Another strained pause brought the housekeeper round with a berry pie, though all seemed to have lost their appetite. Dessert left on the table, the woman hurried out, surely sensing the ill feeling in the room. Mae took up a knife as if nothing was amiss and began to cut wedges as Bohannon and Coralie continued their wrangling.
“You know how Father felt about Eben Gibbs.” Bohannon’s intensity turned his features taut. “I refuse to call him lieutenant because unlike American officers who earn their rank through service and merit, British officers simply purchase theirs.”
Coralie’s high color reminded Rhys of her scarlet gown at the ball. Standing so abruptly she almost toppled her chair, she threw down her napkin and then fled the room. All eyes returned to Mae, who handed dessert around the table. Such serenity would serve her well in the wilds.
Or so he hoped.
Mae got little rest that night. Dismayed and fearing she’d be half asleep in the saddle the first day of the journey, she lay wide-eyed, wondering what to tell Rhys.Ifshe should tell him. She’d almostconvinced herself that Coralie and Eben Gibbs’s correspondence didn’t matter. But his last, baffling letter left her wondering once again if he’d been using her sister for information—intelligence—even of the most innocuous kind. How she wished Coralie would stay behind. What if she arrived in New York and found that the lieutenant didn’t even want her?
The next morning Aunt Verity managed a tearful goodbye as James hefted their belongings to the wagon Coralie would ride in, her horse tethered behind. Mae mounted Orion as Morristown became a hive of riflemen and horses and wagons. Most of the Rifle Corps were on foot save the officers, Rhys leading on his chestnut gelding, Copper.
As Rhys said, she was at the center, two officers’ wives ahead of her and Coralie. They’d been hastily introduced to Catherine Kersey and Alice Wentz, who were as unalike in physical appearance as they seemed in temperament. Catherine was as tall and spare as Coralie while Alice, shorter and plump, resembled Mae. From Boston, they seemed genteel, their husbands among General Washington’s topmost officers leaving Morristown for Fort Montgomery.
Too excited to be tired, Mae ran a gloved hand down Orion’s glossy neck as he tossed his head and shifted his weight from side to side, clearly wanting to move. At Rhys’s command they finally began. All around her ranged riflemen, the bane of the British, their weapons ready.
These Rifle Corps were no strangers to the wilderness. All the accoutrements of war hung about them, down to the hatchets and knives at their waists, and they moved with the silence and stealth of Indians, though the wagons and followers raised a frightful din. Most men wore the shirts she and the Liberty Ladies had sewn, which were dyed with walnut hulls and chamomile leaves to a warm brown or a pale green like the woods themselves.
As the miles unfolded, towns and fields and pasture gave way to forests, the road shrinking to a skunk’s stripe with barely enoughroom for the wagons to pass. Beneath her hat, Mae squinted as the sun burned down, turning her head and her riding habit itchy and damp. This was no leisurely jaunt from Chatham to Morristown. Every mile seemed to present a new challenge, and Coralie, already weary, exchanged her wagon seat for the saddle till Rhys halted for a respite.
Self-conscious among so many men, Mae all but ran for the cover of the woods to relieve herself, Coralie on her heels. Here there was no chamber pot or prim necessary at the back of the kitchen garden. Thick-waisted chestnuts and oaks and a screen of mountain laurel with blooms as big as dinner plates allowed them a moment of privacy instead.
They emerged from the brush batting at flies and yanking their petticoats free of briars. For a moment, Mae just stood and tried to get her bearings. A lack of breakfast and the heat sent her senses swimming.
“That wagon seat is hard as iron—much like General Harlow and his riflemen.” Coralie dabbed her shining brow with a handkerchief. “We’ve only just begun, but it seems he means to kill us long before we see Jon—”
Mae silenced her with a glance. “If we’re weak and haven’t been beyond Morris County, that’s hardly the general’s concern. He cautioned me against coming in the first place.”
“Why didn’t you warn me, then?” Arms akimbo, Coralie set her jaw, which, Mae thought, might serve her better than limping along. “I might have stayed behind.”
“Warn you? You seemed wholly set on Lieutenant Gibbs and past all reason.” Fatigue sharpened Mae’s temper. “What we’ve traversed so far is nothing compared to what’s coming. James has warned of mountains that make the Watchung we’ve known all our lives mere anthills. Keep in mind that we’re moving with an elite guard, arguably the most intrepid of men.”
“Intrepid—or heartless?”
Mae refused to blame Rhys. If anyone, Jon was at fault. “Clearlywe haven’t the makings of a soldier, even a sunshine one, as Paine said.”
“Sixty or seventy miles of torment and we’ve just begun.” Coralie thrust her handkerchief into her pocket. “What did we bring to eat?”
“There’s hard cheese, bread, and boiled eggs in my saddlebags.”
“We shan’t be resorting to the army’s hardtack and parched corn, I hope.”
“What we most need is water—and replenishing what we’ve drunk so far.”
“What I’d give for a hot cup of tea in the quiet of our own parlor.” Coralie smoothed her wrinkled skirts. “I must speak with James.”
To complain? Or apologize for her part in their Sabbath quarrel? Mae prayed it was the latter.
They parted, and Mae passed groups of riflemen eating and drinking, some even napping, making her wonder how long their break was to be. Taking a seat beneath a sycamore tree near Orion, she rued the woolen blanket beneath her, a pretty trifle a true frontierswoman wouldn’t require. Did she read amusement in Rhys’s eyes when he approached? Or was it only her own insecurities?
“Miss Bohannon.”
Such formalities frustrated her too. She held her temper by a thread as she removed her hat to ease her itching head. “Good day to you, sir.”
He crouched down beside her and offered her something long and spiked. What on earth?
“Ginseng. The root of life. Chew it and you’ll revive.”
She took it reluctantly from his outstretched hand, remembering a ginseng jar in the apothecary. “So you sense me wilting from a distance?”
