"No." He shook his head. He'd seen what happened when honest people waited for the law to protect them from predators. There was only one way to end this threat against Anne and the other families on the bay shore. "This time, the pirates came with a dozen men," he said. "Next time—Ouch."
She wiped gently at the cut on his face. "Don't fuss. If I don't clean this up, it could get badly infected."
"They may be stupid, but they could come back with too many for us to handle. We'll have to form an expedition to go after them, scour their island hideout, and destroy them once and for all."
"I don't want you to," she replied. "You don't know how dangerous they are. Papa said they were bad before the last war, but they've gotten much worse since the redcoats came up the bay and burned Washington when I was a girl. Rumor is that English deserters joined the wreckers and thieves that already hid out there. Whenever the authorities go after them, they find nothing but empty shacks. The night-raiders hide in the marsh or sail to another island.
"Honest mainlanders who go onto those islands vanish. There are stories of murdered fishermen, bodies washed up on the Eastern Shore half-eaten by crabs. Those bay islands are a morass of mudflats, marsh, and swamp. There aren't any maps. If you don't know where to go, you'll never catch them."
"They're flesh-and-blood men," he answered softly. "We've proved that tonight. And they seem to have no leadership. They could have done far more damage here with less effort. But fools or not, no household on the bay can sleep easy until they are wiped out." He knew all too well how hard it was to hunt down dangerous men in their own territory. He'd been one of them for years, and he and his comrades had led the English a merry chase through the Mountains of Mourne and the streets of Belfast.
"But my fields, they're not half cut."
"We'll get in your tobacco, Annie. Then I'll make certain that you're never threatened by these outlaws again."
* * *
On the afternoon of the third day, they hauled the last load of tobacco leaf to the drying barn. The morning of the next day, Michael, Nathaniel, six other planters, and two score of armed men set out by boat to find the pirates' settlement.
Nate had been difficult. Getting him to organize a militia to pursue the robbers hadn't been as hard as persuading him not to punch Michael in the jaw. Nate was still angry over O'Ryan's departure with Anne's slaves. And he couldn't begin to understand why he'd thrown away all that money by freeing them.
But in the end, the immediate problem of the island pirates had been more important than his ire, so long as it was perfectly clear that he, Nate, would be the leader of the avenging party.
Most of the Irish workers remained on Gentleman's Folly. They were farmers and laborers who had never learned to use a gun. "It's better if they stay here with you," Michael had said.
Anne suspected that he was right, but she still didn't understand why Michael felt he had to go after the thieves at once. "At least wait until Sheriff Clough gets back from Annapolis," she'd argued. Nate had sent a rider for the Talbot County sheriff, but John Clough's wife sent word that he was across the bay on business.
"You wanted your tobacco in the barn. It's there," Michael answered. "It's past time this matter was settled."
"You're a stubborn man, Michael," she said. "Stubborn and foolish. You won't be happy until you get yourself killed!"
"They're free to try. They'll not be the first, or likely the last."
She waited for him to utter the words that she was certain he'd been close to saying the night before in their bedroom. He loved her. She knew he did.
Instead, he bent to kiss her.
For an instant, their lips met, and then she turned her face away. "Don't do this, Michael. I'm afraid of what will happen to you."
He smiled and touched his hat brim with a forefinger in salute. "Take care of yourself, Annie. And don't wander off alone."
"Go on, then. Get yourself killed playing hero. But don't expect me to go down to the landing to wave good-bye!"
Rifle in hand, he'd turned and strode away down the hill without looking back. She mounted her waiting mare and rode through the barnyard and out to the field to give orders to the workmen.
She hadn't cried, she wouldn't give in to the threatening tears, but nothing could take away the dread she felt inside. Suddenly, having Michael safe beside her was more important than anything else in the world.
* * *
Sean Cleary, Owen Conway, and Joseph Magee were waiting to begin plowing. Each man snatched off his cap and wished Anne a good morning as she rode up.
She pointed out over the field. "We're putting all this ground into winter wheat," she explained. "We need to get the seed in the ground as soon as possible. Spread out. You start here," she indicated to Sean. "You take the middle, Owen, and you, Joseph, the far end."
Sean nodded and clicked to his team of mules. The big animals strained against the harness, and the iron-tipped plow dug into the earth, cutting a dark furrow in what had been a tobacco field until a few days before.
As if by magic, seagulls appeared overhead. The shrill cries of the birds filled the air as they swooped to snatch worms and insects from the damp soil behind the plows.
The rich, familiar scent of newly turned humus filled Anne's head and took her back to memories of her childhood. How simple life had been then. How happy she'd been, and how much she'd taken for granted.
Papa had planted grain, but not in these fields, and never so many acres. She only hoped that soil that was worn out from growing tobacco might produce a good crop of wheat. They'd know that in early summer when they harvested. As soon as the field was ready, she would go out with the women to sow the grain.
She pursed her lips and made a small clicking sound with her tongue. She wondered what her father would say if he could see her, dressed in men's breeches with a coarse skirt over it for decency, wearing clothing he'd not have tolerated on his household servants.
"Different times, Papa," she murmured softly.
She shielded her eyes from the sun and stood in the stirrups to stare toward the bay. A few white sails were still visible in the distance. "Come back to me, Michael," she murmured. "Please, come back to me."
Then she straightened her shoulders and reined the mare around. There was other work to be done, and no one else to give the orders. Somehow, despite the hollow ache inside, she must find the strength to do what was needed.
Chapter 23
All that day, Anne kept busy. She dreaded the night, when she'd have to retire alone to her bedchamber. She knew it would be hard to sleep, not because she was afraid of the pirates coming back, but because she didn't know if Michael and the others were safe.
At dusk, just as she was preparing to go upstairs, Sean's wife came to the kitchen door. Anne welcomed her in. "Nora, is there anything wrong?"
The Irishwoman slid her homespun shawl off her hair onto her shoulder. "Nay, Missus." A calico cat slipped inside and strolled lazily toward the bowl of milk on the hearth.
"Is the water still hot? Could we have a pot of tea?" Anne said to Gerda as she waved Nora to a bench at the plain oak kitchen table.
"I didn't think to take liberty," Nora replied in her lilting Irish tones. "I only came to bring some soda bread." She held out a small bundle wrapped in faded checkered cloth. "My oldest girl, she made it whilst we were in the fields."
Anne smiled. "Thank you. And I can't tell you how grateful I am that you and Mr. Cleary have come to help us."
Stiffly, Gerda set cups and saucers for two on the table.
"Four cups, Gerda," Anne corrected her. "Cups and saucers for you and Grace as well." She turned to Nora and placed a hand over her rough one. "You must call me Anne," she said. "We need each other too much to stand on formality."
Clucking in disapproval, Gerda poured hot water over tea leaves and carried the earthenware teapot to the table before she brushed her spotless apron and perched on a bench opposite Nora. "In Mistress Mary's ho
use, this vould never do," she muttered.
Anne smiled. "You're right, Gerda. In my sister's home, it wouldn't do. But I'm no longer a wealthy woman. It's silly for me to put on airs."
"A household must have standards," the German woman answered.
"I agree. I cannot run the manor house without you," Anne said. "I want you to stay on as my housekeeper."
"I vill," Gerda agreed firmly. "You cannot manage vit'out me." Gerda reached for the sugar. "But I vill call you Miss Anne as I alvays have. Miss Anne you are to me, and Miss Anne you stay."
"Nora, I was hoping you would take on the responsibility of the dairy," Anne said.
Nora sat up a little straighter as Anne poured the tea. "I would be happy to be your dairywoman."
"It's settled then," Anne said.
"My Sean said you wanted to pack cheese and butter for the ship trade," Nora replied. "We would need..."
They chatted on about the logistics of setting up the dairy as the cat curled up on the warm hearth and a cricket chirped on the closed back staircase.
Anne and Nora did most of the talking. Gerda said little; Grace said nothing. But when the pot had been filled a second time and that finished, Anne was sure that more than business had been conducted here. The four of them, different in so many ways, had taken the first shaky steps to what she suspected might grow into lasting friendship.
* * *
As she was taking her leave, Nora paused and touched Anne's shoulder. "You must not worry. The men are taking shifts guarding the house and barns."
"I wish Michael hadn't gone," Anne said.
"He will do as he wants, that one."
Anne walked a little way with Nora, back toward the cottage. Shannon gamboled after them, pausing to sniff at leaves and twigs and to bark at the barn cats and crickets.
"Do you know him well, my Michael?" Anne asked. She sensed, rather than saw, Nora stiffen.
"Well enough to advise you to hold him close. If you can..."
"He told me about what happened on the ship."
"Aye."
"But much of his life is a secret."
"Sometimes, 'tis best for a wife not to know everything about her man."
"Would you tell me if Michael had done anything—?" Anne stopped, searching for the right words. "It was an accident, wasn't it? He didn't intend to throw that bosun's mate into the sea, did he?"
"That troubles you, that a good man would take a bad one's life? I am a woman who hates violence, but I stabbed one of those pirates with a pitchfork. He broke into my house, threatened my children. A man like that is no man at all, but a rat. And a woman who cannot kill vermin in her kitchen will soon see her family die of hunger."
Anne nodded. "I shot one of them myself. And I'm not sorry, either."
"Aye." Nora sighed. "The Church would say we are unrepentant sinners, but I would do it again if I had to."
"But the charges against my husband are... You can't blame me for wondering. It's difficult to know what is real about his past and—"
"This I will tell you, but if you tell another, I will swear you lie. I do not think his name is Michael O'Ryan, and I do not think it is Cormac Payne. But whatever it is, it is no name to be ashamed of. And he must have good reason for hiding it."
"Would you trust him, if you were me?"
"With my daughter's honor. The name is not important. What's in his heart is all that counts."
"Thank you, Nora, and good night. Thank your daughter for the bread. Perhaps someday she can teach me how she makes it."
Nora said her own good-bye, and Anne left her by the edge of the orchard. She had gone perhaps a hundred feet when Shannon began to bark. "Come on," Anne called. "Come on, girl. Leave that rabbit until morning."
"Miss Anne."
A man-size shadow emerged from the orchard.
Fear made her freeze where she stood. She stared toward the nearest apple tree, heart pounding.
"It's me, Miss Anne."
She took a few steps toward the familiar voice. "Abraham?"
"Shhh, miss, don't let that Irish watchman with the musket know you're talking to me. They'll shoot first and sort out who I am when I'm dead."
"Abraham?" She walked closer, then crouched and called Shannon. "Why are you here?"
"I brought back your boat."
"My sloop?"
"Yes, ma'am. Mr. O'Ryan, he gave me a paper that said it was mine. But that wasn't right. It was your daddy's boat. It wasn't Mr. O'Ryan's to give away. The boat is anchored in the river."
"I thought you and the others were in Canada."
"Got as far as Maine. Most of them people, they were afraid to go so far north, afraid of the Indians, and the snow. They say the winters are powerful bad in Canada. Some went ashore in Massachusetts, some in Maine. Big Sam, he didn't go no farther north than New York."
"And Ivy? Is she with you?"
"Can't say. Got to ask you some questions first. Mr. O'Ryan, he gave us papers that said we're free. Are they for real? Am I free, Miss Anne, or am I just another runaway slave?"
"You're free. All of you. And if the papers aren't legal, I'll make them that way. You have my word on it."
"Good. Ivy said we could trust you. It was for her that we came back, other than bringing your sloop. She missed her sisters and her auntie. They're free women. Seems my Ivy didn't want to go to Canada. Said it was my dream, not hers."
"And you, Abraham? Will you be content to live here in Maryland?"
"As long as my son is born free, I can live anywhere."
"What about the baby? Ivy hasn't—"
"Not yet. She's a stubborn woman. She wanted her sisters and her auntie with her when the baby comes."
"Do you want to stay here? Come back to Gentleman's Folly to work?"
"No, I don't want that. No disrespect, but I mean to make my own way. I figure to start my own business with the money Mr. O'Ryan gave us. In Baltimore. That's where Ivy's auntie has a little shop. I just came to bring back your boat, and to see if we had to go on hiding."
"No more hiding. Send word to me in a few months and give me Ivy's aunt's name and where to send it, I'll see you get your properly drawn up papers."
"Thank you, Miss Anne. You've been fair with me, more than fair. And one more thing."
"Yes?"
"If it's not too much trouble, could you have that lawyer draw papers for Old Henry? He's with us. He said he didn't like the North, either. Too much salt water, and not enough dry land."
"You know he's welcome here. This was his home for so many years. I'll give him his cabin back, and he won't have to do any chores at all."
"No, I don't think that would suit him. He's got his eye on Ivy's auntie. He says he's lived single long enough, and he thinks he'll look for a young wife." Abraham chuckled. "Old Henry says he'd like to be a town man for a few years before he dies. Don't worry about Old Henry. Ivy and me, we'll look out for him."
"Do you need anything? I don't have much money, but—"
"There's something else, Miss Anne, something I heard about that you should know."
"What's that?"
"Maybe you already heard, and that's why you got strangers with guns watching the house."
"Tell me, what is it? What do you know?"
"I can't say whether it's true or not, but a sailor in Chestertown told me where some easy money was to be had. He said that an Irishman was hiring a crew to come down on the Eastern Shore and put the fear of God into some lady. They said nobody would get hurt bad, but we could make believe we were pirates and take whatever we could carry off. He wanted us to burn a barn or two and frighten off the hired help."
"When? When did you hear this?" Fear knotted in Anne's stomach.
"A week ago. I don't know if they meant you, Miss Anne. But the sailor told me that the coin came straight from some rich nob in Philadelphia. It worried me. Ivy was having pains, or I would have gotten here sooner."
"That's all right," she whispered. Her chest fe
lt tight and her mouth dry. She took a deep breath. "What makes you think he was talking about Gentleman's Folly?"
"Didn't know for sure. But the sailor said a lady, alone. And he claimed the house was on the bay. There's lots of houses fit that, and lots of lone women, but I don't know of any white lady living by herself on a big plantation. Maybe down in Virginia, but not around here."
"You were right to tell me, Abraham."
"But you already knew, right, Miss Anne? You wouldn't have people—"
"They already hit us. Four nights ago. They burned part of the tobacco field, broke into the manor, and wrecked furniture."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have come—"
"It doesn't matter. We drove them off. But we thought they were pirates. Mr. O'Ryan, Mr. Greensboro, and a lot of our neighbors went after them to put a stop to the raiding."
"They won't find them, not on those islands."
"That's what I tried to tell them." She shivered in the cool October air. "But this—this is crazy. Who would want to pay men to frighten off my workforce?"
"It's not for me to say, Miss Anne."
"Tell me what you think. Papa trusted you. He said you were smart."
"For a black man?" Bitterness crept into Abraham's voice. "If I was smart, I'd know that it's best to keep my mouth shut. It would be worth my life to speak out against a white man."
"I can't change what's happened in the past, and neither can you," she said softly." We can only change what's ahead of us. Between us, I'm asking what you believe. Who... except—?"
"Mr. O'Ryan or Mr. Whitfield."
"You think one of them would commit such a wicked act? Why?"
"What all men do bad for. Money. Land."
"You think my husband could betray me that way?"
"Mr. O'Ryan gave me something I've wanted all my life: freedom for me and mine. It's hard for me to think he might do something bad to you."
"Me either." But Michael had told her to stay in her room. And the thugs had almost broken in there. The thought that Michael might have betrayed her was sickening. She couldn't accept it—wouldn't. If she hadn't had the pistol, things might have gone differently. But it had been Michael who had put the weapon in her hand.
The Irish Rogue Page 25
