JoAnn Wendt Page 20

  “Get out, lout!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Harrington edged for the door. Garth stopped him with a gesture. Ignoring Annette and lunging off the bed. Garth renewed his search for the buckskin shirt, banging drawers, riffling through suits of clothes in the wardrobe.

  “We’ll give the men practice. Bring the eight-pounders. You’ll find the powder voucher on the desk in the library. And, Harrington—”

  He paused, finding the soft buckskin shirt hidden on a peg in the rear of the wardrobe. He pulled it out and yanked it on.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to ‘nurseymaid’ Raven today. Keep an eye on him. Raven cost me fifty pounds last Muster Day. He got drunk at Raleigh’s Tavern and bet half the town he could shoot the yellow tailfeather off Governor Dinwiddie’s prize fighting cock.” Garth grinned sourly. “Blew the damned bird to Kingdom Come.”

  Harrington chuckled, then threw a scared look at Annette.

  “Ay, Raven’s a true McNeil. Even if the lad can’t walk a gangplank without puking.”

  A sputter of vexation came from the bed.

  “McNeil! Get him out of here!”

  Garth ignored her, driving his stockinged feet into brown leather boots. He swung toward Harrington.

  “Is Trent up?”

  “Up, fit as a fiddle and perky as a jaybird. Trent be in the kitchen, talkin’ up a storm to anybody what’ll listen. He be taking his breakfast mush with cook. Cook says she’ll bring him round to watch the Muster.”

  McNeil’s face softened.

  “Tell cook not to take the child too near the artillery. The boom of the cannon might scare him. And tell her to bring along a lunch. Trent can eat with me on the Palace Green.”

  Harrington touched his cap in the affirmative, grinned at Annette, launched himself off the sea chest and clumped out.

  As the door banged shut, Annette made a small, exasperated sound. Petulantly she said, “Damn you, McNeil. I think you care more for that Amsterdam orphan than you do for me.”

  Her dark eyes flashing, she waited for his denial, but he refused to give it. Coolly, he ignored her reference to the child. He went to the washstand, sloshed water from pitcher to bowl and doused his head. The less said about the boy, the better.

  But a chill fingered its way up the back of his neck as he finished his slapdash grooming. If Annette noticed his partiality to the child, others would notice too. And question it. Suppose the duke of Tewksbury got wind of it and put two and two together?

  He knew he should put the child in the charge of a nursemaid and ignore him. But it went against the grain. This was his son. His son. Whenever he swung the laughing child up into his arms and gazed into those intense eyes, he saw sweet Flavia. And he saw himself. The boy was all he had left of her — all that remained of their love.

  With a vexed sigh, the baroness swung her legs out of bed, rose, went to the wardrobe and fished out a wrapper she kept there. Shrugging into peach silk and Flemish lace, she leaned against the door, blocking his way as he sought to go. Her eyes flashed angrily.

  “You haven’t an iota of sentiment in you, McNeil. Yet you take pity on an orphan and bring him into your home. You treat him like a son. Why? Why do you do this?”

  He scented danger. Danger for Trent. His eyes narrowed. With rough disregard, he pushed her away from the door.

  “Why?” she persisted. “Why should you suddenly collect orphans?”

  He eyed her with coldness.

  “A habit I have. Baroness. A habit of collecting other men’s castoffs.”

  His implication was ruthlessly clear. Hurt rose in her eyes. A dot of color began to burn in each cheek. Her nostrils flared defensively. She seemed to hover between lashing out and weeping. Indecisive, she drew a long quivering breath.

  “In your absence. Garth,” she said, her voice unsteady, “I’ve received offers of marriage. Lord Dunwood of Baltimore. Peter Hayes, the plantation owner. Mr. Fisk, the Boston shipbuilder. But I hoped . . . ”

  “Hoped I would help you choose?”

  It was deliberately wounding. And meant to be. Anything to divert her thoughts from the child.

  He was satisfied to see the hurt in her eyes change to wild anger. Her small fists clenched.

  “You—you—damned fornicating sea rover. So I am good enough to be your mistress, but not good enough to be your wife!”

  “Precisely.”

  With a shriek she hurled herself at him, her pummeling fists ineffective in the heat of her passion.

  “Oh, go to your Militia Day,” she cried as he captured her wrists. “Go and be damned. I shall wed Lord Dunwood. And I warn you, McNeil—I warn you, I shall be exceedingly happy.”

  She’d hurled her final utterance as though it were the direst of threats. He couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Exceedingly?”

  She twisted free of his grip, backed away and bared her teeth like a she-wolf.

  “Yes!” she hissed. “Exceedingly! And you needn’t make fun of Lord Dunwood. He may be bald and a bit stout, but he is younger than you and very, very virile.”

  “Exceedingly virile?” he taunted unkindly.

  With a curse, she whirled from him, flew across the room and flung herself onto the bed. She pounded the quaking mattress in frustration. “Oh, go to your Militia Day. I hope you shoot yourself in the balls!”

  He started to go out, chuckling, then changed his mind. Annette was only his mistress, not his first mistress and surely not his last. But in her odd, promiscuous way, she’d been damned loyal. He owed it to her to behave decently.

  Closing the door, he turned and walked back to the bed. He sat. She wouldn’t look at him. Belowstairs, servants clumped about, doing chores, talking. Someone was whistling. The faint smell of frying ham wafted up from the distant kitchen, melding—humorously, he thought—with the exotic scent of Annette’s perfume.

  At last she rolled over. She looked at him. For a woman of forty-five, she had a young-seeming face. Just now her expression was such a childish mix of both pique and the eagerness to forgive that he laughed and kissed her.

  She warmed to him at once. She drew him into her arms, her lips parting eagerly. The familiar urge, the animal instinct, stirred hot and delicious in his groin. He kissed her again, hungrily.

  “You’ll be later to Muster,” she whispered happily.

  “Exceedingly late,” he agreed.

  * * * *

  It was ten o’clock before he swung out of his house on York Street, struck north on Waller Street and headed for Nicholson Street. He was on foot. To take a horse on Militia Day would be foolhardy. Already, the dusty streets were choked and congested. Farm wives hauled their wares to market in handcarts. Street jugglers performed wherever a willing audience of two or three gathered. Children erupted everywhere, like an outbreak of measles.

  He passed Campbell’s Tavern, skirting a group of children who’d gathered in the manure-pocked street, organizing games. They laughed excitedly, huddling like quivering puppies in a tight group.

  “Run, sheep, run!” their leader shouted from the center.

  The group broke like a starburst, McNeil dodged flying arms and legs.

  To compound the chaos, British regulars drilled on Militia Day, too. The redcoats did this—not in a spirit of cooperation—but in rivalry. The spit-and-polish redcoat and the casual Virginia-born Englishman harbored an instinctive and competitive dislike for one another. While the redcoat prized soldierly obedience and could be marched off a cliff without batting an eye or missing a step in cadence, the independent Virginian chafed at such folderol. Eager to show his individuality, the Virginian marched to his own drumbeat. Often, he made his drill performance deliberately sloppy as a statement of independence.

  The American-born Englishman could be led, Garth admitted. But he could not be driven.

  Each militia elected its own officers and gave only nominal heed to the redcoat officer assigned by the royal governor to the unit. Friction was the natural result; skirmishe
s were inevitable. Once the ale began to flow, not even the governor’s stern warning of punishment could keep the Virginian and the redcoat from going at one another. McNeil counted himself lucky if at day’s end the men under his command tallied in with only a few black eyes and a broken nose or two.

  But the tone of this Militia Day should be different, more cooperative, he told himself. The problem with New France was escalating. The French were infringing upon Virginia’s frontier. A year ago, the French had seized a half-built English fort on the forks of the Ohio River. As a waterman, McNeil knew the gravity of this encroachment. Control the forks of the Ohio, and you controlled access to the great Mississippi River. Control the Mississippi, and you controlled a whole continent!

  Aware of this and alarmed, Governor Dinwiddie had sent a warning to the French commander who’d seized the English fort on the forks. He demanded withdrawal. The ultimatum was carried into the wilderness by a twenty-one-year old volunteer, a Mr. George Washington.

  Alone except for one white companion and a few Indian scouts, both Washington and the ultimatum he carried were treated with contempt by the French. Washington was sent packing. Slogging through the freezing wilderness in hard winter, the young man survived treacherous ambush by his own Indians, as well as near drowning in an icy, rushing river. Tattered, disheveled, tail tucked between his legs, the governor’s valiant young emissary made his ignominious escape. The news was relayed to London. Virginia tensed, waiting for Parliament to deal with the New France issue.

  Despite the seriousness of the Muster, American enthusiasm for mixing business with pleasure refused to be dampened. It was only ten o’clock, and already Williamsburg was a pot on the boil. Livestock mooed, brayed, baahed and whinnied as it was driven toward Francis Street and Market Square. Avoiding the pungent droppings, McNeil skirted the animals and cut across a field behind the Capitol. In the field, Negro slaves tended wicker cages of fighting cocks. Wearing leather gloves and aprons, the blacks carefully groomed their masters’ roosters for the afternoon contests. Wagers would fly fast and furiously. Gentry would use tobacco vouchers for currency. Poorer folk would bet buckskins.

  Nicholson Street was crowded. Men shouldering muskets ambled toward their units. Scarlet-coated officers were already abroad, riding in landaus with their ladies and sneering benignly at the provincials.

  “Maple sugar sweetmeat, sir?” a young vendor shouted.

  A second vendor shouted louder, drowning out the first. “Purchase a new English steel scalping knife, sir? Get ready for the French and their hairdressers, good sir. Only ten buckskins, sir. Only ten bucks, good sir!”

  McNeil pushed past. A crowd milled at the jail. Prisoners were being exercised, and onlookers taunted them, yelling opinions as to what they might get after they faced the general court that afternoon. McNeil slowed his pace and studied the prisoners as he passed. Occasionally a promising seaman might be found among the riffraff. Jenkins had come into his employ that way, and Garth had never regretted paying the man’s fine.

  He scanned the group, instantly rejecting the lot. The only person who stood out as someone with spine was a woman. McNeil scowled. Thin as a scarecrow, she was scarcely as attractive as one. A runaway bondwoman, no doubt. And one who had compounded her crime with theft.

  She would go to the whipping post for sure. McNeil scowled again. It went against the grain to see a woman’s back bend to the lash. It set his teeth on edge. Not that this stringy-haired trollop was likely to wilt under the whip! Judas, no. She had a strong, pridey look to her. There was an insolent set to her mouth. He didn’t doubt that if she chose to do so, she could open that mouth and flail her taunters to jelly with her tongue.

  He pushed on. But the brave look of the chit lingered. It occurred to him that she might make an excellent nursemaid for Trent. She’d not be soft like cook, letting Trent get away with mayhem, letting the child eat himself sick on sugared flan simply because he demanded it. But the woman had not struck him as harsh, either. The eyes flashed rebellion, not cruelty.

  He would consider it. If time permitted, he’d break from militia drill and interview the jailer. If she was a runaway, her master would probably be glad to be rid of her at a cheap price.

  Ragged drum rolls sounded. He broke into an easy trot down Nicholson Street, cut across the bowling green near Chowning’s Tavern and hurried down Duke of Gloucester Street. The smell of baking bread filled the air around Chowning’s. Yeasty, mouthwatering smells drifted out of the tavern toward Nassau Street, as though drawn along by the drumming. The heavier richer smell of oyster stew drifted along, too. On Militia Day the stew was cooked outside in Chowning’s enormous iron pots, to accommodate the ravenous men who would clamor for it.

  He was just leaving the bootmaker’s shop in his dust when frantic hallooing from within the shop broke his stride. It was Raven. One foot bestockinged and one foot in half-fitted leather, Raven crashed down the steps.

  “Garth! Wait, Garth.”

  He did so, but with ill grace. How typical of Raven to start out for Muster and end up at a tailor or bootmaker!

  “Damn it, Raven,” he said when his brother caught up, “you belong at Muster.”

  Raven laughed.

  “So do you.”

  Garth flared, then checked his temper. Raven had the knack of hitting a nail square on the head. This quality, combined with a deceptive air of flightiness, was responsible for much of the growth of McNeil & McNeil Company. Few shipping clients realized they were dealing with a shrewd businessman until long after Raven had them signed, sealed and delivered.

  “Well? Are we to have the pleasure of your company at the eight-pounders, Raven? Or have you the tailor and the barber yet to visit?”

  Raven laughed, impervious to sarcasm.

  “I’ll be there.” He kicked the foot encased in leather. The leather flapped foolishly. “I can’t go a-marrying Maryann Tate in old boots, can I?” He frowned, his quick mind leaping to a new subject. “Garth, I must talk to you. About a woman I fancy —”

  “Not now.”

  Garth swung around as the ragged rat-a-tat-tats of unpracticed farm boy drummers came from Nassau Street. The patchy drumming contrasted with the smooth professional drum rolls of the redcoats who were assembling a quarter of a mile away, on the Palace Green. Down Nassau Street, he caught sight of Jenkins. Jenkins was supervising cannon placement. The cannon mules were behaving like mules—stubbornly. He started to go, but Raven caught his sleeve.

  “Garth, you must listen. I need your help. I intend to take a mistress and—”

  Downfield, Jenkins looked up and waved. Impatiently Garth waved back, signaling he’d come soon. He swung back to Raven.

  “Goddamn it. Raven, you’ve only a month to wait to bed Maryann. If you can’t wait, take yourself to the doxy house in Yorktown. Or slip round to Mrs. Daws.”

  Raven shrugged impatiently.

  “No, no, God, no. You don’t understand. I’m in love. She’s a bondslave and—”

  Garth snorted his opinion.

  Raven reddened. “I love Jane Brown,” he argued angrily. “I will make her my mistress.”

  Garth shrugged.

  “Suit yourself. But do it without my help.”

  He looked downfield. Jenkins waved urgently, and he set off at a trot, his boots kicking up dust.

  “Damn it, Garth, I need your help,” Raven called plaintively,

  McNeil glanced over his shoulder as he ran.

  “It’s not help you want, but a keeper,” he yelled. “Nobody but a lunatic would ask for the misery of both bride and mistress.”

  He reached the field, and it wasn’t until he was thoroughly immersed in the day, squatting and going over each cannon with his hand to find firing flaws before allowing eager sixteen-year-olds to learn to fire them, that the irony of his own words sank into his brain like acid.

  “Nobody but a lunatic,” he muttered, “would ask for the misery of both Eunice and Annette.”

&nb
sp; At two o’clock he lunched on Cornish pasties with Trent at the Palace Green. The child had been overjoyed to see him.

  “Cap Mac!” he shouted. He broke from cook’s firm grasp and threw himself into Garth’s arms. Trent’s kiss was sugary and sticky, testimony that he’d not walked past a sweetmeat vendor without putting up a fuss.

  They ate sitting on the grass at the edge of the redcoats’ drill field. If he’d expected the child to be awed by the pageantry—the low thunder of marching boots, drum rattles, the flash of officers’ swords in the bright sunlight—he’d been mistaken. Trent’s attention went elsewhere. A fat puppy, drawn by the smell of their food, trotted up to Trent and played the beggar. Laughing delightedly, Trent fed the puppy his lunch. Every scrap of it. The pup gorged himself, then staggered away.

  Garth made a mental note: Get dog for Trent.

  When lunch was done, cook gathered the basket on one hip, the boy on the other hip.

  Jiggling him, she urged, “Be saying good-bye to Captain McNeil. Captain McNeil is your benefactor, Trent. It’s a fortunate lad you are, to be found by Mr. Harrington and given shelter by Captain McNeil.”

  Trent eyed him soberly, his expressive eyes showing he understood nothing of the cook’s lecture except that he should offer a farewell.

  “Good-bye,” he murmured, shrinking shyly against cook.

  McNeil fought the urge to take Trent in his arms and give him a whiskery tickle, as any natural father might do. Instead, he let his hands fall empty to his side. He wanted no one to suspect their real relationship.

  “Good-bye, Trent,” he said. “Cook? Thank you.”

  Without allowing himself the luxury of a backward look, he loped off to rejoin his unit.

  In his absence, Raven had been left in command. After shepherding the men to Chowning’s for oyster stew and beer, Raven had returned in high spirits. He’d taken it into his head to lengthen the firing field and increase the charge. Jenkins had tried to dissuade Raven. Harrington, too. The town’s cows, usually pastured in common on the fields used today for militia, were hobbled a few hundred yards beyond, out of cannon and musket range. But Raven had pooh-poohed the danger, and by the time Garth reached the unit, the worst had already happened. A milk cow that had broken her hobble and wandered back toward familiar pasture, had been hit square on the head by a cannon ball and knocked dead. It hadn’t been just any cow. It had been Governor Dinwiddie’s cow.