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Anthony nodded, the shy little ducking of his head that he always used around Grandfather, and obediently clambered up the big rock before them. Beneath his tired legs, the stone felt smooth and warm from the sun, and with a contented sigh he settled as close to the older man as he dared.
Grandfather drank deeply from the wooden canteen, then handed it to Anthony. “Your grandmother will be glad to see us tonight, won’t she?” he said, cocking his head toward the three wild turkeys they’d shot, now lying on the rock beside them, with their feet bound together for carrying. “You’re a good companion, Anthony. You know the rare virtue of silence.”
Anthony flushed with pleasure, and prayed Grandfather would never guess that his silence came from being tongue-tied with awe, rather than from virtue.
Grandfather was studying him closely, his expression thoughtful. “You’re like your father, you know. He wasn’t full of empty talk, either, but there wasn’t a better man in the forest or in a fight. If you turn out like him, you’ll do well by yourself, and by his memory.”
Anthony handed him back the canteen, desperately wishing he’d hear more about his father. He’d been only a baby when his parents died and he remembered nothing of either of them. “I want to be like him,” he said wistfully, “’specially if he was like you.”
Grandfather grunted “Ah, well, Richard was more like your grandmother, small and dark, the way her people were. You’re more pure Sparhawk. The green eyes mark you, lad, like it or not. Cat’s eyes, eh?”
His smile was bittersweet as he rested his hand on Anthony’s shoulder, the weight heavy, but comforting, too. “There won’t be much I can do for you, Anthony. Your father was my youngest son, and by English law and entail there’s little to come your way.”
“I don’t care,” said Anthony promptly, and at that moment he didn’t. “I’m a Sparhawk, and that’s enough.”
Grandfather laughed “A good answer, that. But think well before you make such pledges. My father, and his father before him, were good, honorable men, strong men. There’s a responsibility to being in this family, you know, and it isn’t easy. In this valley, we’ve always been the ones to watch over those who can’t, to guard and treasure what we love most and believe in. Can you understand that?”
Anthony squinted a little as he looked up at Grandfather. The setting sun was bright around the old man’s shoulders, almost like a halo. “I think I do,” he said slowly. “You want me to help everybody and keep them safe from the French and make sure we all can be free, loyal Englishmen, the same way that you do?”
Grandfather laughed again, softly, and pride was warm in his eyes. “If you do half that much, Anthony, then you’ll do well indeed. Here, I’ve something for you.” He reached inside his hunting pouch and held out his open hand to Anthony. “A small trinket, I know, a bit of silver I’ve had fashioned for trading with the Abenaki, but still, it might serve as a reminder for you.”
It was a small silver disc, polished and gleaming against his grandfather’s lined, worn palm. Etched into the silver was a fierce bird with spread wings, perched on a stick or branch and surrounded by tiny stamped hearts.
“A hawk on a spar,” explained Grandfather as he traced his finger across the design. “A spar’s part of a ship’s mast, you know, or maybe you didn’t. A spar with a hawk. Spar-hawk, eh? There’s a pin on the back, too, so you won’t lose it.”
Anthony held his breath as Grandfather bent to pin the silver circle to his hunting shirt. He’d never had anything so beautiful or so wonderful in all his life.
“There now, Anthony,” said Grandfather. “Wherever you go, you look at this and you’ll always remember what we said this day.”
Anthony slipped his hand inside his cloak and touched the same pin on his waistcoat, there where he always wore it. With time, the silver had grown scratched and flattened, but the magic of that afternoon—and the message—had never dulled.
To be strong and watch over those who were weak, to guard and protect what he loved and treasured most—that was why he’d become a soldier in the first place, and why, too, he was here now. He must take care to remember that. With Ridley, he had let his reason and his judgment become clouded. He must not let it happen again.
And yet, strangely, it wasn’t his grandfather’s voice that echoed in Anthony’s conscience now, or the sharp taunts that had come from Ridley, but a softer, more passionate voice.
You truly have no shame, no loyalties, do you?
He swore to himself, ordering the woman’s words from his thoughts. But what remained was the woman herself, the way the winter sun had gilded her face as she stood by the window, her bowed head framed by the squares of the panes. Catharine Hazard could deny whatever she wished. He was certain they’d met before, and not just in passing. He thought again of her neat ankles in the colored stockings, and how—
Abruptly the gelding shied away at the sound of the musket shot, reduced by the wind to a dry, muffled crack, and Anthony pulled hard on the reins to wheel the frightened horse away from the sea. It was then that he heard the second shot, and felt the sharp, sudden bolt of pain rip through his upper left arm. Fifty yards to the west lay the dark shadow of low, scrubby pines, more than enough to shelter a man—or men— and their muskets.
Anthony swore again, cursing his own carelessness as he struggled to control the terrified horse. He dug his heels hard into the gelding’s sides and bent low over the animal’s neck, striving to make himself as small a target as possible as he raced back toward Newport.
Not that Anthony expected his assailants to follow. Rebels never did. Yet when at last he reached the town, he felt more relieved than he knew he had any right to, and he didn’t slow the gelding until Hazard’s swinging signboard was in sight.
The groom was slow coming from the stable, sleepily shoving his shirt into his breeches as he trotted forward to take the reins. Anthony winced as he swung his leg over the horse and slid to the ground, the impact jarring like a bolt straight to his arm. He knew the wound wasn’t a bad one, especially considering what it might have been, but his sleeve was wet and clammy with blood and his knees felt weak, and he prayed he’d be able to walk across the yard to the doorway without keeling over facefirst onto the paving stones.
Carefully he placed one foot after the other, holding his injured arm beneath his cloak as naturally as he could. If he wobbled now, the groom would merely believe he was in his cups, which was far better than letting the man spread stories about how the redcoat major had been fool enough to get himself shot.
Anthony gritted his teeth from the effort, his forehead glazed with sweat even on this cold night. He was almost to the back door now, where his manservant, Routt, would be waiting for him in the kitchen. Routt would know what to do; he’d mended far worse than this.
Inside the kitchen, Catie hurried to the window at the sound of the horse in the courtyard and peeked through the shutters. One flambeau was always kept burning for the sake of any late travelers, and by its dancing light she made out the tall shape of Major Sparhawk as he climbed from his horse. With a self-conscious shake of her skirts, she stepped back from the window and took a deep breath to calm herself. She’d been preparing for this moment all evening. So why, then, was she as nervous as a cat on coals?
She heard him try the door, discover it locked, swear to himself and knock instead. She almost smiled at that muttered oath, for the very human irritation behind it made him somehow less daunting.
“Who is it?” she asked. Though she knew full well who was there, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to make him wait that extra half minute.
“Major Anthony Sparhawk,” he said, his voice rumbling deep through the barred oak door. “Damnation, woman, open the bloody door!”
This time she frowned, not caring to have the oaths directed at her. It would serve him right if she left him out in the cold all night. But she had her promise to Jon to keep, and, setting her face in a smile she drew the bolt and swung open the door.
“Good evening to you, Major,” she said pleasantly as he brushed past her with a rush of icy air. “Though, faith, ‘tis well past midnight. Do all you English officers keep London hours?”
Anthony ignored her, in no mood or condition for banter. “Where’s my man?”
She closed the door and stood beside it, her hand still resting on the latch. He was hatless, his neat queue torn apart from the wind in a way that left his golden hair loose and wild around his face, dashing and dangerous, enough to make her feel once again like a giddy seventeen-year-old girl.
What Jon asked of her, she thought woefully, oh, what Jon asked!
“Your Mr. Routt?” she repeated, as offhandedly as she could. “I sent him to bed.”
Anthony wheeled around to face her, his long, dark cloak swirling around him. “You’d no right to do that. Routt reports to me, not you.”
“I’ve every right in the world, when he’s cluttering up my kitchen, getting himself underfoot with my cook,” she said defensively. “I sent him to his bed an hour ago, along with the rest of my own help. We’ve precious few customers tonight, thanks to you and I saw no reason to make them all wait up.”
“That still doesn’t give you the…give you the…” Lord help him, he couldn’t remember. All he knew now was that the fireplace was drifting upward at a crazy angle, and if he didn’t sit down directly he was going to fall down, here at her feet. He groped for the chair that must be behind him, his uninjured hand tangling clumsily in his cloak.
“Let me help you.” In an instant she was there at his side, her arm around his waist as she guided him into the chair. “Here you are, no harm done.”
But as soon as he was seated, Catie drew back, frowning down at the blood smeared on her hand and sleeve. Before he could protest, she gently lifted his cloak back over his shoulder to reveal the torn, bruised wound where the ball had ripped through his arm.
He grimaced, but didn’t flinch. At least for now, the fireplace had stopped spinning. “Not pretty, is it?”
“Not in the least.” To his surprise, she didn’t flinch, either. Deftly she unfastened the clasp at the neck of his cloak and pulled it off. “Is a jealous husband after you already?”
“Something like that.” He flexed his fingers and grimaced, noting how the blood still oozed fresh from the wound. “Send for my servant, Mrs. Hazard, so I can stop cluttering up your kitchen, as well.”
She looked at him sharply. “Don’t you wish me to summon a surgeon?”
“What, and have the news common on every street corner, with every rebel in town claiming credit for having done this?” He shook his head with disgust at his own foolishness. “No, thank you, ma’am. For now, I’d rather stake my luck on Routt.”
Catie bent closer to him, her arms akimbo as she studied the wound. At least now she had something safer than politics to discuss with him. “You don’t need Mr. Routt just yet. I can tend to this well enough myself.”
He glanced at her skeptically and tugged his neckcloth loose with his thumb. “How do I know you won’t put arsenic in the dressing, and thus be rid of one more wretched redcoat?”
“You don’t know. You’ll simply have to trust me.” Without waiting for an answer, Catie went to one of the wall cabinets and took down a wooden box filled in readiness with neatly rolled bandages and lint, scissors, needles and waxed thread. Next she hung a kettle of water over the coals to boil, and laid a clean towel and a dish of soap on the table beside Anthony.
Yet as Anthony watched her preparations, his doubts grew. The only other woman to nurse him had been his own grandmother, when he was still a boy. And considering how this woman had practically spat at him this afternoon, trusting her now hardly seemed wise.
He pushed himself up from the chair, leaning heavily on the edge of the table. “A lady such as yourself needn’t do such—such tasks.”
“You won’t escape that way, sir,” she said softly. How could a man as tall and strong as this one be so clearly terrified of her? Jon had been right when he’d called her kindhearted. Perhaps because she’d been something of a stray herself, no mongrel was ever turned from her door without a plate of scraps. She’d always been tender that way, and she doubted she could ever bring herself to harm any creature, beast or man, enemy or not.
Yet even so, the hazy reality of what he was to her pricked uneasily at her conscience. Was she being kind to him only because he was a man in sore need of her help, or in spite of it?
Anthony thought of the long retreat from Lexington to Charlestown, when he first learned that the people they’d come to protect didn’t want protecting. The rebel marksmen had stayed hidden in houses and behind walls, like the one who’d fired at him tonight, and like that unseen man, the Massachusetts rebels had almost always found their mark. His regiment had formed the rear guard of the retreat, and over the musket fire and screams of the wounded and dying he had shouted at his men until he was hoarse, to hold their lines steady, to reload, to fire, to be brave.
But by the time they reached Charlestown, more than two hundred British soldiers had been wounded or killed outright, and those marked as missing, those left behind, had found no mercy at all at the hands of the enemy, even hands that seemed as gentle as Catharine Hazard’s. Better to leave now, to find Routt. Aye, Routt he could trust.
“Mrs. Hazard,” he protested weakly, trying to rise. “Please, ma’am, I’d prefer—”
But at once he began to sway, and barely in time Catie grabbed his uninjured arm to guide him back down into the chair.
“I’ve tended far more grievous efforts than your piddling little scrape, Major Sparhawk,” she said, with more gentleness than she’d intended. With his handsome uniform disheveled and stained with blood and his face taut with pain, he bore little enough resemblance to the proud, haughty officer who’d belittled her hospitality earlier. “You’re hardly the first gentleman that’s sat there begging to keep his sins secret. When a woman runs a tavern, sir, there’s nothing she won’t see.”
“Nothing?” His upper lip beaded with sweat, Anthony smiled faintly, mortified by his own weakness. “I thought this was a respectable house.”
“It is,” she said promptly as she rolled up her cuffs. Though she knew he was only half listening, she continued talking, hoping that it would help take his mind off the pain. “You won’t find any more genteel than Hazard’s in all Newport County. But the better-bred the custom, the greater the mischief. Gentlemen are always getting into scrapes of one sort or another beneath my roof, and then begging me to keep the scandal down. And I do. Can you take off your coat yourself, sir, or shall I help you?”
She would have bet the tavern that he’d do it himself, and he did, working so hard to master the pain that by the time he’d finally eased the tattered sleeve from his wounded arm, she was certain he was going to faint. Most men she’d known would have. But he didn’t, and grudgingly she gave him credit for being able to back up his bravado.
“Now, this sorry rag I will leave to your man to put to rights,” she said as she took the blood-soaked coat from him.
With his face rigid with hard-won control, all Anthony could do was nod.
“Then what can I fetch you from the bar? We’ve brandy, sack, canary, whiskey, peary—”
“Rum.” The single word came out as a harsh growl, and Catie realized that his fainting was still a definite possibility. She hurried to the taproom, filled a tankard with more rum than water, and put it into his hand. “There you are, the best Rhode Island rum there is. At least your taste’s still Yankee even if your colors aren’t.”
He closed his eyes and drank deeply, and while he did, Catie ripped away the linen of his shirt’s sleeve. The ball had gone straight through his arm, and though the swelling and bruising made for a hideous-looking wound on both sides, it did not take her long to clean and cover it with an oiled poultice to help drain away the poisons.
Though the rum was strong and she worked as swiftly as she could, she knew she’d hurt him further. There wasn’t any way to avoid it. Yet not once had he cried out or complained, his only sign of pain the way his fingers whitened around the tankard of rum.
“You’re a fortunate man,” she said softly as she wrapped a linen bandage around and around his arm. “Another inch to the side, and the ball would have struck the bone.”
He sighed—an exhausted, drawn-out exhalation— now that the worst was past. “Another eight inches, and it would have found my heart. I’ll warrant that’s where the bastard was aiming, and lucky I was that my horse shied when he did.”
Automatically Catie’s glance shifted to the broad expanse of his chest, trying to imagine the heart beneath it stilled forever. For the first time, she noticed the little silver circle, unlike any official medal or badge she’d seen, pinned to the breast of his waistcoat.
“What is that?” she asked curiously. “I’d say it was perilously close to a stout Yankee eagle, save that it’s worn on a British uniform.”
“Yankee, yes, but a hawk, not an eagle.” He took another long drink from the tankard, grateful for the way the rum eased the pain. “It’s the Sparhawk mark that my grandfather used on all his dealings with the Indians. He gave the pin to me when I was a boy, and I’ve kept it since as a kind of charm. Not that it brought me much luck this night.”
“Oh, but it has,” said Catie quickly. “Think of how close this shot came to being mortal!”
“You believe in degrees of luck, then?” he asked wryly. “Too bad I was shot, but at least I wasn’t killed outright?”
He looked at her over the rim of the tankard. Now that the task of cleaning the wound was done, she was once again achingly aware of him as the man who had haunted her thoughts and dreams for so many years. But reality was so different from dreams: reality was the curling gold hair on the muscled forearm that rested so close to hers, reality was the stubble of beard above the lips that had once kissed hers, reality was the blood-spattered uniform that made him her enemy.
“You were riding when you were struck?” she asked, striving to turn her thoughts back to where they belonged. At least this might be something that would interest Jon.
He sighed ruefully, rubbing his palm across his forehead. “What an easy mark I must have been, too, there in the moonlight with the sea around me. I was south of the town, near a place called Damaris Point. Or so it was called once. Do you know it?”
She nodded, her throat constricting. Of course she knew it. Damaris Point was Sparhawk land, land that Jon would know even better. Could Jon have done this, then, aimed and shot to kill his own cousin?
Not his cousin, but a Tory officer. Not another Sparhawk, but the enemy. Remember that, Catie, remember, or else you’ll be lost once again!
“Ah, forgive me, Mrs. Hazard,” he said softly, misunderstanding her silence. “I forget myself. Of course you’d know Damaris Point. A good tavernkeep knows everything, doesn’t she? All the better to advise her guests, even the ones who don’t wish to be advised.”
Swiftly she turned away, busying herself with washing her hands. “You’re not forgetting yourself, Major, as much as speaking nonsense.”
“It wasn’t nonsense when you told me about my uncle,” he said. “I didn’t believe you, perhaps because I didn’t want to. But you were indeed right about his…his allegiances. I wonder, Mrs. Hazard, did you laugh at me behind my back as I left for the general’s headquarters?”
“Oh, no,” she said, remembering how she’d watched him leave, with Belinda’s picture clasped tight in her fingers. “However could I laugh at such a thing?”
“No?” He turned his head to look at her, his green eyes searching and his expression quizzical, and she almost gasped aloud. That expression, the angle of his jaw as he leaned his head to one side to study her, even the small hint of a smile that curved the corners of his mouth—all of it was so much like her dear little daughter that she could have wept.
No, Catie, not your daughter alone. His daughter, too, the daughter you made together…
“No,” she said, as firmly as she could. She pushed her stool away from him and rose, bundling the soiled linen in her hands. “You need your rest, Major. Shall I fetch Mr. Routt now to help you up the stairs to your room?”
“Stay a moment,” said Anthony softly, and before she could pull away he had covered her hand with his own. Such a little hand, he thought, for all the work it must do. She didn’t look like the stern tavernkeeper now, not with her pale eyes so full of sadness. What could make her so unhappy? Had she a lover fighting far from home, or was this still grief for her husband? In all the years he was a soldier, he’d never stayed in one place long enough for any woman to mourn his leaving with genuine regret. What would that be like, to have a woman like this one waiting and worrying for him?
She tugged her hand free, curling it against the other as if to protect it. From him, he thought grimly, from him, and wisely, too. He was here beneath her roof expressly to betray her, and he couldn’t have sworn that she wouldn’t do the same to him.
“It’s late, Major Sparhawk,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she restlessly fingered the heart-shaped locket. “You should rest.”
“Am I not permitted, then, to thank you for what you’ve done?”
She bent to bury the coals in the fireplace for the night, her face in profile against the glow of the dying fire, and once again he tried to think of where he’d known her before.
“I told you, sir, what I’ve done for you I’ve done for many others, as well. I’ve looked to your wound the best I can, but you must still guard against a fever or putrid discharge.”
He smiled, as much to himself as to her, as he accepted her rebuff. “You sound more like a surgeon than a tavernkeeper.”
“A good hostess must be many things to prosper,” she said, her expression carefully composed as she turned toward him again with the black iron shovel still in her hands. “If there’s nothing else you wish from me, sir, I’ll bid you good-night and fetch your Mr. Routt.”
His smile faded. “No, ma’am, that is all,” he said softly. “That is all.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_cf9e9643-e30d-50d0-b526-42f1a38195a9)
Catie pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, the cold air hitting her face as soon as she stepped out the kitchen door. In these short days of December, dawn was still a good two hours away, and the courtyard remained every bit as dark as it had been at midnight. She knelt to set the wooden trencher down, gently rapping it three times on the paving stones, the way she did every morning. But before the second tap the cats had already begun to appear, quick gray and black shadows racing toward the dish of scraps.
“There now, you greedy kits, there’s enough for everyone,” she scolded fondly as two of the cats tussled over a piece of turkey skin. “Don’t I always see that there’s plenty?”
She smiled wistfully, imagining how Belinda would have insisted on true justice, swatting the quarreling pair apart with a broom and awarding the turkey to a third, meeker cat instead. Fairness was very important to Belinda’s eight-year-old idea of how the world should be, almost as important as rising so early every morning to be here at her mother’s side.
Every morning, that is, until this week, thought Catie wretchedly. Nothing fair about that, or this war, either.
