His arm shot out and he caught her wrist. "Try me!"
Chapter Fifteen
"I hate you, Captain Grayson Thayer!"
"Major. I told you, I'm actually a major. I worked hard for that promotion."
"I despise the ground you walk on. When Zeke finds out you've kidnapped me, he's going to hang you by your toes and let the ground squirrels chew your flesh," Maggie vowed as Grayson dragged her through the forest by a rope that bound her wrists. "Zeke's gonna chop you up in pieces and pickle your liver in a pickle barrel. Then he's gonna put it in a glass and set it right out on the counter at Manny's tavern so everyone can walk by and say, 'Yes, indeed, that there's Captain Thayer's liver. May the bloody redcoat never rest in peace.'"
"Enough, sweet." Grayson wiped his brow with his dusty sleeve. "You've been going on like this for two hours. Let's talk about something other than my demise, shall we?" He stepped over a fallen log, and the rope tied around his waist that stretched to her wrists went taut. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. He hated to tie Maggie like this, but it seemed the only way he was going to get her to Williamsburg.
"I don't want to talk about anything else." She stepped over the log and he moved on. "I like thinking about how those men are going to torture you when they find out you took me against my will. You can't carry a woman off tied like a calf and expect to get away with it in these parts."
He groaned aloud. Between the heat of the day and Maggie's nonstop talk, he thought he was going to go mad. Maybe he should have left her behind when he'd had the chance. "If you'd been sensible about the matter, I wouldn't have to tie you like a calf!"
"Being sensible? Who's the one that's not being sensible? We've got every man in the county, red coat and blue, looking for you, and you're traipsing through the woods right in the thick of them!"
"I told you. I have to get to Williamsburg. I have to let my commanding officer know I'm alive. I have to find out what happened to Billy Faulkner."
She gave a snort and came to a halt. You don't need me, then. Just let me go on my way."
Impatiently, he snapped the rope between them. "Keep moving. It's near noon. If we can stick to these game paths and we don't run into any trouble, we'll make it to Thayer's Folly by dusk."
"I told you, I ain't goin'."
"I'm not going," he corrected. "If you're going to be my wife, you're going to have to speak properly." He glanced over his shoulder. "That night we went to the bull roast I didn't hear any 'ain'ts' or 'gonnas'."
"That's because I was under cover," she sniffed. "A lady doesn't talk like that, but I ain't a lady. My da was a bootmaker, bound himself out to come to the Colonies. He never learned to read or write, but he could add a bill for an order of shoes quicker than any man I ever knew."
"You don't read or write, either?" Grayson asked hesitantly. Not that it mattered. It was too late for those considerations. Far too late. He loved Maggie and he was going to make her his wife. It was as simple as that.
Maggie walked up beside him, suddenly indignant. "Of course I can read and write! My da worked many an extra night to pay for a tutor for my sister and me. Neighbors laughed at the idea of a woman needing to be able to read and write, but da wanted a better life for his children than what he had."
"Wise man." He glanced back at her. "There's a wonderful library at Thayer's Folly. You're welcome to borrow anything you like to read."
She gave a sigh, finally falling silent. She was mad as hell with Grayson for forcing her to come with him to Williamsburg, but a small part of her, the tiniest sliver, was excited at the prospect. As the hours passed and they continued their trek northwest, the more curious she became. What would Thayer's Folly be like? Would it be like that Tory Mason Pickney's grand house? Would there be fine-kept lawns and scrubbed-faced Negros serving lemonade? And foremost in her mind, was Grayson really a spy for the United States? The thought was just too good to be true.
"You can untie me," Maggie told Grayson when they stopped at a stream that in the summer heat had dried up to nothing more than a slow trickle. She raised her bound wrists to him.
His blue eyes met hers. "You won't run?"
"I should. It's not right to make someone go where they don't want to go."
"It's important to me, Maggie, that you know who I really am. I've been playing the part of Captain Thayer so long that I need you to believe I'm Grayson Thayer, Major in the American army, Virginian planter." He laughed as the words slipped from his mouth. Ten years ago he'd sworn to Sterling that he could never be a planter like their father and his father before him. The land had meant nothing to him ten years ago—now suddenly it meant everything.
"If you knew how your story sounds," she still held up her hands, "you would see how hard it is for me to believe. You got such a reputation—"
"Captain Thayer has a reputation." He clasped her hands. "I'm telling you, that man isn't me. At least I don't want him to be. This war, it's changed me, Maggie."
"I'll go with you to Williamsburg and I'll let you show me your proof, but you have to swear you'll let me go." She looked away as he loosened the knot on the rope and untied her. "I have to go then, Grayson."
"But I want you to be my wife."
She laughed, but not in a hurtful way. "I can't be your wife."
He rubbed her wrists where the rope had left ugly red marks. "Why?"
"A hundred reasons, a thousand reasons."
"That's absurd. You can't deny you care for me."
"It's more than care." She stroked his whiskered cheek. "I probably love ye, but it's not enough."
"Not enough! Maggie—"
The sound of hoofbeats drew Grayson's attention. "Soldiers . . ."
"Redcoats or bluecoats?" she asked, reaching for her pistol he wore tucked in the waistband of his breeches.
His eyes met hers for a moment and then he let her slide the pistol from his waistband. "You're not going to shoot me, are you?"
"Not unless you make me mad."
He glanced at her, realizing she probably meant it, then reached for her hand. "I don't know who's coming, but I say we don't wait around to find out. Either side, we'd be better not to tangle with them. Come on."
Together they raced through the forest, dodging prickly holly trees and ducking beneath branches. Discovering a game path barely wide enough to walk even single file, they went east, away from the threat of soldiers, then northwest again, in the direction of Williamsburg.
Late in the afternoon when the shadows finally lengthened and the relentless heat of the day eased, Grayson pointed ahead to a pile of stones neatly stacked. "There," he murmured, indicating with his hand. "That marks the southeastern corner of Thayer's Folly." He dropped the saddlebag to the ground and lowered his hands to rest on his hips as he stared out at the rolling acres of field and forest.
Maggie whipped off her three-cornered hat, in reverence. Home. She could understand that. Grayson was coming home, she was leaving.
He took her hand, his blue eyes twinkling with pleasure and lighting up his entire suntanned face. "I don't want to go in until nightfall because I don't want anyone seeing me until I talk to Sterling. But we could sneak up and watch."
"Spy on your brother?" She dropped her hands to her hips. He sounded like a child about to play a prank. "You wouldn't!"
He took her in his arms, spinning her around. "You have to understand the relationship Sterling and I have. This is the man who poisoned me, had me captured and put in a prison, and took my place."
"And well he should have if you were a redcoat!"
"But I wasn't!"
In the long hours it had taken Grayson and Maggie to make the trek from Yorktown to Williamsburg, he had explained to her how he'd gone to work spying on the British for Philadelphia merchants before the war, and then for General Washington after the Philadelphia occupation. He told her of the years he'd spent as a British officer while reporting to his own patriot commanding officers. It was a wild tale of military
secrets and close brushes with death, such a wild tale that Maggie thought it all just might be true.
Her brown eyes narrowed as she considered Grayson. "From what you say, Sterling didn't know you weren't a redcoat."
He stole a kiss. "Details. Minor, unimportant details."
She rested her hands on his broad shoulders and lifted her chin to be kissed again. Soon she'd be leaving for New York, never to see Grayson again. In the meantime, she was going to savor every moment, every word, every touch of his hand. She was going to save every memory in her head to be cherished in the years to come. "I still don't think it's right, spying on your brother and his wife."
He kissed her again, this time running his tongue along her lower lip. "Where's that sense of adventure, Maggie?"
She stepped out of his arms and picked up the saddlebag from the ground and tossed it to him. "You'll be lucky if you're not shot for trespassing!"
He laughed at the thought of how close Maggie came to the truth. "Actually we better lay low," he agreed as he started across the field. "Our gamekeeper, Lucius, must be near ninety by now. Even before I left ten years ago he was crazy as a loon and as good a shot as one. He's liable to lift both of our caps if we're not careful."
Maggie's hand went to the battered three-cornered hat she'd taken from Zeke's house. "Gamekeeper, is it? The Thayers have a gamekeeper? My da's grandfather was a gamekeeper for some lord in England."
Grayson waited for her to catch up, and hand in hand, they waded through the waist-high weeds. "Most plantations don't have gamekeepers anymore, but Lucius was my grandfather's gamekeeper, then my papa's. Sterling couldn't very well send him off, a man in his late seventies." He shrugged. "So Lucius just stayed on. From what Sterling says, he doesn't do much hunting for the table anymore, but he keeps himself busy spying on redcoats and visiting old Mable Lukins across the river at Fortune's Find."
Maggie smiled. That told a lot about a man, the way he cared for his father's servants. Perhaps meeting Grayson's brother wouldn't be so bad after all. "How big is this Thayer's Folly?" she asked, gazing out at the overgrown field that seemed to stretch on forever.
"Big."
"Big?" Maggie moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Seeing all of this reminded her that Grayson was probably rich, very rich. "How big is big?"
"Couple of thousand acres. And don't look so frightened." He grabbed her by the shoulder and kissed the top of her head. "A woman who's willing to go up against a band of spooked rebels certainly couldn't be intimidated by a few thousand acres of Virginia soil. Now, Sterling's older by a couple of minutes, so he inherited, but he always said if I ever wanted to come back to Thayer's Folly, we'd be partners. He always told me he'd be willing to split the plantation in half if I'd come work at his side."
"That's what you mean to do then?"
"After the war, if Sterling's still willing. Of course he always offered when I was busy saying no. I never thought I would want to come back here. I was always a city man. Taverns, cards—"
"Loose women," Maggie injected.
He led her along a hedgerow between the field and the woods. "Women, granted, but that was before I met you, Maggie mine. I never loved any of those women."
She squeezed his hand, jealous at the thought of the other women who had touched him the way she'd so intimately touched him, women who would touch him when she was gone. "Did any of them love you?"
He looked away guiltily. "To tell you the truth, I don't know. They said so, but I never stayed with anyone long enough to find out." He kept his eyes on the deer path that ran along the hedgerow, uncomfortable thinking about all of those women he'd bedded . . . women whose names he could no longer remember. He stopped and turned Maggie to face him. "It doesn't matter. What matters is you and me. After this damned war is over, and I know it will be soon, I want to come home to Thayer's Folly and learn how to run this plantation like my papa wanted me to. That's why I need you, Maggie. I want to share this with you."
She swept back a lock of his golden hair, wanting to believe he meant what he said, wanting to think it really could work, but knowing better. 'If it sounds too good to be true,' her da always said, 'then it probably is.' "And what if we lose, Grayson, what then?"
"That's one of the reasons why it's important that I keep my British identity. If we lose, which we won't, but if we did, Thayer's Folly would be granted to me as reward for fighting for Georgie. God forbid we should lose the war, at least Sterling won’t lose the land."
Maggie walked away. "You got it all bundled up in such a neat package. But life isn't that way, Grayson. It's never neat the way you fold your clothes. It's messy. Nobody follows the rules like they're supposed to. Nothing ever works out the way you want it to."
"You're such a pessimist, Maggie." He took her hand, swinging it. "Quit worrying. We're going to be all right, you and I, we're going to be fine. Now come on. Let's go see what that brother of mine is doing tonight!"
A few minutes later, Grayson crept through a maze of trimmed boxwood, pulling Maggie behind him. "I can hear them. They must be playing cricket on the lawn. Sterling always was a better cricketer than I was, the hellhound!"
Maggie crept behind Grayson listening to the sound of husky female laughter, mingled with a man's voice . . . a voice that sounded much like Grayson's. Again and again she heard the thwack of a wooden paddle making contact with a wooden ball.
Pressing a finger to his lips, Grayson parted a thick hedge of Queen Anne's lace at the edge of the boxwood garden and peered through. Her curiosity getting the best of her, Maggie wriggled up beside him.
Out on the finely trimmed lawn were a man and a woman, each hitting a ball with a long wooden paddle. They laughed and teased as they attempted to hit the ball between a series of posts in the ground. Maggie watched with fascination, having heard of cricket, but never actually having seen the game played. The woman, who had quite a good aim, was tall and elegant with a head of rich auburn hair she wore tied back in a thick green ribbon.
Maggie's eyes went wide as her gaze settled on the man. He was an exact duplicate of Grayson from the tip of his golden-haired queue right to his shiny black boots. Dressed in a pair of fawn breeches and a white linen shirt left open at the neckline, he took Maggie's breath away. Grayson had warned Maggie he and his brother were twins, and yet she hadn't expected them to be so similar that she wasn't certain she would know the difference if Sterling were in her bed!
"Holy Mother Mary," she whispered. "My grandmother'd say you two were devil-spawned to be so alike."
Grayson glanced at her, and then back at Sterling and Reagan who played their game of cricket, unaware they had spectators. "Eerie, isn't it. We had a grand time of it as boys. Never had a schoolmaster who could tell us apart."_
"And your mama and da?" Maggie continued to stare at Sterling in utter awe.
"Oh, they could tell from the moment we were born they said."
"How? He even laughs like you do."
Grayson grinned boyishly. "Personality they say. Sterling was a good young man, a son our father could be proud of. Learned his letters, said his prayers, and he never whistled in church. Me—"
"I can guess," Maggie murmured. "Caught kissin' the dairy maids at thirteen, no doubt."
His smile went sheepish. "Worse. And it was Mama's handmaid."
Maggie rolled her eyes heavenward and turned her attention back to Reagan and Sterling. Grayson's brother hit the ball hard and long, knocking his wife's ball out of line of her posts and far from the gaming area. Reagan called him a pettifogging cheat and tossed her knifelike paddle at him, nearly, striking him in the head.
Sterling laughed, throwing down his own paddle and running after his wife, who tried to make a quick getaway. Maggie couldn't resist a smile as the mirror image of her own Grayson swept his wife into his arms and buried his face in her breasts that swelled above the flowered chintz bodice of her obviously expensive gown.
Maggie grasped Grayson's arm and tu
rned away. "Shame on you! You've got no right to spy on them!"
Grayson kissed her full on the mouth and parted the lacy white flowers again. "They won't strip off their clothes—too many servants." He glanced up at the darkening sky. "Of course the sun is going down—"
Maggie gave a snort and grasped his hand, jerking his head out of the bushes. "I'll not be a part of the likes of that! How would you like it if he was starin' through the bushes at you and I rollin' in the grass!"
Grayson's eyes sparkled with mischief as he wrapped his arm around Maggie's waist and lifted her, kissing the damp skin of her neckline. "Is that an offer?"
"Indeed not. Now hush your mouth," she warned, covering his mouth with her hand, "before they hear you. I'm a decent woman, and I want you to remember that, Grayson Thayer, or whoever you are. I never laid with a man before or after my husband until you come struttin' along and tricked me—"
"Tricked you, hah!" He laughed deep in his throat as he covered her protesting mouth with his. "You seduced me, woman. You take me to your house on the pretext of cleaning my wounds and the next thing I know you've got me stretched out on the grass beneath you."
"Oh! You!" Maggie struggled to escape his embrace. "Let me down this minute. I'm headed for New York, I am. I'll not be accused of being a common drop-drawers!"
He smoothed her bright-red untended hair. "I'm just teasing you, Maggie. "I'm just teasing, sweet." He pulled her against him, and she lowered her chin to his shoulder, giving up the struggle.
"I don't want to be here, Grayson," she whispered. "I'm afraid."
"Of what?" He pulled her back so that he could gaze at her face, the face he'd come to love.
She looked away, unable to bear his scrutiny. "Oh, I don't know. This place, your brother, your sister-in-law. They're going to think I'm a strumpet."
"No, no. I'll tell them we're to be married. Better yet, I'll tell them we're already wed."
"You'll tell them no such thing. It's a lie. Father Rufus'll be having me say Hail Marys till I'm hoarse if I tell such lies."
The Bootmaker's Daughter: Revolution (Destiny's Daughters Book 2) Page 18
