“Will Gayle be here?” Brent asked her.
“Not ten feet away from you. Are you ready?”
Brent looked pained one more time, his head and neck stretched up on the sofa. Then he nodded, and lay back down.
Gayle's fingers bit into her chair as Dr. Clark began talking to him. She told him to watch the spiral, and to relax. Relax his fingers, relax his toes. Relax his calves, his thighs, his arms, his back, vertebra by vertebra...
The gentle sound of running water filled the room. Relax, relax...life is peaceful and life is beautiful. Brent was tired and his eyes and his body were heavy, and he must close his eyes and sleep.
At three sharp raps, Dr. Clark told him, he would awaken and feel refreshed. Did he understand her?
Yes, he did.
“I want you to go back. Far back. Into another life. I want you to become Percy now, Brent. Do you understand me?”
Gayle waited, barely breathing. “Yes,” Brent said.
But it wasn't Brent. It was Percy. And Percy began to talk, obediently answering every question.
CHAPTER 19
Percy
The Manor House, Virginia, Countryside and Valley Forge Winter 1777
Tired, dusty, and worn, he paused, a sudden thrill coming to his heart.
He was home.
He could see down the long, curving path to the manor house; he could see the slaves out in the fields and the rich acres of tobacco and other crops. He could see smoke coming from the chimneys of the curing houses, and he knew that fine Virginia hams were being prepared for the long winter ahead.
Someone must have spotted him. Someone must have given word that he was home, for as he spurred Goliath into a gallop and raced toward the house, she was there.
She appeared first on the veranda. She was dressed in muslin, a gown of white and flowers, the picture of beauty. She saw him and her hands flew to her mouth, and he knew that tears touched her eyes, for they glittered beneath the sun.
Then she began to run, running toward him down the long path. Percy reined in Goliath and slipped from his back, catching his wife as she dashed into his arms, swinging her around and around-and then holding her close. She touched his cheeks and she trembled, and then she touched again and he impatiently swept her to him and gave her a deep, heady kiss. It had been so long. So very long since he had held her. He kissed her to taste her; he touched her to savor the softness of her form, to remember...
“You're home,” she cried excitedly.
“I've a week,” he told her.
“A week!”
He shrugged. “It's better than nothing. Come, let's get up to the house.”
The slaves greeted him as they walked to the house. He waved to them all, then paused just a moment to speak with the foreman, telling him they could talk in the morning. In the passage, he saw old Ramsay and asked if a bath could be fixed for him, posthaste, up above in the bedroom.
Then his eyes were all for his wife again. He laughed suddenly and swept her up into his arms and ran the length of the stairs. She laughed and protested, clinging tightly to him, swearing that he would kill them both. In their bedroom, old Ramsay had just laid wood in the fireplace, and two of the houseboys were carting in water to the tub. Katrina tried to be sober, since everyone about her seemed to wear knowing grins.
“Percy! We mustn't behave so!” she protested in a whisper.
“Nonsense! My God, my darling, I have been gone so long. I have seen hell, and here I am home, and before God, I have hungered for my wife.”
Still, she would stand upon her own feet. She would instruct the boys as to the amount of water. Percy sat upon the bed, watching her contentedly. She was so beautiful. She was spring in endless winter; she was not only his lover but his friend, and during his long absences, she had cared for the estate and earned the respect of his slaves and his freemen and even his foreman and tenant farmers. She was the perfect lady of his house.
When Ramsay and the boys were gone, she stood by the tub, shy and proper. “Oh, your boots!” she cried and she flew to him, falling to her knees to help him off with them.
“You mustn't. I am filthy.”
“I care not if you're caked in mud,” she swore, and she paused and the shyness was out of her eyes as she met his. “Oh, Percy!” she cried, and she rose to throw herself into his arms. They rolled together on the bed and he kissed her again, feeling the fires in his blood rise, and the longing in his heart.
He sighed though and parted from her, for he felt that he wore the blood of the battlefield and did not want to bring it into their bed. She rose with him in silence, somehow understanding, and she helped him strip down to his skin, then murmured, “I must give this uniform to Anne to be cleaned and mended, and I shall come back.”
She was gone. Percy stepped into the tub and he leaned his head back against it, inhaling the steam and savoring the luxury. He closed his eyes. God bless his home! Still so far from the scene of battle. He had changed in the last few years, he knew, changed drastically. Even last year, when the Declaration of Independence had been drafted and accepted, his excitement had still ridden so high.
They had been glorious men then, patriots furthering a glorious cause. But since then, Percy had seen battle again and again. He had crossed the British lines in New York, and he had been able to return. But a young man named Nathan Hale had done the same—and he had not returned. He had been hanged by the British, swearing that he regretted he had but one life to give to his country. Glorious cause, glorious death...but still life was over, and young Hale lay rotting in the earth. Still he had been executed. It had been a clean, quick death. Percy could not forget the men who did not die cleanly. He had ridden with Washington. He scouted and he spied and he always returned to the scene of the battle. He had shoved his bayonet into the bellies of many young men; he had seen death glaze their eyes, he had seen blood spurt from their bellies. He had ridden over the field after the battle; he had known the despair of the mortally wounded who would take their time to die. He had seen marvelous victory, when Washington had commanded them across the Delaware, and he had known defeat, at the Battle of Brandywine. Freedom was glorious, but in battle lay the pits of hell, and though he would never forget that he fought for God-given rights, he was an older soldier now, battle-worn and battle-weary.
He opened his eyes suddenly, for he felt her touch. Katrina was kneeling down beside the tub, and her ever blue gaze was upon him with worry and tenderness as she moved a cloth over his shoulders, scrubbing and massaging them. He smiled at her lazily, his eyes closing slightly, and she laughed breathlessly, for his thoughts now were so easy to read. She kissed his cheek, then soaped the stubble of beard there. She stroked his chest in circles, swirling cloth and soap there. Then she hesitated, but he caught her hand beneath the water and whispered tensely, “Touch me!” and she did. He sank back, awhirl in the sensation; then his eyes opened again and he reached for her, soaking her. “Percy!” she cried, and then “Percy!” she laughed; and he rose from the wet tub and carried her over to their bed.
He drowned there in the sweet sensations of their love, and he wondered how he had ever lived away from her. He loved her so much. She was so giving. She was a balm poured upon him, a sweet oil that soothed and revived him. Her fingers were magic and her whispers were a gentle stream that washed away pain and sorrow and never failed to bring the pure, radiant beauty of life.
He didn't know how long they lay there. Making love heatedly, then lazily, then beginning all over again, languorously, sweetly. Day became night, and she rose to light a candle. He watched her in the new soft light, recalling every curve and line of her, desperately implanting in his mind every slope and curve, the fullness of her breasts, the dip of her spine, the twin dimples upon the sultry slope of her buttocks. She came back to him and lay beside him and took his head upon her lap, smoothing back his hair. In time, she mentioned that she would see to his supper, and he told her not to leave. She laughed and promised earnestly that
she would be back.
He slept then. And when he awoke, she was back. She had his saddlebags with her, and she sat upon the floor in the dim candlelight. She had been cleaning them, he saw, but she was no longer. She had emptied them, and she stared with concern and distress upon the sketches that he had done. And when she lifted her eyes to his, knowing he had wakened, her eyes reflected many of the horrors he had known. “Percy!” she whispered to him. “They are so sad, they are so awful...”
He rose from the bed and came to her. He glanced over the sketches he had done and took them from her, rolling them up. “I did not mean for you to see them.”
“It is so awful. That young boy—”
“He was just thirteen, with the fife and drum corps.”
“My love,” she whispered, and she set her arms around him. They stayed there on the floor, holding each other close, then she told him that she had his supper on a tray. He thanked her for the luxury, returning to bed with the tray. He ate and listened while she told him about the affairs of the manor and the farms. Then he urged her back into bed with him and they shared the last of the food upon the tray, and then the food was forgotten as he clung fast to her again.
At last she roused herself to ask him about the army, he sighed and told her that the British were in Philadelphia.
“Is my brother there?” she asked him.
“So I have heard,” Percy told her, and he watched as she shuddered, her eyes lowering. “You need not be afraid of him. If danger comes anywhere near here, I will send James to you. He will take you away. He will take you west, into the Ohio Valley.”
“I am not afraid,” she said. But he could see that she was, and Percy wondered why.
“I will protect you. I will always protect you. I would die for you, my love, and you know it.”
“Oh, Percy! Do not say that! Don't talk of death, please!”
He kissed her and promised her that he would not. “Our army,” he told her, “is holing up in a little place called Valley Forge.”
She was silent for a moment and then she said, “The General's wife will be there. She will winter with her husband.”
Percy frowned. “Yes, probably.”
“Then I will come too.”
“Katrina, Katrina, you cannot imagine the conditions! The food is horrid and rotten, as often as not; it becomes bitter, bitter cold there. There is terrible disease there and the wounded and—”
“You are there. It will not matter what else. Percy, I will come with you; I will be there too.”
He spent the rest of the night arguing with her, but she had her way with an argument. She did not fight him but loved him instead, meeting each cross word with a kiss and each husbandly command with a soft, enticing sweep of her hair against his naked belly. He never remembered saying that she could, but in the end, it was agreed that she would.
First they enjoyed his week at home. They rode over the landscape and they picnicked by the river. Percy met with his foreman, and then he spent long, lazy afternoons with his wife. Here, then, was another world. Here was peace and beauty.
The idyll came to an end, though. Percy knew that he had to get back. There was a battle lull for the winter, but there would be raids and covert activities, and he knew that the Old Man would be depending on him. There was always the desperate need for quinine.
In late November they rode together back to Pennsylvania. Percy was proud of his wife, for she accepted the cold and the rigors without complaint. At night they rested together wherever they could find cover and she would always make him smile, for no matter what the circumstances, they seemed to find a way to make love. In the firelight she would touch his cheek with wonder and ask him if they would always feel the same, and he would realize how very lucky he was. It was no longer an affair; they were man and wife now, yet the sweet, thrilling excitement was still there, the near savage desire to love her each time he saw her.
He was impressed again when they reached the brutal quarters at Valley Forge. Katrina was quick to help with nursing the sick and wounded, quick to understand their difficulties. He knew that the wounded men thought of her as an angel of mercy, and he was proud.
Perhaps it was inevitable; their first spat came when he told her that he must ride out. She caught him before he could leave their tiny quarters. “Where are you going?”
“Out, Katrina, on a raid. It is all right.”
“No! You can't go today; you must get someone else—”
“Katrina, I am an officer in the army. You must understand this; you have known this!”
But today, she was nearly hysterical. “Percy, I am afraid! Please, just today! Claim that you are sick, claim that—”
“Katrina!” Although he was sorry she was distraught, he caught her arms and set her from him. He said, “I must go. Please, Katrina!” He kissed her, but she was inconsolable.
It stayed with him as he mounted up with his men, that feeling of hers, that sense of foreboding. It was a dark day too, frigidly cold and overcast. He and his small party headed east, toward a village outside of Philadelphia. There was supposed to be a cache of British guns and medicines hidden in a farmhouse there.
A two hours' ride brought them to their objective. Percy had his men hold back among the trees. He counted Redcoats about and decided that there were about twenty. His own small band numbered ten, but they were becoming well versed in the ways of Indian warfare.
Percy silently ordered his men about, Welsh and Trelawny in back of the barn, Stern and Hood behind the wagons. In a matter of seconds, the lookouts had been killed, and the men converged to attack the Redcoats in the barn.
It would have been a smooth operation. No more men would have died; Percy would have taken the supplies and left the Redcoats alive.
But at that moment, a force arrived behind them. A Tory force, not of mercenaries, but of British regulars. Percy swore, reloading his musket, as heavy fire broke out around the barn.
He called orders to Hood. Hood and four of his men burst out of the barn, pulling a cart full of the weapons and medicaments behind them. Percy tried valiantly with the rest of his little band to hold off the Redcoats.
Fire was heavy and constant. Black powder and smoke merged with the gray of the sky. In a lull, Percy called to his remaining troops; they would make a run for it.
It was nearly successful. They tore out of the barn on their mounts, and they raced through the powder and the snow. Then Percy screamed, for a musket ball tore into his shoulder. The agony was like raw fire shooting through him. Then another ball caught him in the left rib. The force was so great that he was lifted and thrown from Goliath. He struck the snow-covered ground, hard.
For moments, for long, long moments, he could not remember anything. Then he opened his eyes, and she was there.
Katrina was there. Tears filled her eyes and she held him, and she tried to smooth the dirt and blood from his face. She was so beautiful, with rich fur framing her face. He reached up to touch her.
She did not look at him then. She was staring upward. Dazed and in agony, Percy followed her gaze.
They were surrounded. Surrounded by a band of British regulars.
He wanted to rise; he wanted to protect her. But blackness was all around him as a thick, dark cloud of cannon smoke enveloped him. He was losing consciousness, he knew. Darkness was all around him. He wanted to talk; he wanted to rise; he wanted so desperately to fight...
“My, my, my, what have we here?” a voice demanded. “Why, 'tis my Lady Seymour.”
Percy dimly heard her cry out, saying that she was his wife and no longer a Seymour.
She knew the man, though. Percy was keenly aware that she knew him.
Then he was aware of nothing, for the absolute blackness claimed him.
CHAPTER 20
He heard a rapping, and he awoke, but he did not awake feeling refreshed. He awoke with such a soaring, splitting headache that he could hardly bear it. He swore, pressing his temples fie
rcely as he slid his legs to the floor.
“Brent!”
There was the most awful tone of fear in Gayle's voice. She ran to his side, kneeling down beside him, reaching for his hands.
“Dammit!” he swore at her, reeling with the pain. “Can't you leave me alone for a minute?”
She jumped back, startled by his attitude. He could see the hurt in her eyes and he was sorry, but he couldn't even say it—his head hurt so badly.
“Do you remember what happened?” Dr. Clark asked him.
He cast her a murderous glare. “Yeah. I fell asleep and now I'm awake and I think I've got a migraine that could kill. Excuse me, will you?”
He started to the door as fast as he could, wanting only to be alone, wanting to down a dozen aspirin and stick his head beneath an ice-cold spray of water.
“Brent!” Gayle called to him.
“What!”
“Don't you remember anything? You came back as him; you came back as Percy, you—”
“For God's sake, will you lay off, Gayle! Can't you see that I'm in pain?”
He slammed out of the room. Helplessly, and near tears, Gayle raised her hands to Dr. Clark. “What good is it? What good is any of it? Neither of us can remember. He'll never believe any of it. He doesn't want to believe it.”
Marsha Clark smoothed her skirts. “Rome wasn't built in a day, Mrs. McCauley,” she murmured unhappily.
“Oh, my God!” Gayle murmured suddenly. She raced from the room and through the passage to the kitchen, and then out through the colonnade to the old kitchen. She sank to the ground by the cupboard and found the rolled sheets of vellum. She ran with them back to the parlor and stretched out the sheets. “Look! Look at these! I bought them because they resembled Brent's work so closely. They are his work, aren't they?”
Dr. Clark hesitated for a moment. “I think so,” she murmured. She smiled at Gayle. “Just like I think that his recent works, upstairs, are of Katrina.”
Gayle sat back, gasping. “They're—they're me. I modeled for him. I sat up there—”
Every Time I Love You Page 26
