Island of the Swans (50 page)

“She’s all right, isn’t she?” Jane asked for the second time, her eyes widening with concern when Alex did not respond.

“She’s as perfect as a
peach
,” chimed in the midwife with a pride of authorship that was patently obvious since Dr. Ogilvy had so thoroughly discredited himself at the crucial moment.

“We could… call her… Louisa… after my uncle Lewis,” the duke said finally, surprised at the name that had involuntarily come to him.

“The uncle who fought against the Crown for Bonnie Prince Charlie?” Jane asked cautiously.

“Aye,” Alex replied wearily, an overwhelming sense of fatigue invading his body. “The only Gordon in my family who fought beside Simon the Fox, at Culloden Moor.”

He gazed down at the tiny bundle cooing softly in Perkins’s arms. Louisa’s hair had partially dried, and in the shadows of the curtained bed, it appeared to be only slightly more auburn than her mother’s brunette mane. He must have been imagining…

“I think you should rest now,” he said, rising from the bed as Perkins placed the newborn in his wife’s arms.

The soaring happiness that had filled his heart at the moment of the baby’s birth had drained away, leaving only the dregs of doubt and mistrust that once again ate at him like a canker.

“A-Alex…” Jane said softly, staring at the russet top of her new daughter’s head.

“Yes,” he replied dully, preventing himself from musing about the brief period the previous December when Jane and Thomas Fraser were together at Culloden House. Surely, he, Alex, had left her that night in no condition to seek another man’s bed. He’d learned through his brother-in-law, Hamilton, that she had left the next day for Kinrara with little Charlotte and her housemaid, and then, came home to Gordon Castle.

Alex closed his eyes to shut out the memory of that first blinding vision of Louisa’s reddish hair. He breathed deeply. Louisa was his. The baby
had
to be his! He felt Jane’s hand touching his sleeve. Opening his eyes, he flinched for the first time in his life at the sight of his wife’s missing forefinger.

“I think I would have died without you, Alex… truly, I do.”

“I think not,” he answered stiffly, turning to leave the room. He felt as if he was about to pass through a dozen doors in the castle, each one closing behind him with a heavy thud. “Just as I’ve always said, you’re a proven breeder, Jane. Now, I suggest you get some sleep.”

Twenty

S
EPTEMBER
1777

T
HOMAS
F
RASER TOOK NOTE OF THE DENSE FOG ENVELOPING THE
Old Kennett Meeting House with a profound sense of foreboding.

It was nine o’clock on this sultry September morning, and already, sweat was pouring down his back. The peculiar vapor obscured a long line of British infantry who, together with a company of Hessian mercenaries, were advancing along the Baltimore-Philadelphia road toward Chadd’s Ford in pursuit of General Washington’s army. Thomas squinted through the haze. His scouts had sworn the Continentals were posted on the heights across the Brandywine, but he couldn’t even see the rebel troops.

“Do you think General Howe did right to split us into two forces like this, Captain Fraser, sir?” Corporal Christopher Thornton whispered nervously, nodding in the direction of General Knyphausen who rode at the head of the long column of soldiers disappearing into the mist.

Thomas was annoyed by the persistent questions posed by this young recruit who, he’d lately learned, hailed from the cathedral town of Elgin and had accepted the King’s Shilling from the Duchess of Gordon herself.

Can I never escape from the shadow of that blasted clan?
Thomas thought morosely.

“Look, Thornton,” Thomas replied to the eighteen-year-old recruit, “’Tis a sound plan for our battalion and the Hessians to engage the main American force while the others encircle them from behind.”

General Howe and Lord Cornwallis had first listened carefully as Thomas and the other intelligence officers reported the latest information collected from a network of agents and royalist sympathizers who’d crawled out of the woodwork in Pennsylvania as soon as His Majesty’s troops landed on August 25. Thomas glanced back at the column of kilted soldiers of the 71st Fraser Highlanders. Their ranks were thinned by the capture of a whole company, including Jane’s brother, Hamilton Maxwell, aboard the
Ann
just as the ship approached Boston Harbor in June of 1776. Thomas wondered if Jane even knew yet that her brother and his fellow soldiers had wound up in prison as soon as they touched American soil, and without having fired a single shot.

He shifted his musket onto his left shoulder and tried not to speculate further about
anything
having to do with Jane Maxwell, even the fate of her brother. Despite his resolve, he found his mind drifting back to the night they’d parted in his room at Gordon Castle. What if she had actually been carrying his child? What if—

Give it up!
he silently lectured himself. ’
Tis finished. Finally finished.

Thomas eyed the packhorses tramping past Welch’s Tavern. The region they were marching through presently was shaded by hickory trees and Penn oaks. The rolling green hills and rich bottomlands of Chester County, Pennsylvania, supplied much of the grain that fed Washington’s Army, as well as most of the iron, the furnaces, and the forges that produced the muskets and cannonballs fired at the British troops. Thomas and the rest of the 71st Fraser Highlanders were aching for a chance to repay the rebels, who had managed to recover from their ignominious rout at a place called Brooklyn Heights in New York and had subsequently outflanked and outsmarted Cornwallis during the latter part of 1776 in campaigns all over New Jersey.

Thomas pulled his collar away from his sweat-damp neck and was suddenly reminded of those stiflingly humid days he’d spent not so very far from here, just over the border in Maryland. His hand involuntarily traced the scar slicing across his cheek. It had been ten years since he’d lived at Antrim Hall, recuperating from wounds he’d received in the Indian ambush. If it hadn’t been for Arabella O’Brien Delaney’s hiding his letters to Jane and no doubt to Captain James Maxwell as well, he might be married to Jane this very day. Thanks to Arabella’s perfidy, he was marching along a fog-choked road in Pennsylvania, facing death from an American musket fired by a soldier he might never see.

If I live to see another dawn
, he thought grimly,
I will pay my respects to that raven-haired vixen.

Events moved swiftly following the sound defeat of Washington’s troops at Brandywine. After the battle, the British General Howe established his headquarters six miles north of Philadelphia with nine thousand men, and then, on September 26, he had marched into the capital, unopposed. The Revolutionary leaders had barely enough time to flee to nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with their personal belongings and their quill pens.

“Are you
sure
the lad said Antrim Hall? Antrim Hall outside of Annapolis?” Thomas quizzed the agent who’d arrived in camp following its hasty construction.

“Right. That’s what he said,” the peddler insisted. “He told me the mistress of Antrim Hall has married one of Washington’s aides. A Colonel Boyd, he said. Much older than her, but they tied the knot about a year ago.”

“And you’re
positive
the colonel paid his wife a visit just after Brandywine?”

“Yes, sir. That’s what the other agent said. He heard Colonel Boyd speak of his wife at the inn in Annapolis on his return to Lancaster.”

“I see…” Thomas said absently, turning this fortuitous bit of information over in his mind. Perhaps he could both settle an old score and glean some much-needed intelligence as to Washington’s next moves at the same time. He opened his pouch of gold coins. “Until next trip, then.” He smiled grimly, extending payment to the itinerant traveler.

Within twenty-four hours, Lord Cornwallis had agreed with Thomas that he and a party of nine men should travel to the Maryland Tidewater region, ostensibly to “liberate” foodstuffs and supplies for their newly established headquarters in Germantown, just outside Philadelphia. However, Thomas’s real mission would be to persuade the new Mrs. Boyd, by whatever means were at Thomas’s disposal, to reveal what her husband had undoubtedly told her about General Washington’s future battle plans.

The ancient oaks arched in a tunnel along the entrance to Antrim Hall. Their branches cast a spider web of shadows in the moonlight, which shone overhead with dazzling silver brilliance.

“The cook house and the stores lie in two low brick buildings in the back, behind the main house,” Thomas whispered to the soldier next to him. “You’ll gather as much as you can. Thornton, report to my lord Cornwallis that I will return to Germantown by Friday, but that I think my interview with Mistress Boyd may quickly yield some valuable information regarding General Washington’s plans to recapture Philadelphia.”

“Aye, Captain,” responded Corporal Christopher Thornton with a sly smile.

The pink-cheeked recruit, who had an appreciative eye for the ladies, was obviously titillated to learn that an old acquaintance of Captain Fraser’s had married an aide to General Washington. Whether the lady in question would be forthcoming about what she knew, or would require some amusing form of persuasion, was a mystery to spark Corporal Thornton’s imagination.

“All right, lads,” Thomas said gruffly, “just get the stores and then be on your way. I doubt there are many men left on the plantation, so, no nonsense with the servant women… d’you take my meaning?”

“Aye…” the nine men mumbled in unison, looking disappointed at the order. As far as they were concerned, intelligence officers had all the luck.

With Thomas in the lead, the small band of men rode down the shaded driveway until they were within view of the porticoed, white-shuttered brick mansion standing on the gentle rise. Thomas couldn’t help but recall the towering rage he had been in when last he’d thundered past this mighty avenue of oaks on his way to catch his ship in Philadelphia. Now, as he gazed down along the shaded drive, the house looked as picturesque as a wedding cake, iced with moonlight.

Stealthily, the party dismounted and tied their horses to the branches of the last oak flanking the road. Thomas passed along the rose garden by the side of the house, and around to the back porch. Then he waved his men toward the two squat buildings that stood a hundred yards from the Greek revival manse where they might find the stored food stuffs.

With the tip of his dagger, Thomas jimmied open the flimsy lock and let himself into the back pantry. The sounds of dogs barking in the kennels down by the summerhouse made him feel uneasy as he crept up the back stairs. He quickly reached the passageway that ran past his former sickroom. Shafts of moonlight spilled through the fanlight window at the end of the hall onto the worn carpet and peeling wallpaper. Apparently, Arabella’s nuptials with Washington’s aide-de-camp had not brought with it vast wealth. Or perhaps the general shabbiness of the place indicated that the British blockade had effectively prevented luxury goods from reaching the hands of Americans who could pay for them.