Scarlet RIbbons

by Judith E. French

  Sarah pushed herself up on her elbow and glared at Roman. "Have you lost your wits?" she demanded. "How dare you assault me!"

  The big man hung his head sheepishly. "Didn't mean to hit ye so hard, mistress."

  "Belay that talk," the shrew reprimanded. "She ain't yer mistress no more." She gave Sarah's leg a kick with the toe of her muddy shoe. "It's her what should be pleadin' wi' ye fer her life." She brought her pinched face close to Sarah's. "He's a dangerous man. Ye'd do well to bite yer tongue and listen."

  Roman backhanded the wench, and she tumbled over with a loud wail. "Mind yer manners, Belle!" He took hold of Sarah's hand and pulled her to her feet.

  Sarah touched the lump on her head. When she pulled her fingers away, they were smeared with blood. "Why did you hit me?" she asked.

  "I didn't want ye to scream no more." His forehead creased in a frown. "Don't scream and I won't hurt ye." His unshaven face was strained with fear.

  "I won't scream," Sarah assured him. She glanced around, taking note of a familiar, lightning-scarred tree. They were a few hundred yards upriver from the ferry landing, in a grove of oaks.

  Belle continued to whimper, and Roman turned toward her with a curse. "I'll knock another tooth out o' yer head if ye don't stop." He grinned at Sarah. "That's me wife, Belle. She's an ed’jacated woman. My Belle kin write, she kin."

  Suddenly, Sarah understood. "The letters," she began. "You sent the letters."

  "Belle did it," Roman said proudly. "Belle's got a loaf in the oven. We figured we needed somethin' fer a start. We figured ye owed us a start, seein' as how I helped ye get rid of the master."

  "Get rid of him, nothing!" Sarah snapped. "He died of his sickness. All you did was help me bury him."

  "Aye," Belle put in. "Helped ye t' bury yer man in t' dead of t' night. Dead o' sickness, ye say. Maybe not, I say. Maybe murder."

  "Poppycock!" Sarah cried. "Why would I murder my husband?"

  "Fer the tavern." Belle grinned, showing two missing front teeth. "Men has died fer a clipped shillin'. Sheriff might think ye'd have cause t' kill such a man as yer'n fer a tavern an' all thet land."

  "I seed ye give the master a potion," Roman added slyly. "Maybe it were poison."

  Sarah made a derogatory sound. "And how many potions did I make for you while you lived at King's Landing? What about the time your tooth abscessed, and I had to pull it? Or the time you mashed your thumb with the hammer and your arm swelled halfway to your shoulder?" She glared at him accusingly. "Did I give you poison?"

  Roman looked down at his feet and scuffed the snow. His oversized ears turned red in the glow of the torchlight.

  "No need to give sech as him"—Belle prodded at her man with a forefinger—"sech as him poison! No gain from it, 'ceptin' to lose the service of a strong back. Called him names, though, didn't ye? Deny it if ye can, Miz tavernkeep's wife! Ye called him addle-headed."

  "And dummy!" Roman remembered. "Ye was ever lashin' me wi' yer fierce tongue."

  "When you let the cow loose in the garden, or led travelers' overheated horses to free water," Sarah flung back. "You are no great one for thinkin' before you act, Roman Clough, and that's God's truth!"

  "I said ye made a mockery o' him," Belle cried. "Ye do it now, ye high-nosed bitch!"

  Roman whirled on his wife with an upraised fist. "Enough, ye thorn-tongued trugmoldy!" he warned. "A man canna' think with the two of ye at him like crows after a hangin'."

  "Aye," Sarah agreed. "Aye, that's truth you speak for once, Roman. You'd best think. For hanging's what you'll get if you do harm to me. Remember that bondman at Saint Mary's last year? Would you meet an end like that?"

  "Ye be the murderer, not us," Belle said.

  "We mean no harm to ye," Roman assured Sarah. "Not if ye pay."

  "And if I don't?"

  "Then Roman here will tell the sheriff what he knows," Belle answered smugly. "And maybe Isaac Turner."

  "Master Isaac wouldn't take lightly to yer killin' his brother," Roman added. "Ye might ha' answers; ladies always got answers. Question is . . ." Roman leaned forward. "Kin ye keep Isaac from killin' ye 'til he hears them answers?"

  Sarah folded her arms over her chest. "How much do you want?"

  Roman grinned broadly. "A horse and twenty-"

  "Two hundred!" Belle insisted. "A horse and two hundred pounds!"

  Roman stared at his wife in awe. "That's it," he agreed. "A horse and two hundred pound."

  Sarah stared with numb incredulity. Surely Roman didn't believe she could put her hands on that much money! Not if her life depended on it.

  Roman hawked and spit, his spittle landing only a few inches from Sarah's shoe. "Take it or leave it," he said.

  Sarah nodded. "I can see that you are serious in this," she agreed solemnly, "but you'd not expect me to keep that much money in the tavern, would you?"

  Roman seemed capriciously pleased. "No . . . no, I s'pose not."

  "None o' yer fancy tricks," Belle warned.

  "I'd be a fool if I tried to trick you," Sarah said. "Has Roman told you I was ever a fool?"

  "No, ma'am." Belle reddened. "But we'll have what's rightfully our'n."

  "And you shall," Sarah promised. "The horse I can give you tonight. I've recently come into a good sorrel."

  "And our money?"

  Sarah tried to keep the anger from her voice as she reasoned with Belle. Her head was throbbing, and her feet felt like blocks of ice. She reasoned that this scheme was Belle's from start to finish; Roman was certainly not smart enough to think of blackmail, or of sending the letters from a dead man. "It will take some time," Sarah hedged. "Three weeks, at least."

  "Two!" Belle said. "No more. Two weeks, or Roman tells what he knows. And"—she smiled slyly—"what he thinks."

  "Done," Sarah agreed. Two weeks would give her time to think of some way to stop them, and if she didn't get inside soon, she'd catch the lung fever and die. "Come back with me to the inn, and I'll fetch your horse." With luck, the evil-tempered beast will devour the two of them from head to toe, she thought.

  "All right," Roman agreed. "But ye'd better be straight wi' us, or else."

  "Are you mad?" Belle protested. "If we go t' her tavern tonight, she may poison us."

  "Not if she eats from the same dish." He patted Sarah's hand reassuringly. "No need to fear, Mistress Sarah. Once we have the horse and the money, we'll be on our way and leave ye in peace. Ye need ha' no more worries about yer dead man comin' back t' haunt ye."

  Belle's grumbling protests went unheeded as the three walked back toward the ferry landing. When they reached the raft, Roman carefully helped Sarah on and fished in his pocket for a thin copper.

  "Fer the passage," he explained, taking up a pole. "One will ha' to do fer the both o' us."

  "Fool!" Belle hissed. "Why waste our good coin on her?"

  Roman stared at his wife in astonishment. "Why? Would ye have Mistress Turner think me a thief? I ain't thet!"

  No, Sarah thought wearily, as she leaned her aching head against the ferry rail. He's no thief . . . just an honest blackmailer.

  It was late and Forest was sleeping soundly when Sarah crept into her cabin. Roman and Belle stuffed themselves with food in the public room while she trudged through the snow to the brier thicket to bring back the promised sorrel.

  If Gideon wondered why the two guests arrived on foot and departed leading a horse, he hadn't asked. The old seaman's only voiced concern had been over the injury she had received to her head, and she had passed that off as an accident. She'd lied and said she slipped on the ferry and struck her head against the rail.

  Sarah's head hurt so much that she crawled into Joshua's narrow bed wearing only her shift and fell instantly asleep. She didn't stir until she was awakened by a rooster crowing at first light.

  With a glance at Forest to be certain he was still asleep, Sarah got out of bed and hurried into the kitchen. There, she built up the fire, bathed, and cleaned the cut on her head wit
h a solution of yarrow and linseed oil. Next, she dressed in fresh clothing, brushed and braided her hair and covered her pinned-up hair and the swelling with a starched linen cap.

  Brewing herself a strong pot of good English tea, she leaned back against the settle with a steaming mug and tucked her feet up under her. Strangely, last night' s violence had eased her fears rather than increased them. She had suspected that Roman was responsible for the letters, but she hadn't thought he would resort to blackmail.

  "Better blackmail than revenge," Sarah murmured to the nearest hound. Greed she could understand and deal with. She was certain Roman had told no one but Belle about Obediah's death and late-night burial. If Isaac didn't know about his brother, he couldn't have summoned her to his fort for any reason other than the supplies.

  The sensible thing to do would have been to give Roman and Belle both the horses she had taken from the fight on the road. Who would believe a runaway bondman caught with dead men's horses? But she hadn't wanted to part with the dapple-gray. She'd never owned so fine a horse, and if there were any way possible, she'd keep the gelding for herself.

  The hound bitch nudged Sarah's knee with her nose, and Sarah reached down and patted the dog's head. "I just keep working myself in deeper and deeper, don't I, old girl?" she whispered. Flirt offered a paw, and Sarah chuckled. "You miss Joshua, don't you?"

  Sarah took another sip of tea and considered her son. She knew it wasn't safe to bring him home, but she couldn't leave him at Martha's indefinitely either. She'd have to go and—

  "Sarah." Forest's voice came from the bedchamber. "Are you out there?"

  "Yes," she replied. "I'm here." Pushing the dog’s head aside, she rose and went into the other room. "Good morning."

  "Bring me my breeches, woman. I'm getting up today."

  "Bring me?" Sarah's eyes danced with mischief, and she planted her hands on her hips. "Fetch me. Bring me. I want," she teased. "Is that the way you speak to me in my own house? I'm not your maid, Forest Irons. If memory serves me, you are my hired man."

  Forest chuckled, deep and low. "Beg pardon, m'lady. Aye. This is your house and your bed, but you'll remember we once shared it together. I'm more than your hired man."

  Sarah blushed. "Well, you might ask politely for your breeches."

  "Maybe not. Maybe I'd rather have ye here beside me," he suggested. "Then I'd have no need for breeches."

  Sarah's eyes widened. "In the daytime? With you an invalid? What do you take me for?" The corners of her mouth twitched with the beginning of a smile. "Surely, sleeping with a rebel spy after sunrise is treason."

  He winked. "Ah, wench, but who said anything of sleep?"

  She came a little closer, and her tone became serious. "You know I care for you, Forest, but we have settled nothing between us. You deceived me. "

  "And you stole my heart, knowing you are a married woman," he shot back. "Sarah, Sarah, what is to become of us?"

  "You'll go back to your senseless rebellion, and I'll stay at King's Landing and do what I've always done."

  His blue eyes darkened. "And when Obediah returns? What then? Will you go back to his bed and forget me?"

  "I think not," she answered softly.

  "Then what are we to do?"

  She sat on the bed beside him and clasped his hand between hers. "I am loyal to my king, man. Can't you see? You've offered me nothing but dalliance between the sheets. I risk everything—my home, my livelihood, even my son—for you. I have jested of treason, but it is no jest. I would not be the first woman hanged by the Crown in this rebellion."

  "You are loyal to George because it is what you have been taught. Open your eyes, Sarah! You are not stupid. George is not even an Englishman. You waste your loyalty on a German madman who cares naught for the Colonies but to bleed them dry." Forest took her shoulders and brought her face close to his. "Loyal or not, what did it gain you when those British deserters came? If we lose this struggle for independence, what do you think will be the fate of any of us? We will be an occupied land!"

  "So you would have my soul as well as my body," she replied. "And what do you offer in return?"

  "All that I have and all I ever will have." He pulled her close and kissed her full on the lips. "I want you, Sarah," he murmured between kisses. "I want you and Joshua with me . . . always."

  Breathlessly, she broke free. "I can't think when you're kissing me," she protested. Her hands were trembling, and she knotted them together to hide her confusion.

  "Obediah may never come home again," Forest said, tracing the line of her cheek with his finger. "But whether he does or not, it makes no difference to me. I want you to come away with me."

  "As your camp follower?"

  "That's not fair, Sarah, and you know it. You're the one who's not free."

  "I won't drag a child behind an army, never knowing how or if I can feed him. Never knowing if he will have shoes on his feet or a warm place to sleep." She scrambled off the bed and backed away, her mind still whirling from the intensity of his kisses . . . from the depth of her response.

  Forest stiffened. "Other women have."

  "But I am not other women. My son means too much to me to risk his life in a lost cause."

  "I never asked you to follow the army, Sarah. I'd not ask that of either of you." He swung his legs over the bed. "It's time I was up and about," he said. "Fetch my clothes, or I'll hunt them out myself."

  Tears rolled down Sarah's cheeks. "You ask too much of me." I can't risk believing in you, she cried inwardly. She flung open a chest and pulled out a clean shirt and his new buckskins. "Here. Dress and get up. The sooner you are well, the sooner you can return to your precious war."

  "I need your help," he admitted gruffly. "I can't raise my arm to get into the shirt and tunic. You'll have to—"

  "To dress you? To do all that a wedded wife would do?"

  "Be you widowed, I will marry you!"

  "Will you?" Anger flashed across her face. "I don't remember you asking me. And I don't remember agreeing to any such arrangement!" She dropped the clothing on the side of the bed, keeping out of reach. "I was wed once against my will, Forest Irons. No one will force me into such a match again."

  Before he could answer, she flounced from the room and snatched her cloak off a hook on the kitchen wall. Her tears flowed harder as she left the house and hurried toward the barn. She would go to Martha's for her son. Damn Forest Irons and his problems! Once Joshua was back home, she could reasonably move Forest back into the inn. The fact that she knew she was behaving irrationally did nothing to soften her upset.

  What were her choices? Go on as she had always done and lose Forest forever? Or follow him off to certain ruin?

  I love him, she thought, as she saddled one of the harness horses, but I'm not certain I love him enough to leave my home and involve myself in a rebellion I don't believe in. If she did nothing, if she let him go and he survived the war, he might come back when it was over. She could say she had gotten word that Obediah had died in some far-off battle. Or could she?

  She leaned her face against the horse's warm neck. If I do that, she thought, Isaac will take King's Landing. And he might take Joshua away as well.

  "Sarah."

  She turned back toward Forest, inwardly flinching as she saw how pale he was. "I'm going to bring Joshua home," she said.

  "I love you, Sarah."

  "Don't say that," she pleaded. "It only makes it harder."

  "But it's true. I do love you."

  "Love is easier to say than to live with," she answered sharply.

  "I know love when I feel it." Forest walked unsteadily into the barn, his teeth set against the pain in his side. "I deceived you because I was ordered to do so. What would you have done, had you known I was a Patriot?"

  "I'd have thrown you off my land."

  "Exactly. I came here to learn of the Tory raids and to watch for movement of British troops. Should I have revealed that to the wife of a Tory soldier? To the
sister-by-law of the chief suspected bandit?"

  "And now?" she demanded. "Why are you telling me this? Is that not treason to your cause?"

  "It's treason only if you betray me." He came closer and took her into his arms, pulling her hard against him. "I am a widower, Sarah. Once I had a wife and a son," he murmured into her dark hair. "My wife ran off with a British sympathizer. She and my son drowned on the voyage to England. I had not thought to risk love again . . . until I met you."

  "I can't fill her place. I am only myself," she whispered. "I can never give you back what you lost."

  "There is nothing to replace where Diane is concerned. What I felt for her was nothing to what I feel for you."

  "And your lost child?"

  "A child can't be replaced, but I can love Joshua. I can offer him what I never had the chance to give Nicholas."

  "Can you?" Sarah stepped back, her eyes full of anguish. "Can you give him a home? Security? Or will Joshua and I come second to your war?"

  Forest took a long time to answer. "I am committed, body and soul, to this struggle for freedom," he said finally.

  "Then you have enough to contend with," Sarah said, "without the added burden of a woman and her child." Grasping the reins, she led the horse over to a manger and scrambled onto the sidesaddle.

  She reined in the animal in the doorway and glanced back at him. "I love you, too," she said, "and I'd not betray you to the Crown. But I think it would be better for us both if you left King's Landing as soon as you are stronger."

  "Aye," he answered roughly. "Perhaps it would."

  Sarah tapped the horse's neck with her crop and rode out of the barn. There was nothing left to say . . . nothing but good-bye.

  ~~~

  Sarah's reception was so warm at White Oak that she stayed until late afternoon. "It was good of you to keep Joshua for me," Sarah said to Martha in parting.

  "It's no trouble. You know we love having him. You're welcome to spend the night yourself, you know. I don't get much chance to talk to another woman," Martha insisted.

  "You're a good friend, Martha."