Bold Surrender

by Judith E. French

  Tying Baron in a grove of pines, Ashley continued on foot across the meadow to the edge of the water.

  Trees lined the banks, broken here and there by patches of reeds and open marshland. Taking care not to soak her boots, Ashley slipped into the reeds, pushing them aside and working her way to the creek bank.

  Trembling, she took a deep breath and separated a handful of marsh grass. To the left, the surface of the water was unmarred by any sign of human life. A pair of black ducks paddled only a few feet from her hiding place, unaware of her presence. Relieved, she turned her gaze upstream, already laughing at herself for her foolish fears. Then she froze, catching her lower lip between her teeth and biting down to keep from crying out.

  In the sheltered cove, surrounded on three sides by trees, the Scarlet Witch rode at anchor. Numbly Ashley stared at her father's ship, taking in the beached rowboat and the crewmen gathered on the far side of the creek. She let the grass fall back into place. Her worst nightmares had been realized. Gentleman Jim had returned to Morgan's Fancy.

  Chapter 17

  The image of the Scarlet Witch haunted Ashley as she mounted Baron and rode back through the forest to meet Joshua. How long would it be before some bondman saw the smoke from a careless fire or came upon the ship while searching for a stray cow? Repairs to the schooner could not be made overnight. Even though the creek was on the farthest corner of the plantation, it was still her land. If Kelt learned that the Scarlet Witch was anchored on Morgan's Fancy, it would be his duty to report the pirates to the authorities. Nothing she could say or do would convince him she was not a party to their crimes.

  How many times had Quincy hidden there? Usually he would come at least once in the spring and again in late summer or fall. Her grandfather had never known, although Ashley was certain Mari did. The Indian woman knew all too well that if Ash Morgan and Gentleman Jim had met, it would have been over the crossed steel of dueling rapiers. Old Ash had never forgiven her father for seducing Cicely and had sworn to kill him on sight. If he had ever guessed that Quincy was using Morgan's Fancy to hide from the British navy... Ashley shuddered. Once aroused, her grandfather's temper would have put the fear of God into Blackbeard himself! Nothing would have prevented a battle to the death between the two men.

  Joshua pulled her firmly back to the present with a repeated question. Patiently Ashley stooped and drew an outline of the new pasture fence. "I want no holes dug until well after the thaw, but you can put two men to cutting cedar and thorn trees for the posts. I mean to raise work horses, mules, and milk cows for sale, as well as oronookoes."

  Joshua spat on the ground and rolled his knit cap into a ball. "It's a waste o' good cleared ground, mistress. What wi' the high price o' tobaccy, ye'd do better t' put the lot in that."

  "Tobacco's high because of the war in Europe. When King George signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, the price will drop again. Tobacco's our cash crop, but I don't want it to be ten years from now."

  Joshua vented his disapproval on a tuft of dry weed, grinding it into the ground with the heel of his shoe. "Old Master Ash put his land in tobacco."

  "He's dead." Ashley turned and motioned for her horse, taking the reins in hand and swinging into the saddle in a single, smooth action. "And he left Morgan's Fancy in my care. Right or wrong, I'll make the decisions now." Dismissing the man with a nod, she turned Baron's head toward the manor house. Thank God her grandfather was safely in his grave. He and Quincy slicing each other to pieces before her eyes was the one thing she didn't have to worry about.

  That consolation carried her through the rest of the day's duties, making it possible for her to settle an argument between Short John's wife and the weaver, Sarah Reid, without wholesale bloodshed. The fracas had come on the heels of an afternoon of crisis.

  First, there had been no dinner. When Ashley had gone to the kitchen to find out why, she'd nearly been suffocated by the thick smoke of burning corn mush. Joan's reply to Ashley's mild admonishments had been to tear at her clothes and shriek like a slaughtered shoat. She was with child, she admitted, pregnant by either Martin Hopkins's blacksmith or Daniel the stableman. And if one of them wasn't forced to marry her, Joan would throw herself down the well!

  They had barely opened the doors and windows to let the smoke out when Dickon came crying to the back door. He'd slipped and fallen through the hayloft opening. A nasty gash above his temple dripped blood and his left arm had a suspicious crook in it.

  Setting the arm and stitching the boy's head had taken the better part of an hour. The break seemed clean and the skin hadn't been broken. "You'll be right as rain," Ashley had promised him. A copper penny and a handful of molasses candy had brought back his usual smile.

  "Master Saxon will be proud o' ye when I tell him how brave ye were," Joan said. "Jest like a wild Injun."

  An Indian attack would have caused less screaming than what came from the dairy only minutes later. Ashley had run across the yard, along with a half dozen others, to find out who had been murdered. Two girls ran out of the log building, each shouting and wailing more loudly than the other.

  Ashley grabbed the closest one by the arm and gave her a shake. "What's wrong?" she demanded. "Is someone hurt?"

  The bondwoman stared at her mistress with wide blue eyes, threw her apron over her face, and began to wail in German.

  "Meta don't speak no English," Joan reminded Ashley smugly. "She ain't too smart."

  The second dairymaid found her voice. "A rat, mistress! Big as a dog, 'e were, wi' teeth like—"

  "A rat! All this commotion over a rat?" Ashley yanked open the door and looked at the destruction the hysterical girls had created. The normally spotless floor was awash in milk and spilled curds; a large mound of butter lay by the door sill and an uncured cheese was visible on the plank floor under the worktable. Nothing moved.

  The room was small, whitewashed, and spotless, with a sound floor and ceiling. If a rat had gotten in through an open door, it must still be there. Ashley whistled for Jai and the big dog came running. "Find the rat, boy," she ordered. "Go get him."

  As the shaggy tail disappeared through the door, Ashley shut it firmly behind him and turned to her people. "What are you all standing around for? Have you nothing to do?" She put her hands on her hips and glared in an unconscious imitation of her grandfather. "Is all work to stop for an overgrown mouse?" she demanded.

  Quickly the men and women scattered to their various tasks, leaving only Ashley and the two flustered maids."'Twere a big 'un," the freckle-faced Irish girl insisted. "This big." She held out her hands to measure a space as wide as her own shoulders. "It run up Meta's leg!"

  "Ja! J a!" The German girl nodded vigorously, obviously understanding the fervent gestures more than the words.

  A snarl from inside the dairy was followed immediately by a high-pitched squeal. Ashley opened the door cautiously and Jai trotted out with a large rat between his teeth. He dropped it before his mistress's feet. The rat's face was smeared with cream.

  The restoration of the dairy took the remainder of the afternoon. Patiently Ashley watched as the open tubs of butter and cream, and the morning's milk, were carried to the pigpens and poultry yard, and the floor and tables were scrubbed clean. Only the sealed containers and cheeses hanging from the rafters were safe. It was maddening for Ashley to have to oversee such routine tasks, but she knew that if she didn't personally watch to see that her orders were carried out, the contaminated milk and butter would show up on the plantation table. To the two bondwomen, a small matter such as rodent hair or tracks would seem no reason to throw out good food. Ashley had few illusions about the behavior of fifteen-year-old bondmaids.

  The fight between Sarah Reid and Short John's wife was not so easily settled. Ashley had just begun to count the measures of seed corn for the coming spring planting when a little girl burst into the bam. "Mistress! Come quick!" the child panted. "They're gonna kill each other!"

  Ashley threw a bridle o
ver Scarlet's head and rode bareback to the line of houses just beyond the orchard. A knot of screaming women had gathered around two figures rolling on the ground. Sarah Reid had Short John's wife by the hair and was beating her head against the hard-packed earth. Sarah's dress was ripped to the waist and one shriveled breast hung bare. Her lip was split and an eye swollen closed. Still, the older woman clung to Short John's wife with the tenacity of a terrier.

  The air rang with profanity as the black-haired slattern on the bottom spewed filth with the virulent imagination of a dockside harpy. Ashley slid from the mare's back and pushed through the crowd to see Sarah tightening her fingers around the younger woman's throat.

  "Stop it!" Ashley commanded. Neither woman seemed to hear. Short John's wife continued to pound Sarah Reid about the head and face, raking her with dirty fingernails and lashing out with knees and feet. Sarah held on and tightened her grip. "Separate them!" Ashley cried to the onlookers. Shaking their heads, the women and children moved back, widening the circle. Short John's wife was beginning to choke.

  "Fetch water!" Ashley ordered. "From the well! All of you!"

  The younger woman's face had begun to blacken when the first bucket of cold water splashed over the two. Sarah Reid screamed and fell backward. Three more buckets soaked clothes and hair, and Short John's wife began to sob.

  Ashley signaled a halt. "That's enough." She turned a hard face on Sarah. "What's this about?"

  "She's been sniffin' around my boy!" Sarah's teeth chattered as she pointed an accusing finger at the sobbing woman on the ground. "He's only fourteen. He's a good boy! I won't have him ruined by trash like her!"

  "Liar," Short John's wife said. Her voice was a strangled whisper. "She's crazy! What would I want wi' her horse-face son when I kin get any man on this place t' warm my bed?"

  "Whore!" Sarah flung back.

  "Halfwit!"

  "Slut!"

  "Slattern!"

  "Bumpbacon!"

  "Poxbox!"

  "Enough! Both of you!" Ashley shouted. "Get back to your cabins and make yourselves decent. Another word and I'll have the skin off your backs." The women hurried to obey, each followed by her own band of sympathizers.

  Scarlet whinnied and Ashley turned to face Kelt riding up behind her. "Why didn't you get here five minutes earlier?" she asked.

  He rolled his eyes heavenward. "It seems I make a practice of arriving too late to break up your fights." He glanced at Sarah Reid's departing back. "And this one may even have been enjoyable."

  "You're welcome to them," she said, catching Scarlet's mane and leaping up on her back. "But you don't seem to have had much luck taming Short John's wife. She's behind this fracas, as usual." Ashley brought the mare up beside Kelt's dappled-gray and looked up into his face. "Are you certain you've not fallen for her charms? She insinuated as much."

  He chuckled. "I like my lassies clean, thank you." His features turned serious. "One of the men found the black mare up to her belly in mud. We've spent most of the afternoon digging her out. I've had her brought back to the barn, but I fear she'll drop her colt early."

  Ashley swore under her breath. "Not today. I can't take another thing today." She shook her head. "I was counting on this colt. The mare's close to twenty years old. We'll not get many more from her. Damn!" Ashley pulled off her cocked hat and ran a hand through her hair. "My grandfather brought Dulcinea by ship from Normandy when she was a yearling. She's descended from the old warhorses and he thought he'd get a good strain of work animals out of her. Last year she dropped a dead horse colt. I wanted at least one more filly out of her to take her place. She's bred to Baron."

  "She was exhausted, but still on her feet. I thought it best to have her led up to the barn. We can do more for her there than we can in the field. She's nae gone into labor yet." Kelt's eyebrows raised in mock recrimination. "Ye should ha' taken my place in the woods this morning. Then ye could ha' complained about a bad day. Your day's chores were nae oot of the ordinary, as I recall. A lass tends to exaggerate." He held up his hands to show the fresh blisters across the palms. "My hands will be a week in healing. I'll nae be able to wield a paintbrush properly until they do."

  "Have you finished my picture?" Ashley asked innocently.

  "Nay." Kelt's head snapped up. "And what do you know of that? Have you been poking where you ha' no business?"

  "It's very good, but..."

  "But?"

  "But it doesn't look much like me."

  "Aye."

  "I've seen the sketches you've done of Joan and Thomas, and even little Dickon. They're so real they could come alive."

  Kelt's lips compressed tightly.

  "Mine looks like a portrait."

  "Aye." A curious yearning flickered behind the gray eyes. "She's beautiful, is she nae?"

  Ashley nodded. "It's very flattering." Her gaze met his and held as a spark of white-hot desire arced between them. "Almost as though you'd painted my mother instead of me—but I don't look anything like her." Ashley felt a familiar excitement throb within her. Her breathing suddenly quickened and she turned her face away to prevent him from reading the message in her eyes.

  "There is a resemblance,—elusive, but it's there," Kelt said. "No man would deny your mother's beauty, but ye have something more."

  Ashley laughed. "Calluses?"

  "Nay, lass. 'Tis a flame that glows within ye. A flame I canna catch wi' brush and oil. But I will." He grinned. "Calluses and all—I will."

  Ashley felt the heat rise in her throat and cheeks. He would come to her tonight; she knew it. Unconsciously she arched her back and softened her expression. She tried to force her voice to normal tones. "There'll be no decent meal for supper unless you make it."

  Wordlessly Kelt held up a wild duck tied to the far side of his saddle.

  "Roast duck?"

  "Wi' sweet potatoes and berry tarts. Can you find us a decent bottle of wine?"

  "If you'll make scones."

  "Ha' ye learned nothing? Scones are nae for a supper."

  "No scones, no wine," she threatened. "The little ones, shaped like triangles."

  "'Twould be more natural if you would learn to cook, woman," he teased.

  "You may be right, but I'll not have the time to learn until you've grown a gray beard to your knees. If you want to eat now, you cook."

  Grumbling good-naturedly, Kelt began to relate his morning's experiences with the lumbering crew. Ashley gave him her full attention, glad for the easy laughter and the sharing of mundane affairs. It was a companionship she hadn't known before. Even with her grandfather, it hadn't been the same. He had been the teacher, she the student. With Kelt she felt equal and the quiet contentment of companionship was spiced with the thrill of what would come in the night.

  Ashley tensed, startling the mare and causing her to dance sideways. What was she thinking of? There could be no equality between men and women. What she and Kelt shared now could never be if they were husband and wife. If she married... Her knees tightened at Scarlet's sides. If Kelt became her husband, he would be master of Morgan's Fancy. He would control the money and the land. He could sell the plantation or gamble it away if it pleased him. He could even send her back to England as Charles Wright had done with his wife.

  Mary Wright had inherited her plantation from her first husband. But after two years of marriage, Charles had ordered her to his family's home in Lincoln. He had separated her from her small son, keeping the boy with him. Now he kept company with a former indentured criminal—a woman he called his housekeeper, but who had given him two children in three years.

  Ash Morgan had gone to great lengths to leave Morgan's Fancy to Ashley, and he had warned her against foolishly giving her trust and fortune to a man. Even a man like Kelt might change after they were married. Ashley drew in a deep breath and urged the sorrel mare into a canter. She was as close to happy as she had ever been since she was a child. To risk it all would be madness.

  * * *

&nb
sp; Supper was all Kelt had promised it would be. Later, after spending a reasonable time going over the plantation ledgers, Ashley ordered hot water for a bath to be carried up to her chamber. She bid Kelt a polite good-night and went upstairs alone, trying to banish the worry that nagged her—the thorny problem of the Scarlet Witch anchored on her land. If Kelt found out before she told him, he would be furious. He would surely believe she knew about the ship and had given her permission for it to hide there.

  Resolutely Ashley pushed her problems to the far corners of her mind and slid into the bath. The warm water and soap felt wonderful, but she didn't linger in the wooden tub. She quickly washed her hair and wrapped it in a thick towel, drying her body before the fire. After donning a clean dressing gown and soft leather moccasins, she poured wine into two silver goblets and set them on the table next to her bed. Tonight Kelt would be coming to her chambers. The thought was wickedly exciting and she laughed to herself. He could enjoy the luxury of a leisurely tub bath and she would have the pleasure of watching him.

  For once they were alone in the house. Thomas was in Chestertown buying supplies for his school and Joan was spending the night with the blacksmith, presumably to inform him of his status as future father. The kitchen maid had gone back to her mother's house and no one had seen her for several days. Ashley meant to make the most of the privacy, even to shutting Jai in the kitchen.

  Perhaps tonight, after they had made love, she could tell Kelt about the Scarlet Witch. Perhaps she could make him understand that she hated Quincy and all he stood for, but loved him too much to turn him in. Telling Kelt would be better than having him find out on his own.

  She heard Kelt's hurried steps in the hall and turned toward the door. "I thought—"

  His big form filled the doorway. "The bath will ha' to wait. Your mare's gone into labor. Ye'd better dress and come doon. 'Tis nae a normal birth."

  In minutes she joined him in the barn. The black mare lay on her side in the corner box stall. An anxious groom tugged at her halter.