“I’ll keep my ears open for any more reports of missing cocks, sir.”
Sam chuckled. Pat knew how to lighten his mood all too well. He looked out at the busy camp beyond. They were quite alone and tucked away from view.
He sighed. “It’s too bad she’s the enemy. We could use a woman like her.”
“Beautiful?” Pat goaded.
“Cheeky bastard.” Sam smacked him on the hip, letting his palm linger before sliding to cup a firm butt cheek. “No. A woman living by her wits in these troubled times, a woman willing to do whatever she needs to survive.” He squeezed.
Pat shucked him off. “You court danger, my captain.”
Sam slapped his hands against the trunk on either side of Pat’s head and leaned in. “I’m frustrated, lieutenant.”
“As are all of your men. You must embrace continence, and set the example.” Pat’s breath fanned hot against his lips.
“Damn this war.” Sam pulled back. He could really use a frig. “What are the sleeping arrangements?”
“Concerning Lady Strathmore? I wanted to ask you the same question.”
Sam groaned. “You’re right. She’s my responsibility.” He ran his fingers though his hair then drew them across his neck and along his jaw. His rather stubbly jaw. He smoothed his hand down the front of his buckskin tunic.
Bollocks.
He looked nothing like the officer he was supposed to be. Some of the privates looked more professional. No wonder Lady Strathmore had been slightly impertinent. She probably thought the discipline as lax as the captain’s state of dress. “She has to be watched, Pat. I want sentries posted on each side of my tent.”
“Then she is to sleep with you?” Pat’s tone dripped with insinuation.
“Not ‘sleep with’ me, you fool!” Sam hissed.
Patrick pursed his lips, trying very hard not to smile.
“Jesus, this is going to look bad, isn’t it?”
“Not with sentries on all sides of your tent, it’s not.”
“Good. Then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll need an extra cot.”
“That would be prudent.”
Sam glared at him.
“Sir,” Pat added, the edges of his mouth trembling upward. He called for one of the night watch sentries and requested he commandeer a cot from the medical tent.
“I should check on her,” Sam mused as they waited.
“As you wish, captain.” A tremor of mirth edged Pat’s voice.
“You find this far too amusing, lieutenant.”
A grin finally cracked across his face. “Sam,” he laughed, “you have an amazingly beautiful young woman—still in her lusty adolescence, mind you—in your tent at this very moment, and you are about to go to sleep. You, Samuel Taylor, who can out-perform any and all of Paul Bridgers’s whores, are planning to simply go to sleep. Alone.” Pat pressed forward until his nose tickled Sam’s cheek. “Of course I find this amusing. As much as you find it frustrating, my friend.”
“Perhaps if I were certain she was the maid and not the lady…”
Pat chuckled at his attempt at levity.
Sam sighed. “Look, we don’t know what she’s been through, but something happened. Like I said, she’s skittish.”
Pat’s fingers reached for his in the dark. “You’re a good man, Sam. You know I’m only teasing you.”
Sam squeezed Pat’s hand. “I know,” he said softly.
A woman’s yelp pierced the night.
“I see the cot has arrived. Duty calls, lieutenant.” Sam hastened to his tent.
Inside, Lady Strathmore sat fretfully at his desk staring wide-eyed at the two ensigns who carried the cot.
Sam pointed to the side opposite his own bed. “Please put it there.”
Lady Strathmore waited until the subalterns had departed before she spoke. “I won’t go to bed with you!”
Oh, Christ. He shoved his fingers through his hair and gripped the strands as he drew in a breath. “Look, Lady Strathmore, you are to sleep over there.” He pointed to her side of the tent. “And I am to sleep over here. I have posted sentinels on all four sides and at the door should you get any ideas about escaping, or should I get any ideas about ravishing you. As I am positively exhausted, I plan to go to sleep. I suggest you do the same. We leave tomorrow very early in the morning for Fort Revolution.”
And with that, Sam stripped off his spatterdashes and shoes, blew out the candle in the lantern, and plopped down on his cot.
Alone.
Chapter Eleven
Fort Revolution was an entire day’s ride away, although it seemed longer as Captain Taylor’s mood was rather unpleasant and he took it out on everyone, angrily snapping orders to timorous soldiers. For Clara, it was a long ride spent on the hard wooden seat of a supply cart. According to Captain Taylor, however, she was lucky he didn’t make her walk alongside the baggage carts like the other women.
They reached their destination in the black hours before dawn. The torches of the train of soldiers revealed the impressive earthwork ramparts and ditches surrounding the angled curtain walls and towers of the stone fortress. Clara breathed a sigh of relief at the sight which promised the end to bouncing on the unpadded cart bench. From her neck to her knees, her bones creaked and muscles complained.
Once inside the fort, she was led to a cot in what she thought she heard was the women’s dormitory. She did not bother to inquire about her new surroundings. Once she stretched out on the cot her eyes closed in sheer exhaustion.
She awoke to the sound of dozens of women chattering and laughing. She uncurled herself and sat up to survey the scene. She was in a large room filled with cots, their heads against the lime-covered stone walls. Shabby curtains hung between each so as to separate them into not-too-private sleeping spaces. Her own curtains, she noted dryly, were pulled aside, no doubt so the other women could keep their eyes on her.
“She’s up.”
One of the women approached. “You look a mess, love. Would you be wanting a bath?”
Clara wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She would love a bath, but weren’t they in a fort? Was this woman making fun of her? She looked kindly enough, and matronly with graying hair and a plump body.
“Too tired to answer, I see. I think you do, love. Captain says I’m supposed to treat you well. Like a real lady. You’ll be first in the tub with fresh water. Now take off your things while we get it all ready.”
Clara slowly shed her clothes, making sure to tuck the knife belt in a deep pocket of her cloak, keeping an eye on the group of women giggling and gossiping unabashedly in various states of undress. One of them scampered up to her wearing nothing but a sheer shift shamelessly clinging to her lithe body. She took Clara’s hand and led her to the bathing area.
“I hear you’re a lady. Like a duchess or something. Are you a duchess?” She went behind Clara to unlace her stays.
“My husband is a viscount,” said Clara. “That makes me a viscountess.”
The girls oohed and aahed over this bit of information, and tittered over Clara’s accent. She made sure she herself handled her heavy stays, laying them on a chair along with her garters and stockings.
“Do you have another shift with you, love?” asked the matronly woman.
“No,” Clara responded as politely as she could. Obviously the women had no idea she was being held against her will. Most likely the captain had purposely led them to believe she was a traveler with baggage.
“Well, then, do you want to bathe as God made you?”
Clara looked at the tub, steam rising from the water into the cold morning air. There were screens all the way around, and plenty of women standing by to protect her from the prying eyes of men, of which she hadn’t seen any yet. She untied her shift and let it fall from her body, then placed it on the chair with her stays. She tested the water with her hand, then stepped in and sank down. She closed her eyes to feel herself float buoyantly and the warm water lap at her breasts. It w
as like being in heaven.
“You be quick now, my lady,” said the matron, handing her a cake of brown soap and a brush.
Luxuriating over with, Clara proceeded to scrub herself, then dipped her head back to wash her hair.
“You’re a dirty one, aren’t you?” laughed the matron. “Been out traveling without stopping at a proper inn, I hear.” She motioned to one of the girls. “You’re next, Susie,” she said as several of the women helped Clara out and covered her with a towel.
“I get to bathe in a real viscountess’s bath,” said Susie gleefully, as if nobility would seep through her skin. Clearly very pregnant, Susie held onto her friends as she stepped into the tub. A sharp pang wrenched Clara’s heart as she watched the young woman enjoying herself in the water.
“What’s the matter, my lady?” asked a pretty raven-haired young woman handing Clara her shift. Her voice was gentle, genuinely concerned.
“I lost a child not too long ago,” Clara said wistfully, putting on her stays. “I mean, before it could grow in my womb.”
“I’m sorry. Susie’s sister Constance lost one earlier this year, as well.”
Constance? Clara dismissed the thought. Surely there were any number of women named Constance.
A blond girl couldn’t help breaking in. “They say it was Lieutenant Hamilton’s baby she lost, too,” she whispered.
“Abby, don’t go spreading rumors!” chided the raven-haired girl. She began to comb out Clara’s hair. “My name’s Martha. You’ve got some tangles here—what’s your name, anyway? Should we call you Lady Something?” She continued working on Clara’s mass of curls.
Clara smiled. The girls all seemed so nice, so friendly, so much her own age. “Well, if you want to, you can call me ‘Lady Strathmore.’ That’s my title. But you can also just call me ‘Clara’.”
Martha braided Clara’s hair, then twisted it into a bun and secured it to the top of her head with pins. “I just keep my hair down these days, anyway, so you can have my pins. My fellow likes it that way. Do you have a cap, Lady Clara?”
“No. I think I lost it,” she lied. She couldn’t very well say she had forgotten to grab it as she was fleeing a burning brothel, could she?
“I’m sure I have an extra. What about a dress? You had a very fine one what you came in with. That all you got?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Susie,” Martha called out. “You still got your old short gown you were wearing before you got big?”
Susie laughed. “Yes. Why? You want to tease me about my big fat belly?”
“No! Lady Clara here will need a work frock. She can’t very well wear a silk gown when she’s a-sweeping, now, can she?”
Clara wanted to correct Martha that it was most assuredly not “Lady Clara,” just simply Clara or Lady Strathmore, but thought better of it. Susie came up to her, holding a towel to her nude body, and handed her a very plain blue-and-white striped bodice and petticoat.
“I hope it fits,” she said cheerfully.
It fit Clara as well as one might expect an unflattering servant’s garment to fit. The outfit hid every womanly curve. She gave a little turn for Martha.
“Why, you look just like a regular patriot’s woman,” Martha squeaked.
That brought up a very good point. “Martha, who are all these women? Isn’t this a fort with soldiers?”
Martha laughed and took Clara’s arm in hers. “I suppose it must seem a bit strange. You don’t follow your husband out on the battlefield, do you?”
Clara shook her head.
Martha led her to what looked like a large workroom with a hearth and cupboards on one end and, on the other, a cozy circle of chairs arranged on a rug. Along the walls were spinning wheels and looms.
“I thought not. Well, we’re all the wives and daughters and sisters of the soldiers. Some of the women are camp followers, if you get my meaning.” She wrinkled her nose at that. “And some of us are servants who’ve taken up with some of the men. That’s me. I was a maid in a colonel’s house along with Mrs. Scott,” Martha pointed to the matronly woman, “and they asked if I wanted to be here. So I said yes.” She leaned in. “That’s how I met my fellow Jacob.” She giggled softly.
“So this is a patriot fort?”
“We’re what’s called a fortified supply station,” Martha explained. “We supply other forts and regiments.”
The matron entered the workroom. “And we have quite a bit of work to be done around here ourselves, girls,” she said with a clap. She turned to Clara. “I don’t think we were properly introduced, my lady, I’m—”
“Mrs. Scott,” interrupted a masculine voice.
Clara spun around. Before her stood a very handsome man with brown hair and blue-gray eyes smiling down at her. She flushed at his attentions.
“Why, Captain Taylor!” exclaimed Mrs. Scott. “You’re looking a damned sight better than you did last night. Enough to wish I were a girl thirty years younger.”
“I wouldn’t be able to handle your spunk, ma’am. You’d tire me in no time at all,” the captain teased gallantly.
Now it was Mrs. Scott’s turn to blush. Clara stared unbelievingly at the captain. Overnight he had been transformed from a wild-haired, dirty, practically bearded soldier into a well-groomed, clean-shaven officer in uniform. His dark brown jacket faced with scarlet topped off a finely tailored waistcoat and breeches of undyed linen. Under his hat, his hair was neatly combed and bound in a queue, although one or two recalcitrant curls played against his smooth cheeks.
“My lady,” he bowed to Clara in greeting.
Clara bit her lip, then nodded in return. “Captain Taylor.”
The young women from bath-time scurried about the large workroom, tittering and giggling as they went about their tasks. Periodically they glanced at their handsome captain and blushed.
“Mrs. Scott,” Captain Taylor began. “Lady Strathmore is our guest until we can reconnect her with her husband. However, I’m certain she would be willing to help our efforts here with whatever skills she can offer?”
“Yes, of course,” Clara responded.
“Well, what is it you know how to do?” Mrs. Scott asked. “You know how to cook, love?”
“Yes, a little—”
“Nothing with knives, Mrs. Scott.”
Both women regarded the captain curiously.
“For her own safety,” he added with a smile that was less polite and more alluring.
“No knives, then. Can you work in our garden—”
The captain winced.
“—spin, weave, or sew?”
“I know how to sew, quilt, and embroider. And I can knit and mend stockings.” Clara flushed at the last. One did not say such things in front of a gentleman. After only one morning, the American girls’ immodesty was already rubbing off on her.
“Then it’s settled,” Mrs. Scott announced. “You will join our sewing circle.” She pointed to the ring of chairs.
“Lady Clara,” Martha called out. “Sit by me.” She patted the seat next to her.
“Of course, Martha,” Captain Taylor said. “But first I need to abscond with your lady to discuss some business.” He held out his arm.
The instant Clara threaded her arm in his, a familiar but utterly unexpected warmth fluttered up her spine. The captain led her out of the women’s workroom and into the vast courtyard of the fort. It was her first glimpse of her new surroundings in the light of day. Thick, partially whitewashed masonry walls rose two stories high enclosing the inner yard with its several small buildings, barracks from the looks of them. The stone walls themselves immured two levels of rooms, including the women’s dormitory and workroom she had just left on the ground floor. A wooden gallery with staircases on each of the four sides of the fort clung to the masonry parapets giving access to the upper floor and its rooms. A girl with a broom disappeared behind one of the wooden doors along the second floor. Officers’ quarters, most likely, which, at that moment, need
ed cleaning. Above, a roof of jutting logs only partially covered the opening to the sky, giving a view of the tops of two of the four crude but massive lookout towers. In the yard itself, Clara spied cannon and howitzers at the ready, while young men rushed about moving boxes and barrels labeled as containing foodstuffs, but which probably contained gunpowder and weapons. It was war.
As they walked into the courtyard, the captain leaned over. “‘Clara’?” he said inquisitively in her ear.
His soft, deep voice so close to her sent a pleasant tingle to flush her skin and prickle the peaks of her breasts. The reaction alarmed her. She had only ever experienced such a feeling with Paul. “That is my Christian name, Captain Taylor,” she responded curtly, letting him know he was most certainly not allowed to call her that.
“It is a very pretty name.” He smiled a devastatingly handsome smile. “It suits you.”
Clara flushed again, surely a shameful shade of crimson. “What is the business you wished to discuss, captain?” She tried desperately to maintain a tone of propriety.
He released her arm and faced her. “I would appreciate your participation in a little fiction about your situation here. I’ve told Mrs. Scott and some of the girls that you were traveling, your carriage broke down, and, after unsuccessfully trying to fix it, your driver fled but never returned, leaving you alone in the woods. Then we came along and found you, and you’ll be our guest until we can contact your husband and make arrangements. Of course, your husband’s name and reputation precede you, so they know to whom you are married.”
Clara studied him. “You still don’t believe I’m who I say I am.”
He exhaled with a touch of exasperation. “To be honest, no, I don’t. I think you are far too young to be the wife of General Strathmore—”
“But—”
“And don’t say I’m too young to be a captain,” he said with annoyance. “I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve been fighting redcoats since they massacred our men in Boston. I’ve earned my cockade.” He pointed to a yellow bow-shaped ribbon sewn to his hat.
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