Crow Hollow (3 page)

A few minutes later one of the blond servant girls filled a fire scoop with glowing coals and carried it upstairs, while the other followed with a pair of brass bed warmers. At the thought of climbing into a freshly warmed bed, a deep, wearying exhaustion washed over James. He yawned and tied off the papers with a bit of twine. Then he emptied his pipe into the hearth.

“I’m going upstairs,” he told the others. “Goodnight to you, Reverend. Goodwife Stone.”

“God rest you,” Stone said.

“I’ll be up shortly,” Peter said.

Doubtful. Once the man started in with his Bible, he’d be engrossed for a good stretch. Probably until the candles burned down or Goody Stone snuffed them. And James doubted the reverend would leave off until Peter did. Heaven forbid.

James was climbing the stairs when he heard movement in his room. Alarmed, he reached for his knife, thinking that someone was inside trying to force open his sea chest. But of course it was only the older of the two servant girls from supper. She bent over the bed, thrusting with a bed warmer up and down the mattress. Her blond hair spilled from her head rail. Her bottom stuck out toward him and jiggled with every movement. He stood in the doorway and stared.

When she finished, she straightened, then gasped when she saw him. “Pray, pardon me, Master Bailey. I didn’t realize you would be back so soon.”

Her face was flushed and invigorated from her labors. James was invigorated in his own way. His earlier resolve seemed suddenly foolish.

He only just remembered his purpose in Boston. “You ignored me at supper. Will you tell me now? At services tomorrow—where will the Widow Cotton be seated?”

“Next to Goody Stone, of course. The reverend’s family always sits together. Is that why you’ve come, to marry the widow?”

“Good heavens, no.” He let his eyes range up and down the girl’s body. “I have no interest in the widow.”

She smiled at this. Emboldened, he shut the door quietly.

Her smile turned uncertain. “Master Bailey, the door. You closed it.”

“Do I unsettle you? Shall I open it again?”

“If the mistress sees . . .”

“She’s mending stockings. The reverend is reading his Bible. As is the Indian. Nobody will know, except perchance your sister. Can you trust her?”

“I suppose a few moments wouldn’t be a sin.”

That was all the invitation James needed. Almost overcome with passion, he closed the distance. She didn’t resist as he took the bed warmer and set it aside, then pressed her against the wall. Her mouth fell against his. Her kisses were clumsy but eager.

“Master Bailey.”

“Call me James.” He smothered her mouth again, then drew her neck back to kiss it.

“Yes, James. Yes.”

“What is your name?” he said, voice husky.

“Lucy Branch.”

“Lucy. Oh, you’re beautiful. The most heavenly thing I’ve seen in ages.”

“Do you truly think so?”

He pressed into her. One hand reached for her breast. The other lifted her petticoat and stroked along her inner thigh. Lucy let out a little moan.

“James, no. Please.”

“You don’t like it?” he asked between kisses on her neck.

She was panting, her breast heaving up and down. “Yes, yes. But . . .”

“But what?”

“If they find out, I shall be whipped. And then thrown into the street.”

James had taken greater risks in the past. That time at Versailles, for instance, making love to the mistress of the Marquis de Prouville, while the man argued a treaty with an English diplomat in the next room. But Louise-Colette had been the one pushing herself on him. This was different.

“James, please. I am helpless.”

He tore himself free. He drew back a step, then another. His body was throbbing, and from the way the girl was plastered against the wall, her hands flat against the timbers, her eyes closed and her mouth open, he could tell that she was throbbing in her own way. She didn’t want him to stop, not really.

He was convinced they had time, that the danger was slight. And if he pressed her, he knew she would not resist much longer. And if she did truly want him to stop, then what? Would she cry out? Of course not.

Damn you, James. Don’t do it.

With effort, he backed toward the door. His hand found the wooden latch, and he lifted it slowly, quietly. Then he stepped to one side to let her go.

Lucy looked at the open door, looked back at him. Her gaze continued to smolder. She opened her mouth, and he knew she was going to tell him to shut the door again. If he did, he would take her. He was not so strong as that. But she gave a tiny shake of the head and straightened her clothing. She bent for the bed warmer, which presented another view of her glorious bottom. She made her way to the door.

“Talk to the mistress first,” she whispered as she brushed past him.

“What?”

“If you ask the reverend, he’ll say no. But the mistress holds no hatred of Anglicans. And if she talks to him on your behalf, he’ll agree to whatever she suggests.”

“Oh.” Then again when he understood fully.
“Oh.”

An impish grin crossed her face. “Then you may have me all you want, James Bailey.” She pushed past him into the hall.

James leaned out to stare after her as she lifted her petticoat with one hand and held the smoking bed warmer with the other. She hurried down the hall to the stairs.

Good Lord, that was a disaster averted. If he’d had her, the girl would have expected him to marry her and seen to it that he’d done so.

He stripped off his boots, but he’d already changed his shirt and breeches before supper, and he kept them on. He climbed beneath the blankets. The bedding was still warm from Lucy’s work.

He was too aroused to sleep and could do nothing but listen to the wind howling around the roof until Peter arrived about an hour later. The older man knelt to pray in silence before climbing into bed next to him.

James sighed. At least the man would help conserve warmth. And yet.

Blasted Praying Indian. Cursed Reverend Stone. Quakers and Puritans, damn them. Would the heavens really shake if James made Peter swap beds with Lucy Branch?

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

Prudence Cotton stood in the chilly, moonlit corridor with one hand on the wooden latch to the guest bedroom. Her other hand gripped five sheets of paper, folded and tied with twine.

She listened. From inside came a gentle snore, followed moments later by a higher whistling sound. When she was certain that the two strangers were asleep, she lifted the latch slowly. It creaked, and she froze, wincing. A snort, a mumble, someone turning.

When the noise settled, she pushed the door open. The barest stream of moonlight seeped into the room, like a reflection of a reflection. Her eyes adjusted to the dark shapes within. The bed held two lumpy figures sleeping peacefully, not so different from the children tucked into bed down the hall.

Master Church, an Indian and a Quaker. Master Bailey, some sort of agent or spy from London. One provided spiritual danger, the other carried violence in his posture and had stared at her earlier with lustful intent. Yet thinking of them as sleeping children softened them in her mind. Not Church and Bailey, but Peter and James.

Prudence peered into the dark corners of the room. There, draped over a chair, James’s cloak.

She’d gone barefoot to quiet her movements, but the cold planks still creaked with every step. What if James sat up and challenged her in that arrogant tone she’d overheard downstairs? What would she say? Would he wake the house? She was in enough trouble as it was.

The cloak was like none Prudence had ever encountered. Instead of a single, great pocket on the outside, the inner lining held sewn-up folds of cloth, others with buttons, and even a pocket inside of a pocket. One pouch held a purse, fat with coins.

Silver was scarce in the colonies. Seemed each time a ship dropped off its goods, every shilling in Massachusetts departed with it. Even her husband had quickly found himself short of silver, although he’d arrived with a small fortune.

Other pockets held lumpy objects, papers, even rings and medallions. All of it made her burn with curiosity, and she only just resisted the urge to take some of the items with her to examine later. Instead, she found a deep inner pocket, empty, and tucked her papers inside. With all the other things in the cloak, he might not notice it until he was on the road, riding west toward Winton. Good. Then he would take them out and read them when he was long gone from here.

The men were still sleeping when Prudence backed her way into the hallway. She pulled the door shut until it snicked into place, then turned toward her own room.

A dark shape stood waiting. Prudence gasped.

A hand closed on her wrist. It wasn’t the reverend, thank the heavens, but his wife—Prudence’s older sister, Anne, in her nightgown and cap.

“What madness is this?” Anne hissed.

“Shh.”

“What were you doing in there? Those men—have you no shame?”

“I swear, it was nothing like that.”

Anne looked back up the hall to her bedroom, where the reverend would be sleeping. Then, still gripping Prudence’s wrist, she dragged the younger woman toward the stairs. The younger sister let herself be pulled along.

Moments later, the two women sat opposite each other in front of the dying embers of the fire. It reflected off the pewter mugs hanging from their hooks, but did little to cut the chill in the room. Prudence shivered and looked at her feet rather than meet Anne’s glare. Prudence was twenty-five years old, but her sister’s disapproval could still pierce her breast with shame.

“Well?” Anne said.

“I wasn’t doing anything shameful. There are two men in there. What could I have done?”

“Then what, rummaging through their possessions? Stealing?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

Prudence didn’t answer.

“One would think you were five years old, Prudie. Am I to paddle you until you spit out the truth?”

“Why not? You used it often enough when we were young.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Is it?”

“I didn’t ask to be the oldest,” Anne said. “And I didn’t ask for seven younger sisters.”

“And I didn’t ask to have seven
older
sisters, either. And I certainly didn’t ask you to lord it over me.” Prudence didn’t like the way she sounded when interacting with Anne, but she felt helpless not to slip back to their childhood roles. “Anyway, I’m an adult now, I’ve been married and had a child of my own. And I don’t answer to you.”

“But I have to answer for whatever happens under my roof. Am I to tell Henry I caught you sneaking out of that room? What would he think?”

That question didn’t need an answer. Prudence had heard plenty of the reverend’s ranting sermons about fornication. And he seemed even more worried about his sister-in-law than about the unmarried girls in the house. After all, she knew, and presumably had enjoyed, sexual congress with her husband before he was killed. Maybe she still lusted after it.

“I told you, it wasn’t that,” Prudence insisted.

Anne’s expression hardened. “I’m losing my patience. It wasn’t that, and you weren’t stealing, either, because I can see now you’ve got nothing on you. So what?”

It would be easy to say that she’d spotted something in James’s cloak, had heard rumors he was a spy for the Crown, and had been torn with curiosity. There was at least a partial truth hidden in that claim. But her tongue felt oily at the very thought of lying to her sister.

“I slipped the missing chapter into a pocket in his cloak,” she said.

Anne’s expression softened. She put a hand on Prudence’s knee. “Oh, Prudie. You didn’t. What good would that serve?”

“He’s going to Winton. Then maybe north. If he does, he’ll be speaking to the Abenaki and Nipmuk.”

“He wouldn’t do that. There’s no reason. The war is over, the matter settled.”

“Settled?” The bitter laugh that came up tasted like gall. “It has been scarce nine months since my captivity.”

“Time enough to put it behind you,” Anne said firmly. “Yes, to see matters settled. God willing, to never think of them again.”

How could matters be settled, when every time Prudence closed her eyes she could see the murdered English at Winton, hear the harsh cawing as flapping black wings settled blanket-like over the slaughtered Nipmuk warriors at Crow Hollow?

One particular image never ceased its torment. A crow had buried its beak into the eyeball of a dead Indian and worked it back and forth like a child trying to twist a green apple from a tree. The bird came up with the eye in its beak and cocked its head at Prudence, as if concerned that she would try to take its prize. The eye had stared mutely, accusingly, in her direction before going down the crow’s gullet.

My daughter
 
. . .

“Prudie?” Anne said, worry touching her voice.

Prudence gave a shudder, fighting to recover her wits. “For what other purpose would Master Bailey bring an Indian if not to meet the Nipmuk and Abenaki? Peter Church knows the tongue.”

“He didn’t bring an Indian, he brought a Quaker. To be a thorn in our side. Master Bailey is here to disrupt and agitate. He’s not here out of concern for your husband, believe me.”

Prudence had no doubt some of that was true. The Crown had ever chafed at New England’s liberties. There were some in London, she knew, who blamed the colonies for the war with the natives, and suggested that King Charles should appoint a royal governor to prevent future conflagrations.

But James had known her husband. The two of them were apparently confidants. Benjamin had mentioned the man on several occasions—the two of them had served the king together while in France—and she’d once caught a glimpse of a letter back to London addressed from her husband to Master Bailey.

“I have to take a chance.”

“I wish you wouldn’t agitate yourself.”

“They never should have made me take that chapter out. It was the truth.”

“It was speculation,” Anne said. “Later proven false. Men saw your daughter dead—they reported the sad truth.”

“Those men were Nipmuk. They were in turn killed, and we have their testimony from white men.”

“How does that make a difference?”

“If Mary is dead, then what happened to her body?”

“I don’t know. You know how the savages behaved—your own words are testimony enough. They tortured and maimed. Even ate them, the brutes.”

“They tortured men,” Prudence said firmly, “never children.”

“You’re telling me they didn’t kill children?”

“Well, yes,” Prudence admitted. “But not like that, not once they’d taken the children prisoner. That isn’t their way.”

Anne fixed her with a look, and Prudence closed her mouth. Her memories of captivity were brutal, horrific, but occasionally mixed with moments of surprising kindness, even civility. She’d tried to call forth that contradiction with her weak, imperfect writing, a narrative that had gripped the colonies. But what the people read eagerly by candlelight, shared from home to home, was not her full story. Men—the reverend, the printer in Boston—had taken out parts. They didn’t fit, didn’t make sense. Those things, the men presumed, were the product of a fevered mind, confused into error by the horror of her experience.

“Is it your only copy of the missing pages?” Anne asked at last.

“Yes. I have never copied them.”

“Then that will be the end of it.”

“You think so?”

“Master Bailey is a servant of the Crown. Even if he believes you, he has no time or interest in chasing down the fancies of a grieving widow and mother.”

“I hope you’re wrong. I hope he’s not so mercenary and unfeeling as that. But if you’re right, if he tosses them in the fire with a laugh, it’s still all here.” Prudence tapped her head. “I’ll write it down fresh.”

Anne sighed. “Prudie, it has been almost a year.”

“Make it ten,” Prudence said stubbornly. “I don’t care.”

“A year is enough. You’re still young and pretty. There are men in Boston in want of a wife. Good men, strong men. Some even strong enough to rule you with a light touch.”

Anne said it with a smile in her voice. Surely, she meant no malice, only to gently point out what they both knew already, that Prudence was headstrong and stubborn to a fault. But the younger sister bristled nonetheless.

Anne put an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t be angry. I know what you’ve lost. The Lord has blessed me beyond measure, but even I lost two little ones to the pox. I ache for them every day. But don’t let the loss of one child keep you from the blessings of many.”

“This is different. Mary is still alive.”

Anne started to say something else, but the stairs creaked. Reverend Stone appeared on the other side of the room.

“What is this? Why aren’t you in bed?”

Prudence couldn’t answer that without lying, so she shut her mouth and braced herself for another interrogation.

“Prudie couldn’t sleep,” Anne said with scarcely a second of hesitation. “She’s troubled by thoughts of the war. I heard her and came to offer comfort.”

“Very well, but it’s cold down here, and we rise early for the Sabbath. To bed, both of you.”

He turned and creaked his way back up the stairs. Anne kissed Prudence’s forehead. “Time for bed, little sister.”

The younger woman followed, shock warring with elation that her sister had lied to her husband to keep Prudence’s secret.