14
Almost three hours later, Lydia sat at the pianoforte, her hands on her lap, staring at the ivory keys. She couldn’t say why she’d even sat down. She hadn’t played in a year. Tomorrow would mark the date of Margaret’s death—and her daughter’s first birthday.
Lydia’s attempt to avoid thoughts of the rebel hiding in the storehouse had taken her in a worse direction. She was in no mood for music, but she laid her hands to the keys and played a deep cord. The sound pressed against her, pushing her lower.
“Ah, there you are.”
Instead of looking up to the bearer of the feminine voice, Lydia closed her eyes, picturing Margaret standing in the doorway. Her full skirts swept the floor as she passed to the pianoforte. “Why not play something merry for once?” Margaret had asked.
“I do not feel merry.” Only broken and bleeding. Father’s death still too fresh, and a reminder of other losses.
Margaret, on the other hand, hung to the hope of new life, her stomach already showing the growth of the child within her. She didn’t know that the child would steal her life only months later.
“Mr. Selby thought you might be in the library, but I heard the pianoforte.”
Lydia stood and straightened her skirts. “Ester, I wasn’t expecting you.”
Their solicitor’s daughter opened her reticule and withdrew a letter. “Father asked me to bring this to you since I was coming here anyway.”
“Oh?” Lydia took the folded parchment.
“Mr. Selby did not tell you? He invited me and Father to join the celebration of Maggie’s first year. Father has business elsewhere, but I am most anxious to see the little darling. She must be such a joy. Every time I look at her, I see more and more of your dear sister in her.”
“But why today? Little Margaret was not born until the eighteenth.” A day that, as far as Lydia was concerned, should not be celebrated.
“Mr. Selby said he had business that took him away from Georgetown tomorrow. To Charles Town, I think.”
Another thing he had neglected to mention. Not that she minded Charles’s absence.
Lydia turned away and unfolded the letter. Her gaze followed the severe slant of Mr. Hilliard’s penmanship that inquired as to her intentions for her property in England. Would she like him to seek a buyer?
Of course not. She wanted to live there, not pawn it off, securing her forever under Charles’s roof. Mr. Hilliard had already told her the cottage would bring little monetary increase because of its location.
“Would you be willing to deliver my reply to your father?”
Ester gave her usual pleasant smile. “So long as you have it prepared before I depart.”
“Why not follow me to the library now? I would rather Charl—Mr. Selby, not be aware of this correspondence.” Lydia held the other woman’s gaze until she nodded. “Good.”
Lydia led the way to the library, going directly to father’s desk. She opened the drawer for a fresh sheet of parchment, but the ink pot was empty, and she’d left her remaining one with Daniel. Along with her father’s quill.
“It seems I might have to delay my reply. If I have not given you a letter for him before you leave, tell him I shall call at his office tomorrow.” Only, tomorrow she had no desire to go anywhere except the graveyard where dear Margaret lay only a stone’s throw from Mother and the boys. It seemed she would be required to visit the storehouse much sooner than she had planned.
~*~
Daniel dropped the quill pen back to the parchment and lowered himself to the hard surface of the grain sacks. Lumpy and hard. He rotated to his side and buried his mouth in the nook of his elbow as his lungs heaved. Hopefully the walls muted what his sleeve could not.
As the cough subsided, he scowled at the door. Eli had visited him once today with food and new footwear, but it was impossible to determine how many hours had passed since then. With the lamp the only light in the tomb, days would easily fade into each other as the hours did. Enough to drive a man insane if not for the relief it was to lay and let his body heal. His mind knew no such luxury.
Instead it replayed the same images in tormenting procession: Captain Wyndham dangling from a noose. Rachel Garnet’s face aflame with anger as she slapped his face, awaking him to the reality of his actions. Dawn lighting the tears in her beautiful eyes as she stared at the Garnet barn, left in ash. The look on Mama’s face when he’d said goodbye. Pa’s words. Young Gabe Marion alive and joking moments before he’d been murdered. Lydia and the subtle curve of her genuine smile. He clung to the last. So much more pleasant than the others.
All the more reason to leave tonight. If he could get a horse. And put a boot on his foot.
Sitting up, Daniel eyed the pair of mid-calf riding boots Lydia had sent for him. They looked large enough, but he would have to straighten his foot to slide it in. He tested his ankle and pain spiked up his leg. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but little choice remained. Not if he didn’t want to draw attention to himself on the road north.
Thick leather and a new sole. The boot was as fine as any he’d owned. Finer. He pulled it onto his good foot, and then picked up the other, braced himself, and shoved. Daniel clenched his jaw against a cry of agony, but without full success. He dropped back and sucked a breath.
A key rattled in the door before it was shoved open.
“What happened?” Lydia hurried across the room.
Daniel didn’t answer immediately, waiting until the pain subsided a little. He pushed up on one elbow. “I got the boot on.”
“What?” She glanced to his feet. “Why would you—”
“I need to leave. Today. How soon can I have the horse?”
“But you are not well. What about your ankle?”
“It’ll be fine now that it’s in the boot.” He shifted, lifting his foot back onto the makeshift bed. The throb ebbed slightly. “Just don’t ask me to take this boot off anytime soon. I’ve thought about when would be the best time to leave. I should go before dark.”
“Ride out in broad daylight?”
Daniel nodded. “There are too many sentinels at night, and I imagine the British are extra watchful with Colonel Marion so close. Only a couple redcoats know my face, so it should be easy enough to ride out of town with these clothes you’ve—” A cough broke off his speech.
“But you are ill.”
Daniel cleared his throat. “I’m fine.” His voice remained gravelly. He sat up and reached for his coat, thrust his arms in the sleeves and shrugged it on. “Besides, I have numbers for the Colonel. Only eighty regulars posted in Georgetown. He’ll want to know that.” Daniel looked at the door, again closed. Always closed. “And after a full day, I’m honestly going insane caged in here.” He frowned. What would a British prison be like? He couldn’t imagine a week, months, years, locked away. Like on those prison ships the British had anchored in the New York Harbor. He’d heard tales about the crowded holds, the stench…the death. All the more reason to leave Georgetown now.
“What about your letter?” Lydia dropped a small bundle on the barrel and snatched the blank parchment. “Have you written nothing?”
He sighed. “Alas, no.”
Though hesitance showed in her movements, she seated herself. “I have need of the ink, and while my sister’s husband keeps an abundance in his office…I will wait for you to finish.”
Daniel picked up the quill. He ran the clean tip over his thumb. If he couldn’t write the letter in the hours he’d had alone, her presence would not make the task any more possible. “Take it, then. It’s doing me no good.”
“I can wait.”
“But for how long?” He shook his head. Mama hadn’t said much when he’d left, but her disappointment in him for letting his temper hurt the Garnets had been palpable. Pa, on the other hand, though not given to rage, had laid some well-placed verbal lashes. They still stung. “What do you write the people you care for after such sorry neglect? No words seem sufficient.”
&nbs
p; “So you will leave them unsaid?”
That would be the easiest. But… “No. I’ll write something.” He again took up the quill and dipped the very tip in the pool of black. Now what?
D-E-A-R
He looked down at the hen scratching, each letter painstakingly printed.
“So you do know how to write.” Lydia’s voice was light and teasing, but it ripped the scab off an old wound.
Daniel straightened and whipped the parchment so she could see it, but not get a good look. “Obviously.” Anger drained away along with his pride—some of his pride. “Just not very well. If I take my time I can write, or read, about anything. My parents did teach us, and my sisters took to books like foals to new pasture. I, however…” He braved a glance at her face. “I am not daft. Nor an idiot. If you tell me something, I will remember it. You give me a message to deliver by mouth, and I will recite it word for word. I just…I don’t…” How could he explain his struggle to someone who was probably the model of accomplishment? The men of her acquaintance were, no doubt, educated far beyond his own rude training.
His heart thudded against his ribs, and his thoughts slowed, returning to the past. Maybe that was why Rachel never opened her heart to him. Her words rang in his head, speaking of her British captain, as learned a man as Daniel knew. “At least he has book learning.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of.” Lydia took the paper from Daniel’s hand. “My father had almost no education. He was a sailor from his youth. When he gained his first command, it became important to him to learn to read and write, but in the end, even when he built his shipping company, he preferred others to act as scribe.” She snatched the quill away. “I have written many a letter for him.”
Daniel’s gaze shifted from the quill to her face.
She straightened a barrel in front of her and smoothed the parchment over the top.
“Um…” He’d had enough trouble trying to decide what to write while he held the pen. Now, with large pools of blue focused on him, the task seemed impossible. “I’m not sure.”
“Who do you want to address?”
“My mother…no, my whole family.” Daniel looked to his hands in an attempt to take his mind off the woman sitting across from him. Not a complete success, but he had to get this letter right.
“My dear family?”
He nodded and rested his chin on his knuckles. Silence enveloped the room, adding pressure to his brain and volume to an imaginary pile of false starts sagging with rhetoric. None made it past his lips.
“You are thinking too hard.” Lydia dipped the quill. “Stick to the simple facts for now.”
“I am alive.”
She wrote. At least it was a beginning.
“Though I have finished my time in the Continental Army, I now find myself in South Carolina, continuing this fight for freedom.” Daniel clamped his eyes closed and saw them, his family, each in turn. Mama, gentle but strong. Pa…the man he wanted to be. Solid and steady in both his faith and his actions. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home. It seems wrong for me to be so far from you when the Mohawk Valley is by no means exempt from this war. If anything were to happen to you while I…” And his sisters. Teasing, giggling, and youthful.
“Are you all right?”
Daniel didn’t look up. “Perhaps the Mohawk Valley isn’t one of the main focal points of the fighting, but the British have tried to use it as a spear through New England before, and the Tories, Joseph Brant and his warriors, constantly raid the settlements. What if they needed me? How will I live with myself if I return home to find it burnt to the ground, and Pa, or Mama and the girls…” Dead.
“What do you want me to write?”
Daniel glanced at Lydia who stared at the quill while drops of ink dripped, blotching the cream parchment. “I would never forgive myself,” he said.
Her hand trembled as she set the tip of the quill to the page. “You might have to accept that you have no control over what happens to your family.”
“Perhaps, but my duty is to protect them. That is why I started fighting this war in the first place. Somehow I lost sight of that.” All in an attempt to hide from his shame. “Honestly, I don’t belong down here. While I want the British to go home as much as you, I have no loyalties to South Carolina. The people I care about are far away.” Even as the last words left Daniel’s tongue, they lost meaning.
Lydia sat in her cinched stays and flowery gown, born into a world removed from his. But the more she spoke of her father, of meagre beginnings, the more Daniel wondered if perhaps she didn’t look down on him. Not that she’d ever willingly leave her grand home and genteel existence. He needed to return to the wild frontier of the Mohawk Valley—back-breaking work and few comforts.
Daniel was mad to let himself consider the possibility of an attachment. He couldn’t afford to open his heart to her in the slightest degree only to be hurt again. And yet, even as he fortified his resolve, he realized it might be too late.
~*~
“Maybe I have no real control over what happens to my family, the Good Lord is the only one who has that, but I am no use to them down here.”
The shaft of the quill bit into Lydia’s fingers as her grip tightened.
“It must be nice to have your family safe, here with you.”
Cold washed over her body. “I have little time. What else do you wish written?”
His gaze remained on her as moments passed.
Lydia wouldn’t look at him. If she did, he might see into her soul and all the demons she hid.
“I hope all is well with you.”
Not even a little. But she scribbled the sentence across the page for him.
“I thank you for the letters you have sent, and especially for the ones that found me. I wish I could be home for Christmas or the New Year, but I am not certain this letter will even reach you by then. As soon as I am able, I promise to come home. I shall be there for planting this next spring.”
As soon as Daniel signed the bottom of his letter, Lydia stood and plucked up the ink pot and quill. “If I stay any longer, I will be missed.”
“I understand,” he said, his voice still husky. He held too much passion for life, for people, and it would only continue to hurt him. “I hesitate to ask, but would you be able to send that for me?”
“Of course. I shall take it with me now.”
As he gave her a name and location, Lydia made the mistake of meeting his gaze. It held her in place, a different kind of fire smoldering in the dark coals. What was he thinking? Or feeling? Did he…?
He couldn’t.
And neither could she.
Lydia forced herself to walk to the front of the building. The steel door latch helped her ground herself in reality. “That is your dinner there on the barrel. I forgot to give it to you.”
“Thank you.”
“And I found you a horse.”
“Oh.” Daniel cleared his throat “When can I have it?”
She needed to hurry him on his way before she grew any more attached, but his ankle was far from healed, and his cough seemed to be moving deeper into his chest. Not that she should concern herself with his health, but…
Lydia turned back to him, compelling everything but logic from her mind. She would stand nothing to gain if this man died of pneumonia before he could help her. He was her most valuable asset right now. “You will return to Colonel Marion?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?” That was all she needed to know, and she could be done with all this.
“That is a good question. After the loss near Allston’s plantation, he won’t make an attempt for Georgetown yet. He probably headed north.”
“Does he have a favorite place to camp? How will you locate him?” Give me that much, Daniel. Please, let this come to an end.
“There are places I can look, people I can ask. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him again.”
And yet that seemed quite impossible for her
. Lydia tried to think of another tactic. Maybe if she followed Daniel, he would lead her to Marion’s camp. “Give yourself a little more time to heal. One more day. I will have the horse for you tomorrow evening.”
She stepped out into sunlight and closed the door before Daniel could make a reply. She glanced to the narrow gap between the larger storehouses at the scarlet sentry Lieutenant Mathews had posted to guard Daniel. She was the only thing keeping the British from hauling him away to who knew what fate.
The letter to his family seared both her hand and her conscience.
15
“Where have you been?”
Lydia paused on the stairwell to glance down at Charles near the parlor door. “I have a letter to write before Miss Hilliard leaves.”
His blue eyes became thin slits. “Nothing to do with our last conversations, I trust.”
She gave a tight smile. For once she could answer honestly. “Of course not.”
“Good. Then come down and spend some time with our guests and your niece. I insist.”
“Must you?”
He stepped nearer and took hold of the banister. “I do not understand you, Lydia.” His words hissed with his breath, not quite a whisper. “You were so close to your sister. I know her passing has been difficult for you, as it has me, and this event, marking the day we lost her…” His voice thickened. “But do you not think she would have you love her daughter?”
No doubt, Margaret would have wanted that. But Lydia was not like her sister—not as strong. “I will come down in a little while, Charles. My head hurts, and as I said before, I have a letter to write before Miss Hilliard leaves.”
He shoved away from the banister. “Fine,” he boomed. “As you please. Heaven knows I have done what I can.”
Yes, you have. And she would not be controlled by him, despite his attempts to feed her guilt. She refused to be manipulated. Without honoring his outburst with a response, Lydia tugged her hem a little higher and hurried up the stairs into her bedchambers.
The Patriot and the Loyalist Page 10