by Jody Hedlund
The blast of the trumpet sounded in the morning air, calling the soldiers to congregate in front of the whipping post. Each shrill note clawed Angelique’s back, as if the thin knotted strips of the whip were lashing her instead of Pierre.
Miriam dragged her feet as Angelique urged her away from the fort. She had to get Miriam out of there so that she couldn’t hear the slap of the cat-o’-nine-tails against Pierre’s bare flesh or his agonized moans.
She almost wished they’d shoot him first, yet she knew they wouldn’t let him get off that easily. They’d flog him until he was half dead to make an example of him to any other soldiers who were tempted to spy. And then after they’d made him suffer, they would lead him out in front of the firing squad and kill him.
As far as she could tell, there was no way he’d be able to escape his fate.
A deep sob rose in her throat, and she gulped hard to keep it down. She knew with certainty that she wasn’t ready to lose Pierre. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter
20
Angelique paced in the hallway outside Lavinia’s bedchamber. The silky skirt swished with each step. She’d donned the blue-green gown Lavinia had given her for the dance, had combed her hair, and had even washed the dust from her face. She’d taken as much care as she could to do all the things Lavinia had taught her during their lessons that summer.
She’d made sure that Ebenezer hadn’t seen her leave the inn dressed in the ridiculous gown. But now she was so desperate, she no longer cared if he caught her in it.
Lavinia had claimed illness for over a week, since the morning Pierre had been arrested. With each passing day that Lavinia canceled their lessons, Angelique had grown more impatient and worried, until she’d decided she couldn’t wait another moment to see Lavinia.
Angelique had decided the gown was her only hope, that if Lavinia knew she was wearing it, then maybe she’d allow her a visit. She prayed that when Lavinia saw her in it, she’d be pleased enough to listen to her plea to save Pierre’s life.
Angelique paused in her pacing and listened to the voices inside the bedchamber. The servant girl had gone in to announce Angelique’s presence. She’d instructed the girl tell Lavinia she was wearing the gown. Angelique tried to still the trembling in her limbs. If Lavinia refused to see her, what other hope did she have?
Every morning over the past week, when she’d delivered her catch of fish to the fort, she’d begged for news of Pierre. And each morning it had been the same. He was still in the Black Hole.
The deep, damp hole in the ground was reserved for the worst of prisoners, especially those sentenced to die. The dirt cell wasn’t big enough for a grown man to sit in comfortably and was devoid of light.
Angelique shuddered at the thought of Pierre languishing in the blackness, the gashes on his back from the whipping likely festering.
She rubbed her gloved hands over her bare arms to ward off a chill. Even though mid-August was still warm, the sky was stormy that morning and had brought a cooler breeze, taunting her that fall was fast approaching. There wouldn’t be many days left before the voyageurs and Indians left the island for their winter hunting grounds in the west.
And it wouldn’t be long before Lavinia left the island too.
Angelique glanced at the closed door to the young woman’s chamber and then resumed her pacing. After the past week of agony, she’d finally begged one of the sentinels to allow her in to see Lavinia. At first he’d refused, but when she’d offered him several eggs, his eyes had lit up.
It was no secret the food and other supplies within the fort were almost gone and that the situation was growing more desperate every day. In fact, word had reached them only yesterday that the Americans had destroyed a British blockhouse on Nottawasaga Bay, along with the schooner Nancy that had been bound for Michilimackinac and loaded with shoes, leather, candles, flour, pork, and salt.
Now that the last of the British storehouses in the area had been destroyed, the Americans had set up a blockade to the east, cutting off the lines for any further British ships to reach the island. Apparently the Americans had decided that if they couldn’t bombard the British off Michilimackinac, they’d starve them into surrendering.
Even before the battle, the provisions on the island had been low, but now the garrison was on half rations. The gardens down by the government house had been picked over, everything edible gone. Once their stores were empty, would the British demand that the islanders sell the food they were storing up for the winter?
If the British didn’t find a way to break the blockade and restock before the winter, Angelique dreaded what might happen. Last winter had been bad enough. It would be even worse if they were already starving before winter set in.
She slid her hands up and down her arms again. If only she could find a way to sneak food to Pierre. If the soldiers were hungry, Pierre would be the last person in the fort they would be willing to feed out of their precious remaining supplies. Why would they bother feeding a man condemned to die?
The door to Lavinia’s room opened a crack. Angelique stopped, her heart pattering at twice the speed.
The servant girl squeezed through and closed the door behind her. “Miss McDouall doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
Angelique eyed the door. Maybe she should force herself past the servant and barge into the room regardless of what the servant said. She would throw herself upon Lavinia and weep and plead and beg. As hopeless as the situation was, she was still determined to do whatever she could to save Pierre’s life.
“I’m sorry, miss,” the servant whispered.
“Did you tell her I was wearing the gown?”
“Yes, and she said you may keep it. That she wishes to give it to you as a gift.”
Angelique shook her head. “But I don’t want the gown. I just want to see her.”
“She’s too ill to do any further lessons with you.”
“Would you let her know I don’t need a lesson? I’m here because I need her help freeing my . . . my friend from the Black Hole.”
She couldn’t very well call Pierre the man she loved, although that was exactly what he was. As much as she wanted to deny the fact, she couldn’t. No matter how much she blamed herself for becoming too much like her mother, and no matter that she’d determined to do better in the future, she still loved Pierre. And she always would. Even after he was executed.
The servant hesitated. “She mentioned you might be here for that purpose, and she told me to tell you it’s time for you to forget about him, that after what he did you need to focus your attention on someone more worthy.”
Forget about Pierre? That was like asking the moon to forget about the sun. He brightened her life. He brought her laughter. And he turned the shadows into sunshine.
Besides, Pierre was worthy. Maybe he’d made some poor choices in his involvement in the war. Maybe he’d been careless with his spying. But he was steadily growing into a godly man.
She couldn’t abandon him.
The servant began to back away.
Angelique reached out a hand to stop her. “Please tell Lavinia that I’ll do whatever she wants me to do. Anything.”
The servant hesitated.
“Please,” Angelique pleaded, “if she’s unwilling to ask for his pardon, then maybe she can ask that he be moved out of the Black Hole into the guardhouse. And maybe she can help me gain permission to bring him food.”
The young girl started to shake her head.
“The Black Hole is no place for anyone to die.” Everyone knew the Black Hole was a death trap. It had such little air, a prisoner had once died of suffocation there.
“I’m helpless to change Miss McDouall’s mind,” the servant said, glancing at the door. “But she did talk of getting out of bed tomorrow. Perhaps you can try again then?”
Angelique thanked the servant and then took her leave, clinging to the slim hope that she might still have the chance of gaining Lavinia’s help, somehow on the
morrow.
When she slipped through the back door of the inn, Betty was standing in front of the hearth, stirring a large kettle. With the storm clouds forming over the island, the room was only faintly lit by the flames flickering under the pot.
The fishy scent of soup mingled with that of onion, making Angelique’s stomach ache with hunger. But her own pain only served to remind her that Pierre was wasting away in the Black Hole. If his wounds or the lack of air didn’t kill him, he would die of starvation. She must find a way to help him, at least to ease his suffering in his last days.
Betty didn’t glance up. “My husband has been looking for you.”
Angelique picked up her pace as she crossed the room, dodging the baskets of cucumbers, green beans, and beets she had picked that morning and intended to preserve and pickle, if the British didn’t confiscate them first.
“I was at the fort with Miss McDouall,” Angelique said. She prayed she could get out of the gown before Ebenezer discovered her in it.
Betty had been in her bedchamber and nursing the baby when Angelique had left. Angelique had purposefully timed her leaving during a nursing so that Betty wouldn’t see her in the gown.
“If I were you, I’d just confess the truth right away,” Betty said, her voice tinged with warning.
“What truth?” Angelique asked.
“The truth about what you were doing,” Ebenezer said from a corner of the room.
A sharp crack of thunder was followed by a flash of lightning that brightened the room, revealing Ebenezer perched on the edge of one of the barrels of rum.
Angelique froze.
He rose slowly, each motion deliberate and calm. “Where have you been for the past hour in that revoltingly immodest gown?”
“I went to the fort to meet with Miss McDouall. That’s all.”
“You’re lying!” His words burst out like a roar, and he slammed his hand against the barrel.
“I’m not lying. Ask the sentinel at the South Sally Port. He’ll tell you I was at the fort.”
“Cavorting with all of the soldiers, no doubt.”
“No—”
“Don’t deny it, young lady!” He brought his fist down again. But then he straightened, cleared his throat, and continued in a low, placid tone, “It’s become clear to me that you’ve been paying far too much attention to your outward appearance.”
“This is the first time I’ve put on the gown since the dance.”
Another crash of thunder was followed by a deluge of rain pounding against the window. Ebenezer moved toward her. “Then how do you explain the presence of this among your possessions?” He stretched out his arm, and in his palm was the ivory-handled comb Jean had given her upon their engagement.
She lunged for it, but he jerked it out of reach. “That’s mine,” she cried, desperate to keep the one beautiful thing she owned. “Give it back to me.”
But Ebenezer tucked it into the folds of his long, shapeless shirt. “So you’re admitting to your sin of vanity?”
“There’s nothing vain about owning a comb.” She trembled. “Jean gave it to me as a pledge of our commitment to each other.”
“Then it’s fitting I should take this comb away.” He patted the pocket at his side. “Since you’ve broken your commitment to him with all your fornicating.”
Betty had stopped stirring and was watching the scene unfold between her and Ebenezer. Over the past few weeks, Betty had continued to send her withering glances. She supposed Betty needed someone to blame for Ebenezer’s lust with the Indians, and somehow she’d convinced herself that Angelique was the problem.
“I haven’t been fornicating,” Angelique said. “You must believe me.”
“What I believe is what I see.” Again his voice rose in anger, and he waved his hand toward her gown with its low neckline. Through the dimness of the room the lust in his eyes flashed.
Revulsion forced her back, and she covered her chest with her hands. Maybe Betty hadn’t been wrong. Maybe she had caught Ebenezer staring at her with lust on other occasions. What if the woman’s concerns were justified?
Ebenezer tore his attention away. “Young lady, such a gown is the tool of the devil, intended to lead men astray. There’s no other reason for it.”
“I’d only hoped to please Miss McDouall after all our lessons this summer.”
“You’d only hoped to please the soldiers!” he shouted, clenching his arms stiffly at his sides. “How many men did you let inside your skirt today?”
The crassness of his words took her breath away. He approached her with a raised hand as if he would strike her across the cheek. He held it above her for a long moment, and she tried not to cower.
No matter what he said, she’d done nothing today for which she need be ashamed.
“You’re an ungrateful, disobedient girl,” he said. With measured restraint, he lowered his hand and instead grasped the bare skin on her arm above her glove. “I’m disappointed that you’ve spurned all my efforts to help you. The Lord knows how hard I’ve tried to shepherd you into becoming a pure young woman, and how hard I’ve worked to protect you from your own sinfulness.”
He yanked her toward the steps, his fingers pinching into her flesh. She wanted to say something to defend herself, to remind him of how carefully she’d obeyed him, of how submissive she’d been to his rules. But she knew he was too angry to listen.
He’d lock her in the attic for a couple of days, and then he’d release her after he’d had the chance to calm down. At least she prayed that was what he’d do.
“I had the feeling you’d end up just like your mother and sister,” he said, then shoved her more roughly than usual toward the stairway.
“I’m trying not to be like them,” she said, but the guilt of the summer came rushing back to haunt her, the pleasure she’d found in Pierre’s arms, the sweetness of their stolen kisses, the passion one look from him could arouse. They shouldn’t have shared intimacies, not while she was pledged to another. How easily she’d thrown away her loyalty to Jean, how quickly she’d forgotten about her commitment to him. Angelique hung her head.
“I’m beginning to think Betty has been right,” Ebenezer said. “It’s time to find you a husband.”
“No!” Panic poured into her, and she struggled against him. “I’m waiting for Jean to return.”
“I suppose that’s why you had your body pressed all over Pierre’s at the dance.”
“I was wrong—”
“Yes, you were.” His fingernails dug into her arm as he pushed her ahead of him up the stairs. “You were very wrong.”
“But I’m still waiting for Jean.”
“It appears to me that you gave up that right when you decided to fornicate with his brother and half the other men on the island.”
Shame slapped Angelique in the face, the same shame that had lurked in her heart over the past couple of weeks. She wanted the dark stairwell to swallow her and put an end to her misery.
Ebenezer forced her over to the ladder that led to the dormer room. “It’s time I found you a husband.”
She groped for the rungs. “Please don’t make me marry someone else. I’ve repented and I promise I’ll be better. I promise I won’t sin again.”
In the darkness between them, his breathing was heavy with the odor of rum. The heat of his mouth came near her. Then in one sweeping motion he wrenched away from her. “Get to your room.”
She scrambled up, knowing she needed to get away from him before he grabbed her again.
“And stay there!” he shouted after her. “You’ll stay there until I find you a husband.”
Chapter
21
Pierre wiggled his toes, and sharp tingles like a hundred porcupine quills shot through his legs. It was all the movement he could manage.
The first week that he’d been in the Black Hole, he’d tried to keep moving. At times he’d made himself stand and stomp from one foot to the other, to keep the blood flowing a
nd bring warmth into his limbs. Even though he’d had to stoop in the oddly shaped hole, at least he’d been able to move from the cramped sitting position.
But as the days had passed with only a crust or two of bread, and with only a scant amount of water—just enough to keep him alive—he became too weak to muster the energy needed to raise himself off the dirt floor and out of his own filth.
In the complete blackness he’d lost track of time. He guessed that at least two weeks had elapsed since he’d been arrested. The last time the hatch had been opened, going by the weakening of the sun’s rays, he figured it was nearing the end of August.
He hadn’t expected to languish in the pit quite so long. But apparently Lieutenant Steele wanted to kill him slowly and painfully. And after the torture of the past days, every time the chain on the trapdoor rattled, he prayed it would finally be time to face the execution squad.
He was ready to put an end to the hunger, the stench, the pain in his cramped limbs, and the struggle for every breath in the diminished oxygen of the pit. He was ready to meet his Maker.
He’d had little else to do in the Black Hole except pray. He’d begged God to forgive him for his stupidity in how he’d handled his part in the war. He’d played both sides. He’d had his feet in two fires, and as Red Fox had once warned, he’d gotten burned.
With a groan he shifted his back against the cold dirt wall. Thankfully, the bloody gashes had dried and begun to heal. But they’d caused him agony for many days.
A jangle on the lock above brought his head up. He peered through the blackness, but couldn’t see anything but the thin cracks around the door that offered only the scantest of light.
Was it time?
His weak heartbeat sputtered with hope.
The chains clinked together until finally the trapdoor creaked open, letting in a sliver of light and fresh air.
For a moment the faint light blinded him, and he could only blink. At last he could make out the outline of a face above him.