Storm of the Heart

by Anna Small

  “My goodness, Patience!” But Abigail could only laugh, despite the blush burning her cheeks. Her nieces and nephews ran through the door, squealing and pushing each other. The youngest, Charlie, tugged on his mother’s skirts.

  “Mama, Mr. Peabody said for you to make some coffee. He’s going with Papa and the Englishman up to Canada!”

  Patience smoothed her hands over her apron and went to the hearth to start the coffee.

  “I suppose there’s no purpose in asking you to stay here while the men go north, is there?”

  Abigail picked up the blankets and headed for the door.

  “None whatsoever.”

  Chapter Ten

  They encountered few travelers on the road leading to the border. Thanks to his trade business, Elias knew of several farms and inns along the way, and they had no trouble finding shelter or a hot meal for the night. Samuel easily slipped into the Yankee accent when they stopped. So easily, that Jotham remarked he could be Boston born.

  A week and a half of long days spent in the saddle or bunking on a hay strewn barn floor had passed in a blur. Samuel wanted some privacy with Abigail, even if it was only to hold her, but the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Her eyes seemed distant whenever she looked at him, and hang it all if she didn’t go out of her way not to look at him. He tried to steal a kiss when they stopped to water the horses, but she hurried back to the wagon before he got the chance to do more than wish her good day.

  She was pushing him away before he was out of her life for good. Even if the English welcomed him back, the war could send him far from Maine. To France, God forbid, and the fighting over there. It might be years before the war ended, and he was free to travel again. To come back to her. While he understood her actions, he was still bothered by them.

  He rode beside the wagon on Sal, Elias’s brown mare who was so gentle he was afraid to nudge her more than slightly in the flank. Abigail was on his left, seated next to her brother on the wagon, her gaze on the view ahead which consisted of the same types of pine and birch trees they’d passed hours ago. He tried to talk to her, but she kept her responses to a minimum. He liked to think it was Elias and Jotham’s presence that held her tongue, but knew the truth in his heart.

  Resigned to this new coolness, he listened with half an ear to Jotham, astride his own horse, and Elias, who drove the wagon.

  “Be dark soon,” Jotham said. “We’re not far from Fort Hardwicke. We can get closer in the morning, and then young Mr. Smith can ride ahead.”

  Elias stared ahead. But Samuel noticed the squeeze he gave to his sister’s knee.

  “That would be wisest. With the fighting growing in the South, we may not have as warm a welcome the closer we get to Canada.”

  Although the men hadn’t voiced it, Samuel was quite aware of their suspicion. He nodded.

  “I think you are both correct. Point me in the right direction, and I’ll reach the fort on my own.”

  A sort of trembling sigh emitted from Abigail, but no one commented. He longed to reach across the space between them and take her hand, but didn’t want to offend Jotham, or worse, have Elias say something. Every night when they stopped, Elias made certain Abigail was in a bedroom with other women if there were any, and if they slept at an inn, Elias secured one room for Abigail while the men slept by the hearth in the common room downstairs.

  “Sounds like the best idea,” Elias agreed.

  Dusk settled around the forest. Even the horses seemed to sense it was time to stop for the night, and pawed the ground, impatient for rest and supper. Elias indicated a clearing in the distance.

  “There’s a deserted cabin just ahead. Folks stay there all the time. We can make camp for the night and get a fresh start in the morning.”

  He didn’t have to mention they would take their leave of him come daybreak. Samuel rode ahead with Jotham to the cabin and found it as Elias had said. The door opened without a latch to secure it, but the windows were secured with heavy shutters, and the rough stone hearth was clean.

  The wagon pulled up to the entrance, and he unhitched the horses while Elias and Jotham set about making camp. They didn’t take very much from the wagon, but he observed an extra blanket and a sack of provisions set aside and realized it was for his solo journey in the morning. Abigail stepped down from the wagon before he could help, but he was able to lend a steadying hand just as she reached the ground. This time, she did look up at him, and he winced at the faraway look in her eyes. Before he could comment, Elias handed him a rifle.

  “There should be good hunting in these parts,” he said. “Think you can bring back some rabbit or squirrels?”

  Samuel took gunpowder and shot from Elias and expertly loaded the gun. It felt right in his hands. Right and familiar. No doubt, he was a soldier.

  “I shall return.” He winked at Abigail and tucked a stray lock of hair beneath her bonnet before she could move away. “Keep watch for me, Mrs. Quinn. I may have need of your rescuing services later.”

  A blush spread up her face, but she gave him a smile—her first in what seemed like days. Filled with a renewed hope, he returned within an hour, two fat rabbits in hand. Elias motioned for him to accompany him for water, and he left the rabbits with Abigail and Jotham, who had made a fire outside in a pit.

  “I like you, Smith,” Elias said at length, after he filled two buckets with water from a nearby stream.

  “I like you, too. I do, however, love your sister.”

  “I know.” Elias stared off into the horizon for a moment, at the purple streaks ribboning the sky. “She loves you, too.”

  The evening star twinkled overhead. He couldn’t grasp that this would be his last night with the woman he loved. They were both silent, and Samuel didn’t know if Elias expected some sort of promise or oath from him.

  “I never want to hurt her.”

  “Your coming here has saved her, friend. Before…” He shook his head at an unexpressed thought. “Before you came, she was lost in misery. I know what she was going through, losing Caleb. I lost my own boy some years back. Don’t know if she told you.”

  He nodded shortly. “I cannot imagine the depth of your grief. I am truly sorry.”

  Elias waved his hand in thanks.

  “It happens. We lose children and spouses. Sometimes to war, sometimes to sickness.” He headed up the stream bank, and Samuel took one of the full buckets from him. “Most people move on. I have Patience, and my other young ones. Abigail had no one when Caleb was reported dead.” He glanced at Samuel. “Say, you wouldn’t by any chance be able to find out what happened to him, would you? If he is dead or just missing? She’d be able to give up mourning him, if she knew the truth. It’s the not knowing that has kept her grieving.”

  “I will do my best to find out what happened to him. If I do not come by this way again, I will send word.”

  Elias stopped walking and gripped Samuel’s shoulder.

  “I know you’ll come back to her. You have to.”

  “I will try.” As he spoke, he felt the force of his conviction. The force of his love. “I will.”

  “Good.”

  They reached the cabin and were greeted with the aroma of cooking rabbit and fresh coffee. Abigail was inside and swept the packed dirt floor with a straw broom someone had left behind. She looked up when he entered.

  He was struck dumb by her beauty. The more he looked at her, the more he felt an invisible pull, its bonds tightening with every passing second. During their journey north, he’d had a time of it trying not to think of the future. Of ever leaving her side. He remembered the past, though; each timeless moment they’d shared. Especially making love to her. He’d forgotten his own pleasure in the joy of watching her take hers.

  “This will be a nice change after sleeping in a barn.” She set the broom aside. A fire burned in the hearth, casting a warm glow about the room. Everything looked soft and homely. He could almost pretend he was home from a hunting trip, and she waited
for him in their own house.

  He went to her before she could move away, but she seemed to be waiting for him. Despite the tears brimming in her eyes, her full lips parted in a smile. He slipped his arms around her waist and held her close. She clung to him briefly, and when she broke away, she retained his hand.

  “Elias told me you should stay here tonight. With me.” A blush spread across her cheeks, making her appear as sweet and innocent as any bride.

  “He presumes a lot, your brother.” He couldn’t resist the heady feeling of expectation. Finally, they could be alone. There was so much to say. So many kisses that would have to suffice for the future absence of kisses.

  For the first time in days, she laughed.

  “Supper’s ready. We should eat.”

  He glanced down at their entwined fingers. With parting came the hope of a future together, as they had no chance of a future as long as his identity was in question. He followed her outside to where Elias and Jotham were seated by the fire. Jotham handed him a roasted joint of meat.

  Elias raised a cup of water in a toast.

  “To journey’s end.”

  The others echoed his sentiment. Samuel nodded at Jotham a few yards away. Abigail clinked her cup against his.

  “Journey’s end,” she murmured.

  It could not come fast enough.

  Chapter Eleven

  Samuel closed the cabin door behind him and gave it a hard push until the latch caught. The firelight filled the room with an amber glow that gave the room more an air of home than a temporary residence. Outside, Jotham and Elias were settling down to sleep beside the fire pit. They were alone.

  Abigail had spread the bearskin Elias had packed, and it took up most of the space in front of the hearth. One of her dresses formed a pillow roll, and a faded quilt topped off their bed. She waited for him to say something, but he merely removed his coat and sat on top of the blankets. When he held his arms open, she went to him without hesitation.

  Their embrace was lost in silence. Words didn’t matter now, anyway. Whatever words she could think of would not be enough to tell him how much her life had changed since knowing him. She allowed her lips and arms to convey her feelings, and he returned the same, silent message with his.

  She didn’t recall removing her dress or unbuttoning his shirt. His hands skimmed her body as he unfastened her petticoat and slid her shift over her head. His breeches and stockings joined her garments on the floor, and then it was just his body covering hers. The bearskin was like rough silk beneath her naked back. His chest hair tickled her breasts as he enfolded her in his arms. A crushing wave of desire ran through her very bones, leaving her weak and quivering. Just as before, she sensed the urgency of the moment. There was no time for shy caresses to grow into bold advances. She opened to him like a water lily seeking the sunlight.

  “I will return to you. I swear it.” His face hovered over hers, his lips a mere inch or two away.

  She wanted nothing more than to take as many kisses as she could from him and linked her arms around his neck. His eyes glowed like moonbeams in the firelight. She brushed a bead of sweat from his forehead.

  “I will wait for you. More than twenty years and a day. I’ll wait forever.” She wanted to speak his name, but knew it was not Samuel. She allowed her heart to name him; to give him the loveliest and noblest of names that only she would know.

  He bowed his head and brushed his lips across hers, lingering and tender as the tidal wave swelled and grew between them, taking them along on its reckless, joyous path before they sank into oblivion.

  ****

  “It will be morning soon.” Abigail’s voice broke the stillness of the cabin.

  Her breath stirred the hair on his forehead, and Samuel blinked his eyes to fully awake. He’d settled into a drowsy sleep, his cheek on her breast. She’d been playing with his hair, running it through her fingers, and now stopped.

  He propped his head up on one elbow and gazed down at her. Her hair flowed in golden waves across the makeshift pillow and gleamed in the pale glow of firelight. Shadows played and danced across her face, and he traced his finger over her cheek and across to her lips, outlining the curves and valleys. Remember this. Remember her face, her voice... Remember the joy you feel holding her...

  Impossible to stop touching her now that she was his. Impossible to think their idyll would ever end, although each passing second brought their separation closer.

  “Pretend I am going on a short trip and will return in a few days.”

  “I wish that’s all it was.” Her hand abandoned his hair and skimmed his jaw, then slid over his cheekbones to touch his lips as he had touched hers. “I love you,” she whispered, her voice catching.

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard.

  “Don’t cry, sweeting. I can’t bear your tears.”

  She gulped loudly and shook her head. “I’m not crying because I’m sad.” She broke away to look into his eyes. “I’m so happy I can say it…that I can feel it again. That I feel it with you.”

  “I love you, Abby. My darling, dearest Abby.” He covered her in kisses as she gasped his name and held him tightly, so tightly he almost choked for breath, like when he was adrift at sea. But this wasn’t the cold, terrible sea. He would drown here in her arms, never to come up for air. All that mattered was this moment of joining with her. He would make the moment last indelibly on his mind. At least, his memory loss could not take her away.

  ****

  “The war can’t last much longer.”

  Every time he spoke of their future, she nodded as if there truly was cause for hope, even though the words echoed throughout her lonely heart. The thought of just one day without him was unbearable.

  He held her close, his arms a warm shelter keeping her grounded for the remaining few moments they had left.

  “The last time we invaded your lovely country, it lasted…what, four, five years? It will be just the same with this war. I can finish my commission, whatever that may be, and then I’ll come back.” His blue eyes pierced hers with his direct gaze. “I promise you, Abby.”

  He sealed his words with another kiss.

  “But what if you return home and find…” She gulped, unable to finish her sentence. The thought was too brutal.

  He wrapped a lock of her hair around and between his fingers and held it to his lips. “I thought about that, too. I don’t really believe anyone is waiting for me. I would remember a wife and children, surely. A man would know if he were a father or a husband.”

  “Perhaps.” The image of a beautiful woman, dressed in gorgeous finery and feathers, at a ball or elegant parlor filled her thoughts. She forced a smile despite her heartache.

  “What are you thinking, Abby?” His voice was gentle. She shrugged.

  “I am just thinking how wonderful it will be when the war is over.” She wouldn’t even consider the other possibility, which was that he would never return.

  “It will be. I promise.”

  He gave her one last embrace before sitting up and groping through their clothes pile for his breeches.

  “I can hear your brother and Jotham hitching the horses. We’d better dress and go outside before they come in to see what is keeping us.”

  She pretended to be amused by his meager jest and rummaged for her discarded clothes tangled among the bedclothes. As she poked her head through her shift, she blushed to find his heated gaze upon her.

  “God, you are beautiful.” His voice came out in a strangled whisper.

  It had been so long since she’d had intimate attention from a man, and didn’t know how to respond. She hid her blush by fussing with her hair, and secured it into a braid. She pulled on her dress and turned so he could fasten it up the back. While his hands moved slowly, almost as if he were reluctant to stop, her mind raced with troublesome possibilities about his identity.

  His manners and taste all indicated a noble upbringing. A gentleman’s son would have be
en betrothed early on to a wealthy heiress. Once he returned to his English manor house and lands, a fine wife and children, he would not give her a second thought. Oh, perhaps he would remember her fondly whenever a storm streaked across the English sky. He would recall the simple widow who dragged him from death’s shores and shared her body and food without hesitation. Perhaps he’d toast her on New Year’s Eve as the person responsible for granting him another year of life with his perfect wife and family. And then he would think of her no more.

  His lips nuzzled her ear, disrupting her thoughts. He slid his hands over her breasts and hips and turned her around to face him.

  “I’m storing you into my memory, so I will have something to think about on the rest of my journey.”

  “I wish I could come with you.”

  He smoothed a few stray tendrils of hair from her face.

  “It’s too much of a risk. I would have no means of guaranteeing your safety.” He sighed. “Your brother will take care of you. Stay safe. For me.” His eyes misted. “Damn my selfish requests, Abby, but I care not. Wait for me. No matter how long it takes.”

  “Twenty years and a day?” A smile cracked through her pain. His head lowered and his lips parted in preparation for a kiss.

  “Forever, Abby. Wait forever. I will come back to you.”

  She didn’t have time to answer. When they kissed, her worries and fears vanished. She held on to him until Elias called that it was time to go.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jotham stopped his horse at noon in such an abrupt manner that Abigail’s heart thudded. Elias slowed the wagon. She reached across the wagon seat and gripped Samuel’s hand. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “Fort Hardwicke isn’t far from here,” Jotham said. “We daren’t go any further than this. The Canadians at the border are friendly, but we may run into some redcoats. Don’t want to get picked up by a patrol.”

  As if his words had to be punctuated with an action, he touched the side of his head where he’d received his battle scar at Yorktown. His steely gaze burned on Samuel for a moment before he turned away. Elias cleared his throat and gave Abigail a pointed look.