Patriot's Heart

by Marzec, Penelope;

  Here in this new country, everyone had an opportunity to choose what they wanted to be, but Edwin had thrown away his prospects. He would be dour and miserable. Safe, but restricted within the narrow confines of the life laid out for him by his family.

  After the midwife tidied up Aunt Sally, she started a batch of beans cooking and made biscuits, too.

  “You look like something the cat dragged in,” she said to Agnes. “You go get cleaned up. Mama gets the baby now. She needs to suckle.”

  Agnes washed, put on a clean shift and her other dress. Scrubbing the mud out of the dirty dress would take some time.

  Then she, the midwife, and Hobart brought the wooden bed frame downstairs, put the straw mattress on it, and set it to the left of the fireplace in the kitchen. Aunt Sally was forbidden to climb stairs for a while.

  Meanwhile, the boys came back inside to greet their new sister.

  “She’s too small,” said Ryan. “We can’t play with her.”

  “She looks like a piggy,” said Lewis.

  “What shall we name her?” Aunt Sally asked.

  “Apple,” said Lewis.

  “Corn,” said Ryan.

  They both laughed with hilarity.

  “What was your mother’s name?” Aunt Sally asked Agnes.

  “You shouldn’t name her after my mother,” Agnes said. “My father never spoke of her again after she fell into the river.”

  “It’s time for him to let her go,” Aunt Sally said quietly.

  Agnes wondered. Would it make a difference? Had he held in the pain all these years? Could he ever let go?

  “Shouldn’t you name her after your mother?” she asked.

  “I never knew her. She died right after I was born. But your mother was a lady, the daughter of an earl. She grew up in a grand castle. Broadcraft Hall.” Aunt Sally gave a wistful sigh. “Perhaps if I name this little one after a great lady, she will grow up to be one.”

  “This country will not be ruled by those of high birth and my mother worked as hard as any other woman here. She cooked and baked, scrubbed laundry, fed the chickens, and milked the cow. She had no servants as she had in England.” Perhaps that’s why she stepped into the river, Agnes thought. Life had become too hard for her.

  “But she was the daughter of an earl,” Aunt Sally said.

  “Yes, that is what Edwin’s sister told me.”

  “I would be grateful if you allow me to use the name.”

  Agnes planned never to marry. There would be no daughter to name after her mother. A stab of pain pierced her heart. Why had she fallen in love with Edwin?

  She closed her eyes and pictured the miniature of her mother Lady Tabitha had showed her. “Her name was Harriet. I am honored by your wish to name her after my mother.”

  “That is a beautiful name,” the midwife agreed.

  “Then she shall be Harriet,” Aunt Sally decreed.

  * * *

  Leedsville had good people. By the following day, the news of the birth had spread. Neighbors brought food, cloth for diapers, and small toys to keep the twins amused. Nobody had much, but they shared what little they could spare.

  Agnes rushed about doing all the chores, but she hung on the verge of tears throughout the day.

  The midwife returned to check on little Harriet and Aunt Sally. She pronounced them both in excellent health, though she had a number of instructions she insisted must be followed to the letter.

  Agnes’s mind drifted elsewhere. She found concentrating on anything hopeless. She burned the biscuits and the stew bubbled over.

  Finally, the midwife drew her aside, and asked her what was the problem.

  “I must find my sister, Margaret,” Agnes said.

  “The militia is searching for her.”

  “The night of Colleen’s death, Loyalists came to the inn. Mr. Newton said those are the same men who took Margaret. I would be able to recognize them,” Agnes insisted.

  “Your aunt needs your help now. She must recover from the birth and rest while the baby feeds as frequently as possible.”

  “I understand that. But Margaret is only twelve…” Tears welled in Agnes’s eyes.

  “You have no horse, you have no weapon, and you do not have the skill to follow a trail.” The midwife’s words, spoken in a calm manner, were all true, but it did not help.

  “What if the men hurt her? She might be suffering and in pain.” She swallowed the sob welling in her throat.

  “Yes, but what if she is returned and you are not here? How will you know she’s back? What if you run into trouble on the road? You have no money, no safe places to stay and these are dangerous times.”

  Agnes was well aware of the risk. Murderers roamed the woods at night and killed men in boats. What if they found Margaret? Would they murder her, too?

  “What if she never comes back?” Agnes asked the midwife in a near whisper.

  “We all lose people we love and we cannot do anything about it. We must pray and accept it.”

  “But if I had gone with her that day…”

  “You feel guilty.”

  “Yes.”

  The midwife reasoned with her and prayed with her. Eventually, the midwife made another batch of biscuits, insisted she eat, and then told her to work in the forge for a little while.

  “I’ll take care of things for a few hours,” the midwife promised.

  Walking past the empty barn on her way to the forge, Agnes decided to step inside for a minute just to be sure it was vacant. Margaret might lay wounded in a stall.

  She saw nothing and the small scratching noises of the mice and other vermin were all that came to her ears.

  She had lost Colleen, Margaret, and Edwin. She did not care about the house. She did not care about any of the livestock. Even though Jonas had been special, she would trade him in a moment if she could bring back those she loved.

  She left the barn and continued on to the forge. She opened it and realized not even her work really mattered to her anymore. Halfheartedly, she started the charcoal and pumped the bellows. Picking up a rod of iron, she decided to forget about making a chain. It would do no good. She had lost. The war was over for her. She never had a chance.

  A kettle needing a new handle lay on the workbench. The easy job would not take long.

  Still, she worked slowly. All the joy was gone. The ring of the hammer did not touch her soul, for her soul was empty.

  She had nearly finished the handle when she heard several gruff voices shouting, “There she is!”

  A band of men rushed toward the forge. She spotted the Zimmer brothers and the miller in a wagon, but others hurried alongside.

  “Tie her up. She’s a traitor,” Zeb ordered.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Watching Agnes’s departure seared Edwin’s heart. The pain in his leg did not compare to the agony of severing their destinies forever. She said she loved him, and he did not doubt her words. She risked everything for him. Nevertheless, continuing their association would be irrational. Though she might be the granddaughter of an earl, she grew up in the colonies under simple circumstances. Her upbringing and his were more than an ocean apart. She knew nothing of proper protocol, which had been drummed into him from an early age. No doubt, even the least of the servants in Dalfour Castle knew more about protocol than Agnes.

  She was the daughter of a rebel. He was the son of a duke. He planned to become a barrister and she intended to spend the rest of her life bending iron as a blacksmith. She was kind, generous, sweet, and beautiful. And he was a dolt.

  Margaret remained missing and Agnes’s suffering tore at his soul. He admitted he used Margaret’s disappearance to his advantage. The townspeople enthusiastically hailed him as a hero and put the boat into the water for him.

  His actions were those of a base coward.

  As soon as he returned to the building, his sister insisted upon him returning to New York with them the next morning. She launched into her plan of getting him dece
nt clothing, making sure a good physician attended to his wound, and securing safe passage for him back to England. She decided he should attend several parties in order to meet women befitting his rank before he went back to Oxford.

  He ground his teeth together as he thought of all those simpering, clinging women with their mothers nearby ready to snatch him and make him a captive for life. How many people actually married for love?

  “It is a shame the earl’s daughter ran off with a blacksmith. Mother said it created quite a scandal at the time,” Tabitha recounted.

  “What was the earl like?” Edwin asked.

  “I am sure he must have doted on his only child.”

  “Then why didn’t he allow her to marry the man she loved?” Edwin asked.

  “That is obvious. He was beneath her station.”

  “Your husband is a commoner,” Edwin pointed out.

  “My husband is a solicitor. He is not a dirty, sweaty blacksmith.” Tabitha glared at him with arched brows.

  “Blacksmithing is honest work.”

  “Are you implying that soliciting is not?” Tabitha’s voice rose to a screech.

  Edwin turned and left to go outside. He intended to retire early, but noticed a band of men marching toward the commander’s dwelling with a prisoner. He wondered who they captured.

  “They got one of them! One of the Vengeful Raiders,” a man called out.

  Excitement ran through the camp and a crowd gathered.

  “Who are the Vengeful Raiders?” Edwin tapped the shoulder of another spectator.

  “A group of renegades. They don’t belong to the rebels’ army or militia. They kill anyone suspected of being a Loyalist, then they burn their house and take their property, keeping the spoils for themselves, of course.”

  A chill went along Edwin’s spine. “Do they know who the leader is?”

  “Maybe this one will tell if he’s tortured.” The other man smiled.

  Edwin’s stomach churned. Using torture was barbaric.

  He stayed, waiting with the rest of the crowd and enduring the sounds of the man’s screams. He prayed for the soul of the unfortunate prisoner. The man undoubtedly killed, injured, or maimed other men, but Edwin did the same under orders. Everyone was guilty.

  The heads of those in the crowd blocked Edwin’s view. He did not mind at all. He did not know if the man had been flogged or if his captors used more sadistic measures, but it did not last long. The victim man may have been injured when he was captured, for soon the screams died down. Finally, word came of the man’s death. Word was passed through the throng that the last words whispered from victim’s throat were, “The miller.”

  A sense of panic wound through Edwin, but he reasoned with himself. The dead man could not be talking about the miller who wanted to marry Agnes. There were plenty of millers in nearly every town.

  Assigned to a camp bed in a room with several other soldiers, Edwin settled in for the night, but sleep did not come to him. He thought about Agnes. What if that miller was a lawless renegade? What if he left Agnes to a cruel and terrible fate?

  She saved his life. He did not find her sister. His conscience troubled him, for it hardly seemed a fair exchange.

  He also thought of Agnes’s sweet face, her eyes, and even her voice. Her words plucked strings inside him until he resonated with a wondrous song. A song of joy. He would never find anyone else like her. Would any other man care for her with the devotion she deserved?

  He let her go in order to return to a family who disliked him and a job he hated.

  He was a lunatic.

  Despite his tortured mind, he must have drifted off into slumber at some point, for he woke with a start to a loud commotion the next morning. He grabbed his crutches and lumbered to the piers where another crowd gathered, this one far larger than the assembly last night. Men shouted with as much fervor as if they were about to charge into battle.

  “The thieving rebels did this!”

  “They’ll pay for it!”

  “We will crush them, all of them, and restore the king’s sovereignty!”

  “Long live the king!”

  “Death to the rebels!”

  Edwin did not see what caused the ruckus until finally the crowd parted and two dead men were carried past him. He stared at their faces and his heart nearly stopped. Those were the men assigned to return Agnes to her home. A dark weight pressed down on him.

  What happened to her?

  The crowd followed the dead men in a long and vocal procession. After they passed by, Edwin hobbled along the pier to the boat. His stomach clenched at the sight of the blood splatters. Panic took over. He clambered into the boat and began to bail out the water until he realized no amount of bailing would work. Musket holes riddled the wooden sides. When he raised the sail, its shredded remains flickered uselessly in the wind. His breath left him. How many volleys had been fired? How many men had attacked the boat?

  Was Agnes still alive?

  “What are you doing?” Tabitha stood on the dock.

  “I need another boat.”

  “Get out of that boat. It’s useless,” she demanded. “We are leaving for New York in a far more suitable vessel.”

  “I am not going to New York.”

  “You cannot go back to that dirty little rebel.”

  “She is the granddaughter of an earl.”

  “She is filthy, poor, and a blacksmith.”

  “I want to find out if she is still alive.”

  “Send a messenger if you must, but you are not going!” Tabitha shrieked and stamped her foot. “We are leaving after tea.”

  “Then I will offer my regrets, for I will be unable to attend.”

  “You have a responsibility—”

  “Yes, I do,” he cut her off. “I have to find Agnes.”

  * * *

  While Edwin’s sister stamped off to enlist the aid of her husband and the general to talk some sense into his head, Edwin searched for a boat of a suitable size, but he dared not steal one, for the sentries kept a watchful eye on all the vessels.

  The refugees gathered into an unruly mob. Fired up over the death of the men in the boat, they shouted for revenge at the top of their lungs, creating a fearsome uproar. They called for recruits for an attack. Men signed up and plans were made, though Edwin was not privy to their tactics and schemes. He assumed it would be conducted under the cover of darkness, as were most of the raids by the Loyalists.

  He wandered about, looking for some opportunity. He asked some of the women in the camp if anyone had a boat to sell. While he did not have any money, he was beginning to think he really did not need the boots on his feet.

  His sister’s husband found him and endeavored to convince him to rejoin his loving family, but Edwin politely declined.

  “You’ll be left without a single shilling if you persist in this behavior,” his brother-in-law warned. “Your dear sister loves you and wants you to become respectable, as you ought to be. Enough of this foolishness, young fellow. It’s time to own up to your responsibilities.”

  “From now on, I make the decisions about my life. I can live without the Greenly shillings.”

  His brother-in-law swore at him and stalked away with an angry red face.

  The day wore on and Edwin continued to search for any chance to escape. As the sun began to drop behind the hill, he spied an unattended horse. He cast caution to the wind and stole the horse. Forced to mount in the usual manner, he threw his bad leg over the horse, which hurt so much he bit his lip to prevent himself from screaming. However, the mob was still quite vocal at that point. If he yelled no one would take notice.

  The horse came complete with a saddle, a musket in a sleeve, ammunition, and a hat. He assumed the owner took a few minutes to stop in the necessary.

  No one paid any attention to him as he galloped away. Stealing a horse was an excellent way to wind up on the end of a hangman’s noose, but as he found no other way to discover Agnes’s fate, he
decided to take the chance. Besides, if anything happened to her, his life would be a misery.

  He often wondered why he crawled into her barn or perhaps he should blame Swindle for dropping him in the hay. It still struck him as odd that he did not remember falling or hitting the ground. He realized he might never remember, but he would not forget the trouble he caused Agnes and her family.

  He slowed the horse to a walk when he reached a holly forest. The dense stand of evergreens flourished in the sandy soil. He used extreme caution and tried to stay out of sight as much as possible, but the only way to get off Sandy Hook without a boat was to use the pontoon bridge. The general had ordered the bridge to be built across the marsh for his army’s use.

  Edwin lingered in the shadows as the sun began to set and debated with himself what to do. This might be the most difficult part of his journey. It could also be the end. Galloping across the bridge would be sure to bring him undue attention.

  In the distance, he spied a pair of guards coming to relieve the ones on watch. He decided to take it slow and pretend he was simply another Loyalist heading off to steal somebody’s livestock. He cantered across the bridge, waved to the sentries with a big smile on his face, and told them he’d be bringing back a pig with any luck. They told him if he did he better be sharing it with them.

  “In that case, I’ll bring back two pigs.” He laughed.

  They laughed, too.

  As the horse’s hooves clomped along on the bridge, Edwin kept wondering when the musket ball would hit him in the back.

  He made it to the other side. As soon as the road curved away from the bridge and he was out of sight of the sentries, he urged the horse into a gallop. Night came on quickly and Edwin went no more than about five miles before the horse showed obvious signs of exhaustion. Ahead, he spied a small tavern at a crossroad. He discovered some Spanish coins in a saddlebag. Lucky for him, the horse belonged to a rather wealthy man.

  His dismount was a difficult and painful maneuver, but walking was worse because he left the crutches behind on Sandy Hook. He limped and hopped toward a lean-to where he watered the horse and gave it some oats.