“It has been established that I am no gentleman, you are no lady. Where were you?”
“Out!”
His steps were menacing as he came toward hers. She backed into the hallway, trying to escape his wrath. “You can’t force me to tell you!” she cried out. “You cannot force me…” Her words trailed away as he neared her. Blindly she struck out, afraid to trust his rage. He ignored her flailing hands and ducked low, sweeping her over his shoulder.
“No! You cannot make me—stop this instantly! One of the servants will hear us…will come…stop!”
His hand landed forcefully upon her derrière. “I don’t give a pig’s arse if the servants do come, and perhaps I cannot force you to tell me why you prowl the streets. But while you do so, madame, I shall be doubly damned if I shall be cast from my own bedroom!”
She pounded against his shoulder to no avail. A quick and vicious fight followed when they reached their chamber, but then his lips touched hers, and she remembered his words. Anger…it was so close to passion, so close to need. She wanted to keep fighting. She could not. The fire was lit, in moments it blazed. She never did betray her mission, nor did it matter. Despite all that soared between them, she lost something that night.
By morning Eric was gone. He left a letter telling her that he was headed for the convention and that she was to go home. She would do so with little fuss, he suggested, because certain of the servants would see that she did so by her own power or theirs.
The note was not signed “Your loving husband,” “Love, Eric,” or even “Eric.” Warning words were all that were given to her. “Behave, Madame, or else!”
With a wretched cry she threw her pillow across the room and then she lay back, sobbing. All that she had discovered, she realized, was lost. Love had been born, it had flourished…and then it had foundered upon the rocky shores of revolution.
Part III
Liberty or Death
XII
St John’s Episcopal Church
Across Shockoe Creek
Outside Richmond, Virginia
March 1775
The debate had been endless, hot and heavy and passionate, and then, curiously, the delegates fell silent again. There was resistance, Eric thought, quietly watching the men around him, but something was taking form here today that was destined to cast the course of a nation.
Richmond, the little town founded by Colonel William Byrd II in 1733, did not boast the fine accommodations of Williamsburg. There were not so many taverns, and certainly the inns were far less numerous, and far less elegant. Yet it seemed much better to be here, at the falls of the James River, than in Williamsburg, beneath the governor’s nose.
The town itself hadn’t had a place large enough for the conclave to convene, so the delegates were meeting in the church. To the loyalists among the populace—who sensed the depth of the rebellion going on within hallowed halls —the fact that they met in the church made the assembly an obscene one.
And despite the warnings of caution, Patrick Henry had the floor again, the West County giant, the rough but eloquent speaker who seemed to possess the ability to move mountains with the power of his words.
“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace! Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
The tenor of his voice, the sound, the substance of words, rang and rang against the day, with startling, dizzying, almost blinding passion. Eric thought that men would leap to their feet, that they would scream and cry from the force of the emotion.
But there was silence. Men appeared stunned by the boldness and the honesty of the words.
Henry looked around the assembly, then sat.
And still his words were met by silence as they seemed to echo and echo through the church. Then slowly a few delegates rose to oppose him, but then Richard Henry Lee was on his feet, speaking up for Henry’s resolution, and then Thomas Jefferson asked for recognition. Jefferson was a damned good writer but not much of an orator. Still, when he rose, and spoke for Patrick Henry’s resolves, a peculiar eloquence touched him. Tall, with his flaming red hair neatly queued, he gestured awkwardly, but still, his words, his manner, touched many men. Eric could feel it in his own heart; he could see it in other men’s eyes.
When the gentlemen at last broke for the day, it was resolved that they would form committees.
It was resolved that troops would be raised for Virginia’s defense.
And it was known that within the next few days, the vote would be cast for the delegates to travel to Philadelphia a second time.
Eric, leaving the church at Washington’s side, was quiet as he heard the words spoken by Patrick Henry repeated again and again. They were whispered at first, but then the whispers rose.
Two years ago they would have all claimed his words treason. But now only the staunch loyalists thought so.
