“Put a period to it,” Colm said, sternly. “Michael and Gordon, stop it.”
They reluctantly separated.
“We’ve all been invited to the party, and we’re all going,” Colm ordered.
“Do not tell me what to do, Colm,” Abe grumbled.
Colm flashed his eyes at Abe. Then he said, “All of ya bathe like Abe said. We’ll leave for Cambridge in the morning.”
Large, public, and elaborate birthday celebrations were generally reserved for royalty. The party held for Joseph was large and public, but not particularly elaborate.
Colm and his men arrived at Hastings House at three o’clock in the afternoon; well after the party started. Lilting voices, bursts of laughter, tinkling crystal, and melodious violins escaped from the house’s windows. A number of party-goers had spilled out onto the front and side lawns.
The nine newly arrived guests reined their horses to an uneasy stop in front of the house. Parked, departing, and arriving carriages and chaises clogged the road and the yard.
“Let’s leave,” Brandon said, fretfully. “Joseph’s not going to miss us. Look at all the people here!”
Colm was anxious, too.
What’re we supposed to do with the horses if we stay? Patrick wondered.
“Brandon O’Flynn? Damn! It is you!”
Brandon recognized the man with the outstretched hand and alcohol- flushed face—Dr. Samuel Prescott.
“It is good to see you!” Samuel exclaimed.
Brandon’s anxiety evaporated. He dismounted and met Samuel with outstretched arms. They embraced. After much back patting and muttering their pleasure at seeing one another, they stepped apart. Brandon smelled rum on Samuel’s breath and said, “Where do I get a cup of what you’re drinking?”
Samuel’s initial euphoria dulled as he looked among the faces of the slowly dismounting angels. “Where is Ian? Do not tell me he is dead.”
Brandon tilted his head in Ian’s direction. “That’s him. He was forced to find a new vessel.”
Samuel’s eyebrows shot up. He frowned at the man Brandon indicated. This man was at least seven years older than the vessel Ian had previously occupied. His eyes were dark blue instead of pale blue. His graying brown hair fell in a long queue down his back instead of the neat black-haired ponytail Ian used to wear.
Samuel stared at Ian and said awkwardly, “It will take me time to get accustomed to your new body.”
Ian laughed at Samuel’s perplexed expression and flashed his red aura for Samuel’s benefit.
“Mrs. Barrett told me that Sidonie went back to Charles Town. Why?” Samuel asked Ian.
Ian grimaced.
“Let’s talk over full tankards of rum,” Brandon suggested.
Samuel’s eyes fell on Michael. He went to embrace the angel with whom he shared a different bond. The day Michael and he were assaulted outside the meetinghouse would remain a clear memory.
Michael’s wings rustled in response to his joy at seeing Samuel. The sound astonished the angels, but Colm was clearly unsettled by Michael’s reaction.
A man with graying brown hair much like Ian’s approached with long hurried strides. He shouted, “I’ll be damned! Abe Rowlinson! I have not seen you since we fought at Fort Beauséjour! I had no idea you were acquainted with Dr. Warren!”
“William Prescott?” Abe went to meet him. They engaged in back slapping and shoulder patting then strode toward the house in a flurry of conversation.
Four adolescent boys, two black and two white, raced across the lawn and stopped in front of Colm. Their young eyes widened when they looked up into Colm’s pleasant face.
“Are you God?” asked a white freckled-face boy.
“Ya didn’t come to ask me if I was God. What do ya want?”
“Dr. Warren sent us to take care of your horses, and he asks that you go inside to join his celebration,” said a black boy who wore a worn out bicorn hat.
The young boys led the horses away.
Colm wondered, how was Joseph able to see us arrive with the constant flux of arriving and departing vehicles and horses and hundreds of people inside? He surveyed the windows, the yard, and the tangle of parked carriages and chaises. Among that tangle, he saw a nondescript black coach with blue curtains over the windows. The driver’s seat was vacant.
“Go join the party,” Colm ordered his men. “Jeremiah and Gordon, go with the boys.”
The angels took the order.
Colm turned and walked away from the Hastings House festivities. He had to clear his mind and think about the implications of Michael rustling his wings in joy. And he’d heard Joseph and Margaret Gage speaking. He felt their emotions as they sat together in the nondescript coach. Colm wanted to block those things from his spirit.
“I wanted…needed to see you,” Margaret breathed as she stroked Joseph’s cheek. The bruises there had faded to yellow ghosts.
He leaned in and kissed her passionately. She forgot the ghostly bruises.
She returned his hungry kiss, and then pulled away from him. Her eyes savored every speck of his being. She longed to feel him between her legs. But that act was what had driven her, in dangerous secrecy, to Cambridge to tell him that she was with child.
“I realize I have only confused you by telling you of my pregnancy, and that I am unsure whether you or Thomas is the father,” Margaret admitted.
Joseph was afraid to speak lest he blurt out that he knew the child was his because an archangel had told him.
Margaret misunderstood Joseph’s paralysis. She pushed him away. “This has been a mistake,” she hissed. “How could I have been so foolish? I have risked everything to see you, yet you sit there as if my words mean nothing!”
“No! That is the furthest thing from the truth!”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that she was not an easily fooled woman. She thought of the general with the yellow-green eyes, who had been quartering in her home since February. She shuddered. Why did I think of him when I am with Joseph? It’s a disgusting intrusion on my desire for this beautiful man who sits here beside me.
Joseph reached for her. She let him touch her cheeks and shoulders. He slid his hands into the tight bodice of her dress and past the stays. Her nipples hardened and she moaned.
“If I told you I know the babe in your womb is mine, would you promise to believe me?” His hands slid from her breasts and traveled to search the complication of her long skirts for an entrance to what he wanted to touch.
Margaret relaxed her thighs and spread them wide so Joseph’s hands did not have to search hard for entrance. She sighed as he pulled his body in closer to her and found a pathway to what he was searching for.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Joseph’s desire blurred his thoughts. He pushed her skirts and petticoat up to her waist, unbuttoned his breeches, and slipped between her thighs.
Margaret moaned. He was inside her before she had a chance to take another breath. He took her with quiet elegance. Margaret did not realize that she had been holding her breath until he reached orgasm.
Joseph lay pressed against her, waiting for his breathing to settle.
She ran her hand over the top of his sandy blond hair, and said, “Tell me how you know this baby is yours.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. I heard it from a demon first, he thought. He killed the thought and kissed her. In earnest, he said, “An archangel told me.”
She tried to push him away. “Why would you say something…?” She saw honesty in his eyes. “You are telling the truth.”
The sound of a carriage and six horses approaching Hastings House startled Margaret and Joseph. They quickly arranged their clothing and hair. Joseph slipped open a curtain. The newcomers were party guests and not a threat. Beyond the arriving guests, he saw Colm walking along the road away from the house.
Joseph closed the curtain, and grasped Margaret’s hand. “It is time you return to Boston before th
e length of your absence is questioned.” He thought of her return home and the demons quartered there. If Henry or Robert wished to harm Margaret and his unborn child, he was powerless to stop it. “Take care, Margaret.” His hand traveled to caress her belly where an indication of her condition was becoming visible.
He softly knocked on the coach door to indicate to Margaret’s driver that it was time to take her home. The coach rocked as the man climbed into the driver’s seat.
“I do not know when we will see one another again,” Margaret said.
Joseph heard what sounded like regret in her voice. He reached to open the coach door, and then stopped. “There is a tall thin man with long curly brown hair. His queue is secured with a silver ribbon. You will pass him on the road just after you leave here. Look at him closely, and believe what your heart tells you about him.”
She saw gentle love in Joseph’s eyes and knew that love was for the man he spoke of—his archangel.
He kissed her one last time and got out of the coach.
The driver urged the horses to turn the coach toward Boston.
Margaret pulled back the curtains. The man Joseph described stood at the edge of the road as the coach passed by. She swore she saw silver light flash in his eyes when he looked at her. Soft words slid through her mind. Ya child is a girl. Tell her about her father. Tell her he has great courage.
Colm walked back to Hastings House. Joseph stood in the road with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for him. They crossed the lawn and entered the house without speaking.
A young servant handed glasses of claret to Colm and Joseph. The flurry of people who suddenly surrounded them overwhelmed Colm, but he stayed by Joseph’s side. Colm was introduced to Elbridge Gerry, Colonel Israel Putnam, Colonel William Prescott, General John Thomas, General Artemas Ward, the chairman of the Committee of Supplies, Moses Gill, and James Otis.
“General Ward, Mr. Gill, and I have sent a plea to New York to send us as much gunpowder as they can spare,” Joseph explained to Colm. “Our gunpowder is in critically short supply due to the skirmishes we have been fighting.”
“We have asked that they send it by land in a manner that will not alert the enemy of our lacking,” General Ward interjected.
“Does New York have the supply ya need?” Colm asked.
“We do not know. We have asked them to beseech the other colonies for help on our behalf.”
Joseph saw Abe, Gordon, and Jeremiah standing on the perimeter of the clutch of men surrounding Colm and him. Joseph motioned for them to step in closer that he may conduct the same introductions for them as he had done for Colm.
“I did not realize you were already acquainted with Colonel Prescott,” Joseph said to Abe.
“Old fighting comrades is all,” Abe said, embarrassed. He felt out of place among the likes of Colonel Putnam and General Ward.
“The Provincial Congress will soon vote by ballet on whether or not to bestow the rank of major general on our dear friend, Joseph,” Elbridge Gerry explained with a hearty smile. “Of course, even if he is given the rank, the Continental Congress must approve the commission.”
“I see no problem in securing the commission,” General Artemas Ward said. “John Hancock, John Adams, and Samuel Adams maintain a high degree of clout at the Congress in Philadelphia.”
“Why, Joseph will outrank us all!” Colonel Israel Putnam crowed in delight.
General John Thomas was not as enthusiastic as the others over the prospect of Joseph outranking him. The Committee of Safety had already nudged him out of what he considered to be his hometown right by appointing General Fergus Driscoll in command of the provincial army stationed in Roxbury. The rumors that Driscoll was an actual angel of God were ridiculous, only to be believed by the ignorant and the Godless. It galled Thomas even further that General Driscoll’s swain friends were among the guests at Warren’s birthday party.
Thomas tried to hide his contempt. “It is well known that Hancock and the Adams cousins are close friends with Joseph. I’ve no doubt they are already aware of his desire and will act accordingly to fulfill his ambition.”
Jeremiah leaned in toward Gordon and said, “I’d say Thomas is jealous.”
Joseph’s attention was drawn to a small group of men standing on the other side of the room. Michael and Patrick were conversing with his younger brother, twenty-seven-year old Eben Warren, and his youngest brother, twenty- two-year old, Dr. John Warren, whom Joseph called Jack. A foreboding shadow scudded like a storm cloud across the knot of the four little brothers. Joseph shook his head to chase away the discomforting mirage.
“Joseph, are you alright?” James Otis, inquired.
“I am fine, James. Please excuse me.” He crossed the large living room to the front door, paused, and caught Colm’s eye.
Colm issued a slight nod in response, and then regarded the group of four little brothers. Something has unnerved Joseph. He quickly searched the room for Ian, Brandon, and Seamus. Ian was in a shadowed corner with a pretty, dark-haired woman. She brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead with delicately boned fingers that made Colm think of Sidonie.
Seamus and Brandon were lounging on a couch with Samuel Prescott. Rum sloshed from the tankards they held when a man Colm didn’t recognize said something that made them laugh.
With his angels accounted for and Jeremiah, Gordon, and Abe in sight, Colm waited for Joseph’s cue. Joseph opened the front door and walked outside without closing the door behind him. Colm followed.
The lawn was considerably more crowded than it had been when Colm and his men had arrived. Joseph was unable to walk more than a few feet before someone called his name or reached to touch his arm or hand.
A woman, finely dressed in a sophisticated blue silk gown, advanced on Joseph from behind. Her blond hair was curled and pulled away from her young attractive face. She clenched the collar of Joseph’s coat and whirled him round to face her.
Her orange eyes flamed and sparks stung his cheeks. She let go of his coat collar and slapped him with unmerciful strength. Joseph’s jaw dislocated. His ears rang and his vision blurred. The demon viciously jerked the ponytail at the nape of his neck so his head was wretched to the side.
Colm seized the back of her dress near her shoulders and pulled her away from Joseph. She screeched and kicked and tried to propel herself toward Joseph to wreak further damage. Her dress ripped, and she slipped from Colm’s grasp.
The young lady’s behavior was so shocking that the nearby party guests stopped and gasped.
William Prescott shouted, “Get her away from Dr. Warren!”
A flurry of men ran to help Joseph. Colm lost sight of him. Gordon and Jeremiah barged into the flurry.
Gordon quickly closed the gap between him and the demon that now had Joseph on the ground and was crawling on top of him. Gordon snatched her hair and dragged her backward until she was lying on the ground face up. The Sigil of Lucifer flashed on Gordon’s blade when he cut off his cravat to expose the tattoo on his neck.
The demon scrambled to her feet, gripped his wrist, and screamed, “I’m going to strangle you first!”
Her hand flew to his neck. When her splayed fingers brushed the tattoo of the sigil, Gordon heard a loud hiss. The demon recoiled. Gordon jammed his blade into one of her eyes. The demon that possessed the woman screeched. Orange flames shot skyward. The men who were trying to help Joseph scattered. Embers sparked and popped. Wisps of smoke snaked through the air.
Gordon put his palms on his knees and panted.
The demon had possessed a corpse. The dead woman lay face up on top of Joseph with hollow smoldering eyes. The hair around her face was burned away. Her forehead and cheeks were striated with strips of pink raw and black charred skin. Gordon’s blade protruded from one incinerated eye.
The human onlookers’ nonplussed faces ranged from grimaces to complete horror. Colonel Prescott and Colonel Putnam, on the other hand, appeared pleased at the outcome of the
unexpected battle waged on the lawn of Hastings House. Prescott and Putnam had heard the rumors that the Sons of Liberty were allied with an archangel and his men. They had also heard rumors of the demons the angels came to fight. The two colonels were looking forward to participating in the alliance they now knew was not a rumor.
Colm seized the dead woman by the neck and flung her body aside. James Otis, Elbridge Gerry, and Moses Gill gathered around her. She was not someone they recognized.
Joseph tried to gather his wits, but he was dizzy, and his world was revolving as if it had suddenly been catapulted out of its orbit. He heard Michael say, “Ya gonna be alright!” Then, Joseph felt Michael’s arms tighten around him.
A shy frightened girl exhaled an inaudible cry when Michael lifted Joseph into his arms. Michael heard her muted fear. He glanced at her, and for the first time in a very long time, he allowed himself to breathe deeply of her enticing scent.
Michael carried Joseph inside the house. He lay him on the couch that the intoxicated Seamus, Brandon, and Samuel had occupied before the demon attack drew them into the yard.
Colm came to Joseph’s side. His wings unfurled in distress when he saw that Joseph’s forehead and the tip of his nose were skinned. The angels gathered around their archangel. They released their auras and their wings unfurled in a shower of silver crystals.
Joseph’s brothers looked on. Their first physical exposure to the angels and demons should have been unspeakable confusion, but the recollection of the hour spent in conversation with the beautiful angels with effeminate countenances, soothed the Warren brothers.
John Warren waded through the silver crystals and angel wings to his brother’s side.
Colm still had no idea what Joseph had seen that made him abruptly leave the house. He vowed to never leave Joseph alone again.
None of the three major generals King George III sent to the colonies on the Cerberus were particularly pleased about sailing into the cauldron of occupied Boston. General Henry Clinton, the least social and most detail-oriented of the three, could not believe that so little was known about the countryside beyond Boston, despite a number of marches into the territory. This discussion began at ten o’clock in the morning at the home where the generals were quartered on Beacon Hill—the home of John Hancock.
Angels & Patriots_Book One Page 41
