Skin crawling, it was all she could do to not grab her goblet and splash its contents into his face before storming out. “If I were not repulsed by such an arrangement, I might not be as anxious to leave Georgetown.” Though that was not fair, nor completely true. Charles would marry her and provide for her.
Major Layton’s brows rose, then he laughed. “Ah, that explains why you have come to me in the first place. Your brother-in-law owns two fine ships, and yet here you remain.”
Lydia dropped her gaze. Her stays bit into her ribs. “Just tell me if we have a bargain. I give you information, and you deliver me safe and sound to England’s shores.”
Footsteps in the hall announced Charles’s return. He strode across the room, his pointed glare on Lydia as he lowered himself into his chair at the head of the table. “The Zephyr sails tomorrow and Captain Hues wished to know if I had any last minute instructions.”
“I preferred Captain Ross.” The one who had served her father. “I do not understand why you replaced him with Hues.”
“Hues is a good sailor and a good man.”
Lydia couldn’t argue the first point, but to her he seemed…secretive. Devious, even.
Charles took a drink of his wine. “Did I miss anything, my dear?”
“No.” Major Layton touched the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “Miss Reynolds was telling me how well she loved the South Carolina countryside. And how she would hate to leave.” He looked to her with a nod. “Someday you will have to accompany me on a ride and show me what secrets this land has to offer.”
5
Daniel approached the morning fire, bedroll tucked under his arm.
“Good morning, Sergeant,” Marion greeted from his place near the fire. “Have some breakfast.”
“Thank you.” Daniel took the sweet potato, their staple food the past week, and sat down on the log, letting his bedroll drop behind him. Dawn hugged the horizon, slow to dissipate the haze of blue still draped over the forest. A bird or two announced the day, but most of the men still slept. “What’s our next move?”
Before the Colonel had a chance to answer, Gabe stepped over the log and lowered himself beside Daniel. He wore a big grin, though his eyes remained glazed from lack of sleep. “Poor little lizard.” Gabe chuckled.
Daniel shook his head. Of course the kid had to remind him.
“What lizard?” The elder Marion leaned forward so he could see his nephew on the other side of Daniel.
“Just a little one looking for a warm place to sleep. Nights are getting cold out here. Seems Sergeant Reid isn’t one for sharing, though.” Gabe nudged Daniel with his elbow.
“First of all, it wasn’t that little of a lizard, and second of all, I like sleeping alone.”
“That explains why you’re out here with us,” the lad shot back.
His uncle gave a laugh, and then a censoring look. “Young Gabe.”
Daniel peeled off the blackened surface of his sweet potato, dug out a chunk with the tip of his knife and took a bite of the lukewarm mush, reheated from last night’s dinner. “No, it’s fine. In a lot of ways he’s right.”
“You are unmarried?”
As always that word beckoned thoughts of Rachel Garnet. Standing before her on the land he had worked so hard for, the little cabin in the background, the stream running behind him. The moment had been perfect, as though God Himself arranged it just for them. The ground had been soft under his knee when he’d slipped down to ask her to be his wife. Their one kiss still haunted him—that moment she’d softened in his arms, only to pull away and ask for time.
Time.
He’d been such a fool. She’d never felt anything for him. Friendship, perhaps. But not love. Daniel cleared his throat, and attempted the same with his mind, refusing to give her more thought. “No. I’m not married. The only woman I wanted chose a British captain instead.” He no longer held anything against Andrew Wyndham—except for the fact he lived the life Daniel wanted, on his land, and with the woman he’d loved.
“Ouch.” Gabe grimaced beside him.
“That was a long time ago.” And he needed to move on. Thankfully, only two men witnessed his confession. Daniel took another bite, minding the glinting edge of his knife as he pushed the sweet potato into his mouth. “What is the plan for today, Colonel?”
Marion rested his elbows on his knees and extended his hands toward the fire. “It’s been a busy week for the British and Tories, but for now we’ll sit low. Day after tomorrow we’ll start toward the Black River through Williamsburg and then on toward Georgetown.”
Daniel brought his head up. “Maybe I should ride on ahead and into Georgetown. My…friend there might know what the redcoats have planned. Besides, if I keep up appearances, they might decide I’m harmless enough.”
Gabe nodded to where Daniel’s saddle leaned against a tree, the walking cane still strapped across the side. “Your limp better be as good as your story.”
“I’ve seen how it’s done most of my life,” Daniel said, not letting the guilt linger as he had in the past. “My pa had his leg crushed under a felled tree when I was a boy. He’s struggled with that limp for a lot of years now. That cane is supposed to be for him.” He’d wanted his father to have something nice. “But I imagine it’ll serve me well enough while I’m here.”
Colonel Marion didn’t look as confident. “I would feel better if you could tell me more about your friend.”
“I would sir, but…” Daniel glanced around. Lydia had asked him not to reveal her identity to anyone, but surely her secret would be safe with the colonel and his nephew. He was already prepared to trust them with his own life. “If you could first promise me no one will hear her name besides yourselves—”
“Her?” Marion raised a brow but nodded. “You have our word.”
“Miss Reynolds. Lydia Reynolds.” Daniel liked the way her name felt on his tongue. The way it sounded. With her dark hair and brilliant eyes, Lydia suited her well. “Her family are Tories, and she fears for both them and herself if anyone were to know of her true loyalties. They have a British officer quartered in their home.”
Marion stood. “All right, Sergeant, ride ahead and meet up with us as soon as you can. You know our route.”
“Yes, sir.” He finished his potato as Marion moved toward the horses.
Other men rose from their bedrolls and hurried to light fires. Daniel chuckled to himself. He’d heard more and more grumbling as temperatures dropped, but he didn’t understand it. Sure, the damp air made the chill penetrate his clothes a little more, but otherwise it wasn’t much colder than a late summer morning in New England.
Gabe picked up a stick and rolled another sweet potato from the coals. The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “So, this friend—the one who says she can get you information from the redcoats—is she pretty?”
Daniel tossed the charred skin of his sweet potato in the fire and gave the lad a pointed look, and then clapped him on the back. Daniel took his bedroll to his saddle and tied it into place. Yes. Though nothing like Rachel Garnet, he could not deny that Lydia Reynolds was indeed a beautiful woman.
~*~
Lydia left the door open as she stepped into what had been father’s private library, his refuge when home from voyages. They had made no changes to the room since his death. She breathed deeply of the sweet, musty smell of paper, and brushed her fingertips over the embossed leather spines of books. Morning light filtered through the large windows and past heavy maroon drapes, while dust motes danced their welcome. She’d avoided this room since Father’s death three years earlier. Though he’d often been gone on one voyage or another, she’d still loved him with all her heart. Just as she had loved Margaret. Mother. Little David and Martin. Everyone gone…but her. They had left, leaving her nothing but fear. She would never let herself hurt like that again—pain that still haunted, tearing through her whenever she thought of her family.
“What do you have for me?”
> Lydia spun to Major Layton as he sauntered into the room. She laid her hand to her collar and caught her breath. “Nothing as of yet. I had someone watch the livery, and the rebel returned to Georgetown last night. I was about to write a message asking him to meet me.”
He walked to her father’s desk and perched on the corner. “Then why did you ask to speak with me?”
She forced her hands to relax at her sides. She couldn’t have him know how nervous this whole affair made her. Her success was too vital. “If I am to be a spy for the rebels, I need information to give them. Something they can prove true, but inconsequential at the same time.”
“Ah, I see what you mean. To gain their trust.”
“Precisely.” She couldn’t very well tell Mr. Reid everything she’d overheard at the dinner table. That would only make her a traitor, too.
The major stood and paced the distance between the desk and the door, his polished boots beating out his steps. After a couple of minutes, he turned to her and straightened the crisp scarlet coat, a sharp contrast to his white breeches. “I have it. The Allston’s plantation. But timing will be vital. Today is the thirteenth. We can’t have him passing along this information until the fifteenth.”
“What information is that, sir?”
“Tell him that you’ve learned Loyalists have pitched camp at Allston’s plantation. Make it sound like a small group.”
“But not until the fifteenth.”
“Yes.” He gave a smile. “By then a larger company will be on their way there. You see, it is perfect, Miss Reynolds, the information you give will be accurate, just incomplete. Something they cannot fault you for.”
But would deceive them nonetheless. A trap. Lydia’s stomach tightened without the assistance of her stays. What had she been thinking when she’d conceived this plan? “But how will I hold him off for that long?”
Layton chuckled, circling her. “This is your game, Miss Reynolds. But I will give you some advice. If you want to truly gain his trust so he’ll offer you information, you need to do more than spy for him. You have a lot of charm when you want to. Use it.”
“Sir, I…” Lydia raised her chin. Though her words faltered, her gaze did not. Major Layton needed to accept that she would never lower herself to the level of a tavern maid. She may not be a lady of name, or title, or even wealth anymore, but she had been raised a lady.
He only smiled. “Try your hand at getting this rebel to give you information, but if it does not work, as I highly suspect it shan’t, then I shall take over and show you how to properly get information out of a man.” He leaned near, his breath hot on her neck. “If you cannot break him with pleasure, then we will have to try pain.”
Lydia hastened back a step and gripped the edge of the bookshelf. “I will get the information. Do not concern yourself about that, sir. And this way you can use him to feed the rebels bits of news, as well. How much more useful will that be? Just see that you are ready to keep your side of our bargain. I am already packing my luggage. I will not stay here longer than I absolutely must.”
“Of course.” His tone still conveyed doubt.
“I will find Colonel Marion’s camp for you.”
“The Swamp Fox, Miss Reynolds. If you are to walk with the rabble, you should be careful to talk like them. That’s what the Patriots have begun to call their Colonel Marion.” With a shallow bow, he turned, strode to the doorway, and then looked back. “I must say, Miss Reynolds, I always found you a handsome woman, but this new side to you, the fire that ignites your eyes…” He saluted. “I almost feel sorry for the poor rebel. But yes, I will stand back and allow you to try it your way first.”
Lydia leaned into the shelves of books as Major Layton’s footsteps bade her farewell. Good riddance. She filled her lungs to their full capacity and slowly released the breath. She had a limited time to prove productive in her interrogating, but she would not fail.
Seated in her father’s chair, Lydia withdrew a sheet of stationary from the top drawer, filled the ink well, and picked up her father’s quill pen. His favorite. She slipped the silky feather between her fingers, an ache rising in her chest. Mother had given the pen to him the year before the smallpox epidemic that had taken her and the boys.
Lydia hurried her motions, not caring about the ink blots she dribbled across the page, or giving it enough time to dry sufficiently. She blew on her scrawled letters once, and then rolled the note into a small pouch.
~*~
Daniel tucked the note into his pocket, the muscles in his cheeks contracting at the corners of his mouth. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to smile, but for some reason the thought of Miss Lydia Reynolds evoked the reaction. With his weight on his cane with each step, he made his way to his saddled horse and passed a coin to the stable boy. “Thanks.”
Getting into the saddle while feigning his injury was not easy, but he had practiced. Madam shifted under him, anxious for his command. A click of the tongue was the only encouragement required. Perhaps she sensed his own eagerness.
Outside of town, Daniel slowed his mount. He needed to get his mind straightened out. This was not the time or place for developing attachments, and Miss Reynolds was not the woman. Though it didn’t bother him that she was well bred and probably more educated than him, the fact that such might bother her, bothered him. He’d been foolish enough where Rachel was concerned and they’d been cut from the same cloth, their families homesteading the Mohawk Valley together. He wouldn’t set himself up for failure again.
Daniel rode west a short way, before turning south into a thickly wooded area. Towering trees spread almost naked branches overhead, only a few gold and brown leaves left clinging. Rays of sun danced across him, and the mat of moss and freshly fallen leaves silenced the usual plodding of Madam’s hooves, leaving the rustle of the breeze and the twittering of birds the only insurgence against complete serenity. But how was he supposed to find one specific tree in the middle of—
Daniel reined Madam in at the sight of a great trunk. Branches, like huge arms, extended in every direction, a couple bending low against the earth as though the tree had become too weary to hold them up anymore. Daniel swung from the saddle, not bothering with his cane. No one was likely to see him out here and he was honestly too mesmerized to care. Up north he’d cut acres of evergreen and cottonwood, and even some oak with Pa, but he’d never seen anything like this, even in the back country of New York. He’d already been impressed by the cypresses along the marshes, the growth no doubt the result of ample water and warmth, but this…
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Daniel’s head jerked to where Lydia walked around the broad base of the tree, ducking under one branch that rivaled her for thickness, and stepping over another. “Yes, it is.”
“Even more so in the summer with everything brilliantly green.”
“I imagine so.” Daniel wrapped Madam’s reins around the smaller end of a limb, his gaze never deviating from Lydia.
She sat on the branch she had crossed over. Though more than a foot and a half in diameter, the massive limb swooped to run parallel to the earth a short distance before drooping against the leaf-littered ground.
“I got your message.”
“I gathered.” Her hands were clasped together on her lap as she watched him with those lake-green eyes. “I am glad you returned when you did. I have news.”
6
Lydia stood as Daniel secured his mare to a smaller branch and walked to the wide base of the oak. He laid his hand over the ridged bark and filled his lungs. “This tree is magnificent. How old do you think it is?”
“I am sure I do not know. But yes, it is magnificent.” A loose strand of hair tickled her cheek as a breeze stole through the grove from the nearby bay. “I love it here.” Something she would miss when she left South Carolina, but undoubtedly England also boasted beautiful forests.
Daniel turned to her, but his gaze only skimmed over her before he looked up at the expanse
of branches above them. “What have you found out?”
“Colonel Tarleton has given up pursuit of Colonel Marion for now.” She gave him her most winsome smile. “Once again the Swamp Fox has outwitted the English hound.”
Daniel’s mouth pulled up at that.
“Tarleton is tracking Colonel Sumter now. Up by Camden.” Common enough knowledge. Nothing that would hurt the British. “I also know groups of Loyalists are gathering in the area at some of the local plantations. I did not have a chance to find out which ones, but tomorrow Major Layton has guests—officers. They often become quite free with their conversation, so if you can wait another day…”
Daniel rapped his knuckles against the tree. “I suppose a day won’t hurt.”
“When does Colonel Marion expect you back? You found him?” Lydia held her voice even though her heart did little skips as she turned the questioning.
“Yes, I found him. And I told him about you.”
Her chest seized. “Surely you understand it is not safe for me? If anyone else found out—if the wrong people…” There were those who knew exactly where her true loyalties rested.
“Only the Colonel and Gabriel Marion, his nephew. No one else knows. I trust the man. With my life.”
“And with mine, it seems.”
“Yes.”
Lydia gave a sigh. There was nothing for it now. She did not know Francis Marion personally, so as long as he kept his silence and trusted Daniel’s opinion of her… “And the nephew?”
“Cut from the same cloth.” Daniel shook his head and gave a bit of a chuckle. “He’s a good lad. Young, but on fire with our cause. Already a lieutenant. He’ll do his family proud. The Colonel is unmarried and has no children, but I get the impression that’s how he feels for young Gabe.”
“Young Gabe?”
“Gabriel’s a family name. His grandfather, and father, I think. Or another uncle.”
The Patriot and the Loyalist Page 4
