The Beloved One (6 page)

"You are correct.  I'm no farmer, and I am not from Woburn."

"Who are you, then?  Answer me!"  The girl stamped her foot.  "
Answer me now
!"

"No!  Don't tell them!" gasped Amy.

"Shut up!" snarled the one called Ophelia, and Charles heard the sharp crack of a hand meeting flesh, and Amy's cry of pain.  Everything inside of him went cold with a deep, black rage.  How dare they hurt her. 
How dare they.

His back toward them all, he summoned his strength and began to pull himself to his feet.

"You tell us who you are right now or I'm going to go get Papa!"

Charles kept rising, the blanket sliding off his shoulders, too angry to care that he wore nothing but this long shirt.

"You're not even from around here, are you? 
Are you?
"

"How very astute you are.  For a provincial, that is."

"You're as much a provincial as we are!"

He laughed softly.  "I think not."

"What?"

"Go get your father."  And then, when no one moved, "
Now.
"

The girl fled the room.  "Papa!" she cried in a piercing shriek that made Charles's head ache all the more.  "
Pa-paaa!
"

Sylvanus, sitting outside beneath an apple tree and trying to work out a theme for Sunday's sermon, jerked his head up as Ophelia, bawling like a cow needing to be milked, came flying to the open door.  Raising his eyes to God in a silent plea for patience, he put down his notes.

"For the love of heaven, what's going on in there?"

For answer, she burst into tears and ran back inside.

Sylvanus abandoned his sermon and followed, dragging his feet all the way.  The first person he saw was Amy, hands steepled over her mouth.  She stared at him like a rabbit caught in a snare, and it was then that he saw Ophelia and Mildred near the keeping room fireplace and shrinking back from —

Praise the Lord!
  Will's friend was conscious and on his feet.  His spine, as straight as the back of a pew, faced them all, and his bearing was one of pride, outrage, and the sort of well-bred elan not often found amongst people of Sylvanus's acquaintance.  Barely able to contain his excitement, Sylvanus came up behind him.

"Ah, Mr. Smith, thank the Lord you're awake!  Will is going to be absolutely delighted that his friend has finally returned to the land of the living!"

The young man's profile was severe, his jaw clenched with impatience as he fixed his gaze straight ahead.  "Will?"

"Yes, Will!  Don't you remember?"

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I am not acquainted with anyone named Will, and my surname is certainly not
Smith
."

Sylvanus blinked, slightly undone by the anger in the man's tone.  "Well, of course it is . . . Will said so himself . . ."

"What
madness
have I woken to?"  The stranger pressed his fingertips to his temples, as though his patience with the lot of them had finally reached its end.  "My name, sir, is Lord Charles Adair de Montforte.  I am a captain in His Majesty's army, my home is in Berkshire, England, and my brother Lucien is the fifth and current duke of Blackheath."  The proud head turned to regard him, the clear blue eyes staring straight over Sylvanus's right shoulder and through the wall behind him.  "And who, pray tell, are
you
?"

Chapter 4

A redcoat.  A
blind
redcoat.  A blind,
aristocratic
redcoat.  Oh dear, oh, dear, oh dear . . .

"Amy.  Go find Will and bring him to me immediately."

"Oh, Papa, please, be easy on him, he only did what he thought was right —"

Sylvanus kneaded his brow.  "Don't argue with me, Amy.  Just go get him,
now
."

Amy found her brother outside in the barn.  He was gathering the eggs she should have collected this morning, trying to help her with duties that, because of the captain, she could no longer keep up with.  Amy's heart went out to him.  Poor Will was ravaged by guilt from all corners.  He took one look at Amy's face and froze with his hand beneath a hen's breast, earning a vicious peck on the back of his hand for his hesitation.

"It's time, Will," said Amy, taking the basket from him.  "The captain's awake, and Papa wants to talk to you."

Her brother swallowed, made a brave but pitiful attempt to square his shoulders, and followed her back into the house, Crystal trotting at his heels.  Sylvanus was waiting by the door.  He gestured for Will to precede him into the keeping room where Lord Charles, his back to them all, sat on his pallet before the fireplace, decently covered in one of Sylvanus's old banyans.  Ophelia and Mildred stood with folded arms in the corner, and the air was so thick with tension that Amy almost expected a lightning bolt to slam down out of the ceiling.

Sylvanus poured himself a mug of hard cider and took a seat.  Then he looked up at Will, his face confused, saddened, mirroring betrayal.  "Out with it, son.  Before your family, before this fellow you brought home, and before God."

Will took one look at the expectant faces around him, and, his eyes filling with tears, blurted out the story for all to hear.

"I didn't know what else to do, Pa!" he said, stroking the dog's head and gulping once, twice.  "I couldn't just leave him there, not after he saved my life!  He was dying, and no one should have to die alone!"  And then, between apologies to his father, to the stone-silent captain, and even to God for sneaking off to fight without Uncle Eb's knowing, Will finally broke down in great wracking sobs that testified to the anguish in his soul, burying his face in Crystal's neck.

Amy glanced at the captain.  He hadn't said a word throughout Will's confession, neither batting an eyelash nor moving a muscle, merely sitting there on his pallet with his back to them all.  It was as though he'd already given up on life, already given up on hope, and that what had happened in his past was now irrelevant.  Glancing at him, Sylvanus raked a hand through what was left of his hair; then, ushering Will to his feet, he sent the boy to bed.

An awful silence remained in his wake.

Sylvanus picked up the poker and stabbed at a burning log.  "I just don't understand it.  He's never given me a spot of trouble.  Always been a good lad, always did the right thing, and now . . ."  He took off his spectacles and rubbed wearily at his eyes.  "And now, I don't know what to do with him.  I just don't know . . ."

"After what he did to Lord Charles?  Punish him, I say!" snapped Ophelia, her eyes softening as she gazed at the silent figure on his pallet.  "Poor, poor Lord Charles!"

"Yes, what a noble sacrifice our brave friend has made!" Mildred gushed.  "His eyesight for Will's life.  Oh, Lord Charles, how
ever
can we thank you?"

Amy wasn't surprised when he didn't answer them.  A half-hour before, he'd been a drain upon their resources.  A half-hour before, they couldn't wait for him to hurry up and die.  Now that he was
Lord
Charles, everything had changed.  As a handsome and no doubt very wealthy aristocrat, he was marriage material, an object of competition between them both, the ultimate prize to be won.  The two were out to impress him, and they wanted blood to do it.  Will's blood.

"What are you going to
do
, Papa?" Ophelia demanded, trying to pressure her confused and hapless father into a decision.

"I . . . I don't know."

"Please, Papa, have mercy on Will," said Amy, interceding.  "After all, he's only fourteen.  He was alone and scared, and he didn't know what else to do . . ."

Ophelia rounded on her.  "How can you defend him so?  Haven't you any thought for poor Lord Charles?  If Will had taken our gallant captain to Boston and handed him over to the king's troops instead of bringing him all the way up here to Newburyport, he would've been treated for his injuries that much sooner!  He would've woken up to find himself amongst people he knows and trusts, instead of strangers whom he must think of as the enemy.  Your concerns are with the wrong person!  Lord Charles is the injured party here, not Will!  Will ought to be whipped for what he did, no ifs, ands, or buts about it!"

"What do you mean, Will? 
Amy's
the one who deserves to be whipped!" hissed Mildred, eyes gleaming as she, too, turned on Amy.  "I'll bet
you
knew who Lord Charles was from the start, didn't you?"

"I knew he was a redcoat, yes, but I didn't see a need to say anything —"

"Didn't see a need to say anything!  You stupid, unthinking, idiot, Newburyport is a rebel town!  We even had our own tea party last year!  What happens if someone finds out we're harboring a king's officer?  And what about when Dr. Plummer comes back to check on him?  All Lord Charles has to do is say hello, how do you do, and the doctor's going to know immediately that he's no rebel a'tall! 
You've
put us in as much danger as Will has, Amy, for keeping your silence!"

"And unlike Will,
you're
old enough to know better!"

Amy bit her tongue to hold back her angry retort.  Of course she hadn't said anything to Sylvanus, but that was because Will had begged her not to.  Unbidden, her mind drifted back to that desperate, tearful conversation she and Will had had in the barn, just following Charles's surgery . . .

"Swear you won't tell Pa, Amy!  Oh, please Amy, don't tell him, he won't understand and since the captain'll probably die anyhow it doesn't make a bit of difference —"

"Will, why did you even
bring
him here?"

"I had to," he'd said miserably, his eyes filling with tears as he sank down on a bale of hay, his head in his hands.  "Oh, Amy . . .  I thought war was going to be glorious.  I thought it would feel good to kill one of those bastards, to know I'd done my part for America, but when it came down to it, and I saw people on both sides dying horribly all around me . . ."

"It suddenly wasn't so glorious anymore," she'd finished.

"It was awful," he'd sobbed, tears squeezing out between his fingers.

"Tell me what happened, Will."

And he had.

"I wanted to hate the redcoats, Amy, I wanted to kill one, but how can you hate and kill someone you feel nothing but admiration for?  When that young soldier ran away from the safety of the troops, the captain was just like the shepherd who leaves his flock to save a single lost sheep, heedless of all the bullets flying around him.  I've never seen courage like that, Amy . . .  And just as he was putting his soldier up over the saddle, I got a hold of myself and thought, here's my chance to kill one, to kill a really important one and do my part for America so that everyone'd be p-p-proud of me . . ."

Tearfully, he'd told her what had happened next, how the captain must have realized his youth and in the last moment, spared his life, only to fall backwards against the wall.  He told her how, long after the fighting moved on and the fields and woods had gone quiet, he'd gone back.  "I had to —" he'd choked back a sob — "had to see for myself j-just what I'd d-d-done to him."

"It's all right, Will.  Don't cry . . . you're too big to cry now and besides, it's not your fault."

"But it
is
my fault, Amy!  It's like when you go hunting and you kill something for the supperpot.  You know you have do it, and you get all excited when you pull the trigger, but when the bird goes up in a little puff of feathers, or the beautiful deer stumbles and goes down, there's a big part of you that hopes that when you get there, you was just imagining that you hit it . . . that it'll have recovered and got away . . . or that you killed it cleanly so it didn't suffer."  He'd passed the back of his sleeve across his nose.  "The captain didn't get away, and I didn't kill him cleanly.  He was still lying there, right where I'd left him, with blood from his head all over the lichen on the rock behind him.  And the worst part of it was, that horse of his never did leave him, and was still standing there guarding him like some big dog, with the dead soldier still lying across the saddle right . . . right where the c-c-captain had p-p-put him.  I couldn't just leave him out there to die, Amy.  I just couldn't . . ."

"But how did you get him home without anyone stopping and questioning you?"

"One of our men was lying dead nearby, so I swapped the captain's red coat, gorget and hat for the other fellow's waistcoat … took him to Uncle Eb's and told him he was a friend and then went to Boston and got a boat home.  Oh, Amy, what am I gonna do?"

She had pulled him to his feet.  "
We
are going to go right on letting everyone believe the captain's a rebel," she'd said briskly, thinking, like Will, that he would probably die anyhow.  "It'll be our little secret . . ."

And it had been — until now.

And now the chance for defending herself was past; with the captain awake and listening, it seemed cruel and insensitive to admit that they'd pretty much expected him to die.  No.  She'd take whatever punishment was coming her way, if only to spare his feelings.  He'd been through enough, the poor man, still sitting on his pallet with his gaze turned toward a fire he could not see and his mind as far away as England's misty shores.  Totally oblivious to everything.  Totally uncaring.

Sylvanus put down the poker.  "Will's guilt is punishment enough for what he's done.  But Amy —" his voice turned plaintive, — "Amy, you should have known better.  You should have come to me immediately.  Why didn't you?"

"I'm sorry, Papa.  Will begged my silence, and I — I thought that he should be the one to tell you, not me . . ."

"
I thought that Will should be the one to tell you, not me
," mimicked Mildred, nastily.  "If something bad comes of this, it's going to be all your fault, Amy!  Papa's right, you
should've
known better!"

"Nitwit!"

"Imbecile!"

Tears stung Amy's eyes.  She was accustomed to getting abuse from her sisters, but oh, lordy, it felt a hundred times worse to get it in front of the captain.  She glanced up at Sylvanus for help, but she should have known better than to look for it there.  He stood confused and uncertain, unwilling to make a move in any direction, and treating this problem as he did all others that involved the raising of his children; that is, by ignoring whatever he found unpleasant in the hopes it would go away.