Written in My Own Heart's Blood (53 page)

TAKEN AT A DISADVANTAGE

W
ILLIAM LED HIS HORSE
down among the rocks to a level place where both of them could drink. It was midafternoon, and after a day spent riding to and fro along the column in the blazing sun, he was parched as a piece of last year’s venison jerky.

His present horse was Madras, a cob with a deep chest and a steady, stolid disposition. The horse waded purposefully into the stream, hock-deep, and sank his nose into the water with a blissful snort, shivering his coat against the cloud of flies that appeared instantly out of nowhere whenever they stopped.

William waved a couple of insects away from his own face and took off his coat for a moment’s relief from the heat. He was tempted to wade in, too—up to his neck, if the creek was deep enough—but . . . well . . . He looked cautiously over his shoulder, but he was well out of sight, though he could hear the sounds of the baggage train on the distant road. Why not? Just for a moment. It wasn’t as though the dispatch he was carrying was urgent; he’d seen it written, and it contained nothing more than an invitation for General von Knyphausen to join General Clinton for supper at an inn with a reputation for good pork. Everyone was wringing with sweat; dampness would be no telltale.

He hastily shucked shoes, shirt, stockings, breeches, and smalls, and walked naked into the purling water, which barely reached his waist but was wet and cool. He closed his eyes in blissful relief—and opened them abruptly a half second later.

“William!”

Madras flung up his head with a startled snort, showering William with droplets, but he barely noticed in the shock of seeing two young women standing on the opposite bank.

“What the devil are
you
doing here?” He tried to squat a little lower in the water without being conspicuous about it. Though a dim voice in the back of his mind wondered aloud why he bothered: Arabella–Jane had already seen anything he had. “And who’s that?” he demanded, jerking his chin at the other girl. Both of them were flushed as summer roses, but he thought—he hoped—it was the result of the heat.

“This is my sister, Frances,” Jane said, with the elegance of a Philadelphia matron, and gestured to the younger girl. “Curtsy to his lordship, now, Fanny.”

Fanny, a very lovely young girl with dark curls peeping out under her cap—what was she, eleven, twelve?—bobbed him a sweet curtsy, blue-and-
red-calico petticoats outspread, and dropped long lashes modestly over the big, soft eyes of a young doe.

“Your most humble servant, mademoiselle,” he said, bowing with as much grace as possible, which, judging from the expressions on the girls’ faces, was probably a mistake. Fanny clapped a hand over her mouth and went much redder from the effort not to laugh.

“I am charmed to meet your sister,” he said to Jane, rather coldly. “But I fear you take me at something of a disadvantage, madam.”

“Yes, that’s a piece of luck,” Jane agreed. “I couldn’t think how we were to find you in that moil, and when we saw you ride past like the fiend was after you—we’d got a ride on a baggage wagon—I didn’t think we’d ever catch you. But we took the chance, and . . .
voilà! Fortuna favet audax
, you know.” She wasn’t even trying to
pretend
she wasn’t laughing at him!

He scrabbled for some cutting rejoinder in Greek, but the only thing that came to his inflamed mind was a humiliating echo from his past, something his father had said to him on the occasion when he’d accidentally fallen into a privy:
“What news from the underworld, Persephone?”

“Turn your backs,” he said curtly. “I’m getting out.”

They didn’t. Gritting his teeth, he turned his own back on them and deliberately climbed the bank, feeling the itch of four interested eyes focused on his dripping backside. He grabbed his shirt and wrestled his way into it, feeling that even that much shelter would enable him to carry on the conversation in a more dignified manner. Or maybe he’d just tuck his breeches and boots under his arm and leave without further chat.

The sound of heavy splashing whilst he was still enveloped in the folds of his shirt made him whirl round, head popping free just in time to see Madras lunge up out of the creek on the girls’ side, lips already reaching for the apple Jane was holding out to him.

“Come back here, sir!” he shouted. But the girls had more apples, and the horse paid no attention whatever—nor did he object when Arabella–Jane took his reins and looped them casually round the trunk of a young willow.

“I noticed that you didn’t ask how we came to be here,” she said. “Doubtless surprise has deprived you of your usual exquisite manners.” She dimpled at him and he eyed her severely.

“I did,” he said. “I distinctly recall saying, ‘What. The. Devil. Are. You. Doing. Here.’”

“Oh, so you did,” she said, without a blush. “Well, not to put too fine a point on the matter, Captain Harkness came back.”

“Oh,” he said, in a slightly different tone. “I see. You, um, ran away, then?”

Frances nodded solemnly.

William cleared his throat. “Why? Captain Harkness is doubtless
with
the army. Why would you come here, of all places, instead of staying safe in Philadelphia?”

“No, he isn’t,” Jane said. “He was detained on business in Philadelphia. So we came away. Besides,” she added carelessly, “there are
thousands
of women with the army. He’d never find us, even if he was looking—and why should he be?”

That was reasonable. Still . . . he knew what the life of an army whore was like. He also had a strong suspicion that the girls had run out on their contract with the brothel; very few saved enough from their wages to buy their way out, and both of these girls were much too young to have made much money. To abandon the reasonable comfort of clean beds and regular meals in Philadelphia in order to accommodate filthy, sweating soldiers amidst mud and flies, paid in blows as often as in coin . . . Yet he was obliged to admit that he’d never been buggered by a vicious sod like Harkness and thus had no true basis for comparison.

“I expect you want money, to assist in your escape?” he said, an edge in his voice.

“Well, perhaps,” said Jane. Reaching into her pocket, she held up something shiny. “Mostly, I wanted to give this back to you.”

His gorget! He took an involuntary step toward her, toes squelching in the mud.

“I—thank you,” he said abruptly. He’d felt its lack every time he dressed, and felt even more the weight of his fellow officers’ eyes on the empty spot where it should rest. He’d been obliged to explain to Colonel Desplains what had happened—more or less—saying that he’d been robbed in a bawdy house. Desplains had chewed him bloody, but then had given him reluctant leave to appear without a gorget until he might get another in New York.

“What I—we, I mean—
really
want is your protection,” Jane said, doing her best to look winsomely earnest, and doing it damned well.

“You
what
?”

“I don’t think I should have any difficulty in making a living with the army,” she said frankly, “but ’tisn’t really what I want for my dear sister, that sort of life.”

“Er . . . no. I imagine not,” William said warily. “What else did you have in mind?”
“Lady’s maid?”
he wanted to suggest sarcastically, but in light of the return of his gorget, he refrained.

“I haven’t quite made up my mind,” she said, fastening her gaze on the ripples where the creek ran over rocks. “But if you could help us to get safely to New York—and maybe find us a place there . . .”

William ran a hand down his face, wiping away a layer of fresh sweat.

“Don’t want much, do you?” he said. On the one hand, if he didn’t give her some assurance of help, he wouldn’t put it past her to fling his gorget into the water in a fit of pique. And on the other . . . Frances was a lovely child, delicate and pale as a morning-glory blossom. And on the third hand, he hadn’t any more time to spare in argument.

“Get on the horse and come across,” he said abruptly. “I’ll find you a new place with the baggage train. I have to ride a dispatch to von Knyphausen just now, but I’ll meet you in General Clinton’s camp this evening—no, not this evening, I won’t be back until tomorrow. . . .” He fumbled for a moment, wondering where to tell her to find him; he could
not
have two young whores asking for him at General Clinton’s headquarters. “Go to the surgeons’ tent at sundown tomorrow. I’ll—think of something.”

IN WHICH I MEET A TURNIP

D
URING THE NEXT DAY’S
ride, we encountered a messenger, sent back from Washington’s command with a note for Jamie. He read this leaning against a tree, while I made an unobtrusive visit to a nearby clump of brush.

“What does he say?” I asked, straightening my clothes as I emerged. I was still rather awed that Jamie had actually spoken with George Washington, and the fact that he was frowning at a letter presumably
written
by the future Father of the Country . . .

“Two or three things,” he replied with a shrug, and, refolding the note, stuffed it into his pocket. “The only important bit o’ news is that my brigade is to be under the command of Charles Lee.”

“Do you know Charles Lee?” I got my foot into the stirrup and heaved myself into the saddle.

“I know
of
him.” What he knew appeared to be rather problematic, judging from the line between his brows. I raised my own; he glanced at me and smiled.

“I met him, ken, when I first met General Washington. I made it my business to learn a bit more about him since.”

“Oh, so you didn’t like him,” I observed, and he gave me a small snort.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, nudging his horse into a walk. “He’s loud and unmannerly and a sloven—I could see that much for myself—but from what I’ve heard since, he’s also jealous to the bone and doesna trouble to hide it verra well.”

“Jealous? Of whom?” Not Jamie, I hoped.

“Of Washington,” he answered matter-of-factly, surprising me. “He thought he should have command o’ the Continental army and doesna like playin’ second fiddle.”

“Really?” I’d never once heard of General Charles Lee, which seemed odd, if he had such prominence as to have made that a reasonable expectation. “Why does he think that, do you know?”

“I do. He feels he has a good deal more in the way of military experience than Washington—and that’s maybe true: he was in the British army for some time and fought a number of successful campaigns. Still—” He lifted one shoulder and dropped it, dismissing General Lee for the moment. “I wouldna have agreed to do this, had it been Lee who asked me.”

“I thought you didn’t want to do it, regardless.”

“Mmphm.” He considered for a moment. “It’s true I didna want to do
this—I don’t now.” He looked at me, apologetic. “And I truly dinna want you to be here.”

“I’m going to be where you are for the rest of our lives,” I said firmly. “If that’s a week or another forty years.”

“Longer,” he said, and smiled.

We rode for a time in silence, but deeply aware of each other. We had been, since that conversation in the gardens at Kingsessing.

“I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no, it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.”

“I’ve taken ye to bed a thousand times at least, Sassenach. Did ye think I wasna paying attention?”

“There couldna be anyone like you.”

I hadn’t forgotten a word we’d said—and neither had he, though neither one of us had spoken of it again. We weren’t walking on tiptoe with each other, but we were feeling our way . . . finding our way into each other, as we’d done twice before. Once, when I’d returned to find him in Edinburgh—and at the beginning, when we’d found ourselves wed by force and joined by circumstance. Only later, by choice.

“What would you have wanted to be?” I asked, on impulse. “If you hadn’t been born the laird of Lallybroch?”

“I wasn’t. If my elder brother hadna died, ye mean,” he said. A small shadow of regret crossed his face, but didn’t linger. He still mourned the boy who had died at eleven, leaving a small brother to pick up the burden of leadership and struggle to grow into it—but he had been accustomed to that burden for a very long time.

“Maybe that,” I said. “But what if you’d been born elsewhere, maybe to a different family?”

“Well, I wouldna be who I am, then, would I?” he said logically, and smiled at me. “I may quibble wi’ what the Lord’s called me to do now and then, Sassenach—but I’ve nay argument wi’ how he made me.”

I looked at what he was—the strong, straight body and capable hands, the face so full of everything he was—and had no argument, either.

“Besides,” he said, and tilted his head consideringly, “if it had been different, I wouldna have you, would I? Or have had Brianna and her weans?”

If it had been different
. . . I didn’t ask whether he thought his life as it was had been worth the cost.

He leaned over and touched my cheek.

“It’s worth it, Sassenach,” he said. “For me.”

I cleared my throat.

“For me, too.”

IAN AND ROLLO
caught us up a few miles from Coryell’s Ferry. Darkness had fallen, but the glow of the camp was faintly visible against the sky, and we made our way cautiously in, being stopped every quarter mile or so by sentries who popped unnervingly out of the dark, muskets at the ready.

“Friend or foe?” the sixth of these demanded dramatically, peering at us in the beam of a dark lantern held high.

“General Fraser and his lady,” Jamie said, shielding his eyes with his hand and glaring down at the sentry. “Is that friendly enough for ye?”

I muffled a smile in my shawl; he’d refused to stop to find food along the way, and I’d refused to let him consume uncooked bacon, no matter how well smoked. Jenny’s four apples hadn’t gone far, we’d found no food since the night before, and he was starving. An empty stomach generally woke the fiend that slept within, and this was clearly in evidence at the moment.

“Er . . . yes, sir, General, I only—” The lantern’s beam of light shifted to rest on Rollo, catching him full in the face and turning his eyes to an eerie green flash. The sentry made a strangled noise, and Ian leaned down from his horse, his own face—Mohawk tattoos and all—appearing suddenly in the beam.

“Dinna mind us,” he said genially to the sentry. “We’re friendly, too.”

TO MY SURPRISE
, there was actually a good-sized settlement at the Ferry, with several inns and substantial houses perched on the bank of the Delaware.

“I suppose that’s why Washington chose this as the rendezvous point?” I asked Jamie. “Good staging, I mean, and some supply.”

“Aye, there’s that,” he said, though he spoke abstractedly. He’d risen a little in his stirrups, looking over the scene. Every window in every house was lit, but a large American flag, with its circle of stars, flapped above the door of the largest inn. Washington’s headquarters, then.

My chief concern was to get some food into Jamie before he met with General Lee, if the aforementioned indeed had a reputation for arrogance and short temper. I didn’t know what it was about red hair, but many years’ experience with Jamie, Brianna, and Jemmy had taught me that while most people became irritable when hungry, a redheaded person with an empty stomach was a walking time bomb.

I sent Ian and Rollo with Jamie to find the quartermaster, discover what we might have in the way of accommodation, and unload the pack mule, then followed my nose toward the nearest scent of food.

The dug-in camp kitchens would long since have banked their fires, but I’d been in many army camps and knew how they worked; small kettles would be simmering all night, filled with stew and porridge for the morning—the more so as the army was in hot pursuit of General Clinton. Amazing to think that I had met him socially only a few days before—

I’d been so focused on my quest that I hadn’t seen a man come out of the half dark and nearly ran into him. He seized me by the arms and we waltzed a dizzy half-turn before coming to rest.

“
Pardon, madame!
I am afraid I have stepped upon your foot!” said a young French voice, very concerned, and I looked straight into the very concerned face of a very young man. He was in shirtsleeves and breeches, but I
could see that his shirtsleeves sported deep, lace-trimmed cuffs. An officer, then, in spite of his youth.

“Well, yes, you have,” I said mildly, “but don’t worry about it. I’m not damaged.”

“Je suis tellement désolé, je suis un navet!”
he exclaimed, striking himself in the forehead. He wore no wig, and I saw that despite his age, his hair was receding at a rapid pace. What was left of it was red and inclined to stand on end—possibly owing to his apparent habit of thrusting his fingers through it, which he was now doing.

“Nonsense,” I said in French, laughing. “You aren’t a turnip at all.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, switching to English. He smiled charmingly at me. “I once stepped on the foot of the Queen of France. She was much less gracious,
sa Majesté
,” he added ruefully. “
She
called me a turnip. Still, if it hadn’t happened—I was obliged to leave the court, you know—perhaps I would never have come to America, so we cannot bemoan my clumsiness altogether,
n’est-ce pas?
”

He was exceedingly cheerful and smelled of wine—not that that was in any way unusual. But given his exceeding Frenchness, his evident wealth, and his tender age, I was beginning to think—

“Have I the, um, honor of addressing—” Bloody hell, what was his actual title? Assuming that he really was—

“Pardon, madame!”
he exclaimed, and, seizing my hand, bowed low over it and kissed it.
“Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, a votre service!”

I managed to pick “La Fayette” out of this torrent of Gallic syllables and felt the odd little thump of excitement that happened whenever I met someone I knew of from historical accounts—though cold sober realism told me that these people were usually no more remarkable than the people who were cautious or lucky enough
not
to end up decorating historical accounts with their blood and entrails.

I gathered sufficient composure to inform him that I was Madame General Fraser and that I was sure my husband would shortly be along to pay his respects, directly I had located some supper.

“But you must come and dine with me, madame!” he said, and, having not let go of my hand, was in a position to tuck it cozily into his elbow and tow me off toward a large building that looked like an inn of some sort. An inn was precisely what it was, but an inn that had been commandeered by the Rebel forces and was now General Washington’s headquarters—as I discovered when
le marquis
led me under a fluttering banner, through the taproom, and into a large back room where a number of officers were sitting at table, presided over by a large man who did not look precisely like the image on a dollar bill, but close enough.

“Mon Général,”
the marquis said, bowing to Washington and then gesturing to me. “I have the honor to present to you Madame General Fraser, the personification of grace and loveliness!”

The table rose as one, with a screeching of wooden benches, and the men—in fact, there were only six of them—rose and bowed to me in turn,
murmuring, “Your servant,” and “Your most obedient, ma’am.” Washington himself stood up at the head of the table—
My God, he’s as tall as Jamie
, I thought—and gave me a very graceful bow, hand on his bosom.

“I am honored by your presence, Mrs. Fraser,” he said, in a soft Virginia drawl. “Dare I hope that your husband accompanies you?”