The General’s Wife: An American Revolutionary Tale (13 page)

He resumed his rhythmic tempo, slowly increasing his pace, her pulsating passage gripping him. She held his gaze until her head fell back and her body jerked and arched in climax. Her slick muscles grabbed him, demanding more, clenching intensely. Her head thrashed against the pillow, her nails dug into his shoulders, and she let out an orgiastic wail to the heavens.

He was at the precipice of desire, wanting so much to remain at the point just before the peak, but he would not be able to hold on much longer. She herself was lost in ecstasy, her writhing body continuing to grasp him with such determined force that he had to follow. He pushed his limits, thrusting inside her until his body began its release, then, at the last possible moment, he pulled out with a howling cry and shot his seed onto her belly.

He collapsed beside her, panting and laughing, more satiated and drained than he had ever been from the act. She smiled, staring at the wood beams of the ceiling, slowing her breaths. She lifted her head and looked at her belly, tentatively touching the milky fluid pooled there and just beginning to drip down her sides.

“Why did you not stay inside me?” she asked with genuine naiveté.

He propped himself on his elbow and played with the damp brown curls that framed her face. “To prevent you from becoming with child.” His fingers wandered capriciously over her rosy skin. “Although, as your husband does not know you are no longer pregnant, I suppose the precaution was unnecessary.” He pecked her lips. “Imagine my son growing up as a viscount’s heir.” He pulled a corner of the comforter over and dabbed at her stomach.

Clara searched his eyes. “Paul, do you love me?”

He had been expecting the question. Of course he did, but not in the schoolgirl way she loved him. “I worship you, my lady,” he said trailing kisses across her skin. “I desire you. I want to pleasure you. That is all I know of love.”

She feigned disappointment. “Your brothel has jaded you against such a divine sentiment.” She giggled as he grabbed her by the waist and playfully nibbled on her neck.

“Your husband would love what a little whore I have made of you.”

She tensed. “Paul,” she whispered as if someone could hear. “I don’t want to go back to him. I can’t go back to him.” She sighed. “When we married he made a stipulation. I could not return home to England until I bore him two sons. Sons, mind you. It had to be male children. So I’m stuck here and won’t be able to return home to my family for years. I hate this place. I hate the American colonies. And I hate the war.” Her eyes dewed with tears. “I want to go back home to England.” She held his face in her hands. “And I want
you
to come with me.”

Paul inhaled deeply, gathering his thoughts. “Clara, I cannot go back to England. There is nothing for me there.” He took her hand and kissed the palm. “My life is here in these colonies. Here I am somebody important, I’m successful, and I can do what I want. Over there, I am merely the son of a cobbler.”

“Where are you from originally?”

“A small village near Birmingham—you’ve never heard of it, trust me,” he said when she raised her eyebrows inquisitively. “Like I said, my father was a cobbler, my mother’s folk were tenant farmers. I just didn’t have the farming or shoe-making blood.” He drew a finger between her breasts to her belly button. “I wanted adventure.” He gave her a little smack on the hip. “When I was fifteen, I went to Liverpool to make my fortune, as they say. There I worked on the docks, eventually taking a job aboard a slave ship. Brutal business, that is. The way they treat those people. Like animals. I thought another company would be better, but they’re all the same. After two different runs with two different companies I stayed on in the colonies and found my way up here. I realized that everywhere I went there were whores. Men just need women. So I figured that would be a good business. I had learned a bit about bindings and shackles and such aboard the ships, so I gave my whorehouse a little bit of a difference. But, I treat my girls well and they stay with me.”

She looked at him in silent amazement and wonder.

“Clara, what do you have waiting for you back home?”

“My mother, my father—he’s an earl. My friends. And my brother.” Her voice quavered. “We’re very close.”

“If you go home you will have deserted your husband. I’m sure he will seek redress.”

“My husband is an adulterer—”

“As are you, love,” he reminded gently.

“So cannot we be divorced?” she huffed. “What about your American laws? Is it possible to divorce here?”

Paul sighed. “I really don’t know the answer to that.” He chuckled. Sam Taylor had studied law before the war. “But I do know someone who might know the answer to that question.” He twisted a lock of her silky honey-brown hair around his finger.
Sam
. Now there was a man well-suited to this intelligent, beautiful, young woman.

“Why should a foolish marriage vow,

Which long ago was made,

Oblige us to each other now,

When passion is decayed?”

“That’s not Shakespeare is it?”

“No, silly,” she said, laughing. “It’s Dryden.”

Yes, Sam would be perfect
. “Clara, you must realize that returning to England is very difficult, given the war. It would not be easy for an English girl to gain passage on an American or French ship. And, if you tried to get aboard an English vessel, they would simply hold you and alert your husband. Plus, even if you did get on board any ship, you would be faced with the possibility of a battle at sea or a pirate attack. It is simply too dangerous.”

“We could bribe the crew of an English ship.”

“With what money? That would have to be quite a sum for a ship’s captain to double-cross your husband.”

She hesitated for just a second. “Before I left to go to Manhattan Island, I sewed some of my jewelry in my stays. I had thought that if I were widowed, I would have something to barter for passage back to England.”

Paul sighed. Clara was from an aristocratic family, and most likely her jewels were worth quite a sum.

“And there’s my ring.” She tugged off the gold band from her fourth finger. “My wedding ring must be worth something.”

He took the proffered ring. It was simple, plain, not the sort of thing a wealthy man gives to a woman he loves. Nondescript so as to be almost untraceable. “Let me think about this, love.” He put the ring on the bedside table. “You should know that Annabella left last night to deliver the ransom note. It won’t be long until we receive the first payment. We’ll head to patriot territory then.”

She giggled. “‘Patriot’.”

Paul pulled her close. When the time came, it would be very difficult to let her go.

Chapter Nine

Paul threw off the covers. It was far too warm for a late October morning, although it seemed they had overslept. The room was too bright for dawn. Next to him, Clara lay sound asleep but had also tossed back the counterpane. Only as his body roused from its usual drowsiness did he realize the kitchen smelled like smoke. He looked out the window. The brothel was in flames.

Strathmore.

“Clara, Clara,” he said shaking her, his voice urgent. “You have to get up now, love. You have to get dressed. We have to leave.”

“What?” she said sleepily. Once she saw the eerie light coming through the window she sat up with a jolt.

She dressed as quickly as a woman with a complicated wardrobe could. Paul was dressed in a flash. He strapped his knife belt around his waist, then grabbed his pistol and cartridge box.

Clara sidled up next to him as he peered out the window, his pistol at the ready. The brothel was fully engulfed, flames licking through a ghost of its structure. “Shouldn’t we leave?” she said anxiously.

“Not yet. We should make sure it’s safe.”

“Paul, the fire is quite close—”

“Ethan has been staying in the house. That boy is far too responsible and capable to let a fire get out of control like this. Something is very wrong.” He fell silent as he scanned the scene before him. “Just as I thought,” he said gruffly. “Soldiers. British soldiers.”

He pulled Clara away from the window and against the door. He watched as two soldiers passed the kitchen building and walked toward the blacksmith’s shop. He took the belt with the knife and sheath from around his waist and handed it to her.

“Wear this, love, and wait here.” As Clara buckled the knife at her waist under the drape of her overskirt, Paul opened the door slowly, stepped outside, then closed the door behind him. He walked to the corner of the building, then around the next corner, always looking around to make sure the enemy was not hiding. He returned inside, took her hand in his, and hurried away, closing the door behind them as if the little outbuilding had not been disturbed by occupants.

They went past the herb garden, behind the building, toward the woods. Paul’s plan was to head west for a few miles, then head up north to patriot-controlled territory. Any soldiers who followed them would be surrounded and probably killed.

A blood-curdling scream in the distance stopped him cold.

He urged Clara behind a tree and surveyed his property to find the source of the cry, hoping, praying desperately it was not Ethan. With a soothing word, he left Clara where she was and, from the cover of the woods, searched the scene before him.

And then he saw Ethan.

He was bound and shackled to a hitching post along the side of the big house, the heavy chain attached to the iron ball hung down his back. The sight was sickening, the work of a madman. Ethan would only be free once the post burned, but would be killed by the smoke and flames well before then. Paul had to save him.

He ran back to Clara.

“Love, it’s Ethan. I have to go.” He grabbed her hand and looked deeply in her eyes. “Stay here, right here, and watch me. Once I am no longer in your sight, start to count to three hundred. Count steadily. If I am not back in view by then, I want you to run. Head this direction.” He pointed into the woods. “It’s west. Keep walking until you think it is noontime. Then go to your right. You’ll be heading north. You want to try to get to Fort Revolution. When you get there, talk to Captain Samuel Taylor. Tell him you know me. Tell him you want to go home, but you need to wait for me. I will find you there.”

Her wide eyes stared at him, utterly terrified. “Yes, Paul,” was all she said.

He stroked her hair. “I love you.” He kissed her quickly, then ran out into the clearing.

* * * * *

Clara watched until she could no longer see Paul, craning her neck until the last possible moment. She began counting, maintaining an even rhythm, something she had learned from the dancing and music lessons young girls of her class were required to take.

At two hundred a shot rang out.

She jumped and glanced around, then continued to count, trying to remain steady, to not hurry, to give Paul a chance to come back to her. By the time she reached two-hundred-and-ninety she slowed considerably. At three hundred she stood on the tips of her toes straining to look in the direction he had gone, but there was nothing. She wanted to simply stay put, in the hope he would eventually return. But he was right. It was simply too dangerous to stay amidst burning buildings and marauding British soldiers.

She ran in the direction he had told her, holding her skirts, trying not to trip, the sounds of her huffing breath and pounding heart deafening, drowning out the crunch of her steps on dry leaves. Running was not something her body was used to, and she quickly tired. She pressed on, driven by fear, by hope, by her love for Paul. Cold sunlight peeked through the canopy above, and when she thought the sun was retreating back to below the horizon on its low autumn arc, she turned right, praying that it was indeed the northern direction she was meant to go.

She continued doggedly, stopping once to drink her fill from a creek, then stopping again later to pee. Only after she had relieved herself did she realize how hungry she was. She glanced at a bush laden with berries, suddenly remembering a casual conversation with Paul about edible and poisonous plants, and decided that water would have to sustain her.

Dusk fell, heightening the eerie silence of the forest, bringing a little flurry of panic. She was surprised that she had seen absolutely no one. How far could she possibly be from the fort Paul had mentioned? And what was she supposed to do once night descended? She was lucky to have brought her cloak of black wool. She could wrap herself up and hide in the night, against a tree or rock perhaps, get some sleep, and start afresh in the morning. She had never in her life been so exhausted.

She walked until her legs complained and the darkness was simply too overwhelming, then found a bush, cleared out a patch along the bottom, and curled up. Sleep came quickly.

* * * * *

“What do we have here? A hedge whore?”

Clara awoke with a start and to a horse’s nostrils snorting moistly against her face. It was morning, although how early she did not know. She looked up to see two men mounted on horses, British soldiers, not the Americans she had expected, their waistcoats unbuttoned, neckcloths loosened. She sat up and pulled her cloak more tightly around her, determined to not speak so they would not know who she was from her accent.

“I suspect we have here a common strumpet on an unfortunate adventure,” slurred the fatter soldier.

The two men laughed at their little joke, then dismounted unsteadily, one landing on his backside after his foot did not find the ground in time. They approached her. She backed up against the bush with nowhere else to go. One on either side, they lifted her up to standing.

“These colonies produce the most delicious morsels of laced mutton, do they not?” Fat One said, his breath reeking of spirits, his nose and cheeks shiny and flushed.

“Quite,” said his skinny, sandy-haired cohort with a burp.

Clara did not recognize the men, but the laces on their cuffs indicated they belonged to the regiment beholden to her husband, and their dress denoted their ranks. The fat one was a colonel, the other a lieutenant colonel.