The Irish Rogue

by Judith E. French

  Ivy touched her husband's leg and whispered. "What if he lyin'? What if Master O'Ryan takin' us someplace to put us all on the block?"

  Abraham's features hardened. "He won't."

  "How you know he won't?" she persisted.

  "Him and Toby are the only white men on this boat. If he's not telling the truth, he won't get off alive."

  Her face paled. "You'd kill him?"

  Abraham frowned. "Quiet, woman. No need to tell the world. So long as the Irishman's fair with us, he's as safe as if he was in God's hand. But if he's not..."

  He left the rest unsaid, and Ivy knew that the blood of those old African men did run hot in him. She smiled and patted her belly. "Go on to sleep, little Abraham," she crooned. "Your daddy's here, and your daddy goin' to take good care of us."

  "Sail!" a lookout shouted. "Sail there!"

  Every eye stared in the direction he pointed. For a long time Ivy didn't see anything but waves and a rocking blue horizon. Then, abruptly, the tall masts of a merchant ship came into view.

  Moans and low cries of distress rippled over the deck. "The law," the lookout muttered. "They comin' for us."

  One girl, barely thirteen, began to wail and made a lunge for the railing. "I ain't goin' back." Afi seized one arm and her twin the other.

  "Hush now," Afua soothed. "No need for that. Likely that old ship just sail right by us."

  "She's right," O'Ryan said loudly. "If we're hailed, I've got your papers. There's no reason to panic. If you let on that something's wrong, they'll question us. Otherwise..." He shrugged. "I'm a plantation owner taking slaves north to be sold at auction. Nothing illegal about that."

  Tears clouded Ivy's eyes. "God, don't let that be so," she prayed aloud. "Let us be goin' all the way to Canada."

  "I promised you that, didn't I?" Abraham said. "Come heaven, come hell, my child will be born free."

  For several hours, Abraham held the Wind Sprite on course, running north, just out of sight of land. The single sail billowed and snapped, pushed along by a gusty breeze. The wave chop increased and clouds thickened overhead. The merchant ship moved on past and eventually vanished from sight.

  Once they passed a cattle boat heading south. O'Ryan glanced at Abraham, and the black man turned the wheel, taking them farther from the beach. Old Henry settled in the stern and began to beat his drum in an ancient cadence.

  "Weather's turning on us," O'Ryan said to Abraham. "I'm not certain we could stay afloat if this whips into a storm."

  "Yonder's the mouth of the Delaware," he answered. "I'll take this boat to hell before I let you land us there."

  O'Ryan nodded. "So long as you know the danger."

  "If I'm free, I can choose."

  "And the others?" O'Ryan shouted to be heard above the wind.

  "I'm choosing for them," Abraham declared. "I told them when they climbed aboard. Come or stay. We're not being slaves no more."

  Chapter 18

  At Gentleman's Folly, Anne began to quietly sell off her livestock to friends and neighbors. If she could find a buyer, she'd part with Jersey, but she didn't want to. According to her father's journal, the chestnut stallion's stud fees had been a dependable source of income for the past four years. It seemed sensible to keep Jersey and dispose of the animals that neither brought in money nor provided food or clothing for the plantation's residents.

  On the eighth day after Mary, George, and their noisy brood arrived, Nate called at the house to warn Anne that the bay pirates had attacked a farm on Smith Island, killed Jake Tilghman's hunting dog, and made off with a cow, a rifle, and fifty dollars in cash.

  "Are they certain it was the pirates?" she asked. "If it's the same Jake Tilghman Papa used to speak of, the man had a lot of enemies."

  "You're right about that," Nate answered. "Men have been killed on Smith Island for far less than fifty dollars." He frowned. "But they've been raiding south of here. A barn was burned in Dames Quarter and slaves stolen in Accomack County."

  "I suppose I should feel lucky that there are no slaves left on Gentleman's Folly to steal, shouldn't I?" Anne replied.

  "All the same, I want you to be careful."

  Anne sighed. "Don't worry about me, Nathaniel. After the thrashing Papa gave them in the spring, I doubt if any of the thieving scum will dare come around here again."

  Nate had admitted that she was probably correct, then disclosed his real reason for coming by offering to purchase her pianoforte and the tall case clock.

  She suspected that his generous offer was made more out of concern for her well-being than need for either item, but she was in no position to quibble over motives. She accepted with as much grace as possible. Dry-eyed, Anne tucked the cash into her pocket and watched as Nate's workers prepared to remove both clock and pianoforte from the house.

  "Disgraceful!" George proclaimed when he realized what was happening. "That pianoforte was worth—"

  "It was mine to sell," Anne reminded him. "And no business of yours."

  "Have you no pride?" he sputtered. "Mary, can't you talk some sense into your sister?"

  "I'll try, George." Mary scowled at Anne. "You must stop this. You can't sell your furniture. What will people think? Next you'll be auctioning off what's left of Mama's jewelry. I know I was promised the ivory bracelet—"

  "Take the bracelet and you're welcome." Anne's patience with Mary had run out. She waited until the door closed behind Nate Greensboro, then turned to her sister and brother-in-law. "But if either of you want anything else in the house, it's for sale. I won't lose Gentleman's Folly, not if I have to walk the red lantern district of Baltimore in my shift!"

  Two days later George and Mary, accompanied by children, servants, and dog, sailed away on the same mail boat that had brought them. Stowed securely on the deck and wrapped in heavy canvas were Papa's library desk and Mama's best silver.

  Mary was weeping, her daughters whining, and George too irate for words. But in George's coat was a bill of sale for most of the west parlor furniture and the six French gilt chairs.

  Anne waved at her sister and the little girls. "Come back whenever you can get away without George," she called. "And please write to let me know when the baby is born."

  With a lighter heart, she turned away and walked back toward the house. She would miss Mama's chairs, but she could sit on the floor if she had to. Better the furniture go than the land.

  She dug Michael's note from her apron and read it again. "You will come back to me, won't you?" she whispered. "You must come back." She didn't know if they could live with each other or not—even if he did return. But she wanted to try.

  Meanwhile, she must find a way to manage on her own. For the first time in her life, she wasn't a dependent daughter or wife who must be sheltered and protected. She had a mind, and she wanted to prove that she was as capable as any man of making the plantation pay.

  She hoped that when Michael did come back, he'd bring most of their race winnings with him. They'd need it.

  George's thirteen hundred dollars, added to what the livestock and the other furnishings had brought, came to $3,965. She was still far short of the $5,000 that her creditors demanded on the first day of October.

  On Wednesday she would drive into Oxford and see Great-Aunt Maude. Aunt Maude's granddaughter Violet was soon to be married in Chestertown. Violet had always liked the Irish hunt table. Perhaps she could persuade the old lady to purchase it for Violet as a wedding gift. On the way home, she would stop at Swan's Nest and tell Mr. Swan that she had decided to part with the heifers and Papa's best carriage.

  The remains of breakfast, slightly scorched oat porridge and fried fish, sat on the table. Grace was useless in the kitchen, and Anne had been forced to do the cooking herself. Perhaps her attempts had been what drove George back to Philadelphia.

  Anne wrinkled her nose as she gathered the bowls of cold porridge. The fish was a total loss, but the porridge would do for the pigs or the chickens. Nothing could be wasted now.
Before Papa's death, she'd given little thought to the cost of food. Many things would never be the same, even if her fortune improved.

  With Michael and the slaves had gone the remainder of the meat in the smokehouse, all of the molasses, and most of the flour and cornmeal. True, she had fewer people to feed. In the house were only Grace and her twelve-year-old sister, Charity, who had come to help with the guests.

  Outside, there were free blacks who worked for day wages, and several young bondservants. She had barely enough help to do the daily farm chores, let alone tend the tobacco fields.

  Always there had been an army of maids, cooks, and washerwomen in the manor house. If Anne had needed help with her hair or her gown, she'd called for one of the girls. At mealtime, food appeared on the table. And when she'd finished eating, someone had taken away the dishes and washed them.

  Managing the household after Aunt Kessie's departure had been a challenge. Nothing ran as smoothly as it once had. Anne hadn't always been sure of how much to order from town or what to ask Toby to cook. Without trained help, Anne knew that her directing of the household was a disaster.

  Grace, though a sweet and willing worker, was young and inexperienced. Her sister Charity was hardly more than a child. Neither knew the first thing about caring for a lady's fine clothing or about cooking and serving. Anne had a vague knowledge of housewifery. Without a staff, day-to-day chores took forever.

  Simply preparing daily meals for the three of them was difficult. That morning, Anne had asked Grace to kill a chicken for dinner. The maid managed to chop the head off a hen, dip it in boiling water, and strip off the feathers. But she'd balked at the final step. "Pulling out all that stuff would make me sick, Miss Anne," she whined.

  In the end, Anne did the unpleasant job herself. By the time she was done cleaning the chicken, she wondered if she'd ever be able to eat poultry again.

  Meanwhile, Charity had finished scrubbing the hall steps so Anne sent her to gather eggs from the henhouse. Three-quarters of an hour later, the girl came back with half the usual number of eggs. The ones she'd found were cracked and smeared with chicken manure.

  "Why do they look like that?" Anne asked her, trying hard not to be impatient. If she lost her temper, Charity would burst into tears. If she was too pleasant, Charity would sit down and watch Anne and her sister do the work. "Why are the eggs broken?"

  Charity stared at her bare feet. "The hens bite. I tried to get the eggs out of the nests, but the danged chickens kept pecking at me—and then—and then... They broke the eggs."

  Anne eyed her suspiciously. "So you are telling me that these dirty eggs came out of the chicken house?"

  Charity studied a ragged fingernail, then bit at an invisible fragment. One orange pigtail had come undone; the other was tied with a scrap of Irish lace. Anne didn't want to ask where that had come from or why Charity's starched white mobcap was missing.

  "Where did you get those eggs?"

  "Offen the ground."

  Anne looked at the smeared and oozing eggs and shuddered. "We can't eat these. Wash them and stir what you can salvage into the buttermilk. Then take that out to the pigpen. Do you think you can do that?"

  Charity scratched her nose. "Don't like pigs. Mam says pigs will eat ya if ya give 'em a chance. Gobble you right up."

  "Those little pigs won't eat anything but soft mush. I don't like paying foolish girls who are useless in my house. What should I do? Send you home without your wages?"

  "No, ma'am." The bare toes curled. "Guess I could dump the milk over the fence into the trough."

  "Good. That sounds like a plan. Do it."

  "Yes'm."

  "Now, Charity. Before anything else ends up on the kitchen floor." Anne rubbed at the small of her back. She'd just carried in a mountain of wood for the hearth, and she'd gotten a splinter in her thumb. Hauling wood was easier than contending with Charity.

  Perhaps it would be better to pay Charity not to work. Anne and Grace had spent the better part of three hours heating water and washing bed linens only to have them end up on the ground when Charity hung them carelessly. "If you want wages from me," Anne threatened, "you'll have to learn new skills. Otherwise, you go home to your mother, and I'll find a new maid."

  "Yes, Miss Anne," Charity promised. "I'll do better tomorrow."

  "She will. I'll teach her," Grace said cheerfully.

  Anne wondered who would teach Grace.

  * * *

  At dusk, Anne sent Grace and Charity home to their mother with the raw chicken and a bag of oatmeal. "Come back in the morning," she instructed. "And ask your mother to make the porridge."

  Alone in the big house, Anne locked all the doors and windows. Then she washed her hair and went up to bed without waiting for it to dry completely. Her back ached, and she had blisters on both hands from digging potatoes in the garden.

  But safely under her bed was the box containing all the money she'd accumulated.

  "I can do this," she said as she slid the bolt on the bedroom door.

  The house seemed to echo with small creaks and sighs.

  She wasn't the nervous type, but never in her entire life had she slept without someone in the house. Uneasy thoughts flitted in her mind, and she almost wished she'd not been so hasty in packing Mary and her family back to Philadelphia.

  The ridiculousness of that idea made her smile. She pushed a heavy chest of drawers in front of the door, laid Papa's pistol on the table, and climbed into bed.

  Shannon stood on her hind feet and scratched at the coverlet.

  Anne surrendered gracefully. "Come on." She patted the mattress, and the puppy scrambled up to snuggle against her.

  Anne sunk into an exhausted slumber.

  * * *

  "Anne."

  O'Ryan called her name in that Irish way of his. She laughed and hid, burrowing into the mounds of sweet-smelling straw.

  "Where are you?"

  She laughed again as he found her hiding place.

  "What do I have here?" he asked. "A dairymaid?" His arms went around her, and she raised her face to meet a rain of kisses.

  Grasping her at the waist, he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. His lips were warm and sweet. The taste of him made her giddy and sent delicious sensations spiraling through her. "Ah, Annie," he crooned as he fumbled at the laces of her bodice. "What lovely breasts you have."

  Rain.

  It was raining. She could hear the patter of raindrops on the cedar shake roof. But she didn't care. She was warm and safe in the circle of O 'Ryan's embrace, and he was touching her body, making her feel alive... making her want to touch him.

  "Annie."

  A scraping sound teased at the corner of her dream, but she tried to ignore it. All that was important was O'Ryan and what he was doing to her... what she knew their loving would lead to.

  He laid a broad palm on her face. "Annie. Wake up."

  She opened her eyes, saw the form of a man looming over her, and screamed.

  "Anne, it's me!" He caught her shoulders. "Michael O'Ryan."

  "Michael?" She stared at him. His face was hidden in the shadows, but there was no mistaking his voice. "Michael, is it really you?"

  "Yes. It's me. God almighty, woman. I didn't mean to scare you half to death. The house was locked and barred. I—"

  "You're lucky I didn't shoot you!" She scrambled back across the bed. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"

  "On my own door?" He laughed.

  "You disappear with my boat and all my slaves. You're gone for... for what seems like forever. Then come back and sneak into the house like a—"

  "Shh, shh, shhh," he warned. "You'll have the servants up in arms."

  "Servants? What servants? You took them all. I'm the only servant here!"

  "Annie, be reasonable."

  "Reasonable? When I was worried half to death? When you couldn't tell me what you were going to do? I'll show you reason!" She hurled a pillow at his head and retreated until she
had backed against the headboard and could go no farther. "You took my race money. How did I know you were really coming back?" She stopped long enough to take a breath. "And just how did you get in here?"

  "The window, sweet."

  "Sneak in through an open window like a... like a stray tomcat."

  He reached for her, and she slapped at his hand. "No! Don't you touch me! Don't you dare touch me until you apologize for leaving without an explanation. Why didn't you tell me you were—?"

  "You found the letter, didn't you? I promised I'd be back. I had—"

  "Oh yes. I found your note. 'Trust me,' you said. Why in Hades would a reasonable woman trust you when you'd vanished with everything of value you could get your hands on?"

  "I brought back your money," he said. "I needed a stake. I knew if I went to Philadelphia, I could talk my way into a card—"

  "You took our winnings to gamble at cards?"

  "Peace, woman! I didn't lose your precious money, I doubled it."

  "You risked our money in a game of chance? What if you'd lost?"

  He scoffed. "I told you, Annie. I never lose at cards. I'm unlucky in love, not gambling. At least, I don't lose often."

  "You're telling me that you have what—seven thousand dollars?"

  "No, not exactly, more like three. I had to give some to Abraham."

  This made no sense. Had she been dreaming before or was she dreaming now? "You gave money to Abraham?"

  "Some, yes. I gave something to all of them. They'd need it to make a start. Not as much as I'd like, but—"

  "Where's the sloop? Did you bring that back?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "You didn't."

  "No. I gave that to Abraham as well."

  "Oh. You gave him the boat." She shook her head in disbelief. "Are they safe? All of them?"

  "I can explain—"

  "None of your honeyed words," she said. "Where are my people, Michael? Did you take them north?"