The Colonel's Lady (22 page)

“Miss Rowan.” Not once had he called her Roxie since that day at Smitty’s Fort.

“Colonel McLinn.” Never would she call him anything else, the slip of calling him Cass still stinging like a nettle. If she gave way to it now, there would be no going back.

Beneath his Continental coat was a silk waistcoat of the same blue shade as her petticoat and embroidered with identical silk thread.
Bella!
Flushing furiously, she wondered just how much fabric Bella had cut from her gown to make him this.

“It would appear,” he said, eyes glinting with good humor, “that you’re as well dressed as I am.”

She tried to smile. “Yes, we have Bella to thank for that.”
Or trounce.

But Bella had disappeared, having shut the door firmly behind her. He took a step nearer, and she was struck afresh by his immense physical vitality. Though she was tall and willowy in her own right, he made her feel tiny, even dainty. The exquisite hue of his waistcoat turned his eyes a richer blue, and his next words made the bottom drop out of her stomach.

“You look like a bride.”

A bride. Your bride? Anyone’s bride?
Thoughts whirling, she grasped for a bit of levity and returned the compliment. “And you, sir, look like a groom.” When he said nothing, she prattled on, “’Tis kind of you to come for me.”

He gave a slight bow. “I nearly had to beat a path to your door to do it.”

She laughed. “All those men, you mean.”

“Aye, all those men.” Going to the door, he swung it open, and all the amusement faded from her face. A long, snaking line of soldiers and Frenchmen stood in various stages of intoxication, waiting to dance.

“Oh my . . .”

He offered her his arm and she took it, wondering how, after only one dancing lesson with him, she’d make it through even a few jigs and reels. But she did, dancing first with him and then with others, some too inebriated to notice her missteps. By the end of an hour, she was flushed, thirsty, and winded—and having the time of her life.

Only recently the fort smithy had fixed her best slippers, replacing a worn sole and making them seem like new. She tapped her feet in time to the music as Dovie rested with her on a bench near the edge of the bonfire. Wearing her purple wedding dress, the bulge of baby just beginning to show, Dovie said merrily, “Miz Roxanna, you’re sure the belle of the ball tonight. Ain’t you worn out?”

“Just thirsty,” Roxanna replied with a smile, sipping the cider Cass had brought her.

She took in the revelers—even Bella and Hank were doing a jig—and lingered on Cass now paired with Abby. With the moon full and high and the brilliant backdrop of bonfire, she could make out the sentries up on the banquette above, the restless milling of the horses in the far corral, even the Shawnee standing in the open door of their cabin. Falling Water lingered there, observing the white men’s mischief, the younger chief beside her, their silhouettes distinct. The older chief remained out of sight in the cabin the three of them shared.

She wondered what would become of them and if Cass had finally learned who among the British were behind the Indian raids into Kentucke. She knew he’d been meeting with the three Shawnee in the orderly room adjacent to the blockhouse, but she didn’t know what success he was having. He hadn’t wanted her present, he’d told her, to ensure her safety. If worse came to worst and the fort fell in future, she would know little of such matters and might escape with her life.

Yet this seemed less alarming than the fact that a spy was in their midst, working to undermine the Americans’ hold on the Kentucke territory. Her eyes roamed over myriad men, weighing and dismissing them one by one. A feeling of uneasiness—even dread—took hold. Beside her, Dovie was a blessed distraction.

“I’ve been meanin’ to tell you what Johnny and I’ve decided to call the baby.”

Roxanna looked at her friend’s shadowed features, fighting the tight feeling in her chest, forcing lightness when she felt none. “I think naming a baby must be a fine thing, Dovie. Tell me.”

“If it’s a boy he’ll be John Cassius Dayton, after the colonel and Johnny, of course. And if it’s a girl, it’ll be Roxanna Marie after you and my ma.”

Roxanna gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. “I’m honored, Dovie—and I’m sure the colonel will be too. Autumn is when you’re due, isn’t it?”

“September or thereabouts.” Dovie’s youthful face showed little pleasure. “I don’t know where any of us will be by then. Johnny says the colonel’s bent on takin’ the whole middle ground soon if the Redcoats and redskins don’t overrun us first. I’m thinkin’ it ain’t a good time to be bearin’. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll even get to hold my baby.”

Roxanna lapsed into silence, struck by Dovie’s somber mood. She didn’t want to sound trite, but all she could think to say was what she’d been consoling herself with of late. “Only God knows the future, Dovie. Best pray and leave it all to Him.”

With a sigh, Dovie turned probing eyes on her. “What are you goin’ to do? Once you get shed of this place?”

“I’m not sure. I keep praying about that too. Since it isn’t safe to leave, I have to be content with staying here till I have some clear direction.”

“Abby will be mighty put out when you go,” she ventured shyly. “Not to mention all the rest of us.”

Roxanna managed a halfhearted smile. “Someday soon you and Johnny will move onto your land and have a fine farm like you’ve been dreaming about. Colonel McLinn and his army will likely go east and I’ll return to Virginia, and we’ll forget all about this place.”

If
there was peace . . .
if
they survived the danger. She shivered at the memory of their return from Smitty’s Fort, of finely fletched arrows and whizzing musket balls.

The reel ended abruptly, returning her to the sights and smells swirling around them, but the frolic failed to ease her trepidation. The future loomed long and lonesome, and Fort Endeavor was but a small stop along the way to a place she wasn’t sure of.

But You know where I’m going, Lord, so I’ll try to rest in that.

She looked up from the coppery sheen of her skirt to see both Cass and Micajah Hale coming toward her. But another officer took Cass aside, and it was Micajah who reached her first. Lip and brow beaded with sweat from the exertion of the fiddling, he gave an exaggerated bow and stammered, “M-may I have the n-next dance?”

Nodding, Roxanna stood and took his hand, closing the distance between them. She looked over his shoulder and caught Cass’s eyes on them as he led her out and they joined the melee of swirling couples. She’d not seen Micajah in some time. He was often outside fort walls, and when he returned he seemed to distance himself from her.

“I wasn’t sure you’d dance with me,” he said in her ear.

“Why?” she said lightly. “I’ve danced with almost everyone else.”

His smile was tight. “Your guardian seems to think I’m not good enough for you.”

Guardian?
She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it, stung by the sharpness of his tone.

He rambled on, speech slightly slurred. “The colonel assigned me to a woodcutting detail the past month or so. But I’m back, and like it or not, I’m taking my turn.”

She knew about the woodcutting foray, as she had a rick of neatly stacked logs under one eave—but she hadn’t known the reason behind it till now. Had Cass assigned him that duty to keep him away from her?

The music swelled and then ebbed, and she said, “He’s only fulfilling the promise he made to my father—being responsible for me.”

His head bobbed up and down in terse agreement, but there was a cynical twist to his mouth she’d not seen before. “I know. I was there when it happened. But I doubt you’d leap to his defense had you been.”

As the words washed over her, her mind grappled with all that he implied—none of it respectful or enlightening, just frightening and confusing. He was slightly intoxicated, she knew, and drunk men often made ridiculous statements. But had he been there when Papa died? Had he seen him fall or make his dying request that tied Cass to her?

As she tried to gather her thoughts and ask, the set ended and he returned her to where he’d sought her out, leaving her abruptly for another drink. ’Twas just as well, she thought. She’d get few straight answers, tipsy as he was.

Sinking down on the bench, she glanced at the moon and judged it was nearly midnight. Since giving her pocket watch to the Shawnee, she was always guessing the hour. The frolic seemed a bit frantic now, pulsing with a reckless hilarity that had a slightly mutinous feel. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a regular stagger too near the bonfire and almost keel over into the orangey-red morass. Two Frenchmen stripped to their breeches erupted in a fierce fistfight by a keg of rum. The Redstone women showed no signs of slowing down, not even Dovie, and Roxanna wondered if she should be dancing so much with a baby on the way.

Several more disorderly minutes ticked by, and then Cass was at her elbow. She was only too glad to follow him into the shadows near the sally port, thinking he was remarkably self-possessed when two hundred or more men were unraveling all around him.

Facing her but keeping an eye on the revelers, he simply said, “I want you to go with Bella and Abby to the stone house tonight.”

Her lips parted in surprise—could he sense her delight? But then her mouth went dry. “Are you expecting trouble?”

“Nay, I always remain in the fort after a romp—to keep order.” He smiled down at her as if to ease her anxiety. “To stop the rowdies from burning down my post, ye ken.”

“Do you need to stay in my cabin?”

He shook his head. “I’ve a cot in the blockhouse.” Reaching out, he touched her sleeve, and then his hand fell away abruptly. “I’ll rest better knowing you’re up there on the hill and not here.”

Touched by his show of concern, she said, “Of course . . . I understand.”

But would Olympia release Abby to their care? From the sight of her with a half-dozen admirers, it seemed she had other things on her mind. Through the shadows, Roxanna saw Bella emerge from the melee with the guard, toting a small haversack filled with what they’d need to pass the night, Roxanna guessed. Abby trailed behind, clutching her rag doll. Could Bella sense Roxanna’s pleasure at so inviting an escape?

Her smile was so wide it communicated she did indeed, a hundredfold. “Ready, Miz Roxanna?”

Out the sally port they went, every step a fulfillment of Roxanna’s dream as they left the madness far behind, the guard fanning out about them. Up ahead, candlelight winked from every window, and Hank was waiting, door ajar in welcome.

Home.

Simply thinking the word unleashed an avalanche of emotion. By the time she’d trod the smooth yet unfamiliar door stone, Roxanna had to dash away a tear with a discreet hand, unable to say what so moved her. Even Abby looked around in awe. ’Twas the first time she’d been inside as well.

Across the threshold and into the foyer they went, lost in a world of gleaming wood and thick rugs and the heady bergamot and leather scent that was the essence of Cassius Clayton McLinn. It almost seemed she’d stepped into his arms, his presence was so palpable. Looking back over her shoulder before Hank closed the door, she dismissed the hope that he’d followed them. The fort glittered like a lit firecracker on the dark riverbank, and she could still hear raucous laughter above the fiddling.

Given the late hour, Bella promptly took them up the sweeping staircase. Roxanna tried to take in as much as she could—great gulps of beauty and refinement—her eyes eventually falling to the floral carpet. On the landing was an oriole window that would make a fine lookout by day, she thought, or a starry one by night.

Setting foot on the second floor, she saw another less elaborate stair spiraling toward a third story. Holding a sconce high, Bella hesitated, and the candles cast light to the far corners of the hall, illuminating a painting of deep green hills and a glen—Ireland?—above a walnut sideboard with matching chairs. A hint of oil paint threaded the still air, oddly reminiscent of her dream.

“The colonel didn’t tell me which room to put you in, but I picked the blue room, and Hank’s made a fine fire.”

Roxanna stood in the middle of all that austere elegance, slippers sinking into the lush carpet as Bella set the sconce on a highboy and turned down the bed. Next she began unhooking the back of Roxanna’s gown. “You’ll sleep like the dead after all that dancin’. ”

Roxanna looked toward the shuttered windows. “I don’t hear the frolic now.”

“You won’t—not with stone walls two foot thick.” She gave a low chuckle. “Law, but ain’t the colonel full of surprises? When he told me to fetch yo’ things cuz he wanted you up here tonight, I was almost as surprised as when he hightailed it out o’ here to carry you back from Smitty’s Fort. I figure he’ll be askin’ to marry you next.”

“Shhh!” Roxanna glanced at Abby, who appeared lost in thought as she caressed a figurine on a low table. “Little jugs have big ears, remember.”

Still chuckling, Bella led her to a dressing table and began picking the pins from her hair. Distracted a moment by the ivory-handled comb and brush set, Roxanna finally fixed Bella with solemn eyes in the oval mirror, her voice a whisper. “Once upon a time, I remember you warning me away from Colonel McLinn. I don’t understand your sudden change of heart.”

Bella rolled her eyes. “It ain’t my change o’ heart but
his
. Since you come it’s like he’s found religion or somethin’. I can’t tell you the last time I heard him cuss or seen him knock the no-good out o’ his men, or any o’ them other shenanigans he’s known for.”

“Gentlemen always mind their manners around ladies—or should.”

Bella sobered. “There you go again, explainin’ away everythin’. Ain’t you ever seen a man in love before?”

“Nay,” she whispered, thinking of Ambrose for the first time in a long time with complete detachment, even distaste. Her brow furrowed. “He’s attached to a lady in Ireland, remember.”

“Well, she ain’t here!” Scowling, Bella began brushing her hair till it fell in silky waves to her waist before subduing it in a sooty braid.