Suddenly all those awful times in the woods, when he’d despaired of coming through, took on a humorous tint. He pictured the faces of his fellow lumberers—large, uncouth men—they’d shunned him, mocked him, disparaged him, but he’d shown them. He hadn’t caved. In the end, with Jamie’s rescue, he’d even gained their respect.
His lips tugged at the corners, remembering his stolen letters. No more mention had been made of them, so even that hadn’t proved the humiliating incident he’d feared. Who knew where they’d ended up? Probably dumped in one of the lakes or streams between here and the woods. Good riddance!
He picked up his pace, feeling the kind of exhaustion that came from a hard day’s physical labor. He knew he’d sleep well tonight, dreaming of Hester and her warm welcome. Even the rest of her family had greeted him like a long-lost member of the clan. He smiled, remembering their welcome of Jamie. He’d been treated like a prince.
Gerrit arrived at the tavern. Although the crowds had subsided somewhat, it was still filled with lumbermen. He probably wouldn’t get much sleep with their noise. On an impulse he turned into the taproom. Maybe a tankard of ale would settle his own high spirits before going upstairs.
“Hey, Lobster, see your lady love?” Carp, the Irishman asked, looking up from his drink at a crowded table.
Gerrit slapped the man’s shoulder as he passed him. “Jealous?”
The others laughed, but it was a companionable laugh. Gerrit proceeded to the bar and gave his order to the boy standing behind it. When he had the tankard in his hand, he looked for an empty bench. As his eyes scanned the crowd, another lumberer from the camp called him over.
Gerrit walked toward him and the men made a place for him. The table was covered with pewter tankards and green bottles of rum.
One of the men raised his glass. “To Lobster—the man you’d want at your side on a log drive!”
“Hear! Hear!” All the men raised their tankards and glasses and took loud gulps. Only one man seated at the end of the table didn’t raise his drink but stared with the same hostility as the first time Gerrit had been in the taproom. He wasn’t one of the men from the camp. Gerrit recognized him as one of the locals who’d frequented the tavern before he’d left for the camp. To him, he was probably still just a redcoat.
Gerrit ignored him and raised his own tankard to his lips.
“So, what are you going to do with your earnings?” one of the men squeezed in beside him asked. “You’ve earned as much as the rest of us.” They each received a portion of each log sold, and their harvest had been good this year.
“I know what I’m gonna do,” another man answered before Gerrit had a chance to reply. “I’ve had my eye on a little parcel of land just out of town at the end of Broadway.”
“I know that area. Good land. Smith has a farm out there. Good yield of corn and oats. Got your woodlot beside it and a plentiful supply of water.” The men nodded their approval.
A parcel of land. A pipe dream in England, but here, it was within reach of every hard worker. Gerrit had heard the men talk often of their ambitions during their time around the campfire. A piece of land, a farmhouse, a good woman and eventually offspring to help them in their labors.
He took another long draft from the tankard. Not a bad ambition. He watched the man at the end of the table stand and amble over to the bar. Glad to be rid of his oppressive presence, he turned his attention back to the men’s conversation.
A while later Liza came over to their table. “Evening, gentlemen,” she said with a smile which included them all but which came to rest on Gerrit. “Anyone still thirsty?”
“We all are!” Deke roared. “What are you waitin’ for, woman? Get us another round!”
“And bring another bottle of rum,” shouted a man farther down.
She swung her towel at him. “Ask like a gentleman or I’ll ignore you and wait on those that treat me right.” She leaned over the table with the excuse of removing an empty tankard and brought her face close to Gerrit’s. “Anything you need, Major, and I’ll bring it straightaway.”
Gerrit backed away from her as much as the crowded bench permitted. “Thanks. Just another ale along with the others.”
She gave him an assessing look, bringing her gaze to rest on his mouth. “Very well, Major.” Slowly, she straightened. “If your thirst keeps up, I know a sure way to satisfy it.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.” He shifted his gaze away from hers, thinking he’d need to find a new rooming house. The last thing he needed was an overeager tavern wench and a bunch of men who would probably soon spread a tale that had no basis in truth.
“Come on, Lobster,” a lumberer called out from the other end of the table, “tell us how you learned to swim against the current the way you did today on the Penobscot.”
He turned to the men and let out a breath of relief as Liza moved away from him. When she came back a short while later with a tray laden with their drinks, he didn’t glance her way except to murmur “thank you” when she thumped his tankard down in front of him.
The men raised their glasses in another toast. “To another successful river drive!” Ale splashed on Gerrit’s wrist as the tankards clashed against each other. Then he tipped his head back and took a long draft like the men around him.
“Aarggghhh!” Gerrit awoke to an icy dousing of water over his head. “What—?” He brought his hands up to his eyes. Rubbing away the water, he peered in shock at Mr. Leighton, holding the pitcher from Gerrit’s washstand over him. The last drops of water dripped from its wide mouth.
“So this is how you spend your nights after bidding my daughter a good evening?”
Leighton stood over Gerrit’s bed. Gone was every shred of the gratitude shining from his eyes the afternoon before.
Chapter Nineteen
Gerrit gripped his throbbing temples. What had happened? He felt like a leaden cannonball. Suddenly he became aware of a warm body pressed against him. He flinched in alarm. There beside him lay Liza, the sheet drawn up to her chest, but her bare shoulders making it clear to everyone present in the room that she was naked.
It was only then he became aware of the two other men standing around his bed.
What was going on? How had Liza ended up in his bed? He pushed himself away from the woman, the half-formed questions whirling in his mind. Even as he did so, the full weight of his offense swept over him, enveloping him as powerfully as the Penobscot current over his head. In a matter of seconds, he saw all of his hopes, his strivings since reaching America, pulverized into nothing.
He struggled to sit up but his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. He became more entangled in the twisted bedclothes. He realized then his own nakedness. As he became aware of his condition, his thoughts went from dazed to horrified to confused. What had happened to his nightshirt? What had happened last night?
The evidence pointed to only one conclusion, which threatened to crush him. If someone had handed him a pistol at that moment, he would have blown his brains out.
Instead, he let his head sink into his hands, the questions hammering at his temples. How could he? How had he? Why?
“So, you’re only sorry to be caught.” Leighton’s voice, thick with scorn, shot a barrage at Gerrit’s aching head. “You vile, sorry excuse for a man! Pretending to be a gentleman! Courting my daughter while you’re nothing but a filthy, lying scoundrel. I knew it all along! I knew it!” As the accusations grew in volume, he lunged at Gerrit, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him out of the bed.
Gerrit fell with a thud on his knees onto the hard wooden planks. Leighton’s companions managed to pull him off Gerrit before he could do him further harm.
“Don’t bother with him, sir.” Gerrit recognized a man from Leighton’s office. “He’s not worth it.”
Leighton looked down at Gerrit’s crouched form. “You’re right. Look at him there in all his manly glory. He’s nothing but a fraud.” In a steady, unrelenting tone, he spoke to Ge
rrit directly, “I want you out of this town today. Don’t try to see Hester. If you have any sort of conscience, don’t hurt her any more than you already have.”
Without another word, he turned and stalked out of the room, followed by his men. The door banged shut, echoing in the room. Then it was quiet.
“Don’t mind them. They’re nothing but—”
Gerrit started, having forgotten the woman’s presence. He turned and looked at the bed and received a second shock. There she sat in his bed, shameless, actually smiling.
He scrambled for something—anything—and landed on a shirt—his own—on the floor. He threw it at her.
“Cover yourself!”
“You should talk,” she drawled, making no effort to do as he commanded.
Realizing once again his own state, he grabbed his breeches and pulled them on. He walked across the cold, bare floor, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the evidence of his iniquity. He hated the sight of that knowing—almost malicious—smile on her face.
In those moments, staring at her, he knew the full, crushing weight of despair. If he’d thought himself lost to all hope before, it was nothing as compared to this.
Then, he hadn’t gambled it all. He’d always had a few reserves left; another trick up his sleeve. Now, he’d done everything he knew to do. He’d used everything up, given all he was worth.
Now, he knew there was nothing left.
Liza finally rose from the bed, leisurely donning the shirt he’d thrown her.
“My, but some people are cross in the morning.” She clucked her tongue. “You sang quite a different tune last night. So amorous you were. Bragging how you’d prove that redcoats were better than lumberers at pleasing a girl.” She chuckled as she rolled up the long sleeves. “You even claimed you’d father a child in one evening.”
Gerrit wanted only to shut out her words. How could her words hold any truth? His mind was an entire blank. Why couldn’t he remember anything of the night before? He recalled drinking a tankard—or was it two?—with the lumberers, then nothing.
He sank down on the edge of the bed, recalling other occasions in London when the previous evening contained blanks. But last night? He hadn’t intended to down more than a tankard of weak ale then go up to his room to sleep. When had he changed his mind? Why couldn’t he remember? There had to be someone who had been there who could fill in the pieces of the puzzle.
Like a man possessed, he tore through his belongings for a clean shirt and waistcoat. As soon as he’d finished dressing, he hurried from the room.
Hester shook her head at her father, refusing to accept what he was telling her.
“Don’t look like that,” he pleaded. “He has hurt you terribly, but know that he’ll be punished for his deceitfulness. Oh, my darling daughter, I know you don’t want to believe what I’m telling you.” Her father took a step closer to her and put his arm around her.
She pushed him away. “I—I’m sorry, Papa, but it can’t be true. I know Ge—Major Hawkes, and he wouldn’t do something like this.”
Her father gave her a look full of pity.
“I know he would have in the past,” she amended, “but not now. He’s changed.”
“My darling Hester, as much as it pains me to tell you this, you have to know the truth. I walked in on him. There was no misinterpreting the scene in his bed. Women like that don’t share a bed with a man innocently. Oh, Hester, Hester.” He shook her gently by the shoulders. “A man like that, after being in the woods all winter, will take any woman offered to him. Put him out of your mind, out of your heart. I should never have given him work. I should never have let you keep seeing him in London. I kept hoping you’d see through him.” He smiled sadly at her. “But you’re so young and innocent. You don’t know the wicked ways of men.”
Hester’s lower lip trembled. Her father’s words sounded so much like Gerrit’s when he’d kept trying to warn her against himself. But no! She knew he hadn’t done what her father accused him of. She broke away from her father.
“Excuse me, Papa, I—I’m going to go to my room.”
Her father only nodded, seeming to understand her need to be alone.
Her mother, who’d been in the same room with them and had heard everything, followed her. Once in Hester’s room, all she said was, “Let’s pray.”
Hester nodded, unable to get any words past the lump in her throat. Her mother took Hester’s Bible off a small table and brought it with her to Hester’s bed. Together, the two knelt. Her mother opened the Bible and read, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
As soon as she finished reading, Mrs. Leighton looked heavenward. “Lord, God, we lift up Gerrit Hawkes to You and ask that Your light shine into his heart. Pierce him asunder with Your word, with Your love. Reveal truth to his spirit.”
Her mother took hold of Hester’s hand. “Reveal truth to my daughter. You know her heart. Show her if this man is worthy of her love and esteem. Bring all things to light. We ask this in Your dear Son’s name.”
When her mother had left the room, Hester felt her spirit renewed. She took up the Bible again and along with it the packet of Gerrit’s letters which she’d put away in her bedside drawer. She sat on the rocker, and after reading some more of the Scriptures, she opened the packet and began reading Gerrit’s letters again.
A long while later, when she’d finished, she looked up and stared across the room, not seeing the cross-stitched sampler hanging there. Instead, she saw her beloved’s face. After re-reading his words—words written in anguish and with the honesty of someone who has nothing left to lose—she resolved in her heart that she would not receive these evil tidings.
She weighed her father’s accusations—no doubt he reported everything accurately. She didn’t doubt for a minute her father’s words. A man like that…will take any woman offered to him. She remembered the ferocity of Gerrit’s kiss. Would he have kissed any woman the same way? She looked down at the packet in her hand, weighing her father’s words against them and against Gerrit’s behavior with her from the time she had first met him until the day he’d returned. She remembered Gerrit’s pledge of fidelity as he’d given her his ring. She clutched it now through her gown. He wouldn’t have left everything behind in England for her sake, he wouldn’t have undergone the grueling test of the logging camp or the derision of the men around him to come back and fall so easily.
She knew in her heart that God had brought Gerrit to these shores for a reason. Nothing would convince her otherwise. She’d been obedient on her part. She’d bidden Gerrit goodbye on the London docks, though it had broken her heart. She’d returned home like a dutiful daughter and had not had any communication with her beloved or looked back in any way.
And then he’d appeared on her doorstep, and she’d known deep inside that the Lord had brought him there.
She stood and addressed the empty room. “Gerrit must tell me himself if there is something I must know. I won’t receive anyone else’s report. So, you can keep your calumnies to yourself, Satan. You are a liar and the father of all lies. I rebuke you now in Jesus’ name. I rebuke every device you are bringing against Gerrit Hawkes!”
With her words, she grew more confident. Her faith renewed, Hester left the room and went in search of her brother.
Gerrit reentered his room, the room he’d quit that morning and to which he hadn’t returned all day. It was now early evening. He surveyed the room with disgust. The bed was still unmade, the sheets pulled half off from Mr. Leighton’s violence that morning. Some of yesterday’s garments still lay on the floor. He bent wearily to pick them up and set them on a chair. He stopped in mid-action
, seeing a woman’s stocking lying like a slithering snake across the floor.
He shuddered, picking it up and fisting it in his hands. He looked back and forth, seeking a place to be rid of it—evidence of his perfidy. Then he slumped his shoulders once again. Who was he fooling? He could burn it in the grate, but it wouldn’t erase last night’s actions.
He sat on the bed, letting the offending item drop from his hands. He’d spent the day on a futile chase, tracking down anyone who’d seen him last night, to try to piece together what had happened, to try to discover what had possessed him to behave so. But he’d found no answers. Most of the men were feeling sicker than he was. The others had laughed, telling him they’d seen him walking arm-in-arm out of the taproom with Liza. They hoped he hadn’t been too drunk to remember an enjoyable time.
He still didn’t remember a thing. Nothing. Not a shred of memory had returned, which was odd. Usually by this time, bits and pieces would emerge. Gerrit rubbed the back of his neck wearily. He hadn’t felt so bad since he’d been a greenhorn having his first experience with a bottle of blue ruin.
Well, it was finished. He could do nothing to undo what he’d done last night. All those months of working, striving, trying so hard to be someone else.
It had all been in vain. Last night had proven he was the same man who’d tried repeatedly to warn Hester away. He stood, too restless to sit still, and began pacing the confines of the room. He’d never wanted to fall in love with Hester. He’d recognized her goodness and hadn’t wanted to taint it the way he’d tainted other’s.
He remembered Gillian—sweet, innocent Lady Gillian, willing to give herself to him out of her girlish love for him. And he’d taken it and used her and never felt the slightest remorse until…
He stared into the distance, remembering that day when her new husband, Lord Skylar, had fought for his wife’s honor. He remembered the humiliation of being bested by a man still weak from illness. But that had been nothing compared to the look Lord Skylar had given him at the end of their match.
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