by Laura Frantz
He swallowed his aggravation. How was he to improve the tattered reputation of the colonial militia, who were not only ill equipped but undisciplined? He’d penned a bold letter to Virginia’s governor, placing an order for gunsmiths to make as many flintlocks as possible to be transported by wagons under guard. Highwaymen east of the mountains were as much a threat as Indians west of them, the governor fired back, and gave no promise of weapons.
The remainder of the morning was spent drilling, the activity curbing the staunchest appetites as the aroma of the coming meal overrode the spicy gingerbread. Clay called a halt just after noon, his voice carrying over the common like a gunshot.
Once the muster-day cakes were cut, they’d roll out the Caribbean rum from Fort Pitt. Keeping a tight rein on the unruliest men was an ongoing challenge. He’d not have them awash in kill-devil by nightfall. Hester had already lectured him unnecessarily about that.
For now, spits of roasting meat puffed enough smoke to keep the insects at bay as women served bread and vegetables from the fort’s garden on makeshift tables. He held off eating till the men had their fill, knowing Hester would save him a trencher full.
Heading to the blockhouse, he removed his sweat-stained hat and came face-to-face with Tessa as she stepped out of Hester’s cabin, a crock in each hand. Their eyes met and then a mutual mortification set in. Just as quickly they went their separate ways with nary a word betwixt them.
On his desk sat his noon meal, flies hovering in an unappetizing mass yet failing to dint his appetite like his near collision with Tessa had. Once upstairs, he shed his shirt with short, jerky movements, wishing he could rewind time and give her a nod, at least. He leaned over the washbasin and poured the entire pitcher of water over his sweltering head and shoulders. Sweet relief. After toweling dry, he pulled on a clean shirt, gaze drawn to the open window.
From here he could take in the entire garrison in a glance. Inevitably his gaze hung on one petticoat. Tessa paused at the end of one makeshift table near the lamb pen, garnering the attention of one too many men. Why, with the odds so in her favor, had she not wed?
He sat down on the closed trunk, wishing for closure on his conflicted feelings, this warring desire to be near her yet push her away. Even the distant sight of her made his pulse gallop. Despite his best intentions, he was no longer commander of a garrison in hostile territory but a hopelessly smitten, double-minded, would-be suitor. Didn’t Scripture even warn about such a thing?
Yet he gave in to the guilty pleasure of watching her from a distance. She was, by any measure, the most striking woman he’d seen this side of the mountains. Even Keturah’s blonde, blue-eyed beauty failed to move him in light of Tessa’s fiery warmth.
He forced his gaze away. Hester was now leading the charge, the women parading a great many cakes from cabins and setting them on the judges’ table at the edge of the common garden. A few huzzahs sounded as Cutright and Jude rolled out casks of rum to wash the cakes down.
Jasper was supervising as the men drew straws to act as judges. Once the selection was narrowed, Clay would cast the deciding vote.
Had Tessa done any baking?
The thought sent him downstairs again to shoo the flies from his meal and take a few half-hearted bites. Best save his appetite for rum and cake.
He rejoined the melee on the common, counting nineteen cakes on various plates from pewter to wood. Six judges gathered, none of them Swans. Clay stood in the smithy’s shade by Jude as the cake cutting began. Even unliquored, the men were full of tomfoolery, the chosen six making such a show Clay was cast back to the theater in Williamsburg. Plenty of chewing, belching, and patting of stomachs ensued to earn these ruffians their backwoods standing. In a half hour, amid a fair amount of seriousness and ceremony, three cakes were singled out, the rest sliced and served to any comers.
“Colonel Tygart, sir.” Maddie smiled at him, gesturing to the waiting cakes. She sliced the first with a sure hand, balancing his sample on a broad knife. Every eye was upon him and nearly made him squirm.
He tasted, swallowed. A bit dry. Crumbly.
The second sample was overwhelmingly spicy and a tad overbrown. How in the name of all that was holy had it cleared six judges?
But the third . . . Even before it met his tongue he breathed in the essence of nutmeg, cast back the thousandth time to his mother’s table. Moist. Well seasoned. Redolent with molasses, with just a bite of lemon and orange peel. And perfectly browned. One bite wasn’t near enough.
He picked up the pewter plate it rested on and looked to the knot of aproned women. “Who’s responsible for this creation?”
He expected Hester to step forward. Mayhap Mistress Schoolcraft or Rosemary Swan. In the throng he’d lost track of Tessa. The women looked about in question. Maddie eyed him apprehensively as a hush fell over the gathering. He set the prize cake down just as the winner appeared.
Men hooted and hollered, the women all abuzz. Tessa stood before him, hands twined behind her back, bewilderment on her flushed face. All thought of the prize left his head.
“Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her!”
What? The heat of the moment swathed his own face. This was no cornhusking where a red ear earned a kiss. Even Tessa seemed to take a step back at the suggestion, which soon became a deafening chorus surrounding them.
“Kiss her, Colonel!”
He looked to the ground. Willed the crowd’s tempting chant away. Jude thumped him on the back. He looked up and caught that telling spark in Maddie’s eye. Tossing his hat to Ross across the circle, Clay mastered his waffling and slid an arm around Tessa’s slim waist, lowered his head, and kissed her full on the mouth. His senses spun. She tasted of nutmeg and molasses and had the feel of warm clay beneath his hands. And if there’d been no crowd he’d have kept on kissing her till she told him to stop.
They drew apart to huzzahs of approval. Tessa brought her fingers to her lips, studying him with a sort of stern surprise. If he read her right, she wasn’t altogether indignant.
She recovered enough to say, “Is that my prize, Colonel Tygart?”
“Nay, that’s theirs.” He angled his head toward the crowd. “Your reward for such foolishness is the pick of anything you please from Cutright’s shelves.”
Her eyes widened at the prospect. “Anything?”
With a nod, he wondered what she’d choose. “A pack train made it in day before yesterday, so the shelves aren’t so bare.” He gestured for his hat, which Ross handed over with a grin.
The crowd began to disperse in search of a new diversion. The remainder of the long July afternoon there’d be contests among the men while the women cleaned up. But for now, Tessa.
“So what sets that cake of yours apart from the pack?” he asked, returning his hat to his head.
“Nutmeg.” A shy smile. “You favor it, whereas Hester can’t abide it.”
“Hester’s loss.” He paused. What had just happened between them was hard to put into words. “I suppose I should apologize—”
“Nay.” She met his gaze.
Those violet eyes, so clear and earnest. They did things to a man . . .
“Can’t make too much of a called-for kiss,” she said without rancor.
“Meaning they would’ve wanted to thrash my hide if I didn’t oblige.” At her nod, he said, “So you don’t begrudge it.”
“Maybe a town-bred girl would take offense. But I’m hardly that. And I know there was no heart behind it.”
A called-for kiss with no heart. The honest appraisal, though said without heat, was razor sharp. He rubbed his jaw, more at a loss for words here than in any stilted, formal eastern parlor. “I wasn’t making sport of you. There was more heart behind it than you realize. If it’d been Hester, nay.”
She chuckled, and some of the tension between them gave way. “Hester will be mighty pleased Colonel Tygart kissed the Spinster Swan.”
“That I meant in jest.”
“’Tis true.”
“The only reason you’re not wed is because you don’t want to be. It’s easy to see you could have every unmarried man along the Buckhannon at your beck and call.”
“Nay,” she said shortly.
“Why nay?” ’Twas the one question that clawed at him.
“My mind is set on other things.” She looked past him with a wistfulness he could only call childlike. “Like leaving here for somewhere safe. Civilized. Peaceful.”
Deprived of, or rather spared, the polish of city and schoolroom, she retained an honest vulnerability rarely seen. He started to naysay her, talk about chamber pots emptied into city streets, unruly animals running amok, pickpockets and thugs, poverty and disease. But her winsomeness wouldn’t let him.
They were drawing notice standing here. Despite the itch to tarry, he touched the brim of his hat. “Best see to business. Yours at the fort store and mine beyond the gates.”
Ruth rounded the west wall of the smithy just then, calling Tessa by name. He walked away, his mind returning to the recent post he’d received from John Heckewelder about Keturah. The Moravian missionary was on his way to Fort Tygart, his arrival imminent. A beat of good news among the bad.
18
Ruth seemed a shade green. “Queen for a day, you are. A cake. A kiss. And now a sashay into Cutright’s store.”
“A passing fancy,” Tessa said despite her pleasure. “Tomorrow I’ll be back on the river and ’twill seem a dream.”
“Cutright has some new merchandise, looks like, beyond the usual flints and furs.”
Truly, the shelves had never been so full. Cocoa. Cloth. Pins, buttons, thimbles. Licorice. Snuff boxes. Blank books. Ink powder. Summer softened the British-milled soaps and sharpened the fragrance of the superfine teas. Even the dried figs smelled overripe.
Ruth chattered as Tessa looked, while Cutright stood in the rough-hewn doorway facing the common, pungent pipe smoke wreathing his bald head. Tessa lingered by a shelf of fripperies, drawn to a folding fan made of carved sticks and parchment. Carefully she unfurled its painted folds. The winsome scene was of a harbor with a tall-masted ship, a lovely palette of blues and greens.
“You don’t mean it,” Ruth exclaimed, examining a straw hat. “You’d take a bit of paper and wood over this?”
“’Tis the sea,” Tessa said, further extending the fan’s leaves.
“Never saw the sea and likely never will.” Ruth moved on, holding up a length of sheer gauze with the barest edge of lace trim. “How about this modesty cloth?”
But the lovely fan held an allure Tessa couldn’t possibly put to words or make Ruth understand. Even Cutright, facing them now as if expecting a decision, seemed surprised, even a tad disappointed, in her choice. “Am I to tell the colonel you are content with a mere fan, Miss Swan?”
“Aye, with my thanks.”
“Very well then.”
She passed outside into a brilliant three o’clock afternoon, fan in hand, Ruth following. Wrestling matches were in full tilt beyond the fort’s gates, the accompanying laughter and grunts of exertion jarring. Suddenly she was tired, the events of the day catching up to her—mostly that small emotional storm. Her very first kiss but not, from the feel and heat of it, his.
“I’d best go spell Ma,” Ruth said, wiping the sweat from her brow with a raised sleeve. “The babe’s fractious, as he’s cutting teeth.”
Glad to be alone with her tangled thoughts, Tessa walked beneath the partial shade of the east wall. She spied Maddie outside the cabin she shared with Jude, well away from Hester’s and the west blockhouse.
“Care for company?” Tessa called as she neared.
Smiling, Maddie gestured to the empty bench beside her. “What is that you’re carrying?”
Tessa opened the fan and fluttered it in her hand, courting a breeze and scattering insects, before passing it to Maddie.
“Such a prettily painted scene.” Maddie eyed it appreciatively. “Reminds me of Philly, namely the Delaware River. All those schooners and brigantines bound for England.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Some things I miss.” She handed back the fan. “Some things I don’t.”
“How are you feeling?”
“For an old woman about to have a baby, pretty fine.”
“You’re hardly old, Maddie. Nary a wrinkle do I see.”
Maddie smiled, creating a few creases. “I disremember what year I was born, just somewhere in Philly. My mother was a washerwoman at the Blue Anchor Tavern. When she was felled by fever I got bound out to a Quaker lady uptown.”
“I’m sorry. I hope she was kind to you. I’ve never known a town-bred lady.”
“Mercy, Miss Tessa, with that bit o’ finery you can just be one.”
They laughed at this flight of fancy, and Tessa gave an exaggerated flutter of her fan. “What makes one a fine lady, Maddie?”
“Fine ladies follow fine rules.” Tilting her head, Maddie took her time answering. “For one, a lady is never barefooted or bareheaded.”
Sweet relief bloomed that she’d donned both her cap and shoes. “Go on.”
“A lady ought to have a modest gait, not be in a hurry.”
“Be graceful?”
A nod. “If a lady is about town on a busy street, she should be offered the wall next to the houses to pass by. And no looking about with immodest eyes.”
“What if you trip over the cobblestones or soil your skirts with mud?”
“A lady raises her dress to the ankle and no higher. Just gather the folds of your gown with your right hand, like this.” Standing, Maddie demonstrated. “Raising your skirts with both hands is vulgar.”
“Says who?”
“Fancy folk. City rules, remember.”
“There are neither here.”
“Dodging wild animals and Indians leaves little time to fuss with your skirts.”
“Tell me more, Maddie.”
“More? Well, a gentleman’ll call you Missus even if he married you, least in public. And a lady takes care to stand to a gentleman’s right, never his left.”
“I suppose a muster-day kiss is not to be borne.”
Laughter shook Maddie’s spare frame. “Red ears of corn and muster-day cakes and kisses are frontier doings.”
The one question that most needed asking and answering gnawed at her. If Maddie but said the word, Tessa would set down her hopes and never look back. Though Clay had told her over breakfast that one morning he had no sweetheart, her heart craved confirmation.
“Does Colonel Tygart”—Tessa looked toward the gates, catching sight of him and weathering the woozy melt he made of her middle—“have a lady?”
Maddie sighed, leaving Tessa on tenterhooks. “Nay, though a few have set their caps for him.”
With effort, Tessa narrowed her sights to the delight of her new fan. If he had no sweetheart, why the distance? The sudden backtracking?
“And you?” Maddie asked. “Set your bonnet for some settlement gent?”
“Nary a one.”
“Well then,” Maddie said with a satisfied humph. “A right fine match in the making, if you ask me.”
Tessa allowed herself another glance at the gates framing Clay. Earlier, when he’d slipped one hard-muscled arm around her waist, she’d been struck by the sheer physical strength of him, the fact that he’d nearly lifted her off her feet. But his kiss . . . such a mesmerizing mix of restraint and gentleness, and given none too hastily, as if he wanted to savor it despite the hundred or so onlookers.
Light-headed more from the memory than the heat, she thanked Maddie and turned toward Hester’s, her thoughts circling back to the commander. How she wanted to call him Clay as Maddie did. There was something about it she liked, an earthy immediacy far removed from the formality of his full name or even his rank of colonel.
Mayhap she’d best content herself and call him Clay in her own private thoughts.
“Well, if you aren’t the talk of the fort I don’t know who is,�
� Hester said with no small satisfaction when Tessa entered her cabin near suppertime.
“How fare your brothers?” Ma asked with a lingering look out the open door.
“At the rum,” Tessa answered. “With all the rest.”
“I hope they hold their liquor.” Hester began making flip regardless, in case there was a shortage of spirits. “I’d hate to tangle with Tygart. He doesn’t abide such.”
Ma’s knitting needles flew. “The evils of drink cannot be made light of.”
“Kiwsuwakàn,” Keturah said with a frown. “Drunkenness.”
All three women looked at her. Had the Lenape been plied with it in treaties like they’d heard? Liquor for land?
“A shameful business,” Hester said with a wag of her head. “As for us, more than a few men need to stay sharp-witted and stand watch. Though I hate to say it, I sense this strange lull with the Indians bodes a deeper ill.”
“By now, nearly midsummer, we’ve usually had a good run of trouble.” Although Ma didn’t miss a stitch in the gloom of the cabin and the heat of the day was still severe, her words sent a chill through Tessa. “I well recollect how it was before dear Lazarus was killed. That same unearthly calm. And then death.”
“That black day was nearly the death of me.” Hester began pouring the finished flip between pitchers. “There’s been talk of Indians amassing for a strike all along the border here and deep into the heart of Kentucke territory.”
“Where’d you learn such?” Ma said, her usual calm bestirred.
“You hear a heap of blether with spies coming and going night and day, post riders, stray settlers, and such.”
“Meaning you’re doing more than cooking for the colonel.”
“I’d be glad to be relieved of the burden of that!” Hester spat out with vigor. “Now that he’s come to his senses about my great-niece, surely some sort of declaration will follow.”