The Colonel's Lady

by Laura Frantz

  The woman took up the wash paddle and began to stir idly. “My name’s Bella, Miz Roxanna. Just Bella.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Bella.” She took up some steaming breeches and began wringing them free of water. “You already know who I am, obviously.”

  A wide smile spread over the woman’s lined, mahogany face. “Law, but you is just yo’ pa in a dress. Nobody had to tell me so.”

  Pa in a dress, indeed. Roxanna didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Do you really think he’d mind my helping you this fine morning?”

  Bella grimaced and shook her head. “Naw. Reckon I got too many things goin’ on all at once. Since them hussies come, Captain Stewart’s given me a heap of washin’—and a mess of orders for victuals.”

  “I’m a fair hand in the kitchen. Love to cook, truth be told. When my mother took ill, the only thing she could keep down was a broth I concocted.” This tidbit was tossed out and then Roxanna held her tongue, wondering how it would be received. But Bella pretended not to hear. They continued to work side by side in silence till all the wash was hung and not a dirty garment remained.

  When Bella finally turned toward the far blockhouse, Roxanna followed. She was headed to the kitchen, she guessed, the same place they’d eaten last night. Her stomach growled a complaint, and she thought she could smell coffee when Bella opened the door.

  Mercy, but what I’d give for another steaming cup sweetened with molasses . . . and an egg and a crust of bread besides.

  An amused smile pulled at Roxanna’s face as she walked in Bella’s footsteps. The washerwoman well knew who shadowed her but didn’t say a word, just trooped past long trestle tables in the dining hall, finally slipping through a squeaking door into a cold, dimly lit kitchen. Bella wouldn’t ask for her help, she guessed, but neither would she shoo her away. Relief washed over her as she surveyed the friendly fire blazing in the huge hearth and the generous assortment of cooking vessels all around. This was like home, and felt familiar and safe and necessary.

  “Shouldn’t the men be up and at breakfast?” she asked.

  Bella swung a skillet over the flames and huffed, “Should be . . . but ain’t.” Her lean fingers sliced bacon from a side of pork hanging from a hook in the corner. Tossing the pieces into the sizzling skillet, she poked at them with a long-tined fork. Spying a grinder, Roxanna began to make coffee, marveling at the abundance all around her in light of their meager meal last night.

  Strings of yellowish-orange pumpkin slices hung from the rafters like festive Indian necklaces alongside garlands of shriveled-up apples and beans. Bushel baskets of potatoes and onions rested along a far wall beside kegs of flour and other essentials. And there were eggs—at least two dozen of them—big and brown in a wooden bowl atop a trestle table. And in the corner stood a churn.

  “I already milked this mornin’ and poured the old cream in, but I ain’t churned.” This revelation seemed more an invitation, and Roxanna wasted no time in donning an apron and taking a seat on a stool, her hands enfolding the smooth handle of the dasher like a long-lost friend. In time Bella went out and left her to all the little domestic details she’d so missed since leaving home.

  Once the butter came, she wondered where the springhouse was or if she even needed it, given the cold. Poking around in every corner and crevice, she found a tub of lard and set about making biscuits, eyeing the dried apples overhead and dreaming of pies. Before Bella returned, two pans of biscuits rose to flaky, golden heights, and she began frying eggs in the bacon grease.

  Ambrose always said I was the best cook in Fairfax County.

  With a sigh, she let her thoughts drift. Perhaps if she’d been better at kissing . . . or bundling . . . or whatever else won a man’s heart, she’d be standing in her own kitchen and not this crude one on the far frontier.

  She’d come so close to being the wife of the gentleman her mother desired for her. They’d met at a horse race at Thistleton Hall, the estate that bordered their humble home. Soon Ambrose was coming round to court her, taking her and Mama to dine at a fine ordinary or to see a stage play. Twice they were guests at his townhouse in Richmond. Mama was smitten; Roxanna was unsure. And her uncertainties sprang up like poisonous weeds between them, thwarting her mother’s best hopes. When she’d finally decided to give her heart away, having convinced herself he was the man for her, Ambrose had found comfort in the arms of another.

  Taking a pewter plate, Roxanna slid an egg onto its tarnished surface, buttered the smallest biscuit, and sampled the chicory coffee. Divine.

  “Law, but you look like you own the place!” Bella sputtered.

  Heavens, I hope not, Roxanna mused. Sheepish, she slid off her stool and presented Bella with a plate, pouring her some coffee and sliding a crock of honey toward her. For a moment the tired eyes that met hers were a deep, damp brown. The silence in the shadowed kitchen stretched on till footsteps could be heard on the other side of the kitchen door. It swung open, and there stood Captain Stewart, unshaven and unpressed, his breeches and fine linen shirt looking sorely in need of a sadiron.

  “Cap’n, sir,” Bella said between bites of biscuit.

  “You’re just in time for breakfast,” Roxanna told him, taking up another plate.

  Heaping it full of food, she moved past him to the dining room where she plunked the plate down at the place he’d occupied last night. He followed meekly and sat as if speechless, watching as she served coffee and left him to his appetite.

  “Law, but you gonna work me out of a job,” Bella exclaimed when Roxanna returned to the kitchen.

  “Just till Papa comes,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Then you can have it all back again.”

  “Maybe I don’t want it back,” Bella breathed, eyes wide as Roxanna took a chair and climbed up to steal two dried apple strings from the timbers above.

  “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Isn’t that what they say?”

  “Can I have me another biscuit?”

  “Certainly. Take two.” Roxanna began measuring out flour and lard for pie dough, thinking she could flesh out Bella’s spare frame, if not the remnant of men at the fort. “What shall we make for supper tonight?”

  “Best talk to LeSourd—the fort hunter. He’ll bring down anythin’ you want to cook. Cap’n Stewart’s partial to buffalo. But Colonel McLinn likes them beef cattle that come with the supply train.”

  “I don’t see any sign of beef. Or Colonel McLinn. One buffalo, then. That should feed these men—about thirty, did you say?—and us guests.” Her forehead furrowed as she added water to the dough. “I’m not familiar with buffalo, though. You’ll have to show me how it’s done.”

  “I’ll fetch LeSourd,” Bella said, going toward the dining room door and pushing it open a crack. “Law, but we got a mess o’ men to feed this mornin’. They must have smelled yo’ biscuits. If you cook, I’ll serve. LeSourd’ll have to wait.”

  The scraping of chairs along the puncheon floor and the men’s muffled voices made Roxanna abandon her pie making. “It seems discipline is a bit lax among the men. I didn’t hear reveille this morning.”

  Bella turned away from the door. “Colonel McLinn keeps his men strung tight as fiddle strings, but Cap’n Stewart—well, he ain’t cut o’ the same cloth. He and the colonel don’t see eye to eye so the cap’n gets left behind to man the fort. And things get a little lax.”

  Expelling a relieved breath, Roxanna said, “So Captain Stewart isn’t likely to turn me out of this kitchen, then.”

  Bella’s dark face twisted with a knowing smile. “Naw, Miz Roxanna. He’ll leave that to Colonel McLinn.”

  Pushing open the door to her father’s cabin after breakfast, Roxanna surveyed his domain. On the mantel were some twists of Virginia tobacco alongside his treasured clay pipe. A worn wool cape dangled by the door above his boots. Tallow candles, half burned, stood in pewter holders here and there. Taking up a poker, she stabbed at the smoking logs in the hearth as they tried to catch on thei
r bed of sour ashes. At least so tiny a cabin was easy to heat, she mused, cheered again by the thought that Papa’s enlistment was ending and they’d soon be on their way. If she could just keep her mind fastened on their future, she’d be able to tolerate her dark surroundings.

  She breathed a thankful sigh that her belongings were intact, including her best gowns and beloved dulcimer. The detail Captain Stewart had sent out to the flatboat upriver had returned with her locked trunk and the possessions of the Redstone women, but the cargo of gunpowder, lead, and other valuables was missing, the vessel abandoned on the north side of the river. Where the surviving polemen had gone was anyone’s guess.

  Though she’d been here a fortnight, she was still disturbed by what she saw. Since Ma’s passing, Papa had nearly gone to seed. Dust and spiderwebs decorated the tiny room, and she looked askance at the bed’s tattered counterpane and a mountain of ashes that needed hauling from the hearth. This was so unlike her orderly father she winced. An assortment of quills and inkpots littered one small corner desk, a testament to her father’s work. But this was white with dust as well, the quills down to nubs, the inkpots dry.

  This was why she’d come. During her time as a tutor, traveling from one genteel house to another, she’d sensed he needed her. His letters, written in his characteristic longhand on fine foolscap, never said so, but she’d read lonesomeness and discontent between each and every line. And she, truth be told, needed him. Her Virginia life had become dull, predictable. She had faded to little more than Miss Rowan, a patient, capable tutor of children, invisible at best. To her father, and only her father, did she truly matter.

  And so here she was—a surprise.

  Bella watched Roxanna slip a darning egg in a stocking she was knitting. “You sure is handy with a needle. How many o’ them socks have you made yo’ pa? The way you’re goin’, I ain’t ever goin’ to have to wash a one. He’ll have a new pair every day o’ the week all year round.”

  Sheepish, Roxanna looked at the overflowing basket at her feet. “I can give some to the regulars who need them—the ones who don’t have any womenfolk to tend them.”

  “Oh, there’s plenty o’ that kind around here. Just be careful who you give ’em to lest they think you come with ’em.”

  Roxanna managed a halfhearted smile. Bella couldn’t possibly know about the broken betrothal—or her age. Past spinsterhood, she was. The reminder nipped at her with fierce little claws, though it was the memory of her mother’s reprimands that most haunted.

  Roxanna, how many times must I tell you not to slouch so? Proper posture is essential to the female form. No man wants a hunchback for a wife!

  I’d never thought to have a spinster daughter. By your age I’d been wed eight years and become a mother three times over.

  Are you applying lemon juice to your complexion? Why, you’re as brown as an Indian! If I catch you without your bonnet one more time . . .

  I suppose you might have a chance with one of your father’s soldier friends, though the very idea makes me shudder. Look what marrying beneath one’s station did in my case. You must promise me . . .

  Roxanna sighed. “I promised Mama I’d not marry a soldier. And I doubt I’d tempt one—or be tempted.”

  Bella clucked her tongue. “You ain’t met Colonel McLinn.”

  “No, but I’ve heard about him.”

  “Hearin’ ain’t seein’. ”

  She looked up from her knitting in surprise. “Why, Bella, you sound bewitched by him.”

  “Law, Miz Roxanna. I just wash his clothes and tidy his house. Every woman from here to Virginny is smitten with him. Settlement gals come canoein’ upriver just to eyeball him. He’s that handsome. Some say the Almighty was so pleased after He made the one that He had to make two.”

  Twin McLinns? “He has a brother, then?” Roxanna’s interest piqued and her needles picked up in rhythm. “Papa never described Colonel McLinn to me except to say he’s the finest officer he’s ever served under since Light-Horse Harry Lee.”

  “Hmmm.” Bella got up to take the hissing kettle off the fire. “Them’s mighty fine words. Your pa was always one to find the good in folks.”

  The scent of sassafras, brewed strong and pink, warmed the pewter mug Bella handed her. Abandoning her knitting, Roxanna sipped it gratefully, thinking she hadn’t been warm since her arrival. She sat opposite Bella in a rare idle moment, and they huddled close enough to the flames to singe their hair and homely dresses. Like a pair of old crows they were, Roxanna thought, drinking tea and trying not to gossip. But the fodder in the fort provided plenty, and it seemed Bella was about to enlighten her further.

  “Your pa ain’t uttered one bad word against Colonel McLinn?”

  “Not one,” she answered honestly, thinking back to the letters he’d sent since coming under the colonel’s command. “I think Papa considers him something of a son, working with him so closely and all.”

  “And all.” Bella’s black brows knit together over piercing eyes.

  Obviously Bella was itching to spill some secret. Roxanna bit her tongue to keep from uttering the maxim she’d oft repeated to her pupils. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any. She eyed the half-finished sock in her lap, the indigo wool soft as thistledown. She didn’t want to delve deeper—indulge in gossip. Truly, Papa had only spoken well of the man.

  Bella licked her lips. “Did your pa, saint that he is, ever mention why Colonel McLinn was sent west?”

  Sent. It had an ominous sound, particularly for an officer. “Nay.”

  “Or that he drives his men unmercifully?”

  “Nay.”

  “Or that he holds a court-martial nearly every day?”

  “Nay.”

  “Or that he can curse in three languages?”

  “Three?” Roxanna raised an eyebrow. “One should be sufficient.”

  Bella cracked a smile. “Gaelic, French, and King’s English—in case you’re wonderin’. ”

  “He’s not a God-fearing Irishman, then?”

  “Humph!” Bella rolled her eyes. “He don’t fear nothin’. Awful arrogant he is. Browbeats his men somethin’ awful—and he’s a gentleman besides!” She paused in her tirade and stared into her steaming cup. “But they nearly worship him, God forgive ’em, though I don’t know why.”

  Roxanna sipped her tea and tried to tamp down her curiosity—and another maxim that rushed to mind. Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust. Squelching it, she simply savored her sassafras and said nothing, cowing Bella into a short-lived silence.

  Shifting in her chair, Bella expelled a ragged breath. “All I’ll say is this—Colonel McLinn used to be one o’ General Washington’s favorite officers, one o’ them Life Guards, watchin’ over the general and all for his protection. Till McLinn got in a roarin’ red rage ’bout somethin’ and Washington sent him west.”

  Though her ears were burning, Roxanna remained silent.

  Bella leaned forward conspiratorially. “You sure yo’ pa ain’t said nothin’ ’bout this?”

  “Nary a word.”

  She sighed. “Well, I wish to heaven he had cuz I’m just about eat up with not knowin’. ”

  Roxanna leaned over to hide a smile and tucked her knitting into the basket at her feet. “So I gather Colonel McLinn is an extraordinarily handsome Irishman who manages to be quite charming when master of his temper.”

  “Did I mention he’s malarial?”

  “Nay, to your credit.”

  “Well, once in a while he gets real sick and takes to his bed. He ain’t easy to nurse neither. I’ve tried my hand at it a time or two. I’d rather wash his shirts and breeches any day.”

  “Does he not have a personal physician?”

  “That’d be the post surgeon, Dr. Wilbur. But he up and died last spring.” Sighing, Bella stood and shuffled toward the door. “Somethin’ tells me I ain’t gonna get to sit here takin’ tea with you much longer. The colonel’s gonna come round th
e bend with all his men just in time for Christmas like he promised. I’d best go on to bed. Guess I’ll be dreamin’ about roast goose and plum puddin’ when I do.”

  Roxanna’s eyes flew to the crude calendar on the cabin wall. Five more days. Tears of joy and anticipation made the numerals a wash of black. ’Twould be the first Christmas with her father in years. He’d simply not had leave since then.

  When Bella went out, Roxanna knelt by the trunk that held all her earthly possessions and opened the lid. Inside was the pocket watch she’d purchased upon leaving Virginia, the fine silver chain shining richly in the hearth light. Papa had lost his during the last campaign, he’d written, or had it stolen, as was so often the case. She turned it over, seeing the fine engraving on the back—her initials and the date of Christmas 1779. Lying under this was her best Sabbath dress, the heavy corded linen finely embroidered with flowers that mirrored the blue of her eyes. A straw hat with a clump of forget-me-nots on the brim lay alongside the dress and reminded her of spring and long walks and . . . him. An unwelcome memory rose up as strongly as the lavender sachet within . . .

  “Come, Miss Rowan, and walk out with me.”

  The smooth masculine voice unnerved her, perhaps because he’d been away for so long. She looked up from her damask roses, senses swimming from their sweetness, and felt a flicker of disquiet. Aware that her mother watched from a window, she set her clippers and basket aside and took the arm Ambrose offered, hoping her straw hat was on straight.

  “I’ve just returned from Richmond on business. I apologize for being away for so long.”

  “How is . . . business?” As soon as she asked, she wished the words back, her mother’s latest rebuke ringing in her ears.

  ’Tis most unladylike to inquire about masculine pursuits.

  “Nothing to worry your pretty head about.” He smiled at her and patted her hand as it rested on his coat sleeve. “I am a bit discouraged, however. With the war on, things are not what they should be.” He hesitated, fixing his attention on a far fence that marked the border of Thistleton Hall. “I’ve lost a valuable account of late. A British one. Mr. Abernathy is returning to London. But even if he wasn’t, he says he can no longer do business with me, given the fact that I have . . . Patriot associations. He recently learned of our betrothal, you see.”