“I’m a bit melancholy as I’m missing Mother and Father. Mother, especially, when I’m less than well.”
“A headache, is it?”
Taking a sip of the unappetizing drink, Mae burned her tongue. The chocolate tasted especially bitter. Were they low on sugar? What she craved was cold well water—and a reprieve from Coralie’s sudden scrutiny.
Coralie reached out and felt Mae’s forehead with her palm. “Sister, you’re on fire!”
Was she? Mae closed her eyes as if to stop the blinding pain at her brow. Coralie continued to talk, her voice indistinct. Mae fought a tide of nausea as the parlor walls closed in and grew shadowed. Panic scattered her thoughts as she lost her hold on the cup. It slipped from her hands and spattered her quilted petticoat before it rolled to the rug.
“Mae!”
Suddenly so ill she couldn’t stay upright, Mae slumped sideways and slid from the sofa.
“Here’s the latest tally, sir.”
Rhys looked up from his makeshift desk by a window on Arnold Tavern’s second floor as Bohannon handed him the muster rolls.
“They’re the first taken since Fort Washington, sir.”
“The debacle at Fort Washington,” Rhys said beneath his breath. The battle that had ended their disastrous New York campaign. It seemed an eternity ago, not mere months.
“I’ve dated it today’s date. Both units comprise no more than one hundred ten officers and enlisted men on active duty currently, taking into account the men lost last winter to desertion and death.”
“How many to desertion?” he asked, though he well knew the number. Confirmation was what he sought.
“Four, sir.”
“Death?”
“Thirteen succumbed, being gravely wounded or ill, sir. Their names are listed in separate columns.”
“I tallied fifteen wounded or ill. You forgot Sullivan and McTavish.”
“My apologies for the oversight, sir.”
Rhys took the list, giving it a cursory glance. Some losses grieved him, but others, like deserters, he was glad to be rid of. “I don’t see prisoners of war.”
A sudden lull ensued, long enough that Rhys looked from the list to his adjutant. Bohannon didn’t look forgetful or flummoxed. He looked distressed.
“My apologies, sir,” he repeated.
“Hartman and Paine were taken at Fort Lee.” Rhys inked a quill and added the missing men. “Kersey, Randolph, and Barker captive at Princeton.”
“Aye, sir.”
Rhys continued his scribbling. “Why do you seem unusually addled?”
Bohannon hesitated yet again. “My sister is ill, sir—and my mind is elsewhere.”
Rhys stopped writing. “Which sister?”
“Maebel.”
Lists and ledgers fled Rhys’s head. “What’s the matter?”
“Day before yesterday she literally fell to the floor. There’s concern the inoculation may have been botched or she’s caught the pox severely in spite of it.”
Rhys stood, almost upsetting his desk. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
