Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

E dmond and the men went back a ways and searched the woods on either side of the road, but the Brits had blended into the night.

“’Tis a trap,” cried one private, whose high-pitched voice suggested he was on the tail end of puberty, a notion his excitability only emphasized. “The lobsterbacks mean to leave us to the mercy of the Indians.”

Edmond shushed him as murmurs and mutters broke out among the troop. A glance at Tabitha showed her clinging to her horse’s neck. “We do not know that,” he said. “It may just be that they rued a thirty-five-mile walk.”

“One way,” Dougal put in ever so helpfully.

“And the possibility of meeting resistance at Fort Howe.” Edmond firmed his tone. “It behooves no one to panic.”

The sole senior officer among them, a lieutenant of Winn’s Edmond did not know, shouldered his way into the knot of anxiously shifting dark forms. “While I agree with that, it does behoove us to get off this road. Unarmed, on foot, we make ourselves a target. We must press on to Fort Howe, but we should do so through the forest.”

“The swamp, ye mean,” someone mumbled.

“Indeed,” the lieutenant said. “’Twill not be easy, but the longer we tarry, the more open we lay ourselves to possible attack.”

Tabitha shivered at Edmond’s side, likely both from cold and fear. He was fighting the urge to place his arm around her shoulders when she took a quick breath and spoke out. “Sir, should someone not warn the commander at Fort Howe as quickly as possible that McIntosh has fallen? Mounted, I could surely stay ahead of danger.”

Edmond stiffened. Yes, chances were good that Fuser would order his troops north with no delay, but just because Tabitha was the only one with a horse did not mean she need volunteer for such a perilous assignment.

Before he could protest, the lieutenant turned to her, his face in full shadow beneath his hat. “It was the next thing in my mind, though I hesitated to ask it of you. Is that a risk you are willing to take, madam?”

Edmond shook his head. “Someone else could?—”

“If Sergeant Lassiter were to accompany me, it is.” She stepped closer to him, and he startled at her suggestion—and the confidence in her tone.

Edmond’s admiration for the woman warred with something else—a sickly sense of doubt. Anything could befall them between here and Fort Howe. What if he failed her, as he had failed Evangeline? He sought the first excuse he could seize upon. “Are you certain your mare could withstand our combined weight for that distance?”

Tabitha patted her mount’s side. “Cora is stronger than she looks. And I am light.”

Indeed, she was. Edmond’s stomach muscles clenched at the idea of cradling her for the ride. It had been over a year since he’d held a woman. “We would need to set a fair pace.” Though he argued with her, the wistful note that crept into his tone proved he also argued with himself.

“All the more reason to not stand about dithering.” The lieutenant tipped his head. “The lady speaks wisely. The two of you shall ride to Fort Howe while we cut through the swamp.”

“Aye, sir.” He gave a brief nod. Tabitha would be safer on her horse than slogging through the swamp without it, should they send another rider. And if they encountered danger, he would stand against it while sending her away on the fleet mare. “But how will you find your way in the dark?” Edmond meant no disrespect, but the recently arrived South Carolinians had yet to grasp the lay of the land.

“We will help them, sir.” Dougal wrapped his fingers around his belt. “I have a fair sense of direction in these parts.”

The officer lifted the leather bag he carried. “And I have a compass.”

“Very well.” As loath as Edmond was to leave his men, they were right. This made the most sense. What made no sense was that proximity to a certain dainty widow affrighted him more than the tangled bog and all its wild creatures—possibly including the human variety. He grasped Dougal’s arm. “Godspeed. I will see you at the fort.”

“That you will.” Dougal slapped his shoulder.

Edmond reached for the saddle. After swinging up, he held his hand down to Tabitha, who took it and settled herself astride in front of him. He gathered the reins and called to the bay mare. “Ha.” With a jolt of hooves, they were off.

A half moon illuminated the way before them. Dark shadows danced over the path, vying for his vigilance. An owl startled from a branch they passed under, its flurry of wings causing them to duck. Edmond kept the mare to a trot. At that pace, as Tabitha predicted, Cora maintained an unflagging tempo.

At length, the black hat in front of him swiveled as Tabitha asked, “Do you think we are safe?”

“As safe as one can be in these parts.” He allowed a chuckle to rumble from his chest. “I would not have agreed to take the road otherwise.”

“Yet you did so reluctantly.” The flatly stated observation did not accuse, and yet Edmond felt the barb to his chest, nonetheless.

“I am ill accustomed to the role of protector.” Despite the meaning of his name.

“Yet you fill it valiantly.”

Her mirror statement sucked the air from his lungs. “When I give a promise, I aim to see it through.”

Her head turned again. “You promised me nothing.” Her words were soft, almost breathless.

Warmth started in Edmond’s midsection and spread. “If I say I will do something, ’tis a promise.”

“Fortunate for me.” Tabitha’s small hand slid over his forearm that held her snug in the saddle.

His heart rate picked up. He scanned the forest. He mustn’t allow her to distract him.

Too late.

Tabitha shifted her weight, causing Edmond an uncomfortable awareness of her soft curves. “Is there no one in your life you watch over? No…woman?”

“My mother. She lives in Darien with her kin.” His reply came out tight.

“Scots, then?”

“Yes.” Of all the times for a getting acquainted chat…

Tabitha tilted her head. “But your last name is English, so I presume your father was English.”

“That is correct. Mrs. Gage, ’tis best if we ride in silence. If we talk the whole way, we have one less sense attuned to danger.”

She sniffed. “‘Mrs. Gage’ now, is it? Very well.” She fell into what she probably presumed would be an accusing quiet. But Edmond’s chest expanded with a strange urge—to laugh again. Flashes of her spirit only further pricked his admiration.

Finally, he whispered, “What of your family?”

After a moment, she swiveled to answer, also in a whisper. “My parents are in Savannah. My twin sister’s husband is a captain of militia in St. George’s Parish.”

So she had no children. “Why did you not return to Savannah after your husband’s death? Why stay in this lonely land?”

Her chest huffed above Edmond’s arm. “So my father could marry me off again? No, thank you. No, I will make my own way now. With the help of Dulcie and Cyrus, of course.”

“Your servants you lost in the swamp?”

“I did not lose them.” Her reply sharpened. “They lost themselves. But I am concerned, wondering if they made it out. And if they search for me. I know you must hasten to the fort, but might we stop on the way? You can be rid of me and free to go about your duty.”

Rid of her? The idea set like a heavy pudding in his gut. Somehow, they had formed a bond these past several days. And that brought about greater unease. For obviously, their paths must soon diverge. But not yet. “It makes no sense to take you east after we cross the ferry. Once we get to the fort, I’m sure someone can escort you home.”

“I do not cross the ferry.”

Edmond stiffened. “But everyone knows River’s Bend lies adjacent to Fort Howe.”

“River’s Bend is no longer my home.” Sadness leeched into her soft reply.

“Then where do you live?”

“Across the river. My husband sold River’s Bend just before he died, as well as his house in Savannah. After sending the proceeds to his family in England, he most generously left me his cattle lands this side of the Altamaha.” The tinge of sarcasm in her words conveyed her true feelings on the matter. “And the log cabin Dulcie and Cyrus live in.”

Edmond pulled back on the reins without thinking, fixed as he was on her stunning revelation. He spluttered a good five seconds while Cora stood still. “What kind of man would do such a thing?”

Tabitha angled ever so slightly toward him. “One with a gambler and reckless speculator for a brother-in-law, though the esteemed Lord Riley covered it well.”

“He left you destitute? To live with servants?” Had Edmond been fortunate enough to capture a woman of her caliber, back when he had allowed himself to desire such a thing, he would prize her above all else. And he would make certain she knew it, even after his death.

“As I stated, I can only assume he intended me to return to my father. After eleven years.” She cringed, then shot a glance back at him as though embarrassed. Of her predicament? Or her age? Edmond would never have guessed it, even though her visage, her bearing, held a canniness the lack of which oft led younger women to err—women such as the one he’d once thought to take to wife. “Edmond?”

He snapped to attention. “Yes?”

“Ought we to ride on to Fort Howe?” Her soft breath fanned his face.

His midsection clenched in a visceral reaction, his heart in an emotional one. He stared into the dark pools of her eyes. “I’m sorry for what you have been through.”

“Th-thank you.” Her fingers tightened on his arm, then she turned abruptly, as if unsettled by his nearness. As he was by hers.

He snapped the reins, and Cora started forward. How quickly Tabitha Gage had made him forget his mission. That he could not allow, for another woman was counting on him. But his chest burned with hatred for men who used their power to abuse the vulnerable. He had just one more question.

“How could a man be party to dispossessing a widow in such a manner…buying her house and kicking her out?”

Tabitha’s back rumbled with a mirthless chuckle. “It did not seem difficult at all for Hugh Jackson.”

Edmond stiffened. She’d just spoken the name of the man who had wrought devastation on his own family and future.

T he evening following their arrival at Fort Howe, Tabitha bent over one of the wounded men who had arrived with the others from Fort McIntosh that morning. Lieutenant Colonel Francis Henry Harris had insisted she rest on his own cot when she and Edmond had ridden in. She had been too tired to argue, falling asleep to the murmur of the men’s voices as they discussed the fall of the stockade on the Satilla.

She’d awakened inside the dim blockhouse to the cry of the sentry as the party from the south arrived, filthy and bedraggled after beating their way through the swamp all night. Colonel Harris had declined an escort for Tabitha to return across the river, but upon sight of the wounded soldiers, he had agreed to send a man to fetch Annabelle from River’s Bend. She’d arrived an hour later with her box of medicinal herbs and had since been instructing Tabitha in their application.

The slave woman gazed up at her from packing a private’s inflamed arm wound with powdered goldenseal root. “You not faint at sight of such things?”

Tabitha blew a puff of air through her nose. “I’ve never been faint in my life.”

Annabelle’s dark eyes swept her with fresh admiration. “You just might make it livin’ across the river, Miss Tabitha.”

The wash of affirmation straightened Tabitha’s spine. She actually cared what a slave woman thought of her? She, who had only craved the approval of Savannah’s elite? And her father.

Annabelle nudged a roll of linen into her hands. “Then you want to bandage him up?”

With a smile at the soldier, whose expression bordered on worshipful, Tabitha bent to her task. She was just tying off the bandage when a shadow loomed from the open door.

“Mrs. Gage?”

She whirled at her married name spoken in Edmond’s deep voice. He stood there holding his hat against his chest, and his lips parted as he took her in. Tabitha smoothed her hand over the striped linen short gown and petticoat Annabelle had brought her, correctly assuming she might be in need of fresh clothing. She’d also managed to subdue her hair beneath a mob cap.

“Uh…ah…” Edmond seemed to have forgotten what he’d come to say. As if to buy time, he gave a nod at Annabelle, whom he had met earlier, then refocused on Tabitha. “I would speak with you a moment.”

Tabitha moved away from the man she’d attended and washed her hands with lye soap in the basin. “I’m listening.”

So were all the soldiers Edmond perused. “Perhaps we might step outside?”

“Of course.” She proceeded him through the door, blinking at the bright sunshine, then turned to face him in the yard. “Annabelle brought news that Dulcie and Cyrus made it home safely.”

His countenance lightened. “I’m glad to hear that. Then you will be less anxious to cross the river.”

“My mind is eased, yes, and the wounded men do need me. Annabelle will have to hasten back to River’s Bend.” Mr. Long had granted her permission to attend the soldiers at Fort Howe, but should Hugh turn up while she was away, the overseer would be hard pressed to explain her absence.

Edmond’s shoulders relaxed, and he slipped his hat back on. “You would not object to staying a while?”

“For a few days, no.” She glanced around at the activity in the fort’s yard. “Though I admit, being the only woman amidst so many men makes me ill at ease.”

He grimaced. “I fear more are coming. And you might need to remain more than a few days.”

“What?” The word squeaked out more loudly than intended. Some soldiers stirring something in a pot above a small fire a few feet away observed her with interest.

“Shall we walk?” Edmond waited until she gave a nod to take her elbow, guiding her toward the gate. “General McIntosh is sending reinforcements, men from Midway, Darien, and Savannah, hoping to prevent the Loyalists from crossing the Altamaha.”

She shuddered as they passed out of the fort. “They are that certain the men who took Fort McIntosh will pursue?”

He nodded. “And when they arrive, we will ride out to meet them.”

Tabitha swallowed hard at the notion of Edmond facing the enemy outside the fort walls. Of more men wounded—possibly him. “What if they besiege the fort?” This time, they might not show as much mercy, especially if Colonel Fuser was not in charge.

“We will not let them get that far.” Edmond led her to the riverbank and turned to face her, but she couldn’t smooth her frown away fast enough. “Do not worry. We will have enough men this time. But you see why ’tis best you remain here until they are driven away.”

“I cannot argue with that.” Annabelle and Mr. Long would be safe this side of the river as well. Tabitha released a sigh, something in her chest twisting. She watched a songbird flit about the branches of a blossoming cherry laurel tree, pecking off tiny black berries. “But I must admit, I long for the comforts of home.” Resting or performing the most basic personal care was nigh unto impossible with privacy so lacking. “Although…”

“What?” Edmond stepped closer.

She met his gaze. “The cabin across the river is not home. ’Tis River’s Bend I long for.” Her high-ceilinged room. Her washtub by the fire. Annabelle’s cooking.

He frowned. “Could Mr. Jackson not be persuaded to sell you the house?” His face twisted as he said the name, as if he’d eaten a crabapple. He’d gone silent when she told him about Hugh Jackson the night before. Doubtless, the man’s reputation preceded him even to Fort Howe. Or maybe ’twas her neediness that repelled him.

“As if I had the money to buy it.” Reaching up to pluck some fragrant white blossoms from the cherry tree, Tabitha laughed without mirth. “No, though he will give it to me—if I marry his son.” She turned back to him. “Julian.”

He grabbed her arm so abruptly that she almost dropped the flowers she’d been gathering to brighten the sickroom. “You cannot do that. Ever. Promise me, Tabitha.”

She drew away from him, her heart pounding. “Why? What do you know of Julian Jackson?”

“Only that he is the worst sort of snake you shall ever find in these wilds. Worse than his father. At least Hugh’s threats are direct. Julian is the viper who charms before he devours.”

At the haze of anger that darkened Edmond’s voice and countenance, Tabitha retreated a pace. This was more than a cruel planter’s reputation. “What did he do to you?”

Edmond ran his hand over his face, falling silent as he looked away. Finally, he said, “My family had business dealings with theirs, back when my father was a factor—the sales agent for cotton and rice planters.”

“Was?” Tabitha blinked.

“Let’s just leave it at that.” His gaze seared hers. “Trust me when I say you should stay away from them.”

Her chin went up. “I already planned to do so, which was why I was out in the swamp chasing cattle—cattle which are now gone. I must find a way to make up the income they would have brought at market.”

Edmond cocked his head to one side, brows drawing into a flat line. “Your husband had extensive holdings. I would assume he possessed more cattle than the ten the Loyalists stole.”

“You would assume correctly. Originally, two hundred head.”

His eyes brightened so quickly, she almost thought she’d imagined his previous ire. “Then I’ve an idea. All the men coming to Fort Howe will need to be victualed. What if Colonel Harris would purchase cattle from you? Obviously, it would have to wait until the Loyalists are driven back, but after that, he might send men to herd some cows with your brand back to the fort.”

She sucked in a quick breath. “You think he would do that?”

“Why not?” Edmond shifted his weight, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I think the question is more whether you would be willing to supply the Patriots.”

Tabitha stiffened a moment, then relaxed her shoulders as understanding dawned. “Ah. The question Captain Winn posed to me at Fort McIntosh…I never answered it.”

“I think it would be fair to say I’ve seen you play both sides.” He watched her closely.

“A matter of survival. Being a man, you wouldn’t understand.” Tabitha dropped her head and closed her eyes for a moment. What did she truly believe? She looked back up at him. “I never had to speak or decide for myself before. Because my father was a Loyalist, I was a Loyalist. Because my husband was a Loyalist, I was a Loyalist. I accepted that because that brought the most comfort in my life. When my sister threatened that comfort with her Patriot ideals, I was angry with her. But I understand now. I’ve seen power abused one too many times. Yes, Edmond, I will supply the Patriots.”

There was that smile that stopped her heart. He cupped her arm and ran his hand up and down her sleeve, and blood rushed through her limbs. “Then I will speak to the colonel.”

“That would be…” Tabitha sagged. “An answer to prayer.” Again. And again, Edmond had been part of it.