Lieutenant Mathews jerked from one of the veranda’s chairs.
“Miss Reynolds.” He folded a letter he had been reading and inclined in a brisk bow.
“Is something the matter, Lieutenant?”
“No…” He sighed, his gaze following hers to the letter. “It is from my wife. She is unwell.”
“I am sorry to hear it.” But she was more surprised to learn that the man was married, though she did not know why. In his forties, there was no reason the war had kept him from matrimony.
“Her mother is there to help her, but with five children to mind and only room for them to play out of doors…” Mathews folded the letter into a pocket of his uniform. “My apologies, Miss Reynolds, it is hard to be so far away from my family. But I see your carriage is waiting.”
“Yes.” All she could think about right now was meeting Daniel. “I do hope Mrs. Mathews feels better soon.”
At the Hilliard’s, Ester greeted her with surprise. “I did not expect a visit today, Lydia. Is all well?” She seemed apprehensive as she glanced behind her to the closed parlor door.
“Of course. Am I interrupting something?”
“No. Not at all.” Still, she did not move to invite her in.
Lydia decided to ignore her behavior. Her own was peculiar enough. “I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Help you? What’s happened?”
Instead of acknowledging Ester’s question, Lydia stepped past her into the house. “Please, if anyone follows me here, you must tell them I felt unwell and laid down upstairs.”
“Are you unwell?”
She was, but shook her head. “I need to borrow a cloak. An old one, preferably. Something a little tattered. Perhaps your servants have one suitable.” She glanced around. “Where are your servants?” It was unusual for Ester to answer the door.
She waved away Lydia’s question. “Never mind that.” Ester grabbed Lydia’s arm and pressed a hand to her brow. “You do feel very warm. And moist. You’re perspiring. Are you feverish?”
“No.” At least she hoped not. “Please, Ester. Find me the cloak. I must leave forthwith. My carriage shall remain outside.”
Her friend glanced back at the parlor. “Perhaps it would be best if I summon Charles for you. You worry me, Lydia.”
The parlor. The closed door. Ester’s striking gown. “He is here?”
“I was not to say anything.” Ester spoke quickly but kept her voice hushed. “Not yet. I am so sorry. I did not want to keep it from you. You are my friend, but—”
“It no longer matters.” Lydia pulled her toward the back of the house. “Do not tell Charles I was here and my mouth shall remain closed on the matter.”
“All right. I will find you a cloak.”
Ester was only gone for a moment before returning with the requested garment.
The exchange was made, and Lydia hurried out the door at the back. She ducked through a hedge of trees and then started north, walking a moderate pace as to not draw attention. One block. Two. Each grated her nerves—Daniel waited in the opposite direction. But she took her time, making a wide circle, watchful for any sign of someone following.
The day was warm and the old cloak overheated her by the time she reached the door of the small storehouse. Still locked. She scanned the immediate area, but there was no sign of Daniel. Had she misunderstood his note? Or maybe her journey across town and back had taken too long and he had already departed.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside…to emptiness. Her feet seemed the weight of kegs of powder as she walked to the center of the barren storehouse. Nothing remained but the scent of molasses and wheat still clinging to the musty air. She pushed the cloak away from her arms and pulled at the ties binding around her throat. Perspiration gathered at the back of her neck. When had Charles emptied the storehouse?
The room darkened, the sunlight blocked as a form filled the doorway. “You did understand my letter.”
Lydia spun. Daniel. She blinked back a sudden wave of emotion at seeing him standing there. “Yes. I was afraid it took me too long to come and you’d already left.”
“No. Just waiting, watching, making sure you’d come alone.” He stepped in and closed the door, plunging them into darkness.
Her breath hitched. “Of course. That’s why it took me so long. I wanted to be certain Major Layton did not have me followed.”
“Is that what happened last time?” He took the lamp from the wall and lit it. The flame flickered as he adjusted the wick, lighting the angles of his face.
For a moment she forgot his question.
He returned the lamp to its hook and took a step nearer. “Did the soldiers follow you to the grove? Does the major suspect you? If it’s no longer safe for you here, maybe—”
“I am safe enough,” she answered quickly. For now. Either way, she didn’t want to lie to him anymore. All the ones she’d already told formed a tangled net waiting to ensnare her. “Major Layton suspects, but he won’t try anything. Not with the position my sister’s husband holds in this community, and in the good graces of the British Army.”
Daniel’s hand brushed her sleeve and then dropped back to his side. He glanced down. “But what will happen if Mr. Selby loses those good graces?”
He knew about Charles? Maybe it shouldn’t surprise her that much. Charles would have had to be working with someone to make arrangements with the Continental Navy. But how much did Daniel know? Had he spoken to Charles in person? Would Charles have said anything about her arrangement with Major Layton? No. Daniel wouldn’t have come if he suspected her of trying to use him for information or betraying him to the King’s men.
“I’m sorry.” Daniel’s hand again returned to her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” His gaze swooped to her mouth, and Lydia was helpless as he moved nearer and cupped her other shoulder. He looked into her eyes and grinned. His dark eyes asked a question.
No! Kissing him again would not help her let him go, as she must. She needed to tell him to leave South Carolina and go home to his sisters and his parents. She should be the one to explain what she’d done to him, and where her true loyalties had lain. But instead she nodded.
Daniel’s lips sank against hers, smoothing over them as he drew her in. It was as though she stood in a thunderstorm and lightning danced in the sky around her, sending a charge through her. Lydia slid her hands to his face and the bristly stubble on his jaw line. Strange she couldn’t feel it against her face. Or maybe she just wasn’t paying enough attention. Otherwise she might have heard the hooves thundering toward them, halting along the road beside the storehouse.
Daniel broke away, eyes wide. “I trusted you.”
26
A single exit and nowhere to hide. Nowhere the soldiers wouldn’t find him. Lydia must have led them directly here. How else would they have located him? Daniel palmed his pistol. He’d left his sword with his horse in the nearby grove and a single shot would do him little good against the group gathered. Their horses snorted for breath, winded.
Lydia’s fingers closed around his arm. “They must have followed me. I swear I did not lead them here.”
“Quiet.” Daniel moved to the door and laid his ear against the warm wood. No one had rushed the building yet. And from the murmur of voices, it sounded as though the horses weren’t the only ones out of breath.
Lydia’s arm brushed his, and he glanced at her and the fear in her eyes. It seemed he’d spoken too soon. Her mouth opened to speak, but he shook his head and reached for the latch. It wasn’t as though he could keep them out if they set their minds on getting in.
He eased the door open a crack. Green woolen coats. Not the local guard. Not Major Layton and his men. Daniel’s head still pounded with his heart, but some of the tension left him. The Queen’s Rangers. And not even Tarleton’s Dragoons. It appeared to be a new bunch. Twenty of them, or thereabouts. And it didn’t look as though they’d made it to Georgetown unscathed.
“Whether dead or alive, we cannot leave Cornet Merritt out there, and no doubt the rebels have withdrawn as well.”
None of the men looked anxious to go, but all remounted. Several reloaded pistols as they rode away.
“Thank Thee, God,” Lydia said with a released gust of breath.
Daniel pressed the door closed. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes clouded and she stepped away. “You owe me no apology. It is difficult to know who to trust.”
“Yes, but…” He took up her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. “You have never given me a reason not to trust you.” Daniel searched her eyes, and then tipped his forehead to hers. He let the remainder of the tension bleed from his shoulders and arms. “I can be a fool at times. Most times.”
Lydia’s grip on his hand tightened. “You are hardly a fool, Daniel Reid.” She planted a quick kiss to his cheek, and then pulled away.
He didn’t let her. Instead he hauled her back into his arms and gave her the kiss he’d been dreaming about. When he finally released her, she wouldn’t meet his gaze, and he fought the reflex to apologize. Not this time. He wasn’t at all sorry for kissing her.
“Daniel…there is something I need to tell you.”
The hesitance sharpened his fear. Something was wrong and it would tear her from him. “Is there someone else you care for more?” He could remember too easily the burning sensation of seeing Rachel in Captain Wyndham’s arms. Daniel refused to react this time. He would simply walk away.
She shook her head. “No one.” But she continued to study the dirt floor.
“Then you do love me?”
Her mouth opened…and remained open, not a word emerging.
“All I want is the truth, Lydia.” No more false hopes. And he would start by being truthful to her. “I know we haven’t been acquainted so very long, and the circumstances have been...unusual. But I have found it hard to think of anything else since I met you. Maybe at the beginning it was because you were like a piece of home, a memory of my family. You are so much more now. I…” Love came to mind and clung there. “I want to go home, back to the Mohawk Valley, but—”
“I think that is for the best.”
“What?”
Lydia pressed her hands to her abdomen. “I do not think you should come back to Georgetown. That is what I came here to tell you. I—I do not want you to try to contact me again.”
Daniel stared at her. You can’t mean this. For him to leave. And never look back? His lungs hurt as though he’d come off a horse and fallen flat on his back. More winded than any of the Rangers’ horses had been.
“I must go.” She brushed past him, but paused at the door.
He waited. What more would she say? Retract what she’d said about him not being a fool? Explain why he wasn’t to return?
But nothing was said.
After a moment, Lydia stepped out of the building.
He followed.
She closed the door and locked it.
Daniel took several steps and stared out over the river, an island nestled in the center. The same one that had given him a rest from the current a week earlier. A different current swept at him now. Hurt, frustration, anger. Why had she let him kiss her—kissed him in return—if she felt nothing and wanted nothing to do with him?
He wasn’t being fair. Rachel’s rejection still clouded his judgment. Lydia must have felt something. He’d seen it in her eyes and felt it on her lips. Maybe she was only concerned for him with the British breathing down his neck. Or perhaps she feared going against her family. Mr. Selby had made the secrecy of his loyalties clear. She probably didn’t know that he was also a Patriot, but maybe if she did…
Daniel turned. He couldn’t walk away yet. “Give me a reason. Tell me why you want me gone.”
~*~
Lydia leaned against the locked door, bracing herself. Daniel desired the truth. The whole truth. More than she could give him. He would hate her. “You do not belong here,” she told him. “South Carolina is not your home and this is not your battleground. Go back to your family. I am sure they love you, just as you love them.”
Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “I plan on going home. I guess what I should have asked, is why you won’t come with me?”
With him? Her chest seemed to expand on its own, as did her heart. She hadn’t considered leaving with him as an option. How could she? Everything he believed of her was a lie. She had used him and endangered him. And if she went with him, she would have to open her heart even more, letting him in wholly. Lydia wasn’t sure she could do that. If she loved him any more than she already did and something happened to him… Lydia blinked, first in realization, and second to clear her blurred vision. She loved him. And she would lose him just as she’d lost everyone else. Better now, on her own terms, than later when he saturated her very existence. “I cannot go with you.”
“But you still haven’t told me why. Is it because of your family, your brother-in-law? You needn’t worry about him any longer. He’s a Patriot. And now he’s to be married, I don’t believe he would stand in your way.”
Every muscle in Lydia’s body tensed. “How do you know so much about Charles?”
“I met him a week ago.” Daniel’s eyes narrowed slightly, probably trying to understand her reaction.
She was helpless to subdue it. Perhaps Charles hadn’t mentioned her yet, but it was only a matter of time before he revealed her collaboration with Major Layton. Unless she convinced Daniel to leave South Carolina. The only way to make sure he left immediately was if she went with him…and lived a lie. He would never need to know. But oh, what a tangled mess. Her reasons for not going paled in comparison to keeping him, and her secret, safe. “Tomorrow night.”
Daniel looked confused. “What?”
“I will leave with you tomorrow night.” That would give her today, Christmas Day, to prepare. “Meet me here on the twenty-sixth, and I will go with you.”
A grin broke across his face. “When you say you’ll go with me, you mean to New England, to the Mohawk Valley, my home, as my wife?”
“Yes.” That single word ricocheted through her, ringing with a strange sort of keenness. Excitement, even. A new life. Not the freedom she had been convinced she’d wanted, but perhaps this is what God had planned for her when He’d first brought Daniel Reid into her life. She had to learn to trust Him with her heart—and find refuge.
27
Lydia took a direct route home and stashed away the old cloak in a closet near the kitchen before moving to the front of the house. Her heart raced. She was finally leaving this place and the memories that made her want to weep. But instead of burying herself in an English cottage, she would build new memories. Oh, please let them be happy. Most importantly, she would take control and keep Daniel safe. First, she had goodbyes to say. Through the house toward the stair leading to the second floor, the nursery and the babbling of a young child beckoned.
“How sure are you of this?”
Lydia skidded to a stop and withdrew a step.
The voice was lowered, but recognizable as Major Layton’s. Someone stood just inside Charles’s office, door slightly ajar.
“Completely sure,” a second man rasped. “Might have hesitated if I weren’t. Isn’t it peculiar Mr. Selby traded out captains handpicked by Mr. Reynolds when he was alive? Well, Selby’s handpicked his own, I reckon. Rebels the both of them.” He harrumphed. “The Americus wasn’t lost to the Continentals. She was handed over on a platter.”
Legs of a chair squawked against the floor, and Lydia drew out of sight of the door. She strained to hear what was said.
A rapping on the top of the desk suggested the Major’s knuckles or an object he held. “But is there any proof?”
Curses spewed from the man’s mouth and the crack in the door. “Selby’s not a fool. Been covering his tracks well.
But I’ve overheard Captain Hues and him speaking when they thought none were about. I swear it’s the truth.”
“Fine, then.”
Footsteps approached the door, and Lydia slipped into the parlor, closing the door enough to conceal herself.
Major Layton’s hushed mumble accompanied the two men into the hall. “Speak of this to no one. I will see to this matter myself. Immediately.”
Lydia hugged herself. She had to somehow warn Charles before the major slapped him in irons and shipped him to England with the other prisoners. Margaret was gone, but he was still her family. As was Little Maggie. She couldn’t allow that precious child to lose her father too. But what could she do?
Major Layton would probably have Charles arrested as soon as he stepped through those front doors. If he made it that far. There had to be a way to provide him more time.
Shoulders squared, Lydia crossed the room to the pianoforte and seated herself. Raw fear filled her, but her fingers, stiff from a year of neglecting the instrument, still managed to move across the keys and create a merry tune. Maybe if she lost herself in the music enough, she could manage to play one last charade. As she finished the song, clapping resounded off the high ceiling.
“Well played, Miss Reynolds. I had not realized you were so accomplished.” Major Layton moved deeper into the room. “Is there an occasion?”
“Yes.” She laid her hands on her lap. God, help me be convincing. Give me the words to save the ones I care for. Her focus steadfast on Major Layton’s, she let go of all emotion. She’d had enough practice. “I’m ready to make one last bargain with you. I know you were suspicious of the message I received this morning and your instincts were correct. It was indeed from Sergeant Reid. He asked to meet with me and I received some most interesting information about the rebel’s movements in the area and a certain man of our acquaintance who…” She compelled her mouth to relax as she smiled at him. “But I shall come to that in a minute. First, you shall do me a favor.”
The Patriot and the Loyalist Page 18