In an instant, Patrick pulled out his revolver from the saddle bag and pointed it at Warren.
“Amelia wants nothing to do with a snake like you. After what you’ve done to her, I should fire a shot straight between your eyes.”
The two stood in a face-off, only inches apart, guns pointed and ready to fire. I feared Patrick would be killed, so I spoke, hoping to disengage the conflict - the fight for me.
“This isn’t your baby. I lied to you all along. I’m carrying Patrick’s child.”
Warren’s stare remained on Patrick, his hand firm and resolute, willing to shoot.
“You’re lying.”
“I speak the truth. Eugenia knows. Go and ask her!”
“It’s true, Warren. Go now. You have no ties to Amelia.”
Warren stood looking confused. He tried to fight the urge to look at me with his disturbed eyes. “You’re carrying your brother’s baby?” he spat, his voice laced with repugnance.
“What is between Amelia and me is none of your business.”
“You sick bastard!”
“You are one to talk! You raped her!”
“It wasn’t rape. Your sister is not the innocent girl she pretends to be. She came to me, to my bed. She wanted me.”
“That’s not true!” I gasped. “Stop lying!”
“Time and time again. She wasn’t with child. I would have known, for she let me kiss every inch of her body.”
How dare he lie! “You slipped me sleeping powders. You know what you did!”
“Come down off the horse, Amelia,” he insisted, locked eyes with mine and reached for me. “Now before I shoot your iniquitous lover right before your eyes.”
Warren’s slight mistake of looking to me instead of Patrick left him lying on the ground, unconscious. Patrick knocked him out, striking him across the face with the pistol.
“I could have killed him, but there has been enough bloodshed. We will be gone before he comes to.”
I sat uncomfortably in the saddle with my back against Patrick and his one arm holding me while the other held the reins, as the horse sped off into the night.
He had planned a nearly flawless escape. We were on our way just as the Confederates swarmed the plantation. The clash began - the battle to take Sutton Hall. Canons and muskets nearly drowned out the verbal tumult.
The ground shook beneath us, spooking the horse. Patrick kept the horse under control and urged him on, though I feared us both falling and tumbling to the ground.
“Hold on tight!” he shouted, and kicked the horse into a full gallop as we reached the road.
I wondered if we would make our escape. I feared we would be caught by either side. Patrick had now betrayed both sides in the war, and if captured by the Confederates or the Union, his fate was sealed. I worried as we miraculously stole out of Savannah without being stopped. We feared for our lives every time we camped in a desolate part of the woods for a brief reprieve.
He explained that he had a contact in New York, a friend who would take us in without question. “Adam Higgins has been a good friend of mine since I was a child. He and I came to America together. His wife is Betsy.”
We spent most days riding through the dangerous countryside, not knowing what enemy or skirmish we might encounter. In the nights we remained hidden, camping out in the cold woods. Occasionally we had the good fortune to make a successful bribe and were able to sleep in some compassionate family’s house for the night. I brought along all of Perry’s money, which was a substantial amount. If Patrick felt it was safe enough, he would take a chance and offer some money to the strangers for a hot meal and warm bed.
Patrick always introduced us as Mrs. and Mrs. Sutton. They believed us to be husband and wife, with a baby on the way.
“I’m seven months along,” I would explain, though Patrick warned me not to reveal too much. He had shaved his moustache and wore Daddy’s civilian clothes; he resembled nothing of the general he once was.
The strangers we infrequently stayed with asked few questions, and I suspected they knew we were on the run. In fact, one elderly couple told us they were in the business of helping runaway slaves and that they had participated in the Underground Railroad.
The journey was exhausting, and I sometimes believed we would never make it to New York. Patrick never complained and tried hard to keep me comfortable, though it grew increasingly difficult as the weeks dragged by. The nights were cold and damp, and it was nearly unbearable to sleep on the hard ground with the baby growing so large inside me. We were constantly hungry. In the end, we knew we had made the right decision, never once questioning our love and all the sacrifices that came with it.
By the time we finally made it to the border of Virginia, I was weak and drained. Thankfully Patrick was able to secure us a hotel room for a few days.
“We need to stop and rest. You need to stay in bed and catch up on your sleep. You look so worn,” he said, stroking my cheek.
Without any hesitation, I climbed into the bed and motioned for Patrick to come lie beside me.
In all the weeks we traveled, though we rested side by side, we hadn’t had a moment to be intimate. I needed Patrick to love me, and I needed to feel his tender touch again.
I nearly melted in his embrace, and my heart fluttered madly in my chest as he kissed me with the same fervor as when we first became lovers.
“I have missed kissing you,” he murmured between hot kisses to my neck.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, if Patrick craved me the way I desired him to. I asked him in a soft whisper to love me fully.
For the first time, we consummated our long-awaited love. It was everything I longed for, imagined, dreamed it could be, and I still couldn’t believe it was real.
~ ~ ~
~ Thirty-eight ~
Rejuvenated and refreshed after three days of much needed-rest and rekindling our passion, Patrick and I got back to our journey north. In our days in bed, resting and loving one another, Patrick was also able to divulge sporadic details of the reasons for his animosity toward our father, stemming from earlier years when Daddy had abandoned him right after Charlotte died. It wasn’t easy for Patrick to speak of, yet I persisted. I needed to understand the reasons he felt the need to seek such vengeance against Daddy.
We were lying side by side in bed, listening to the raindrops dance on the tin roof of the hotel room. I took his hand and lifted it up to mine and intertwined our fingers. I nervously asked him to explain. I listened attentively, my gaze fixed on the ceiling as my mind tried to follow the unhappy story.
“After your mum died you were whisked away, and I never got to see you or hold you. I had no idea where you had gone, and Father wouldn’t tell me. Only days after her death, Father left. I hadn’t imagined he was never coming back. He took you with him and never said goodbye. It was difficult enough to have lost Charlotte, the woman who had become such a good friend to me after my mother died. I never resented her, though she stole Father’s heart when my own mother was dying.
“I was left to fend for myself. Father had stopped paying the bills, and soon I was forced out onto the streets. Nowhere to go, I joined the Royal Navy. When I came to America, along with Adam and his family, I planned to confront Father someday. I hadn’t planned it this way. In the back of my mind, I was even hoping for a reunion of sorts. I wanted to forgive him. That’s why I came to Sutton Hall after so many years. He needed to explain, to ask for my forgiveness. He should have. Obviously, he had no regrets. Not for abandoning me or hurting my mother. I knew then I had to do something to destroy him. And if that meant destroying his new family and the grand home he held so dear, then that’s what I would set out to do. I joined the Confederate Navy under cover. I was a spy for the Union, just to get even with him.”
Patrick turned onto his side, facing me. “Do you understand some of my pain, my motives? I don’t want you to mistrust me in any way. This hasn’t turned out the way I expected.”
He held me, placing ki
sses on my warm cheek. “Instead of having the satisfaction of hurting my father as I had planned, I fell in love and have forsaken everything I once believed in. But I have no regrets. None at all.”
I was relieved to learn what was behind Patrick’s hatred for our father, yet pained to learn how much suffering Daddy had caused him. It was difficult to imagine Patrick’s sad boyish innocence, and I did all I could so to make his dejection go away. I caressed his face, and whispered that I loved him and I would never leave him. Again, I reminded him that I was born to be his alone.
He clutched desperately onto me as if for dear life and said, “If you leave this earth before me, I don’t know what I will do or how I will go on. I’ve never felt this kind of love before - the kind that has taken hold of my heart - and if it let go, I would shatter to pieces and be broken forever.”
One week dragged into another, and we found only a glimmer of hope that we might finally make it to New York City by the end of my ninth month. We were half a day away. I was nothing but skin and bones; all my meager nourishment went to the baby I carried. Weak and tired, I was determined to use my last ounce of energy to carry on and do what it took to make it to Adam Higgins’s place.
“Adam will remember you as the baby born to Charlotte and Thomas,” Patrick said the last night we cuddled by the campfire. “You are my sister, nothing more. Do you understand what I’m saying, Amelia?”
I was nearly asleep; my lids were growing too heavy to keep open. The baby was doing flips inside me, causing mild cramping. That had been happening on and off for a week.
“You and I will have to remain siblings. We will tell them a lie - that you are a widow and carry the baby of your late husband. It means we cannot sleep together or show signs of anything but brotherly and sisterly affection. For awhile, anyway. Perhaps, in time, I can reveal to Adam the entire truth. Maybe he will understand. But for now we keep our love and passion for one another a secret. All right?”
I nodded in understanding. I reluctantly agreed to maintain a platonic relationship with him until the time came when it was safe to do otherwise.
I tried to rest that night. It was warm outside; the summer heat permeated even the low hills surrounding New York City. I noticed Patrick sleeping as I tossed and turned on the hard ground, desperately trying to get comfortable. The abdominal cramps kept me from falling asleep. I hadn’t a wink of sleep all night, and when morning broke, I was too exhausted and uncomfortable to rise. Patrick had the horse packed up for our last day of travel and came to lift me.
“I can’t ride today,” I groaned, lying on the ground, trying to breathe through the pain of the cramps.
“What is it, Amelia?” he asked as he wiped the sweat from my brow with his cool hand.
“I don’t feel well. Can’t we stay here for the day?” I begged.
“We have to move. What do you think it is?”
I moaned in pain, unsure what it was. Patrick wasted no time. He placed me on the horse and held me close as we raced to the city.
“It’s becoming unbearable,” I cried after a few hours. The gripping cramps were intense, coming and going and getting stronger as each hour passed.
“You must be ready to have the baby,” Patrick said, when he stopped the horse along the river for a brief rest and water. Patrick offered me a cheese sandwich we had packed from our last stop in a small town, but I refused. I was too sick to even look at the sandwich.
“I am estimating that we are an hour away.”
I was lying by the river’s edge, trying to cope with the agony, when suddenly a warm gush of water came out of me.
“Oh, God!” I gasped and then another intense cramp came. “We have to hurry, Patrick. The baby is coming today!”
I had never seen panic in Patrick’s face before. “Just hold on. Hold on until we reach Adam’s. His wife was trained as a nurse before they were married. She will deliver the baby. Just hold on!”
The next hour or so I believe I cried the entire time. I was slumped over and it was difficult for Patrick to steer the horse and hold me up at the same time. I had an overwhelming desire to push, and I begged Patrick to stop the horse and let me lie down, even if it was on the dirty streets of the largest city in America. “Please, Patrick,” I moaned, “I cannot stand it.”
“A few more blocks and we’re there,” he assured me, and sure enough, we arrived, only to have me slump off the horse and into Patrick’s trembling arms. He carried me up the brick stairs and pounded on the doors, shouting for someone to come, until it flew open.
“Patrick Arrington! What are you doing here?” Adam Higgins exclaimed.
“I will explain later. Amelia, my sister, she’s about to have a baby. Fetch Betsy, please!”
Patrick rushed me in and followed Adam to the nearest bedroom, where I lay on the bed moaning in pain. I was cold, but sweating, and shaking uncontrollably. I threw my head back against the pillows, gripped the blankets and shrieked at the top of my lungs. Betsy, Adam’s wife, dashed in.
“I need to push!”
Betsy ordered the men to leave the room. “I need to examine her.”
She hurried to undress me with the help of a maid, and after washing up, felt inside me where the baby was. I closed my eyes, screaming in pain. “Please stop!”
“I’m sorry it hurts. Bear with it for a minute,” she said, then said something to the maid. She removed her delicate hand and hastily redressed me.
“What is it?” I asked in a panic. I sensed something was wrong by her frightened expression.
“We need to get you to the hospital. Your baby is turned the wrong way.”
Patrick flew in. “Adam is fetching the carriage,” he informed Betsy. He came and took me in his arms and tried to comfort me, trying desperately not to let me see how truly frightened he was.
“Am I going to die, Patrick? Die just like my mother?” I sobbed. Perhaps my visions of dying in childbirth were all true. I was going to be punished for my sins after all, I now believed. Patrick and I wouldn’t live happily ever after.
Patrick would not allow me to say such a thing.
“You will not die like Charlotte. Remember everything we spoke of? God put us together. You were made for me,” he held me close, disregarding the witnesses who stood around us. Betsy and Adam looked at one another, confused, then awkwardly interrupted.
“We must get her to the hospital now. Take her to the carriage.”
I clung onto Patrick as if for the last time. I believe I passed out in pain at one point; I only vaguely remember the last moments before they took me into the operating room.
I was being wheeled down a long corridor and Patrick walked briskly along, holding my hand, telling me over and over that he loved me and begging me not to leave him. It took two large doctors to pry Patrick from me. I extended my hand, still reaching and calling for him until the nurse put a cloth over my mouth and nose. The room began to spin. Patrick’s fretful voice faded away. All went silent and black.
I slowly came out of a weighty fog, my head heavy, my body in pain as I woke in the bedroom room of Adam’s home and cried out for Patrick. I blinked the sleep from my eyes.
“Patrick is out in the hall,” Betsy said, holding my hand. “Stay calm; you don‘t want to tear your stitches. Here, sip on some tea.”
I sipped slowly, grimacing through the pain as I tried to sit up. When my parched lips were soothed, I dropped my head back, closed my eyes, and asked about my baby.
“She is just fine. Sleeping soundly over in the cradle.”
“She? I have a daughter?” I choked and opened my eyes. The small wooden cradle sat at the edge of the bed.
“You had a difficult surgery, Amelia. You nearly died.” She placed a cool cloth on my head. “The baby was breech. You had what is called a caesarean section.”
“Is that why I’m in so much pain?” I groaned.
“There is more,” she said softly and carefully sat beside me, still holding my hand in hers.
“I had a baby once. A son. Tragically, he was stillborn. That’s the cradle we had made for him. I am no longer able to have children. I bled too much after the birth. They had to do a hysterectomy.”
“What is that?” I naively asked and wondered what this had to do with me.
“It’s a procedure to stop the bleeding after birth. However, it makes a woman barren.” She gazed down at me with tear-filled eyes. “You were bleeding uncontrollably. You would have died otherwise.”
Patrick appeared in the room and came to console me. Betsy slipped out of the room, giving us some privacy.
“You have a healthy baby girl. You won’t need any more babies. She is all we need, you and I. It was meant to be, my darling, for God has given us a most precious gift.”
He ever so carefully lifted the tiny baby, who was swaddled in a lovely blue knit blanket, and handed her to me.
“She is so beautiful. Perfect in every way. We are so fortunate,” Patrick said, his voice choked with happiness.
I gazed down at the baby. She was perfect! I unwrapped her to count ten tiny fingers and toes and delicately touched her button nose in disbelief.
“Can you think of a name for her?” he asked through his beaming smile.
“I want to name her Lillian. She is the image of my favorite doll. But she is no doll, she is real. She is a real baby. My baby.”
“Our baby, Amelia. She is our baby.”
~ ~ ~
~ Thirty-nine ~
It took many weeks for me to heal after surgery. I was bedridden and in pain most of the time. Then I seemed to slip into an overwhelming depression that became part of my everyday life. I felt sad and happy at the same time, unable to fight the endless aches and lethargy that came over me.
Patrick and I settled into the Higgins’s home, welcomed without question by Patrick’s lifelong best friend. We were safe and out of the dangerous crossfire of the war.
Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy Page 30