Seaswept Abandon Read online

  Gareth McClellan laughed, appreciating Jericho's ability to see something diverting in his capture. He was certain Lafayette had made the most of Smith's embarrassment. "I should like to have seen it. It is not every day our side captures such a notorious spy."

  Jericho groaned. "I'd hoped that when I told you the tale you'd be less likely to make sport of me. It appears I misjudged my man."

  Gareth was unrepentant. He shrugged his broad shoulders and leaned back in his chair, stretching long, muscular legs in front of him. Gareth was a larger man than either his older or younger brother, but he carried himself with a certain grace and dignity that did much to assure others he was at least likely to weigh the choices before he resorted to fisticuffs. It was not particularly comforting once one was looking up at him with dusty breeches and loose teeth, but Gareth's reputation for giving some thought before he landed his blows made him a more favored opponent than Salem or Noah. The outcome did not differ for those who chose to brazen it out, but it was some condolence to know that Gareth allowed a few moments for escape.

  "Now that you're a free man, so to speak," Gareth said, "what are you doing in Williamsburg?"

  "I may have escaped Lafayette, but the general always has some need of me. I've just been at his headquarters. You know Cornwallis is hemmed in."

  "I've heard there are as many French in the harbor as in all Paris."

  "A slight exaggeration," Jericho grinned. "Our forces are digging the trenches and fixing the cannon and mortars in place. When everything has been made ready, the bombardment will begin."

  "Noah? Salem? Are they well?"

  "When last I left them. Regretting you're not with them?" Jericho guessed shrewdly.

  Gareth's dark brows raised slightly as his mouth pursed to one side in a grimace of acknowledgment. "I suppose that is the way of it. There was a tacit agreement among us that one son would remain behind to assist our parents and sisters. Since I was already in the assembly, Noah and Salem gave me the short straw."

  Jericho did not suppose there were many who viewed staying behind as the short straw. "You go out to the landing often?" He hoped the question sounded casual.

  "Almost every day. I've always been responsible for the stud."

  Jericho noticed Gareth did not look particularly amused as he anticipated the next inquiry. If he ever became interested in another woman, Jericho vowed she would not have a brother to her credit. "How is your family, then?"

  "Darlene is fine. We're expecting our first child in November."

  Jericho was genuinely pleased for Gareth and his wife. "I'm happy for you. And your parents?"

  "Healthy and in fine spirits. Both are confident Salem and Noah will be home soon. It's been too long since they've visited."

  "You aren't going to make this easy for me, are you?"

  Gareth pretended ignorance. "Make what easy?"

  "Dammit!" he swore, more loudly than he intended. The tavern quieted and a number of heads turned in their direction. Jericho sighed and made an effort to relax. "All right. How is Rahab?" His tongue tripped over the unfamiliarity of saying her name aloud. In his mind, she was still Red.

  Gareth leaned forward in his chair and spoke, deadly earnest. "You know, Smith, if I had been there the morning Salem and Noah found Rae, I would have thrown you in the Hudson. Maybe, just maybe, after I heard her story I would have fished you out again, but I can tell you I would have given the matter some serious thought."

  "I would have expected as much. You can ask your brothers—I didn't fight them."

  Satisfied that Jericho understood how he felt about the treatment of his sister, Gareth resumed his easy posture. It was odd, he thought, how simply Smith accepted the censure. Gareth had pegged him as a harder, colder man, unwilling to accept when he was in the wrong. "Rae is doing much better. She's here in Williamsburg now, staying with Darlene and me. In theory she's supposed to be keeping an eye on my wife before she delivers. Mostly she encourages Darlene's excesses. Did you know Rae's recovered most of her memory?"

  Jericho didn't know, because he hadn't asked either Salem or Noah and they had not volunteered information of late. "I hadn't known. That's good news." But does she still remember me? he wanted to ask. Yet he remained quiet, and nothing in his expression gave away his inner turmoil.

  "We think so," Gareth agreed. "It began to return to her only a few weeks ago. Rae said she and Ashley had a conversation that helped her. I don't understand it myself, but she seems to be the Rae we all recall. I can tell you, her brain fever frightened us a lot more than anyone let on."

  Jericho made appropriate noises of understanding and motioned to the barmaid for another ale. He felt very much in need of more drink. It was incredible to him that he could not voice his question. In his mind he rephrased it, tested it, and still held his silence. He asked himself why it mattered that she should remember him and dismissed the thought quickly, more frightened of the answer than he had been of Dugan's bayonet. It did not sit well that Rae had rightly named him a coward.

  Goaded by that thought, he found the words tripping out. "Does she remember—" he began, but was cut off when Gareth's attention was caught by something at the door to the tavern. A prickle of heat flushed Jericho's nape. He knew who it was before he glanced over his shoulder.

  Rae stood in the entranceway, a slender silhouette against the brightness of the light at her back. She was wearing a mobcap on her head that hid the splendor of her hair and gave her the appearance of a milkmaid. When she stepped into the tavern her plain red skirt swished about her legs, and Jericho thought her wooden clogs seemed too heavy for her feet. He wondered what sort of work she had been doing before she came in search of Gareth. He imagined her engaged in a succession of chores: churning butter, scrubbing kettles, making beds. He wished he had not thought of her in a bedroom. His eyes turned distant, shuttered, as he sought to hide the bent of his mind. He had no idea how unapproachable he looked when his gaze finally met Rae's.

  "Over here," Gareth called to his sister.

  Rae's wide smile as she neared the table was a thing of refreshing beauty, yet Jericho felt his stomach coil as he realized it was only vaguely intended for him. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he willed her to greet him with something more than the polite regard reserved for friends of her brothers. He stood along with Gareth when she reached their table.

  Rae motioned them to sit down with a breezy wave of her hand. "I apologize for interrupting your coze, Gareth, but Darlene says you would want to know that Fielding stopped by the house to say he is on his way to Yorktown."

  Gareth sighed. "It's no more than I expected. He's been making noises about leaving for a few days now. I suppose I can manage without him at the landing for a while." He explained to Jericho. "Fielding is the best groom we have."

  Jericho was staring at Rae, only half listening to Gareth. "What? Oh. Well, if it's in my power I shall see that he gets back to your employment in one piece."

  Rae's attention turned from her brother to Jericho. "That's most kind of you, sir. Bill Fielding is nearly without equal when it comes to gentling the horses." She dipped a small curtsy as Jericho gave her a puzzled frown. "Forgive Gareth, but he sometimes forgets his manners. I'm Rahab McClellan, Gareth's sister." She looked at Jericho expectantly.

  Jericho stood again, gave Rae a curt bow, and wondered if anyone in the Raleigh knew he was dying inside. When he straightened, his face was hard, pale, and his speech was stilted, the soft drawl noticeably absent. "Jericho Smith, Miss McClellan... and as much as I would like the pleasure of your company, I have to be going. Gareth. Miss McClellan." He tipped his hat and turned on his heel. Before he reached the tavern door he heard Rae clearly say, "What an odd sort of man, Gareth." Jericho's eyes closed briefly in pain and he hurried into the steet as if a company of redcoats was at his heels.

  Rae sank into the chair vacated by Jericho as soon as he was gone. Freckles stood out sharply on a face that now rivaled Jericho's for paleness.
She could not meet her brother's speculative gaze.

  "What was that in aid of, Rae?" he asked gently.

  Rae shrugged, unable to move words past the lump in her throat. Her eyes glistened wetly, while in her head she chanted her refusal to shed tears. In spite of that, her chin wobbled.

  "Let's go," Gareth said quietly, reaching across the table to touch Rae's wrist.

  Rae accepted her brother's suggestion without demur. Once they were in the street she breathed deeply and fought for composure. She felt Gareth's incredibly large and infinitely gentle hand at her elbow.

  "Are you all right?"

  She nodded. "I need but a moment."

  Gareth allowed her more than that. They walked slowly along Duke of Gloucester Street toward Gareth's town home in silence. Rae was hardly aware of the fragrance of fresh bread as they passed the baker's shop, or the spark and glow coming from the forge. She missed the shy wave from the boy sweeping the stoop in front of the apothecary. Her senses were too dulled from her encounter with Jericho to take in smells and sounds, and she could not have said by what route they finally reached Gareth's house.

  Darlene was picking herbs in the garden when she saw her husband's approach. She straightened quickly, smoothed the linen overblouse that inadequately hid her burgeoning middle, and pretended she had only been inspecting the flowering shade-bush and jonquils. She hid the herbs stealthily in her apron pocket as Gareth and Rae stopped in front of the white picket gate at the entrance to the yard. Darlene hurried to the brick walk to greet them before Gareth could give her a scold for not lying abed. She was secretly amused by his peculiar notion that she had become incapable of doing even the simplest tasks once her belly had begun to swell.

  All thoughts of receiving a scold fled as she caught sight of Rae's expressionless face and her husband's look of concern. She doubted it was Fielding's desertion that had created this distress. Arms akimbo and looking rather militant in spite of her small stature and obvious pregnancy, Darlene addressed them both, blocking their path to the house. "What has happened? I scarce recall ever seeing such dark looks."

  Rae sighed and shook her head, impatient with her own black mood. "Oh, Darlene, you may well ask. It is naught but foolishness, I assure you. Isn't that right, Gareth?"

  Gareth did not answer her, but spoke instead to Darlene. "Jericho Smith was sharing my table when Rahab delivered Fielding's message."

  Darlene's small hands went to her cheeks as her mouth formed a silent O. "That must have been quite a shock for you, Rae."

  "I think you've understated it nicely," Gareth said. "She pretended not to know him at all."

  "Oh, Rae, you didn't!"

  "I'm afraid I did. He looked so... forbidding. I couldn't... I was..."

  Darlene grasped the situation immediately as Rae foundered for words to express her confusion and hurt. She took Rae's hand and pulled her toward the front door. "Come. A spot of something warm to drink is just what you need, then you shall tell us the whole of it. I'll have Betty prepare the very thing and bring it to the library."

  Recognizing Darlene would brook no argument. Rae allowed herself to be led to Gareth's small library and settled comfortably in the leather chair usually reserved for her brother. "There's nothing very much to tell," she said when she had a cup of sassafras tea thrust into her hands. Darlene and Gareth shared the divan opposite her, but Rae found her gaze drifting to the haphazard arrangement of books on the shelves behind them. "I pretended not to know him because I thought it would put him at his ease. He was not at all pleased to see me. I doubt you can realize how embarrassing it is for him to be reminded that he thought me a spy and a... well, you know what he thought. What we both thought. I had only hoped to spare him and myself the pain of recollection."

  Gareth's gentle and knowing eyes scanned Rae's face. "I had no idea that you carried tender feelings for Smith." He was not certain how he felt about it. He had always respected Jericho Smith, and the unsettling business on the schooner had not really changed his opinion. In spite of what he had told Smith in the Raleigh, Gareth did not put the blame for what had happened entirely at Jericho's feet. But Smith as the recipient of Rahab's tender feelings was something else again. Jericho had never struck Gareth as a man who welcomed affection.

  At Rae's blush, Darlene interjected, "I believe it is more than tender feelings, isn't it, Rahab? Have you loved him all these long months?"

  Rae nodded. "I had not meant to, you understand. Please don't tell Mama and Papa. They would be so distressed, because they know, as I do, that nothing can come of it. Jericho will never return my feelings."

  Gareth was inclined to agree with his sister. Jericho had ever shown himself to be a loner, shunning holiday celebrations at the landing in spite of the many invitations Charity McClellan had extended via Salem over the years. It was not until the incident with Rahab that Gareth realized Jericho had never even met the McClellan womenfolk. Oh, he was briefly acquainted with Darlene and knew Ashley better, had even saved her life years ago, but they were McClellans by marriage, not birth. Jericho had so studiously avoided joining the McClellans at the landing that Gareth suspected he did not want to be drawn into familial attachments.

  "What makes you so certain?" Darlene asked.

  "Intrepid Mr. Smith is not so brave when it comes to affairs of the heart, I fear." She smiled weakly, attempting to make light of it. "And I think what he is capable of giving has already been given to another. There is nothing for it but that I learn to accept I am naught but a source of embarrassment to him. Well, perhaps not any longer, now that he thinks I don't recall what happened in New York." She finished her tea quickly, eager to avoid too many probing questions. Gareth looked as if he wanted a few delicate matters cleared, and Rae was not in the mood for lengthy and complicated prevarications. "Excuse me, please. I think I'll go to my room for a while. I have a slight headache."

  Neither Darlene nor Gareth objected to her leaving, but she caught the worried glances they exchanged as she stood. Stupid, she told herself. It had been stupid to feign a headache when she had only to say that she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Her clogs thumped noisily to the polished hardwood floor as she kicked them off and threw herself onto the bed. The snowy white canopy that topped the four poster billowed soundlessly, and the fringe bobbed and swayed in the wake of her breezy anger.

  Rae thought she had seen the last of the frowning exchanges once she had begun to recover her memory. Because everything did not come back to her at once, she imagined her memory was like the sum total of the patches in a quilt. Her mind gathered the pieces one at a time, and they were fitted together in a way that was much to Rae's liking: the pattern was deceptively simple, and each bit of fabric was rich with detailed work. It seemed to her that she had learned to manage her unruly thoughts and impulses in a way that was acceptable for a woman with her mostly conventional upbringing. Indeed, until the evening she had entered Wolfe's Tavern, it seemed to Rae that her life had been unexceptional. Dull was the other description that came to her when her mood was unkind.

  There were some events she still could not remember clearly. When she forced herself to think on them she invariably triggered a violent headache. Her recollection of the fight in Wolfe's was one of those things; an evening years ago when she had pointed a musket at two intruders at the landing was another. She and Ashley were the only ones who did not find it odd that there had been no attendant headache when she remembered her broken engagement. It had done much to relieve her sister and Troy that Rae bore them no ill feelings.

  Rae turned on her back and considered going downstairs to tell Darlene and Gareth her headache was more heartache. She decided against it, fearing that they did not already expect as much, it would do little to ease their worry. Worse, perhaps they would think they should do something about it. She could imagine few things more dreadful than Gareth telling Jericho that she had lied this afternoon. That Jericho might hear she loved him did not bear thinking about
.

  Rae yawned sleepily and her eyes fluttered closed. A nap seemed the most sensible escape from her unhappy thoughts. Later, when Darlene came to her room to get her for dinner, Rae's slumber was so obviously peaceful that Darlene slipped quietly from the chamber without disturbing her.

  * * *

  On October 9th the skies were clear, the sun bright, and Jericho remembered he had squinted watching General Washington hold a match to the cannon that began the patriots' volley on the British earthworks.

  Only five days had passed, and here he was squinting again, this time to find his direction in the dark and keep the rain from shielding his vision. He knew the men all around him were having the same difficulty as they moved silently toward the British redoubt that was their goal, but the thought hardly comforted him.

  Neither did the fact that their commander, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, had ordered them to strike the stronghold with their guns unloaded. What faced them then was a pitched battle, with only bayonets, and the brief advantage of surprise.

  Jericho glanced around, looking for Noah among the men close at hand, and cursed softly when he couldn't find him. He wished Noah had elected to miss this maneuver and had remained in camp with Salem. There was no other man in the present company with whom Jericho had more than a nodding acquaintance. It was the way he preferred it. Since Breed's Hill he had done everything he could to avoid fighting beside men he had come to know well. It was his way of insulating himself against the carnage.

  Jericho had one last thought for Noah before he heard the command to storm the redoubt. His voice joined the terrible, charging cry of the Americans as they raced for the stronghold, and then his concentration was directed solely on the bloody confrontation at hand.

  The fighting was fevered. The British soon rallied from their startled confusion and met their enemy at close quarters with fixed bayonets. Jericho, like all the men on both sides, hardened himself to the fact that in order to survive he must wound or kill, and wielded his bayonet with unerring accuracy.