Paxton's War (13 page)

Colleen, Colleen, Colleen. She'd cast a spell on him, the sort of enchanting spell cast by the seductive strains of a sonata or sensuous string quartet. Her music had reached him when he was dangerously vulnerable, and it was understandable that he'd found her so hard to resist. Never before Colleen had he thought himself capable of loving a woman deeply and without restraint. But she was as dangerous as Ethan. She wore her patriotism like a placard, and sooner or later, if they were known to be friends and lovers, the British would suspect him to be the imposter he was.

Thank God, he thought, he was bound for Charleston. With him there or wherever he ended up, and her safely distant in Brandborough, their love had a chance of surviving the war. Until then … He had to see her at least one more time, had to feel her lips on his, to feel her heart beating wildly against his own. “I'll come to you later,” he'd said. “I give you my word.” But later had been what? Six, eight hours earlier? Her disappointment in him when they'd arrested Allan told him well enough what she'd think of his word if he didn't go to her, and he didn't think he could stand that. Not during the long, difficult time that lay ahead. Hastily, he rose, mounted Cinder, and turned the dun's head back toward Brandborough. And as he rode, he saw Colleen as she'd appeared on the dock, as she danced with him, as she lay in his arms in their secret ravine, her bright, golden eyes shining as she'd led him deeper and deeper into the warm center of her bountiful love.

Colleen awoke from a startling dream. She couldn't remember the details, but there'd been gunfire, cannons, charging soldiers, wild horses … and Jason. Had someone tried to kill him, or had he done the killing? And where was she? What was real? Her packing completed, she'd sat down to work on a poem and, overtaken by exhaustion, had fallen asleep at her desk. Black night was turning gray. Suddenly, she remembered Jason's promise and, anger coursing through her veins and reddening her cheeks, realized he'd broken it. Furious, she stormed about the house. Her father had yet to return. Alone—never in her life had she felt more alone. Jason had lied, he had schemed, he had taken her and left her and damn his face! Damn his flowery talk! Damn his soul! Back in her bedroom, she quickly began to strip off her clothes and was down to her chemise when she heard a faint tapping at her window. Jason! Anger tamed to embarrassment and shame for misjudging him. Too excited to be concerned with her semi-nudity, she opened the shutter and looked out at her lover, standing alone in the graying dawn. “Why did you tarry so?” she asked. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”

Jason put his finger to his lips. “I don't want to wake your father.”

“He isn't here,” she said, pursing her wine-red lips. “Jason Paxton, just for a moment forget you're a gentleman and climb through the window.”

The window was low and wide. Once inside, Jason found himself unable to stop staring at her and, against all his well-reasoned plans, took her in his arms and brought her to him in a fierce embrace.

Untamed memories of their afternoon tryst—recalled by mind, heart, and flesh—inflamed Colleen's desire as she felt the lean, hard strength of his body against hers. Her imagination had so often conjured up that very scene—in the middle of the night, he had returned from London, opened her shutters, sneaked inside, and made mad love to her in her own canopied bed, soft arena of longing and frustration, after which, joined in flesh and spirit, they cast their fates to the glorious cause of the revolution and become one in the noble struggle.

She couldn't quite believe that it was Jason, ardent and loving, the sweet Jason of her youth lying next to her, his lips enticing her, his long legs entwined with hers, his eyes pleading with hers, his insistent manhood, yearning, seeking, his muffled cries mingling with hers. Again and again, deeper, higher, stronger, and faster, he drove himself into her. Again and again, she met his thrusts and his sweet length, opening her very being to his every need, giving all she could, and, oh, the sweetness of the sweat along his long, lovely back, the power of his thighs and his buttocks, the steadily rising rhythm, carrying her to a place beyond her bed, beyond her dreams, beyond her room to the sound of singing, soaring stars, rising to a silver peak of blinding moonlight, white and silver snowflakes falling from a frozen heaven, easily, lazily, blissfully back to earth.

Afterward, turned on their sides and facing one another, Jason punctuated his explanation with a string of kisses on her mouth, neck, breasts, and eyes. He told of the long-smoldering rivalry between him and Buckley, and how Buckley, fraudently using Jason's name, had surely alerted Embleton. He narrated the events at his father's house, and explained how he had ridden, slept, and searched his thoughts for what he must do.

“For a moment,” Colleen confessed, “I thought you were surely a Tory, and that love had blinded me to your true color.”

“Whatever may happen,” he warned her, “you mustn't believe that. These are difficult times, and often things aren't what they seem, but I tell you that my love for my home and my people is strong, as strong as my father's. Yet my way of expressing that love may be different.”

“You speak in mysteries, Jase. You must tell me exactly what you mean.”

“I can't. I myself am not sure,” he hedged. “I only know that the point of this struggle is victory, and victory is won by intelligence, not necessarily brashness. You must remember that. Those broadsides of yours may ultimately do you more harm than good.”

“You're wrong!” Colleen sat up in bed. A wayward golden strand of hair fell across her shoulder and lay enticingly across her naked breast. “The broadsides must be written. The word has to go out. If I don't compose them, who will? It's my sacred duty. Can't you see that?”

“I can see you in terrible peril,” Jason replied, frowning, “and the thought plagues me.”

“Why? Because I'm a woman?” she asked indignantly.

“No, because I …” His voice faded.
My God in heaven, I've come home to join a fight for freedom and here I sit about to declare … oh, no, what madness!
“Well, yes, partly because you are a woman,” he stammered lamely.

“Oh, Jase,” she said, “it's our destiny to work together, and to be together. Don't you see? I know that with all my heart.”

“We're together now, but in a few moments I'll be leaving,” he told her, preparing himself to explain how, in spite of his feelings for her, he could no longer see her.

“For where?”

“Charleston. Robin and Piero will be able to help me there.”

“Charleston! That's where father and I are going. He's to take me to Aunt Rianne's today, if he returns in time. Don't you see, dear Jason, we
are
meant to be together!”

“But that's impossible!” Jason protested, casting wildly about for an excuse, any excuse, to justify their separation. “I can't—”

“Hush! Do you hear?”

He did. Hoofbeats, and the creak of carriage wheels. “Good God!” he croaked, and without time for further thought, he leaped up and scrambled for his breeches.

Dr. Roy McClagan was too tired and far away to notice the world around him. Behind him, the great Atlantic lost its grayness to the pink, gold, and crimson of morning as the sun spread its molten glow on the peaceful Carolina morning. But Roy was too distraught to be comforted by the natural wonder of daybreak. His patient, a frail boy not yet nine years of age, had died. Only two weeks before, the boy's father had been killed defending Charleston with the Continental Army. Roy was saddened beyond reason: part of him had died with the child.

Slowly, he rode into the barn, unhitched his horse, led her to her stall, and gave her water, oats, and a pitchfork of hay. On the way to the house, he tried to remember to whom the dun-colored stallion grazing in the front yard belonged and then, his mind too muddled, gave up with a shrug. By the time he entered, Colleen and Jason were properly seated in the straight-backed, thinly cushioned chairs placed on either side of the fireplace.

“Ah, well, then,” he said, pausing in the doorway. “Don't know how I could forget that dun. Someone in town said you were back, but I didn't expect to see you this soon.”

Jason rose and extended his hand. “It's been a long time, Doctor. I trust you're well.”

“Well? Well?” He blinked and shook his head in order to keep awake. “Well enough, I suppose. Just extremely tired.”

Colleen took his arm and led him to his favorite chair. “The boy?…”

“I'd rather not discuss him right now,” Roy said.

“I'm sorry, Papa,” Colleen said, understanding from his behavior full well what had happened. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's the way of the world,” Roy said harshly, looking up at Jason. “So what are you doing here?”

“He's come to take me to Charleston,” Colleen answered, to Jason's surprise.

“Now, see here!” Roy exploded. He glared at Jason. “What the devil is this all about? I'll be damned if I'll have you coming in here and—”

“I asked him to,” Colleen interrupted. She knelt at her father's side and took his hand. “I knew you'd be too tired after working all night. It's such a long journey.”

“I'll take you next week,” Roy snapped, throwing off her hand. Agitated, he lurched to his feet, went to the sideboard, and poured himself a mug of cider. “That's plenty time enough. If ever. Charleston's too dangerous.”

“Less dangerous than Brandborough,” Colleen argued, “if for no other reason than that the British are there in force, and here anything can happen. Besides, you know Aunt Rianne expects me today and will die of worry if I don't arrive.”

“She'll expect I told you you couldn't go,” Roy said, not giving in. “She knows me, and knows I argued against this trip in the first place. Let her find someone else to sew for her.”

Colleen pressed on determinedly. “The Somerset Ball costumes account for half her year's income, Papa. She's lost three of her best seamstresses. I promised her—”

“No.” He finished the cider, then poured himself a second mugful. “No and no again.”

“Buckley Somerset will be there, and we've agreed to meet.”

“Oh, did you, now?” Roy asked suspiciously, knowing his daughter's manipulative ways. The cider going to his head, he peered at Colleen over his cup, then swung toward Jason. “And what'll our young Mr. Somerset say about you?” he asked sarcastically. “Seems to me I remember you boys aren't the best of friends. And from the look on your face, I'm not so sure you think this is such a good idea either.”

Jason was trapped. He didn't want to accompany Colleen to Charleston, and yet he wanted to. Making love to her the day before had been excusable, but that morning's episode had been a lapse of good sense. What had come over him? A relationship with Colleen was impossible if he was to play his game well, and he in turn could be highly dangerous for Colleen. He couldn't afford to be seen escorting her to Charleston, and yet the temptation to spend that day with her—that last day—was irresistible. “She'll be safe with me,” he said, evading the issue. “Nobody can find fault with that. Not even Buckley. I'll need to borrow a conveyance, though.”

Roy laughed. “A Paxton borrowing a buggy from a McClagan? I find the idea a wee bit ludicrous. Ethan has several of his own, I believe.”

“I'm afraid Jason and his father don't see eye to eye,” Colleen explained.

“So you're not a bloody Patriot like old man Ethan, eh?”

“I'm a musician, Dr. McClagan.”

“A Tory musician?” asked the Scotsman.

“A simple musician,” answered Jason.

“I
am
tired,” Roy admitted, letting the bulk of his body sink into a rocking chair. “And the idea of going to Charleston next week is no more inviting than this week. Will you be careful, lad? Will you guard my daughter with your very life?”

“I shall.”

Smiling, Colleen ran from the room to finish her packing. By then, Portia had emerged from her servant's house out back and was hard at work on breakfast. A few minutes later, Roy and Jason faced one another in the living room as they drank tea brought to them by Portia. The older man, fighting fatigue, quenching his thirst with a sip from the teacup followed by a swallow of hard cider, spoke vigorously. “I care not a whit for your family,” he told Jason. “You know that. But I also know that my Colleen favors you, and it's only fair to warn you that I'll have none of it. You're a musician and you're a wanderer, and you're no match, not in my eyes, for young Somerset. He and his family …”

Jason let Roy amble on without rebuttal, for even as he spoke, his eyelids grew heavier with each passing second and his voice began to lose its clarity. At last, the night's tragic business took its toll and Roy's eyes fell shut and his head dropped to his chest. Gently, Jason took the cups from his hands and carried them to the kitchen. When he returned, the weary doctor was deep in sleep, his snoring creating a tension and release that rocked him back and forth, back and forth.

Chapter 8

Cinder maintained a brisk pace along the winding path that led downhill and away from the farm. It was another splendid spring Sunday morning, and the enormous fatigue that Jason felt in his eyes, along his neck and his aching loins, added strangely to his exhilaration. Beside him in the buggy, Colleen felt alive, vibrant, and full of energy. Everything had happened so quickly. Her trunk was packed and loaded, and in her heart she knew that her life was changing forever, and though the feeling was frightening, it was also exciting. Events spun her in a dozen different directions. Less than thirty-six hours earlier, she never would have dreamed that she and Jason would be escaping from her father's home alone and together. Yet the incident with Allan Coleridge added another, more confusing, dimension. She had listened closely to Jason's explanation. She wanted to believe—she had seen the children, after all, so she did believe, at least on one level—that he was sincere, but Rianne's warning continued to haunt her. “In times like these, dearie,” she'd said one day, “you're to judge men by actions, not mere words.”