The Colonel's Lady (26 page)

Her nerves were on tiptoe now, waiting for him to finish.

“Why did you drink the tainted tea?” He looked down at her, his face weary and grieved. “Are you so bereaved about your father—”

She shook her head and recalled reaching for the cinchona tin, confusion filling her.

“Do you hate it here so much—”

Reaching up, she stemmed his words with her fingers. “I—I couldn’t stand the thought of you hurt—of someone doing you harm.” But that was only the partial truth.

I couldn’t bear the thought of being without you.

The thought wrenched her with alarm, and she pulled her hand away. Their eyes locked and held fast. Hers were a bit desperate, she knew—his were haunted. He looked like he was using all the self-control he possessed to keep from pulling her into his arms. She wanted nothing more than this, but he couldn’t—and she couldn’t—

Oh, Lord, a way of escape . . . please.

With a forceful shove on the serving door, Mariah hurried in, shattering their closeness. Roxanna glanced at Abby still playing with her dough, crafting letters on the trestle table, the dusting of flour on her face making her appear more waifish. Suddenly she got down from the bench and slipped her hand into Cass’s own, giving him a heart-melting smile. As Roxanna looked on, her heart was nearly rent in two.

Oh, to be like Abby, oblivious to intrigue and danger, able to love her towering commander with unabashed devotion.

24

Cass sat alone in headquarters, watching the April rain splash the crude pane of the blockhouse window, a copy of the
Virginia Gazette
before him with news—old news now—of war exploits in the east. He was so far removed from the conflict he sometimes felt he was reading about a different country, and that the men he’d rubbed shoulders with—Washington, Jefferson, Lafayette—were mere shadows half a world away.

Day after day, he waited here in this wild place to be recalled to the heat of battle, but the call never came, and it seemed he continued to hold the Kentucke territory and tried to expand her boundaries for men who’d forgotten all about him.

He pushed aside the paper and looked down at the manual of arms on his desk, thinking of all he’d learned at Valley Forge when Baron von Steuben had unified a dangerous mix of malcontents into a fighting force for General Washington. He’d been one of them. The memory seemed edged in glass, sharp and painful and permanent as any wound he’d earned in battle.

In the years since, he’d tried to hold on to the good things, those shining moments amidst all the misery. There were blessed few. His rapid promotion from major to aide-de-camp to Life Guard was but one, followed by the Purple Heart he’d earned at Brandywine Creek. And then the hero’s welcome he’d received upon arriving at Washington’s headquarters soon after.

Lately each honor seemed as tarnished and unsavory as a copper spittoon. What had they amounted to in the end? A fetid outpost on the fringe of civilization and a king’s ransom of spirits to dull the pain of past and present. And now he was attempting to ferret out a spy, having put the entire garrison on alert to that end.

Reaching inside his breast pocket, his fingertips touched the locket and scrap of paper lodged over his heart.
Praying for you.
The ink was now smudged, he’d read it so many times. He wondered exactly what she prayed. He recalled his own agonized petitions when he had sensed her slipping away from him in the shadows of her cabin. Stripped bare of all pretense and unbelief, he’d begged the Almighty to make her well. And this time He’d answered.

Simply put, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. She was his first thought upon waking, coming to him each morning in that misty haze of half consciousness that had once left him dreading the dawn. She’d consoled him by bringing the peace and light of her presence to this dreary post, allowing him a reprieve from the near-constant foreboding that shadowed him night and day. Somehow, inexplicably, she’d returned his thoughts to the Almighty. Most miraculously of all, she’d uprooted the bitter memory of a woman he’d once thought he loved and who no longer stood between them.

Yet despite these hard-won victories, he was far from realizing a relationship with her, as he still hadn’t confessed what lay so heavy on his soul.

A soft knock on the door made him shift in his chair. Roxie. He stood, swallowing down the keen disappointment he felt when he saw the orderlies on her heels. He’d not been alone with her—hadn’t let himself be alone with her—since they’d spoken in the kitchen a few days before, thinking it would somehow stem his gnawing need of her. Yet the hold she had on him was steadfast. And today she wasn’t making it any easier.

The clean lines of her blueberry dress only called out all the lush lines of her, making her appear even more alluring, the soft chignon at the nape of her neck teased into stray wisps by the wind. As she passed to her lap desk in the corner, she gave him a fleeting half smile, and he did the same, wanting to send the orderlies out, but he felt so addled he couldn’t think of a good reason to do so.

Instead he called for Ben Simmons and asked that the three Shawnee be brought in, a routine he was all too weary of. Turning to Roxie, he asked for a transcript of the meeting. Today he was going to do something unusual, and he wanted a record so there would be no confusion as to what had truly happened here.

He pondered his predicament as the Indians came in on silent, moccasined feet. The more time he spent with them, the more his understanding of their predicament deepened. Their complex codes of honor, their innate honesty, their childlike ability to be completely in the present—all worked a curious spell. The brutal fact that six of his men had just been ambushed by some of their tribesmen failed to gain a bitter foothold. He knew of soldiers who’d committed like atrocities and thus forbade any of his men to so much as lift a scalp.

He’d had the two chiefs in custody since the winter campaign and was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their presence. He sensed their longing to be free, to return to their people across the Ohio River, to tell of their time with the red-haired chief and all his soldiers and artillery on lands held sacred by the Shawnee. He knew they would say that the Kentuckians had come to stay. That alone would do far more than waging war ever would.

Taking up a graphite stick, he marked a heavy
X
in upper Indian country on a large map rolled out on the desk, clearly visible to each one of them as they gathered round, their feathered heads bent in concentration.

The words, though long practiced, still felt unrehearsed when he said, “I am prepared to let you go free—today—if you provide me with the information I need.” He paused, feeling their surprise—and elation—though they remained outwardly stoic. “My scouts have recently brought back reports that the British have built a fort here along the river you call Maumee.”

The older Shawnee nodded sagely, one finger tracing the path of the water to the lead marking. Falling Water and Five Feathers exchanged glances. After some hesitation, she said in careful Shawnee, “In the last Papaw Moon, the Redcoats came into our country telling us the hair buyer—Hamilton—wanted to show us a new soldier chief he had made.”

Cass looked down at her as Simmons interpreted, thinking how little the Shawnee gave away unless he showed direct knowledge of it. “Have you seen this man?”

Her intelligent eyes were grave. “
Mattah.
But I have heard of him. This man is so tall, some say, he seems to block the sun. And his hair is the color of his coat.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Cass saw Roxie’s quill go still. Even before all the words were translated, he felt a hard, cold numbness overtake him.

His hair is the color of his coat.

His
red
coat.

There could be no mistaking the description. Though he’d had his suspicions based on new intelligence coming out of Detroit, nothing could staunch the pain of its confirmation. Like the gouging open of an old wound that had never fully healed, he felt a torrent of breathtaking things. Disbelief. Dread. Remorse. Revulsion.

It took all the strength he possessed to keep the tight knot of turmoil now expanding in his chest from reaching his face. “You’ve not seen this man, but you have heard of him—therefore, you must know why he has come into your country.”

Falling Water nodded thoughtfully and met his unwavering gaze. “I think you also know why he has come.”

“Aye, I do,” he replied, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. “But I want to hear it from you.”

Five Feathers spoke with authority, revealing a deeper knowledge than Cass had anticipated. “This new Redcoat chief gives our people presents and bounties for making war with the white faces in Kan-tuck-ee. By building a soldier fort closer to the Shawnee towns, our warriors do not have to go to the hair buyer in Detroit.”

Cass pondered all the implications as he listened to Ben’s translation. In time, once Liam had established himself as a generous and warrior-like agent among the tribes, he would launch a combined force of British and Indians to come against the Kentucke settlements, with cannon and artillery that could breach fort walls.

Ominous murmurs of this had already crossed the river and reached him, but till now he’d thought Hamilton too comfortable in the lair he’d built for himself in Detroit to make war so far south, simply goading the Shawnee to do it for him. But Liam . . . Liam would warm to such a challenge, and Cass knew this was precisely why he’d been given the position.

Swallowing down the bile backing up in his throat, he tried to think of something—anything—that would anchor him. Taking his eyes off the map, he looked across the room to Roxie. The pale lines of her face were composed, but she was studying him as she’d not done for days, and her eyes held a hint of alarm. Did she know about Liam, he wondered? Her intensity told him she did indeed.

Turning to one of the orderlies, he sent for Micajah Hale. When he appeared, Cass began making final arrangements for the Indians. They had risen from the bench and were watching him with a feral fascination.

“Supply them with three of our finest mounts, tobacco, and enough provisions for their trip north across the river,” he told him. Micajah opened his mouth in surprise, then shut it as Cass continued, “Return their weapons to them outside the postern gate and let them go.”

As Simmons translated, the somber mood of moments before lifted. Cass could feel the Shawnees’ gratitude and saw that Falling Water’s eyes were shining with joy. Releasing them was a goodwill gesture, but in truth he had no reason to keep them. They’d told him what he wanted to know—and, within the last few minutes, what he didn’t.

Ever cautious, he watched as Five Feathers crossed the room to Roxie, pausing before her Windsor chair, dark palm outstretched. In his hand Cass saw the watch she’d given him and the little key that wound it.

“Good trade,” he said in careful English.

Smiling now, she looked up at him and reached around her lap desk to draw the white wampum from her pocket. “Good trade,” she echoed.

With little ceremony, the room emptied of all but one orderly and Cass—and Roxie. Feeling drained and chilled, Cass continued to look down at the maps, whose curled edges were weighted with a pistol and compass and surveyor’s tools. Just a few feet away, she was finishing her work, capping the inkwell and readying the transcript of what had just transpired. From a far corner, the clock seemed to shudder as it tolled ten times.
Still morning
, he thought dismally.

“You’re excused, Miss Rowan,” he said, hating the formality.

She looked up, surprise sketched across her lovely features. “There’s nothing else, sir?”

Turning back to the map bearing the large
X
, he said, “Nay, there’s nothing more to be done this day.”

Nothing, he decided, except to exit through the sally port, climb the hill to the house, and leave the fetid fort far behind.

Leaning on her hoe, Roxanna looked up the greening hill of bluegrass to the stone house, wondering for the hundredth time how Cass was faring. In the last day she’d seen no sign of him. Only Hank entered and exited, with the ever-present guard stationed outside. Since Cass had freed the Shawnee and learned of his brother’s activity in the middle ground, she’d had a dreadful foreboding she couldn’t shake.

Knowing Liam McLinn was just across the Ohio, doing as much damage to the Kentuckians and the cause of liberty as he could, had kept her awake nights almost as much as the memory of Cass leaving the blockhouse in a stew of gloom. Though his stoic face betrayed little, she could feel that his soul was besieged—and felt it still. No one had to tell her what he was doing inside that handsome but forbidding building on the hill.