted on the mantel, and Cass leaned against the hearthstones. Self-consciously she smoothed her linen skirt. She felt as conspicuous as the candle in the near darkness. They were alone. The door was secured. Why was she shaking? Why wouldn’t he speak?

“Bella said you wanted me.” The ill-chosen words nearly made her wince, as did his vehement answer.

“Aye.”

He glanced toward the shuttered window, then reached out and took her hand, pulling her into the corner with him. Swallowing a gasp, she leaned into the wall and he let go of her, stooping to loosen two partial floorboards. She looked down, her eyes widening at the sight. Taking hold of the candle, he shoved it closer to the hole, and the patina of a tooled leather chest flashed in her eyes.

“This, Roxie, is your future.”

“What?”

“’Tis what’s left of my inheritance.”

“Nay.” She moved back as if bitten, shaking her head. “’Tis yours—your future.”

“Dead men have no future.”

“But—”

“I’m going to lose my life across that river. ’Tis ordained,” he said, inclining his head toward the open Bible on the trestle table, “as if written in your book.”

She felt a sudden chill spill over her. “Only God knows the future. Not you—or anyone else.”

“Aye, I do know—just as I know the Americans will win the war and Liam will gain the middle ground for the British. ’Tis a certainty I can’t explain.”

“’Tis reckless thinking . . . no more.”

He leaned against the rough wall and looked like he wanted to shake her. “Call it what you will. I’m not coming back.”

The candle flame flickered in the warm draft, and she wanted to snuff it out to block the specter of his haunted face. “Are you a seer that you can foretell such things?” Her voice shook with suppressed emotion. “God is bigger than any evil you face.”

“
Your
God, Roxie. Not mine.”

“He
is
yours, like it or not.”

“I like it not.” He stooped and replaced the wooden floorboards, then slid her trunk over the spot. “You’d best think hard about your future. I’m merely supplying you with what I can while there’s still time.”

With that, he turned his back on her and went out.

Cass ended the frolic early, at a quarter till midnight, with two pistol shots fired into the starlit sky. The fiddling ground to a sudden halt, and the dancers dispersed in slow motion, the dirt beneath their feet ground fine as flour. Nary a complaint was heard as he watched his men wander to their quarters. He spied Abby with Bella at the edge of the crowd. Roxanna hadn’t come out of her cabin since he’d left her an hour before.

He went round and checked the locks on the quartermaster’s and the kitchen and his own office headquarters, wondering if the elusive spy was watching. The lantern was heavy in his hand, and the familiar malarial ache burned behind his eyes. The dread he always felt of its coming shadowed him now. He was in need of all his wits to begin the coming campaign. Nothing must get in his way.

The guard waited by the sally port, and Cass kicked an empty bottle out of his path as he moved in their direction. Fireflies studded the humid air, and his dry throat craved a bit of brandy. He took a last look around before he left, noting Abby had finally gone into Roxanna’s cabin and Bella was waiting with the guard. Nothing more needed to be done. He left the fort flocked by his usual entourage, sensing their tension.

How easy it would be for Liam’s Indian allies to tomahawk them in the brilliant moonlight. But ease wasn’t Lucifer’s way. He preferred the chase, the suspense, the intense wearing down of his opponent—like a foxhunt to hounds or a strenuous game of chess. Liam, he remembered, had won nearly every time.

The ornate door opened a crack, and Hank’s welcome words cut through the stillness. “Good evenin’, sir. Care for a bit o’ brandy, sir?”

“Aye, a bottle.”

Hank looked surprised, and Cass well knew why. He hadn’t had a drop since he’d bested Roxie at cribbage and kissed her so soundly. Wordless for once, Bella eyed him with a strange sympathy as he shrugged off his uniform coat. The dark foyer echoed with the snap of a button as it broke free and rolled beneath a lowboy. Everything in his life seemed to be unraveling, he mused, right down to the clothes on his back.

She moved to retrieve the errant button while he climbed the stair, checking for the locket in his waistcoat but touching Liam’s letter instead. ’Twas a sacrilege of sorts to have them side by side. Shutting his bedchamber door, he sank into the wing chair and thrust the paper into the pale orb of candlelight at his elbow.

Beloved brother, ’tis time we meet again.

Swallowing hard, he balled the paper into a fist and threw it into the hearth’s cold ashes just as Hank appeared. “Your brandy, sir.” When he didn’t answer, Hank poured him a glass and left the bottle on the table, dark face creased with concern. “Mebbe it’s cinchona you need, sir.”

Blast! He could never fool Hank.

“I’m just tired, ’tis all,” he lied, yanking off his stock.

The door closed crisply, and Cass passed a hand over his face, which now, at midnight, bore a day’s growth. Nay, he didn’t need cinchona. He needed five hundred more men and fresh powder and lead from the regiments and supply trains that had yet to materialize. Moving to the window, he looked down at the fort, noting the pale light that seeped through Roxanna’s shutter.

Would that she were here instead, uttering words of comfort and encouragement, strengthening him for what lay ahead. Stripped to his breeches, he eyed the brandy again. It wasn’t this he wanted but the taste of her kiss—and a clear memory of the spacious, verdant estate across the sea that was only his in ghostly recollection. He’d wanted a home. Children. A settled, decent life. How had it all dwindled to this?

An avalanche of emotion rose up inside him. He picked up the crystal glass with its amber promise and saw it for what it truly was—an empty pledge to dull the pain of what he longed for but couldn’t have. Turning toward the hearth, he hurled the glass with a hard arm, and it shattered against the metal fireback, sending shards in every direction. Nay, he wouldn’t face Liam muddleheaded and malarial. He’d face him sober and sharp-eyed. Or not at all.

Olympia was dying. Sitting beside her bed, Roxanna tried to pray with her, but she was already out of her head. ’Twas just as Bella had said. Dr. Clary had given her mercury, but the resulting black bile was so horrendous Roxanna begged him to stop. And then, right before midnight, she came to her senses, clutching Roxanna’s hand with surprising strength. The other Redstone women huddled nearby, crying and praying intermittently. Abby, thankfully, was with Bella.

“Abby needs a decent mother,” Olympia whispered, her voice so ragged Roxanna had to bend her ear to her parched lips to hear. “She needs . . .
you
.”

Me?
A shillingless spinster? With no hope of a secure future?

Roxanna opened her mouth to protest, then felt a rush of caution. With tears blinding her, she said, “Go in peace, Olympia. Abby will always have a home . . . with me.”

The foolish promise seemed to hover in the air, a sort of bond between them, and a faint smile warmed Olympia’s wan face.

“God has forgiven me . . . He’s heard your prayers . . . and mine. Tell Abby I love her.”

Thankfulness trickled through Roxanna’s grief. All was not lost. Olympia knew her Savior. Abby would have a home.

As the minutes ticked past midnight and Olympia took a last breath, all Roxanna could think of was Abby . . . and Cass. In a mere three days he would march.