before this English monster succeeds in his most awful plan. Yrs respectfully, Sarah
Kershaw”
“I don’t believe this! How could she write such lies?” Deborah stared at the empty seat across from them. How could Sarah write such things? She knew they weren’t…
Small things dripped on Deborah’s memory, like the last few drops from a summer storm. Sarah offering sanctuary. Sarah counseling to wait on the marriage. Sarah making cutting comments about Kit. Sarah saying she’d take care of the letter.
Her breath caught on a sob. “I thought she was my friend.”
Morgan patted the clenched hand on her lap. “I suspect she is. She just views the situation a little differently than you do. If Mistress Kershaw’s half the person her husband is, I reckon she really believes what she wrote to be the Gospel Truth.”
Deborah scanned the misleading letter. “You’re probably right. But that doesn’t make anything she said true.”
“No, it doesn’t.” At her look of outrage, he added, “I know my daughter well enough to realize that she couldn’t easily be taken in by a conniving lobster-back. However, I did want to set your mother’s mind at ease. It was time for you to come home, anyway. When this mess is over, I reckon your husband’ll know where to find you.” His face held a complacent look as he glanced out the window.
“As to your grandfather, he accused me of just that and to my face. He was right.”
She shook her head. “Papa, you’re going to make an absolutely outrageous grandfather this fall.”
General Daniel Morgan’s head snapped around, and his mouth opened as he stared at her stomach.
**
Kit watched the Continental troops melt away in retreat. His British gutter-scrapings had held the field. He leaned on a nearby tree branch, sword digging into the dirt, exhaustion seeping into his bones. For a moment, the field of carnage lost focus then he snapped up and ran toward the field hospital.
“Who saw my wife?’ he yelled to the hospital in general.
One of the orderlies stepped forward. “Me thinks she done gone wi’ at lack-wit brother of hers, only so’s he didn’t ride like no lack-wit I’ve ever seen.”
Kit eyed the direction they’d gone. If the brother, Allen, no Adam, was with her, then the abductors were her family. The truly massive man among them was probably none other than Daniel Morgan, himself.
He sprinted towards his horse, and then slowed. He was exhausted, worse than useless, and his men were, too. The Morgans had several hours head start on him, and he had a battlefield to clean up. He stared off into the distance as the demands of his men warred with his desire to retrieve his wife. He shoulders slumped as he calculated the bottom line. His wife was safe; his men needed him.
Enraged at the choice he had to make, he flung his sword aside, much to the astonishment of the young soldier whose feet it landed near. Kit ignored the yelp as he stalked back to the cleanup…and congratulations.
**
“Eli, don’t be a moonling. I had enough of that with Adam.” Eli rode as an outrider. He’d been singing nursery songs for the last half hour. Deborah’s irritation with her bored brother edged just short of fratricide.
Adam’s bellow of outrage reverberated from the driver’s seat throughout the woods. “I’ll have you know that was a splendid piece of acting. I can still see Tarleton’s face when I picked my nose and reached…”
“Adam,” Eli retorted, ‘if I hear that story again, I’ll be forced to shoot you to put us all out of our misery.”
At the mention of shooting, Deborah glanced at the two rifles on the opposite seat. Wickedly lethal in the hands of a trained marksman, they vastly out-performed the English Brown Bess in several recent battles. In these chancy times, it was foolish to travel without them or the loaded pistols in the door pockets.
The General did not expect trouble. The group had turned back west, to the edge of the hinterland before heading north. Few British troops bothered to venture so far west, but soon the road would take them back eastward. For the moment, he was able to nap, talk, and act as a referee among his three most raucous offspring. He thanked God for every minute of it.
**
Kit felt every bloody step the horse took. Each one brought him closer to an empty house. “She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone,” the hooves chanted until he thought he’d lose his mind.
**
Five days on the road made everyone bored and irritable. Charlottesville lay a few miles in front of them, but it was too early in the day to stop there. That meant taking pot luck on a road-side inn. Deborah didn’t relish the idea. The last one boasted a substantial number of fleas as guests. Anyway, they’d been making good time, considering the mountainous terrain. With any luck, they’d be home late tomorrow.
In the meantime, she applied herself to her knitting. She’d whittled a pair of needles from a long, straight twig and purchased some yarn with a few of the coins left in her pocket. A baby blanket grew from the needles.
“We’ll stop near Charlottesville for an hour or so.”
Her father’s words surprised her, and she raised an eyebrow in question.
“Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Nelson are there with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. I have a couple of ideas I’d like to put by them. I’d like you to have a look-in at Mrs. Jefferson. Tom said Martha is in the family way again and is doing rather poorly.”
After a while, Deborah could see Monticello’s dome rising above the trees. If nothing else, a break would be welcomed. As comfortable as Papa’s carriage was, her bottom was getting sore. The stately house rose in the distance, but instead of green serenity, smoke billowed above the grounds. Shouting punctuated by screaming horses assaulted the tranquility.
Adam, riding at the moment, shouted a warning, and Deborah felt the carriage horses lurch into a gallop. A terrible foreboding filled her. The General reached for his fire arms and checked the loading. Deborah pulled hers from the door pocket and checked it, too.
Eli shouted down from the driver’s seat, “Green jackets! Could be Tarleton and his bunch!”
Deborah froze. Tarleton hated every one of them, except Eli, with a deep, personal passion. This was not going to be just a professional skirmish.
Half a dozen or so men on horseback wheeled around the house, crisscrossing the great front lawn in front of the house. Bursts of gunfire from the nearby stables and trees showed the resistance. The great doors of the house were thrown open. As the carriage approached down the right-hand driveway, Deborah could see a man on horseback inside the entry hall. A group of black servants streamed out of the house like a covey of flushed birds, before the flashing sword of the rider. Tarleton! He raised his sword to strike at the nearest man. Adam fired his pistol. The shot missed but Tarleton turned to face the threat rather than the victim.
A dragoon rode towards Deborah’s side of the coach, brandishing his sword. His attention focused on Eli at the reins. Deborah watched from the shelter of the coach door. The man’s mouth opened. He must be yelling, she thought, but she couldn’t distinguish the sound from the din. The horse tossed foam from his mouth. The dragoon lifted his sword above his head, preparing to strike. Deborah watched him, her eyes narrowed, her hands in her lap. He came in range, still she waited. They were both moving. The shot would be tricky. She needed to be close enough to be very, very accurate, yet not close enough to endanger Eli should she miss. About 10 yards should do it.
This must be how a hawk feels when it spots a rabbit. The dragoon wasn’t a rabbit, more like a rabid wolf, and she felt more compassion for the hapless wolf.
She pulled the trigger just as the carriage hit a rock. With her aim off, she was surprised to see a red flower blossom on the man’s shoulder. He tumbled off the horse, and that was all she saw of him.
All her loading supplies sat close to hand; she immediately reloaded. Tarleton barreled down the center of the lawn toward the coach. Even working lef
t-handed, he still made a formidable fighting machine. Deborah glanced up, but reserved most of her attention for the pistol. Her motions were precise and deliberate. Finished. She raised her pistol to the window, bracing her hand on the frame and let him see her aiming directly at him.
He pulled up. He knew he was out of range. He knew she was the one on the other end of the pistol.
He father had just reloaded one of the rifles. She grabbed it and aimed it out the window. Tarleton went from safely thumbing his nose at her to being easy pickings.
He knew it. Shouting and waving his sword, he pulled back and gathered his troops. In a few minutes, all that was left of them was dust drifting across the road.
Jefferson and his cronies had been warned of the attack and escaped earlier. They left the womenfolk and slaves behind, perhaps under the impression that Tarleton wouldn’t harm innocents. General Morgan had a few choice words to say about that, but he didn’t figure the Colonel to return for an obviously fruitless mission.
Nevertheless, the Morgans changed their plans and stayed the night.
**
He knew Thomson was watching him. Thomson had been watching him for weeks now. Thomson danced around him like he was one of those obnoxious American creatures they called skunks. Kit knew if he had black and white fur, his tail would be straight up in perpetual annoyance and warning. He was ready to fire on anyone unlucky enough to be in range.
He knew this, but it didn’t make him any easier to be around. After all, he’d “fired” on a large number of his men already. One poor sot got it because there was a miniscule smut on his white-chalked breeches.
He would have to get control of himself. Resting his chin on his hand, he sat alone, again, at the great dining table for dinner. None of the other officers dared join him. Only Scamp sat under the table, lonely for his lady and not completely at ease with his lord.
Kit, he muttered to himself, you really have to get yourself under control, old man.
Deborah’s letter arrived two weeks after she was abducted. It, at least, reassured him of her safety. How he wanted to touch that blossoming stomach and swelling breasts. Unfortunately, she was there, and he was stuck here. Damnation! He had to get his mind out of his breeches and get to work!
This was all her fault! If she hadn’t gone off with them, he could concentrate. When he got his hands on her, he would seriously contemplate the satisfaction of paddling her pretty little butt until she couldn’t sit down! But first he had to get his hands on her.
The noise at the door barely dented his self-pity.
Roger’s voice saying, “This way, my lady,” had his head snapping up and hope dancing in his brain.
“Oh, my dearest Kit,” Lady Claudia breezed in on a cloud of midnight blue silks and scents, “I was desolated to hear about your father and brother. I’m sure we shall have to console each other, for my dear Oliver has died, too.” Lady Claudia shucked her cloak as she crossed the room and opened her arms wide.
“Shit,” Kit muttered, “what evil genius sent you here?”
Claudia enveloped him in her embrace. She held his face and kissed him full on the lips. Her tongue probed his closed mouth, but he refused to rise to the bait. In fact, he had to work hard not to gag. The perfume that had led her charge on the room threatened to overwhelm his unarmored nose as she pushed her deadly décolleté against his chest.
Her hands wandered from his back to his chest, obviously seeking to rekindle old memories and desires. Kit stood still and silent as she kneaded and caresses. He marveled at his lack of response to this most blatantly sexual of females. Deborah would be proud of him. He knew it was a shade childish, and his mouth twitched at that thought.
Lady Claudia happened to be looking up. “So you like this, do you? You were always the man for me, just as I’m the woman for you.”
Kit grabbed her wrists, especially since one of the hands was traveling in a direction that even his basic disinterest would find hard to ignore.
“So your spies have told you I’ve come into the title, eh?” He paused a moment, “Too bad they didn’t tell you that I’ve also taken a countess. It would have saved you a trip.”
“A countess! You’ve married? Who could you possibly marry?”
The look on her face told Kit she’d spoken before she thought. He couldn’t resist, “Why I married the daughter of a general.”
He could almost see the names racing through her head.
“Who? Is it that Friday-faced chit of Howe’s? Or Clinton’s? She’s been on the shelf for years. They say she’s avoided marriage because she doesn’t like men.”
Kit moved away from her and leaned against the dining table.
“Who is it?”
He grinned, knowing it would infuriate her. “Daniel Morgan’s girl.”
“Morgan? Where’s he? Is he now here? Morgan…Bloody hell! Morgan!”
“Watch your language, my dear. Most unladylike. Yes, Morgan. Deborah consented to be my wife before we heard of my father’s death.” More to himself, he added, “Which is probably a good thing because she certainly wouldn’t have if we’d heard before we were married.”
“Deb…? You married that trollop that insulted me! You chose a colonial slut over…,” she swallowed a word and drew in a quick breath,” over all the titled ladies in England? How could you dishonor your name so?”
Kit’s eyes narrowed. “Lady Claudia,” he began most formally, “you forget yourself. The lady in question, and she is most undeniably a lady, is indeed the daughter of a rather successful Continental general. In addition, she does have a title. Lastly, and most importantly, she is my wife, and I will gladly give her all the protection and care that position allows me. Do we understand each other?”
Grimly, Kit watched her sputter through her apologies and protestations of friendship. He bowed and made all the polite noises when she left for Camden.
When he finally saw her out the door, he slumped against the entry table. “Whew! That was something I never want to repeat.”
Rogers, who was closing the great door, bowed his head in respect and agreement. “Just so, sir, just so.”
**
Deborah gritted her teeth. “Betty, if you don’t stop fussing, I won’t be responsible for my actions. You’ve been hovering over me like a mother hen with chicks ever since I got home.”
Betty ignored her mistress’s ill temper. After all her babies and all Miss Abigail’s babies, she knew the reason for the outburst was sticking out in front of her little chick’s belly. That it was the first of her charges to present her with a baby to spoil made it an event worth fussing over. “Don’ you go giving me no sass, girl. You drinks this here posset while it’s warm like I tells you, now you hear.” Deborah’s eyes rolled. “Go on, now.”
Abigail Morgan looked up from her embroidery. “Best do as she says, Deborah. Betty has bossed more breeding women through their pregnancies than I can count.”
“And that includes you, Miss Abigail. You go on and tell her now how easy things went, even with those three cockerel’s of yours being half-growed when they hatched.”
Abigail winced at the memory. “Yes, I remember it. I was there. Drink your posset, darling.”
Betty watched the hot drink go down and removed the cup, muttering plans for “her” baby as she left the room.
“Mother…” Deborah began with a whine.
“Don’t argue, my love,” Abigail advised. “You won’t win. Learn to limit your battles to those you can win. In your condition, she inevitably comes out on top.”
Deborah looked down at her belly under the baby booties she was knitting. Lacings were a thing of the past at almost eight months gone. She sighed.
Masculine voices and the clomp of boots announced Deborah’s father and Adam, Eli having left some weeks before to rejoin General Pickens. A bark of laughter suggested a successful day’s hunting. The door to the parlor swung open.
Abigail did not look up from her embr
oidery. “Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan. Mercy just cleaned this floor today. I trust you have removed your boots.”
The burly hero and his equally burly son stopped in their tracks. “Good afternoon, my love, we, ah, we forgot. We’ll see to it, ah, immediately.” They backed out, quietly retracing their steps.
Abigail Morgan smiled serenely down at her embroidery and then looked up at her daughter. Her eyebrows flashed up and down. “You just have to know how to handle them. They’re really a bit like puppies. Get them young and train them right.”
Female laughter sounded through the house.
**
16 September, 1781
My beloved wife: We have been reunited with General Cornwallis’s troops at their position
near Yorktown. The General sends his warmest regards and holds forth some small hope of
allowing me leave to see you. I pray you and the baby are doing well. I miss you terribly. No
more so than when, just before our orders to remove here arrived, Lady Claudia arrived,
fully prepared to comfort me on the loss of my father and brother, as I was to comfort her on
the loss of her husband. I am proud to say that she left rather quickly, uncomforting and
uncomforted. Scamp is here with me, but he also misses his ‘mama.’ My respects to your
family and much love to you. K
**
Deborah sat on the porch with the housemaid Mercy, enjoying the fall weather. The autumn colors of the Virginia highlands never failed to enchant and the late October day framed them perfectly. Deborah found every excuse to be outside. The two of them were shelling peas and peeling turnips when Michael, the blacksmith who had gone into town on an errand, whipped his horse up the drive to the house. He was yelling something Deborah couldn’t understand until he got close to the house.
“Cornwallis’s surrendered at Yorktown; Cornwallis’s surrendered at Yorktown.”
Deborah jumped up, scattering peas all over the porch. For a moment, the world turned black. She grabbed the railing to steady herself then demanded, “When, what happened, was there a battle?’