The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (2 page)

After my crack shot, the crowd hushed momentarily, but nothing would keep them from their gossiping, chatting, eating, and especially drinking. The gunpowder cloud wasn’t even cleared before their busy chatter resumed.

“That wasn’t a chance shot, Clark. We were
tricked
.” Mr. Randolph’s smile was wide and he winked at me.

Mathew laughed. “True, but, Randolph, you owe me money nevertheless.”

I looked up at Mathew surprised. “You wagered on my shooting?”

“Ah, the angelic trickster does speak,” Mr. Randolph teased with another wink.

Mathew pretended to be sheepish while his light blue eyes glanced down at the ground. He squeezed my shoulders tighter. “I know. I shouldn’t have on Sabbath, but, darling, I couldn’t pass when there was such easy money to be made.” He looked into my eyes and raised his dark blond eyebrows a couple times, which won a smile and chuckle from me.

Mr. Randolph bellowed, “Gladly, I forfeit my money to you, Adams. By God, but I’m smitten now with your fiancée. Miss Buccleuch, if you were to be my bride, I’d have venison at every meal, wouldn’t I?”

I laughed again, then turned to Mathew, finally inventing a sound reason for withdrawal. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to find my sister and see if she needs help fending off the twenty-two men who are wooing her.”

“Of course, darling.” Mathew kissed my forehead, and released me with a broad smile.

Mr. Randolph kissed my hand good-bye. “I could learn how to make venison pie, if you’d hunt for me.” He straightened and whispered, “The offer of marriage is open, and, of course, I’d learn to love Mathew too, if you said yes.”

I quietly giggled, liking Mr. Randolph’s bawd humor, in spite of myself.

Mr. Clark kissed my hand also, but muttered something about women and guns being unholy. I nodded, wondering about Mr. Clark’s religious persuasions, then pirouetted on a heel with my rifle that was almost as tall as I.

I was more than twenty feet from where the men were still discussing rather loudly beer and patriotism, when Mathew caught my arm. I hadn’t heard him approach and was shocked when he spun me around, then kissed my cheek. He whispered how he loved me, letting his nose delicately grace the skin behind my ear as he did so. He turned me back in the direction I’d been heading while he chuckled and jogged to rejoin his friends.

Smiling, I touched my freshly kissed cheek and began to walk across the greens. I spotted my mother and sister in the potluck crowd. They loved attending the get-togethers–my mother for the latest gossip, my sister because half of the single men in Concord would follow her around like lost puppies. I watched my blonde mother and sister bathed in marigold light from the sun, laughing in a group of mostly young men, two of whom were wrestling at my sister’s feet. I shook my head at the lads. They were wasting their time. My sister, Hannah, had been receiving court from a Regular officer, a Lieutenant Mark Kimball, and Hannah was besotted. Ten and six years of age, my sister already had an understanding with her suitor.

I walked up the rectangular Commons, past the crowd, toward a two-hundred year-old gigantic oak. The Commons were surrounded to the north, east, and south by white-washed taverns and houses, and the skeletons of maple trees with only tiny, light green buds for coverings. The high rolling, muddy waters of the Concord River framed the west. Just a mile to the north-northwest of the Concord Commons laid my family’s farm, close to the aptly named Old North Bridge.

Upon reaching the large tree, which always made me wonder what it would be like to have seen so many years go by, I leaned against it and closed my eyes, letting my rifle rest against the oak too.

“That was quite a shot,” a man’s deep, French-accented voice casually noted.

Startled, I twirled toward a tall black-haired man, also leaning against the oak, not two feet from me. I hadn’t a clue I invaded someone else’s privacy, and when I realized I had, I tried for a smile and hid my instant fists—my irritating and instantaneous reaction when I was caught off guard.

He softly laughed and caught my rifle I’d knocked over when I’d jumped at his words. His scent wafted into my nose—a masculine aroma of leather, clean pine tar soap, and the hint of the ocean after a storm.

“I apologize for the fright.” 

I shook my head, and finally stuttered, “N–no, I’m sorry to have intruded. I didn’t see you here . . . at all.”

He shrugged with a slight movement from his wide shoulders. “I blend.”

He was wearing all black, which did intermingle into the dark wood of the oak and the shadow that enshrined him, and I wondered if he had come from a funeral. He wore the clothes of a gentleman without lace, yet possessed the build of a man who labored daily.

His eyes were the darkest blue I’d ever beheld—blue onyx. And although I’d met attractive men before, I found him arresting. That alone made me want to run away as fast as I could, yet my feet were oddly rooted to the ground.

“Mademoiselle, your rifle,” he whispered while nodding to the Kentucky long arm that he proffered back to me. “Truly, that was amazing. I’ve only seen one other shoot like that in my life.”

I blushed, despising myself for the heat that burned in my cheeks as I accepted my musket with a maladroit nod.

“It is
your
rifle, hmm?”

I jerkily nodded again, feeling the fire from my cheeks spread down my neck. “It—it was my father’s, but he . . . passed away. It actually had been a gift for my father from a Mohawk friend.”

He let a warm gust of air escape his lips, and it breezed across my cheeks, enflaming me further. How had he gotten so close?

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I shook my head, trying everything not to meet his eyes. “
Merci
, erm, thank you, but it has been three years now.”

His large, calloused hand engulfed my fingers that were holding my rifle. “The death of a beloved parent is . . . it is painful, no matter how many years go by,
non
?”

“Jacque! There you are! I thought you weren’t going to make it.” Mathew hollered, seemingly from a world away. As he rushed toward us, he offered a hug to the dark Frenchman, who in turn kissed Mathew three times on his cheeks. Mathew tried to reciprocate the affectionate welcome, but being an Englishman, he stiffly kissed the air with his face in serious concentration, as if putting on French airs was like studying Newton.

“
Oui
, I made it out on this very warm day. I thought you told me that Massachusetts was always cold.”

“Usually it is, but it’s also unpredictable.” Mathew laughed and looped an arm around my waist. “I see you’ve met my Violet Buccleuch. Violet, darling, this is André Marie Jean Jacque Beaumont, the man who has been training some of the militias around our colony, and whom I hope I have convinced to train our Concord Militia too.”

“Monsieur Beaumont.” I curtsied, finding my hot cheeks almost unbearable.

“Miss Buccleuch.” Monsieur Beaumont bowed, and caught my hand in his.

Tradition: a man kissing a woman’s hand upon introductions. There was nothing extraordinary about it, no error of impropriety. Yet I knew in that moment I had crossed the Rubicon, as it were. He, for his part, behaved no differently than any other man who had ever bent low to kiss my hand in welcome. He never slipped or held my fingers longer than was proper; his kiss was fleeting with the wisp of his lips against my skin, and his afternoon black whiskers tickled me; his long nose barely caressed my hand, but, again, there was nothing new to any of that. Other than the way I felt when he kissed me, kissed my hand.

My heart hammered painfully against my ribs, as if I was on a runaway horse with no reins, dashing at breakneck speeds. V
is insita
, Newton explained it, the first of his laws–A body at rest stays at rest. A body in motion, like me, would move at constant velocity. Lord, I hoped not.

Monsieur Beaumont stood, a friendly squeeze around my hand while he smiled, then released his grip. “Mathew has spoken of you since the moment I met him. It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

I glanced at Mathew, trying desperately not to show my nervousness. I think I possessed some semblance of a modest smile. “‘Tis a pleasure to meet you as well, Monsieur Beaumont.”

Mathew had told me about his new French friend–a mercenary, training the Massachusetts militias whilst there was so much unrest in Boston. When Mathew had told me of his new comrade, I grew suspicious on the spot. Surely, he was some expatriate here to add more riot to the already protesting mobs in Boston. However, I could scarcely consider such thoughts when standing in Monsieur Beaumont’s presence.

Common sense vanished when I looked up into his eyes, so dark, so blue. How I desired to gently touch his glossy black eyelashes that framed those orbs of his, but how I needed to never do exactly that. I was engaged–engaged to the man holding my waist at
that
moment. I was considered pious and obedient. I was a mess.

“Come now, Mathew.” Mr. Randolph suddenly appeared and pulled on Mathew’s sleeve. “Let’s make a bet on the winner of the horseshoes.”

Mathew chuckled and was easily led away. “Forgive me, darling, but I’m tempted to make more easy money off Mr. Randolph.” He looked at Monsieur Beaumont and said, “Take care of my darling for me!”

I wanted to call out to Mathew to return to me. Of all the times to gamble, it was not now. I needed him. I needed his presence to keep my head on my shoulders. I needed him near to make the earth under me stop from crumbling under my feet.

Glancing back at Monsieur Beaumont, he had a warm smile on his face while he bowed his head in Mathew’s direction. “It would be my honor,
mon ami
.”

Monsieur Beaumont turned toward me. “Miss Buccleuch, shall we take a turn?” He extended his bent arm to me while the other flourished forward toward the Concord Common greens. 

Horrified, I stood still. Not even daring a breath for fear that if I did I would unleash some evil I’d never known before. Until that very moment I’d been proud of the kind of woman I had become, the provider for my mother and sister when my Da died; the moralist who strived for responsibility and ethics the way a pilgrim staggers on his bloody knees to Jerusalem; the woman who’s most proud possession was loyalty. Yet that sun-filled warm day in late February, as I remained motionless upon God’s green earth betwixt a foreign French man and an unbending oak tree, everything would change for me.

I took in a shaky breath and reached for Monsieur Beaumont’s arm.

“I’m sorry, but, no, you may
not
have my handkerchief.”

My sister joyfully scolded a young man who was begging on his knees in front of her, Monsieur Beaumont, and me.

“Why, Mr. Foster,” she teased, “you are quite aware of my feelings regarding a certain lieutenant. I have no affections for you. Now, be gone, you beast.”

“Hannah!” I reprimanded my sister with pursed lips and a quick shake of my head. I turned toward the strapping young man with as much sympathy as I could muster. “Mr. Foster, I’m so sorry for my sister’s—”

“I like it when she calls me a beast.” He got back to his feet on a jump and a large grin. “I’ll win you over yet, Hannah Buccleuch.” He shouted as he ran toward the crowd of Concordians now serving brandy and wine.

Monsieur Beaumont’s chuckle was not apparent except that he was standing very close to me, and I felt the bubble-like repercussions from his laugh tickle my arm and shoulder, like it was champagne for my skin. No, no, I didn’t just think that.

My sister turned to Monsieur Beaumont and me and rolled her eyes. “Well, he is a beast. My virtuous sister would never say such things, but I will. Mr. Foster is a pest, Monsieur Beaumont, mark my words.”

Monsieur Beaumont’s smile widened and he nodded. “I am sure you would know best.”

Hannah smiled at him, then looked at me, her voice hushed. “How are you doing, my dear sister?”

She knew I was uncomfortable in crowds, but I nodded, which gained me a quick smile from my sister. 

Then her grin morphed into a giant sunbeam at Monsieur Beaumont. “My sister isn’t a gossip either. So if you want to know all the juicy fat about my community, you’ll have to ask me.”

“Noted.” He bobbed his head again and was still quietly chuckling.

“How is it that you make me sound like such a bore, my beautiful sister?” I asked.

“Oh, Violet!”  Hannah snatched my hands in hers and grimaced. “No, you aren’t a bore. You’re the sweetest, most polite, most thoughtful—”

“Boring. Good grief, I sound like I could cure people from their sleeplessness.”

Monsieur Beaumont laughed louder. I stopped myself from shuddering, but just barely.

Hannah rolled her eyes again. I was more than six years her senior and lately the eye rolling had gotten bothersome.

She shook her head. “My sister is anything but boring. When I was a wee bairn, she would tell me stories of fairies who would dance in moonbeams or mermaids singing in this very river.” Hannah motioned with a graceful wave toward the Concord waterway. “Oh, the stories she would invent—well, I’ve never read anything better. And, what she probably won’t admit to you—”