Authors: Cat Lindler
Willa washed off all evidence of the swamp and caught a few hours’ sleep before her father summoned her to his study. When she slid into the room, Bellingham came to his feet and winced. His deep breath expressed dismay as his gaze lit on her hair. He gestured toward a chair.
Willa had loved the masculine room until Marlene added touches of Queen Anne furniture with carved sunburst motifs, and the newer Chippendale mahogany chairs and piecrust tables. The older items, brought from England by Willa’s mother, sat like woebegone orphans amidst the brash American upstarts. Heavy garnet drapes veiled the windows. Light came from small pewter candelabras on the fireplace mantle and her father’s desk.
Colonel Bellingham seated himself and studied Willa with an expression of resignation.
A frisson slithered down her spine as she sank into the upholstered wing chair, her body taut as though ready to bolt. Uncomfortable with his continued silence, she commenced her apology. “Papa, I know I disappointed you again—”
“Willa,” he interrupted, “I have no intention of turning this interview into a discussion of your most recent episode of disobedience. Frankly, I regret I even know about it.”
The note of foreboding in his tone concerned her more than had he expressed anger. She leaned forward. “In that case, perhaps you will agree to forget about it?”
He frowned and lifted a hand. “Listen to what I have to say. Then you may speak.”
She closed her mouth and settled back in the seat. The air became thick with tension. Her heart raced, sending numbness through her arms to the tips of her fingers. She twisted her hands in the lap of her day dress and wrinkled the lawn fabric as she fought to calm herself, aware she had finally overstretched her bounds of freedom. She would listen, but she knew she was going to dislike what her father had to say.
“'Tis past time for you to let go of this persistent fixation you have with Francis Marion,” Bellingham said as he came out from behind the desk. Lacing his hands behind his back and striding to the fireplace, he turned, rested an elbow on the mantle, and bent a stern eye on her. “You harbor a childish notion in continuing to believe you can capture a man our best soldiers cannot even find. Your obsessive behavior is delusional, hazardous, and unsuitable for a young woman.” His gaze grew sharper. “You
are
a young woman, regardless of your dress and demeanor at times, and the proper place for a young woman is in a suitable marriage.”
Marriage?
Willa’s heart set up a clatter, shortening her breath and making her chest ache. Why was her father speaking about marriage?
Not Digby,
she prayed. She would kill herself first.
“I sent for your betrothed,” he was saying.
Her emotions turned cartwheels until his words registered, then she sprang to her feet. “Betrothed? What are you saying? I have no betrothed.”
He pointed at the chair and waited until she seated herself again. “I must warn you,” he said firmly, “no further interruptions.”
The specter of doom descended like a violent summer storm, and Willa barely managed to hold her peace. The colonel picked up his pipe from its mantle stand and stuffed shredded tobacco into the bowl. She stiffened even more. Papa never smoked in front of a woman without first asking permission. She feared his inattention to basic manners boded ill for her.
After packing the pipe, he lit it from a candelabra flame and took a restless turn about the room. An odor of brandy-soaked tobacco followed his progress. At last, when Willa thought she would expire from suspense, he began. “Many years ago, soon after your birth, a man saved my life. We were young officers in the war with France for Prussia. I remember the incident as though it occurred yesterday. ‘Twas directly before our recall after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Russian cannon fire pinned down my patrol in a rocky defile. We had no escape, no hope for succor. Were it not for our deliverance by the actions of a brave British officer and his small group of men in taking out the artillery, I would have died that day on the battlefield.”
He paused beside the windows to glance out at a slave pruning roses in the arbor. As he drew on the pipe, he came back around, his words preceded by a stream of fragrant blue smoke. “I sought out the officer who saved my life and the lives of my men and made the acquaintance of Gerald Sinclair, Baron Montford. We talked about our families, as men are wont to do in a military camp. I learned Montford had two sons and, like most peers, sought an advantageous marriage for them, though they were but young lads at the time. On that day I pledged my youngest daughter,” he gestured to her with the pipe stem, “to his heir. As an earl’s daughter, you could hope to reach higher than a barony. But I daresay I saw the matter as one of honor and an expression of gratitude for Montford’s courage.
“When the baron passed away twelve years ago, the elder son disappeared, and the courts declared him dead. Aidan Sinclair, the younger son, then acceded to his father’s title. Having taken commission as a cavalry officer, he is now of a disposition to marry and set up his nursery. I requested his assignment to Georgetown several months ago, and I anticipate his arrival any day.” He settled the pipe stem between his teeth and bit down on it.
Willa’s silent compliance sprouted legs and fled. Acid bubbled in her stomach, rising to her throat. She clenched her hands into fists and raised them. “How could you, Papa? How could you simply presume to arrange my life for me? I know naught of this man and, from what you say, you have no more knowledge of him than I do. He could be cruel, a drunkard, a gambler, or a whoremonger. How could you do this to me?”
“I say now,” he countered. In an impatient gesture, he knocked out the half-burned tobacco into a silver dish on a side table. “You are quite right in one respect. I have never met Lord Montford. However, I followed his career with invested interest. He is a well-respected peer. Has he half the courage and integrity of his sire, you can do no better.”
She stood up, her hands fisted at her sides. “I do not give a fig if he is as moral as the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have no wish to marry … him … or anyone else.”
The line of his mouth flattened. “You have no choice. This is my decision. As your father, my duty is clear—to find you a suitable husband. You are of an age to marry, and marry you shall.”
“I tell you, I
will not
marry this man. Nothing you say will change my mind. You may be my father, and I love you and owe you a degree of respect, but you have seen fit to arrange, not only a marriage, but the remainder of my life. I must have some say in the matter.”
His frown hardened his chin to stone. Abandoning his relaxed pose, he advanced, his hands locked behind his back, and stopped in front of her. “You
shall
marry, and marry whom I choose,” he said as he leaned forward. “Matters have always been handled in this way. I met your dearly departed mother for the first time at the altar. I anticipated some reluctance from you, thus I arranged to afford you and Lord Montford some time to grow acquainted before the nuptials. I daresay, you
shall
wed—should I find it necessary to hold a pistol to your back.”
“Papa,” she spurted out, nearly breathless and shocked to the core. The colonel had always been firm, in a fatherly way, but never had he spoken to her in such a manner. His betrayal felt like a knife in her heart.
“Bluster and fight for all you are worth, Willa, but eventually you will resign yourself to the notion of marriage. I desire what is best for you. A husband will soon break you of your preoccupation with Marion’s Brigade. All you require is a child or two to fill your days and thoughts and a strong husband to occupy your nights. I pray Aidan Sinclair is that man.” He turned and went back to his desk. “You are dismissed,” he said with a final look. “And do not dream of returning to that damned swamp. You are hereby forbidden the use of Cherokee until I feel assured you will obey me.”
Speechless, her mouth hanging open, she stared at the man she felt she no longer knew. Then she gained her voice. “And I always had the impression you loved me.” She whirled and stormed out, slamming the door.
Humid night air wrapped them in a smothering blanket and deposited a wet sheen on their blackened faces. Sergeant Matt Derry swatted a mosquito, leaving behind a smear of red on his neck. The sound of palm hitting flesh exploded in the deathly quiet.
Captain Brendan Ford cut the sergeant a glare and glanced down the line of men. Thirteen soldiers, new Continental recruits and old veterans, stood beside their horses, one hand on the bit, the other covering the horse’s nostrils to prevent any betraying nicker. The men were a ragtag lot, garbed in ragged homespun and torn British coats they had stripped off stiffening bodies and dyed to blend into the swamp’s greens, browns, and grays. Slouch hats and berets pulled low to their ears collected moisture dripping through tree limbs and Spanish moss.
Only General Francis Marion, mounted and holding the far end of the line, wore a proper soldier’s uniform. A dress blue Continental army coat draped his thin shoulders and displayed its aging wear in frayed collar and cuffs. His black leather cap held a silver crescent emblazoned with the words
Liberty or Death,
the motto of his former command, the South Carolina Second Regiment. The general sat astride Ball, a magnificent chestnut he confiscated after defeating the Tory captain, John Coming Ball, at the Battle of Shepard’s Ferry on the bank of Black Mingo Creek. Man and horse, seasoned battle veterans, blended into the backdrop of trees as seamlessly as shadows.
Hooves pounded and bits and spurs jingled, ringing through the air. Ford turned back to the road. Hands clenched tighter on bridles. The men froze in place, heads lowered, eyes directed downward, now as inconspicuous as any moss-covered tree or snag lining the ditch beside the road.
Ford counted the horsemen from beneath his hat brim as they passed. Twenty-two. A larger group than expected. The Georgetown spy relayed the correct date and time, if not the right number. Spying was a dangerous occupation, and timely intelligence on British and Tory troop movements was essential, though the information passed on by the common people often proved dated and of little use.
Ford looked up as the last horse rode by. Moonlight spilled down on the column like a silver shower and picked out the major’s insignia on a man’s shoulder epaulets—the courier, who rode at the column’s rear, surrounded by a Tory escort.
When a contingent of patriots burst onto the road from beneath the flowering ash trees in front of the soldiers, shots detonated and split apart the night. The men in the ditch sprang onto their mounts as one and charged up the slope as the courier and his guard wheeled about and flew past. Six patriots peeled off and gave chase while the others swung around and attacked the soldiers following in the courier’s wake.
A British lieutenant, his teeth bared in a grimace, bore down on Ford. The captain drew and fired his pistol. The top of the soldier’s head sheared off in blood and fragments of bone splinters. Ford dropped the gun, pulled another from his waistband, and drew a bead on a Tory with a bared saber who was moving up behind General Marion. The blast punched a hole in the chest of the Tory’s red coat and blew him backward off the horse’s haunches. Both guns expended and discarded, Ford whipped out his saber and spurred his horse forward, cutting a bloody swath through the enemy soldiers.
Time passed in the flick of an eye, as always seemed to happen during battle. Ford drew in a harsh breath filled with the metallic stink of gunpowder and spilled blood and looked around. Red-coated soldiers littered the road. Horses crashing through the woods spoke of those who fled and were being pursued by Marion’s men. Marion had a reputation for compassion and a distaste of unwarranted killing, but tonight’s dispatches were too important. No redcoat would remain alive to carry the tale of defeat back to their commander.
Ford wiped his bloody saber on his homespun trousers, slid it into the scabbard at his side, and searched the field of battle for Marion. He noted only two of their own dead among the bodies. Many others suffered wounds, some serious but most trivial. A stinging beneath his collar induced him to run a hand along the back of his neck. It came away coated in blood. Strange, but he had no memory of receiving the nick during the fight.
As he dismounted and gathered up his reins to lead his horse through the dead and wounded, he soon saw his concern for Marion was unwarranted. The general knelt beside a wounded man and had received nary a scratch. Ford shook his head, suspecting the small, unprepossessing leader of Marion’s Brigade could fight this war on his own … and win it. The general seemed to ward off musket balls and saber thrusts as though protected by a magical shield. His sole war injury resulted from jumping out a window during a Charles Town dinner party and breaking his ankle. The incident turned out to be a fortuitous accident, as it forced Marion to retire to his farm. Thus he was safely away when the British captured the seaport.
Ford smiled at how Marion’s apparent invincibility drove the British mad. Marion’s Brigade traveled and raided in darkness, swooping out of the ebony night like Satan emerging from the bowels of hell to descend on a patrol or supply train. Just as quickly, they melted back into the dark waters beneath curtains of Spanish moss. The swamps shielding the partisans were vast and lethal, and British attempts to penetrate them came to naught. Enemy mounts foundered in mud and quicksand, and soldiers who displayed bravery on the battlefield panicked in the gloomy reaches teeming with venomous reptiles. The byways were mazelike, disorienting, and the unwary likely never to find their way out. Due to their inhospitable natures, Carolina’s swamps provided havens for partisan guerrilla leaders such as Marion.
Ford halted when he came across a wounded brigade soldier. He came down on one knee, tore off the bottom of his shirt, and started to bind the man’s arm.
A hunting owl’s call pierced the forest, causing the men to look up from where they were patching wounds and retrieving weapons and powder from the dead redcoats. The six men who had chased the courier rode around the bend a moment later. When they reached the general, the man in the lead dumped the body slung across his horse’s withers onto the road.