The Beloved One

by Danelle Harmon

  THE BELOVED ONE

  By

  Danelle Harmon

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Danelle Harmon

  The Beloved One

  Copyright © 2012 by Danelle Harmon

  License Notes

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  ~~~~

  THE BELOVED ONE

  By Danelle Harmon

  Book 2 of the De Montforte Brothers Series

  ~~~~

  Prologue

  The moon was rising.

  Earlier in the day, and throughout much of the previous one, it had been raining. Now, the last clouds filed swiftly out to sea, riding above trees still bare of leaves and allowing the moon to turn the steeples, rooftops and cobblestoned streets of Boston to silver. In the harbor, the bows of the great warships swung slowly around as the spring tide began to come in. In timber-framed houses all across the town, lamps glowed at doors, faint candlelight shone from behind windows, chimneys spewed wood smoke toward the stars. All was peaceful. All was quiet. The town was settling in for the night.

  Or so it seemed.

  History would remember two lanterns hung in the Old North Church, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, and at daybreak, the battle of Lexington and later, Concord, that would open the American Revolution.

  But there were some things it would not remember.

  On the second floor of Newman House, whose owner resentfully let rooms to the King's officers, a captain in the proud scarlet regimentals of the Fourth Foot sat at his desk, finishing the letter he'd begun earlier to his family in far-off England. . . .

  Newman House, 18 April, 1775

  My dear brother, Lucien,

  It has just gone dark and as I pen these words to you, an air of rising tension hangs above this troubled town. Tonight, several regiments — including mine, the King's Own — have been ordered by General Gage, commander in chief of our forces here in Boston, out to Concord to seize and destroy a significant store of arms and munitions that the rebels have secreted there. Due to the clandestine nature of this assignment, I have ordered my batman, Billingshurst, to withhold the posting of this letter until the morrow, when the mission will have been completed and secrecy will no longer be of concern.

  Although it is my most ardent hope that no blood will be shed on either side during this endeavour, I find that my heart, in these final moments before I must leave, is restless and uneasy. It is not for myself that I am afraid, but another. As you know from my previous letters home, I have met a young woman here with whom I have become attached in a warm friendship. I suspect you do not approve of my becoming so enamoured of a storekeeper's daughter, but things are different in this place, and when a fellow is three thousand miles away from home, love makes a far more desirable companion than loneliness. My dear Miss Paige has made me happy, Lucien, and earlier tonight, she accepted my plea for her hand in marriage. I beg you to understand, and forgive, for I know that someday when you meet her, you will love her as I do.

  My brother, I have but one thing to ask of you, and knowing that you will see to my wishes is the only thing that calms my troubled soul during these last few moments before we depart. If anything should happen to me — tonight, tomorrow, or at any time whilst I am here in Boston — I beg of you to find it in your heart to show charity and kindness to my angel, my Juliet, for she means the world to me. I know you will take care of her if ever I cannot. Do this for me and I shall be happy, Lucien.

  I must close now, as the others are gathered downstairs in the parlour, and we are all ready to move. May God bless and keep you, my dear brother, and Gareth, Andrew, and sweet Nerissa, too.

  Charles

  "Captain? Forgive my intrusion, sir, but everyone's waiting downstairs for you. It's nearly time to leave."

  "Yes, I am sensible to it. I shall be down directly, and do thank everyone for their patience with me, Ensign Gillard." The captain scanned his letter. "Not worried about tonight, now, are you?" he asked conversationally, not looking up as he folded the correspondence.

  "Well, not exactly worried, sir, but . . . well, do you have a bad feeling about this mission?"

  Lord Charles raised his head and regarded him quietly for a moment. "And here I thought it was me," he admitted, his expression both amused and reassuring.

  ""Everything will be all right, won't it, sir?"

  "Of course, Gillard." The smile broadened. "Isn't it always?"

  "Yes. Yes, I suppose it is." Gillard grinned back. "I'll leave you now, sir."

  "Thank you. I shall be down in a moment."

  Gillard closed the door, and dipping his quill in the ink once more, the officer wrote his brother's address across the front of the letter:

  To His Grace the Duke of Blackheath, Blackheath Castle, nr Ravenscombe, Berkshire, England

  There. It was done.

  Putting down his pen, Lord Charles Adair de Montforte rose to his feet, picked up his hat and sword, and, leaving the letter propped on his desk, strode boldly out of the room, down the stairs, and to his fate.

  A fate so tragic that even Gillard's premonition could not have foreseen its very horror.

  ~~~~

  The waiting was terrible.

  Fourteen-year-old Will Leighton lay stretched out flat on his stomach behind a granite wall, his musket propped between two boulders and trained on the ominously still road along which the King's troops would come.

  Easy! he told himself, his heart pounding. You're a man now! A grownup! But he was so tense he felt sick. So jittery he kept forgetting to breathe. Off to his right, several others, all members of the Woburn militia under Major Loammi Baldwin, also lay hidden. None of them looked as nervous as he felt. Eyes flinty beneath their tricorns, they stared toward the road.

  Waiting.

  Will tried to imitate their gritty expressions, but all he could hear was the fierce pounding of his heart. His elbows dug into the spongy, rain-soaked earth. Dampness seeped up through his clothes, chilling his skin, making him shiver. In the maple above, a chickadee flitted from branch to branch, trilling its innocent song: chickadee-dee-dee; chickadee-dee-dee.

  And from fifteen feet away, Baldwin spoke the words they'd all been waiting for:

  "Here they come. Get ready, boys, to let 'em have it."

  And now Will felt a sensation like needles prickling all up and down his spine as he heard it too: Dogs, barking an alarm from somewhere down the road. Distant shouts, sporadic musketfire, the steady rattle and stamp of hundreds of approaching men. Will's hand went sweaty and began to shake. Any moment now, the king's troops, on their way back to Boston after what everyone said was terrible fighting at Concord, would come around the bend and into view.

  He swallowed, the taste of fear metallic on his tongue. Nearby, his cousin Tom narrowed his eyes, spat, and brought his musket to full-cock.

  "Oh, we'll let 'em have it, all right. Come on, you bastards . . . We've been waiting for this moment for years."

  And come they did. Will's eyes widened and his heart quailed as the troops, nearly a thousand men strong, streamed around the bend like a river of blood. They were an awesome and terrible sight. Mounted officers in scarlet coats rode alongside them waving swords and barking orders. Sunlight flashed from bayonets, gorgets and pewter buttons. But closer scrut
iny revealed the signs of battle. Many, limping painfully, had all they could do to walk; others were borne on litters and in carts, and still others were so bloody that their breeches, snow white only hours earlier, were as red as their wool coats. There was exhaustion in their eyes. Desperation in their faces.

  But Will, who'd heard all about what had happened at both Lexington and Concord earlier this day, felt no pity.

  And neither did Baldwin as he roared, "Fire!"

  From both sides of the road, a barrage of musket shot slammed into the unsuspecting troops, catching them in a deadly crossfire. Horses, screaming, bolted in terror. Soldiers fell dead as colonial muskets banged out, instantly cutting them down. Redcoat officers, shouting commands, sent their horses charging to and fro, trying to restore order and organize the troops into fighting formation, and soon answering volleys of shot were plowing into the surrounding trees and enveloping the rocky pasture in thick, acrid smoke.

  Discharging his musket and retreating behind a massive oak, Will reloaded, his hands shaking so badly that he spilled half his black powder down his leg. He rammed the ball and wadding home, his nerves shot as all around him yelling minutemen ran past, diving behind rocks and trees to aim and fire and reload once more. He brought his musket up again, just in time to see a wild-eyed young ensign break rank and sprint toward them from out of the drifting smoke, leaping a stone wall and yelling at the top of his lungs, "Come out and fight fairly you cowards, you damned rebel wretches! Show yourselves and do battle like brave men, not skulking Indians!"

  "Gillard, get back!" shouted a redcoat captain, splendid in scarlet and white, the blue facings of his uniform proclaiming him to be one of the King's Own — and sent his horse charging down on the runaway ensign at a full gallop.

  Tom narrowed his eyes and raised his musket. "He's mine, the son of a bitch."

  And fired.

  Will would remember it for the rest of his life: The deafening roar of Tom's musket. Half the young ensign's face going up in a fountain of blood. His body seeming to trip and somersault, rolling over and over in the just-greening grass before it slammed up against the granite wall that Will had just vacated.

  "Got 'im!" crowed Tom, thrusting his musket skyward a second before a ball sliced through his neck, instantly killing him.

  Will had no time to react, for at that very moment the captain's horse exploded out of the smoke, sailing over the stone wall like an apparition. Five feet from where the ensign lay screaming in agony, the captain pulled the animal up and leaped from the saddle. Ignoring the lead whining about him, he ran to the young soldier, lifted him in his arms and carried him back toward the fretting, wild-eyed horse.

  Will stood transfixed. Never had he seen such steely courage, such selfless devotion to a subordinate. The captain's hawkish face was hard, his eyes the December-ice clarity of aquamarine, and as he turned his back on Will and gently hoisted the soldier up into the saddle, Will knew he was going to have to kill him.

  He leaped out of hiding.

  Fired.

  And oh my God missed.

  The captain turned his cool, level stare on Will, one pale, arched brow lifting with the sort of surprised annoyance that any well-seasoned warrior might show a colonial bumpkin trying to irritate the finest army in the world. Will's stomach flipped over. Nausea strangled his throat. Too terrified even to reload, he froze as the captain picked up his ensign's musket and trained it dead-center on Will's chest. The blue eyes, so competent, so self-assured, so very, very dangerous, narrowed a second before the redcoat would have blown him into eternity.

  "Don't shoot!" Will squeaked, and his voice cracked, revealing his age — or rather lack of it.

  The captain realized Will's youth at the same moment the weapon discharged and jerked the musket skyward, trying to deflect his fire. Flames roared from that long and terrible muzzle, shooting straight over Will's head. The gun's fierce kick, combined with the unnatural angle at which it had been fired, threw the officer off balance. As he stepped backward to regain it, his heel sank into a hollow in the soft April earth and he fell straight into the wall of granite, the musket flying from his hand and the back of his skull striking one sharp, lichen-caked boulder with an awful, thudding crack. For a moment, he seemed to gaze up at Will in astonishment as he lay there spread-eagled against the rocks; then the pale blue eyes lost focus and clouded over, their thick lashes coming down like a curtain on the last act as his head slid sideways, leaving a smear of blood on the boulder behind him.

  For a moment, Will stared at the dead man in horror.

  Then he turned and fled.

  Letter from General Thomas Gage, Commander-In-Chief of His Majesty's forces, to Lucien de Montforte, His Grace the Duke of Blackheath . . .

  My dear Duke,

  I regret to inform you that whilst on a mission to Concord to seize arms that the rebels had secreted there, your brother, Captain Lord Charles de Montforte, was engaged in fighting and fatally injured. From all accounts, His Lordship fought bravely and selflessly, bringing glory to his family's name and tears throughout his regiment upon confirmation of his death.

  Enclosed herein is the regimental gorget taken from Lord Charles's body immediately prior to burial in Concord, along with a letter that his servant, Billingshurst, found propped on his desk the day of his death. His dress regimentals will follow. I hope that these will bring you some comfort in this darkest of hours. Your brother was greatly respected and admired by both superiors and subordinates; he was ambitious and supremely confident in his own abilities, but like the best-loved commanders, never crossed that fine line into arrogance. He was an asset to this army, to his country, and a beloved friend to all who knew and served under and with him.

  Respectfully yours,

  Genl. Thomas Gage

  Chapter 1

  "Make sure you whip the butter well when you churn it this morning, Amy. And for goodness sake, do add more salt this time," sniffed Mildred Leighton as she strode huffily past her sister. "There's nothing worse than bland butter, and you never do seem to get it right."

  "Oh, and Amy, since you're doing the washing today, don't forget my blue petticoats. There are mud stains on the hem and they look positively dreadful," added Ophelia, coming downstairs and going straight to the looking glass on the wall.

  "Yes, Ophelia. Yes, Mildred," sighed the thin figure, stooping nearly double beneath the lintel of the keeping room's massive fireplace. Pushing the iron crane off to one side, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and, kneeling on the sooty bricks, began shoveling ash from out of the pit beneath the bake oven.

  Ophelia, vainly fluffing her blond curls until they haloed her face, turned from the looking glass and regarded her half-sister with disdain. "And make sure my petticoats are ready by tomorrow afternoon. Matthew Ashton has promised to take me for a drive, and I want to look my best."

  "Matthew Ashton?" hissed Mildred, outraged. Already a bold and enterprising young sea captain, Matthew would someday inherit his father's Ashton Shipyards — and was probably one of the best catches in Newburyport. "How dare he ask you and not me!"

  Amy thought it fine time to interrupt before things degenerated into a cat fight. "Perhaps Matthew will ask you next week, Mildred," she soothed.

  Mildred turned on her. "Just because your one and only friend on this earth happens to be Matthew's sister — that bad-mannered little hoyden, Mira — don't think that makes you an authority on Matthew."

  "Or an authority on men," added Ophelia.

  "Amy? An authority on men?" Mildred shrieked with laughter. "The only men Amy might ever become an authority on are the sort that work along the docks and ogle her!"

  Both Mildred and Ophelia guffawed, pitiless as Amy's cheeks reddened beneath their sooty glaze of ash smoke.

  "I don't know how you can stand there and laugh, when Will's still not back from Uncle Eb's and for all we know, something awful might've happened to him," she said, thinking of the rider who had ga
lloped through Newburyport late last night with the news that fighting had finally broken out down at Lexington and Concord between the redcoats and local militia groups. "Cousin Tom was in the Woburn militia. They were in the fighting, and you know as well as I do that where Tom leads, Will is sure to follow."

  Her half-sisters stared at her coldly. "My, my, aren't we the righteous one," sneered Mildred, hands on her hips. "Instead of fretting over Will, why don't you worry about poor Ophelia and me and let out my jacket?!"

  "If she wasn't down at the harborfront dreaming of places she'll never go and men she'll never meet, she'd have gotten it done yesterday like she was supposed to," said Ophelia, with a haughty glance at the gaunt figure still on her knees on the ashy firebox. "You'd better get your head out of the clouds, Amy, because you have a better chance of snaring the moon than you do a respectable man, and don't you forget it."

  Amy went silently back to her chores. They were right, of course. She was wasting her time, dreaming about things that would never be. But how could she not dream, when reality was nothing but boredom and drudgery? She was resigned to the fact that she would live and die a spinster, just as she was resigned to the fact that, for the remainder of Papa's life, she — less than a daughter, yet more than a servant — would keep house for him, cook his meals, and help him write his sermons now that his eyesight was beginning to fail. In return, she would always have a place to live. Hers wasn't such a bad lot, really; after all, she had a roof over her head and decent food in her belly. But lately, she found herself wanting more, and long after the household went to bed, she would lie beneath the covers and dream of what her life would be like if only she were pretty and respectable like her sisters.

  If only she was like the other young women of Newburyport, entitled to the same dreams that they had. . . .