The Love Letter

by Rachel Hauck

  “You weave the tale you wish me to believe, Lightfoot. Come, man, fess up. You fired upon my daughter.”

  “Fire upon her? I’d rather kiss her. I want to marry her.” The heat of his ardor branded his countenance. Had he not learned better to guard his words? Now Sir Michael knew the truth and bore the upper hand.

  Sir Michael grinned, slow, wicked. “You love my daughter? You want to marry her?”

  “Does this come as a surprise to you? I thought you a keen observer of human nature.”

  “You speak correctly. I am a keen observer. Why do you think I sent her back to London? Yes, to make her debut to society and be presented in court, but also to be rid of you. She has the makings of a duchess or countess.” Sir Michael toyed with his mustache. “She’s destined for better stuff than the likes of you.”

  “Then why did you raise her in the backwoods of South Carolina for over a decade? Why did you allow her to return home? For your own company? Your own selfishness?” Hamilton turned away. “Go. Tend your daughter. If you’ve any softness in your heart, pray for her.”

  “You know your uncle and I had a falling out.”

  “About what, pray tell?” Hamilton paused on the path, under the maple where the rain collected in the leaves. “I’m not privy to the details.”

  “He’s in possession of a tract of land Lord Whatham believes I acquired some time ago, but I did not.”

  “Did you squander your employer’s capital? Is he now demanding an accounting?”

  He laughed. “I could be persuaded of a union between you and Esther if you would give me that land.”

  “Give? Do you see pound sterlings falling from my pockets? Give, nay, but sell . . . Then you must face your employer with your own ill deeds.” Hamilton propped one foot on the stone steps. “But what part of Quill Farm could you desire, sir?” If Uncle Laurence had purchased land, he did not tell Hamilton. And he felt sure the poorer Lightfoots purchased no land out from under the richer Longfellows with their Whatham resources.

  “Not part, but all. The entire tract you call Quill Farm.”

  Hamilton laughed. A drop of rain dripped from the edge of a green leaf onto his cheek. “Have you gone mad, sir? Uncle’s owned the land for nearly fifteen years.”

  Sir Michael bristled, his cheeks red, his eyes wide. “Your uncle stole the land out from under me when I was away. I’ve been trying for fifteen years to acquire it back.”

  “So your friendship with us was insincere?” Hamilton remained confident, steady, the rain trickling down the back of his collar.

  “A man of business must maintain good relations with his neighbors.” Sir Michael stepped down toward Hamilton. “I’ve been patient . . . for far too long. I should’ve called in his loan six years ago when he first fell ill and couldn’t repay his debt.”

  “I repaid the debt.” As Uncle Laurence fell ill, the daily burden of the farm fell to seventeen-year-old Hamilton. “Out of respect for you. Now I see you intended to do us harm.”

  “I will obtain the land, Hamilton. One way or another.”

  “The farm is mine and Aunt Mary’s now.” Hamilton backed away from the house with a tip of his hat. This exchange was over. “Your quarrel, I’m afraid, is with a dead man.”

  “Then you can forget your affections for my Esther,” Sir Michael called after him. “And I blame you, Lightfoot, for her being shot. She’d not have been in town save for you. Keep your distance from her. I say, keep your distance.”

  Hamilton walked on, the rain cooling his rage. Sir Michael was right. He must bear the blame. He had not protected her, nor rushed her to safety when the funeral turned to fighting. He cared only for his own grief.

  Now his hands were stained red. With her blood. Twimball and his men would answer to the Almighty, make no mistake, but he would not escape judgment either.

  Coming to the road, he paused. To his left, Ninety Six and the tavern where Captain Irwin recruited for the cause.

  To his right, Quill Farm, where Uncle Laurence and Aunt Mary had taken him in as their own child. It was a place to think and pray, if he dared. With a sigh, he glanced back at Slathersby Hill, then took the road toward home.

  The house was dark and quiet. Sorrow filled the emptiness.

  “Aunt Mary?”

  He ran upstairs two at a time. She’d not yet returned home. Back down in the kitchen, Hamilton filled the wash basin with cold water from the well, then stripped off his shirt. With soap scooped from the tub, he scrubbed his hands, his face and neck, his arms, then his hair. He must . . . must . . . must wash away the sorrow and bloody stain of the day.

  Memories from his childhood surfaced. Scenes of his pa’s quarrel with an arrogant Englishman in a red coat.

  Snapping a towel from the rod, he dried off and paced, echoes of his conversation with Sir Michael resounding.

  Was everyone he held most dear to be killed? Wounded? Was he cursed in some manner? First Papa by a bayonet, then Mama and little sister, Betsy, by a fire. And Uncle Laurence, also by a fire. Now Esther, shot, bleeding.

  He sat at the kitchen table. “Will you forever chase me, death? What must I do to escape your tendrils?”

  Hearing a sound outside, he jolted to his feet to find young James Carter standing in the lean-to with wide, blue eyes.

  “There’s a meeting at the tavern. My pa sent me to fetch you.”

  “What for?”

  “Don’t know, sir.” With that, the boy was gone, the rhythm of his pony racing down the muddy road leaving a heavy echo in the wind.

  Propped against the door, Hamilton stared toward the barn. If he had any gumption, any energy, he’d saddle Tilly and get to it. But his body felt like lead, as if a chain of despair anchored him to something he could not see nor feel.

  “I see they sent the Carter boy for you.” Aunt Mary entered the kitchen, her face ashen, her dress soaked and clinging to her frail frame. Her silver and gold hair fell from its pins and curled about her face. Mud clung to the hem of her skirt.

  “They did, but I won’t go.” Hamilton helped her to her chair. “How do you fare?”

  “He’s gone, Hamilton.” Circles of grief rimmed her eyes. She tried to smile, but there was no truth in it. “I cannot remember a time without him.” She rose up, taking a meat pie from the larder. “We were as you and Esther, friends from childhood.”

  “You don’t have to prepare a meal. You’ve just laid your husband to rest.”

  “We must eat. Going hungry will not bring him back. I did not feed the mourners. So I must feed my nephew.” She pressed her hand to his cheek. “You should go to the tavern.”

  He recognized the shadows in her eyes. He saw the same darkness whenever he peered into the looking glass.

  “I won’t go with them.” His confession rang familiar, but not so true. Was he merely being stubborn? Choosing passivity from a child’s perspective and not a man’s? Was he giving due respect to the cause? But could he . . . fight with honor?

  “Do you stay away from the war because of your pa? And now your uncle? They would want you to fight. Laurence was just saying he intended to speak to you about going along with Irwin and the militia. He was, as your pa, an ardent patriot.”

  “How can I go? Leave you, a widow, alone? Who will tend the chores and—”

  “Excuses, my boy. I’m strong and able. I have Ox and Moses. They’re too old to fight and they have their freedom, such as it is.” The mulatto brothers had a home down by the creek, their manumission papers framed and hung over the fireplace. “Mrs. Reed will come and assist me. I’ll not be alone.”

  “You sound as if you want me to go.”

  “Are you to sit by and watch your friends and neighbors take up arms, fight for you and me?”

  “I’ve taken up arms before.”

  “You were a boy. Defending your family.” Aunt Mary floured her work table and reached for the sourdough jar, her voice growing stronger, passionate. “Now you are a man, and you must defend all f
amilies. You must defend your nation. The war is no longer only in Massachusetts and Virginia. It’s here, in our backyard, in our fields.”

  “I fear I’ll only kill for revenge.”

  “Seek the Almighty. He will teach you about humility and honor. Even in war.”

  “And let God judge between me and the men slain by my bullets?” He left the kitchen and crossed to the parlor.

  “Then you’re going?” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’ll fetch you a clean shirt.”

  At the gun rack, Hamilton took down his pa’s pistol and Uncle Laurence’s Brown Bess, along with his own pistol and rifle. Collecting his pouch of powder and box of bullets, he addressed Aunt Mary one final time.

  “What will you do if I get myself killed?”

  “Do what we all must do every day. Trust in the Almighty.”

  He found Captain Irwin in the tavern owner’s private room, huddled together with old and new recruits.

  Ben Quincey stood when Hamilton entered. “At last.”

  One by one, each man stood, greeting him with applause. Captain Irwin welcomed him with a somber handshake. “Come, meet the men of the Upper Ninety Six Militia.”

  10

  JESSE

  The kiss lingered. Saying good-bye to a friend never tasted so good. Breaking away, Jesse studied Chloe’s expression, the emotion in her eyes and on her cheeks.

  Did she feel what he felt? Something old. Something new. Already he wanted more. Not just a kiss, though he’d invite her lips to his any time, but he wanted the woman beneath the kiss.

  Her thoughts, her feelings, her likes and dislikes. He wanted to know the reason for the quizzical glint in her green eyes. And the source of the smirk on her lips.

  He turned toward the deck doors. “It’s getting late.”

  She nodded, shoving a lock of hair from her face, a slight breathless heave in her breasts. “Yes, right. I feel like I’ve been trying to leave forever.”

  “I’ll drive you.” Jesse reached for her clutch on the glass end table.

  “You don’t need to drive me.” She pulled her phone from the small, beaded bag. “I’ll call for a car.”

  “Car? No, Chloe, I’ll drive you.”

  “Dad has a service. It’s not a problem. Hello, Chloe Daschle, number 413. Jesse, what’s the address?”

  He repeated the house number, waiting for her to hang up. A chivalrous man would drive her. He wanted to be chivalrous. Perhaps needed to be. And he must start somewhere. With someone.

  “It’ll be here in a few minutes.” She stepped around him toward the door, and it took every ounce of Jesse’s restraint not to scoop her in his arms and carry her inside.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything. For rescuing this crazy bridesmaid. For making tonight fun. For the pizza and washing the pie from my face.”

  “You didn’t have pie on your face.” He took her hand, leading her to the deck railing. “We can watch for the car from up here. Until then, we gaze at the stars. At least the ones we can see between the lights.”

  “My first role ever was as a star.” Chloe propped her arms on the railing, leaning into the breeze. “Ironic, huh? I was the shining light over Bethlehem in my kindergarten play. Let me tell you, I rehearsed and rehearsed. Asked my mother about method acting, and on opening night I beamed with all my might.”

  “A star was born.”

  “A star was not born, but a five-year-old was bit by the acting bug. What about you, techie-turned-actor?”

  “My first acting gig was in college. A friend wrote a script for a class and decided to try his hand at filming, directing. He saw his movie as the next Napoleon Dynamite. I played the lead—a goofy college kid trying to cheat his way through MIT. It was horrible. I was horrible.”

  “Were you? A goofy college kid trying to cheat his way through MIT?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Ah, so you had to really act.”

  “Yes, but I knew more about turning ones and zeros into pretty pictures on a screen than how to act. The whole thing was a cliché. A conglomeration of Napoleon Dynamite, Shakespeare, Ferris Bueller, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Muppets, and I think Smokey and the Bandit.”

  “Oh, now I have to see this movie.” She tossed her head back, laughing. “Surely you have a copy.”

  “I burned it.” Jesse slapped his hand to his chest. “Please . . . change the subject. This is giving me a panic attack.”

  “What’s the name of it?”

  He laughed. “Nothing doing.”

  “So it’s online somewhere?”

  “Probably.”

  She turned to him. “Tell me, Mr. Gates, can you find things . . . online . . . like, say, a video, and remove it?”

  “If I could, I know for certain that movie would be vaporized.”

  “Then you can’t.”

  He pointed up. “See the stars? So many, and the light shining for billions of miles.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can’t capture the light of the stars, and sadly, you can’t completely remove a video shared on the Internet.” He peered at her. “Especially if you’re famous.”

  “Famous? Who said anything about being famous? I’m asking for a friend.”

  “There are laws, you know, to prevent such things.”

  “She knows.”

  “But they didn’t help?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “She could sue the offending party.”

  Chloe shivered. “She doesn’t want the publicity.”

  “How long has your, um, friend, been in this situation?”

  She shrugged. “A few years. Her situation sort of resolved itself, but every once in a while . . . Oh, there’s the car.” She gripped his hands. “Thanks again for tonight, Jesse.”

  “More than my pleasure.” He walked her down to where the car’s driver waited by the passenger door. “Chloe, your shoes.” Jesse opened his truck, reaching in for the pink stilettos.

  “Right.” Her hand brushed his as she hooked her fingers through the straps. Their eyes met. “Night.”

  “Night.” Hands in his pockets, he watched her slip into the backseat. When she rolled down the window, he stepped to the edge of the drive.

  “I had a good time.”

  “Me too.”

  As the taillights disappeared around the bend, Jesse jogged across the road to the beach, toward the song of the waves, the essence of Chloe Daschle resting on him. Maybe, just maybe, he was finally beginning to heal.

  ESTHER

  Shouting resounded from the library below. Stirring, Esther tried to push up in the bed, but the pain cutting across her shoulder forced her back to her pillows.

  “Father? Sassy?”

  Sassy appeared at her bedside. “You’re awake. Thank the Lord. I’ll get you some broth. Dr. Rocourt done been here and said to keep your arm still.”

  The dimly lit room was warm. Too warm. Esther’s nightdress clung to her damp body, and the blankets were tucked too tightly about her legs. At the window, a slight touch of daylight crept around the edge of the drawn draperies.

  Voices carried up from the library again.

  “. . . that’s preposterous. They fired . . . us. My word . . .”

  “Good people . . . Loyalists . . . the Crown . . . my daughter among them.”

  “Rebels . . . not to be trusted.”

  “Who fired . . . daughter?”

  “. . . I saw him . . . my own eyes.”

  “. . . hold you responsible . . .”

  Footsteps hammered across the floor. The front door slammed.

  “Who is with Father?” Esther tried to push upright again. “Please, Sassy, open a window. And blow out these candles.” Tiny flames flickered from nearly every corner of the room and from every surface. “Am I a loaf of bread to be baked in the oven?”

  “Your father feared you’d catch a summer cold. He ordered the candles and blankets.” Sassy opened the draperies and shoved up the
sash.

  “Who is quarreling with Father?”

  “Lieutenant Twimball.”

  “Lieutenant Twimball.” A blurry memory of him swept across Esther’s conscious. Yes, the funeral. The fight. “Th-there was a skirmish in town.”

  “Three days ago.”

  Esther pressed her hand to her shoulder. “I-I was shot.”

  Sassy finished blowing out the candles and adjusted Esther’s bedding. “Mr. Lightfoot say Lieutenant Twimball what done it. But ol’ Twimball insists Lightfoot took cover behind you.”

  “Hamilton would do no such thing. Nor cause me any kind of harm.” A thin, June breeze drove the heat from the room and the cobwebs from Esther’s senses. Her shoulder and back throbbed something fierce.

  “That’s what I says.” Sassy offered Esther a cup of water. “But no one is asking my opinion. Twimball came to accuse Lightfoot, but your father gave him the dickens about there being a fight in town in the first place. At a funeral, of all things.” The Sassy checked Esther’s bandage. “You’ll need a changing soon.”

  “Has he been to see me? Hamilton?” Esther kicked at the blankets, freeing her legs, a restlessness trapped in her bones. “Sassy, I’m perspiring through my gown. May I have a clean one?”

  “You perspiring because you got hit with a bullet. Don’t worry, I got it out. Dr. Rocourt say I’d make a fine surgeon.” Sassy ladled more water into the cup. “Imagine me, a colored woman, cutting on folks.”

  Esther sipped the water, fractured images floating across her mind.

  Reverend Lightfoot’s funeral. The click-slap of musket fire. The burning scent of gunpowder. Running foolishly into the center of it all. Hamilton calling her name. The jolt and burn of a musket ball ripping through her.

  “I need to speak with Father.” Esther handed Sassy her cup, kicking her legs over the side of the bed.