Up the hill they went, slowly but teeth-rattlingly. His next hurdle was the porch steps he’d crafted with his own hands. The house, though just as he’d left it, looked strange to him, he’d been away so long. Or was it because he’d changed, no longer the man he’d been when he built it?
As the three of them climbed the steps clumsily, the front doorswung open. Mae stood there, her nightgown falling to her bare feet. Her face lit up like the lantern in her hand. Their eyes locked and held, making him forget everything and everyone else. When he looked past her to the broad hall and the seventeen steps he must climb, his resolve shattered.
“Come inside.” Mae stood to one side of the door. “We’ve moved the bed downstairs into the parlor so I won’t have to risk the steps ahead of the baby’s coming. But now I think it was meant for you.”
“She slipped and fell partway down them the other day.” Bronwyn’s words made him forget his own misery. “Thank heavens it did her no harm.”
He looked to Mae again as if to determine the truth of it, but she was studying him with such alarm he sensed she knew he was near collapse again. His ordeal was almost over.
Feeling like a man thrice his age and supported every step, he made it to the parlor, where the outline of a bed he didn’t recognize—his father’s doing?—dominated the room. Soon he was in it, the feather tick sinking with his weight.
“Soup,” he said. But by the time Bronwyn brought it, the tide of pain had returned and the only way he could escape it was to ask for whiskey. Before he fell into a restless slumber he managed two more words. “Fetch Lucy.”
fifty-two
The flame is kindled and like lightning it catches from soul to soul.
Abigail Adams
Lucy appeared that afternoon, a ray of sunshine in the wintry landscape. While Petey remained outside, gnawing on a bone Bronwyn provided, Lucy hastened into the parlor, looking about in wonder. Her gaze landed on Rhys, who sat by the fire in a Windsor chair.
“Mercy, General.” She eyed him nervously, coming to a stop by the settle. “I came as quick as I could but am sorry to see you brought low.”
“For now, aye.” Rhys shifted in his seat. “I bring good news. Private Hawkes is well—or was at our last contact—and will winter with General Washington in Pennsylvania at a place called Valley Forge.”
Lucy’s wariness turned joyful. “Glad I am to hear it, though I wish he was home like you.”
“If he was he’d be injured or a deserter. You don’t want that.”
“Nay, sir. But I miss him something fierce.” She took a seat on the settle, hands in her lap. “Who’s in charge of the Rifle Corps with you here?”
He paused, so divorced from the army it seemed he was talkingabout another entity entirely. “They may have a new commander by now, or will have once they break camp next year. I haven’t heard nor can I recall since Saratoga.”
“Did you come by your injury in battle, sir?”
“Nay, after.”
Her eyes narrowed. “After” sounded somewhat suspicious, he admitted, but he wouldn’t elaborate. He simply called for Mae to bring a leather pouch of coin. She appeared almost immediately, pouch in hand. Her pleasure at seeing Lucy was mutual and lessened the soreness inside him.
“Private Hawkes wanted you to have a portion of his pay.” He wouldn’t say that the entire amount Hawkes had entrusted to him had been lost in his delirium on the way here—or stolen—and he’d had to ask his father for reimbursement.
Thanking him, Lucy took the sack and looked to Mae, who offered refreshments. “Sassafras tea, not proper English tea, or coffee or chocolate, if you’d rather.Andiced ginger biscuits. Not burnt, I promise.”
“Coffee and biscuits, then,” Lucy said with a chuckle. “Will you be joining us, General?”
“Nay,” he replied. “I’ve other business to take care of.”
Lucy followed Mae into the kitchen, reminding her this was the first time Lucy had been inside. “Losh, but this house makes Fort Montgomery seem a hovel in hindsight.”
Agreeing, Mae began brewing coffee, glad for company. “I’m fond of the kitchen especially. So very bright and airy. Father Harlow made an abundance of cupboards that even bests my former Chatham house.”
“And such a handsome hearth!” Lucy held her hands out to the flames. “You’ll be snug all winter, the babe too. How are you faring?”
“I’ve recovered well, thanks to you, and look forward to mylying-in come spring. I’ll be able to bring Mahala outside into sunshine and fresh air like my mother did me from the first.”
“A girl?” A smile softened Lucy’s freckled face. “A comely biblical name.”
“I could be wrong ... but sometimes one just knows.”
