by Laura Frantz
“Abby will be mighty put out when you go,” she ventured shyly. “Not to mention all the rest of us.”
Roxanna managed a halfhearted smile. “Someday soon you and Johnny will move onto your land and have a fine farm like you’ve been dreaming about. Colonel McLinn and his army will likely go east and I’ll return to Virginia, and we’ll forget all about this place.”
If there was peace . . . if they survived the danger. She shivered at the memory of their return from Smitty’s Fort, of finely fletched arrows and whizzing musket balls.
The reel ended abruptly, returning her to the sights and smells swirling around them, but the frolic failed to ease her trepidation. The future loomed long and lonesome, and Fort Endeavor was but a small stop along the way to a place she wasn’t sure of.
But You know where I’m going, Lord, so I’ll try to rest in that.
She looked up from the coppery sheen of her skirt to see both Cass and Micajah Hale coming toward her. But another officer took Cass aside, and it was Micajah who reached her first. Lip and brow beaded with sweat from the exertion of the fiddling, he gave an exaggerated bow and stammered, “M-may I have the n-next dance?”
Nodding, Roxanna stood and took his hand, closing the distance between them. She looked over his shoulder and caught Cass’s eyes on them as he led her out and they joined the melee of swirling couples. She’d not seen Micajah in some time. He was often outside fort walls, and when he returned he seemed to distance himself from her.
“I wasn’t sure you’d dance with me,” he said in her ear.
“Why?” she said lightly. “I’ve danced with almost everyone else.”
His smile was tight. “Your guardian seems to think I’m not good enough for you.”
Guardian? She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it, stung by the sharpness of his tone.
He rambled on, speech slightly slurred. “The colonel assigned me to a woodcutting detail the past month or so. But I’m back, and like it or not, I’m taking my turn.”
She knew about the woodcutting foray, as she had a rick of neatly stacked logs under one eave—but she hadn’t known the reason behind it till now. Had Cass assigned him that duty to keep him away from her?
The music swelled and then ebbed, and she said, “He’s only fulfilling the promise he made to my father—being responsible for me.”
His head bobbed up and down in terse agreement, but there was a cynical twist to his mouth she’d not seen before. “I know. I was there when it happened. But I doubt you’d leap to his defense had you been.”
As the words washed over her, her mind grappled with all that he implied—none of it respectful or enlightening, just frightening and confusing. He was slightly intoxicated, she knew, and drunk men often made ridiculous statements. But had he been there when Papa died? Had he seen him fall or make his dying request that tied Cass to her?
As she tried to gather her thoughts and ask, the set ended and he returned her to where he’d sought her out, leaving her abruptly for another drink. ’Twas just as well, she thought. She’d get few straight answers, tipsy as he was.
Sinking down on the bench, she glanced at the moon and judged it was nearly midnight. Since giving her pocket watch to the Shawnee, she was always guessing the hour. The frolic seemed a bit frantic now, pulsing with a reckless hilarity that had a slightly mutinous feel. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a regular stagger too near the bonfire and almost keel over into the orangey-red morass. Two Frenchmen stripped to their breeches erupted in a fierce fistfight by a keg of rum. The Redstone women showed no signs of slowing down, not even Dovie, and Roxanna wondered if she should be dancing so much with a baby on the way.
Several more disorderly minutes ticked by, and then Cass was at her elbow. She was only too glad to follow him into the shadows near the sally port, thinking he was remarkably self-possessed when two hundred or more men were unraveling all around him.
Facing her but keeping an eye on the revelers, he simply said, “I want you to go with Bella and Abby to the stone house tonight.”
Her lips parted in surprise—could he sense her delight? But then her mouth went dry. “Are you expecting trouble?”
“Nay, I always remain in the fort after a romp—to keep order.” He smiled down at her as if to ease her anxiety. “To stop the rowdies from burning down my post, ye ken.”
“Do you need to stay in my cabin?”
He shook his head. “I’ve a cot in the blockhouse.” Reaching out, he touched her sleeve, and then his hand fell away abruptly. “I’ll rest better knowing you’re up there on the hill and not here.”
Touched by his show of concern, she said, “Of course . . . I understand.”
But would Olympia release Abby to their care? From the sight of her with a half-dozen admirers, it seemed she had other things on her mind. Through the shadows, Roxanna saw Bella emerge from the melee with the guard, toting a small haversack filled with what they’d need to pass the night, Roxanna guessed. Abby trailed behind, clutching her rag doll. Could Bella sense Roxanna’s pleasure at so inviting an escape?
Her smile was so wide it communicated she did indeed, a hundredfold. “Ready, Miz Roxanna?”
Out the sally port they went, every step a fulfillment of Roxanna’s dream as they left the madness far behind, the guard fanning out about them. Up ahead, candlelight winked from every window, and Hank was waiting, door ajar in welcome.
Home.
Simply thinking the word unleashed an avalanche of emotion. By the time she’d trod the smooth yet unfamiliar door stone, Roxanna had to dash away a tear with a discreet hand, unable to say what so moved her. Even Abby looked around in awe. ’Twas the first time she’d been inside as well.
Across the threshold and into the foyer they went, lost in a world of gleaming wood and thick rugs and the heady bergamot and leather scent that was the essence of Cassius Clayton McLinn. It almost seemed she’d stepped into his arms, his presence was so palpable. Looking back over her shoulder before Hank closed the door, she dismissed the hope that he’d followed them. The fort glittered like a lit firecracker on the dark riverbank, and she could still hear raucous laughter above the fiddling.
Given the late hour, Bella promptly took them up the sweeping staircase. Roxanna tried to take in as much as she could—great gulps of beauty and refinement—her eyes eventually falling to the floral carpet. On the landing was an oriole window that would make a fine lookout by day, she thought, or a starry one by night.
Setting foot on the second floor, she saw another less elaborate stair spiraling toward a third story. Holding a sconce high, Bella hesitated, and the candles cast light to the far corners of the hall, illuminating a painting of deep green hills and a glen—Ireland?—above a walnut sideboard with matching chairs. A hint of oil paint threaded the still air, oddly reminiscent of her dream.
“The colonel didn’t tell me which room to put you in, but I picked the blue room, and Hank’s made a fine fire.”
Roxanna stood in the middle of all that austere elegance, slippers sinking into the lush carpet as Bella set the sconce on a highboy and turned down the bed. Next she began unhooking the back of Roxanna’s gown. “You’ll sleep like the dead after all that dancin’. ”
Roxanna looked toward the shuttered windows. “I don’t hear the frolic now.”
“You won’t—not with stone walls two foot thick.” She gave a low chuckle. “Law, but ain’t the colonel full of surprises? When he told me to fetch yo’ things cuz he wanted you up here tonight, I was almost as surprised as when he hightailed it out o’ here to carry you back from Smitty’s Fort. I figure he’ll be askin’ to marry you next.”
“Shhh!” Roxanna glanced at Abby, who appeared lost in thought as she caressed a figurine on a low table. “Little jugs have big ears, remember.”
Still chuckling, Bella led her to a dressing table and began picking the pins from her hair. Distracted a moment by the ivory-handled comb and brush set, Roxanna finally fixed Bel
la with solemn eyes in the oval mirror, her voice a whisper. “Once upon a time, I remember you warning me away from Colonel McLinn. I don’t understand your sudden change of heart.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “It ain’t my change o’ heart but his. Since you come it’s like he’s found religion or somethin’. I can’t tell you the last time I heard him cuss or seen him knock the no-good out o’ his men, or any o’ them other shenanigans he’s known for.”
“Gentlemen always mind their manners around ladies—or should.”
Bella sobered. “There you go again, explainin’ away everythin’. Ain’t you ever seen a man in love before?”
“Nay,” she whispered, thinking of Ambrose for the first time in a long time with complete detachment, even distaste. Her brow furrowed. “He’s attached to a lady in Ireland, remember.”
“Well, she ain’t here!” Scowling, Bella began brushing her hair till it fell in silky waves to her waist before subduing it in a sooty braid.
From somewhere—the foyer downstairs?—came the enchanting chime of a grandfather clock. Oh, but this house, Bella’s flattering words—they worked quite a spell. Her infatuation was soaring. Being here only added to Cass’s appeal and chipped away at her resolve to simply regard him as a friend.
She groped for sure footing, saying the first thing that came to mind. “Would you like to say a bedtime prayer with me, Abby?”
The child nodded solemnly as Bella removed her party dress. Stripped to her shift, she climbed onto Roxanna’s lap. Taking Abby’s small hands between her own, Roxanna gave in to the wild wish that this was her little girl and the stone house was home. If so, which prayer might she teach her?
“By day, by night, at home, abroad, still are we guided by our God. By His incessant bounty fed, by His unerring counsel led. God bless Abby and Bella and Hank, and Colonel McLinn and all his men. Olympia, Dovie, Mariah, and Nancy too . . .”
Within minutes, Abby was asleep in her arms, and Bella helped settle the child onto the trundle bed.
Finally divested of stays, chemise, and all else, Roxanna donned a thin linen nightgown and climbed the polished bed steps to the high feather tick. Feeling suddenly at sea in such a grand, unfamiliar house, she whispered, “Bella, where will you be?”
“Me and Hank have a cozy nook in back of the kitchen fireplace below.” With that, she went out, as if knowing Roxanna wouldn’t need a thing.
Settling back against the headboard on the bank of pillows—six to be exact—Roxanna pulled the finely worked coverlet up to her chin. The blue room was lovely and inviting, but it was the side door that drew her, the one adjoining her room to . . . his?
The temptation to turn the knob and peer further into his world left her nearly breathless. She looked down at Abby sound asleep. With Cass at the fort and Hank and Bella below, who would know?
Climbing out of the just-warmed bed, she crossed the carpet, her hand—and her heart—aching to enter in. Torn, she leaned her head against a painted panel, the knob cold and forbidding beneath her hand. What if it was the room in her dream? The one with the immense canopy bed and the clock mounted over the door? Such whimsy made her almost smile, and her hand moved from the knob to her slim waist. Nay, it was no more the room in her dream any more than she was carrying a child.
Such foolishness sent her back to bed, though sleep was a long time in coming. The feverish night swirled through her mind with such intensity it seemed she’d never left the fort. Her dances with Cass seemed the only ones she remembered. But it was Micajah’s words that punctured all the high feeling in her heart with the finality of an Indian arrow.
I was there when it happened. But I doubt you’d leap to his defense had you been.
What exactly had he meant? ’Twas wrong to speak disparagingly of one’s commanding officer. He almost sounded like a turncoat . . . a spy. She tried to push the ominous words away, but they were quickly supplanted by other unwelcome things—the striking earnestness in Cass’s face when he’d asked her to go to the stone house, the seemingly insignificant way he’d touched her sleeve in parting, communicating a dozen heartfelt messages.
To her hungry heart, anyway.
Turning over, she laid her aching head on a cool pillowslip and tried to sleep, but the tumult of her feelings blazed like a firestorm inside her. Adding fuel to the fire were Bella’s convicting words. Ain’t you ever seen a man in love before? Had she? Nay. And deep down in the depths of her being, she believed she never would.
22
The blockhouse window was open, and at dawn the pure, unadulterated trill of a cardinal roused Cass from what little sleep he’d had. Running a hand over his whiskery jaw, he abandoned the coffin-hard cot, wondering if Bella was in the kitchen making coffee. Coffee was likely all the two hundred or so inhabitants of Fort Endeavor could stomach after their rum-infested feast the night before.
For the first time in his military career, he felt a spasm of guilt for overseeing such debauchery, if only because he was still stone sober this morning. He pushed open the blockhouse door, and the chilly spring air assaulted him, reeking of rum and blatant excess. Buffalo bones, clothing, and pewter tankards littered the parade ground and deepened his discontent.
He leaned against the door frame, crossed his arms, and tried to reconcile who he’d been with who he was becoming and why he had any qualms at all. Cold logic told him it was madness to keep men under such tight rein without giving them their head now and again, as he’d done last night. Any less meant mutiny, and he’d already court-martialed thirteen soldiers for desertion since coming to Kentucke.
Yet in the ugly aftermath this morning, he was troubled enough that he reached for a limp haversack and began picking up the mess, knowing his men were too dissolute to be of much use, glad Roxie was still abed on the hill and couldn’t see the disorder.
The thought of her asleep in his house—her lush hair spilling across a pillow in whatever bedchamber Bella had put her in—was enough to keep the most pious man awake. Pious he was not, yet her winsome goodness made him want to be better than he was.
He was tired this morning, not because of the night’s devilment, but because he hadn’t been able to dislodge her from his mind in the darkness. And now, at daylight, she was still with him, hair falling down from its pins as it had been when she’d last danced with him in her fetching copper dress. So lost was he in the thought of her that he hardly heard Hank approach from behind.
“Colonel, sir.”
Cass swung round, haversack half full, grinning at Hank’s obvious amazement at seeing him in his shirtsleeves and breeches, picking up garbage to boot.
“Bella’s done fixed yo’ breakfast, sir. Why don’t you go on in and let me see to this mess?”
Trading the sack for the steaming cup of coffee in Hank’s hand, Cass said, “Since it’s such a fine morning—and I’m still sober—I thought I’d come out.”
Glancing at the clear blue sky, Hank nodded. “The Almighty’s made a fine mornin’ all right, maybe on account of yo’ behavin’ yo’self.”
Still grinning, Cass gestured to the hill. “How are things at the house?”
Grinning back, his teeth a stark white in his ebony face, Hank said, “Well, sir, you’d best ask Bella ’bout that. Word is Miz Rowan’s sleepin’ like a baby on that fine feather tick in the blue room. Abby too.”
The blue room . . . the one adjoining his. His disappointment at not being able to show her the house himself was keen. He was forever reminding himself to distance himself from her, to take every caution and not be alone with her. Because being alone with her reminded him of her father—and her perplexing plea returned to him like an endless echo.
Please, I don’t want to fall in love with you.
The poignant words had burned themselves into his brain like a brand, and it had taken some time for him to sift through the meaning behind them.
She was, he hardly needed reminding, in mourning, upended by a broken betrothal, without a home
, in hostile territory, unable to leave. What woman, under similar circumstances, would want a romantic entanglement? Her bruised and broken heart would have little left to give, even if she’d wanted to. And at times he sensed deep down in his soul that she did want to. Little things had given her away. A lingering look. Her unmistakable delight when dancing with him. The painstaking efforts she made to please him with pen and paper.
Turning his hair loose from its tie.
But he had little choice except to respect her wishes and simply fulfill Richard Rowan’s dying request. Until she left, he was her guardian and she was his scrivener.
Other dire reminders skirted his conscience and pushed his pain deeper still. Not only had he killed her father, he’d destroyed the secure future she hoped to have. Even if he confessed, the guilt of it would follow him to his grave. There was simply no undoing that bitter winter’s twilight.
“Colonel, sir. Here she comes.”
Hank’s voice pulled him out of his reverie. He spied her leaving the stone house, a willowy shadow on the sun-dappled hill, making her way to the fort with Abby in hand. The guard followed at a respectful distance, saber-tipped muskets gleaming in the pale morning light. She paused to take in her garden, then the river where the keelboats lay at anchor, before turning and looking toward him. The ever-expanding ache in his chest rivaled any earned by a musket ball in battle.
Please, I don’t want to fall in love with you.
Aye, he could honor that. But she’d not said anything about him falling in love with her.
Roxanna set aside the quill she’d been sharpening and returned her penknife to her pocket. She’d been thinking of her garden with its prim rows of peas pushing through all that rich Kentucke soil and what a punishment it was to remain indoors on such a day. But at least the blockhouse window and door were open this Monday morn, letting in the light and a welcome breeze. Sometimes, as if sensing her restlessness, Cass would call a halt to their work and she’d go outside to pull weeds or just glory in being beyond fort walls, even with the guard on her heels. But today he seemed to have forgotten all about her.