The Colonel's Lady (6 page)

Lying down on the freshly made bed, she smiled at the rustle of the corn-husk tick, thinking of the feather one she’d left behind. Truly, her new life here on the far frontier hardly held one reminder of her old one. At home, in their small stone house, she’d had a fine four-poster bed with plump pillows and a calico cat that slept at her feet, rag rugs on polished pine floors, a clothespress scented with rose sachet. All such amenities were missing here. Thinking it left her feeling a bit hollow.

But, she decided, the wilderness was a fine antidote to all her regrets. Soon, very soon, she and Papa would leave this inhospitable place and be on their way to a new home. A new life. She needn’t think again of Ambrose or the future she might have had.

6

Wrapping herself in her heavy woolen cloak, Roxanna wandered to the fort’s front gate and looked out a loophole to the wide Ohio River. In the twilight of late December, the water was more opal than emerald, the trees along its muddy banks shivering like skeletons in the wind. Try as she might, she couldn’t hear a sound. No crunch of marching boots over frozen ground, no shouted commands or chatter of drums, no thud of hoofbeats or clink of canteens.

Just above her head, the garrison’s name was embedded in a huge oaken timber.
Fort Endeavor
. The farthest-reaching fort on the western frontier. ’Twas home to some of the finest soldiers Virginia had to offer in defense of the Kentucke territory, or so her father said. Behind her flew the flag of that fine colony, stiff as a starched petticoat in the brisk wind.

Glancing to her right, she could see musket balls embedded in thick log walls. Overhead a cannon jutted like an ugly beak from the parapets just above. Drawing her cape closer, she shivered. There was something terribly lethal about this place, something so at odds with Christmas peace. A few sentries stood watch and nodded to her when she passed, eyes more on her than the river and woods.

Oh, Lord, to be rid of this place for good.

Her gaze wandered to the west wall where the Redstone women still slumbered in a far cabin. Except for meals, she’d hardly seen them since their arrival. It seemed they slept all day and caroused all night. She continually worried about Abby and tried to think of a way to befriend the child, but nothing reasonable had yet come to mind. Even if she made the effort, she’d soon be gone. So why try?

Tomorrow was Christmas Day. Bella was busy preparing a feast, and Roxanna had helped her concoct a number of pies and puddings since dawn. LeSourd had delivered not only another buffalo but several fat turkeys now soaking in salt water. At day’s end they’d gotten down on their hands and knees and scoured the dining room floor with river sand, then set fresh candles out, along with a barrel of cherry bounce that the colonel was so fond of.

“Colonel McLinn promised his men he’d have ’em back by Christmas,” Bella had told her. “My man Hank told me so hisself. He fetches and carries for him.”

Hank. Her husband?
Roxanna wondered, trying to make note of the name.

Now, pondering the silent woods, Roxanna wagered the colonel and his men were gathered round some distant campfire only dreaming of Fort Endeavor and remembering that promise. And Papa . . . was he thinking of her? Thinking she was still in Virginia, earning her keep as a tutor? Betrothed to Ambrose, perhaps? Or recalling the last holiday they’d spent together years before?

Her thoughts turned to other heartfelt matters, like the Christmas service held at their little country church in Virginia, every pew bedecked with evergreens and ribbon and countless candles. All that seemed a world away, and she missed it with a fierceness she’d not thought possible, though she didn’t understand why she should. Aside from church, which had always been her solace, her happy memories were mere crumbs.

Last Christmas had hardly been merry. With her mother ill and Ambrose distancing himself more by the day, she’d taken Christmas dinner alone. Standing by a rain-soaked windowpane in their quiet kitchen, she fancied she heard a fiddle at Thistleton Hall. She’d missed her father so fiercely then, missed his ability to make the best of whatever situation he was in. If Papa had been home, he’d have opened the window wide, caught her about the waist, and danced to that fiddle as it echoed in the crisp air . . .

Remembering it all, Roxanna leaned against the postern gate and looked west from her peephole toward the frozen woods. The everlasting stillness seemed broken now. Could it be? The forest was coming alive with the anticipated clink of canteens and crunch of boots and other things she couldn’t name. Within seconds the sentries on the banquette above stood straighter and looked more soldierly, and even Bella appeared outside the kitchen door.

Time seemed suspended as the sounds crept closer, yet the men making them stayed hidden. Noiselessly, the sentries moved to open the gates. Within minutes there appeared a half-frozen procession of soldiers streaming through the far trees, chests crisscrossed with the white belts of their weapons, each sporting a dark tricorn hat. Her eyes roamed the group hungrily, heart in her throat. The troops were more distinguishable the closer they came and far larger than they first appeared. One hundred . . . two?

Where in this large company was her father? She should have been looking for him, beloved as he was. But she had eyes for one man only.

The figure at the front of the throng seemed to be looking at her even as she looked at him, his keen eyes drilling her from a distance, making her wish she was standing back with Bella in the doorway of the kitchen and not struck smitten at the gate like some settlement girl.

There was something riveting in the way he sat atop his horse, his rich blue camlet cloak flowing to the stallion’s belly and touching the tops of his boots. The rigid set of his whiskered jaw and the contrasting queue of copper braid snaking past his collar seemed to shout for attention. Could this be the commander her father had spoken of so highly? She hadn’t expected him to be so young or so . . . astonishing.

One long look at Cassius McLinn did more to displace Ambrose in her mind than had six months of crying and trying to forget. He simply collapsed like a paper caricature in the colonel’s sturdy shadow. She thought Bella had merely exaggerated the colonel’s charms. She never dreamed she’d understated them.

When Roxanna had gathered her wits, she stepped back inside the gate and watched the soldiers file past, shrinking the parade ground in the deepening dusk. They all looked alike to her now in the shadows, and she felt almost dizzy trying to find her father. Voices were sounding everywhere around her, and she spied Olympia and Abby at the door of their cabin with the other Redstone women. Next came a swarm of grim prisoners, a mix of redskins and Redcoats, all tethered together in a long line. Watching them, she felt a chill clear to her bones.

This . . . at Christmas.

She’d seen her share of British soldiers in Virginia, but few Indians. Even bound with chain and hemp rope, these tawny men walked proudly past, a colorful parade of buckskin and buffalo robes, quills and beads and feathers, silver ornaments dangling from arms and ears and ebony heads.

She’d expected to witness some jubilance among the soldiers at being back inside fort walls before Christmas as promised, but not one contented face did she find. No festive feeling suffused the air, no shouts of greeting. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the Virginia flag being lowered on its staff. Down, down, down it came till it was limping at half-mast. A strange silence swept through the crowd as soldiers began to remove their tricorn hats. Watching, Roxanna remained at the gate as if frozen, her gaze sweeping over the strangely muted group to the steadfast figure of Bella still standing at the kitchen door.

Even from a distance, her dark face looked drawn and distracted. It seemed Bella’s eyes were everywhere at once, as restless and searching as her own. Could she not find her Hank? Roxanna had just seen a black man in homespun speaking with another man beneath the flagstaff. Surely this was he.

Bella seemed to be searching for someone else now—and with a start Roxanna realized it was her father. Within moments Bella had crossed the crowded parade ground and placed a hand on Roxanna’s sleeve, and it seemed her touch was altogether too firm.

Never had her heart thudded so hard beneath her Sabbath-best dress. Soon it seemed the only thing keeping her upright was the pressure of Bella’s bony fingers on her arm. Roxanna hardly noticed the soldiers staring at her in the gloom as if trying to piece together the puzzle of her appearance.

That she was Richard Rowan’s daughter there could be no doubt. Nor could there be any doubt that the man now standing before her, towering over her as he dismounted, was Colonel Cassius McLinn. No introductions were needed on either score.

The hard knot of alarm in her throat kept her from speaking. She could only stare mutely at him, his startling azure eyes transmitting a hundred dreadful messages as they held her own. Her gaze shifted, falling to the braided collar of his cape. She watched his throat tighten visibly as if he struggled to say something. It took every shred of her composure to keep from crying out.

Suddenly he spun away without a word, parting the lingering soldiers who stood about woodenly waiting for orders, before disappearing completely into a far blockhouse. For once Bella was speechless. She didn’t even acknowledge the black man who came over to them, his face worn with weary lines, eyes bloodshot. He stood with them in a sore circle, saying nothing, hat in hand, and Roxanna felt an appalling dread.

Something terrible had happened on this campaign.

7

Cass eyed the orderly who stood in the doorway of the blockhouse awaiting his directive. Behind him, another fumbled with flint and tinder at the cold hearth, trying to kindle wood with nervous hands. He wanted to send them out of the room, but he had need of them both—one to summon Richard Rowan’s daughter and the other to make a fire in the stone house.

The oak and leather tang of his headquarters, coupled with the candlelit darkness, seemed foreign since he’d been away so long. The fog in his brain seemed only to have thickened on the return march, and by the time they’d reached the ice-encrusted creek that signaled an end to their misery, he’d nearly fallen off his horse. Now, simply removing his tricorn and cloak and placing them on the wall pegs behind him took supreme effort.

How, by the Eternal, would he have the wits to tell this woman her father wasn’t coming back?

The shock of seeing her had nearly stripped him of his stupor. Hidden in his breast pocket was the locket that assured him that this was indeed Roxie Rowan. Her face and form had risen up like some specter in a Shakespeare tragedy, demanding he give a reckoning for his sins. He couldn’t postpone telling her. If he dallied, someone else on the parade ground might do it—or perhaps she’d already surmised the obvious.

He pinned the orderly at the door with aching eyes. “Richard Rowan’s daughter is with Bella on the parade ground. Bring her here.”

“Aye, sir.”

The heavy door shut, and he stared at its bulk, wanting to sit down. Behind him the fire was finally blazing, and the orderly timidly asked if he needed anything else.

Aye
, he felt like shouting.
I need Richard Rowan—hale and hearty—just as he was when I sent him on a fool’s errand into the woods!

He dismissed the orderly and stayed stoic in the stillness. Long minutes ticked by before Richard’s daughter stood before him, Bella and Hank flanking her. With a look he dismissed them as well. Roxanna Rowan looked up at him, and then her eyes seemed to make a clean sweep of the dim, damp room. The shock of stale air—the reek of rum and stale tobacco—assaulted his senses after being so long outdoors. Surely it did hers as well.

His massive desk was between them, and he leaned toward her slightly, palms flat upon the polished wood. His lips parted then closed. He’d expected to simply send her a letter. All the way back to the fort he’d composed what he would say, never dreaming he’d have to meet her face-to-face. And now the woman in the locket was looking back at him with that same unsmiling mouth, her lovely eyes doe-like, almost beseeching, her body tensed like she was about to take flight.

Was she trembling?

A rush of pity stirred him. He took in her finely embroidered gown, no doubt worn for her father’s homecoming, and his eyes lingered on the blue ribbon in her upswept black hair. But his gaze kept returning to those eyes. They regarded him warily—even suspiciously—making this terrible thing he must do all the harder.

The violent ache in his chest expanded, and his head thudded like it had been grazed with a tomahawk. He was too sick to do this with any semblance of grace. She was staring at him, and her oval face had turned so poignant it only made what he had to say doubly hard because she seemed to be sorry for him—for him having to tell her.

The realization stunned him. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes and he blinked them back.

She said softly, “Sir . . . you are trying to tell me . . . about my father.”

He simply looked at her.

She took a small step away from the desk and held up a hand as if to stop his unwelcome words. “He’s not—”

“Miss Rowan—”

“—coming back.” She blinked and backed up further, and when he tried to speak again, she whispered, “Please . . . don’t.”

The simple words were a broken plea that he understood completely. “I’m . . . so . . . sorry.” He ground his back teeth to steady his voice, but the Irish lilt of his words seemed to pulsate with anguish. Could she hear his deep regret?

She spun away without another word, and relief coursed through him. Perhaps it was enough, he thought.

For now.

Roxanna lay on the bed her father had lain on in life, dry-eyed and disbelieving. Her shock and lonesomeness was eased somewhat by Bella’s snoring on the pallet near the hearth. She’d wanted to be alone, but Bella had insisted she stay near, if just for one night, and Roxanna had been too benumbed to protest.

I should be growing used to this grieving.

But she was learning that there were all kinds of grief. Ever-present ones like feeling forever unattractive or unaccomplished. Then those that hollowed out an undeniable ache inside, like the loss of a mother who was never satisfied. A broken betrothal . . . a heart betrayed. What kind of grief would the loss of her beloved father prove to be? Taken one at a time these were bearable, but heaped together they were too much.

Father in heaven . . . help Thou me.

The stone house, always welcoming as a woman’s arms, now felt like a tomb. Cass passed through the front door, hardly aware of Hank on his heels and the orderlies scattering below to kindle fires. The room at the top of the stairs was cast in deep shadows, and the enormous bed specially made for his tall frame seemed the only furnishing in it. As he walked, he stripped off his coat and soiled shirt, then bent down to unfasten his garters and remove mud-spattered leggings.

My apologies, Bella.

He was in no condition to be tidy tonight. A trail of clothing led from the staircase landing to the threshold of his bedchamber and then to a corner washbasin skimmed with ice. He dunked his head in the chill water, and his feverish brow seemed to sizzle.

He needed help with his boots, and Hank was there with the bootjack, pulling them off before he asked. He was too sick to bathe. Too sick for his usual double dose of whiskey. With any luck, he’d be asleep before the worst of the delirium hit. Perhaps this time the attack wouldn’t be so bad and he could begin to make amends to Miss Rowan. As his backside deflated the fine feather tick, he remembered the locket.

His speech was almost slurring now. “Hank, bring me my coat—top of the stair.” Hank hurried to obey.

In the light of a single tallow candle, he flicked open the miniature and studied the vulnerable, winsome face within. He’d done the same in the blockhouse before the flesh-and-blood Roxanna came in—only beneath all that fragility was a wall of composure he’d not reckoned with. He’d seen hardened soldiers bear bad news with less grace.

Miss Rowan, I will honor your father’s request and take care of you—though you may not want me to.

Under any other circumstance, one would think Cassius Clayton McLinn was trying to woo her. His courting began with a letter, slipped by an orderly beneath her cabin door. She heard its rustle from her bed, though she continued to lie a long time before rising to retrieve it. The sight of the paper brought a queer pang, for it was the same linen paper Papa had used in all his letters to her, only the handwriting on the outside was distinctly different. She could almost imagine the writer taking up a goose quill and dipping it quickly into an inkpot, writing with strong, slashing pen strokes that dominated the page before her.

There, on the outside, he’d penned her name.
Miss Roxanna Rowan.
Twice folded, the letter bore McLinn’s indigo wax seal. For a time she could only hold it, preparing herself for what she knew lay within. He was trying to tell her on paper what he had been unable to tell her in person, in private. The thoughtfulness of the missive touched her, only she couldn’t read it. Not yet.

It had come early Christmas morn, before the day was touched by dawn, making her wonder if he’d lain awake all night like she. At noon Bella came round with a tray of the finest soldierly fare Fort Endeavor had to offer. Roast goose. Chestnut stuffing. Apple tansy. Mashed potatoes and turnips with a well of gravy. Beaten biscuits and gingerbread. Only she couldn’t eat a bite.

“I got me some help in the kitchen,” Bella said. “A couple of them Jezebels decided to rouse and help once they heard about your pa.”

Toward dusk something else appeared. A small package. This she opened. The lovely contents made her want to weep. She was sitting in Papa’s chair by the flickering hearth, having forgotten to light a single candle, yet the exquisite offering in her hands needed no illumination.

Never had she seen so fine a china cup—perfectly white, so fragile she feared it might crack if she simply looked at it. Around its rim was a lovely thistle pattern, the handle fluted and gold-trimmed and painted with a fleur-de-lis. Instinctively she knew it came from the stone house, not this roughshod fort. But that was not all. A sealed tin of tea was within, smelling of refinement and ease and the olden days under British rule. Did Colonel McLinn know she was partial to tea and not coffee, like her father? Next came a dainty silver strainer with hooked chain for keeping the leaves from the cup. He’d thought of everything, truly.

Bella appeared and watched her from the doorway. Despite her grief, could her friend sense her pleasure? Was this Colonel McLinn’s intent? Unable to speak, she simply set the things on the low table next to her and began to prepare hot water, swinging the copper kettle over the flames.