The Colonel's Lady (10 page)

He began, “Sir, I have received your letter of the seventeenth of September. The present state of affairs at this frontier outpost in regards to the hostiles is thus . . .”

The symbols and abbreviations she’d once learned as a sort of game at her father’s side returned to her in a small flash flood. Occasionally, the colonel would pause to peruse his map, allowing her to catch her breath. He had a natural eloquence that was easy to follow, and his low voice . . . Oh my, but it seemed to her like silk and leather and cream. Thinking it, she scribbled the wrong symbol then crossed it out.

Before she knew it, the clock struck eleven and an orderly was bringing in a tray of hot coffee and beaten biscuits. The colonel looked up in surprise and glanced at Roxanna as she sifted sand over the last letter in order to dry it.

“It would seem Bella is concerned I not overwork you.”

She returned her quill to the inkpot. “Perhaps she is worried I will overwork you.”

His mouth curved in a near smile. “I suppose this calls for a truce.”

They both looked at the tray awkwardly, as if unwilling to make the first move. Suddenly she was overcome by the realization of how intimate simply sharing a cup of coffee could be. Taking a cup, she made a fuss of stirring in cream and honey and timidly took one biscuit.

As she sat across from him, all her insecurities returned to her tenfold. She’d never before taken coffee with a man. A true gentleman. Discomfort needled her and nearly made her hands shake. Coupled with the fact that he was looking at her in that intent way of his, as if she was undergoing inspection and had a button undone or a spot on her kerchief . . .

He leaned back in his chair. “Would you rather be in the kitchen, Miss Rowan?”

She looked up, thinking he was teasing, but found his face tense. “I . . . nay,” she replied.

He picked up one of her letters. “Your writing hand is finer than your fa—” The last word was bitten off, and a pained expression crossed his face. “I apologize.”

“I don’t mind if you mention him,” she said quietly despite the sting of grief. “He’s never far from my thoughts.”

Setting the letter down, he stirred cream into his cup but didn’t take a drink, nor did he look at her. “I lost my own father prior to leaving Ireland and enlisting under General Washington.”

As a Life Guard? Wasn’t that what Bella had said? Or in the field? There was something mysterious about his coming to Kentucke . . . something about a red-roaring rage and his being sent west. But she could hardly mention that. Sympathy nudged her. “I’m sorry about your father. Did you come to Kentucke from Virginia?”

“Aye, I did. Next month marks three years.”

She took a sip of coffee and found it strong even with cream and sugar. “You’ve done a great deal since coming here—the stone house and orchard, this fort.”

“My orders were to build a garrison that couldn’t be breached. I had the stone house built as well, knowing it would outlast this post. It sends a clear message to the Indians that we’re here to stay.”

She thought of the enemy British and Indians marching east to Virginia at dawn. All but two. Though she’d not seen those remaining men yet, she felt a wary fascination. They were heavily watched and kept in the guardhouse. She wondered about the colonel’s reasons for detaining them, if they might not be important to his cause, whatever that was.

“You’re a long way from home, Colonel McLinn. May I ask what makes this war your war?”

He looked at her then, so keenly she wanted to wince beneath his blue gaze. “Half the Continental army is Irish, Miss Rowan. There are twenty-six Irish-born generals serving under Washington, not to mention lesser officers like myself. We’re committed to ending the tyranny of England whenever and wherever we can. If not in our homeland, then here.”

She nodded, shamed at her ignorance of the world at large and the war. Mama hadn’t allowed her to read the
Virginia Gazette
or indulge in politics. What little she’d gleaned came from her father’s letters and her time spent tutoring. “So England has long been the enemy of Ireland.”

“Aye, not only Ireland but Scotland and other parts. Now we have a chance to fight back.”

“My father mentioned you have an estate in Ireland.”

“Had. The Crown confiscated our ancestral lands when I joined the Americans. But ’tis a loss well worth bearing for liberty’s sake.”

She detected a bite of bitterness beneath his gentlemanly tone and imagined there to be far more to his losses than the privation of his estate. But she warmed to the conviction in his voice, and her eyes moved from his face to his uniform coat, lingering on the fine gold epaulets atop his wide shoulders, the eagle insignia on his left collar, the blue riband worn across the breast between his coat and waistcoat. Yet for all her looking, she failed to find the distinction she sought.

Where, she wondered, was his Purple Heart?

“You’ve done a day’s work all in one morning,” he said abruptly, returning his cup to the tray. “After this you’re at your leave. I have to interview the Shawnee prisoners, and I don’t want you present.”

She merely nodded and finished her coffee, tucking the biscuit discreetly into her pocket for Abby and seeing a flash of amusement cross his face as she did. He missed nothing. Little wonder his men couldn’t get away with the slightest infraction.

“I’ll finish the correspondence in my cabin and have it ready for your signature in the morning,” she said, lifting the lap desk and wishing he wouldn’t ask an orderly to carry it for her, which he promptly did. She hoped he wouldn’t forget about the Redstone women, and then discarded that notion as well. She’d worked with him for a wee three hours, long enough to know he overlooked little.

“Good day, Miss Rowan,” he said, standing till she was beyond the blockhouse door.

An icy blast of air sent stinging particles of snow into her face and threatened to pull her hair free of its pins. Her eyes moved to the quarters where the Shawnee were being held, then Olympia’s cabin just across. She could see Abby’s pale face in the square of window, and her heart twisted. After she’d finished her correspondence, she’d invite Abby to the cabin. Waving a hand, she moved on.

Just outside the kitchen blockhouse, Bella’s wash stood at stiff attention on the sagging clothesline. Smoke from a dozen chimneys hung over the parade ground like a dirty linen shroud. Everything was cast in shades of gray—somber, bleak, distressing. Despite her high feeling about her morning’s work, thoughts of her father crowded in and snuffed out her satisfaction. She felt her mood plummet with every step.

All I need is a cup of tea. And a good cry.

She thanked the orderly at the cabin door and slipped inside, surprised to find the fire blazing and Bella stabbing it fiercely with a poker.

Whirling, her dark eyes exclamation points, Bella sputtered, “Why, I thought you’d not be shed o’ McLinn till midnight!”

Roxanna set down the lap desk and hung up her cloak. “Bella, you don’t have to fuss with my fire—not with all the other work you have to do.”

“It was the colonel’s doin’, tellin’ me not to let yo’ fire go out while you were workin’ with him over in the blockhouse.”

Truly?
Hearing it, she felt a tad lighter in spirit, touched by his concern. “I have some good news. The colonel’s decided to let the Redstone women stay till spring—if they’re willing to work.”

Bella snorted then scowled. “I doubt even McLinn could get a guinea’s worth o’ work out o’ any o’ them doxies, or even thought to try. I bet this is yo’ doin’.”

Sheepish, Roxanna ladled water from a bucket into the teakettle and hung it over the fire. “I thought you’d be glad. You could use the help.”

Bella perched on the edge of a chair and eyed the porcelain cup Roxanna set out. “So how did it go with the almighty McLinn this mornin’?”

“Well enough that I don’t believe a bad word said about him.”

Her lips pursed in a pout. “Well, the honeymoon ain’t over yet. I give it till the end o’ next week.”

“So far I find him a prodigious worker, uncommonly astute, impeccably mannered—”

Bella glowered. “I don’t know a one o’ them words. He’s dangerous as a keg o’ powder, and you’d best see him for what he is.”

“I think you need a cup of tea,” Roxanna said, pouring the hot water through the strainer and watching as pink liquid sloshed into the fine cup. “Sassafras.” Taking the biscuit out of her pocket, she placed it on the table. “For Abby.”

“I thought this cup was for you,” Bella protested as Roxanna handed her the steaming brew.

“I just had coffee at headquarters, remember?”

Bella took the cup, peering at Roxanna with fresh intensity. “Maybe McLinn’s smitten.”

The notion was oddly pleasing, if ludicrous. Roxanna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Why would you think that?”

“Cuz he’s behavin’ hisself.”

“Soldiers and naval men prefer blondes, Bella. Isn’t that how the popular military saying goes?”

Bella looked down at her steaming tea. “I did hear somethin’ ’bout an Irish lass o’ his.”

Roxanna sat down opposite her, surprised by the tight feeling blooming in her chest. “I expect he has someone waiting somewhere.”

“How ’bout you?”

“Me? I was betrothed . . . once. But he married another.”

“Then you is free.”

Free? Roxanna’s eyes roamed the dark cabin walls with its sole stingy window, the savage woods just beyond. “I don’t feel free locked inside this fort. I think everyone outside these walls is free, but not me . . . not us.”

Bella pondered this and sipped her tea. “Hank tells me there’s trouble brewin’ on account o’ them two Indians McLinn’s got locked in the guardhouse over yonder.”

Roxanna held back a sigh, having wondered the same. “Did Hank tell you what the colonel plans on doing with them?”

“McLinn ain’t one to blat his brains out even to his second-in-command.”

“And who would that be?”

“You mean you ain’t met him? He’s never far from the colonel’s side. His name’s Micajah Hale. Major Hale.” When Roxanna didn’t answer, Bella pursed her lips. “You ain’t heard a word I been sayin’ for a full five minutes. You thinkin’ ’bout that little gal again?”

“I am,” Roxanna admitted, sitting down opposite Bella and digging in her knitting basket.

“I don’t know for the life o’ me what that child is doin’ with such women.”

“’Tis simple, really. Olympia is her aunt. Her mother died not long ago of a fever.”

“Oh, I know all ’bout that. Who’s her pa?”

Roxanna lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “Some passerby, Olympia said. She was born and raised in a tavern in Redstone, remember.”

“Why don’t she speak?”

Roxanna sat back, a half-finished rag doll in her lap. “She’s missing her mother, I suppose.”

“I bet that child’s seen things no child should. Olympia sure lords it over her, hardly lettin’ her out o’ her sight.” Bella’s dark eyes landed on the doll and shone with rare sympathy. “I been watchin’ how you try to draw her out . . . get her to smile.”

“I thought maybe this doll would help. Why don’t we have a little tea party—just the three of us? I imagine Olympia is sleeping and wouldn’t even miss her—”

Behind them the door cracked open as if on cue, and two inquisitive blue eyes fastened on Roxanna. She turned toward the sound and her smile widened. “Why, Abby, come in!”

Looking furtively over her shoulder, the child slipped inside, hovering as if unsure of the invitation. Roxanna said quietly, “I have something for you—two things, actually.”

The light of curiosity sparked in her face and she took mincing steps across the small cabin, eyes on the biscuit Roxanna gestured to. “I can make you a little tea with cream and honey too.”

Bella got up to fetch another cup as Abby slid onto the bench beside Roxanna. Taking a bite of biscuit, she lowered her eyes to Roxanna’s lap.

“I’ve almost finished your doll, but I need to know what color you’d like for her hair.” Rummaging again, Roxanna held up a hank of cochineal-dyed wool and then one of yellow and brown. Lovingly, the little hand stroked the red in silent communication.

Was her mother’s hair red?
Roxanna wondered. “Red it is, then,” she said, wishing she could elicit a smile. But the little face was locked tight, pale as frost beneath her unruly red cap.

“I had me a doll when I was young and in Virginny,” Bella said, setting Abby’s pewter cup in front of her. “My mammy made it for me.”

Roxanna looked up from braiding the doll’s hair, touched by her poignant tone.

“I wished I still had it sometimes. It was nothin’ but corn husks, but I loved it.”

Abby chewed the last of her biscuit, then took a sip of tea. When Bella offered her the honey spoon, she licked it almost daintily, her chin spotted with sticky drops.

Roxanna softened at the whimsical sight.
Why on earth is such a beautiful child in such a forbidding place?
she wondered for the hundredth time. She made a mental note to mend Abby’s worn frock—the calico was so tattered in places it was nearly transparent. But she’d have to speak to Olympia first, as she was so touchy about anything concerning Abby.

While they sipped their tea, Bella began to talk about supper and LeSourd’s foray for turkeys and the overdue supply train. Roxanna listened absently, eyes drifting to her lap desk, the thought of her father’s journal worming its way into her thoughts. Shifting uncomfortably, she tried to dismiss it, but the cryptic words seemed burned into her brain, kindling the need to look again and unravel its mystery.

In this isolated, forgotten outpost, intrigue swirls on every side
 . . .

With some difficulty, she returned her attention to Abby and wondered what would happen to the girl. Though Olympia hadn’t said, Roxanna guessed the child was about five years old. Time she learned her letters. But to what avail? This was no safe Virginia village, but hostile wilderness. Folks weren’t concerned with schooling, just survival. She could well imagine Colonel McLinn’s reaction if she were to broach such a civilized topic.

Unbidden, he seemed to lurk in the corners of her mind, making a mess of her yarn.