“You look hale and hearty to me,” Tessa returned.
“Nonsense. You know nothing about my old bones. Now tie on your apron and finish what I started.”
Tessa looked to the hearth’s fire, where a lone kettle simmered. Nary a whiff of breakfast to be had. Resigned, she did as her bossy aunt bade and reached for her apron, eyes going wide at Hester’s next brow-raising order.
“Colonel Tygart likes his coffee hot and his hoecakes brown.” At that, she pulled a rocking chair nearer the window and sat down hard, adding an exclamation point to her words.
Tessa set her jaw. Did Hester truly expect her to fix the commander’s breakfast? She’d rather face a multitude of redmen than obey this blatant attempt at matchmaking. Her great-aunt had many fine qualities, but tact wasn’t one of them. Nor was patience.
“Quit your dawdling!” Hester scolded as Tessa took a quick look in a cracked looking glass hauled overmountain long ago. “The man can’t manage a garrison on an empty stomach.”
Tessa shot a glance at the half-open cabin door. Doggone the milking! Where was Ma when she needed her to put a stop to such foolishness?
“Oh, and he’s overfond of sweetening, just so you know,” Hester said with a wave of her hand. “Prefers loaf sugar but he’ll take molasses in a pinch.”
Biting back a retort, Tessa stepped outside into a morning of warm mist, the sky a pleasing pink, the common littered with last night’s revelry. A stone’s throw away was the blockhouse, door open wide, the hearty smell of bear bacon beckoning. Her own stomach rumbled.
Shutting her eyes, she uttered a hasty, heartfelt prayer and then, still addled as a bee in a butter churn, bridged the short distance to the blockhouse. There at the hearth were the fixings of a commander’s breakfast. She noted both coffee and tea. Plenty of sweetening.
No colonel.
From the loft above came a few decisive sounds. The thud of a boot. The opening of a shutter. Singing.
Though low, the voice was distinct and melodious, even rich. “The Nightingale”? ’Twas a tune she knew well. She bit her lip to keep from joining in and focused on the task before her. First, a daub of grease in a hot iron skillet, then hoecake batter fried a deep brown. She herself liked them golden with butter, no sweetening.
“Good morning, one morning, one morning in May,
I spied a young couple all on the highway,
And one was a lady so bright and so fair,
And the other was a soldier, a brave volunteer . . .”
She half chuckled at her old aunt’s prank on Colonel Tygart. What would he think of that?
“Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee,
Now where are you going, my pretty lady?”
Clay paused singing long enough to shave, maneuvering the razor with long, even swipes over his bristled skin. He toweled off on a soft piece of tow linen, taking a last look at the common below through his open window.
A few discarded wooden cups, even a pewter one, glinting in the dirt and grass. A muddy shoe and colorful handkerchief. A few crude toys. All evidence of a merry time, even if one of the fort’s spies had brought a grim report. Few who’d come for the frolic would likely leave the fort till better news was brought.
He resumed his low song, something he’d missed on the trail, though he heard Boone oft sang at the top of his lungs in devil-may-care defiance. But he couldn’t risk the women in his party, so he’d stayed silent all the way from Fort Pitt to Fort Tygart.
As his boot struck the first step, a warm, womanly voice joined in from below. Not Hester. The old woman hadn’t a song in her wilderness-hardened soul. His steps quickened till his boots sounded like a small storm.
“Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee.
Now where are you going, my pretty lady?
I’m going to travel to the banks of the sea,
To see the waters gliding, hear the nightingales sing.”
There at the hearth was a becoming if surprising sight. Miss Swan? Her back to him, she deftly flipped his favored hoecakes, using a free hand to grasp hold of a kettle’s handle with her apron.
Taking a seat at the table, he hated to end her singing. She had a lovely voice, sweet and full-bodied. When she swung around armed with his breakfast, her blatant consternation made him chuckle.
