At the breakfast table, Rowena gripped her husband’s hand, then held it to her cheek. His skin felt calloused but welcome.
They’d made love at dawn, and she basked in the languid afterglow. The constant tension that had clenched her body finally relaxed. “When I first awoke, I’d thought I dreamt your return.”
Derec kissed her knuckles. “The thought of ye kept me going.” After a wash, shave and change of clothes, he smelled like lavender. He looked undernourished, his angular features sharper. Insect bites blemished his sunburnt face, his fingers and arms scratched and scabbed.
Daphne served eggs and toast, her grin bright as she hurried to accommodate their shocking and welcome addition after so many months. “Oh, sir, we be so glad you’re home.”
Sam, who’d rushed in earlier after summoned by his sister, joined them. “Aye, we are, for certain.”
Rowena allowed Derec several bites of his breakfast, then couldn’t wait. “Please, tell me, us everything that happened.”
Sam and his sister hovered close to listen.
Derec set down his fork and gave her a crooked, almost sad smile. “I tried to aid our soldiers at the Pensacola fort, pass messages and so on; then…the Spanish attacked.” He huffed out a breath. “We were captured and taken to Cuba on warships. Weeks passed whilst the Spaniards negotiated a prisoner exchange with Britain. I wasn’t waiting. I slipped away one night with the servants who brought food. With my dark hair and eyes, I passed for one of them. Had to hunch over, being so tall. One servant I’d been speaking to for days wanted to leave the island. Better opportunity here in Florida, he said.” Derec chewed the remainder of his toast and scooped up the last of his eggs. “We conspired. He stole food, and I stole a rowboat owned by his family’s enemy.”
Rowena watched him lean back, still amazed he was home. “You crossed the ocean in a rowboat.”
“’Twasn’t easy. The water was rough. We almost capsized a few times.” Derec held up his cup, which Daphne quickly refilled with coffee. “The sharks swimming about would have devour—attacked us.”
Rowena scrunched her eyes closed, trying not to picture that scenario.
“You was braver than brave, sir.” Sam shook his head, his smile admiring.
“Wouldn’t get me in no rowboat on the ocean.” Daphne placed the tin pot on a trivet in the hearth. “And sharks…”
Rowena kissed his hand. “I could have lost you to… After I thought I’d already lost you to the Spaniards.” She released his fingers and picked at her own food, now grown cold.
Sam folded up his bedding. He’d return to his place in the barn loft. “We was all worried for you. But Mistress kept us going.”
“I must have fooled everyone.” Rowena laughed, glad she could. She relished the sound of Derec’s voice. His presence filled the space in her heart that felt bleak and jagged before. “Was the prison in Havana terrible?”
Derec took a gulp of coffee. “More disorganized than anything. Too many men, soldiers mostly. The heat as bad as here.” His dark eyes clouded to haunted for a second. “A filthy hole, with all those desperate or sick soldiers. The confusion helped in my escape. We landed far south on this peninsula, in a place called Biscayne Bay. Then a very long slog up the coast to here.”
Rowena forced herself to finish her food.
In the bedroom once more, Derec embraced her. His restless energy thrummed through him into her.
He pulled back and gazed into her eyes. “Oh, my love. I’m sorry I left ye to fend alone. How are ye doing for funds?”
“We scraped by. Sam took an afternoon job at a rich loyalist’s home, caring for his horses. That brings in money. I sell at the market. Father helps as he can.” She wouldn’t tell Derec how they scrounged to make it, and the rent was slightly overdue. But the landlord, a cousin of Mrs. Torres-Navarro, was understanding.
She’d almost sold her mother’s brooch but hated to part with that remembrance.
“Aye, yer capable, I know.” He ran his fingers along her face. “On my way to ye overland, I learned the French fleet is preparing to sail for the Chesapeake to reinforce the rebels in Virginia, against Cornwallis.”
She resisted punching him in the chest. “You intend to travel to Virginia, don’t you?”
“How can I not, love?” He kissed her lips. “I’ll stay here for a little while, to rest, and get to know my wife again.”
“I’m going with you, and don’t argue with me.” She held up a finger when he’d opened his mouth. “I’ve practiced with the long rifle.” The past excitement of being part of the war half-ignited her. Deeper down, she just wanted peace, but mainly to be with her husband. “I also need to find out if my brothers and James are there with General Cornwallis.” She squeezed him against her as if that could forestall their precarious future.
* * *
Derec and Rowena plucked the starfruit and guava, loading the fruit into baskets. The suffocating September heat was nearly as bad as August.
Sweat dampening her armpits, Rowena crouched and checked each piece of fruit for discoloration. Many times, she and Daphne had cut up a few to eat. The starfruit had an apple-pear taste; the guava a dense texture, the flavor between pear and strawberry.
“The starfruit is a unique fruit, brought from the Orient by a sea captain years ago, Mrs. Torres-Navarro told me.” She tried to interest Derec in their activities. Would they have enough produce to bring in money at the market?
She scrambled to knit more caps, and she and Daphne had decided to also sell scarves for the seamen who sailed to colder environs—if they could buy enough yarn.
“Indeed, cariad.” Derec peered through the tangle of trees and plants, his posture riddled with unease. He added to their income with sporadic carpentry jobs, but he always seemed on edge, staring out windows. At an approaching noise, his hand went to the dagger he carried, and he craned his neck.
With a squeak of wheels, the mule and cart rattled up driven by her father. “Good morn to you.” He climbed down and limped toward them. Rowena stood, and he kissed her cheek. He turned to Derec. “I’m still flabbergasted that Washington and Rochambeau slipped out of Philadelphia, heading south. And right under British noses.”
“I dearly hope Aunt Joan has long left that city,” Rowena said. Aunt Joan had told her she was traveling to New York, where General Arnold had been recalled. Now the former rebel general attacked the northern colonies for the British, burning New London in Connecticut.
“Aye, ’twas a nasty trick pulled on us.” Derec wiped his sticky hands on a cloth. “Washington and Rochambeau left September first. Sir Henry Clinton found out the following day, but too late to warn Cornwallis. A week’s passed and Cornwallis must know that the rebel leaders ride for Virginia.”
Always bad news. Rowena rubbed her knotted shoulders.
Father sighed but it roughed to a groan. “Admiral de Grasse debarked three-thousand men to add to Lafayette’s forces in Virginia. The battle in the cape—”
“Terrible,” Derec said. “The cafes are rumbling angry with Admirals Graves’ and Hood’s defeat by De Grasse’s French fleet.”
Rowena swallowed her comment: was it time to call a truce?, at seeing her father’s and husband’s miserable expressions. “I can’t fathom how the French could have beaten us.”
Father shook his head, the lines in his forehead deep. “Neither can I, my dear. But the French had the superior force. The decimated Royal Navy fled to New York.”
“Uffern Dan. That could leave Cornwallis isolated in Yorktown.” Derec slapped the cloth against his thigh.
Rowena watched her husband’s calculating visage; her own apprehensions for their future cut into her—a familiar occurrence. “Will Lord Cornwallis still fight, I wonder?” She wished for it to be over, no matter who triumphed, as long as any peace was fair.
“Of course! Such humiliation for an esteemed general…” Father said, though his bravado sounded forced. He, too, seemed tired of the constant hostilities.
“Cornwallis must attack. He has no choice.” Derec paced away, then back again. “We once thought the war headed for a quick conclusion. Now a loose lot of renegades appears to be winning. Who would have thought it possible?”
“If the damned—sorry, my dear—French hadn’t lent money, troops, ships,” Father groused. “The rough terrain, the rebels’ way of fighting, hidden in forests and mountains is dishonorable. It’s devastating to our properly trained troops.”
Derec nodded, his eyes hooded. “’Tis true. We should have adjusted. But the aristocratic officers paid no heed.”
Rowena almost asked if the British—if they must—would be too proud to surrender.
Derec would be content here no longer. She scratched at an insect bite on her arm and decided not to demand, again, that he take her with him. Not in front of her father. She would have her way, but no sense in arguing with two men at the same time.
A sound from the brush, and a snake slithered out, tongue flicking. Rowena lurched back at seeing the reddish patches of a copperhead, a venomous serpent. She snatched up a starfruit and hurled it, just as Derec whirled about and threw his dagger. They both just missed, but the snake flung itself back into the bushes. Derec moved toward her and Father reached out in concern.
“I’m fine.” Rowena bit her lip to steady herself. “That…piece of fruit was pitted anyway.”
Serpents could come from anywhere. She heaved up the full basket of fruit and toted it to put next to the house wall, beside another covered by canvas. Caring less and less about the war, she did love her husband, and was determined to keep him by her side.
Rowland must answer this call to arms.