The same glowing red-gold hair she had seen in the locket . . . Lorraine had not the slightest doubt that the woman was Laurie Ann MacLaud—Laurie Ann, who had run away, and now was running back, by the look of the way she had hurled herself into Raile’s arms. Laurie Ann, who did not like the sea. . . .
Raile must somehow have sent for Laurie Ann earlier. At least he had taken her advice and changed into buckskins for the upriver journey. Lorraine guessed Laurie Ann would take Raile to the man he wanted to see about selling the guns. If there really was any such man!
A feeling of outrage overwhelmed Lorraine. She wanted to rush down the dark bank to that embracing pair and pull them apart and pummel Raile with her fists. She wanted to shriek and call him names and take back the love she had so trustingly given him.
She wanted to die.
Her world seemed to rock and she reeled against a tree trunk, hanging on to it for support. She closed her eyes until her dizziness left her, and as it did, she knew that most of all she wanted revenge. . . .
When she looked around, the two figures were gone. In the distance on the dark shining face of the river she could see their boat, two dark figures, one rowing. She wondered bleakly if Raile would tell Laurie Ann about her. No, of course he wouldn’t, she would be just another unimportant incident in a crowded life, a girl who had happened to be at hand when the captain wanted to play. How had he said it? I lured you to my bed. And it was true. Oh, God, it was true!
Hot tears scalded Lorraine’s eyes and she moved away from the river. She was learning what it was like to love a rogue, she told herself bitterly—but there was no consolation in the thought, only anguish. Unaware of her surroundings, she had wandered blindly out into the road.
Around her the air was full of men’s shouts and horses’ neighing and the stamping of hooves. Bacon’s rebels were leaving the capital. Instinctively Lorraine dodged a pair of horsemen who thundered by. But as she stumbled aside from that encounter, another horseman came suddenly out of the dark. He loomed above her and as he pulled on the reins, his horse reared up on its hind legs like a dark specter against the angry red glow of the burning city.
To Lorraine, after all that had happened to her today, that sudden great body leaping above her was like a vision of hell. She screamed and jumped aside, only to lose her footing and fall heavily to the ground.
In a moment the rider dismounted and stood bending over her. “Are you hurt?”
In the darkness she could not see his face.
“I ... I don’t think so,” she said shakily.
“God’s teeth, woman, what are you doing here? Someone bring a lantern!” And as his order was promptly obeyed and golden light poured over Lorraine’s face, he drew in his breath. “You are the woman in the window—you blew me a kiss today!” The dark figure bending solicitously over Lorraine was the rebel leader Nathaniel Bacon.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated. “I was told that the governor had evacuated all of his people.”
“I am not one of his people,” gasped Lorraine. “And I evaded the order!”
Did she read approbation on that dark face bending so close?
“So? And what is your business here, my lady?”
“None. I arrived by ship only last week and had intended to go to . . . to Yorktown.” Her voice trembled a little over that lie. “But the town was under siege and I could not get there.”
“And in Yorktown, what awaits you?”
“A ship, I hope.” Lorraine could barely keep the bitterness out of her voice. “I was on my way to Barbados to join my guardian,” she added glibly. “But my ship suffered damage in a storm and let me off here while it proceeded to Charles Towne for what may be lengthy repairs.”
Bacon nodded thoughtfully and rose, standing above her, a slight figure but seeming tall in this light.
“Then you have really nowhere to go?”
“Not now that you have burned the inn where I had accommodations,” sighed Lorraine.
“Well, we cannot leave you here.”
Lorraine was conscious suddenly of the startled face of the cabin boy, Johnny Sears, anxiously peering at her in the lantern’s yellow glow.
“No, I suppose not.” She looked around her hopelessly at the dark, the noise, the smoke, the confusion, the charred ruins of the capital.
“Do you ride?” Bacon helped her to stand but the ground was uneven and she stumbled against him. “You have hurt your ankle?” he asked sharply.
“No, I just lost my footing again. And no, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to ride,” she added, a bit embarrassed.
“No matter.” He swung her up on his horse and got into the saddle behind her. “You will travel with me.”
“But I am here with my little brother—there he is!”
“Someone take the lad up. He will accompany us.”
Lorraine saw Johnny Sears, looking exuberant, swooped up by a long arm that reached out of the darkness.
The general’s horse reared again, but her cavalier kept a firm hand on the reins and brought him down without more than slightly disarranging Lorraine’s skirts in the process. He raised his arm and one of his officers barked an order which was repeated military style, echoing down the line. Then they were off at a gallop, flying through the night.
“Where are we going?” gasped Lorraine.
“To Green Spring,” he told her cheerfully. “Where a lady may be entertained in some style.”
If anything could have taken Lorraine’s mind from her own problems, that remark was designed to do it.
“But isn’t that Governor Berkeley’s ... ?” Her words trailed off.
“Just so.” Bacon’s voice hardened. “Berkeley has bled this colony white long enough. Tonight we will take back some of our own. Don’t worry. We will be there in time for a late supper—’tis less than three miles away.”
Lorraine felt the night air rushing by, cooling her hot face, felt a strong yet gentle arm about her as she leaned back against the handsome coat front of the aristocratic rebel leader. She suppressed a sigh of pleasure. Most astonishing of all—she was off to palatial Green Spring, the finest mansion in all Virginia.
Bacon talked to her as they rode, and she guessed that he had missed female companionship on his long and hard forays into the swamps and forests. There was a wistful note in his voice as he told her of his riverfront home on the James, and something of his life in England. She gathered he considered himself a bad penny but a dauntless one—and hadn’t his life proved that? His resonant voice warmed as he spoke of his men.
The stars shone down, the wind ruffled her silken skirts, she could feel the gold buttons of his wine-red coat cutting slightly into her back, but she did not care. She was off on a great adventure. The arms that held her so firmly before him in the saddle were very real—and strong. The leather-clad thighs her legs brushed against through her thin skirts were real and sinewy. And the steady pounding of hooves galloping behind them was the sound of a band of strong, determined men who would fly in the face of the king himself if need be.
Lorraine knew she would never forget that wild ride through the night with the rebel leader and his men.
And yet all the way she was fighting off remembering another wild ride through the night with other strong arms holding her, Narragansett Bay their objective. . . .
CHAPTER 23
Green Spring, The Virginia Colony
THE GREAT MANSION of Green Spring was lit up as if it were being prepared for a ball. The door swung open at Bacon’s approach to reveal a massive hall, the candles of its branched chandeliers glowing on its wide expanse and broad stairway.
For all his fatigue, Bacon leapt lightly down from his horse and lifted Lorraine to the ground beside him. She walked beside him into the governor’s magnificent mansion, marveling at what she saw. Governor Berkeley had had no thought of losing the battle, no thought that his great estate would be occupied by the “enemy,” and Lady Frances, who had departed
in haste with her servants, had taken almost nothing with her.
They would be back, the governor had sworn darkly, to claim it all, and heads would roll if anything were disturbed.
Servants stood about in the entrance hall, and though clad in the governor’s livery, seemed prepared to take orders. Lorraine wondered aloud how Bacon had managed that. He explained that he had sent a small band to secure the place and arrange for a staff whilst he was building the breastworks.
“While those women in white aprons were marching up and down across the barricade?” she shot at him.
“Even so,” he laughed. His dark face was very boyish despite his fatigue, she thought. A beguiling face. She decided that despite all this turmoil, his wife was very lucky.
“This lady will be quartered in Lady Frances’ bedchamber,” he told one of the servants. He turned to Lorraine. “I do not know your name.”
“Lorraine London,” she said.
“From London itself?” he asked politely.
Lorraine decided it was best not to say she had come from Rhode Island. “No, mine is an old Cornish family,” she told him. If worse came to worst, she could always fall back on all the things her mother had told her about Cornwall!
Bacon gave her a keen look. “Well, Mistress London.” He was stripping off his leather gauntlet gloves as he spoke. “Your little brother will dine with the men, but as the only lady present, perhaps you will do my officers and myself the honor of presiding at our supper table? Show Mistress London up to her bedchamber that she may refresh herself. Supper will be in an hour.”
He bowed and Lorraine left him to follow the servant up the broad handsome stairway. Behind her the hall was full of the jingle of spurs from booted men who were pouring in through the big front door.
The elegance of Lady Frances’ bedchamber startled Lorraine. The delicate furniture, the fine damasks, the French gilt mirrors, the scented linens. Lorraine sat down at the elaborate dressing table and stared at her own face in the mirror.
I cannot believe I am really here, she told herself. It is all a dream.
That feeling of unreality persisted when after combing her hair into a fashionable coiffure with Lady Frances’ silver repoussé comb, and with her head held high, Lorraine trailed down the broad stairway into the male gathering below. Bacon stepped forward to offer her his arm and lead her into the great dining room. A long table had been spread with snowy damask, branched chandeliers sparkled with what seemed a thousand candles, and atop the table silver candelabra were alight as well. All of that golden light sparkled on the massive silver plate and tall salts, and reflected over and over in the many ornate mirrors that encircled the wall sconces.
“If you will be good enough to occupy Lady Frances’ chair at this end of the table, I will take the other.” Bacon smiled at her.
“And she fits it a deal better than Lady Frances,” rumbled one of the men behind her.
There was general laughter and Lorraine found herself seated where the governor’s lady was wont to dine, being served by servants attired in the governor’s livery.
They dined on the best the governor’s storehouses and smokehouses had to offer. A steer had been butchered, so there were not only paper-thin slices of the cured hams for which Virginia was famous but also savory roast beef which had been turning on the spit in the big kitchen.
Lorraine was seated between two men who had been called “architects of the rebellion.” On her right was the learned Richard Lawrence, who was rumored to have a black mistress, although she was nowhere in evidence. On Lorraine’s left sat the sturdy Scotsman and former colonial governor William Drummond. His face was rather strained and set and she guessed it had been a wrench for him to set his handsome house on fire. He spoke to her quietly of his wife and four children, who had been sent to safety. The mysterious Mr. Lawrence, rather pensive, discussed more esoteric subjects. These two men, she learned, along with Giles Bland and Captain James Crews (who had been captured by the governor’s forces in a naval engagement), were the leading lights of the rebellion and Bacon’s chief lieutenants.
She looked down the table where their smiling, darkly handsome leader was raising his glass in a toast to her.
But as the meal progressed, the conversation grew increasingly serious. What was to be done about the governor? His ships? His men? Could they get their word through to the king before he did? A pity they had not been able to return him to his monarch in irons as he so richly deserved!
Supper over, Lorraine could see that Drummond and Lawrence were eager to get on with discussing pressing matters. They kept hunching forward, trying to hear what Bacon was saying at the other end of the long table.
Her mother had told her that after dinner ladies in polite society withdrew to the “withdrawing room,” while the gentlemen settled down to discussion and serious drinking.
Tactfully, Lorraine excused herself, for tonight she was a surrogate “governor’s lady,” was she not?
And despite the seriousness of their discussions, there was not an eye that did no follow the beauty out.
Under other circumstances, Lorraine, confronted so recently by proof of Raile’s unfaithfulness, might have wept the night away. But the exhausting day, the wild ride through the night, the heavy meal, the tension of knowing herself to be an impostor who might be found out at any time, all conspired to produce a blessed numbness—and to give her a good night’s sleep.
Morning brought a diffident knock on her door and a servant’s voice inquiring if she would honor Mr. Bacon with her presence at breakfast.
Lorraine dressed quickly and ran downstairs to the big dining room. She found the rebel leader breakfasting with Drummond and the mysterious Lawrence. They seemed to be arguing a literary point—about a play called The Lost Lady written some years before by Governor Berkeley. They rose at her entrance and would have seated her with ceremony at the far end of the table had she not insisted she preferred their company to the splendor of playing hostess.
They laughed at that, and Lorraine settled down to an excellent Southern breakfast. The storehouses of Green Spring, it seemed, were equal to anything.
“I am off to Curies’ Neck today,” Bacon informed her, “to see my wife, and perhaps to bring her back with me to Green Spring.”
“I should like to meet her.” Lorraine sounded sincere but her heart sank. A woman would not be satisfied with a cursory question or two; she would ferret out the truth about her! “But it has been a very long time since I have seen my guardian, and I am eager to find out what ships will soon be leaving from Yorktown.” There was a sudden silence in the room. It was broken by Bacon’s resonant voice.
“You are welcome to stay here as long as you like, of course. In my haste last night I forgot to inquire of your luggage.”
“All burned,” Lorraine said quickly.
His dark brows drew together. “My troops had orders not to—”
She was getting his men into trouble! “I had hidden my things in the inn,” she interrupted hastily, “lest they be carried away by mistake in the general removal that was going on all around me. The innkeeper understood that I wanted to stay and allowed me to hide my trunk and boxes in his cellar, where your troops would doubtless not have thought to look, considering that the rest of the building was vacant.”
That satisfied Bacon but she could see that it did not quite satisfy Drummond. Even Lawrence leaned forward, considering her with more interest.
“A misfortune,” Bacon murmured, taking his last bite. He sat back, brushing his lips delicately with a white damask napkin, his gaze upon Lorraine. She was suddenly afraid of being left alone with Drummond and Lawrence.
She ate quickly and excused herself. She was hurrying from the dining room when Bacon rose. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I am off to the Curies. Mistress London, if I could have a word with you before I leave?”
Lorraine waited for him nervously in the wide hall. “Perhaps we could stroll upon the la
wn for a moment?” he suggested, offering her his arm.
Together they strolled across the green terraced lawns and into the elaborate formal gardens with their artful geometric patterns of clipped boxwood surrounding handsome flowerbeds. In some of those beds late-blooming roses still stood and Lorraine plucked a white one, heavy with scent. As she bent over it enjoying its fragrance, she wondered why the rebel leader had brought her out here away from the others. She cast a look back at the handsome house and thought what it would be like to live there and stroll of evenings through the soft lavender dusk. To live here . . . with Raile—she fought back the thought.
‘Your little brother tells us his name is Johnny Sears,” the man beside her said abruptly.
Lorraine was instantly on her guard. “I should have told you he is my half-brother.”
“Ah, yes . . . half-brother,” he murmured. “He says he is from Bristol. Yet you told me yours was an old Cornish family.” The keen eyes looking down were steady upon her.
“And so it is,” she told him gaily, brandishing the rose. “But when my mother died and my father married again, he removed to Bristol. I did not get on with my stepmother so I stayed in Cornwall. Johnny is my father’s son by his second wife.”
“And his education seems to be very different too,” he commented, studying the trees.
“Yes, well, that is because . . .” Lorraine began breathlessly, and stopped. They had been questioning Johnny Sears, and who knew what he might have told them?
Bacon had come to a halt. His expression told her he had not believed a word she said.
“Johnny is not my brother,” she admitted frankly. “But ... he had nowhere to go and I had to get him out of Jamestown.”
To Love a Rogue Page 28
