Now and Forever (88 page)

She floated back to the kitchen on a wave of self-congratulations.

"Praise be!" Cook turned away from the hearth and beamed at Dakota. "He'll let the mister keep his library."

"He didn't actually promise anything," she said, peering into the soup pot, then back at Cook, "but he did say he'll postpone moving his gear into it. At least until he talks to Dev—I mean, to my husband."

"And a fine mood the mister will be in when he comes home," Cook said with a shake of her head. "We'll be thinkin' the war is being fought right here in the house."

"Yes," Dakota said, recognizing an opening when she heard one. "My husband is certainly very . . . particular about his home, isn't he?"

Cook tossed some cubes of turnip into the soup pot, then wiped her hands on the rough fabric of her apron. "Won't let a body into that library unless he's standin' there like St. Peter at the gates of heaven, watchin' everything that goes on."

"He does love his books." Dakota snatched a piece of warm bread from the pine table where it had been cooling.

"Books!" Cook pursed her lips as if she'd been sucking on a lemon. "If you ask me, it's not the books he's worryin' about."

"Hmm," said Dakota, feigning disinterest as she chewed her bread.

"Rosie said she thought he had gold hidden away in there, but I don't think it's gold. I think he's a sp—" The woman stopped mid-word.

Spy,
Dakota thought.
You think he's a spy, too!

"Beggin' your pardon, ma'am." Cook's ruddy cheeks burned hotter. "Joseph always says I talk before I think."

"You need not apologize to me," Dakota said. Of all times for Cook to have a crisis of conscience. "You have a right to your own opinion."
And why don't you pull up a chair and tell me all about it.

"You won't tell the mister what I said, will you?"

"Not a word," she promised as she left the kitchen.

McDowell and his men were closeted in the library, probably exchanging wallpaper samples and planning how to redecorate. She had to admit she understood what Devane must be feeling. She was enough of a loner herself to shudder at the thought of a platoon of strangers barging into her home and getting intimate with her things.

But it was more than empathy that had her lingering near the closed door, ear pressed up against the well-polished wood. She hadn't imagined the names Rutledge and Blakelee scrawled across that piece of paper and she wasn't going to rest until she figured out what it was all about.

A buzz began in her fingertips, gentle at first then growing stronger, more insistent as it moved its way up through her hands, wrapped itself around her wrists, slid up her arms until it vibrated behind her rib cage.

Let down your defenses, honey . . . soften that sharp tongue . . . this is what you've been looking for . . . this is the place.

The voice drifted away and, with it, the buzzing sensation inside her chest.

"Mom?" she whispered, leaning against the closed door for support. She waited, but there was nothing except the low rumble of male voices coming from Devane's library and the sudden, inexplicable sense that she was running out of time.

#

The meeting place was two miles southwest of the jail where Rutledge and Blakelee had been taken, a clearing behind a farmhouse owned by a member of their spy ring.

The man who had watched Rutledge and Blakelee taken away waited for him there.

"Son of a bitch!" Patrick's fist crashed into the man's chin with a resounding crack. "What in bloody hell have you done?"

"'Twasn't my fault," the man whimpered, spitting blood onto the snow. "The Lobsterbacks come and took 'em away and there weren't a thing I could do to stop 'em, not and live to tell the tale."

"Is there more?" he demanded, shaking the man by his shoulders. "Did the soldiers say anything that might help us find Rutledge and Blakelee?"

"They said—" The man gulped as if struggling to draw air into his lungs. "They laughed when they took them, said now it be too late."

"Too late?" Patrick snapped. "Too late for what?"

"I don't know nothin'," the man wailed like a frightened child. "They wouldn't be tellin' the likes of me about a hanging."

"A hanging? Sweet Jesus, man, tell me what you know or, mark me well, you will have breathed your last."

"There's a hanging in the wind and ain't nothing going to stop it now. Not even you."

He threw the man aside, as angry with himself as with the fool.

"Surprised you care," the man went on, rubbing his elbow where it had struck the ground. "Seems like you're the one everyone be talkin' about, you and your new wife what come to town with Andrew McVie."

McVie! Once again the man's name was mentioned after years of silence. How quickly news spread in times of war. What strange events were conspiring to bring his name to everyone's lips?

"Need I remind you that McVie is dead?" he asked in a voice of deadly calm. "Or that my wife never knew the man."

"Don't know what she been tellin' you, but a score of folk near to King's Crossing say they saw two women with McVie in a flying basket and one of those women sounded like she be your new wife."

"You're daft, man," Patrick said, despite the doubts that suddenly assailed him. "You partake too much of the grape."

"Ask her," the man said, meeting Patrick's eyes. "Ask her where she be t'other afternoon." The man's expression shifted from anger to pity. "Maybe you went and picked yourself the wrong gal again."

#

By the time Cook served supper to Dakota and Abigail in the kitchen, General McDowell and his men had taken over most of the house from cellar to attic.

"An outrage!" Cook complained as she placed a bowl of soup in front of Dakota. "You'd think they were the king's men, and not our very own soldiers, the way they've taken over. After the last time, I swore I'd be finding a new place to work rather than serve the likes of them again."

"I like the soldiers," Abigail said as she chewed a piece of buttered bread.

Dakota glanced across the table at the child. "You do?"

Abigail nodded her head vigorously. "The house doesn't seem so big with them here."

Cook snorted. "Fine for you to say, missy. It don't fall to you to keep them all fed."

In truth it didn't fall to Cook, either. General McDowell's private chef was en route from Philadelphia and was expected to arrive by mid-afternoon the next day. The general had already set into motion his plans to construct the additional kitchen off the west side of the house, one that would be off-limits to Cook.

"If the mister was here, he'd tell that general a thing or two."

Dakota swallowed a sigh. "He can tell them anything he wants, but it won't change a thing. They're here and they're not going to leave." They might be fighting a war for independence but that independence didn't preclude the Continental army's right to take what it needed . . . and what it liked.

Still, it annoyed her that Devane had removed himself from the situation. He had known that General McDowell's arrival would throw the entire household into an uproar and that Cook would be unable to cope. And, to make matters worse, Cook had adopted the annoying habit of deferring all decisions to the "mistress of the house," as she now referred to Dakota.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence, listening to the laughter of General McDowell and his cronies as they played cards in the front room. Outside the snow continued to fall, light and relentless, and Dakota found herself wondering if Devane was out there somewhere, stranded in the storm, or if he'd decided to bail out on the lot of them and head for Tahiti.

Abigail finished the last of her apple betty, then yawned. Her eyes were heavy, and Dakota's heart did one of those funny little lurches with which she was rapidly becoming familiar. The kid was crawling under her skin and she didn't like it one bit.

"To bed," Cook said in a stern but maternal tone of voice, "and no fancy talk."

Abigail's expression shifted instantly from sleepy innocence to hot-headed anger. She tipped over the rest of her apple cider and was about to lob Dakota's leftover piece of bread at the back of Cook's head when Dakota pushed back her chair and stood. Cook was frazzled to the point of mayhem. The house was in utter chaos. The last thing any of them needed was a full-fledged temper tantrum from a six-year-old expert.

She took one of the candles that rested on the sideboard and made sure it was securely placed in its holder.

"Come on," she said, extending a hand to the child. "Let's go upstairs together."

"No!" Abigail's lower lip protruded dangerously.

"Bring Lucy with you."

Abigail threw Lucy to the ground and kicked her with the toe of her leather slipper.

Cook muttered something dark and threatening, but Dakota ignored her. She bent and picked up Lucy, then placed the doll on a ledge near the door.

She held out her hand to Abigail and waited.

The little girl hesitated for a long moment, then tossed the bread down onto her plate and put her hand in Dakota's. A lump the size of the thirteen colonies formed in her throat.

"What about Lucy?" Abigail asked, casting a glance toward her companion.

"Tomorrow morning," Dakota said. "You can play with her again at breakfast but tonight she stays down here." Maybe when she returned home she could do a prime-time special on alternative child care.

"Cook doesn't like me," Abigail observed as they climbed the stairs to the second floor.

"No, she doesn't today," Dakota admitted, making sure she held the candle away from her voluminous skirts, "but you didn't give her much reason to like you, did you?"

Abigail's soft brows knit together in a scowl. "What does that mean?"

They reached the landing and turned right toward Abigail's room.

"It means that you can't treat people badly and expect them to treat you with kindness."

"Like Lucy?"

Dakota suppressed a smile. "Exactly like Lucy."

Abigail was quiet until they stepped inside her room and Dakota closed the door behind them. She touched the flame from her candle to the candle resting atop Abigail's small dresser. The soft light spilled across the yellow pine.

"Cook is unkind to people," Abigail said.

Dakota sat down on the edge of the child's small bed. "Why do you say that?"

Abigail shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "She's mean to Joseph. She yells at him and makes him sleep on the floor when he has too much rum and stays out real late."

"Married people often fight."
Not that I have any personal experience but. . . .

"She hit Will with her cooking spoon when he did something bad."

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked the child gently. "Is there something you want me to know?"

Abigail shrugged her narrow shoulders, so fragile beneath her cotton dress. "My head hurts," she said suddenly. "I want to go to sleep."

Dakota stood and smoothed the front of her skirt with a surprisingly natural gesture. It frightened her how natural it was all starting to seem.

"Sleep well," Dakota said, moving toward the door. "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

A funny little giggle broke through Abigail's solemn demeanor. "I don't have bedbugs."

"I'm very glad to hear that," Dakota said with mock gravity. "I hope I'm just as fortunate."

The only thing she had to worry about in her bed was Devane.

#

Dakota couldn't sleep.

She'd tossed and turned for at least two hours, trying everything from counting sheep to counting calories, but no dice. She lay there, fully clothed, on top of the feather bed in the small room adjoining Devane's, waiting for the sound of his boots on the staircase. How could she possibly fall asleep when she knew he could turn up at any moment and climb in next to her? Not that she expected him to, but still . . .

Her pulse leaped into overdrive just thinking about it. She'd made a fool of herself this morning, going all feminine and vulnerable when he held her, and she was determined not to make that mistake again.