Angels & Patriots_Book One

by Salina B Baker

  Word of Captain Levi Chitwood’s breakdown traveled throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There was much erroneous speculation over the reason for the captain’s utterance of the words, an archangel, after he pissed himself. None of his soldiers admitted to the reverence they felt for Colm Bohannon, but one reported that he believed one of the men in attendance at the farm was Dr. Joseph Warren.

  Further, there was loose talk concerning Abigail Adams and Liam Kavangh. It was not particularly ruddy gossip, but it was enough to alert Henry to the possibility that Liam had been disobedient and was suffering under the archangel’s punishment.

  These developments pleased Henry and Robert. Surely, Joseph Warren would finally realize that Colm Bohannon was as cruel and dangerous as any demon. Although John Adams’ wife was in Braintree with the rest of her family, Henry could not help but wonder if John Adams was unhappy with the angels.

  In late March, Henry convinced General Gage to send Captain John Brown and Ensign Henry de Berniere on another clandestine mission to search for munitions, this time north to Concord. Their route took them through Roxbury and Brookline along the direct road to Concord. In Concord, their appearance was greeted with more open hostility than their previous mission, which ultimately led them to Worcester.

  But General Gage had accomplished something that even Henry had not—Gage had successfully planted a spy among the rebels’ innermost circle.

  Two weeks before, on March 13, Henry, Robert, Thomas, and Margaret attended a social at the home of Francis Shaw. Scottish Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Navy Marines was the host. Pitcairn was quartered in Shaw’s home. Paul Revere was Shaw’s next door neighbor.

  Fifty-two-year-old Pitcairn was the father of ten children, and was regarded for his integrity, honesty, and sense of humor even among many patriotic Bostonians. His gatherings were a place where British officers and locals could air their views with civility.

  Paul had invited Joseph to attend John Pitcairn’s social gathering. Pitcairn greeted them as they entered the Shaw home, “Dr. Warren, it is an honor to have you here tonight,” Pitcairn exclaimed with an edge of humility. “I look forward to your contributions to our conversations.”

  “Thank you for the kind words, Major,” Joseph replied, smiling. His eyes darted to a man standing among a group of British officers on the other side of the room. He had never been introduced to General Thomas Gage, but he knew what the general looked like.

  The major saw the curious look on Joseph’s face. “Come, Dr. Warren. I will introduce you to General Gage.”

  The three crossed the room. The group of British officers silenced upon their arrival. Thomas was already aware of Dr. Warren’s reputation and physical appearance. They politely shook hands and murmured their pleasure when Pitcairn introduced them.

  A runner with an urgent message for Joseph interrupted them. Joseph read the note, and then said, “If you will excuse me, I need to tend to a patient. I am afraid it cannot wait.” He issued a vague polite bow and swept out of the house.

  A moment later, Margaret entered the room and joined her husband’s conversation with the group of British officers.

  When Henry, Robert, and the Gages returned home after the social, Thomas requested that Henry and Robert take a night cap in the living room.

  “I have received another communication tonight from my rebel informant describing the exact location of the hiding places of munitions in Concord,” Thomas said smugly. “This communication also contained secret deliberations conducted by the leaders of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.”

  Henry took a glass of wine from a servant’s offered hand. “Thomas, I do believe your cunning has gone unrewarded for too long. Who are these leaders you speak of?”

  “You do not know?” Margaret sneered. “I am surprised.” It was not a surprise but rather disgust she felt with Henry’s manipulation. She resented the way her house smelled because of his presence.

  Henry attempted to subdue her by leering at her, but she scoffed at him. This American-born woman was a challenge he was not used to.

  “Margaret, please temper your comments,” Thomas warned. Being the loyal soldier that he was, he needed to hear praise aside from the constant barrage of shortcomings Lord Dartmouth never failed to fire at him. “The rebel leaders have been identified as John Hancock and Samuel Adams. There is a clash among the delegates within the Provincial Congress concerning the organization of a formal army. Some delegates believe it would be seen as an offensive posture unlike the local militias. However, they are soliciting the opinions of their constituents. Apparently, Dr. Joseph Warren is using his quill to convince others that an army is of great importance. In fact—I was introduced to Warren tonight”

  Henry leaned in toward Thomas. “Warren was at the party?”

  “Briefly. He was called away during our introduction.”

  The mention of Joseph Warren sent a shock wave of guilt through Margaret’s heart and mind. Although she had done nothing more damaging than seek his medical care, the lust she harbored for him since the day they met would not leave her alone. It constantly tempted her to return to him.

  Thomas droned on.

  She uttered a sigh before she realized that Robert was watching her.

  He grinned and nodded as if to say, “I know what you are thinking.”

  Margaret’s desire and lust overcame her sensibilities. The excuse she used to slip out of Province House the week before served her well one more time. She returned to Joseph’s home on an overcast and bitterly cold Saturday morning in mid-March. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Silence.

  She knocked again. A cold wind gusted and blew the hood of her cloak off her head. The Warren house creaked in response. Disappointment devastated her. She turned to step from the small portico when the door swung open.

  “Miss Kemble?” Joseph recognized the tumble of her brown curls.

  If I turn around, I will go through with what I have come for if at all possible, she thought. She turned around. Her cloak fluttered in the wind, but she took no notice. All she saw was him.

  “Please, come in out of the cold,” Joseph invited.

  The sound of his voice stirred the feathers of her desire. They brushed her thighs and nipples. She did not remember crossing the threshold or removing her cloak.

  “Are you experiencing new symptoms?” Joseph asked, although he was certain of the cause of her malaise and how to cure it.

  Her brown eyes drank in the intoxicating nectar of his sexuality. “Yes.”

  The moment he saw her on the portico, Joseph’s arousal had awakened. Now, it throbbed hard and strong. He clutched her upper arms and pulled her to him.

  She exhaled a small cry of relief.

  He slipped a hand behind her head and brushed his lips over hers.

  Her mouth fell open.

  His tongue darted into the moist warmth of her mouth.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  His free hand encircled her waist, and he forcefully pressed his erection against the front folds of her skirt until he could feel what lay beneath. He tried to lower her to the hall floor.

  She resisted. “Not here,” she breathed. Her desire for him was blinding, but she wanted to see his young naked body. She wanted to ensure that no one would interrupt what they were doing.

  He took her hand. They climbed the steps to above stairs and his bedroom. Once inside, Margaret had a sobering moment. “Where are your children?” she asked as his hands parted the lace-trimmed opening on the bodice of her dress.

  He cocked his head and smiled at her. “I suppose that is a fair question, Margaret. You have children of your own. What mother would not worry about being overheard in the throes of passion?”

  “How do you know—?”

  “That you are Margaret Gage? That I am playing with fire by being with you like this?” Joseph’s blue eyes sparked with intrigue and spunk. He lowered his head. His tongue traced the c
rease of cleavage that peaked over her bodice.

  Her hands sought his crotch. She squeezed his erection through the cloth of his breeches.

  His lips traveled to her neck while he pressed the palm of his hand on top of her hand, so she would squeeze him harder. He laid her on the bed. His hands slid over her legs and up her thighs as he pushed her skirts away from what he sought.

  When he straddled her hips and tugged at the buttons on his breeches, she stilled his hands. The carnal look in his eyes nearly paralyzed her when he gave her a small curious smile.

  “I want to see you naked,” she whispered.

  Joseph’s smile bloomed. He scooted off the bed. With urgent gentle movements, he undressed.

  Margaret slowly stood up and reached for his naked smooth chest. Her fingers fluttered between his chest muscles for a moment before they slipped to his waist.

  When her hand traveled to the curve of his hip, he clasped her wrist. Her eyes moved to his face. His other hand fumbled at the pins that held the tumble of her brown curls on top of her head. The pins fell to the floor. The aroma of roses enchanted his senses as her hair tumbled down her back to her waist.

  Joseph undressed Margaret with the same gentle movements he had used to remove his clothing. Then, in stark contrast, he shoved her onto the bed. He slid his body over hers and opened her thighs with his knees. She wrapped her legs around his back. He was starving for what was to come, and he could wait no longer.

  The morning grew into the early afternoon. Margaret’s lust for Joseph was insatiable, and he fulfilled it. It was a task Thomas was no longer up to performing.

  When Joseph gathered her clothes from the floor and helped her dress, it occurred to her that she had spent hours in a bed in which he had committed carnal acts with his dead wife, and certainly with Mercy Scollay. How many women have come to him seeking his favors? How did someone like me, a member of the privileged class, come to stand at the doorstep of a man far below my social standing with a desire to see him naked?

  “Margaret?”

  She snapped out of her reverie. He was looking at her expectantly.

  “Shall we?” he asked and offered his hand.

  She realized that they were both dressed. He led her downstairs.

  The house creaked in response to a gust of wind. The noise startled her, and a shadow of shame darkened her face.

  Joseph cupped her chin and kissed her lips. “Do not feel ashamed about this beautiful day we have spent together. It is what we both desired.” He smiled brightly. “What is life without the exhilaration of adventure?”

  His smile lured her back into his intoxicating world, and she wished to never leave it. She stroked his cheek and brushed away wisps of blond hair that had come loose from his ponytail. “If I tell you that I have fallen in love with you, do not shrink from my words. I mean them with all my heart, but I will not be back. My life is with Thomas and my children, just as your life is with your children.”

  She blocked Mercy Scollay from her mind like a cancer that would kill her fantasy.

  Joseph said nothing. He had exhausted his emotions and his body, and Margaret was allowing him to rest. She was the only woman he had ever known who had her fill of him and graciously stepped away.

  Eighteen

  Boston, Massachusetts April 1775

  John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Joseph Warren had a rebel intelligence network of tradesmen and skilled workers who frequented the Green Dragon and other Boston taverns. These members of the Sons of Liberty noted British troop movements, ship arrivals and departures, and anything out of the ordinary. They reported these observations along the secret network that led to the Committee of Safety of the Provincial Congress, which was now adjourned in Concord.

  On April 7, the rebels observed longboats being moored under the sterns of British men-of-war in Boston Harbor for ready access and concluded that an attack somewhere was imminent.

  The next day, Paul saddled up to carry a message of alarm to Concord given the stockpiles of munitions and supplies located there. When Paul burst through the door of the meetinghouse, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Colm, Fergus, Seamus, and Joseph Warren rose in alarm.

  “What news?” John asked Paul.

  Paul relayed the observations of the rebels.

  Seamus had permission from Colm to speak as he saw fit now that he was second in command. He said, “I spent a short time workin’ on the wharf. It was overrun with demons. So, the question is, who’s behind this? Thomas Gage or Henry Hereford? If the answer is Henry, then demons will be sent to Concord.”

  “Does it matter?” John asked. “Both will send demons.”

  Seamus’ purple aura flickered in distress. He tried to hold his temper. “Why cain’t you understand the difference between the evil God’s demons possess and the evil that humans conjure on their own?”

  “Do pray tell, what is the difference?”

  “Let us leave that determination to holy men,” Samuel advised.

  Colm bristled, but he had no intention of interfering with Seamus’ given authority.

  “Please, gentlemen,” Joseph said. “Paul’s warning is ominous, and if Seamus is correct, and Henry does indeed send demons to Concord, or anywhere else, the human inhabitants may die without a shot being fired.”

  “My men will be ready to set a watch for demon possession as well as battle, if the British regulars are dispatched,” Colm said.

  Paul said, “Without Fergus, there are but seven of you. How many demons can Henry set afoot?”

  “Maybe thousands. I don’t know,” Colm admitted. “But we’re all ya got.”

  “The angels must be alerted first if an alarm is raised,” Joseph said. “Do we agree?”

  It was agreed.

  John and Samuel were egotistical, but they were not fools. They acquiesced to Seamus’ forewarning, but the decisions they made that day after the Provincial Congress retired had nothing to do with angels or demons.

  It was obvious to both men that things had deteriorated with the British to the point that it was not safe for them to return to Boston before setting out for Philadelphia and the Second Continental Congress scheduled to convene on May 10. John managed to get word to his aunt, Lydia Hancock, his fiancée, Dorothy Quincy, and his young clerk, John Howell, to leave Boston and take refuge at Reverend Jonas Clarke’s house in Lexington.

  John was very familiar with the Clarke house. It was from that house that he had been taken away, as a seven-year-old boy, by his uncle and aunt, Thomas and Lydia Hancock, to be raised in the world of Boston business.

  Samuel’s wife, Betsy, left their house on Purchase Street in Boston and went to stay in the home of her father in Cambridge. Samuel’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, his child with his deceased wife, Elizabeth, joined Betsy in Cambridge. His son, Samuel, Jr., who studied medicine under Joseph, elected to remain in Boston.

  During this time, Joseph was making arrangements to move Mercy and his children out of Boston. Confusion over their destination—Roxbury or Worcester—led to a delay. In the meantime, he continued to tend to his patients, but his friends were concerned for his safety.

  As William Eustis returned from caring for a patient one evening, he passed a party of British soldiers on watch near newly constructed gallows from which a thief swung by his broken neck.

  “Eustis!” one of the soldiers called. “Relay a message to Warren.” The soldier jerked a thumb at the gallows. “Tell Warren we are waiting for him!”

  The others nodded and laughed in agreement with the insinuation.

  When William arrived home, he entered the medical office. Joseph was preparing his medical bag. “I do not think it is a good idea for you to be walking the streets alone.”

  Joseph glanced at him, “I have a patient to visit in Cornhill this evening. If you are worried about my safety, come with me.” He latched his medical bag and walked to his study.

  William followed him. “This is a serious matter, Joseph.”
>
  Joseph set his bag on the desk. He opened a drawer, extracted a pistol, checked to make sure it was loaded, and then shoved it in his coat pocket. He extracted a second pistol from the same drawer, offered it to William, and said, “I am taking this seriously.”

  William’s eyes dropped to the pistol. Guns made him nervous, therefore he was a terrible shot, but he took the gun anyway.

  “It is loaded,” Joseph said. He picked up his medical bag, smiled, and asked, “Shall we go?”

  As they passed the British watch by the gallows, one of the three redcoat soldiers asked Joseph, “Did Eustis relay my message?”

  William and Joseph kept walking without comment.

  “Go on, Warren; you will soon come to the gallows.”

  Joseph stopped and looked at the soldiers. “Which of you spoke?”

  He received no reply.

  Joseph smiled and exhaled a laugh. “Just as I thought. Your words come easily. I will not die at the gallows! You fellows say we will not fight, but by heavens I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood if it comes to that!”

  William’s brow furrowed with concern that Joseph’s bravado would be retaliated, but the British soldiers remained silent.

  The doctors continued on to Cornhill without further harassment that night.

  The members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress feared that the sudden rapid decay between England and America would thrust them into war. All those in attendance recognized the portent and the need for preparedness.

  The Committee of Safety put a military command structure in place, incorporating existing militia companies and regiments, and their officers. They promoted six men, of various military abilities, to generals.

  Fergus was tasked with tightening the Cambridge-Watertown militia into a well-trained fighting force. Despite his aspirations, Fergus missed his brotherhood. Yet, when Seamus asked to speak with him after congress adjourned, he felt ensnared.