The Colonel's Lady

by Laura Frantz

  “Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves,” she said, letting her eyes roam over the crowd again. “Even Colonel McLinn.”

  Surprise crossed his face. “I wasn’t sure he’d come—or stay. Once he leaves fort walls for the day, he doesn’t often come back. Likes to shut himself away in the stone house.”

  “’Tis a beautiful place.”

  “A bit grand for Kentucke, some say. He calls it Sithean—that’s Gaelic for ‘fairy hill.’ The only way he could abide coming to the frontier was to build a bit of home here.”

  “He must miss Ireland, then.”

  He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. He rarely speaks of it. He does have ties there—some relatives and an Irish beauty by the name of Cecily O’Day. I suppose Bella has told you about that. No doubt you’ve heard of Liam McLinn.”

  Roxanna brushed a speck of dust off her dulcimer. “Bella mentioned he has a twin.”

  “Aye, so he does—one who just happens to be an officer in the British army. When Cass joined the Americans, it caused a bit of a fracas. As heir, he lost the family holdings when the British learned of his betrayal. But it hardly mattered. Liam was already wreaking havoc making free with their inheritance. He spent some time in Dublin’s Marshalsea Prison for debt, but slippery as he is, he escaped and came here.” The relaxed lines of his face tightened. “General Washington calls him Lucifer McLinn—on account of all the trouble he’s caused.” Seeing her blank expression, he added, “Don’t you read the papers, Miss Rowan?”

  “Just the Virginia Gazette . . . occasionally.”

  He grimaced. “Liam McLinn is a staunch loyalist and spy. And one of the greatest threats to the Continental cause there is. He’s done untold damage masquerading as his Patriot brother in the colonies. Once he nearly had Cass hung for treason.”

  A chill touched her spine. “What?”

  “A group of New York Tories led by Liam formed a secret organization to assassinate General Washington. Fortunately, the plot was uncovered, and forty or more conspirators were arrested, including one of Washington’s beloved Life Guards.”

  “Colonel McLinn was also a Life Guard, wasn’t he?”

  “Aye. Liam tried to implicate him, but there wasn’t enough evidence to send him to the gallows. Fortunately, Washington never believed ill of him. A close friend of the colonel’s, Captain Thomas Hickey, wasn’t so lucky. He was hanged. After that Washington sent Cass west.”

  “To remove him from the danger and speculation, you mean? So no one can confuse him with his brother?” The prospect was so stunning—and intriguing—she cast aside her self-imposed rule to mind her own business.

  He nodded and downed the last of his bounce. “Now Washington merely has to point west when an ugly rumor arises. Having Cass here makes it that much easier for Continental forces to catch the real loyalist McLinn.”

  Cass. She found herself lingering on the name, liking its softness, so at odds with the man himself. Behind them the fiddling commenced again, and Micajah left her side to resume playing. She found her heart racing inexplicably, her pulse keeping time to the music. Her thoughts were in such a troubled jumble she decided to sit this tune out, searching through the crowd till she located the object of their discussion.

  The colonel was standing in front of Abby now, and she barely came up to his thigh. Her head was tipped back and her lips parted as if in a sort of wonder. Around them all had stilled, even the music, every eye on the commander and the child. Roxanna watched as he made a small bow. Though no expression crossed her face, Abby put one foot behind the other and gave a surprising curtsey.

  A ripple of amusement passed through the gathering. Cass held out his hand and Roxanna held her breath. Would he even charm a mute child? Pensive, Abby studied him before extending her own small hand. He took it, and the music began again, but not before he’d stood her little feet atop his polished boots.

  Around and around he danced with her, holding on to her hands, her feet firmly planted atop his own. And she was . . . smiling. Still mute yet smiling. Even Olympia seemed a bit awed, standing with Dovie and Captain Stewart in the shadows. It seemed something of a miracle. Roxanna swallowed past the tightness in her throat and returned to her dulcimer, trying to sound the right notes, the picture of Abby and the colonel lingering.

  The dark log walls and press of perspiring men receded as her thoughts winged across a continent to Ireland and an Irish beauty named Cecily and a twin called Liam McLinn. Lucifer McLinn. She regretted that their trouble went deep, pitting brother against brother. Family rifts were common enough with a war on, but one involving an enemy twin seemed extraordinary somehow—and doubly dangerous.

  An hour passed in a sort of haze. Suddenly weary, she waited for the right time to bid the musicians goodbye, then slipped into the empty kitchen unnoticed and hastened out the small side door that led to the springhouse and parade ground. But before she’d pulled it shut, she heard a heavy footfall. Cold moonlight cast the colonel in a long black silhouette directly in her path.

  “Miss Rowan, I believe you’re in need of an escort.”

  In the silence, his voice was deep and clear and lilting, and her soft response was lost as the music started up again. He held out his arm, and she had little choice but to take it, startled when he brought his other hand to bear on hers as it rested on his wool sleeve, its warm width covering her cold fingers like a glove. She was acutely conscious of his height and how, unlike the diminutive Dovie, she was eye level with his epaulets. There was something different about him tonight, and it struck her as hard as the cold. He was gallant . . . charming . . . almost mellow. Perhaps on account of Bella’s fine cherry bounce.

  He said quietly, “I wanted to thank you for the evening’s entertainment.”

  She nearly slipped on an icy patch, but he caught her and she stammered, “Th-thank you for allowing it.” Hugging her dulcimer tight with her free arm, she noticed he walked the long way to her cabin, along the north barracks, as opposed to simply crossing the parade ground.

  He looked down at her. “You’re leaving early.” She opened her mouth to mumble an excuse, but he went on easily, “But then, so am I.”

  She looked over the far pickets and up the hill where warm light beckoned in every window of the stone house. Home. She wanted to keep walking right out the fort’s gates and up the rise and over the threshold into a warm paneled room where she just knew a wingback chair waited before a crackling hearth.

  The ache in her chest expanded till she could barely breathe. “What will you do when you get there?” The wistful question was uttered before she realized what she’d asked, and there was no wishing it back.

  She could hear the smile in his voice in the darkness. “Read. Smoke. Badger Hank into going to that dance.”

  She hadn’t noticed Hank was missing. Only Bella had been there.

  He stopped abruptly and turned to her. “What will you do when you get here?”

  They’d come to her cabin door, and she hadn’t expected him to echo her question. It took all the poise she possessed to simply say, “Read. Have a cup of tea.” Cry.

  He released her arm. “Are you in need of some books, Miss Rowan? Tristram Shandy, perhaps? Some Samuel Johnson?”

  She nearly raised an eyebrow at his recommendations. A touch scandalous, she thought. For a moment she sensed he might invite her to the stone house. Bella had said he had a fine library. “I have the good book, Colonel. ’Tis enough for now.”

  “The offer stands should you have need of anything else—or want to move to another cabin.” He hesitated and she thought he might say more, but he simply finished with a disappointingly curt, “Good night, Miss Rowan.”

  He opened the cabin door, and she went inside and set her instrument down. Still breathless, she cracked open the shutter to watch his retreating back and heard the crisp crunch of snow under his boots. An extravagant moon illuminated every nuance of the scene unfolding before her. The sentries at both gates saluted as
he passed, the saber tips of their muskets a flash of silver in the deep darkness.

  He was moving toward the little sally port along the north wall of the fort. Bella had pointed it out to her, and she’d been struck that it was barely big enough for a man’s girth. A secret escape, if you will. Two regulars fell in behind him without a word, and the trio disappeared behind the high north wall, only to emerge on the moonlit hill leading to Sithean.

  Her heart gave a lonesome leap as they reached their destination. Before he’d taken the first of three steps to the front door, it opened wide in welcome and Hank’s voice rang out. Cass disappeared inside and then Hank took his leave, coming back down the frozen hill with the two regulars and entering through the sally port.

  A knowing smile touched Roxanna’s lips. Colonel McLinn hadn’t had to do much badgering. Hank made a beeline for the blockhouse and Bella’s cherry bounce.

  The Sabbath yawned gray and quiet. Since the army chaplain had died in the fall, no services were held, Bella told her. If they had been, Roxanna wondered how many would attend. She smelled strong coffee brewing all the way across the parade ground, but not a soul came for breakfast save little Abby, wandering across the cold common in her fancy quilted petticoat, clutching the doll Roxanna had made her.

  I must fashion a day dress for her from one of my own, she decided. And so she set to work, assembling her sewing supplies, knowing Bella would feed Abby once she slipped into the kitchen. Truly, Bella seemed fond of the little girl.

  It wasn’t till dinner that anyone stirred save the sentries. When Colonel McLinn appeared through the sally port at dusk, Roxanna wondered what the commander of the entire western frontier did on an idle Sabbath day. She kept busy helping Bella in the kitchen while the Redstone women prepared to serve. It had become their habit to eat in the confines of the kitchen before the men crowded into the dining room.

  Bella stood watch over a venison roast turning on a spit while Nancy mashed the potatoes. “These need a mite more salt, just like the gravy,” Nancy said, reaching for a salt gourd.

  “Careful,” Bella cautioned. “Our salt’s runnin’ low—same as everything else around here.”

  “I thought the colonel sent out a salt-makin’ party over a fortnight ago,” Mariah said.

  “He did, but they ain’t back yet. Makin’ salt’s a bad business even in the dead o’ winter. We’ll have to stretch what we have another week or better till they get back.”

  Roxanna set the trestle table for their own meal, thinking they were becoming woefully short of many things, even cornmeal. Fort Endeavor grew mostly corn, the now fallow fields barely visible under a skiff of snow. Bella bragged that some stalks were so tall they seemed to touch the Kentucke sky. But plowing and planting were months away. She’d be gone before anything was harvested—or so she hoped.

  They sat down together, all six women and Abby. Joining hands, they said a prayer, then passed bowls and made small talk, all the while waiting for the men. Roxanna noticed each woman seemed to be listening for a certain voice in particular. She’d often done the same with Ambrose, waiting for his warm baritone to fill the long hallway of her house back home. Beside her, Olympia kept an eye on the door adjoining the dining room. She still claimed an officer, Captain Stewart, while the others had settled on the less refined regulars.

  “That was some frolic, Miz Roxanna,” Mariah said between bites of bread. “But it’s a shame you didn’t dance.”

  “She’s mournin’ her pa, remember,” Olympia reminded her.

  “Oh, it’s more than that, really,” Roxanna confessed, filling Abby’s mug with milk. “I’m a bit lame in one leg.”

  “Lame? How?” Dovie asked.

  “I fell out of a tree as a child and had a bad break that didn’t mend properly. I’d like to dance but don’t manage the steps well.”

  “I noticed you limpin’, ” Nancy murmured. “Though you hide it right well.”

  Olympia grew sly. “Now, say you were to dance with someone who knew what he was doin’. I’ll wager you wouldn’t feel lame at all.”

  The women tittered around the table, and Roxanna felt heat inching up her neck. Beside her, Bella drew up like an injured hen. “No matchmakin’ is goin’ to go on in my kitchen, you hear? You’d best hoe your own row.”

  “Now listen here,” Olympia snarled, rebellion in her eyes. “Miz Roxanna shouldn’t have to sit and watch the rest of us make merry, is all I’m sayin’. ”

  “Well, you is always sayin’ too much.”

  “Ladies, please,” Roxanna intervened.

  A strained silence settled round the table so that only the snap of the fire was heard. This was Bella’s domain, but Olympia, strong willed as she was, liked to overstep her bounds, even in the most trivial ways. The ill feeling between them seemed to simmer and set the rest of them on edge. Roxanna wondered if she’d been wise asking for them to stay on. Yet where would they be otherwise? And there was Abby to consider.

  Roxanna finished her meal, eyes trailing to Dovie’s untouched plate beside her. As the others got up and prepared to serve in the dining room, she said quietly, “Abby, will you take round the bread?” The child stopped chewing and slid off her stool. When she’d disappeared, Roxanna continued in hushed tones, “Dovie, are you ill?”

  The girl averted her eyes and picked up her fork halfheartedly. “I ain’t got much appetite here lately.”

  Mariah turned around, arms full of pewter plates, and hissed, “You might as well tell her. She’ll see for herself soon enough.”

  At once Roxanna knew. She’d had too many friends shunning their supper plates on account of this condition—all of them wed. But Dovie seemed reluctant to share her secret, simply whispering, “I’m scared Colonel McLinn will turn me out if he knows.”

  Roxanna’s mind raced as she scrambled for the name of the young soldier she’d last seen her with. “Is Private Dayton the father, Dovie?”

  She gave a little shrug. “I ain’t sure.”

  Swallowing her dismay, Roxanna asked, “Would you like him to be?”

  “I like him the best of them all. And he says he’s goin’ to ask the colonel if he can marry me. But his enlistment ain’t up till after the baby comes.”

  “When will that be?”

  She furrowed her brow, and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose turned her touchingly childlike. “September or so, by my count.”

  Disbelief coursed through Roxanna. So soon? They’d been at the fort less than two months.

  Bella ceased stirring the gravy and eyed Dovie sternly. “You’d best ’fess up right quick and call for the preacher. The colonel don’t have no tolerance for loose women.”

  Dovie turned watery eyes on Roxanna. “Will you speak to him, Miz Rox—”

  Bella’s spoon clanged against the side of the kettle. “Don’t you go beggin’ a lady to air your dirty laundry with McLinn—”

  “Now, Bella . . .” Roxanna dug in her pocket for a handkerchief and turned back to Dovie. “If Johnny’s willing to ask the colonel for your hand, I think he must care for you and want to make things right.”

  But Bella shook her head dolefully. “Johnny’s likely to get fifty lashes and a court-martial for his trouble. Now, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Old Granny Sykes over at Smitty’s Fort can fix you up a tonic—”

  “Bella! No!” Roxanna stood, plate and mug balanced precariously in one hand, the other on Dovie’s shoulder. “Babies are a gift, not . . . garbage.”

  Bella had the grace to look sheepish, eyes averted. “I’d sooner take a tonic than face McLinn.” With that, she went out, the door slapping shut in her wake.

  Roxanna sat back down. “Despite Bella’s rather vocal opinions, Colonel McLinn is an honorable man. And I’m sure he’ll listen to Johnny’s proposal. Besides, a wedding and a baby are some of the finest things this life offers. I’ve often wished for both myself.” The admission made her own eyes water, and Dovie passed her back the handkerchief.
/>
  “I’m still prayin’ you’ll find your man, Miz Roxanna,” she said, squeezing her hand. “And I promise not to send for Granny Sykes.”

  13

  Reveille sounded at daybreak, followed by roll call and drill, rousing Roxanna as she lay on her corn-husk tick. She’d overslept this morning simply because she had stayed awake most of the night imagining, among other things, what the interior of the stone house must be like. In drowsy dreams that both delighted and disturbed her, she had crossed the threshold of that house looking for Colonel McLinn but had come awake before she’d found him. Now the ache of it lingered and made no sense.

  Beyond her shuttered window, the breathtaking day held a hint of spring. She crossed the sunny parade ground without a cape, holding her skirt hem out of the muck and melting snow. Soldiers stood in formation around her, and sentries removed the huge cross timbers of the front gates, which slowly groaned open. She’d no sooner touched the handle of the blockhouse door than the colonel opened it, his sturdy frame filling the rough-hewn space like an impenetrable wall.

  “Miss Rowan.”

  “Colonel McLinn.” This morning the name seemed a mouthful, and she was reminded of her nocturnal musings. Flushing, she felt almost relieved to find him here—hale and hearty—when she’d missed him so mournfully in her dream.

  “I’ve left some things on my desk for you,” he said, fastening the gold braid of his collar. She took in his rich camlet cloak to avoid meeting his eyes, startled to see Abby just behind him. Had she come in of her own accord? He didn’t have time for a child, mute or no . . .

  Seeing her surprise, he said wryly, “Miss Abigail has just provided me with half an hour’s entertainment.”

  “Oh?” was all Roxanna could think to say.

  “I’m teaching her to play chess.”

  “Chess?”

  “’Tis not our first game, ye ken.”

  At this, her eyes widened and she looked again at Abby, who peeked out from behind her opponent’s cloak with a winsome smile. Her expression was so merry, so full of mischief, Roxanna nearly laughed.