by Cat Lindler
General Guy Carleton took command of the British army in America on March twenty-sixth. Everyone knew the general’s only task was to round up the remnants of his army and retreat to England. Yet no one voiced it aloud, as though to do so would tempt fate. On July eleventh, the British evacuated Savannah, Georgia.
Marion continued to patrol the area east of the Cooper River. After a brief skirmish, he sat down with Micajah Ganey, a notorious Tory raider, and hammered out a treaty allowing the Tories to return to the fold as Americans with all their rights intact. Five hundred of Ganey’s followers laid down their arms and accepted the terms.
Major Ford returned to South Carolina in July by catching a ride on a British supply ship into Charles Town. His business in London had turned out satisfactorily. He rode out with a light heart and caught up with the Swamp Fox at Fair Lawn near Wadboo. Fair Lawn contained a large manor house with wings of slave quarters on either side. Cedars grew along the long drive, their dark, needled branches dragging the ground. The buildings were strong, the cover exceptional, and Marion saw it as the perfect place to quarter his men.
Marion welcomed Ford with a hearty slap on the back and questioned him about his trip. In particular, he asked about the mood in London.
“At the routs and balls, the gentry seem relieved the war is nearly over,” Ford replied. “'Tis been a burden on their purses and a pain in their backsides. They will not mourn our loss.”
Ford resumed his duties, patrolling with Marion and on the lookout for stray British patrols or overzealous Tories and partisans who burned with the desire to exact revenge on their neighbors. And on the morning of August twenty-ninth, the British attacked Fair Lawn.
Major Thomas Fraser came across the Cooper River with a hundred dragoons and surprised the rebel pickets at Biggin Bridge and Strawberry Ferry. Marion immediately sent out a small reconnaissance patrol under Major Ford. When the two groups ran into each other in the woods, Fraser charged, driving Ford and his men back to Fair Lawn.
Ford let his men fly by him and hung back at the entrance to the lane to protect the retreat. The dragoon on his heels darted forward, drew his sword, and tried to cut him down. Ford whipped out his pistol and shot the dragoon off his horse. A cheer arose from Marion’s men, concealed in the cedar branches along the drive.
The British gaped at the cedars, then charged. The American marksmen fired, taking down twenty men and five mounts. The shots spooked the horses hitched to Marion’s ammunition wagon. They bolted. When five Americans ran out and pursued the wagon, Fraser’s men drove them back, and the ammunition was lost. Out of powder and shot, a situation with which Marion had a great deal of experience, he ordered his men to retreat to the Santee.
They had no way of knowing the action at Fair Lawn was to be their last battle. Marion commanded the brigade until the end of the war but never again engaged in combat.
Indian summer came softly in September, and Marion’s Brigade continued to roam the countryside, keeping the peace. Formal peace negotiations began in Paris, France, at the end of the month.
Brendan’s children celebrated their first birthday at Willowbend. Lancelot pulled himself up to his feet, his little hand clutching a table in the parlor. He was walking within a week. At the end of the next month, around the time of the signing of the preliminary treaty recognizing American independence, Guinevere took her first steps.
Two weeks later, six years and six months after the British attack on Fort Moultrie, General Leslie and his British troops prepared to evacuate Charles Town. A British fleet had arrived in the harbor earlier, not to bring in more troops but to take them away. Leslie promised to spare the town if the Americans allowed them to leave in peace. A cannon fired in the early morning light, and the British abandoned their positions. The Continental army, under Anthony Wayne, moved in soon after.
Before the British departure, the state’s new civil authorities issued an order that prohibited partisan militias from joining the triumphal patriot reentry into Charles Town. They feared the ragged, undisciplined partisans might cause trouble by fighting with the embarking British troops. William Moultrie, being exchanged as a prisoner of war that day, wrote in his journal:
The American regular army entered in triumph; but our poor partisans were thought too irregular, too ragged of raiment to share this triumph! They were not too ragged to fight, only too ragged for show. ‘Twas the most ungenerous and ungrateful exclusion from the scene of the very men to whom the best part of the grand result was due!
Marion had returned to Fair Lawn on the Wadboo when he received word barring his men from the celebratory march into Charles Town. Hurt and angered by the snub, for his men’s sake, not his own, he summoned the brigade to muster for the final time. He thanked them for their service, for the good fight they had given the redcoats. He praised their gallantry, courage, and patriotism and wished them happiness and prosperity. Then simply and quietly, he disbanded the brigade and said good-bye.
But before leaving, Marion met once more with Brendan Ford. The two men shook hands and embraced. When the Swamp Fox mentioned it was time for Ford to visit Willowbend, the major replied, “I have one more task I’m obliged to complete before I ride that way.”
Marion sighed and shook his head, believing Major Ford was the blindest, most thickheaded fool he’d ever met—other than himself, of course. Then he mounted Ball and rode off to his ruined plantation of Pond Bluff to pick up the pieces of his life.
Ford swung up onto Dancer and made his way to Charles Town, which lay closer to Fair Lawn than Georgetown. Once there, he loaded his horse onto an American trading ship and sailed to Norfolk, Virginia, where he deposited the letters of credit from his bank in London. He penned missives to horse breeders in England, whose acquaintance he had made, and sent for his new breeding stock. Then he rode up the James River toward home to rebuild his house and stables.
His construction encountered difficulties when the coldest winter in memory descended on the James River farms. Ice storms and deep snow hindered progress. Ford heard from a traveling peddler in February that Britain had announced the end of hostilities with America. Winter released its grip on the Virginia countryside in April, and his horses arrived with news that the American Congress had ratified a preliminary peace treaty.
Ford threw his workers into a frenzy of activity, desperate to finish the building and return to South Carolina. Heavy spring rains and flooding frustrated his intentions. The wagons carrying timber for the barns and fences mired down in ruts and a sea of mud. A fierce summer storm brought freakish lightning that set fire to the newly built stables, and he nearly lost everything again.
On September third, 1783, eight days prior to his children’s second birthday, Ford boarded a ship at Norfolk to sail once again for Charles Town. That significant day also marked the signing of the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the war.
“Come here, you little imp!” Willa sprinted after Lancelot, who charged through the house, his face and hands painted with birthday cake. His gleeful shriek sent Killer and Sweetie running for cover. Maids and footmen hid behind doors and crouched beneath tables. Lancelot sped onward, smearing cake and cream frosting on brocade draperies and mahogany antiques in his slipstream.
The knocker on the front door pounded over the chaos. Richard failed to locate Quinn in the vicinity and walked over to swing open the door. His eyes opened wide, then he doubled over in laughter at the most amazing creature standing on the porch.
The man wore powder-blue satin with crimson roses embroidered on his knee-britches and the sleeves of his coat. Bilious-green stockings encased his legs, which ended in white velvet shoes with ruby buckles and two-inch heels. His violet waistcoat sported rows of Venetian lace. The same lace covered his hands to his fingertips and swathed his neck to his ears. A wide-brimmed cavalier’s hat with a sweeping egret feather cascading over the front and tickling the man’s nose was the yellow of a summer sun. A fiery red wig of corkscrew curls peeked
out from under the hat and grazed the man’s shoulders.
Richard could not quell his laughter long enough to catch his breath. He heaved and hiccupped, finally straightening to catch the man’s eyes. They gleamed with the clear, sharp gray of steel. A heavy layer of paint, powder, and at least a half-dozen beauty patches of all shapes covered the remainder of the face. Control over his laughter slipped again, and Richard bit his lip to hold it back.
“May I help you?” he choked out.
The man drew a lacy handkerchief from his pocket and lifted it to his nose, sniffing loudly. He searched through a pearl-beaded purse hanging at his waist, pulled out a card, and passed it to Richard. “Kindly inform Miss Wilhelmina Bellingham that I have come to call.”
Shrieks, laughter, and shouts came from the back of the house, causing the man to scowl and crease the thick powder on his high brow. Richard glanced down at the card: Brendan Edward Sinclair, Baron Montford.
Richard stifled a cry. “I shall see if she is receiving,” he said and closed the door. Pocketing the card with a grin, he strode off to find Willa.
A frown tightened the line of Ford’s mouth when Richard slammed the door in his face, leaving him standing on the doorstep like a messenger boy. Richard had recognized him. Perhaps not at first, when he all but suffered apoplexy laughing, but afterward.
Then it struck him. What was Richard doing at Willowbend? Had he come too late? Had Willa married Richard Richardson? Why he was naught more than a pup. What could she possibly see in him? And had she not trusted him to come back for her? After what they shared?
He settled his lace-covered, bejeweled hands on his hips as his satin-encased body shook. And what was all that noise he heard? Was Willa entertaining? The notion that she could merrily carry on without him soured his disposition even more.
“You have a visitor,” Richard said when he came across Willa in the kitchen. She and Jwana had cornered Lancelot and were wiping his hands and face with a wet cloth while he screamed his indignation and squirmed like a trapped raccoon.
Willa lifted her face. “Inform them I am indisposed, Richard. ‘Tis the twins’ birthday, and I have my hands full, as you can plainly see.”
Richard cleared his throat, drawing a curious glance from her. “'Tis rather important, Willa,” he said as he schooled his features. “Here, I shall corral Lancelot while you tend to business.” He reached out a hand.
She passed the child to him. “Better you than me,” she said and flipped her hair back over one shoulder. The pins had vanished hours ago. Tangled tresses now streamed down her back in a chestnut brown waterfall. “Lancelot is being extremely difficult today.”
“Am not!” Lancelot’s square face screwed up into a pout.
Willa squatted down to meet his stormy gray eyes. “You are, young man,” she said. “And your sister is nearly as naughty as you.”
“Gwenny!” he chortled at the mention of his sister. Delight transformed his features. He broke away from Richard and zoomed out of the kitchen.
Richard shrugged, and Willa expelled a heavy sigh. She wiped her hands on the cloth dangling from Jwana’s hand and tried to smooth down her hair, but it was a hopeless mess. A streak of pink frosting arched across her cheek to end in a blob on her nose. When Jwana reached for it with the cloth, Willa had already turned to walk out of the kitchen and down the hall.
“For pity’s sake, this had better be important,” she mumbled as she made her way to the door. “I cannot be bothered today with every peddler or estate child with a skinned knee.” She took one last tug at her skirt, frowning at the cake and punch stains, and flung open the door.
“Please forg—” Willa stilled like a rabbit under a hunter’s gun.
By the time Willa opened the door, Ford’s scowl was dark enough to blot out the hot autumn sun.
Then time slowed to the pace of a tortoise.
Ford’s frown faded, chased away by wonder. In front of him stood a Willa he’d never seen before. The boyish figure had ripened into womanly curves. Her hair, wild and curling past her shoulders, was a riot of autumn leaves. Color heightened the features of her face, and a new maturity firmed her mouth and sharpened her cheekbones.
Ford swallowed, hard, as his body reacted with a familiar tightening. Willa continued to stand there, stock-still. For a moment he feared she would swoon. He should have warned her, sent around his card first. Not likely. Then she might have refused to see him. Occupying her doorstep, he could, at the very least, shove a high-heeled foot in the door should she attempt to close it in his face as Richard had done.
Ford mentally shook himself and swept off his hat in a bow. Still Willa remained as silent and motionless as the old lightning-blasted sweet gum.
“Miss Bellingham,” he began, speaking through his nose in the affected tone he had adopted as the foppish Lord Montford. “I have come to settle some unfinished business.” He arched his brows, extracted his monocle from his waistcoat pocket, and peered through it. She remained unaffected.
He cleared his throat. “Well, as to that business …” Removing a sheet of parchment from his pocket, he made a production of unfolding it and holding it up for her inspection. She shifted her eyes to it. That small movement lent him courage. “As you can evidently see, I hold here a contract of betrothal, duly signed and dated by Gerald Sinclair, Baron Montford, and George Bellingham, the Earl of Westchester.” He flipped the paper around and began to read from it: “Inasmuch as the parties have conceded to the betrothal of—”
“Cease!”
Ford looked up with raised brows as Willa came out of her coma, and fury infused her face. He waved his hand in a languid motion. “No need to shout, my dear. Please forgive me for presuming you’d not read the document. Of course you have. And I come to honor the contract. We must set a date. The banns can be called—”
“What in bloody hell are you talking about?” He donned an expression of innocent affront. “I beg your pardon? Did you not wish to honor this contract and marry Baron Montford?”
She panted, her face as red as his wig. “Were he the last live man in Carolina, I would not marry Baron Montford.”
His lips canted into a smile, which froze on his face, and he suddenly went as still as Willa had been a few moments ago. A small boy had crept up behind her and peeked around her skirt. A devilish grin sat on the boy’s mouth and lit his gray eyes. Ford remained motionless, his gaze riveted on the boy, and his smile curved downward to form a frown. He crossed his arms over his chest.
A small hand tugged on Willa’s skirt. When she glanced to the side, her face grew pale. She made a grab for the boy, but he eluded her grasp. Strutting up to Ford, he braced his short legs apart, in imitation of his father, and folded his small arms over his stocky chest.
The boy’s eyes, a deeper shade than Ford’s, impertinently moved up and down the tall figure. He giggled and turned his dark head toward Willa. “Funny man,” he said.
“To be sure, Sir Lancelot,” she answered very quietly. “He is quite the funny man, is he not?” She looked up, and Ford melted at the tenderness in the chocolate depths of her eyes.
Ford tore his gaze from his beloved’s face and squatted down on his heels. Sweeping the ridiculous hat from his head, he handed it to his son, whom he now knew as Lancelot. “Here,” he said softly. “Now you can be as funny as me.”
Lancelot plopped it on his head and laughed when it drooped down over his eyes. “Funny!” He spun about on a heel. “Gwenny, come look!” he yelled. “Lance funny now!”
Willa groaned, and Ford lifted a quizzical brow at her.
A small girl, her face and brunette braids smeared with cake and frosting, burst from the parlor like a whirlwind. She had Ford’s nose and mouth and pewter-gray eyes. Running up to Lancelot, she laughed and tugged down on the hat until the boy reeled around blind, bumping into Ford and Willa and the furniture in the foyer. When a vase of flowers rocked and nearly fell to the floor, Willa snatched off the hat and held it up
in the air. Both children whined.
Emma Richardson rushed out from the parlor and slid to a stop. Her mouth dropped opened when she saw Ford. “Beg pardon,” she whispered with a gulp and grabbed the children’s hands, leading them off as they struggled, and back into the parlor.
Ford slowly stood and stretched to his full height. “Lancelot and Guinevere?” he said with a list of his head.
Willa held out the hat and raised her chin. Her eyes simmered with hurt.
Pain as heavy as a cannonball settled on his chest. “I didn’t know, Willa,” he said. “I’m sorry. I swear to God, I did not know.”
She stared at him, the wounded expression on her face bleeding into his soul. Reaching out, she began to close the door.
He stopped its progress with a stiff arm. “Had I known, I would have come immediately and camped on your doorstep until you consented to see me.” Would she say nothing to him? By God, she had borne his children. His children! His heart blazed with the radiance of the sun.
At last she spoke. “You came too late, Baron Montford.” Brittle ice coated her words. “We no longer have need of your services. I must tell you to leave the premises, and do not return.”
He extended a hand. With his fingertips beneath her chin, he tipped up her face. His heart melted like butter on a stove as he looked at the woman he loved more than anything in the world. He smiled at the mulish expression on her face. “Be that as it may, wildcat, I have no intention of leaving this doorstep.” His voice grew thick with unexpected tears. “I daresay you may hold me accountable for all your troubles,” he inclined his head toward the children, who peered into the foyer from around the corner of the parlor door, “including those two, and my tardiness, but I will not leave. You are the woman I shall marry, willing or nay.”