A sudden shadow turned their attention to the door. Keturah stood there in Maddie’s borrowed garments, sunlight illuminating her white-gold hair. She’d wrapped her long braid about her head in a sort of crown. Maddie’s doing?
“Come in,” he told her with a welcoming motion.
Keturah hesitated, gaze rising to the wood rafters. In a touching gesture, Tessa rose from her seat, went to the door, and took her hand, leading her to the table. Sitting down at Tessa’s bidding, Keturah watched as Tessa served what was left of their breakfast.
Keturah tasted the tea with some curiosity, then eyed the bread. “Indian mush cakes?” she asked him in Lenape.
“Hoecakes,” he replied in English, watching as she spread them with butter and poured a generous amount of sweetening on top.
He eyed his desk again, still impatient to begin but feeling pleasantly full of far more than breakfast.
He owed Hester.
12
Tessa began removing dirty dishes, humming beneath her breath the song she and Clay had sung. After setting things in order here she’d best find her brothers, who seemed in no hurry to leave the garrison. With Jasper now captain of the militia, he’d no doubt be at the fort more than their homeplace. Whereas once this would have pained her, now it brought an odd relief. She’d count on Lemuel to light a fire under the others and get them back to the Buckhannon. For now, she must make peace with the sight and sound of Keturah and Clay at the table, speaking mostly Lenape.
“Achsuntuimunschi,” Keturah said, reaching for the molasses.
“The stone tree, aye,” he replied. “The white word is sugar tree. Maple.”
Keturah repeated it in halting tones before taking a bite.
“The stone tree?” Tessa ran a cloth over the table to catch crumbs. “Why is it called such?”
“On account of maple being hardwood,” Clay explained. “Keturah’s sorry to have missed sugar season, being at Fort Pitt.”
Sugar making with the Indians—or the settlers? Returning to the hearth, Tessa banked the hot coals and adjusted the crane, refilling the kettle in case Clay wanted more coffee or tea.
He and Keturah made a striking sight. Did he sense Keturah’s fondness for him? Note the way her eyes followed him? Even now as he pushed back from the table and moved to his desk, she watched him from beneath her lashes.
The significance of it made Tessa’s stomach clench. Was Keturah sweet on the colonel? Well, why wouldn’t she be? He was striking as the day was long with his mismatched eyes. He spoke the Indian tongue, had even rescued her from Fort Pitt. All the makings of a hero, a fairy tale. Though he’d spoken against marrying, Keturah seemed to suit somehow.
“There you are.” Ma hovered in the doorway, smiling approvingly at Keturah’s breakfasting and Tessa’s tidying up. “Both my girls.”
“Morning, Mistress Swan,” Clay said as he inked a quill.
“Fine day to you, sir,” she returned. Behind her appeared Ross, who squeezed past his mother and approached the colonel’s onerous desk.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Hat in hand, Ross eyed the commander with a dash of awe.
Clay signed a document and set aside his quill before turning toward the youngest Swan. “I hear you’re quite a hand with a rifle.”
“Fixing and firing them, aye, sir,” Ross replied with a marked flush.
“Can we count on you for the militia muster?”
“Aye, sir.” Ross turned banty rooster before Tessa’s scrutiny. “And more besides.”
Hiding a chuckle, Tessa moved her mother’s way. “Ready, Ma?”
“If the colonel gives us leave to go,” she replied.
“The latest scouting party should return by dusk.” Clay stood, an ink stain on his sleeve. “I’d advise delaying your leaving till we’ve heard their report.”
“Might behoove us,” Ma answered. “I’m sure Hester won’t mind.”
Tessa went outside, breathing deeply of the fresh air. Passing from blockhouse to common, she squinted at the brightness. The damp of the night before had given way to the bloom of day. Heat shimmers would soon skew her view as the day soared to summery heights. Her gaze trailed to Hester puffing on her clay pipe on the cabin’s stone stoop. The pungent smoke held still in the windless air.
