Guns of Liberty (6 page)

“Really, Sister Hope, how you carry on.” Kate knew that once Hope got into her “wearier than thou” attitude there was nothing to do but endure it. “I dare say you shall outlive us all.”

But Hope-Deferred-Maketh-the-Heart-Sick wasn’t hearing it. She eyed Loyal with suspicion as they walked past him. A gentle sort and quiet to a fault, he became quite the opposite when the spells came over him. Hope was never fully at ease when Kate’s brother was around, because one never knew when Loyal might slip out of the real world and into the private hell of his own past.

“We’ll have sweet corn aplenty come July!” he called out to Hope. He cradled the leaves of a stalk as gently as if he were holding the arms of a child. Sister Hope told him that she and the others of her religious community would be over with their baskets come harvest time. Loyal seemed pleased.

“And your benefactor, has he come through yet?” Sister Hope asked Kate.

“Nathaniel Woodbine is part owner, not my benefactor,” the young woman corrected. “As per the agreement he had with my mother, every spare coin we make shall reimburse him for his loan. Eventually the Hound and Hare will belong to Loyal and me free and clear.”

“And yet I suspect Mr. Woodbine would prefer you ever in his debt.”

“His infatuation was with mother, not me.” Kate did not enjoy discussing her mother’s affairs. Sister Hope may have turned her life over to the Lord, thought Kate, but she had certainly held on to her lively curiosity about the affairs of others.

As they neared the inn, Kate noticed smoke curling from the chimney by the barn. True to his word, Daniel had fired up the forge. Perhaps hiring him had been a rash act. Still, despite Hope’s words of caution, Kate felt she had made the right choice. As for her own emotions, she would keep them tightly reined. She had no time for romantic dalliances, for there was work aplenty to do. However, the lingering image in her mind was not the day’s chores, but a man asleep in the hay in the stillness of the dawn.

“
DANIEL MCQUEEN!” KATE CALLED
out to the man at the forge. It was hot work, shaping iron, and he had stripped to the waist. Soot and ashes clung to his muscled shoulders. He was busy hammering a strip of glowing metal into a graceful bend and didn’t hear her. Kate held a pitcher of cool buttermilk, churned but an hour ago, and set it in the root cellar in its pewter container for safekeeping.

She gingerly approached, uncertain whether she should interrupt his work. Drawing close, she could discern in detail the musculature of his back, and though his movements were fluid and clean, he seemed forged of the same iron that clanged beneath the blows of his mallet. Scars were visible, jagged white lines crisscrossing his back where he’d been “kissed” by a cat-o’-nine-tails. Someone had tried to lay his flesh open. The scar tissue ran more heavily along his right side and over onto his shoulder.

Daniel finished hammering and dipped the latch he’d been fashioning into a nearby barrel of rainwater. He noticed the woman out of the corner of his eye and turned, startled at first to see her. He did not, however, seem embarrassed by his half-nakedness.

“I brought you some buttermilk.” Kate held out a wooden cup, prepared to fill it. Daniel wiped his forearm across his sweat-streaked brow and left a smudge there.

“Thank you most kindly.” He reached past the cup, took the pitcher from her.

“I’ve another—uh—pitcher for Loyal …” Her explanation faded as he tilted the pitcher to his mouth and drank.

Buttermilk sloshed down his jaw and neck and mingled with the perspiration that rolled down his torso. He drank without pause, without seeming to breathe; he didn’t stop until he’d drained the contents of the pitcher and set it down with a clank and a sigh of satisfaction.

He glanced at the cup Kate held. “I’m sorry. Were you wanting some?”

“No, I seem to have forgotten I was in a barn and not at table.” She dropped the cup into the pitcher. “Obviously, sir, you haven’t.”

“Ah, fair Kate, you save my life and then insult it.” Daniel handed her the pitcher. His red hair was in wild disarray and looked for all the world like the flames leaping in the forge every time he worked the bellows. “But unlike my Highland kinsmen, I have a forgiving nature.”

“How fortunate, sir,” said Kate, suppressing a smile. At last, her own good nature won out and she laughed. “I’m sorry.” She fished in her apron pocket and brought out a chunk of bread wrapped in a cloth and handed it to him. “A peace offering, Daniel McQueen.”

“Accepted.” Daniel set the bread aside and brought her over to a wooden box already half filled with nails. He indicated a mold he’d found buried under the remnant of a cart and a box of old horseshoes that contained far more than the tavern was likely to need for its own mounts or those of its patrons. “A trick my father taught me. I made these nails from the cast-off horseshoes. It’s saved us a pretty penny, I warrant. My father never bought a nail.”

Daniel nodded toward the iron bar he’d been working with. Kate could see it was well on the way to becoming an ornamented latch for one of the bedrooms upstairs.

“Fixing the roof is the most important job, but I was curious to see if I still knew my way around fire and iron.” Daniel had used muscles he’d forgotten about. His shoulders ached and his face was raw from the fire, but he felt good.

“And you do.” Kate was much impressed by his skill. “But since I can only offer you room and board and a few shillings for your labor, take your rest when you need it.” She picked up the pitcher. “Keep you some water from the well here.”

“A pretty lass is as refreshing as the coldest, purest drink.” He stepped forward and momentarily blocked the young woman’s way.

Kate stopped in her tracks and looked straight into his square-jawed face. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, gunmetal gray and tinged with fire and daring. An ember in the forge exploded in a shower of sparks that shot upward behind the Highlander and outlined him in its crimson-orange light.

Neither spoke. Kate could scarcely catch her breath. The forge was nothing compared to the heat emanating between them. They were silent and more than a little wary of one another.

“What are we doing?” Kate asked softly, breaking the stillness of the moment.

“I don’t know,” Daniel answered. “But maybe I better stop, eh? Your pardon, lass.” He stepped aside. “Been a long time since I held these tools, since I’ve built anything.” He ran a hand through his hair and attempted in vain to smooth the unruly locks.

He glanced around the smithy. His mind searched for the right words to say how he felt. For a moment, his contentment overshadowed the real reason he had come to the Hound and Hare. It was good to forget, even for a moment, to set treachery aside and feel part of something again, to feel he belonged. He had been a long time wandering. It was good to pretend, if only for a little while, to be home.

A phaeton rolled into the drive and brought their idyll to an end as they both moved from the shade of the barn. The low-sided, four-wheel carriage was drawn by a matched pair of blaze-faced geldings and driven by a man whom Kate instantly recognized.

Colonel Nathaniel Woodbine of the New York Militia was a man of below-average height and above-average ambition. He stood no taller than Kate, about five feet three. He had sloping shoulders, a thick chest, and his ample girth was firmly encased in a brown frock coat and waistcoat of the same material. His rust-colored breeches and stockings disappeared into shiny black boots. A saber with an ornamented guard dangled from a broad black belt draped across his chest. A white silk ruff was gathered at his Adam’s apple by a silver clutch and fanned out beneath his throat. He was fair of skin, victim of constant sunburn; he wore a white wig, as was the custom of the day, denoting his gentlemanly station.

Four dragoons in dark blue coats and pale blue breeches sat their mounts several paces behind their commander. The four quickly dismounted and made a hasty progress into the courtyard. One of the men tugged on a cord and rang a brass bell that had been mounted on a post alongside the entrance in the stone wall.

Moments later Loyal emerged, tankards in hand, and led the way to the cider barrel.

Woodbine stepped down from the phaeton, doffed his tricorn, and opened his arms to embrace the young woman coming toward him.

“Kate Bufkin, there’s not a prettier girl in all of the colonies,” Woodbine greeted. He placed Kate’s arm in his and walked with her toward the barnyard, where Daniel pulled on his shirt and immediately found himself introduced.

“Glad to meet you, my good man,” said Colonel Woodbine after learning the redhead’s name. “A smith, are you? And a woodsman, by the look of you,” he added, eyeing McQueen’s buckskin breeches.

“I’ve trapped some,” Daniel conceded. He remained guarded, for he carried a deep-rooted suspicion of men of wealth. And through no fault of Woodbine’s, the gentleman reminded Daniel of the father of a girl he had once loved and almost married until that same father discovered his prospective son-in-law’s humble origins. A blacksmith’s son had no place courting the daughter of Boston’s aristocracy.

“A man of few words.” Woodbine brushed the road dust from his coat. “I like that.” He quickly appraised the Highlander towering over him and did not seem in the least put off by McQueen’s size. Woodbine knew there were other powers than sheer brawn, and he wielded them with relish.

He looked at Kate and guided her toward the tavern. “And how do we stand, Mistress Bufkin? Will you be ready to receive Colonel Washington?”

“And whomever else arrives with him,” Kate assured him. “Mr. McQueen will repair the pewter. And as you’ll see, the downstairs tavern virtually escaped damage.”

Daniel watched them walk arm in arm and felt his temper rise. Jealous? Why? he wondered. He’d scarcely been here a day. What was Kate to him? True, he liked her for her spirit, and he had seen many fine qualities in her from their first meeting. But he was here as an imposter. He had no right to feel anything at all.

Woodbine had spoken of Washington coming to the tavern. So that explained why Meeks wanted him here.

Daniel looked around at the hens scratching in the barnyard dirt for insects. He should go back to work, return to his place at the forge. But Kate and Woodbine had disappeared through the side door of the tavern and something in Daniel, despite his best efforts to the contrary, forced him to follow.

Woodbine stood in the center of the tavern and liked what he saw, from the polished mahogany tables to the cabinets lined with pewterware and china. A Seth Thomas clock commanded the center of the great hearth, and hanging in a place of honor was a portrait of William Penn. Two racks of long-stemmed clay pipes had been set to either side of the Seth Thomas, and a pair of leather and wood trenchers stood at either end of the mantel.

A number of straight-backed chairs as well as benches were arranged about the tables, while several cushioned easy chairs were placed near the box windows overlooking the courtyard. Kate had even acquired a chair that tilted back, allowing a footrest to raise in front, an ideal resting place for a man with the gout. A chess set had been left near one of the box windows. It had been a gift from Woodbine, who noted with satisfaction its place of honor.

“You’ve done well, Kate,” he said, and he took her hand in his and patted it. “I could not have chosen a better partner.” His voice took on a purring quality as he stroked her fingers, then bowed and kissed her hand.

The gesture made her uncomfortable.

Kate sensed an implied relationship in Woodbine’s manner of speaking. Her mother had been an attractive, lonely widow. Two years ago, in the employ of Nathaniel Woodbine, she had entered into an affair with the well-to-do merchant. Though married and seemingly devoted to his ailing wife, Woodbine had professed love for Ruth Bufkin and to prove his sincerity had purchased the Hound and Hare Inn, a discreet but manageable distance from his offices in Philadelphia and his wife’s estate in New York. The fire and Ruth Bufkin’s death had changed everything.

Or had it?

Kate felt the constant, steady pressure of Woodbine’s fingers enclosing her hand and was loath to draw away and wound the man’s pride. He tilted her hand palm upward and, reaching inside his coat, withdrew a silver snuff box and placed it in her hand. It was a finely crafted piece and heavy, worth a goodly sum, to be sure. The lid of the snuff box bore a fine line etching of a meadow and a weeping willow.

“Have our taciturn friend, Mr. McQueen, melt this down into coins,” said Woodbine.

“I cannot accept any more of your generosity, Nathaniel,” Kate protested.

“I insist.”

“But you have given so much …”

“I won’t hear another word.” Woodbine closed her hand around the silver box. “Your mother was special to me. And in your own way, you, too, have become someone I hold most dear.”

The side door opened and Daniel entered the tavern. Woodbine released Kate’s hand and stepped back, a look of displeasure on his face. He had little use for hirelings who intruded on his privacy. Yet, in uncharacteristic fashion, he cooled his anger.

“Well, sir, tell me, in these divisive times, which road do you walk—the king’s road or the patriots?” The merchant winked at Kate, then stood back, stroking his chin and waiting for an answer.

“My own road,” Daniel said.

“That often leads right down the middle,” Woodbine said. “And the middle is the worst place to be when the shooting starts. Better to be on one side or the other. But you’re a smart lad; you’ll make the right choice when the moment comes.”

Woodbine bowed toward Kate and once again kissed her hand. He started toward the door, then paused to take an extra tankard from a nearby shelf built into the wall near the door.

“My men appear to be enjoying Loyal’s cider. I think I’ll join them, for there is none better the length and breadth of the Trenton Road.” He stepped out into the courtyard and held out his tankard for Kate’s brother to fill.

The dragoons, as hard-looking a group as Daniel had ever seen, stood when Woodbine appeared among them.