Freedom to Love

by Susanna Fraser

  Thérèse swallowed. She could survive bruises. But she couldn’t survive—none of them could survive—lingering in Natchez for much longer. She glanced at Jeannette, who had already mounted and begun putting her gray through his paces. Thérèse sighed with envy. Had she been that brave when she was that young? Only eight years ago, but it felt like so much longer. She didn’t think so.

  “You can do this.” He patted the mare’s shoulder. “Tell her hello.”

  “Hello, Queenie,” she said obediently.

  “In an ideal world, you would offer her a carrot or a lump of sugar, but we don’t have such treasures, so you might begin by rubbing her nose or patting her neck.”

  Thérèse reached out a tentative hand and touched the mare’s muzzle, heavy solid bone under the thin layer of skin and hair. The horse shifted her weight, and Thérèse looked nervously at her hooves, so very close to her own toes. Her boots were the sturdiest she owned, but they’d be little protection against that crushing weight. “Her feet are big, too.”

  “Don’t worry. She doesn’t want to step on your feet any more than you’d want to step on a baby’s foot or a cat’s paw.”

  “I stepped on a cat once, in the dark.”

  “Yes. Accidents can happen, but if you are careful, and trust her to be careful, she’ll see you safe almost every time. You said you trusted me. Did you mean it?”

  She blinked and met his eyes. He smiled crookedly. After all they had already been through together, how could she not trust him in this? “Yes.”

  “Good. Then let’s get you mounted. Come around to her side here, and I’ll boost you up.” He led her to the mare’s left side.

  “Very well. How do you do that?”

  “Like so.” He sank to one knee, and she gazed down at him in surprise. His eyes twinkled with a hint of laughter, and she smiled despite herself. It was unwise of her in the extreme, but she did so love his eyes. “I make a cradle with my hands, here.” He laced his fingers together and rested them on his knee. “You step into them, with your left foot, and as you step, I boost you up.” He mimed the action, standing. “You then fling your right leg over the horse’s side, settle yourself in the saddle and find your stirrups. I’ll adjust them to the right length for you.”

  “You’ll want to settle your skirts around your legs so the saddle doesn’t chafe you,” Jeannette put in, riding alongside to inspect their progress. Her own skirts were indeed rucked and twisted up, leaving her legs in their rough stockings bared below the knee. Thérèse blushed to think of making a similar immodest display. No one important will see, she told herself, but that wasn’t true. Captain Farlow would see, and she knew what he thought of her body.

  “It will be all right,” he reassured her.

  She nodded. “Let’s try it, then.”

  But their first attempt ended with her sprawled half on her stomach, with Captain Farlow catching at her waist as Queenie fidgeted and danced away, those great feet she was supposedly so careful with uncomfortably close to Thérèse’s hands.

  “Whoa! There, there,” the captain said. She wasn’t sure whether he was talking to her or the horse.

  “Ouch!” Thérèse yelped.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked. His embrace was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her ear. She shivered with an unlooked-for stab of desire all the way down to her loins. She swore she could feel the heat of his hands burning through her layers of dress, corset and chemise.

  She took a deep breath and pushed away—after looking to make sure she was safe from the horse’s hooves. The horse dealer had secured the mare and was watching her and Captain Farlow in amusement.

  “Yes,” she said. “I mean, no. I’m not hurt. It only stung my knee a little. I think I landed on a stone.” She scrambled to her feet, brushing at her skirts. Her face felt hot, and when she dared to meet the captain’s eyes again she saw that he was flushed, too, his light eyes gone darker, as if the black pupils were trying to swallow the pale irises.

  “There. You see?” he said briskly. “You fell, but you aren’t injured, and you see how well Queenie avoided stepping on you.”

  She blinked. She hadn’t thought of it in her fear of the big, snorting beast, but the mare had been careful.

  “Now we try again.”

  And together they patted and praised the mare until she seemed sleepily calm again, and again Captain Farlow knelt and offered his hands for a stepping-stool. This time they took it more slowly—she guessed he was used to performing such a service for more practiced riders, from the way he’d flung her into the air the first time—and she managed to successfully land in the saddle. Queenie only fidgeted slightly as Thérèse settled her skirts as best she could to protect both her legs and her modesty.

  Her seat was much more secure than when she’d ridden perched on the front of Captain Farlow’s saddle that day, but it terrified her to be expected to manage this great beast all on her own. “What do I do with the reins?” she asked. The captain had handed them to her as soon as she was fairly aboard, and she grasped them gingerly in her gloved hands, equally afraid to drop them or to pull on them.

  “I’ll show you. I’ll teach you, I swear, but let me see to your stirrups first.” And suddenly he was at her side, taking her booted ankle, his fingers brushing her stockinged leg, then darting away as if scorched. He gently pushed her foot back, adjusted the stirrup strap and instructed her on how to settle her foot, with her heel down, always down, did she understand? He then performed the same service on her other leg and showed her how to hold the reins.

  She hung on his every word as though her life depended upon it, because as far as she knew, it did. But all along, her body sang at his every touch, and she could tell by his quickened breathing and heightened color that he felt the same. They were so, so far from anywhere safe where they could go their separate ways. How were they going to keep their hands off each other that long?

  But at last he left her alone atop the horse and mounted his own smaller, more spirited mare. They bid the horse trader farewell and rode off together, northeastward toward safety. For the first few hours they kept to a walk, and Captain Farlow never left her side, keeping up a steady stream of instruction and encouragement. After a quarter hour’s terror, Thérèse lost her imminent fear of falling. There was something soothing about the steady rocking movement of the horse, and a freedom as exhilarating as it was terrifying to be here on this open road, riding a path she’d never seen toward a future she’d never imagined.

  The road was almost empty, and Thérèse supposed it was early in the season yet. They passed a party of travelers on foot, all clad in the same frontier fashion Captain Farlow had now adopted, and met a rider going toward Natchez, clad as a gentleman planter.

  She worried at her bottom lip. Would he see the posters when he got to the town and come racing back after them, eager for the reward?

  “Don’t worry,” Captain Farlow said. “Pay attention to your horse. She’s good, but she’s lazy.”

  Queenie indeed was slowing and drifting toward the grassy side of the road. Thérèse corrected her and rode on.

  As the afternoon sun began to sink, Captain Farlow drilled them on the story they would give to the innkeepers and anyone else they met along the way: he and she were man and wife, traveling with all the speed they could muster to Nashville, where his brother lay ill. He would maintain his French name and accent.

  He had met her in New Orleans, since it would be useless for her to pretend she knew any other place well enough to pass for a native, and she was an orphan with little property left to her but her young slave. The brother in Nashville had a thriving shop, and when they got there, they would assist him if he lived and take it over if he died.

  “Do we want him to live or die?” she asked.

  “Live, of course,” Capta
in Farlow replied with a startled blink.

  “Maybe he was cruel, and the two of you often quarreled, so you’d like nothing better than to step into his shoes.”

  “No. We won’t be so unnatural.”

  “Unnatural or not, it happens.”

  “No. That is—I’d been picturing this Nashville brother of mine as just like my real brother Charles, and I certainly wish him long decades of life.”

  “If he died, you’d be baron, right?”

  “God forbid. But only if he didn’t have a son, which he may by now. His wife expected to be confined around Christmas.”

  Thérèse refrained from pointing out how many women bore nothing but daughters, or how many pregnancies ended in a stillborn baby or one who died within its first year, even in the halest and richest of families. Maybe his English mountains were healthier. Many Frenchmen and Americans from the north struggled and sickened in the Louisiana climate. Still, a healthy nephew to inherit his brother’s place was no sure thing in any country.

  After settling a few more details of their fictional history, they rode on in silence as the sun fell toward the horizon. Thérèse’s legs burned from the unaccustomed posture, and her back ached from the constant motion of the horse. If this was a smooth-gaited horse, she didn’t want to think what she’d feel like after half a day on one of the others’ mounts.

  And tomorrow she would have to do this all day. She sighed and fidgeted, envying Captain Farlow’s easy, supple way of riding. He sat straight and tall, very much the gentleman, but there was nothing tense or uncomfortable in his posture. Glancing over her shoulder, she found some comfort in seeing that Jeannette, for all that she knew more of riding than Thérèse, also slouched in exhaustion.

  “Your regiment was infantry, right?” she asked the captain. “Not cavalry.”

  He smiled and raised an eyebrow, evidently guessing her thoughts. “Yes, but infantry officers can ride if they choose, and if they can afford to keep horses. I always rode in Spain, but I didn’t bring a mount here. It’s one thing to afford a horse, quite another to ship it across the ocean. I reckoned if I stayed long enough, I’d buy horses.” He laughed a little bitterly. “And here I am.”

  His jaw set and he didn’t speak again. He had that same haunted look he’d had when she’d read the handbill describing him as a deserter. Thérèse was still fumbling for a way to question him about it when they rounded a bend in the road and a long, low building came into view.

  “Unless I miss my guess, that’s our inn. Or stand—that’s what everyone seems to call them here,” Captain Farlow said. He leaned forward a little, and his horse appeared to pick up some of his anticipation, tossing her head and going into a trot. Thérèse tried to hold Queenie back, but she gathered herself and gained speed. Her head bobbed with each stride, but the rest of her seemed smoother. Her steps no longer jarred straight into Thérèse’s back.

  When she drew alongside Captain Farlow again, he grinned at her. “There! What did I tell you? You’ve got an ambler there.”

  She nodded, not understanding but pleased at his pleasure. She was abruptly glad they were traveling by horse instead of boat now, since all it took to shake her companion out of a state of gloom was a new horse, or some new display from an old one.

  “See, mine is trotting,” he said. “Much bouncier, and not so comfortable. It’s a rare horse that can do what yours is doing. You’re lucky.”

  If that was so, Thérèse wondered why men didn’t breed more horses that could amble. Surely comfort was a virtue when one must ride for endless hours. But before she could question the captain, they halted in front of the inn. It was the easiest time Thérèse had had stopping the horse all day. She supposed the beast was clever enough to recognize the building as a place where rest and hay might be had.

  As Jeannette caught up with them, a man and woman appeared in the inn’s doorway, eager for their custom. They were the inn’s only guests that evening, and since their hosts took it as a matter of course that she and Captain Farlow would share a room, with their maid sleeping in the kitchen, Thérèse agreed and thanked them. It wouldn’t do to make themselves too memorable and conspicuous. And in any case she could hardly think beyond the throbbing ache in her legs and back. She had to lean on the captain’s arm to make it into the inn’s rough common room, where she sank gratefully onto a bench.

  “I know it doesn’t seem sensible, but keep moving,” he said. “It’ll keep your legs from stiffening up.”

  “They’re already as stiff as can be,” she protested, but she obediently stretched them out, pushed herself to her feet and began pacing around the room.

  As soon as she got a chance, she drew Jeannette aside. “Do you mind sleeping in the kitchen?” she murmured. “If you do, I’ll have you come up to help me with my dress and hair, and you can stay in our room.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Truly?” Thérèse studied her sister’s face. She knew Jeannette had been more frightened by Bertrand’s attack than she liked to admit, and now they were among strangers.

  “Yes. I won’t be alone. They have one slave here, and she seems kind.” She smiled with a glimmer of mischief. “I’ll be seeing all of you and the captain I could possibly wish for weeks, or even months. I enjoy having someone different to talk to.”

  Well, that put Thérèse in her place. “I can see that. But if you change your mind...”

  “Wait, do you mind being alone with the captain, after what happened the first night on the boat?”

  “It won’t happen again. We’ve both promised.” Never mind that speaking of it set her heart racing faster at the thought of his lips against hers, his hands in her hair.

  “Good. Because he’s more likely to talk to just you than to me about what happened back in Natchez, and...he needs to talk. If it weren’t for the horses, he’d still be wallowing in misery.”

  So Jeannette had seen it, too. “I’ll do my best,” Thérèse promised.

  Chapter Nine

  They retired early after a simple dinner of cornbread with a bacon and bean stew. “I was glad for something other than alligator,” Captain Farlow commented as he stared meditatively at the fire.

  Thérèse yawned. “I’ve had worse meals. At least it was filling.”

  “You shouldn’t sleep in your dress,” he said. “I swear I won’t touch you. There’s two beds, after all.” The innkeeper’s wife had told them that in the busiest months, as many as ten people might sleep crowded in this room, three or four in each bed and the rest wrapped in blankets on the floor.

  “Nor you in your boots,” she agreed. “I trust you now. I, ah, will need your help to unhook the dress. There’s one in the middle I can’t quite reach.”

  She flushed, but this time Captain Farlow didn’t give her one of those burning looks like when he’d helped her with the horse. He’d hardly said a word at dinner. Thérèse hoped it was only weariness with maintaining his French accent, but she feared it was more of the dismal spirits he’d shown since that moment with the handbill.

  “Turn around, and I’ll see to it,” he said. She did, and he made short work of the row of hooks. She sucked in a breath and held it lest he hear that she’d gone breathless and frantic over his nearness. “There. Now I’ll turn my back until you’re safely under the covers.”

  She was glad he was being respectful, wasn’t she? But she wasn’t sure she wanted it to be so easy for him. Still, as quickly as she could she scrambled out of her front-lacing corset, tucked the pouches holding her jewels into the bottom of her saddlebag, changed into a fresh shift and climbed under the patchwork quilt.

  Meanwhile the captain had removed his boots and trousers—though his shirt’s tails hung well past all those parts she shouldn’t want to see but did—and was contemplating his own quilt. “This looks very fine,” he said. />
  “It’s a way to use up odds and ends of cloth,” she said with a shrug. “If it were a very fine example, it wouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s well made, then. And a good way to make the most of what one has to hand.”

  “I think you know something about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She took a deep breath. She dared much, in speaking of what she’d learned this morning, but they had many weeks left of traveling together, and she didn’t want to pretend nothing had happened. “You don’t read very well, and you make a great effort to hide it. To...patch your life together so that it doesn’t show.”

  “It showed today.” With a sigh he climbed into the other bed and buried his face in his hands. “I told you I wasn’t clever. I told you I wasn’t fit for anything but a soldier.”

  “Don’t soldiers need cleverness? General Jackson is no fool, and I’m sure Napoleon and your Wellington are as intelligent men as you’d find anywhere.”

  “They’re commanders. Soldiers just need to follow their orders.”

  She doubted it was as simple as that. “Don’t tell me any of them would want to command an army of idiots. Surely it takes cleverness to follow orders well. It isn’t as though a general can be everywhere at once, doing your thinking for you.”

  He lifted his head and huffed out a quiet laugh. “You haven’t seen Wellington in action. He comes close. But you’re right. It doesn’t matter if an ordinary private is clever, as long as he has sense enough to learn the drill. But anything higher, even a corporal, needs to think.”

  “Well, you think very well.”

  “How well can a man think if he cannot read?” he said bitterly.

  “I’ve known you for two weeks now, and I can tell you’re very clever. I’ve thought that from the moment I met you, and nothing I saw today changed that.”

  “How can you say that? You can’t say you weren’t surprised.”

  “Exactly. I was surprised because I know you to be intelligent, so it never occurred to me to suspect you couldn’t read.”