“You’ll never guess what just happened to me.” She was incensed. As she recounted the recent events, he snickered and gave her a couple of sharp glances. When she finished, he sat and twiddled his thumbs for a moment, but she knew he was thinking.
“Well, I guess you’ll be safe enough there for one night, certainly more so than around here. That had me worried for a while, especially if somebody tried something. Now I want you to keep...”
Thomson walked back to them. “Need some ‘elp?”
“No, Mr. Thomson, thank you. I would ask a favor, though. The colonel wants me to stay at the house tonight for my protection. Could you see that Adam is fed and taken care of and stays where he’s supposed to? He’s rather like a small child about some things.”
“No problem in the world, m’um. No problem t’all. T’men around ‘ere’ll keep an eye on ‘im.”
“Thank you. I’ll sleep much easier for it.” She turned to gather up a few clothes, her knitting and a shawl. “I’m ready now. Adam, you stay right around here and do exactly what Mr. Thomson says, you hear?”
He nodded enthusiastically, and they turned to go.
**
Deborah put her few things away and went downstairs to the drawing room. A man sat in one of the brocade wing chairs near the roaring fireplace, a blanket covering his legs. His long face was rounded, the skin strangely smooth and unlined. Just from his appearance, she might have guesses him to be 35 or 40, but something her father had said made her place him around 50. If she guessed correctly, she was staring at Lord Charles Cornwallis, Second Earl Cornwallis, Commanding General of the British Army in the South, and a very sick man. His face was flushed with fever, his eyes glowed with an unhealthy brightness, and he looked like he was going to fall out of the chair at any moment. She hesitated in the doorway, thinking she’d rather not meet him, when he looked up and beckoned her into the drawing room.
Thomson bustled in carrying a tray with a cup of tea and some biscuits. “Ah brung yer tea, sir, but ye still should be a bed.”
The fingers of one hand lifted slowly off the arm of the chair in dismissal of the complaint. Cornwallis seemed to have to gather himself to speak. “Thomson, can you tell me what’s going on here?”
The soldier gently set the tea tray on the small tilt-top table next to the General’s chair. “Well, sir, Mistress Morgan, ‘ere, ‘as found ‘erself in our care and the Colonel decided she’d be...more comfortable in the main ‘ouse, ‘ere.”
The General dropped his chin and stared up at Thomson, as if waiting for something else. The soldier just shrugged, and his superior turned his attention to Deborah. “Well, young lady? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Deborah knew she ought to be frightened out of her wits. This was General Cornwallis, second in command only to General Clinton, and the man who was maneuvering his troops to destroy her father, her brothers, her fledgling country, and if he knew, her very self. She should be staring down her enemy...but all she saw was a very sick man.
“Not an awfully lot, General. Col. Tarleton detained my brother and myself and brought us here. Col. Marshall felt I would be safer here in the main house until we can leave tomorrow.”
“Humm, well, sit down. You may as well keep me company. I suppose I could do a lot worse than a pretty girl.”
“Begging your pardon, General, but you shouldn’t be keeping company with anything but your bed. If you will permit me?” She walked up beside his chair and held her hand to his forehead. Studying him, she said, “You are very hot. I’ll bet every bone in you body hurts, too.” He grunted. “You really should be in bed. This is probably the influenza. It’s not something to be trifled with, you know. People, even strong men, die from it.” He eyed her resentfully, but said nothing. She turned to Thomson who watched her, fascinated. “Is there any boneset or meadowsweet growing around here?”
“Huh?”
Obviously he had no knowledge of plants. “Are there any willow trees?” Maybe he would recognize that.
“Uh...yes, m’um. Over nears the stream.”
“Good. Get me a branch about six inches long and as big as your thumb, strip the bark off it, and boil it in about 2 cups of water.” She turned to Cornwallis. “This will help the fever and ease the aches, but I must insist you get into bed and try to sleep.” Thomas manfully tried to suppress a grin as he walked from the room. A strange bark erupted as he closed the door.
“Young lady...” Cornwallis began.
“Don’t ‘young lady’ me, General. Your job and mine are exactly opposite. I try to ease pain and suffering and keep people from dying. I do know what I’m talking about.”
He grimaced at what she left unsaid, but grunted. “Oh, all right. I’ve never been petticoat-lead, and I don’t intend to start now, but I’m certainly no use to anyone at this moment.” She nodded. “I’ll go up after I drink your tea. Here,” he gestured to the tea on the tray. “Why don’t you enjoy that? I’ll float away if I drink it, too.”
Deborah briefly debated the philosophical implications of a rebel drinking English tea with an English general and then reached for the cup. “Thank you.”
He pursed his mouth. “Do you always boss your elders around?”
“Only when they need it.” He laughed, and it came out as a cough. “My father...can be a truly abominable patient. Men, in general, are frequently like little boys when they get sick. They must be bullied unmercifully if they are to get better.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed what, sir?” Col. Marshall strode in the parlor. Deborah stiffened but couldn’t quite control the flash of awareness. Fortunately, she thought, the men looked at each other. She reached for the tea cup but had to set it and the saucer in her lap until she could control the slight tremor in her hands.
Cornwallis was talking, but she didn’t hear him. What was wrong with her? She’d never reacted this way to a man, and heaven forbid, a British soldier. She’d heard some of the girls back home talking about boys they were stepping out with, how they made them feel all wobbly and wiggly inside, but she’d dismissed it as part imagination, part braggadocio and part wistful thinking. And they were talking about young men they liked! But Col. Marshall...well it didn’t bear thinking of. The shiver that traced so deliciously up her spine must have been a draft from the window or a shaft of fear at his interruption or a spider crawling up her neck or...or...or. What ever it was, it was not...
“So you’ve been baiting the General, Miss Morgan. That’s very brave of you. There are any number of rebel troops who have tried that to their dismay.”
“I’m not a rebel soldier, Colonel. I’m a healer, and I was trying to convince the General to act sensibly under the circumstances.”
“And what might that be?” He leaned against the fireplace mantle and crossed his arms.
Who was baiting whom? “It must be obvious to the meanest intelligence that the General has the influenza. If he intends to get better, that means that he has to take care of himself for a few days, and that means to stay in bed.”
“If you can accomplish that, then you will have succeeded where his whole staff has failed.”
“I was just doing that!”
“Children, children, I will take to my bed, if nothing else, than to escape your bickering.”
“Please do that General. I for one will retire to my room. If you will excuse me?” Deborah nodded to the General and walked by Col. Marshall as if he were a piece of furniture.
**
There was little to be done about her clothes and precious little more to be done about her hair. Nevertheless, Deborah ordered her garments as best she could and brushed her hair. This was going to be difficult, she knew, and she didn’t even have the armor of the correct clothes for “dinner.” Her navy blue jacket closed in the front and flared gently over the light beige petticoat under it. An apricot colored kerchief wrapped around her shoulders. It was clean and neat, but she knew that she was not up to the usual
standards of a bunch of aristocratic British officers. Oh well, food was food and she was hungry.
The curved stair rail was smooth and cool under her hand. Voices drifted up the stairwell. Tarleton’s overrode the others. “...and I say we need to teach these bloody colonials a lesson they’ll never forget. We need to hit them so hard they’ll never dare raise their eyes, let alone their hands, to an Englishman.”
He was standing with his back to her as she came through the door, but Major Ferguson saw her and jumped to his feet. “Ban, I really think we need a new topic for discussion.” Everyone turned to follow his gaze. “We have a lovely lady present.” Col. Marshall rose, and General Cornwallis pulled at his lap rug, as if to follow suit.
He was still in its voluminous clutches when she hurried over and gently replaced it. “No, sir, we will take it as done that you have risen. If you must be out of bed for supper, then you will at least keep warm.”
“Young lady, you...”
“General, we may live in the Colonies, but we are Englishmen just like you and we respect manners just like our cousins across the ocean.” She didn’t look to see what effect her barb had on Tarleton. “However, even good manners must sometimes bow to good sense.” Cornwallis again gave in to her wishes.
Ferguson grinned. “Ah, sir, you’ve been bested by a colonial lass. What will General Clinton say to that?”
She smiled at his Scots brogue that his English schooling couldn’t quite overcome. “The General will undoubtedly say that he is exhibiting a superb command of tactics to know when to retreat and regroup his strength.”
Turning back to Cornwallis, she readjusted a corner of the blanket to her satisfaction. “How are you feeling?”
“Humph!” he snorted and then conceded, “I’m doing better, thank you. Your tea seemed to help. I actually slept after you went to your room.”
She lightly touched his forehead and the side of his face. He was still warm, but less so than before. “Early to bed with some more willow bark tea, I think.”
He grunted, but didn’t contradict her.
Tarleton sidled up in back of her elbow. “Are you to be our new camp surgeon? I might even consider getting sick myself if you’d minister to me.”
Startled, she jumped away. His smile didn’t inspire any confidence in her and the fumes on his breath suggested that he had already formed a deep friendship with a certain bottle this evening. And his remark about being the British camp surgeon almost made her gag.
Cornwallis frowned. “Ban, I think...”
A throat cleared in back of them. She turned to see a smallish, black man in livery standing stiffly in the doorway. “Madam, gentlemen, dinner.” His hand swept into the dining room behind him. Obediently, they all turned to go. Tarleton ostentatiously offered his elbow, but Cornwallis pushed himself up off the chair, saying, “I believe that the honor is mine.”
There was no polite way to refuse, so Deborah proceeded into dinner on the arm of the most aggressive general in the British Army, the flower of the British aristocracy, and her father’s bitterest enemy.
**
Dinner was a strained affair from the very beginning. She was seated at one end of the large table to the right of Lord Cornwallis, who took the head of the table. Col. Tarleton sat next to her, Col. Marshall across the table and Major Ferguson next to him. Others ranged further down the table. Deborah knew it was going to be difficult from the moment Tarleton slid his chair into the table to the left of its original position. He was close enough to brush elbows. And his wine glass was never empty for more than a second.
While the other men quietly discussed minor camp problems, he tried to engage her in conversation. During the soup, he tried gallantry. During the fish, he tried bravado. During the roast fowl, he tried imaginary injuries requiring her immediate medical attention. She refused to rise to his conversational gambits and paid strict attention to her meal. Finally he reached across her shoulders and tried to whisper in her ear. She never heard what the topic was because she jerked away from him.
The movement caught Cornwallis’s eye. He was half way through his second glass of wine. “Col. Tarleton, what are you doing?”
Tarleton looked up at his superior, but his head wouldn’t remain still for him to focus his eyes. “Wha...What do you think I’m doing? I’m tryin’ to talk her into bed with me.”
Cornwallis’s smooth-skinned face took on a set of wrinkles. “Mr. Tarleton! I will not tolerate that type of talk at the table with or without a lady present, but the presence of a lady...” he stressed the word, “makes it doubly offensive. Please retire immediately.”
Grumbling under his breath, Tarleton heaved himself up and braced himself on the table before he could stand upright on his own. Deborah refused to watch his exit, but the gentlemen had no such compunctions.
“Can’t help but not like the guy,” Marshall muttered.
“Ay,” Ferguson replied, “but remember that you have to work with him on the morrow.”
She listened with half an ear to Marshall’s distaste of Tarleton’s battle tactics. What had piqued her attention was the Butcher’s implication that she was going to serve the British army in a professional capacity. She had offered help to a British soldier. He was getting over his influenza with her help. He would be better able to fight her family because of her help. What had she done? She had given aid to the enemy! Yes, she had, and it was treasonous, at least in her mind. The self-condemnation roiled through her thoughts. The implications of her actions hammered at her patriotism and turned it all to naught.
She was quiet, and the men forgot she was there. The topic turned back to the one they had been discussing before she came down the stairs. Names and words intruded on her recriminations: André... West Point...Arnold...hanging.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, what happened?”
“This is not really suitable for ladies, ma’am,” Ferguson temporized.
“This entire war is not suitable for ladies or children or gentlemen, but they are all involved. Now kindly tell me what has happened.”
Marshall leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. After studying her for a moment, he said, “We just received word that your General Benedict Arnold has very wisely renounced his treason and returned to the British fold. Unfortunately, Major John André, who assisted him in the attempt to turn over West Point, was captured and hung by the rebels. Now, did you really want to hear that?”
Her eyes had closed during his brief summary. General Arnold had been one of Washington’s foremost officers. His disowning the cause would hurt them greatly. “No, I did not, but I’ve found that one can rarely hide from the truth.”
“André was a good man, and he did not deserve what they did to him.”
“I don’t like to see anyone die, especially like that, but I gather, from what you said, that he was a spy.”
“He was an officer and hanging is a dishonorable way to die.”
“Didn’t your people hang Nathan Hale for much the same thing?”
“Are you, by chance, a rebel sympathizer, Mistress Morgan?”
“I am simply trying to be even-handed.”
Ferguson looked thoughtfully at her, but said nothing. Cornwallis stretched. “Come, come, Kit, we don’t need to be tossing accusations of that nature at the dinner table. After all, you make it so easy for someone to argue with you.”
“Ferguson, I assume that preparations for your mission north are coming along?”
Kit listened to the discussion, but his attention was on the lovely possible-rebel across from him. Ban was right, damn him, she was a beauty. The battle light in her eyes when she argued with him only accentuated it.
After the deliciously frantic week he had spent with Claudia, he should be thoroughly sated. His body shouldn’t be acting like this. He was grateful he was sitting down. With an effort of will, he tamed his thoughts and, to a lesser extent, his body and rejoined the discussion.
“Are you
still sure the rebels are up near Shelby and Kings Mountain?” he asked Cornwallis.
“As sure as we can be. The latest reports still tell of a large number of men gathering there. They are mostly rabble from the hills. They shouldn’t be much of a problem. When Patrick finishes with them, he can take his troops over to Winnsboro. By then, Tarleton should already be there with his men. I’ll wait here with you, Kit, until I’m back on my feet, and then take the last bunch over there myself. Kit, are you sure we’re leaving you enough horses? After all, you’ll have almost a third of the men here?”
“I’ll be fine. If I need anything else, I’ll requisition it from the people here.”
“Patrick, I’m still not completely sure that you shouldn’t take the main body of men over to Winnsboro. You’re much better at handling the men than Tarleton is.”
“Thank you, sir, but I’d really like this turn on a mission. Ban had his last with the Waxhaw engagement. We agreed I’d go this time.”
“Sir, Bulldog will do fine, and Ban knows that if he messes up something as simple as establishing a winter camp, you’ll have his head on the table.”
Deborah listened and ate quietly. It was almost as if they had forgotten she was there. After almost being accused of being a rebel sympathizer, here they were talking of troop movements in front of her! She could barely contain her excitement. This information had to get back to her father and General Greene. She wanted to jump up from the table and head for Charlotte immediately. The urge nearly had her popping out of her chair. Control yourself, twit, or they’ll figure out that you’re listening to them. She dropped her gaze to her plate and concentrated on sitting quietly. And listening.
They were talking about supply lines when Cornwallis suddenly called for some of the willow bark tea. “Gentlemen, I think I am going to find my bed. With the help of Miss Morgan, I may feel better on the morrow.” She nodded graciously. “You have been so helpful, my dear, that we just might keep you around. I do regret, though, that we have been such dull company for such a lovely lady.”
“Your hospitality has been most welcomed, sir. My brother and I will be leaving in the morning, but I was delighted to be of help.” She rose from her chair and every man at the table stood.
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