The Colonel's Lady (5 page)

Bella’s dark face twisted with a knowing smile. “Naw, Miz Roxanna. He’ll leave that to Colonel McLinn.”

Pushing open the door to her father’s cabin after breakfast, Roxanna surveyed his domain. On the mantel were some twists of Virginia tobacco alongside his treasured clay pipe. A worn wool cape dangled by the door above his boots. Tallow candles, half burned, stood in pewter holders here and there. Taking up a poker, she stabbed at the smoking logs in the hearth as they tried to catch on their bed of sour ashes. At least so tiny a cabin was easy to heat, she mused, cheered again by the thought that Papa’s enlistment was ending and they’d soon be on their way. If she could just keep her mind fastened on their future, she’d be able to tolerate her dark surroundings.

She breathed a thankful sigh that her belongings were intact, including her best gowns and beloved dulcimer. The detail Captain Stewart had sent out to the flatboat upriver had returned with her locked trunk and the possessions of the Redstone women, but the cargo of gunpowder, lead, and other valuables was missing, the vessel abandoned on the north side of the river. Where the surviving polemen had gone was anyone’s guess.

Though she’d been here a fortnight, she was still disturbed by what she saw. Since Ma’s passing, Papa had nearly gone to seed. Dust and spiderwebs decorated the tiny room, and she looked askance at the bed’s tattered counterpane and a mountain of ashes that needed hauling from the hearth. This was so unlike her orderly father she winced. An assortment of quills and inkpots littered one small corner desk, a testament to her father’s work. But this was white with dust as well, the quills down to nubs, the inkpots dry.

This was why she’d come. During her time as a tutor, traveling from one genteel house to another, she’d sensed he needed her. His letters, written in his characteristic longhand on fine foolscap, never said so, but she’d read lonesomeness and discontent between each and every line. And she, truth be told, needed him. Her Virginia life had become dull, predictable. She had faded to little more than Miss Rowan, a patient, capable tutor of children, invisible at best. To her father, and only her father, did she truly matter.

And so here she was—a surprise.

Bella watched Roxanna slip a darning egg in a stocking she was knitting. “You sure is handy with a needle. How many o’ them socks have you made yo’ pa? The way you’re goin’, I ain’t ever goin’ to have to wash a one. He’ll have a new pair every day o’ the week all year round.”

Sheepish, Roxanna looked at the overflowing basket at her feet. “I can give some to the regulars who need them—the ones who don’t have any womenfolk to tend them.”

“Oh, there’s plenty o’ that kind around here. Just be careful who you give ’em to lest they think you come with ’em.”

Roxanna managed a halfhearted smile. Bella couldn’t possibly know about the broken betrothal—or her age. Past spinsterhood, she was. The reminder nipped at her with fierce little claws, though it was the memory of her mother’s reprimands that most haunted.

Roxanna, how many times must I tell you not to slouch so? Proper posture is essential to the female form. No man wants a hunchback for a wife!

I’d never thought to have a spinster daughter. By your age I’d been wed eight years and become a mother three times over.

Are you applying lemon juice to your complexion? Why, you’re as brown as an Indian! If I catch you without your bonnet one more time . . .

I suppose you might have a chance with one of your father’s soldier friends, though the very idea makes me shudder. Look what marrying beneath one’s station did in my case. You must promise me
 
. . .

Roxanna sighed. “I promised Mama I’d not marry a soldier. And I doubt I’d tempt one—or be tempted.”

Bella clucked her tongue. “You ain’t met Colonel McLinn.”

“No, but I’ve heard about him.”

“Hearin’ ain’t seein’. ”

She looked up from her knitting in surprise. “Why, Bella, you sound bewitched by him.”

“Law, Miz Roxanna. I just wash his clothes and tidy his house. Every woman from here to Virginny is smitten with him. Settlement gals come canoein’ upriver just to eyeball him. He’s that handsome. Some say the Almighty was so pleased after He made the one that He had to make two.”

Twin McLinns?
“He has a brother, then?” Roxanna’s interest piqued and her needles picked up in rhythm. “Papa never described Colonel McLinn to me except to say he’s the finest officer he’s ever served under since Light-Horse Harry Lee.”

“Hmmm.” Bella got up to take the hissing kettle off the fire. “Them’s mighty fine words. Your pa was always one to find the good in folks.”

The scent of sassafras, brewed strong and pink, warmed the pewter mug Bella handed her. Abandoning her knitting, Roxanna sipped it gratefully, thinking she hadn’t been warm since her arrival. She sat opposite Bella in a rare idle moment, and they huddled close enough to the flames to singe their hair and homely dresses. Like a pair of old crows they were, Roxanna thought, drinking tea and trying not to gossip. But the fodder in the fort provided plenty, and it seemed Bella was about to enlighten her further.

“Your pa ain’t uttered one bad word against Colonel McLinn?”

“Not one,” she answered honestly, thinking back to the letters he’d sent since coming under the colonel’s command. “I think Papa considers him something of a son, working with him so closely and all.”

“And
all
.” Bella’s black brows knit together over piercing eyes.

Obviously Bella was itching to spill some secret. Roxanna bit her tongue to keep from uttering the maxim she’d oft repeated to her pupils.
Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any.
She eyed the half-finished sock in her lap, the indigo wool soft as thistledown. She didn’t want to delve deeper—indulge in gossip. Truly, Papa had only spoken well of the man.

Bella licked her lips. “Did your pa, saint that he is, ever mention why Colonel McLinn was sent west?”

Sent.
It had an ominous sound, particularly for an officer. “Nay.”

“Or that he drives his men unmercifully?”

“Nay.”

“Or that he holds a court-martial nearly every day?”

“Nay.”

“Or that he can curse in three languages?”

“Three?” Roxanna raised an eyebrow. “One should be sufficient.”

Bella cracked a smile. “Gaelic, French, and King’s English—in case you’re wonderin’. ”

“He’s not a God-fearing Irishman, then?”

“Humph!” Bella rolled her eyes. “He don’t fear nothin’. Awful arrogant he is. Browbeats his men somethin’ awful—and he’s a gentleman besides!” She paused in her tirade and stared into her steaming cup. “But they nearly worship him, God forgive ’em, though I don’t know why.”

Roxanna sipped her tea and tried to tamp down her curiosity—and another maxim that rushed to mind.
Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.
Squelching it, she simply savored her sassafras and said nothing, cowing Bella into a short-lived silence.

Shifting in her chair, Bella expelled a ragged breath. “All I’ll say is this—Colonel McLinn used to be one o’ General Washington’s favorite officers, one o’ them Life Guards, watchin’ over the general and all for his protection. Till McLinn got in a roarin’ red rage ’bout somethin’ and Washington sent him west.”

Though her ears were burning, Roxanna remained silent.

Bella leaned forward conspiratorially. “You sure yo’ pa ain’t said nothin’ ’bout this?”

“Nary a word.”

She sighed. “Well, I wish to heaven he had cuz I’m just about eat up with not knowin’. ”

Roxanna leaned over to hide a smile and tucked her knitting into the basket at her feet. “So I gather Colonel McLinn is an extraordinarily handsome Irishman who manages to be quite charming when master of his temper.”

“Did I mention he’s malarial?”

“Nay, to your credit.”

“Well, once in a while he gets real sick and takes to his bed. He ain’t easy to nurse neither. I’ve tried my hand at it a time or two. I’d rather wash his shirts and breeches any day.”

“Does he not have a personal physician?”

“That’d be the post surgeon, Dr. Wilbur. But he up and died last spring.” Sighing, Bella stood and shuffled toward the door. “Somethin’ tells me I ain’t gonna get to sit here takin’ tea with you much longer. The colonel’s gonna come round the bend with all his men just in time for Christmas like he promised. I’d best go on to bed. Guess I’ll be dreamin’ about roast goose and plum puddin’ when I do.”

Roxanna’s eyes flew to the crude calendar on the cabin wall. Five more days. Tears of joy and anticipation made the numerals a wash of black. ’Twould be the first Christmas with her father in years. He’d simply not had leave since then.

When Bella went out, Roxanna knelt by the trunk that held all her earthly possessions and opened the lid. Inside was the pocket watch she’d purchased upon leaving Virginia, the fine silver chain shining richly in the hearth light. Papa had lost his during the last campaign, he’d written, or had it stolen, as was so often the case. She turned it over, seeing the fine engraving on the back—her initials and the date of Christmas 1779. Lying under this was her best Sabbath dress, the heavy corded linen finely embroidered with flowers that mirrored the blue of her eyes. A straw hat with a clump of forget-me-nots on the brim lay alongside the dress and reminded her of spring and long walks and . . . him. An unwelcome memory rose up as strongly as the lavender sachet within . . .

“Come, Miss Rowan, and walk out with me.”

The smooth masculine voice unnerved her, perhaps because he’d been away for so long. She looked up from her damask roses, senses swimming from their sweetness, and felt a flicker of disquiet. Aware that her mother watched from a window, she set her clippers and basket aside and took the arm Ambrose offered, hoping her straw hat was on straight.

“I’ve just returned from Richmond on business. I apologize for being away for so long.”

“How is . . . business?” As soon as she asked, she wished the words back, her mother’s latest rebuke ringing in her ears.

’Tis most unladylike to inquire about masculine pursuits.

“Nothing to worry your pretty head about.” He smiled at her and patted her hand as it rested on his coat sleeve. “I am a bit discouraged, however. With the war on, things are not what they should be.” He hesitated, fixing his attention on a far fence that marked the border of Thistleton Hall. “I’ve lost a valuable account of late. A British one. Mr. Abernathy is returning to London. But even if he wasn’t, he says he can no longer do business with me, given the fact that I have . . . Patriot associations. He recently learned of our betrothal, you see.”

“Oh?”

“Of course, I assured him that your loyalties—and your mother’s—lie with England.”

Her hand slipped from his sleeve. “But that’s not true—not on my part. I believe the colonists—the Patriots—have good reason to oppose England. At least based on what little I know. Granted, my mother, being British, is sympathetic to her native country—”

“I don’t mean to upset you, Miss Rowan. Let’s leave these scurrilous politics to the men who make them. We must speak of other things.”

She studied him, looking beyond his thinning, tobacco-colored hair to hazel eyes sharp in their censure. Not once had she ever heard him take a stand and declare his own opinion of anything, not even the war. His views depended on whom he was speaking to, whoever was in the room. Fickle as the copper weathervanes he sold in his Richmond shop, she thought, capable of turning in any direction.

“No need to let business—or politics—interfere with more heartfelt matters,” he said stiffly. “Come, we’ll walk to the carriage. I’ve brought you and your mother a little something from the city.”

She tried to be effusive about the lovely bonnet he gave her, but her mother was far more enthusiastic about her tin of sweetmeats. Later she learned he’d gotten the gifts after his dalliance with the woman who was now his wife . . .

Roxanna shut the trunk with a bang as if doing so could shut away the memory, but felt she’d slammed her finger in the lid instead. Even the slightest reminder stung, though she’d tried her best to forget. Indeed, she’d come downriver four hundred miles to escape it, all the way to this frightening place. She should have pitched the hat in the Ohio River along the way, but as it was her favorite, she didn’t.