Faithfully Yours (10 page)

She heard footsteps behind her. Before she could turn, hands covered her eyes. She drew in a breath to scream, but it vanished as she was whirled and a man's mouth covered hers. Her eyes widened. She drew away to gasp, “Sebastian!”

He laughed as he silenced her with his lips on hers again. She was consumed by the delight of his kisses. When he released her hand, she raised her arms around his wide shoulders. Her fingers splayed across his back, she realized they were touching linen, not wool.

Pulling back again, she stared up at him. For the first time since she had met him on the road, he was not wearing his uniform. His dark cloak rippled back to reveal that. She forced her eyes away from how well his buckskin breeches followed his strong muscles and the way his open-collared shirt invited her fingers to explore him again. A dark string tied his hair back, but she imagined those black strands loose and brushing up against her face as he kissed her until her breath came in tempo with his.

“You scared a fortnight off my life,” Faith said when she realized from his grin that he was aware of how she was looking at him. Stepping away from him before she could give in to her longing to be in his arms again, she asked, “Are you daft?”

“Maybe, but I had not meant to frighten you. When you drew in breath to scream, I realized you did not know that I had seen you walking in this direction and decided to catch up with you.” He laughed deep in his throat. “I couldn't think of a better way for you to recognize me.”

“You—you—”

“Come, Faith,” he said in that reasonable tone that added to her irritation, “surely you can devise some insult worthy of me.”

“No words would suffice. You broke your vow to me.”

“My vow?”

“That you would not be like your fellow soldiers and try to seduce me without my permission.”

“If you do not know the difference between a teasing kiss and an attempt at seduction, maybe you should learn.”

Faith shoved her mussed hair back under her mob-cap. “Not today, and not from you.” She hoped her anger would hide the way her heart thudded at the thought of telling him to teach her all she could learn in his arms. “Why don't you use your British skill at lying and tell me a tale of why you followed me as if I am a rebel soldier? It is certain to be engrossing, even though I doubt a word of it will be true.”

“Some of it would be true, Faith,” he said, weaving another strand of her hair beneath her cap, “for it would be a tale of a lovely American lass who cannot trust an Englishman but so thrilled him with a single kiss that he aches for another.”

“Fine words.” She pushed his hand away and continued along the road.

“Terse again, I see,” Sebastian called after her. “You are nothing as I expected a colonist to be.”

“How so?” When she turned and discovered him standing too close, she gasped, backing away. “Must you always sneak up on me?”

“Sneak up on you? I was
talking
to you.”

“Why are you out here instead of with your brother?”

“Gaylord is sleeping, and I need some fresh air.” He took her arm, settling her hand in the crook of his elbow, and walked with her along the road. “When I saw you going out to feed the pigs, I knew I would not get any fresh air there. The sty is a place I have always avoided.”

“Which should be easy to do in London.”

“But not when I was working on a farm.”

“You worked on a farm?” She shook her head. “You are jesting with me now.”

“To the contrary. It is the truth. My father's estate has many tenant farms attached to it. I have spent many summer afternoons toiling on one or another.” He sat on the stone wall that separated the road from the woods and smiled up at her. “I found such hard work preferable to yet another afternoon of studying classical Greek poems.”

“That is not the same. You did not need to do the work to put food on your family's table.”

Picking up a brown leaf, he twirled it between his fingers. “For someone who avers again and again that she is not a rebel, you most certainly have a rebel's disdain for anything British. I am not sure why, because it is clear that you are a snob of the first order.”

“Snob? Me?”

“Yes. You think you are of a higher ilk because your father owns one farm that is worked by servants as well as his family. You look down your nose at my father, who owns more than one farm that is worked by servants as well as
his
family.”

“You are making no sense.”

“No?” He reached up and ran his fingertips along her nose. “Could it be that I am too fascinated by how you look down your nose? Your pretty eyes and pert nose and your beguiling smile make it difficult for me to concentrate on the course of this conversation.”

“Then you need not linger.” Faith continued along the road.

When Sebastian matched her steps, his jet-black cloak curved around her like an embrace. He did not touch her, but when she glanced at him, she saw the heat in his gaze had not diminished. He was giving her the choice to come back into his arms.

Oh, how she wished she could! To be pressed against his unyielding chest now would be wondrous, because her fingers could slip beneath his loose shirt to satisfy her curiosity about whether his skin was as coarse as his hands.

“Where are you bound?” she asked, trying to escape from her tempting thoughts.

“I will walk with you as far as the crossroads, because I am meeting someone there.”

“I probably should not ask whom you are meeting.”

“You probably should not. I doubt if I am any more likely to answer that than you are to tell me why you are taking more gloves to the Mertz house.”

“This is not for the Mertz family. I am taking it to Reverend McEachern for some of the children at church.”

He smiled, but she heard no humor in his voice. He cupped her chin in his hands as his voice lowered to a husky whisper. “You seem determined not to let anything as inconvenient as this war halt you from your good works.”

“I promised to make gloves and socks. I do not break promises.”

“I hope that is a promise you can keep … to yourself. A war has a strange way of changing people's assumptions about themselves and others.”

Sebastian's words repeated through Faith's head after she left him at the crossroads and continued to the decrepit byre nearly a mile past it. He had not meant the words as a threat … Or had he? She must not let her own guilt discolor the words and actions of everyone around her.

The wind was growing colder as Faith slipped into the byre. Before she could even look about, she heard, “Where have you been?”

“I came as quickly as I could.”

“Really?” Tom Rooke emerged from the thickest shadows and scowled. “You did not look as if you were in a great rush when he pulled you into his arms.”

“You saw that? Are you spying on me?”

He laughed sharply. “What are
you
doing that is worthy of being spied on? Letting a British major steal a kiss? That does not matter to me.” He raised his hand to halt her question. “I was watching to see if you might be meeting me today. Once I saw the basket you were carrying, I came here with all speed. I did not want to linger and watch you and that milord.”

“You should not have been so close to our farm. Father would not like it if—”

“I am well aware of Cromwell's sentiments. What worries me are yours. Have you let Kendrick seduce you into telling him the truth of why you are carrying that basket today?”

Faith set the basket on the floor and began to empty it. “Of course not. He walked with me only because he is determined to keep me from being accosted.”

“By his fellow soldiers?”

“There is no one else I need to fear here in Goshen.”

Tom nodded grimly. “You are right. You need fear only the British soldiers, who are popping up faster than dandelions in the first days of spring.”

“While they are here, they are not involved in mischief other places.”

“I hear the major's brother has taken up residence at your father's house.”

“Yes, but I suspect he will not stay once he is well enough to travel.” She smiled coolly. “He has said more than once that he finds our home too primitive for his taste.”

“Is he returning to Philadelphia?”

“With all possible speed.”

“And with all possible information?”

Faith shrugged. “I have no idea what information he might have—other than that about the powders that the doctor gave him to make him well.”

“But—”

“Tom, I have told you that I do not want to do anything but bring supplies for my neighbors fighting with General Washington. Asking me questions will gain you nothing, because no one has confided in me.”

He scooped up the supplies she had brought and tied them in a knapsack. “But you are being watched.”

“I cannot do anything about that.”

“But you can.” He drew a pouch from beneath his tattered shirt. “Put this in the Englishmens' ale the night before you meet me again.”

She looked from the small bag to his smile. “What is it?”

“Sleeping powder. It will keep them from following you.”

She watched him as he began to pace through the barn, as he did each time she came here. “Adrat, Tom! No one is following me. Sebastian—”

“You call him Sebastian?”

“My father insists I address him so.” She did not lower her eyes before his fury, because he must not discover how she was stretching the truth. “Tom, what I call him matters little.”

“You are right. What matters is that he does not follow you again.”

“And find us.”

He shook his head. “We do not matter. What do you bring me? Some mittens and a few pair of socks? Some bread? That is no reason to keep a full patrol here.”

“No, because he is looking for information on the Continental Congress.”

“But they do not ride west. They stay here.”

She sank to sit on a rough stool. “I have heard the soldiers talk of how the rebellion will be over with the coming of the deepest cold in the new year because the soldiers will abandon General Washington to seek the comfort of their homes.”

“These British milords think they know everything, but they do not know the men who have rallied around General Washington. They will not let cold weather daunt them. They proved that last year when they routed the British in Trenton.”

“But the British hold Philadelphia this year, and the general's men are camped outside it somewhere.”

He pressed the pouch into her hand. “Use this the night before you come here next time. Major Kendrick and his men will sleep, and you will not be followed.” He glanced toward the door. “I hope
I
am not followed when I leave.”

“Maybe you should remain here.”

He laughed coldly. “I know you offered to bring supplies because you wanted to honor the memory of your friend who was killed in battle. Do not break that promise now.”

Flinching, Faith came to her feet. She would have accused Tom of listening to her conversation with Sebastian. In the same tone she had used with Sebastian, she said, “I do not break promises.” She looked down at the pouch. “I will do my best to keep the reason why I come here from being discovered.”

“See that you do.”

“Or?”

“Or you will see that those who betray us are sorry that they did.”

Seven

Sebastian threw the page onto the table in his room. He pushed past the table, which left very little room between the bed and the door. Glowering at the fire dancing merrily on the hearth, he cursed under his breath.

“Bad news, sir?” asked Osborne without his usual insipid grin.

“Only if you consider it bad that Burgoyne surrendered his men and supplies to the rebels somewhere in northern New York.” He looked down at the page that had been delivered to him from General Howe's headquarters in Philadelphia. “A place called Saratoga, north of Albany. The rebels now are inspired by this victory, and it is feared that France will be, as well.”

Osborne swore. “The Frenchie frogs should stay out of this.”

“They
should
, but they have been itching for a chance to give England a black eye. Joining with these rebels might be the very way to do so.” Picking up the page, he read it again. The news did not get any better with another reading.

How could Burgoyne have been so careless? He had carved a path down from Lake Champlain, cutting off the seditious colonies of New England from the southern ones. Then he had lost two battles—one in Bennington, the home of those rebels led by Ethan Allen and his so-called Green Mountain Boys, and this one in Saratoga—to the colonial army.

“Is it true?” asked Gaylord as he came into the room. He set his stylish bicorne hat on the table. “The rebels defeated Burgoyne?”

Sebastian glanced at Osborne, who hastily looked away. He should have guessed Osborne would have read the dispatch before delivering it. Worse, the lieutenant had not kept its contents to himself.

“It is true,” Sebastian replied. “It takes only a single victory like this to revitalize the rebellion. We have seen that before.”

Gaylord sniffed as he walked to the hearth to warm his hands. “The rebels will take heart from this, but they will lose their enthusiasm just as quickly. It does not matter either way. We will see them defeated.”

Osborne cheered, but grew silent when Sebastian frowned.

“We will not see them defeated if other generals are as imprudent as Burgoyne,” Sebastian replied.

“General Howe is not. Sebastian, I must return to my company.”

“You feel well enough?”

“I was well enough to ride out with you yesterday when we checked the road to the west. I can take your report on what we discovered to Captain Williams. He—” He looked past Sebastian and scowled. Leaping toward the door, he reached out. “How long have
you
been lurking there?”