Bethie ignored the insinuation. “Doesna Christian charity demand you invite us in, Malcolm?”
Malcolm looked at her, then at Nicholas, seemed to bite back whatever words he’d been about to speak. “Come in if you must, but dinnae be expectin’ to stay for supper.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it.” Nicholas offered Bethie his arm, and she took it, grateful to feel him beside her.
They followed Malcolm through the door.
Bethie stared about in shock and dismay. The cabin was filthy, the floor covered with dirt, dried leaves, crumbs, dead flies, mouse droppings. A rancid smell that could only be rotten straw from bedding gone sour permeated the air, together with the stench of unwashed bodies. Grease, melted wax, and bits of food stuck to the surface of the rickety wooden table that in her childhood had been bright and newly hewn.
Most shocking of all was her mother. She sat at the table, paring potatoes, fear in her eyes, an old and weary woman who was not yet forty. It hurt Bethie to see her like this, careworn and aged and afraid.
“What’s wrong, Bethie? Do you no’ like what you see?” Malcolm went to stand on the opposite side of the table beside her mother. “Your daughter’s lookin’ down her nose at us, Greer.”
Her mother looked up at her, fear and despair in her eyes. “Why have you come here, lass? Why?”
Bethie tried to ignore her mother’s rejection. “We’re on our way to Philadelphia, Mother. I—I wanted to see you again, to show you your granddaughter. This is Isabelle. She was born at the end of March.”
Her mother’s gaze rested on Isabelle for the briefest of moments before it dropped to her potatoes. “Pray she didnae curse your womb as you did mine.”
The words hurt like a blow, cut much deeper. “W-would you like to hold her?”
“I’ve supper to prepare. Can you no’ see that?”
Bethie swallowed the tears that welled up inside her. She chided herself for ever thinking things could be different. Her mother had never loved her.
“I’ve come with news of Richard.” She saw and felt Malcolm go rigid, and her stomach knotted.
“How come you by news of him? He went back east to find work as a seaman.”
Bethie steeled herself against the rage she knew would come. “I saw him at Fort Pitt. He was wearin’ a British uniform, servin’ under—”
His fist would have hit her squarely on the cheek if Nicholas had not caught Malcolm’s wrist in midair.
Nicholas wrenched Malcolm’s arm behind his back, forced him up against the far wall, knife at his throat. “Men who hurt women are my favorite men to kill. Touch her, and I’ll send you straight to hell—with a smile on my face!”
Malcolm struggled, but Bethie could see he was no match for Nicholas’s greater strength. “My son would never join the English!”
Bethie started to answer, but it was Nicholas who spoke first.
“Your son was serving at Fort Pitt under the command of Captain Simeon Écuyer. Écuyer tried him in a court-martial and sentenced him to death by firing squad after he beat my wife and tried to rape her in our quarters. Your son, Master Sorley, is dead.”
“’Tis her fault! She bewitched him, seduced him, led him to a path of sin!”
Bethie squeezed her eyes shut against Malcolm’s vile words. It seemed like only yesterday she’d stood here, bleeding and beaten, as he shouted similar words at her, then sent her away.
“Leave Bethie out of this! He found that path on his own, and he paid the price.” Nicholas sounded enraged, and Bethie feared for a moment he might truly kill her stepfather.
“I dinnae believe you, English! He cannae be dead! ’Tis lies meant to torment me!”
“It’s the truth, old man. I fired the shot that killed him. I watched him die. Live with it.” Nicholas released Malcolm, and Bethie watched as her stepfather crumpled to the floor, a broken man.
Then her mother stepped forward from the shadows, met Bethie’s gaze, pointed a bony finger at her. “Get out! Go! Is it no’ enough that you shame me before my husband! Will you now destroy our hopes, bring grief into our home?”
Bethie blinked back her tears, even as the pain caused by those words hit home in her breast. She tried one last time. “Come with me, Mother! Come away from here! Come away from him! You dinnae need to live with him any longer! I’m goin’ to find work in Philadelphia and—”
“He is my husband! I’ll no’ go wi’ you! Get out! You are no’ welcome here!”
Bethie felt Nicholas slip his arm round her waist. “Let’s go, love. You’ve done all you can. Leave them to the life they’ve chosen.”
