The Colonel's Lady

by Laura Frantz

  Instead he called for Ben Simmons and asked that the three Shawnee be brought in, a routine he was all too weary of. Turning to Roxie, he asked for a transcript of the meeting. Today he was going to do something unusual, and he wanted a record so there would be no confusion as to what had truly happened here.

  He pondered his predicament as the Indians came in on silent, moccasined feet. The more time he spent with them, the more his understanding of their predicament deepened. Their complex codes of honor, their innate honesty, their childlike ability to be completely in the present—all worked a curious spell. The brutal fact that six of his men had just been ambushed by some of their tribesmen failed to gain a bitter foothold. He knew of soldiers who’d committed like atrocities and thus forbade any of his men to so much as lift a scalp.

  He’d had the two chiefs in custody since the winter campaign and was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their presence. He sensed their longing to be free, to return to their people across the Ohio River, to tell of their time with the red-haired chief and all his soldiers and artillery on lands held sacred by the Shawnee. He knew they would say that the Kentuckians had come to stay. That alone would do far more than waging war ever would.

  Taking up a graphite stick, he marked a heavy X in upper Indian country on a large map rolled out on the desk, clearly visible to each one of them as they gathered round, their feathered heads bent in concentration.

  The words, though long practiced, still felt unrehearsed when he said, “I am prepared to let you go free—today—if you provide me with the information I need.” He paused, feeling their surprise—and elation—though they remained outwardly stoic. “My scouts have recently brought back reports that the British have built a fort here along the river you call Maumee.”

  The older Shawnee nodded sagely, one finger tracing the path of the water to the lead marking. Falling Water and Five Feathers exchanged glances. After some hesitation, she said in careful Shawnee, “In the last Papaw Moon, the Redcoats came into our country telling us the hair buyer—Hamilton—wanted to show us a new soldier chief he had made.”

  Cass looked down at her as Simmons interpreted, thinking how little the Shawnee gave away unless he showed direct knowledge of it. “Have you seen this man?”

  Her intelligent eyes were grave. “Mattah. But I have heard of him. This man is so tall, some say, he seems to block the sun. And his hair is the color of his coat.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cass saw Roxie’s quill go still. Even before all the words were translated, he felt a hard, cold numbness overtake him.

  His hair is the color of his coat.

  His red coat.

  There could be no mistaking the description. Though he’d had his suspicions based on new intelligence coming out of Detroit, nothing could staunch the pain of its confirmation. Like the gouging open of an old wound that had never fully healed, he felt a torrent of breathtaking things. Disbelief. Dread. Remorse. Revulsion.

  It took all the strength he possessed to keep the tight knot of turmoil now expanding in his chest from reaching his face. “You’ve not seen this man, but you have heard of him—therefore, you must know why he has come into your country.”

  Falling Water nodded thoughtfully and met his unwavering gaze. “I think you also know why he has come.”

  “Aye, I do,” he replied, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. “But I want to hear it from you.”

  Five Feathers spoke with authority, revealing a deeper knowledge than Cass had anticipated. “This new Redcoat chief gives our people presents and bounties for making war with the white faces in Kan-tuck-ee. By building a soldier fort closer to the Shawnee towns, our warriors do not have to go to the hair buyer in Detroit.”

  Cass pondered all the implications as he listened to Ben’s translation. In time, once Liam had established himself as a generous and warrior-like agent among the tribes, he would launch a combined force of British and Indians to come against the Kentucke settlements, with cannon and artillery that could breach fort walls.

  Ominous murmurs of this had already crossed the river and reached him, but till now he’d thought Hamilton too comfortable in the lair he’d built for himself in Detroit to make war so far south, simply goading the Shawnee to do it for him. But Liam . . . Liam would warm to such a challenge, and Cass knew this was precisely why he’d been given the position.

  Swallowing down the bile backing up in his throat, he tried to think of something—anything—that would anchor him. Taking his eyes off the map, he looked across the room to Roxie. The pale lines of her face were composed, but she was studying him as she’d not done for days, and her eyes held a hint of alarm. Did she know about Liam, he wondered? Her intensity told him she did indeed.

  Turning to one of the orderlies, he sent for Micajah Hale. When he appeared, Cass began making final arrangements for the Indians. They had risen from the bench and were watching him with a feral fascination.

  “Supply them with three of our finest mounts, tobacco, and enough provisions for their trip north across the river,” he told him. Micajah opened his mouth in surprise, then shut it as Cass continued, “Return their weapons to them outside the postern gate and let them go.”

  As Simmons translated, the somber mood of moments before lifted. Cass could feel the Shawnees’ gratitude and saw that Falling Water’s eyes were shining with joy. Releasing them was a goodwill gesture, but in truth he had no reason to keep them. They’d told him what he wanted to know—and, within the last few minutes, what he didn’t.

  Ever cautious, he watched as Five Feathers crossed the room to Roxie, pausing before her Windsor chair, dark palm outstretched. In his hand Cass saw the watch she’d given him and the little key that wound it.

  “Good trade,” he said in careful English.

  Smiling now, she looked up at him and reached around her lap desk to draw the white wampum from her pocket. “Good trade,” she echoed.

  With little ceremony, the room emptied of all but one orderly and Cass—and Roxie. Feeling drained and chilled, Cass continued to look down at the maps, whose curled edges were weighted with a pistol and compass and surveyor’s tools. Just a few feet away, she was finishing her work, capping the inkwell and readying the transcript of what had just transpired. From a far corner, the clock seemed to shudder as it tolled ten times. Still morning, he thought dismally.

  “You’re excused, Miss Rowan,” he said, hating the formality.

  She looked up, surprise sketched across her lovely features. “There’s nothing else, sir?”

  Turning back to the map bearing the large X, he said, “Nay, there’s nothing more to be done this day.”

  Nothing, he decided, except to exit through the sally port, climb the hill to the house, and leave the fetid fort far behind.

  Leaning on her hoe, Roxanna looked up the greening hill of bluegrass to the stone house, wondering for the hundredth time how Cass was faring. In the last day she’d seen no sign of him. Only Hank entered and exited, with the ever-present guard stationed outside. Since Cass had freed the Shawnee and learned of his brother’s activity in the middle ground, she’d had a dreadful foreboding she couldn’t shake.

  Knowing Liam McLinn was just across the Ohio, doing as much damage to the Kentuckians and the cause of liberty as he could, had kept her awake nights almost as much as the memory of Cass leaving the blockhouse in a stew of gloom. Though his stoic face betrayed little, she could feel that his soul was besieged—and felt it still. No one had to tell her what he was doing inside that handsome but forbidding building on the hill.

  Now at twilight she prayed silently as she finished her gardening, hoping the door would swing open wide and he’d walk out to join his officers for supper. But all that caught her attention were the spring peepers and whippoorwills in the distant tree line and the restless shuffling of the guard as they kept watch around her.

  Oh, Cass, you’re just drinking yourself into a deeper tangle.

  Taking up h
er hoe, she whacked at a stubborn weed encroaching on her peas, upending its spidery root from the dirt. Would that she could set Cass to rights as easily. Anger ticked relentlessly inside her. She could feel its heat in the rhythm of her pulse, all the more maddening because she was powerless to help him.

  Lately he’d seemed to be turning a corner, and she’d glimpsed in him a kinder, gentler side. Since the cinchona poisoning, she’d detected a marked shift in him, a softening toward spiritual things. Though he never gave voice to his thoughts, she sensed the difference, and thankfulness suffused every part of her. There was, she felt, a fine man beneath his hardness. Her father had known it too. Finally her heartfelt, persistent prayers for him seemed to have found answer.

  And now this.

  Giving the green tendrils of peas and beans a final drink of water from her bucket, she thanked the guard as the last rays of sunlight touched the cold stone of the house on the hill. Turning her back on its beauty and returning to the fort, she felt like someone had thrown a black blanket over her. She was captive in this dark place—mired in her deepening feelings for Cass—and Liam McLinn was another dire reminder of the consequences that awaited her if she tried to leave.

  She passed Nancy on the parade ground, heartened to see her on her way to the kitchen, another regular escorting her. The possessive way she clutched his arm and her bright smile reassured Roxanna that mourning Billy was indeed a thing of the past. High on the banquette above, the soldiers were changing guard, and muted talk and laughter erupted all around. With Cass holed up, discipline had dwindled and two more men had been caught stealing rum from the commissary. Everything unsavory within these high walls seemed to seethe and ooze in his absence, and she’d never felt less safe in all her life.

  Too pent up to eat, she made tea at her own hearth, shunning the fine china cup for a plain pewter one and grating a brick of bitter Bohea instead of the fine, loose Congou he’d given her. A knock at the door sent her hopes soaring, but when Bella appeared, her buoyant spirits fell to her feet.

  Bella’s dark face was knotted with concern. “I’ve brought you some supper. I know my cookin’ skills are lackin’, but you ain’t hardly missed a meal yet.”

  “Thank you, Bella, but I can’t eat a bite. Female trouble, I’m afraid.” True enough, she thought, though colonel trouble was more accurate.

  Nodding in sympathy, Bella turned toward the door with the tray, muttering, “I’d best send somethin’ to Colonel McLinn. He’s finally risen from the dead, Hank says.”

  Roxanna stopped stirring her tea, hoping her relief—and delight—didn’t show. “Why don’t you let me take him his supper?”

  A flash of horror crossed her face. “Law, Miz Roxanna, you been drinkin’ too? The only livin’ thing McLinn lets near him after one o’ his spells is Hank, and poor Hank has to tiptoe to do it.”

  Inexplicably, the warning only hardened her resolve. Taking the tray, Roxanna said with more bluster than she felt, “Sometimes not even a colonel gets what he wants.”

  Bella studied her with alarm. “You feelin’ all right, Miz Roxanna?”

  “Never better.”

  “Well, best stop by the kitchen and take him a hot plate. This un’s likely cold—”

  “Army regulation is being on time for meals, is it not? If it’s cold, the colonel himself is to blame. He’s lucky he gets a meal at all.”

  Bella took a wary step back. “Law! What’s got into you?”

  “Fire and brimstone, I guess,” Roxanna said over her shoulder, crossing the threshold into the gathering gloom. “If I’m not back by midnight, best come after me.”

  Cold johnnycake was palatable, but underdone potato, overdone elk, and greasy gravy were decidedly not. Yet Roxanna bore her burden with a steady step despite her slight limp, saying to the guard once she reached the stone house, “Please knock for me, as my hands are full. I’ll not take no for an answer.”

  When Hank’s drawn face appeared in a crack of light through the barely open door, she bustled in. The foyer unfolded before her in all its austere elegance, a sconce banishing the shadows lurking in the far corners. For a moment she felt small and overawed by its polished grandeur. Oh, Lord, don’t let me falter. Yet she’d come up here without having the slightest idea what she’d say, only the burning desire to say something.

  Yellow light pooled beneath a closed door to her right. His study? The sitting room? Without a word, Hank knocked lightly and she listened, stomach swimming. Why had she come? The answering growl behind the door seemed more ogre than McLinn, but she steadied her tray and entered in.

  He was standing by an open window, looking down at the fort, his back to her. The sight of him in shirtsleeves, his uniform coat cast over a chair back, lent an unsettling intimacy to the scene. Her breath seemed to catch and not release, and all her poise took flight. Setting her burden on a table, she heard Hank shut the door, hemming her in. Slowly, Cass turned, the light calling out a dozen unkempt details about him—red-bristled jaw, buff trousers and boots, ruffled shirt open at the neck and lacking a cravat, lank hair loose and missing its ribbon tie.

  Behind him the fire snapped and sent a plume of sparks past the dog irons onto delft tiles. The room reeked of tobacco—and brandy—and nearly made her wrinkle her nose. Instead she laced her fingers behind her and said, “I’ve brought you some supper.”

  “And a double helping of condemnation as well, aye?”

  “You’re welcome,” she said coolly.

  His stiffness melted into a half smile. “Thank you.”

  Looking away from him, she tried to puzzle out what color the walls were beneath the shadows, her eyes drawn to the twin wing chairs angled before the fire—just as she’d imagined them to be. And the books! The surrounding shelves seemed about to burst, rivaling the library at Thistleton Hall . . .

  “Have a seat. Or are you needed back at the fort?” The steady lilt of his voice told her he was no longer intoxicated, just irritated.

  She moved to the wing chairs and hesitated. “Which is yours?”

  “Both,” he replied wryly. “I sit in one and put my feet up in the other.”

  She nearly smiled. “I’ll take the one that bears your backside, not your boots.”

  He gestured to the one on the right and she sat, sensing an undercurrent of bewildering things between them. Tension. Pleasure. Promise. Hope. She gazed upward to the curved mantel and painted panels and corniced ceiling while he leaned back in his chair, eyes on the fire. For a few agonizing minutes they sat in tense silence, and she did what she’d seen him do to his men—she said nothing and simply outlasted him.

  “So, Roxie, why have you come?”

  Despite his gruffness, she warmed to the thawing in his tone—and his familiarity. ’Twas Roxie tonight, not Miss Rowan. Not Roxanna. Pleasure seeped past her dismay. “I’ve come because I’m concerned about you, Cass—and I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up the hill.”

  He turned amused eyes on her. “I’m sorry about the crick in your neck, but I’m glad we’ve finally dispensed with formalities. Hearing you call me colonel and sir was making me feel like an old man.”

  “So how are you . . . truly?”

  He passed a hand over his whiskers. “I’m truly dissolute.”

  He looked it, though she’d rarely been around anyone who drank and wasn’t familiar with its effects.

  Meeting her gaze, he said, “You’re looking at me like your father used to after one of my binges.”

  “He used to say liquor ruined many a good soldier.”

  “Aye, so he did. He also said, ‘Let your recreations be manful, not sinful.’ But to his credit, he never spoke in judgment or malice. Just concern. Like a father to a son.”

  Yes, he’d known her father well. Hearing it brought his beloved memory back with such bittersweet ache she felt for her handkerchief.

  He moved to stir the fire with a poker. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you by mentioning him.”
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br />   “I’d rather he be remembered than forgotten.”

  “I’ll not forget . . .”

  She waited for him to finish, but he left off, a look of such poignancy and pain on his face she felt doubly stung. The very air seemed weighted, and Micajah Hale’s words returned to her with a blunt force that nearly took her breath.

  I was there when it happened. But I doubt you’d leap to his defense had you been.

  Micajah had witnessed her father’s death. Yet this wasn’t what had upended her but the acrid bitterness of his tone. Dare she ask Cass about that fatal day? Here . . . now?

  Chilled, she gathered her composure. “Since we’re speaking of hard things, I want to tell you I know about Liam.”

  The telling vulnerability in his face vanished. “Bella told you, I’ll wager.”

  “Bella and Micajah. But I’d rather you tell me so I can hear the truth of it firsthand.”

  “’Tis not a pretty tale, Roxie. And I’d rather spare you the details.”

  Their eyes met, and she found his sharp with irritation. But she wouldn’t back down, feeling the subject of Liam was what festered inside him and needed lancing. “Speaking of it might do you some good.”

  “Or it just might drive me to drink again.”

  “No man should have that kind of power over you, especially a brother.”

  “He’s hardly that,” he said quietly yet with heat. “Rather the devil disguised as such. His intent has always been to send me straight to hell. And now, being Hamilton’s minion, he might well do it.”

  Turning to a tilt-top table beside his chair, he retrieved a paper and passed it to her. She’d seen British handbills before—they were common enough in the colonies—but this one preached a coming wilderness war, advising the Kentucke settlers to abandon the Patriot cause and pledge allegiance to the king if they valued their lives.