Island of the Swans (60 page)

Just as he was losing consciousness, Thomas suddenly saw in his mind’s eye Hamilton Maxwell handing him a likeness of a pink-cheeked child with copper hair, painted on an oval miniature. The tiny portrait fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.

A boy of about seventeen, clad in ragged breeches and a dirty white shirt, walked barefoot through the brown grass, beating a drum methodically and shouting announcements. He passed groups of men in tattered uniforms stretched out on the ground. The British prisoners of war lazed in the crisp November sunshine, awaiting dispersal to various parts of the Colonies. The victors had neither the money nor the manpower to set up prison camps for the vanquished, so most would serve out this war as indentured servants wherever they were needed most. The Yorktown campaign had been decisive, to be sure, but until Parliament and King George III signed an official peace treaty, General Washington had made it clear: no one was going home.

“Captain Thomas Fraser!” the lad called out between drum beats. “Message for Captain Thomas Fraser of the 71st!”

Startled to hear his name called out, Thomas rose weakly to his feet and made himself known. He cast a puzzled glance toward Hamilton Maxwell who had been idly whittling a stick.

Standing upright, Thomas felt dizzy and slightly nauseated. His uniform hung loosely on his shoulders. The dysentery he’d feared would strike during the battle had plagued him for nearly a month now.

The boy in the ragged clothing handed him a small piece of parchment. As he read it, and despite his miserable condition, Thomas felt a smile threatening to spread across his lips.

Captain Fraser:

You have been assigned to accompany the Widow Boyd and the body of her late husband, a Colonel with His Excellency, General Washington, to Antrim Hall, near Annapolis, where you will remain as a prisoner until Peace is declared and your regiment is officially disbanded. Report immediately upon receipt of this summons to the Somerwell House, Yorktown.

Major Lilburn Williams
Third Regiment, Maryland

“What is it?” Hamilton queried.

“A rather unusual summons,” Thomas answered, handing the note over to Hamilton to read.

“’Tis not so unusual,” Hamilton replied, studying its contents. Then he glanced sharply at Thomas. “Someone you know?” Hamilton pressed.

“Ah, yes,” Thomas laughed. “The Widow Boyd.”

“Who the deuced is ‘the Widow Boyd?’”

“The plantation owner I told you about once… Arabella O’Brien Delaney Boyd, who saved my life after the Mingos made mincemeat of me when I was in the Black Watch.”

“The wench that Corporal Thornton and you visited in Maryland after Brandywine, you mean?” Hamilton said, a tired smirk lighting up his face. “He said you took a bit o’ French leave that time, eh, Thomas m’lad! And what about those missions you made so regularly north from Charleston! Why, you old dog, you—”

“Shh!” Thomas growled, adding under his breath, “’Twouldn’t do for the Yanks to know I’d met the Widow Boyd
before
, now would it?”

“Och! No, lad, that it wouldn’t,” Hamilton agreed quickly. “Especially since she wasn’t a widow at the time you paid her those calls,” he whispered. “I figured intelligence wasn’t the
only
thing you were gathering from the beauteous Mistress Boyd!” he added with a lecherous wink.

Hamilton stood up and shook Thomas’s hand heartily.

“Well, laddie, the best of luck to you, you fortunate rogue! God knows where the rest of us will be sent till this bloody thing is over.”

Thomas walked slowly, like an old man, behind the drummer boy while the lad completed his rounds delivering messages. Soon, Fraser and the urchin were trudging along a dusty road into Yorktown itself. The journey from camp was less than two miles, but Thomas thought he would collapse from exhaustion. Arms and legs of dead soldiers poked up through the sandy alluvial soil lining hastily dug graves, the stiffened limbs creating a macabre picket fence along their route. At length, the boy pointed to a small brick house with square-paned windows and a neat white door. Miraculously, the structure had somehow survived the siege, though the road that passed in front of it was pocked with gaping holes made by cannonballs and other explosives.

Thomas painfully approached the short flight of stone stairs fronting the modest house. Without warning, the door flew back on its hinges and Arabella O’Brien Delaney Boyd appeared, looking fetching, indeed, in widow’s weeds made of bombazine as black as her thick, shining hair.

She registered her shock at his appearance only by a slight widening of her eyes, but their blue depths seemed to darken as she surveyed his emaciated form and sallow complexion.

“You are Captain Fraser, I presume?” she asked formally.

A man Thomas took to be Major Lilburn Williams, Third Maryland Regiment, appeared at her shoulder.

“You want
this
man to escort you home, Arabella?” he asked, staring at Thomas incredulously.

“Well, Lilburn, I haven’t seen the Captain since Sixty-seven,” she snapped. The lie seemed to convince Major Williams, who continued to look with disdain at Thomas’s disheveled state. “How was I to know you starved your prisoners of war?” she demanded.

“I must hasten to correct you, madam,” Major Williams said stiffly. “The enemy is in this condition due to the failure of their
own
provisioners, not ours!” His glance swept over Thomas from his cracked and splitting boots to his matted, dirty hair. “’Tis a wonder you remembered his name all these years, let alone, his rank and regiment.”

“Before the war, Captain Fraser became a close and treasured friend of my brother Beven, isn’t that right, Captain?” Arabella prompted, her eyes warning him to pick up her cue.

“Aye,” Thomas answered, doing his best to hide the smile that threatened to curl his lips, despite the gnawing pain in his belly. “Tell me, Mistress Boyd, I pray Beven has not met the same fate as your dear, departed husband.”

“Beven is missing in action,” Arabella said solemnly.

“Missing in
inaction
is more like it, my dear,” Major Williams said nastily.

Thomas could see that the soldier was familiar with Beven’s undisciplined habits. Perhaps, too, the Major’s ill-humor indicated his own lack of success in rekindling what was apparently once a close association with Lieutenant O’Brien’s fair sister.

“Beven disappeared into a tavern in Philadelphia a year ago and was never seen or heard from since!” Williams added maliciously.

Thomas swayed slightly on his feet, feeling increasingly lightheaded as he stood in the road.

“Pray, Captain, do come in and sit down,” Arabella said, tripping down the stairs to take his arm. “The good Major has offered to share his quarters. Lean on me a bit. Lilburn—quick! Take Captain Fraser’s other arm, man! Can’t you see he’s about to swoon?”

The next thing Thomas remembered was the feel of a cold cloth patting his forehead and the pressure of someone sitting next to him on a small settee where he had been placed while unconscious. The parlor was quite dark but, as his eyes began to focus in the gloom, he could see several candles burning at the foot of a large rectangular box, which rested on a trestle table in the middle of the chamber. For a moment, he thought perhaps he had died, and was attending his own wake, but then he realized it was Colonel Boyd’s wooden coffin.

“Better?” Arabella asked, with a smile.

“I think so,” Thomas answered uncertainly, “though the accommodations you’ve offered me aren’t exactly the most cheerful…”

Arabella’s throaty laugh sounded soothingly familiar. She continued to daub his face with the cool cloth and lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Thank God they nailed the coffin shut three weeks ago and the weather turned crisp,” she confided. “Otherwise, I fear our journey to Antrim Hall would be most unpleasant.”

He laughed weakly. “You vixen. How’d you manage to have me ’assigned’ to you, if I may ask?”

“A favor returned,” she answered lightly. “Since I hadn’t seen or heard from you for months, I came as soon as word reached us that the battle involving the kilted regiments had been won… or lost, depending upon one’s point of view. Imagine my shock to discover en route that I’d become a grieving widow. ’Twas fortunate my stopover in Philadelphia allowed for a quick trip to the dressmakers!” she laughed, smoothing her widow’s weeds.

Thomas chuckled in spite of the increasing turmoil churning in his gut.

“Ah, Arabella…” he sighed. “’Tis good to see you again, dearheart.”

“And ’tis good to see you too, Thomas, though you look about as dreadful as you did the day you arrived at Antrim Hall in the back of that cart with your head bandaged in dirty rags.”

“I feel
worse
,” he groaned, concerned that the pain suddenly gripping his bowels again would cause him to disgrace himself on the parlor settee. “Oh, God, Arabella…” he gasped.

“Up we go, my friend,” Arabella commanded, helping him rise.

Quickly, she led him out the back of the little brick house and opened the door to the privy, pushing him playfully inside and slamming it shut. He leaned against the wall as an excruciating cramp seized his abdomen. A low moan escaped his lips as he attempted to unbutton his breeches in the dim light.

The door suddenly opened and he stared at Arabella miserably.

“Let me help you with that,” she said quietly.

“Jesu, Arabella… no…” he mumbled, a look of misery etching his haggard features.

“Yes, let me…” she repeated. “There is nothing about you, dear Thomas, that disgusts me, so you may as well allow me to lend a hand.” Swiftly, she rendered him assistance and shut the door once again.

By the time he reappeared in the house, she had brewed a pot of tea and handed him a cup, along with a warm cream biscuit. A large tin bathtub three-quarters full of steaming water stood in the middle or the floor in front of the kitchen fireplace.

“I’m afraid you must remove your clothes once again,” she said firmly.

“What about Major Williams?” Thomas whispered. “I’m not sure he swallowed your tale about my being Beven’s best friend.”

“The Major has departed for Philadelphia, bequeathing me his assigned billet till my nerves are steady enough to travel back to Antrim Hall,” she assured him with a sly smile. “Now off with those rags and throw them out the back door.”

Feeling suddenly sheepish, despite their previous intimacies, romantic and otherwise, Thomas stripped off his filth-encrusted uniform and gratefully sank his emaciated body into the metal tub, his knees tucked under his chin. Arabella rolled up the sleeves of her mourning dress, grabbed a bar of tallow soap, and knelt next to the bath.

“How does this feel?” she asked, scrubbing his back in brisk circles.

“Mmmm…” he sighed, as months of dirt and grime peeled away from his skin.

Arabella washed every inch of his body as impersonally as a medical orderly, and shampooed his hair for good measure.

“Out,” she ordered, holding a blanket for him to wrap himself in.