The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (14 page)

“It’s because I have no real dowry, isn’t it?” she almost lost her voice, but then daintily cleared her throat. “Why couldn’t we be born into more wealth?”

I sniffed, wiped my hands on my breeches as best I could, then received the note.

                                                                                              2 April 1775

To my dear Hannah,

      I love you, I do, but I’ve become uncertain about our arrangement—engagement. My mother has informed me that in my father’s will, if I were to marry an American, I could not inherit my £5000. Of course, I’d still like to marry you, you’re really the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, but what would we do for money? How could we have a future? This weighs heavy on my mind, but my love for you does not die. Let us think together of solutions, my dear. Shall we meet again to discuss our future?

Your humble servant and fiancé,

Mark Kimball

First Lieutenant in His Royal Majesty’s British 52 Regiment

My sister had met this lieutenant only once in Boston when I was selling our barley. I thought it fine that they had exchanged cards and addresses, but they had only seen each other the once . . . that I knew of.

I sighed after reading the letter and bit my tongue. His dead father wouldn’t allow him to marry an American? Really? How ludicrous! What a liar. What a shirk!

I looked up at my sister’s light blue eyes, bloodshot and now forming one tear after another that surfed down her alabaster cheek.

That shit. I’d break his nose if I could find him at that instant.

I hugged my sister who was shaking from the cold rain and her overwrought emotions.

“I don’t know what it means,” I finally huffed. “But we’ll figure it out. Have you written a response yet?”

I let go of her and watched her large rounded eyes keep making tears as she shook her head. “No. Do you think I should?”

“Well, yes, but let’s think of the perfect words, all right?”

“Violet, do you think we could get another loan? I mean one with less interest than mother procured after Da died. Something that wouldn’t make us in debt for years, but something to show him we aren’t completely without funds?”

I swallowed. If I could, I would have gladly gone in debt for Hannah, but this letter was not the voice of a gentleman. A man who already purposed marriage yet renegotiates? I was beginning to loathe this Mark Kimball.

“Monsieur Beaumont . . . he has money, Vi.” Hannah had said his name not knowing how it would pierce me, break through all my bulwarks and stab at my already bleeding heart. She continued easily enough. “You could write him a letter, asking for a loan. He’d give you anything. I know. He’s in love with you. Mathew told me he’s had a death in the family, and has been holed up somewhere in Boston, drinking substantially. But even through his grief and drunkenness I’m sure he’d give you whatever you wanted.”

Jacque was drunk? Why hadn’t I thought of that? Drinking profusely might have been better than these last two days of running until my feet were bleeding. Running through rain and in the mud was very hard work as well.

I wondered if I would breathe again. I wondered if I would just turn into a stone statue, staring in bewilderment at my sister. Then, to my rescue, I heard the happy chuckle of Mathew approaching.

“What are you girls doing out here in the rain? Hannah! Your feet! Look at your muddy bare feet, and your teeth are chattering.”

He scooped her up in his arms, while laughing, and gave me a quick kiss on my lips. “You’re next, missy!” He smiled at me. “I’m coming right back to haul you inside. You shouldn’t be working on a day like today. You need to stay inside. Make Mr. Jones come inside too. I’ve brought some oranges all the way from Florida. We can eat the fruit and sit beside the fire and drink some ale. Oh, with Mrs. Jones too. Let’s make Hannah read some Shakespeare.”

Hannah wailed. “Mathew, put me down. Violet and I are trying to solve—”

I interrupted. “Hannah, Mathew’s here. He can help us figure out what to do.”

At that Mathew looked at me with such open admiration, such ferocious affections, that I felt my cheeks blush. He smiled as Hannah finally cracked a small grin too and propped the yellow sheet over Mathew’s tri-horned hat.

“Yes, you can help.” She nervously chuckled. “Why didn’t I think of talking to you first?”

“Yes, why didn’t you think of me first, little sister? I have all the answers, of course.” He laughed as he carried my sister away. Hannah began to speak animatedly, and my heart didn’t feel so cold and empty as I watched Mathew bob his head at something Hannah had told him.

I was giving Bess some corn and trying to wipe her dry when Mathew rushed into the barn.

“Mr. Jones!”  Mathew strode over to Jonah then shook his hand. “Mrs. Jones was inquiring after you. I think she wanted you inside for something.”

Mr. Jones, like the newlywed that he was, raced out of the barn faster than a fox’s run in a henhouse. I chuckled and shook my head.

“Was it Mrs. Jones wondering where Mr. Jones was or you wanting everyone inside on this rainy day? Why are you released from congress so early?”

Mathew walked to me, and kissed my forehead over Bess’s stall door. “Have I told you yet that you look lovely?”

I pursed my lips and stole a glance at a strand of my hair that hung limp and wet over my left cheek.

“I like that wild hair as is, so don’t glare at it anymore,” Mathew chided with an enormous smile.

I couldn’t help but softly chuckle again. “Or what? What can you do to me, Mr. Adams, that would scare me enough to stop scowling?”

Mathew arched his dark blond brows, apparently liking the challenge. “Why, Miss Buccleuch, I would kiss you in earnest, I would.”

I feigned a frightened pose and fluttered a hand to my heart. “My, what a threat. Pray, what are my eyes doing now?”

Mathew laughed as I bore down on the black wave of hair in my periphery.

“Miss Buccleuch, I am a man of my word.”

I nodded. “I do hope so.”

He kissed me again over the stall’s door. He’d been so busy these last couple weeks with the Provincial Congress that I hardly got to see him. When I had, he’d been so exhausted that most of the time he couldn’t piece together coherent sentences. He’d fallen asleep on our couch several times. But this kiss would wake the dead.

His lips held the perfect amount of fierce ardor yet sensible fragility. His lips melded with mine, blended, then adjusted again. He placed a warm hand on my stone cold cheek, pulling me closer. I balanced on the stall’s door that barely hung on from a homemade hinge, but it held me up as my head spun. The warmth from his face, from his lips made my body react. I wanted more heat from him. He slipped his tongue along my bottom lip, and I achingly opened to him. Gently he invaded my mouth, caressing, loving.

But it reminded me of another kiss, another’s pent up passion.

Jacque.

My whole body winced in the agony of the memory.

Mathew released the kiss and looked down at me with a glimmer of concern. “Are you worried about Hannah?”

I nodded, relieved he couldn’t see me interiorly, couldn’t see my traitorous thoughts. I was a deserter, a collaborator, a wicked woman. I may have decided to triumph above my affections toward Jacque and turn away from him, and him me, but my heart was still his. Jacque’s name was burnt into my flesh, the memory of his touch invaded the sinew of my body making me weak and want to flop on the ground in tears. I was a turncoat of the emotional kind, the worst kind.

Mathew nodded too. “Yes, Hannah had me read the letter from her lieutenant.”

I shook my head from my self-loathing and to appear to be involved in the conversation. I
needed
to be involved. Hannah was in pain, and I was too busy in my own to pay proper attention. I exhaled, hoping in the breath to eliminate all my selfish designs. “Do you think him a fortune hunter? Surely, he would have known by now that Hannah has no substantial money for a dowry.”

Mathew sighed himself, placing his long fingers on top of the gate. “I can only assume that’s the game he’s playing. I don’t know. Much of the letter I believe to be a lie, but I’m not sure what he’s trying to get from Hannah. Surely, I too thought of money first, but there is more to the letter that seems strange. I just can’t put my finger on it. Jacque said he’d investigate this Lieutenant Kimball, but since he’s had a death in the family, he’s been . . . grieving.”

I nodded and swallowed, hoping I wouldn’t betray any emotion.

“Anyhow,” Mathew smiled, his face urging me to be full of cheer too, “let’s try to distract Hannah for the time being, until we know more about this soldier of hers.”

I nodded again, thinking how sage the advice was, but not sure how I could distract the world’s most preoccupied young lady from her own engagement.

“Mathew? You still haven’t told me why you’re out from congress so early? Here it is the mid-afternoon.”

“Ah, yes, I was distracted with how beautiful you looked with your hair wet from the rain and a blush on your cheeks from the weather. Or could I pride myself that the rouge arose from seeing me?”

I smiled and let my fingers glide between his on the gate.

Mathew stared at our embracing fingers. “’Tis my distant cousin that is driving some of the other Provincial’s away from congress. There was hardly half of the congress showed up today, so we cancelled today’s session. The missing congressmen all said they are sick, but we’ve caught those ‘sick’ men plowing their fields, like you just were, my love. I think they just want to get away from Mr. Sam Adams’ incessant talk about mustering an army.”

“An army? An army for Massachusetts?”

“Sam’s true purpose is to make a Continental army. He thought he could convince the Massachusetts politicians first, then he’d go to the Continental Congress that is to meet soon in Philadelphia with the request to have all the colonies join in a unified army. He keeps raving about Salem; how it won’t be the last time the Regulars come marching down the road looking for arms or to arrest him or Mr. Hancock. Lord, he is a vain man.”

“Mr. Hancock?”

Mathew nodded. “I’ve never met a more self-serving individual in my life.”

“Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that you were star-struck while talking about Mr. Hancock?”

Mathew’s smile widened, yet his eyes looked down sheepishly. “I’m rather impressionable, aren’t I?”

I pressed more into our interlaced fingers while grinning, not about to answer.

Mathew’s own smile slowly faded. He looked at our joined hands. “Violet?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you remember a couple weeks ago seeing some redcoats riding their horses about in the country? Specifically here to Concord?”

I thought back through my haze of the last few weeks. “It was warmer then, not raining yet.” I nodded. “Yes, I do remember. I believe they were all officers out riding their horses.”

“Do you remember if they were . . . armed?”

“They couldn’t be.” I shook my head. “’Tis a rule of Governor General Gage’s. The Regulars out on a holiday ride in the country cannot be armed.”

Mathew’s fingers tightened in their grip. “Yes, I know. But do you remember if they
were
armed?”

I remembered riding in the black Landau with my sister and mother as we ventured to Boston. I’d asked for the window screens to be up as I adored how the sun felt on my skin while I slept. I woke with a start because Hannah had screamed something about soldiers in their bright and glorious uniforms. I remembered the officers stopping to talk to us three women in the carriage. And I remembered wondering about a bulge at the side of a smiling captain, who kept staring at my chest.

I shook my head. “I can’t be for certain. Why?”

“I’m sure it’s only propaganda that my distant cousin is trying to stir, but he’s called a few people in to testify to seeing those same officers armed. Like you mentioned, the officers cannot be out of Boston and carrying weapons. No soldier can. An enlisted man would get flogged. I don’t know what they would do to an officer—make him drink his tea without cream for a day.” I silently snickered at Mathew’s sarcasm. He just continued though, as if on a mission. “I doubt that the lobsterbacks were really carrying pistols. Unless, of course, they were ordered to ride with guns.” Mathew sighed, but then plucked one side of his face in a blooming smile. “I think, I hope, Sam’s trying in any way possible to get his army.”

I nodded, but couldn’t stop my memory from playing back to the smiling officer and the way something had protruded under that thick red coat very similar to the butt of a pistol.

“I’ve thought long and hard about a proper response to give to your lieutenant,” I told my sister as I slipped into our shared bed later that night. “I think I know just what you should write.”

Hannah giggled. What the devil was she laughing at?