Whispers from the Shadows (47 page)

“I
am
where I belong. With my husband.”

That word again. He gripped the gun tighter. “He is not your husband. You married him illegally, without the signature of your guardian. No court of law would uphold the vows.”

With a few quick strokes of her pencil, her own face appeared on the paper with a wistful, resigned expression upon it. How did she do that so effortlessly? “First of all, it would never
go
to court and is perfectly legitimate in the eyes of God, which is what matters. Secondly, his parents were in fact my legal guardians. Papa sent a copy of his will with me. I could fetch it if you like.”

He breathed a laugh. “You are not leaving my sight, my darling, until we are on the
Falcon
and on our way home.”

She paused and looked up at him. “Sir Arthur, you are the most sought-after bachelor in London. You could have your pick of beautiful, wealthy young ladies. Why in the world are you set on claiming one who is already wed to another? You do not love me; we both know you do not. You were enamored, and you felt a need to protect me. I appreciate that. But—”

Quick footsteps interrupted her seconds before the door opened and Gates slipped in, his breath still short. “I could not find him.”

“Never mind him, then.” Arthur straightened, silently wishing Scrubs Godspeed to wherever he intended to go.

“Yorrick will not be pleased.”

“He can steal himself another Colonist to scrub his decks.” He paced to the window again when another blast came from the fort. “We had better hurry. The Lanes could be back soon, and fighting may spread to the city. 'Twill be a difficult enough trip to Annapolis as it is.”

Gates pulled his pistol out as well. “I will take her up to pack a bag. You—”

“I am not going with you.” She said it so calmly, as if that alone would make it so. All the while scratching furiously with her pencil. Unable to resist, Arthur came back over to watch the progression of the drawing. Another couple was in it now, looking like the ones he had watched leave the house hours earlier—the Lanes.

Her uncle looked none too amused as he strode to her side and jerked her chin up. “Get up. Go pack.
Now
.”

Rebellion burned so bright in her features that Arthur began to understand what had fueled this collection of farmers and merchants toward uprising forty years earlier. “Or what, Uncle? Will you kill me? Your niece, your own flesh and blood?”

Before Arthur could do more than open his mouth with a warning, Gates had pulled his hand away. Fearing he would slap her, Arthur stood ready to leap to her aid, but no. He only gripped her hair and pulled her head back. No doubt with more force than he ought to have, but she made nary a whimper.

“I would never hurt
you
, Gwyneth.” The words, spoken in a low pulse, were a strange combination with the fury in his eyes. “But I
will
kill each and every one of these ignorant Americans who have
turned you against us. And I will begin with the Negro and child in the kitchen.”

The flare of her nostrils was the only indicator of her emotion for many seconds. Until at last she closed her eyes and a tear slipped from her lashes. “Don't hurt them. Please.”

Would he? Arthur wanted to think not. He wanted to think it as much a bluff as his own threats had been. But in that moment, he was none too sure.

Gates released her abruptly. “Get up and go pack your things. You will bring home every single thing you brought with you, and I mean
every
single thing.”

She turned back to the paper and made a few more quick lines. “I cannot. I do not have it all anymore. I had to spend some of the coin—”

He cut her off with a blistering expletive. “I do not give a fig about the money, you stupid girl!”

The new lines turned into a wagon, one with strange apparatuses within. Roughly drawn, but precise. Then she dropped the pencil and stood. “Very well. If I have your word that you will not hurt them.”

He didn't so much as blink. “If you behave yourself. If not, I promise I
will
.”

Her burning gaze moved to Arthur. “Can I at least leave my husband that drawing, or will you take that from him too?”

Arthur glanced down again at the sketch. A whimsical image of herself, the man's parents with satchels in hand, a wagon. Hardly a farewell love letter, but if that was what she wanted to leave with him… He shrugged. “Have it your way.”

Thad looked over the wall at the ships in the harbor, waiting for the next flash, the next boom, the next shell to fall upon them. His musket rested along with Arnaud's and Reggie's, its thirty-six rounds untouched. For far too long, the fort's massive guns had been as silent as their personal weapons, their major unwilling—wisely—to waste ammunition while the British vessels remained out of range.

Still. Inactivity pulled the tension taut.

Arnaud toed the unexploded ordinance that had landed a few hours earlier. Across it was scrawled, in black grease paint,
A present from the King of England.
“If we cannot do something soon—”

Another round came screaming toward them. Thad dove for
cover, pulling Reggie and Arnaud with him. The walls at their back shook, dust went flying, and the groan of metal came a second before one of the 24-pounders crashed from its place to the ground.

Screams of agony filled the air.

Thad sprang to his feet, but Major Armistead charged forward before he could get to the area littered with men. “We need to evacuate the wounded! And remount this gun, quickly.”

Lending his shoulder to the remounting effort, Thad kept an eye out for Arnaud and Reggie to return from transporting the injured. When Arnaud returned, he did so with shaking head. “Two dead. Clemms and Clagett.”

“God rest their souls.” Thad looked past him to Reggie and a young man. His eyes went wide. “Will! What are you doing here?”

Willis sidestepped another soldier and hurried to Thad's side. “I gave Gates and Hart the slip in the confusion coming into Baltimore.”

His blood ran cold. “Baltimore?”

The lad's mouth set in a tight line, and he nodded.

“We have ships pulling within range again, Major!”

Armistead ran to the wall. “Bomb ships—they must have thought they did serious damage with that last one. Ready the guns, boys!”

A cheer went up from the men. Thad gripped Will's shoulder. “Tell me what they are planning.”

The boy's Adam's apple bobbed. “To take your wife. Take her back to London while you are here and unable to protect her.”

Thunder and turf. He dropped his hand and fisted it, but then he told himself to calm down. “She is with my parents. They will keep her safe.”

“They left.” He darted a glance toward Reggie. “That mulatto friend of Philly's came, and they all tore off toward her house.”

Reggie's face went whiter than a sail. “The baby.”

Willis shrugged. “I heard nothing. I just saw them leave, and then I took off myself. You need to get to her, Thad, fast.”

“Ready!” Armistead shouted. “Fire!”

Their guns blazed and roared. Thad ran to the major. “Sir, I—”

“Lane, good. I am worried about our powder magazine. 'Tis nothing more than a brick shed. One lucky shot, and this whole place could go up.”

He swallowed. “Sir, my wife is in danger—”

“All our wives are in danger if we do not repel these ships.” The
harried man met his gaze, new lines in his face and the weight of the city visible on his shoulders. “Distribute the barrels of gunpowder around the fort. Take all the men you need.”

Thad turned away, aware of the many sets of eyes on him, waiting for his word. Aware of the men feeding the next rounds into the guns, of the shouts reporting where they had hit. Aware that if he disobeyed, it would undermine the fragile unity they had so carefully crafted.

To whom do you answer?

He heard the whisper in that corner of his spirit where the Lord always spoke. Heard it and felt a thrill. “You, Lord,” he murmured under his breath. “Tell me to go. Tell me to save her.”

But instead he felt that hand upon him, holding him in place.
Am I not able?

The next round blasted from the guns and shook them. Shook him. Of course the Lord was able. He was able to protect the fort, the country, these men he called brothers and neighbors. He was able to repel the British.

Arnaud stepped in front of him, his brows, as always, drawn. “Thad?”

“We need to empty the magazine and distribute the gunpowder.” The words came out strained, clipped.

His friend stepped nearer. “What about Gwyneth?”

Lord, what about Gwyneth?

A rumble of thunder crept across the sky.
Am I not able? Must it be you?

He squeezed his eyes shut.
Lord, please, don't ask this of me. Ask me to do anything, to say anything, to go anywhere, but not to do nothing while my beloved needs me.

Lightning flashed in the distance, a flicker compared to the muzzle flash from the British guns.
I knew her before she was in her mother's womb. I loved her before her lips could form My name. I called her beloved, just as I called you
.

“Thad?”

He couldn't speak, afraid that if he tried, he would choke on his words. But he strode toward the magazine. And he saw Gwyneth's eyes, frantic and terrified.
God!

A return blast from the bomb ships, another quake through the fort's foundation.
Can you love her more than I? Can your hand save
her better than the one that formed you?

He lifted his hand to the door of the magazine. It trembled. “Will, Reggie, give me a hand. Alain, gather a few more men.”

The room was large and dim, but he knew Armistead was right—the single layer of bricks between the shells and the three hundred barrels of gunpowder provided no real protection. He grasped the nearest one and rolled it out the door.
He has come for her, Lord. He has come and I am helpless
.

Reggie, his jaw ticking and worry in his eyes that went well beyond the screech of an incoming shell, took the barrel from him.
Philly
. Thad whispered a prayer for her as he caught his brother-in-law's gaze. “Reg?”

He swallowed. “There is nothing I can do there that I cannot do here. I will pray.”

Thad released the barrel to him and turned back inside.
I know You
can
keep her safe, Lord. Keep us all safe. But I also know You do not always choose to. Like Peggy, like Alain for those terrible years. And I…I cannot bear if Your will is to take her from me. Please. Let me help.

He rolled another barrel out. And the clouds must have parted, for a shaft of light angled through…the roof? He moved further in, to where the sun reflected off something metallic. Something long and shell shaped and taunting in its presence. “Ordinance.” Panic pounced until he realized that if it were going to explode, it would have done so long ago.

The entire fort, all these men, could have—rightly
should have
—been destroyed already. The major's concerns ought to have been proven right in a fiery explosion.

But the Lord had preserved them.

You do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. So how do you fight them?

Amid barrels of gunpowder and that one terrifying shell, he dropped to his knees. “I know You have it all in hand, Father God. I do. Us here, Gwyneth, Philly. But it is so difficult to practice what I believe. To give it all to You when I want so much to act.”

Footsteps gathered outside. “We are ready, Thad.”

'Twas as if the Lord chuckled in his ear.
Then act, my child. Where you have been placed. Do what you have been called to do.
And trust Me.

He touched a hand to the enormous shell and then rose. Much as he wished he could, he could not claim any unnatural peace. His heart still strained toward home, toward Gwyneth. The shot still whistled overhead, the noise still filled him till he feared he might burst.

But he rolled another barrel out, and he whispered a prayer.

When darkness fell and torrents of rain came, he hunkered down with his brothers and recited a prayer.

When the night refused to end and the British refused to halt their shelling, he led the men in the hymns that joined the deafening thunder as a prayer.

And when at last dawn broke and silence descended, he stood with the men again to see what was left of Fort McHenry. His gaze went up as morning light broke through the storm clouds, and he saw their flag fluttering in the wind.

They had survived. The fort still stood strong. They had made it. As Gwyneth had said they would. But what of her? He would come home, but where would she be?