It was finally happening.
Deirdre shut her eyes, bent her head, and, with the cross clasped between her hands and its chain wrapped around her fingers like the beads of the rosary, prayed.
For the safety of Roddy, whom she had not seen or heard from since that rainy afternoon when he’d left on his final mission as the Irish Pirate, and who, according to Jared Foley, was hiding at the Boston home of Dr. Joseph Warren following the brief scuffle with the captain of HMS Bold Marauder during which he’d made his escape.
For the safety of her adopted family, who had spent the night preparing for war, cleaning, oiling, and rolling cartridges for their two muskets, and maintaining a state of watchfulness.
And most of all, for Christian, whom she missed with every beat of her lonely, aching heart. If only he had released Roddy, and honored his promise to her. But how could she have expected him to forsake the values and traditions by which he had lived the past twenty years of his life, turning his back on his own principles of what was just and right?
He was a king’s officer.
Sadness weighed heavily in her heart, and she pressed her lips to the spot on her finger where his ring had rested for so brief a time. How stricken he’d looked when she’d taken it off and laid it on his desk, then turned her back and left him. Anguish filled her. At least he would be safe behind the frigate’s mighty guns should the worst happen.
She raised her head and looked out into the night. Figures moved in the darkness, their voices hushed and excited. More and more people, alerted by the night messenger, were trickling from their houses and standing in the road, some staring fearfully toward the east, whence the regulars would soon be coming.
Deirdre shut her eyes once more. Her lips moved against the hard edges of the cross, and she suddenly felt cold all over.
“Please, God, watch over all those I love, and those I do not love, those I know, and those I do not know. Please, dear Father, keep everyone safe, especially Roddy, wherever he may be, and my beloved Christian. I love him, Father, I love him so very much—even if he did put duty before me. And please, oh, Father, don’t let the minutemen have to take up arms against the regulars, for there are good and decent men on both sides.”
She paused, shivering in the night air that wafted in through the open window. The scent of wood smoke hung in the air, and a faint breeze rustled the trees. It was early springtime, and soon, everyone said, the leaves would be on the trees, just like they were back home in Connemara. She saw the grass shining silver in the moonlight, and felt a pang inside at the memory of Christian’s promise, for that grass—so brown and dead and ugly when she had first arrived in America—was now growing every bit as green as any field back in Ireland.
Downstairs, she heard Mr. Foley snapping orders, instructing his wife and daughter what to do when the troops came. Soon, she knew, someone would be coming up to get her, but she had a few moments left. Precious moments before she had to leave the sanctuary of her little bedroom.
Her gaze lifted to the eastern horizon beyond the trees. She thought of the king’s soldiers, making their way even now through the moonlight toward them, and a prickle of doom made the hairs rise on her neck and shivers dance the length of her spine.
Her bent her head once again, and squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she prayed, “And oh, Father, please, oh please, please, please—don’t let anyone get killed . . .”
“Deirdre?” It was Mr. Foley, calling from the foot of the stairs. “Get dressed and come downstairs. The regulars are out!”
As though she didn’t know.
“Aye, Mr. Foley . . . I’ll be right down.”
She stood up, her muscles cramped from sitting at the window for so long. She put on a green jacket, a thick, quilted petticoat and a pair of boots. She had gone to bed in Christian’s shirt—and she left it on beneath her stays, keeping the only part of him she had close to her heart. Then she picked up her canvas bag, nearly empty now except for the flagon of Irish air. That little bag had traveled the vast Atlantic. It had never left her person since she had bidden good-bye to her beloved Ireland. It would not leave her now.
She was just descending the stairs when the first dogs began to bark wildly in the distance, piercing the quiet of the night. Fear rose within her and a deep rumbling began to sound from the east. The Foleys raced to the front window and peered out into the moonlit night. And in the little cupboard, the plates began to vibrate. Louder and louder and louder—
“Dear God above,” Mrs. Foley breathed, paling with fright.
For just outside the window, the measured tramp of their feet shaking the very floor upon which the Foleys stood, was a vast, unending river of red-coated soldiers marching past, their bayonets gleaming in the moonlight. Here and there an officer rode, his steed’s hoofbeats like the knell of doom. The dark line stretched as far as the family could see, and the rattle of wagons, the stamp of the war-horses, the measured thunder of booted feet were enough to send Mrs. Foley reeling back from the window, closing her eyes in terror.
“Dear God,” she repeated, and leaned heavily against her husband. “Dear God, have mercy on us . . “.
They dared not light even a candle. Some of the troops broke rank and darted across the lawn, stopping to drink from the well before racing to catch up with their comrades. It seemed to take forever for them to pass, and it was a long time before the frightened Foleys dared to leave the safety of their house and venture outside to join the neighbors milling about in the road.
They found people streaming from their houses, standing in the moonlight and pointing toward the west, toward Lexington, where the soldiers had gone. Lights began to glow from windows, and somewhere a baby wailed. Then Solomon Bowman, the lieutenant of the Menotomy minutemen, went racing from door to door, summoning his men and ordering them to assemble on the green at the crack of dawn to march to Concord and Lexington.
Jared Foley wasted no time. Gathering the powder cartridges they’d been making ever since the first rumors of Gage’s planned raid on Concord had reached them, he laid them on the table and turned to his wife. “Throw all of the pewter and silver into the well,” he told her, gripping her trembling shoulders to steady her. “Gather up everything of value, then take the girls and go to the Prentiss house with the other women.”
“Oh, Jared,” she said, on the verge of hysteria, “please do not ask me to leave my home!”
“I do not ask it, Joanne, I demand it!” He lowered his voice. ‘There will be bloodshed this day,” he murmured. “I feel it in my bones. You will take the girls and go to the Prentiss house with the other women and children, out of sight and away from the road when the regulars pass through on their return to Boston. Do no defy me in this, Joanne.” He turned away, missing the mutinous set of his wife’s jaw, and the exchange of glances between Deirdre and Delight, both of whom knew she had no intention of carrying out her husband’s wishes. He picked up the rolled packets of black powder and began to stuff them into his cartridge box. “If blood is shed today, then I pray that those who die will not do so in vain. This moment has been a long time in coming, Joanne.” Straightening up, he folded her quickly to his chest. Then he set her back, and looked deeply into her eyes. “Whatever happens, keep the girls safe. I will leave you with one of the muskets in case, God forbid, you are called to defend yourself.”
And then dawn began to glimmer on the horizon, and the urgent beat of a drum rolled across the fields, calling the brave minutemen of Menotomy together. Grim-faced fathers and eager-eyed sons bade good-bye to wives and children and sisters, and, toting muskets and ammunition, raced to the town green to answer the call to duty, never knowing that for some of them, it would be the last farewells to their loved ones that they would ever make.
Shortly thereafter, the farmers were marching toward Lexington under the command of Captain Benjamin Locke.
For the people of Menotomy, it would be a day of bloodshed and death.
###
On the quarterdeck of HMS Bold Marauder, Christian paced in agitation. His face was hard with tension, his eyes bleak and worried. The nightmare had come to him last night, more intense, more vivid, more frightening than ever before. A nightmare of blood and fighting and death, only this time the victim was not the woman he had once married—but the young Irish girl whom he loved.
And he, bound to the frigate by the command of duty, was unable to save her.
Several hours earlier, eight hundred troops under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith had left Boston under cover of darkness with the intent of seizing the rebels’ military stores in Concord. And now, reinforcements of some twelve hundred more, under the capable command of Hugh, Lord Percy, had just left to join them.
Deirdre was out there. Alone. Unprotected. In the middle of it, should that spark explode into flames.
He shut his eyes against the memory of the nightmare and tried to shake the overwhelming sense of doom. The nightmare was meaningless, merely a product of his own worry—surely, things wouldn’t go that far, would they?
By now, Smith’s select troops, tense and eager for action, would have reached Concord. They would already have long since passed through the little West Cambridge village of Menotomy. Had the awesome and terrifying might of nearly a thousand armed soldiers awakened Deirdre as they’d marched through in the moonlight? Had she looked out her window and trembled in fear? Where was she now? What was happening?
And oh, God, what the deuced hell was he doing here aboard his ship when he ought to be with her?
Keeping her safe?
He leaned his brow against a tarry shroud, anchoring a hand in the stiff ropes that supported the soaring mast. Go to her. Tell her you did release her brother, after all. Damn your pride, man, just go!
Footsteps sounded on the ladder that led up to the quarterdeck, and turning, he saw Rico Hendricks approaching. He frowned, and the bosun yanked off his hat and belatedly saluted the quarterdeck.
“Sorry, sir.”
Christian merely gave a tight smile and gazed off to the west, feeling Hendricks’s eyes upon him. The big Jamaican cleared his throat. “Er, how’re you faring this morning, Captain?”
Distractedly, Christian reached up to touch the lump on the back of his skull. “Fine, Rico,” he murmured, staring off toward Boston. “’Tis my heart that worries me, and the dread that darkens it.”
Hendricks joined him, his face grave as he let his hands dangle over the rail. He had been the one to discover his friend and captain out cold on the floor of the brig, the prisoner long gone. But he knew of the inner war Christian had been fighting in the days immediately preceding Roddy O’Devir’s escape. He knew his captain was not so careless as to turn his back on a dangerous prisoner, and that it was no coincidence that the entire crew had been ashore when the Pirate had gotten away. And he knew that pride would never allow his commanding officer to admit that maybe, just maybe, he’d had a hand in that escape . . .
Yes, there was more to it than that, and every man aboard the frigate knew it. Sir Geoffrey had been enraged to learn of the Pirate’s escape, and only the persuasiveness of his favorite captain, Brendan Merrick, had saved Christian from a court-martial.
Abruptly, Christian said, “The nightmare returned last night, Rico.”
Rico said nothing, merely looking down into the gray water that swirled so far below.
“For five years, I was tormented by the fact that I was unable to rescue Emily from that burning house. For five years, I have gone to bed every night knowing I would see her standing in those flames once again, screaming as they consumed her . . . burned her.” His voice was harsh. “For five years, I have lived with the anguish and guilt of not being able to get her out of that house.”
Rico looked down, pretending to study the calluses on his broad hands.
“Now the nightmare is back, Rico, but this time it is not Emily who is trapped and afraid . . . it is Deirdre.” Christian took a deep, ragged breath, the shadow of his hat falling over his hands as he bent his head. “And again I stand here, helpless.”
Rico said nothing, watching the morning light glittering on the sea below.
“I shall not remain helpless this time, Rico.” The shadow fell away as Christian’s head came up. “I must go to her, get her out of there, keep her safe, tell her I love her. And”—he looked away, his features contorted with anguish—“I must confess the truth. About . . . about the other night.”
“Aye, sir. Perhaps you should.”
Christian looked at him sharply, but Hendricks only gave a reassuring smile. “Have no fear, sir,” he said, “Your secret is safe with us.”
A voice boomed out behind him. “Well, sir, if ye’re going, ye’d best be off. Word has it that Lord Percy and his reinforcements are long gone. But if ye hurry, you should be able tae catch up tae them.”
Christian turned. Ian MacDuff stood there, and he was not alone. Behind him, the entire crew had quietly gathered, ready to support their captain in any decision he made, whether it be good or bad, wise or unwise. He had won their trust, their loyalty, and, perhaps, even their love.
He straightened up, the strain easing from his austere face.
“You’re going, then, sir?” asked Rico, smiling.
“Of course I am.” Christian faced the big Scot. “I may return as your commanding officer,” he said quietly, “or I may return in irons for disobeying my admiral. Either way, Ian, I leave Bold Marauder in your hands.”
He strode resolutely down the quarterdeck stairs, his back rigid and proud. Hibbert, who’d obviously been eavesdropping, was standing there, holding his captain’s boat cloak. Already the crew was assembling, organizing themselves into tight lines of discipline and respect. The sight caught at Christian’s heart, for he knew it might very well be the last time he was ever honored so.
His gaze moved over these men who had come to mean so much to him. Teach, huge, and bristling and formidable, his belt strung with weapons of every size, shape, and kind. Hibbert, trying hard to emulate what he thought a good officer should be, his uniform fresh and clean. Ian, his red curls glinting like fire, and Skunk, his pungent scent enough to give him a private standing space of several feet. Wenham, sad-eyed and hulking. Rhodes, tight-lipped and unsmiling. Evans, standing at the forefront of his grim-faced marines, and Rico, his dark eyes shining with pride as he came forward to present Christian with his sword.
The boat had already been lowered, and far below, the oarsmen waited.
Slowly, Christian passed the carefully formed lines of seamen and officers, smartly returning every salute. At the rail he paused and looked up at the giant, billowing flag—the flag that he had spent his life defending, the flag whose honor he had sworn to uphold, the flag that would always swell his heart with pride.
Then Rico was handing him his sword and Ian was touching his hat as he accepted command of the king’s frigate Bold Marauder.
“Godspeed, sir. I hope ye find her, and may the both of ye return to us safe and sound.”
Christian returned Ian’s salute. Then he turned, climbing down the side of the ship and into the boat that waited in the waves below.
###
Huddled in their homes and in the crowded rooms of the Prentiss house, the women and children of Menotomy paled at the first distant boom of gunfire to the west.
The alarming reports had come trickling in as horsemen raced through the village, shouting the news. Fighting had broken out at dawn in Lexington, and colonists and soldiers had been killed. There had been a skirmish at the north bridge in Concord. The regulars had failed to find the stores of munitions and ordnance, and were now headed toward Menotomy on their way back to Boston
Earlier in the afternoon, a twelve-hundred-man relief force under the command of Lord Hugh Percy had marched past on its way to aid Colonel Smith, their bayonets glinting in the sun, their mighty field pieces rumbling along on giant carts made especially to carry them. And no one would
ever forget the sight of a little girl, attending her mother’s cow as it grazed by the side of the road, looking up to see the oncoming redcoats. As the animal plodded through the ranks, the child, heedless of the danger, followed it fearlessly. The regulars left her alone, and one or two even paused to ruffle the child’s hair. Then the main column of Percy’s men had passed, their measured footsteps sounding like the tread of one monstrous leviathan. They were flanked by mounted officers, and trailed by carts and wagons laden with supplies. It seemed to take forever for the road to empty, and still stragglers came galloping by in their wake for hours.
In Concord, Colonel Smith’s exhausted troops, failing to find the rebel stores and growing increasingly alarmed at the sight of minutemen pouring in by the thousands from all over the countryside, had turned and headed back toward Boston. Incited by the earlier bloodshed, the rebels began to fire on them from behind stone walls, fences, and trees. Soldiers fell, dying. Order began to dissipate. The troops returned the minutemen’s fire, but it was impossible to hit men who fought like Indians, hiding behind trees and stone walls, only to pop up and pick them off. Panic took over, and what had begun as an orderly march back toward the safety of Boston and the warships anchored there, soon became a downright flight. By the time the soldiers met up with Lord Percy’s relief force outside Lexington, all semblance of order had been lost. After a brief rest, the regulars resumed their hasty retreat, taking fire from all sides.
As Smith’s weary forces fled east, desperate to reach still-distant Boston, Major Pitcairn, knowing the men needed an outlet for their fear and frustration, cunningly sent Percy’s fresh troops ahead and outside of the main column with permission to burn and pillage everything in their path. By the time they hit Menotomy, they had carved a path of violence and destruction before them.
Master Of My Dreams Page 35
