by Susan Page Davis, Darlene Franklin, Pamela Griffin, Lisa Harris
Lucy added one of Jack’s clean shirts and a pair of light wool stockings to her basket. As she left the house, a flicker of movement at the corner of the barn caught her eye. She stood still, her heart thumping, then smiled. The dog was back.
“Here, then,” she called softly. “You’re looking for another feed, aren’t you?”
She hurried back inside. Since her arrival she’d cooked no meat, but if the dog was hungry he’d eat a biscuit. She took one from the tin she’d stored the leftovers in and went back outside. The dog was lying beside the doorstep. She tossed the biscuit to him, and he snapped it down in one gulp.
Lucy stroked his head. “You’re starving, aren’t you? Have patience, and I’ll find you something more later on.” She started down the path, then lifted her skirt and whirled to look at the dog once more. “And don’t you get any ideas about those chickens!”
The shaggy mutt rose and trotted toward her.
Lucy laughed. “Come on, then.”
“It’s not fair!” Jack’s spunky new wife insisted.
He couldn’t help smiling. “Don’t vex yourself over it.”
“But they should let you have the food I fixed for you.”
“Perhaps they will another time. I’m thankful they let you in, and that they allowed you to bring the clothing.”
She sighed. “Do you think Goody Stoddard is upset? She seemed to think I cast aspersions on her cooking and was saying she didn’t feed you well.”
Jack shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Lucy frowned and stamped her foot, and he laughed outright.
“It’s wonderful to see you.”
Her features relaxed. “I’m glad I was able to come, but they ought to let me in the cell, now we’re married.”
“Nay. I don’t want you in here. It’s dark and smelly and not at all suitable for a lady.”
“I’ll bring you another blanket if they’ll let me.”
“No, Lucy. Don’t come here again.”
She frowned. “Jack—”
“Please.”
She took a deep breath, then sighed. “Did I promise to obey you?”
“I think you did. The vows are a bit hazy in my mind, though.”
“Mine, too. Well, if I did, I shouldn’t have. I shall come every day to see you.”
An unaccustomed joy pierced him. She wanted to be near him. In spite of this pleasant revelation, his better judgment schooled him to dampen her spirits. “It’s better if you don’t.”
“How is it better?”
“Lucy.” He grasped the bars in the tiny window, pulling himself closer so he could see her better.
“They still have you in irons!” Her face blanched as she stared at his wrists.
“Lucy, this is far from over. Just because the magistrate gave me this short reprieve doesn’t mean I’ll ever be free again.”
He watched her sweet face as she struggled for composure. Her lips quivered, and she blinked rapidly. She put one fist to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to make light of your circumstances.”
“I know.”
“I shall trust God for your deliverance.”
“You mustn’t count on it. Expect the worst, or you’re apt to be disappointed.”
“Nay. Expect the best, and rejoice in God’s working.”
He couldn’t argue with her. But did she really want him delivered from the gallows? It wasn’t at all what he’d led her to expect. What sort of life would they have together if by some miracle he survived? He whispered, “Continue to pray, wife.”
She looked away as she answered, “No fear. I pray for you constantly.”
“And I for you.”
Her lips turned up in satisfaction. “No matter what happens, Jack, some good has come of this.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I thank God. Not that I’m in here; I can’t get round to being thankful for that yet, I’m afraid. But I thank Him for … other things.” For bringing you back into my life, he wanted to say. For drawing me closer to Him. But he couldn’t bring himself to voice those thoughts.
She moved her hand as though to touch his through the bars but let it fall back to her side. “I shall visit you every day, as long as they let me.”
He slumped against the doorframe. “I don’t like you coming here, and I don’t like to think of you walking all that way alone.”
She brightened at that. “We have a dog now.”
“We do?”
“Yes. I call him Sir Walter.”
Jack laughed.
“It’s Trent’s dog,” she confided.
His amusement fled, leaving a cold, hard knot in his stomach. “I’ll not have you adopt that cur.”
“But—”
“That mongrel is vicious, and he steals food. Trent would have liked it if he’d attacked me.”
“But I feel safer with him there.” Her huge blue eyes pleaded with him. Jack looked away and took a deep breath.
“I won’t waste your supplies,” she whispered, “but I’ll be less lonely at night if I have a dog.”
Jack closed his eyes and considered this small blessing God had sent to Lucy in her fear and confusion. If he had been hanged yesterday, as he had expected, what would he care if she nurtured his adversary’s dog?
“All right,” he said. “At least if you’re feeding him, he won’t be after the chickens.”
Her smile shot arrows of hope into his heart.
“And his name is Battle,” Jack told her.
She sobered. “Nay. His name is Sir Walter.”
Chapter 9
Lucy woke that night and lay still, holding her breath. What had waked her?
There it was again—soft footsteps on turf. Then came a low creaking. The dog stirred. She had let him sleep on the rag rug beside the bed, and she reached down and stroked his flank. He gave a little shake, and his skin rippled.
“Hush now, Sir Walter.”
She stole from the bed to the shuttered window and peered through a crack, but the overcast sky made for a dark night. And this side of the house faced the pasture and the wood beyond, not the barn.
She padded into the front room in her bare feet, halted by the door, and listened. All was quiet. She jumped as the dog’s nose connected with her thigh.
“You be still, now,” she whispered. She slowly lifted the bar and opened the door a crack. She stared toward the barn, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the change in grayness. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though the barn door was open.
Sir Walter gave a low growl, and she laid her hand on his head. “Shh.”
The dog’s ears were as high as her hip, and his presence made her feel somewhat more secure. Should she send him out into the night? Perhaps he would bark and frighten away the intruder, if there was one. Should she light a lantern and go out to see if the barn door was indeed open? That seemed foolhardy. She kept her place.
The dog tensed and growled again. Lucy wondered if he could hear something she couldn’t. She stood unmoving for several minutes but caught no noise or flicker of movement. Perhaps she’d been hearing the hoofbeats of a deer as it crossed her yard.
Dear Lord, she prayed, protect us!
At last the dog relaxed his position and yawned, then turned away. She closed the door and barred it once more, then built up the fires and with great caution took down Jack’s musket. It was loaded and primed. She carried it into her bedchamber and climbed back into bed. Sir Walter settled on the rug once more.
She tried to stay alert but soon fell into an exhausted sleep.
“What is it like outside today?” Jack asked.
Captain Murray sat on the three-legged stool the jailer had brought in a few days earlier, and Jack sat on the straw pile that was his bed.
“It’s fine out,” Murray said. “I ought to be fishing or cutting hay.”
“Why aren’t you?”
The captain smiled and reached for the sheath at his waist, but it was empty.
“Took your knif
e away?” Jack asked.
“Yes.” Murray brought his pipe from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Forbade me to smoke in here, too.”
“Well, I’m thankful for that,” Jack said. “The smoke would never clear in here.”
Murray sucked on the cold pipe. “I came to see if I could strike a bargain with you.”
“What sort of bargain?”
“I want to clear some new ground. Next spring I’d like to plant rye. Thought perhaps I could take your oxen for a month and use them to pull stumps. I’d give you a barrel of salt fish and a load of hay.”
“Better speak to Lucy, but it sounds fine to me. It would help her by taking Bright and Snip off her hands. If she doesn’t need the hay and fish, she can sell them.” Jack smiled.
“But if I know her, and I believe I’m beginning to, she’ll feed some of the fish to that mongrel dog she’s adopted.”
Murray nodded. “I thought you’d agree. Shall I tell her you’ve approved my proposition?”
“Nay. Ask her what she thinks, and let her handle the transaction herself.”
Murray studied him. “Training her to be independent, are you?”
“I’ve got to.”
“She’ll do fine, lad. She’s jumped right into the farm chores, and I heard she’s opening school again Monday week.”
“Yes.” Jack couldn’t suppress the pride he felt. “She’s a hard worker and a good businesswoman, I’m finding.”
“If she has a chance, she’ll be a good wife to you, as well.”
Jack felt his face flush but trusted his beard and the poor lighting to hide it.
Murray stood and stretched. “I’d best move along. I’ll hike out to your place and see about the oxen.”
“She comes every day about this time,” Jack said. “If you wait, you’ll see her.”
“Faithful in her visits, is she?”
Jack stood and walked with him to the cell door. “I tried to discourage her, but she’s come every day since the magistrate was here.”
“That bodes well for you if you are acquitted.”
“Do you think so?”
“Of course! A wife who can cook and keep her house clean is a blessing, but one who dotes on you is a treasure.”
Jack frowned. “She wouldn’t listen when I forbade her to come.”
The captain threw back his head and laughed. “Better and better.” He clapped Jack on the shoulder. “I miss you at drill.”
“No trouble with the Indians, is there?”
“Not lately, but I rather expect some this time of year.” Murray bowed his head to look out the barred window. “Hey, Stoddard!”
A moment later the jailer unlocked the cell door. “Hunter, your missus is here again.”
“Is she coming in now?” Jack asked.
“After she’s done raking my wife over the coals.”
“What’s that?” Murray cocked his head to one side.
“She’s raising a ruckus about the food,” Stoddard explained. “My wife gives this man three meals a day—good, plain fare—but Goody Hunter wants to bring in sweets and such.”
Jack smiled. “I hope you’ll forgive her, sir. She only wants to keep my spirits up. I’ve told her the board is adequate here.”
“I should hope so,” the jailer growled.
“Can it hurt a prisoner to get a little extra food prepared by loving hands?” the captain asked.
Stoddard sighed. “I told my wife to let her bring it. Just cut it up in small pieces so we’re sure she’s not baking any contraband into her apple flan.”
Murray’s laugh roared out, echoing in the passageway. “As if Lucy Hunter would try to slip her husband a knife or a file! You know she’s as honest as the sea is wide.”
“I know no such thing, not when it comes to the wife of a desperate man.” Stoddard closed the cell door. “I’ll bring her right in, Hunter.”
Murray laid his huge hand on the jailer’s shoulder. “Reuben, this couple’s been married a week now and not allowed to see each other but through that sorry little window. Can’t you let Goody Hunter spend an hour alone with her husband?”
Jack’s heart lurched, though he knew what the answer would be.
Stoddard’s spine straightened, and he looked into the captain’s face. “We do not allow such in the king’s prison, Captain. Not even for a man I esteem as much as I do yourself. And certainly not for Isaac Hunter’s boy.”
Lucy hummed as she hurried home from the jail. She had made her point, and the jailer had allowed her to take two of her tarts to Jack in his cell. Never mind that they were cut into niggling pieces.
His eyes had fairly glowed when he tasted them. She wanted to think part of that glow was for herself, not just her cooking.
The dog trotted alongside her, foraying off now and then to explore new scents at the edges of the lane. In her mind, Lucy catalogued the provisions in her larder and made a list of treats she could bake for Jack. If her cooking was the only one of her skills Jack was permitted to enjoy at the moment, she would become the best cook in all of Maine.
The dog barked, and Lucy looked ahead, gasping when she saw a man emerging from the path to her house. She didn’t think she was acquainted with him. He came toward her at a leisurely pace, and she kept walking, wondering whether to turn in at her home or keep going toward the Ellises’ farm. She recognized his long blue jacket and spotted kerchief as the clothing of a sailor.
“Good day,” he called as she came closer, sweeping off his cap.
“Good day.” Sir Walter stood beside her, growling.
“I be looking for the goodman what lives yonder. Hunter, is it not?”
Far down the lane, Lucy saw an oxcart approaching. Relieved that she was not alone with the stranger, she said, “I be Goody Hunter. May I help you?”
He grinned. “There, now. Don’t tell me young Jack Hunter’s married?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Imagine that! I knew Jack when he was just a boy.”
“Indeed.”
He bowed slightly. “Forgive me, ma’am. I should have introduced myself. I’m Richard Trent.”
She caught her breath. “So … Barnabas Trent was your father.”
“That’s right. I’ve been away some time now, nigh on ten years. I got word three days ago that my father had expired, and I’ve come to close his estate.”
Lucy weighed that in her mind. “To what purpose did you wish to see my husband?”
“Why, to see if I could borrow a few tools, ma’am. My father’s cottage seems to need some repairs.”
That was an understatement, Lucy thought, but she would never say so. “And what do you know of the circumstances of your father’s death?”
Trent’s tanned face contorted into a grimace. “I received a letter saying he was killed. It didn’t say much else.”
“And who sent the letter?”
“One of the constables. Rutledge, I believe. Doesn’t he live over by Fort Hill?”
“Aye,” said Lucy.
“I suppose I should go around and see him,” Trent said with a frown, “but when I arrived I found the doorstep rotted and the hinges sagging, and I thought I’d do some work first.” He gave her a wistful smile. “I stopped at the churchyard and saw the new mound where they buried him next to my mother, and then I came straight here. But I should go see Goodman Rutledge right away. He would have the inventory of my father’s goods, I suppose, and he could tell me more about what transpired.”
Lucy nodded. “That is probably best.”
The oxcart came closer, and she saw that Goodman Littlefield walked beside the near ox.
“Perhaps I can come by later and call on you and your husband,” Trent said.
Lucy cleared her throat. “My husband is not the one you should borrow tools from, sir.”
“I’m sorry. I meant no presumption.”
“Nay, I’m sure you didn’t.” She gritted her teeth. He would learn the truth soon enough. She
straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “You see, Mr. Trent, though he be innocent, my husband stands accused of murdering your father. Good day.”
The oxcart was nearly abreast of them, and she nodded to Goodman Littlefield, who trudged beside the team. He lifted his cap and nodded, then stared at Trent. Lucy marched up the path toward her house with Sir Walter padding along beside her.
She sobbed as she reached the doorstep. The dog looked up at her with trusting brown eyes and whined. Lucy shifted her basket to her other arm and stroked his glossy head. She had bathed him and combed out his matted hair so he made quite a presentable companion for a lady.
“Perhaps it was wrong of me not to tell him that you were his father’s pet,” she conceded. “But you’re mine now, and I think you enjoy being such. Besides, I think he’s got enough to think about this day.”
Chapter 10
Lucy trudged wearily to the jail. A month had come and gone, but the magistrate had not.
“He were called to Biddeford last week,” Reuben Stoddard had told her the day before.
“When will he return?”
“No one knows.”
She supposed she ought to be thankful. Each day’s delay meant Jack lived twenty-four hours more. But the uncertainty wore on her, and it took its toll on Jack, too.
He coughed now, too much for a healthy man. Although it was hot outside during the day, it was cool and damp in the dungeon, and he admitted to feeling a chill at night. His appetite fled, and her baking no longer tempted him. He ate the dainties she took him, but some days she was sure it was only because she was watching him. Instead of seizing hope from the postponement of proceedings, he had grown morose. The passion had left his eyes, and he seemed not to care anymore what the man appointed to defend him was planning.
The lawyer had visited the village once, spending about an hour with Jack in the outer room of the jail, during which the prisoner was kept fettered and heavily guarded. Then he went away, saying he would return when he was notified that the case was to be heard. Lucy found the lawyer’s apparent apathy scandalous, but she could think of no way to advance Jack’s cause.
