Charles gulped. "I . . . I wouldn't think of it, sir. It was only in jest that I—"
"Lieutenant, my brother's treasonous politics are not a jesting matter!"
"No. No, of course they aren't. " Charles lifted his hand. "I meant no disrespect."
"And none was taken. " Sterling started down the street again. "I haven't seen Sterling in two years. I do not know where he is, nor am I interested in knowing. Any mention of my brother could bring scandal to my career . . . and yours as well," he added meaningfully.
"You can trust me not to say another word, sir," Charles answered weakly.
"Good, now tell me. What was the wench's name again?"
Another block down the street, Sterling heard the sound of men laughing, interspersed with an angry feminine voice. Turning the corner, he and Charles spotted a group of king's soldiers standing in front of a shop doorway.
The redcoats shouted after a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. "Can't take a joke, tanner?" one called tauntingly.
"You have no right," cried a woman, not visible to Sterling on the street. "That man was our customer!"
A soldier turned toward the door. "Ain't no more, though, is he, missy?" The soldiers laughed, shoving each other playfully.
"I suggest, gentlemen, that you take your games elsewhere."
Sterling stopped on the sidewalk. The woman's voice was familiar. Christ! It was Reagan Llewellyn! The shop ahead had to be her father's printing shop.
"Or what?" The uniformed soldier took a step forward, resting his boot on the shop steps. "What are you gonna do?"
"Look, we've done nothing wrong. What do you want from us?" Reagan reasoned. "You've got no cause to be here."
"Ah, but you're wrong there, missy. " The soldier pushed his way in.
Sterling walked through the group of soldiers and came to halt just outside the door. He peered in.
Reagan took a step back, twisting her hands in her apron. She didn't notice Sterling in the doorway. "We were inspected last week," she explained to the soldier who was harassing her.
"Well, you're being inspected again. " He picked up a pile of fresh leaflets and dumped them on the floor.
Uriah hurried into the room from the back. "Reagan, what's going on here?" He stopped. "Good morning, what can we do for you?"
The soldier picked up a tray of type and slowly upended it, sending letters spilling to the floor.
"Stop it!" Reagan ran forward to catch the tray before its entire contents were emptied, but Uriah caught her arm.
"Reagie!" Uriah barked.
"You've got no right!" she fumed at the soldier as she struggled to escape her father's iron grip. "You blackguards have no right to come in here and destroy our property!"
The soldier responded by lifting a salt-glazed jug and yanking out the cork. Slowly he began to drizzle linseed oil onto the planked shop floor.
Unable to let the harassment go any further, Sterling came through the door. "Soldier!" he thundered.
Reagan looked up in surprise.
"Yes?" The soldier laughed, turning around.
"What do you think you're doing, Corporal. . . Corporal . . ."
The soldier grinned. "Sawyer."
"Sir?" Sterling intoned.
The smile fell from the soldier's face. "Corporal Sawyer, sir."
Sterling walked to the center of the room, followed by Lieutenant Warrington. "What do you think you're doing, Corporal Sawyer?" Sterling demanded with unmistakable authority.
"D-doing, sir?"
"Cork the jug, Corporal, and come here."
Sawyer set down the container of oil and went to stand before the two officers.
Sterling yanked off his cloak angrily. "Don't you know how to salute a superior officer, Corporal?"
Sawyer came to attention, saluting smartly. "Yes, sir."
"Now tell me, Corporal Sawyer, just what it is you're doing in this printshop. " Sterling surveyed the damage. Paper and print letters littered the room, and a puddle of oil was slowly seeping into the floor.
Uriah released his daughter's arm and the two stood watching the British officer in shocked disbelief.
"I . . . I was inspecting, sir."
"Inspecting what?" Sterling's voice was razoredged.
"T-the shop, sir. Major Burke wants us to keep an eye on all of the Whigs in the city."
"And just what is it you're looking for, Corporal. " Sterling's eyes met Reagan's. Was that fear he saw in her face?
"Pamphlets, sir. " The corporal shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"Pamphlets!" Sterling boomed.
"Yes, sir. Somebody in the city's printin' nasty things about the major and he don't like it. We're supposed to be lookin' for anything bein' printed that might be treasonous."
"What in God's name are you talking about, Corporal?"
The corporal trembled. "Pamphlets. Somebody's printin' and then sellin' 'em or givin' 'em away. Pamphlets about these colonists' so-called rights and such."
Sterling swore softly beneath his breath. "So this is how you inspect? You come into this place of business and make a muck of things!"
"Uriah Llewellyn's a known Whig . . ."
"The man is a citizen of the Crown!" Sterling turned to face Uriah. "Master Llewellyn, what is it you're printing?"
Uriah swept a piece of paper off the floor and handed it to Captain Thayer. "It's a bulletin. Mistress Bennett's bondman's run off."
Sterling took the piece of paper and quickly glanced at it. It was indeed a bulletin offering a reward for the return of an eighteen-year-old bondman by the name of Charlie. "Corporal, I take it you can read."
"My mama learnt me."
"Then read this—" Sterling pushed the paper into the soldier's hand—"and tell me what treasonous words appear on the page. Is it the part where Mistress Bennett states her man is five and a half feet tall, or is the only thing treasonous about this bulletin the fact that she's only offering five shillings six for his return!"
The corporal looked from the page in his hand, up at the officer and then back at the page again. "I guess there ain't nothin' wrong with this, but I'm only doin' what I was told."
Sterling tore the paper from the corporal's hand. "I find it hard to believe that you were ordered to harass this man. Now get out of here, soldier, and don't let me catch you bothering these people again. You are dismissed!"
Corporal Sawyer saluted, and then hurried out of the printshop.
For a moment there was silence, and then Reagan walked up to Sterling. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. "Thank you. Captain. It's good to know there is still some sense of right and wrong in the world."
Sterling's eyes met hers and he nearly smiled. This morning she was dressed in a loden-green woolen gown with a white lawn kerchief draped over her shoulders. Her rich auburn hair was tucked beguilingly beneath a starched mobcap, her cheeks rosy.
Taken off guard by Reagan's hesitant smile, he glanced back at his companion standing in the doorway. Had he made another error? Would Captain Grayson Thayer have come to the defense of this woman? After all, the soldier had done no real harm. "Yes, well, I must be going. The lieutenant and I will be late for our engagement. " Heading for the door, he called over his shoulder, "I'll be late tonight so don't expect me for the evening meal. Just leave something in the kitchen."
Reagan followed him, intending to say something more, but before she reached the door the captain and his companion had made their exit and were already hurrying down the walk.
Uriah reached past her to close and bar the door. "Willem," he called to his apprentice. "Get out here and start cleaning up this mess."
"I'll help, Father."
Uriah frowned, shaking his head. "No, leave it to us. Best you get on home to your sister. Damned lobsterbacks. That's the third customer they've lost for us in a week."
Reagan laid her hand on his arm. "It could have been worse if it wasn't for Captain—"
"He's no
better than the rest, girl. " Uriah took her by the shoulders. "He'd see us both hanged, Reagan. Never forget it . . . not for an instant. Captain Thayer is the enemy . . . no less deadly because he hides his mission behind a handsome face."
She rested her head against his chest. "I hear you, Papa," she whispered softly. "I hear you."
Chapter Three
Reagan plucked at the keys of the delicate spinet, repeating the refrain of a favorite song again and again as she struggled to play it correctly. Sharp, resonant chords filtered out of the parlor and through the house. She sang softly, tapping her foot.
"In Freedom we're born and in Freedom we'll live
Our purses are ready,
Steady, Friends, Steady
Not as Slaves, but as Freeman our money we'll give."
Drawn to the clear, sweet notes, Sterling couldn't help but stop at the doorway to listen. After a restless night, he had risen early, bathed, broken the fast, and now he was on his way to meet with his commanding officer. The soft, haunting tune Reagan played brought a tightening in his chest. Only a week earlier he had sat around a campfire at Valley Forge with friends, singing The Liberty Song.
Without thought, Sterling found himself murmuring the words as Reagan moved on to the second verse.
"Our worthy Forefathers—let's give them a cheer,
To climates unknown did courageously steer;
Thro' Oceans, to deserts, for freedom they came,
And dying bequeath'd us their freedom and Fame."
Against his better judgment, Sterling walked into the parlor and laid his cloak over a chair. How many hours had he and Grayson spent in their mother's parlor in Williamsburg, Virginia, playing silly songs, singing, laughing? But then Grayson had gone to England and purchased a commission in the King's Army, Mother had died, and Father had been killed at Long Island. This damned war had changed everything . . . and nothing would ever be the same.
Reagan stumbled with a chord and began to repeat it again. Without hesitation Sterling reached over her shoulder and struck the proper notes again and again. "Like this," he instructed softly. He inhaled slowly, breathing in the fresh scent of her clean, shining hair. "Listen to the notes, relax and let your fingers be drawn into the music."
Reagan turned her head, her breath catching in her throat. The sound of the captain's deep tenor voice in her ear sent a shiver down her spine. The warmth from his arm seeped into her shoulder, flowing through her veins.
"Try it again," Sterling urged, foregoing his brother's sharp, grating tone.
Reagan found her fingers gliding over the keys as the captain nodded. "Good. That's right. You've got it. " He sat down on the corner of the bench. "You play well. You have a good ear."
Lifting her hands from the keyboard, Reagan found her voice. "You play?"
"A little. " He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Or at least I did before the war."
"The war, is it?" She smiled. "I thought you Englishmen were still calling it a Colonial Uprising."
Engrossed in his thoughts, Sterling began to play another tune on the spinet. "I've been on the battlefield. I've seen the dead and dying. What else does it take to be a war?"
Flustered by the captain's nearness, Reagan slid off the bench and stepped back. Her gaze lingered on his handsome face. "I . . . I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday. In the printshop, I mean. Those soldiers have been harassing us for weeks. I can't imagine what we've done to provoke them."
Sterling rose to his feet, his brother's mask falling over his own gentler features. "Yes, well, don't expect me to interfere on your behalf again. " His tone was harsher than he'd intended it to be.
Reagan bristled. Whatever that strange tingling in the air between them had been, it was gone. Captain Thayer's voice was raw with authority, his face taut with conceit. "I didn't ask for your help, Captain. You offered of your own free will. I was simply giving thanks."
"Yes, well . . ." Sterling swept his cloak off the chair, unsure what his brother's next response would have been. "I just wanted to make you aware of the fact that I'm not here for you or your father's benefit. In the future you'll have to fend for yourself against the soldiers, right or wrong in their doings."
"I must tell you, Captain Thayer, that I have never in my life met a man so filled with self-importance. " Seething, Reagan followed him out of the parlor and toward the front door. "What gave you the idea that my father or I expected any sort of protection from you? What makes you think we haven't been making out just fine without you?"
Sterling threw his cloak over his shoulders, anxious to get out of the house. What was wrong with him, provoking her like that? She was right. There would have been no harm in simply accepting her thanks. In what way would it have undermined his role as a British officer? I should never have gone into the parlor, he thought jamming his hat onto his head. "Good day, Mistress Llewellyn," he called, hurrying down the front steps.
Reagan slammed the front door shut, murmuring an oath beneath her breath. "Conceited lout," she shouted to the closed door.
What was wrong with her to have allowed the captain to sit beside her in such an intimate manner? She shook her head. And how in the hell did he know the tune to The Liberty Song?
Walking into the kitchen, Reagan found her sister seated on the floor petting her kitten. "Elsa, have you seen Papa?"
"Yes."
"Where is he, Elsa?"
"In the cellar."
"And Nettie?" Reagan asked, noting the half-rolled pie crust on the center worktable.
"In the cellar, too. They said they were getting apples, but that was a long time ago. " She lifted her kitten, peering into its face. "Do you think that when the snow is gone I could take Mittens for a walk in the garden?"
"Getting apples?" Reagan frowned. "What are you talking about, getting apples? It takes two of them to bring up a bowl of apples to make a pie?" But then a thought struck her and she smiled. "I'm going to go down and help with the apples. You stay up here and play with Mittens, all right?"
"I don't like it in the cellar. Spiders," Elsa said matter-of-factly. "I think I'll give Mittens some milk. " She got to her feet, intent on that thought. "Mittens really likes milk."
Retrieving a candle from the candle-box on the wall, Reagan lit it and pushed it into a candlestick. She then opened a narrow door along the inside paneled wall of the kitchen and started down the steep, railless steps. The warped wood groaned beneath Reagan's weight as she placed one foot carefully in front of the other, the candle's golden aura lighting the way.
Reaching the bottom step, Reagan's feet touched the hard dirt floor of the cellar and she lifted the candle higher. "Papa?" she called softly.
The room was stacked with wooden barrels and broken crates. A spinning wheel missing its spindle lay on its side; a cracked butter churn rested in a corner. The room smelled of seasoned wood, of dust and of passing time. Walking into the next room, the pungent aroma of unwashed potatoes, onions, and apples was overwhelming. Reed baskets hung from the low ceiling and vegetable crates lined the walls. Before the British had invaded the city, the containers had been filled to capacity, now there was barely enough food to last the Llewellyn family the winter.
Reagan's foot touched something on the floor and she stifled a squeal, thrusting the candle out to catch a glimpse of a turnip rolling across the floor.
Chuckling beneath her breath at her skittishness, she lifted a muslin curtain and went into the third and final room. The large, stale-smelling room was void of anything but an old broken rope bed and a myriad of cobwebs. In her grandfather's time the male servants had slept here, but it had been years since the room had been used for anything but storage.
"Papa?" Reagan called. He and Nettie had to be in the secret room below the carriage house, but how to get in? It had been so many years since Reagan had been in the room, and then it had been from the entrance above, in the carriage house. "Papa?" she called again. "Nettie?"
Running her
fingers along the brick wall, she wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement. All four walls were brick. How could there possibly be an entrance from here? As if by magic the wall began to separate and part of it swung into the room.
"Reagan?"
Reagan held up her candle. "Papa?"
Uriah came down a narrow passageway. "I thought I heard your voice. Where's your sister?" He was covered from head to foot in dust and his graying beard sported a strand of a spider's web.
Reagan brushed at her father's beard with her fingertips. "Elsa's upstairs with her kitten. She'll be fine. " Reagan turned to the door in the wall. "Papa. This is so clever. How did Grandpa do it?"
"Is a bit of handiwork, isn't it?" Uriah leaned on his broom. "Looks simple enough. The trick was to have a master bricklayer. All he did was to knock out part of the wall, make a swinging wooden door and attach the brickwork to the door. With it closed you can barely see the spaces in the mortar between the wall and the door."
She nodded, following him through the dugout tunnel and into the secret room. Two lamps hung from the ceiling illuminating the whitewashed walls. A desk, thick with dust, stood in the corner, while a bed and a table rested against the far wall. A wooden ladder descended from the ceiling on the right.
Meticulously, Nettie swung her broom over the packed-dirt floor. "That you, Reagie?" she questioned, not bothering to look up.
Reagan smiled at the old gray-haired woman. Nettie had been her mother's nursemaid in England and had come with her charge when the young woman was married off to Uriah so many years ago. Nettie had lost her vision a good ten years back, but still managed to run the Llewellyn household with miraculous efficiency.
"I thought you were baking a pie, Nettie. Elsa said you came down for apples."
"That I did, that I did," the housekeeper responded. "But you know a man; he just don't know how to sweep a floor proper. There's still dust everywhere. I can smell it!"
Reagan laughed, running her fingers over her grandfather's desk. "If you want to know the truth, Nettie, I think Papa intentionally does a poor job so that you'll sweep it for him."
Temptation’s Tender Kiss Page 3