Smythe nearly spat out the mouthful of beef he chewed. Deborah blinked as the meaning of the remarkable retort penetrated. Kit burst into laughter. Harvey looked blandly at Deborah. If she hadn’t been watching him, she would have missed the slight lift of his eyebrows.
“Wha’ he say?” Tarleton peered at Harvey.
“Guess you’re drunker than I thought, Ban. Probably a good thing,” Kit leaned back, holding his wine glass negligently off the arm of the chair. “If I though you were in the slightest bit sober, you’d be facing me over pistols at an ungodly early hour tomorrow morning. As it is…” He rose and strolled over to Tarleton’s chair. Turning the chair from the table, he hauled the drunk up, planted a left fist in his belly and a right up under his chin.
Tarleton flew backwards, rolled, and emptied his guts.
“I’ll deal with this right now.” Turning, he glanced towards the servant. “Rogers, I’m sorry to put you to more work…”
“No problem at all, my lord, no problem at all. However, may I recommend that you retire to the parlor? I will see that the colonel is escorted upstairs.”
Kit signaled to someone outside the dinning room as he escorted Deborah out. Two troopers strode in with carefully blank faces. They lifted the newly sobered Tarleton, spouting curses. “Damn your eyes, Marshall, what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? I’ll have your ass for this and your bitch whore, too.”
Kit left Deborah in the doorway and, with a feral grin, strolled over to Tarleton. Grabbing the man by the lapels, he threw him at the wall. Tarleton bounced off it and back into Kit’s grasp.
“The only reason I’m not calling you out,” he growled, “is because I respect General Cornwallis, and I suspect he would be very upset at the idea of a duel. However, I am not going to tolerate your continued insults to my wife. I think it would be best if your Dragoons reported to the General. You’ll be leaving before dawn tomorrow morning. Better get some sleep.”
Tarleton sagged when Kit heaved him aside.
Kit rejoined Deborah, but turned back. “Don’t even think about whining to the General. A full report is going out now. I’m not going to recommend discipline, but neither will I allow any further discourtesy.”
“Bastard!”
“That’s something my lady mother will take exception to.”
**
Several maps lay on the desk in seeming random order. Paperweights, cups, and even a rock held all the corners down flat. That provided the only clue that the arrangement was, perhaps, not indeed random. Kit bent over one section, peering at the details, when Deborah brought a tea tray in that afternoon.
When he straightened, his expression was not the pleased smile that usually greeted her. The grimness around his eyes did not bode well. She poured the tea in silence.
“What?”
He pursed his lips as he accepted the cup. “I don’t think there’s any doubt. Greene’s marching on Camden.”
Deborah sucked in her breath. “Oh!”
“That idiot Clinton’s got Cornwallis heading north from Wilmington to Virginia, so he’s no help. We’ll be taking him on by ourselves.”
She stepped over to pet Scamp who dozed in the corner of the study, on a pillow provided by a completely infatuated Rogers. Growing boys still needed their mid-day naps.
“I’d like to choose the field. I need some advantage here,” he remarked the next evening. “The scouts say Greene has 1,200 men near Hobkirk Hill. I’ve only got 800 men and that includes the walking wounded.”
Deborah returned to the table to look over his shoulder at the map of an area several miles to the north. Shuttering, she finally admitted the truth to herself: nothing she could do or say was going to change what was going to happen. She’d spent a goodly bit of the day arguing, begging, demanding that Kit avoid the confrontation. It all fell on deaf ears.
Now, she could only seek to mitigate the situation. “I’ll go check on the medical supplies.” She dawdled her way to the door, half lost in her mental inventory. This would not be the first battlefield hospital she’d organized. “What time will we be leaving tomorrow?”
Slowly Kit looked up from his map. “We?”
“Huh?” It wasn’t the answer she was expecting.
He looked over his shoulder at her. “You,” he emphasized with a lift of his eyebrows, “will be staying right here. You will not so much as set foot outside this house until I return. Is that clear?”
Frowning, she said, “This place is too far away for a battlefield hospital. I have to be closer.”
“You’re not going anywhere near the battlefield.”
“Of course not. You don’t have a hospital in the battle, it’s behind the lines.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“Just that: no! You’re not going anywhere.”
The rising voices woke Scamp who stretched and watched his people argue.
“You don’t have much choice, unless you intend to take care of the wounded yourself!”
Turning, he leaned back against the walnut table and crossed his arms. “I will deal with that particular problem. It’s no concern of yours. You will stay in this house where it is safe and await my return.”
Not only did he think her a milksop, but he belittled her abilities. How dare the man, even if he were her husband! “Have you gone soft in the head? You need me there! You’re going to have scores of wounded, British and Continental, to deal with. Even if you impress every doctor in Camden, you’ll still need me there to help.”
Kit’s jaw worked. “Madam, I will brook no argument on this matter. You will obey me!”
“Obey?” The word might have been dog droppings in her mouth. “I’m not going to obey the ranting of a fool!” Deborah thought the candle’s flickering light caused his expression to grow bleak.
“Was it only a month and a half ago that you promised to do just that? I wonder how much the rest of the promises mean to you?” He turned back to his maps.
For a moment, Deborah stood open mouthed. Picking up her skirts, she raced from the room. Scamp yipped and trotted after her.
**
Deborah dozed and woke all night long. The fleeting moments of sleep were filled with images of Kit accusing her of the foulest crimes against their wedding vows. The waking eons held the even more frightening realization that Kit might not come back tomorrow.
When the sound of troop movements finally pushed her out of sleep, she knew Kit had never come to bed. The sound of the front door closing impelled her out of the bed and to the window. The soldiers stamped out their fires as they hastened into formation. There was still enough light to see Kit’s stiff back stride out to his horse and mount.
“Mr. Smythe,” she heard, “if you please.”
Deborah bit the side of her hand as she watched them go. Tears flowed down her face. “I can’t lose him, I just can’t.”
Scamp pawed at the hem of her night rail. She picked him up and cried into his bristly fur. “Oh, God, what if he’s…” She buried her face in Scamp’s side again, unwilling to even say the word. He squirmed a bit and then licked her face. As he cleaned off the salty tears, her thoughts kindled.
“No!” she ground out and tossed the startled dog on the bed. “I’m not going to let him die out there, not if I can help it.” She tossed her clothes on, and she dashed down the stairs, Scamp at her heels.
“His lordship thought ye might be tryin’ somethin’.” Mr. Thomson rose from a chair near the bottom of the stairs. She stopped on the fourth riser. “Ah’ve me orders, m’um, an’ there be some very particular ones about ye not leavin’ t’ouse.” He approached the bottom of the stairs.
“I have to go! You have to let me out of here!”
“Sorry, m’um.”
“Mr. Thomson, I have to go. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to him, and I could have helped him. And what’ worse, I’ll never forgive you. You may fear a court martial, but b
elieve me, you’ll be praying for one by the time I get finished with you.”
A shadow crossed the doorway off the stairs.
Thomson shook his head sadly. “Sorry, m’um, Ah wishes Ah could ‘elp…”
A frying pan collided with the back of his head He toppled up the stairs at Deborah’s feet.
“With the British, sweet reason sometimes comes at the end of cold steel.” Rogers hefted the skillet as he knelt with Deborah to check Thomson. “He’ll wake up with a lump and a headache and a darned good excuse.”
“Oh thank you, Rogers. I have to go now.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve a little filly out back that’s not up to a man’s weight, if you’d care to try her.”
“Oh, Rogers!” She moved quickly towards the back of the house.
Scamp followed. She tried to hold him, back but Rogers picked him up. “I’ll keep him ‘till you return.”
With a wave, she mounted the pony, thankful for full skirts and hellion brothers she’d had to keep up with, and turned the horse after the troops.
**
Two miles north of Camden, she saw the British troops. They were advancing, shoulder-to-shoulder, on the barely-visible Continental soldiers. “Oh merciful Jesu, it’s already begun,” she whispered. “Where is the…there it is.” The back lines and the field hospital appeared as she rode around a bend in the road.
The open-air hospital consisted of rows of cots and tables set back from the anticipated battlefield. Soldiers assigned as orderlies milled about, waiting for the first of the wounded to be delivered. Dr. Garden and another man talked near the center of the assembly. They had removed their jackets, despite the coolness of the morning, and replaced them with stained butcher’s aprons. Dr. Garden broke off his conversation when he saw her.
“I didn’t think you’d be here, Mistress, ah, my lady.”
“Indeed, you aren’t the only one.” She gave him a level look.
He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. “Well, you’re here and heaven knows we’ll be able to use your help.”
“Wounded!” sounded up the track from the battle.
**
It seemed like they’d been at it forever. Every able-bodied person was either stitching, bandaging, mopping, fetching or cutting something. The cloud of gun powder drifted over the hospital, pinching her nostrils and watering her eyes. Deborah was dirty and bloodstained and had long-since stopped flinching at the sight of each new mangled body. She cleaned and stitched and bandaged as fast as she could, trying to bring a small amount of comfort in the middle of hell.
She’d just tied off a bandage when a beloved voice bellowed, “Doctor!” Kit strode up carrying a slight body, dripping blood: Lt. Harvey.
“Here,” she directed, starting to strip away shredded, gory cloth even before they put the boy down.
“Bloody hell, what are you doing here? I told you do stay home. Can’t you…”
“I’m needed here.” She looked up quickly as she knelt beside the young man.
Kit ran a filthy hand through is hair. “Damn you…I have to go.” He rushed back to the battle, pulling his sword from its scabbard as he left. She caught a glimpse of red on the steel before she turned back to Lt. Harvey. A hand tightened around her entrails.
The relatively minor wounds on his arms and legs might have concerned her if not for the bubbling red hole in his chest. Blood already dribbled from his mouth He gasped for air he could not breathe. She wiped the dirt and gore from his face. There was little else she could do. His hand closed around hers. No power on earth could prevent what was going to happen. She could only provide comfort.
The other wounded men were faceless, nameless. This one she knew. He was a friend, and he would die in her arms. Tears fell from her face to dilute the blood soaking his blouse.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” he choked out.
Lies would serve no purpose, she knew. “Yes,” she said as gently as she could.
He tried to speak and only coughed blood. She wiped it away. He tried again. “Tell,” he coughed, “tell my uncle I died like a soldier.”
Her voice caught in her throat, but she managed, “I will.”
He tried to say “Thank you” but only succeeded in coughing more blood. She reached up to wipe his mouth, but he stiffened and then relaxed into death.
Deborah stiffened with him, knowing what was happening and unable to stop it. She felt as if she were in someone else’s body as she folded his hands over the hole in his chest. An orderly dragged a sheet over the body. Deborah stumbled to her feet and blindly headed for the group of nearby trees. There were no tears, but her body trembled like an aspen leaf in a fall breeze. She looked around her. The trees in the grove were showing new buds. A dogwood in the group flaunted its new dress of white flowers. Her eyes saw it but none of it made sense. How could the world be springing to life with all the carnage around?
A shout and pounding hooves ripped her out of her brown study. She looked up to see three horsemen bearing down on her at full gallop. Startled, she took a step towards the hospital when a shout stopped her. The lead horseman looked…
“Papa!” She pulled up her skirts and ran towards them. “Papa!” Adam and Eli rode with him. The three hauled up their horses just in front of her. Each had a pistol in hand. “What are you doing…?”
Eli shoved his pistol in his pants and reached down. He grabbed her arm. “Get up!” he ordered and caught her around the waist. Even with the horse fidgeting he managed to lift her easily up in front of her.
“Let’s go,” General Daniel Morgan ordered.
“Papa!” Deborah yelled, “No!”
None of the men paid any attention.
**
At the edge of the battlefield, Col. Lord Christopher Marshall looked up during a momentary pause in the fighting around him to see three men on horseback abduct his wife. “Deborah!” he bellowed and started after her. A sword flashing on his immediate left gave him other things to think about.
Chapter 21
“Eli Morgan, we’ve been going flat out for half an hour. If you don’t slow this horse down and tell me what’s going on, I swear I’ll have your worthless hide.”
Eli smiled his shark’s grin. “Aw, don’t go doing that little chick. You know Margery Ashland has a fierce hankering for this hide of mine. Come to think of it, Anne Norris does, too.”
He did, however, take a long, searching look over his shoulder at the road behind them. Adam and her father had each made obvious departures from the main turnpike before she and Eli had left it. No one followed them Eli finally drew the horse to a halt. He listened for almost a full minute and then turned his horse west.
“What is going on? How did you find me? Is everyone all right? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Don’t ask me, little one, I’m just steering this horse.”
After several stops, listenings, and direction changes, they arrived at a tumbled-down shack, half a mile past no-where. The only interesting thing about it was the familiar carriage parked at the side. Deborah sat up a little straighter as Eli drew the horse to a halt.
Daniel Morgan’s bulk filled the door-less doorway.
“Papa!” She slid from the horse and ran to his arms.
“Gently, little chick, gently. These ol’ bones have had a powerful shaking these past few days.”
“Papa,” she demanded as soon as she released him. “What’s going on? Didn’t you…”
“Later, little one. Let’s get rolling.” He addressed the latter to his sons. “Come.” His skillet-sized hand pushed her towards the carriage.
Inside the comfortable, if conservative, carriage, Deborah turned on her father. “Papa, for the love of God, listen to me.”
“Where did you learn that kind of language, young lady?”
“From you, of course…and all the other soldiers I’ve been around lately.”
“Humph! Better watch it. Your mother will wash you
r mouth out with soap…and mine…if she hears it.” His eyes twinkled, and he pulled her over for a big hug. “Lordy, it’s good to have you back. I nearly took Adam apart when he came back without you.”
“Papa, you have no right to abduct me like that.”
“I have every right in the world, young lady. I’m your father. It is my right and my responsibility to protect you from unscrupulous, ravishing men.”
“Unscrupulous…Papa, Kit’s my husband. The only way he’s ‘ravished’ me is the same way you ‘ravish’ Mama.”
“He’s taken advantage of an innocent young woman.”
“Where did you get such drivel? Did Grandpa say the same thing when you married Mama?”
Morgan looked at her but said nothing.
After a moment, she burst out, “I’m just fine, Papa. Didn’t you get my letter?”
“Yes, we got your letter, and we got the one that Kershaw woman wrote. Know of her husband. Damn fine man to be shipped off to Bermuda.”
Deborah looked sideways at him. “Sarah sent a letter?”
“Of course she did. She’s your friend, and all. Explained how you had to sound all cheery in the letter but that you’d been dishonored and coerced into a travesty of a marriage.”
“What! You’re teasing me! Sarah wouldn’t say such things.”
Wordlessly he looked at her and reached into his coat. The seal was broken and her father’s direction written on the outside.
“Dear Sir; I am a friend of your daughter, Deborah Morgan. You may be acquainted with
my husband, Joseph Kershaw, a fervent worker in the Continental cause, now unjustly
imprisoned. As your daughter’s friend, I feel it is incumbent on me to inform you of the true
facts behind recent events. Deborah has been dishonored and betrayed into marriage with a
disreputable British officer who now has the audacity to style himself ‘Lord Westridge.’ I
believe this was done with the sole purpose of tricking and coercing Deborah to betray you
and our glorious and righteous cause to the perfidious British. I am of the firm opinion that
once he has achieved his dastardly aims, Marshall, or Westridge, as he now calls himself,
will discard Deborah in a most callous and heartless manner. Please rescue your daughter