Kate ignored the fact that the young soldier carrying her occasionally allowed himself a surreptitious caress of her bottom as he hauled her back to the encampment. A stolen squeeze through her gown was better than him shaking her awake and demanding answers. And she’d endured far worse in her life. Far worse.
She wanted to attempt another peek at her surroundings, but the last time she’d chanced it, Elijah had been staring at her with a fury that made her want to faint in truth. She regretted his capture, but he was the enemy and would have been treated as such regardless of whether he’d stopped to make sure she was alright. Her admitting to killing Trumbull wouldn’t help either of them.
Well, maybe it would help him a bit, she admitted, but there was no benefit in thoughts like that. She’d promised herself she would survive at any cost, and the life of a handsome stranger was a price she was willing to pay.
Yes, he was handsome, undeniably so. He was a large man, larger than any man at the British camp, that was certain. He had frightened her half to death when he loomed up out of the night like a haint from a scary tale.
When he’d gotten closer, though, she’d been taken aback for another reason entirely. His fine face with its strong jaw and wide, sinful mouth had thrilled her, even as she shook in the aftermath of Trumbull’s demise. And his eyes…the women in the slave quarters called eyes like Elijah’s “bedchamber eyes” because they made you think of what a man could do to you if he got you alone near a pallet. Elijah Sutton hadn’t even been trying, and he’d had her stomach in knots and her heart pounding. Maybe that was why she’d been so unforgivably rude to him in spite of the fact that he’d come to her aid.
Kate didn’t trust kindness from strangers; people always wanted something in return, and often more than she was willing to pay. Trusting a stranger had landed her in shackles on a cramped and filthy boat, stripped from a family that she could barely remember now. She couldn’t even recall her true name. She’d forgotten it long ago, left it behind on the Carolina auctioneer's block where she’d been dubbed Kate. America had stolen even that from her, and yet Elijah would have her consider this country her home?
“Take him to the stables,” one of the soldiers said. “Put him with the others we captured tonight.”
The soldier carrying her unceremoniously dropped her onto the ground, heaving from the exertion.
“I thought Negresses were supposed to be made of hardier stuff than this,” he huffed, poking at her with the tip of his boot.
Kate began to stir, facing the unfortunate fact that she couldn’t simply lie prone forever.
“What happened?” she asked. She was sure to keep her voice faint and high, and to blink up at the soldiers like the calves she used to shoulder aside to do the milking.
“Where is Trumbull? He asked me to help him carry something, and then, and then…”
She cocked her head to the side, as if waiting for them to complete the sentence. She’d seen her mistress play the role of dainty, overly taxed woman often enough. Of course, she didn’t have the porcelain complexion to reinforce it, but perhaps she could still pull it off.
The soldiers regarded her for a long moment.
“You don’t remember?” her human pack mule asked. His tone implied he was rather unconvinced.
“Remember what?” she asked. Another flurry of blinks. “Has something happened?”
“Trumbull is dead. You and the big black bloke were the only ones there when we arrived.”
“I don’t remember anything,” Kate said. She didn’t have to fake the tremble in her voice. If they discovered she’d killed Trumbull, it wouldn’t matter that it had been in defense of her virtue; to them she possessed no such thing. She’d hang. “I don’t know what man you speak of. I came to this camp alone, and I remain so. All I know for certain is that my head aches terribly.”
The soldier squinted down at her for a long moment.
“Well, the Captain’ll be wanting to speak with you.” the soldier said. “Go back to your people for now.”
I have no people, she thought reflexively, and that knowledge almost made her sink back to the ground. She rose unsteadily to her feet and slowly navigated her way to the Black encampment, barely noticing as the orderly rows of canvas tents grew shabbier and the path more littered with debris.
Here, instead of orders being shouted at Regulars, mothers called for their children to come eat their dinner. Instead of drifting in from the skirmish, the men were returning from constructing battlements, blacksmithing, and the countless other types of hard labor the Negroes who had enlisted with the Loyalists performed. Very few of them had been armed and sent into battle, as they’d imagined when they sided with the British. It was leaps and bounds better than the life most people had escaped, though, so complaints were saved for hushed tones around camp fires and the modest privacy of the tents.
Kate’s thoughts drifted to Elijah, to his pride in fighting for a country that seemed to hate people who looked like them. How could it be otherwise? Her master often told his slaves he loved them. He told them as they toiled in the field, and when he lashed them “for their own good.” And that’s what he’d told her when he pulled her out of the slave quarters in the middle of the night and lifted her tattered skirts…everything Kate knew of “love” made her wish to never hear the word again. Still…
What would it be like to be loved by a man like Elijah Sutton? A man who was strong and kind-hearted? some foolish part of her wondered. Perhaps Elijah was different from the others who’d taken and taken until there was nothing left of her but a hard heart and a desire to live driven by vitriol alone.
Perhaps. And perhaps such fantasies are what cost you everything once before.
A small form rocketed toward Kate, pulling her from her confusing thoughts. She opened her arms and caught up the laughing toddler who pounced on her, settling the small but solid girl on her hip.
“Charlotte, it’s too late for you to be out by yourself. Where is your mama?” she asked as she hugged the girl to her. Oh, that warmth was familiar, as was the sour sweet smell that meant the girl was due for a scrubbing. Kate’s chest burned with the memory of another child she had once bundled in her arms.
Charlotte’s mother had managed to keep her daughter safe after escaping from a Maryland plantation and searching out British troops. Kate couldn’t begrudge Lettie that, but she would always envy her.
Well, she didn’t have a bastard of a husband to lead her astray, did she? Kate thought bitterly. She wasn’t a foolish chit who thought a man asking before he laid with you meant he cared enough to protect you.
“She’s a slippery little thing!” Lettie said as she ducked through the flap of their tent and stepped out into the cool night air. She reached for her daughter, and Kate handed the girl over with a pang. She pushed the feeling away, steeled herself against too much fondness for the child. Allowing such an attachment to shatter her world again could not be allowed.
“Are you well?” Lettie asked, ignoring her daughter’s babbling and turning a serious gaze toward Kate. “Word came down from the camp that Trumbull had got himself killed, and last I saw him, he was pulling you off into the dark.”
Kate’s blood ran cold. She and Lettie were friendly, but she trusted no one. The urge to run, familiar as her own heartbeat in the still of the night, welled up in her.
“I won’t tell anyone what I saw!” Lettie said, reaching out to pat Kate’s arm. Kate thought of Trumbull’s grip on her earlier, and then of Elijah’s. She pressed her lips together and Lettie smiled uncertainly and moved her hand away. “I just wanted to be sure you were unharmed. You always look after Charlotte when I need to rest, and you’ve been so kind to us. I’d hate it if any harm had come to you.”
Kate let out a deep breath.
“I am well,” she assured Lettie, but her head was beginning to swim, despite her reassurance. The events of the night were catching up with her, and she suddenly felt a fatigue that emanated from someplace deep within, one she was uncertain that even sleep would offer reprieve from. She wanted food and her bedroll, and to be free of thoughts of Trumbull and Elijah and children she’d never hug again.
“Then I am glad,” Lettie said with relief. “Do you want to join us for a meal?”
“Many thanks, but I’m exhausted.”
Hoofbeats approached and a young Regular pulled his horse up beside them. Charlotte reached her hand toward the creature with a squeal of delight and Lettie turned to keep her a safe distance from the panting horse.
“You’re needed to assist with tending to the prisoners being held at the Pieterse farm,” he said with unwarranted impatience. “Leave the babe and come along.”
“Are we not allowed rest? We’ve both worked all day and into the night,” Kate said, hoping to sway him.
“And you’ll work a bit more,” he replied. “I was told to stop the first colored women I came upon and bring them to aid the soldiers.”
“I’ll ask one of the others to take care of Charlotte,” Lettie said. Her tired gaze rested regretfully on the daughter she had spent the entire day away from.
“No. You must rest, Lettie. Charlotte is enough to handle on top of the work you’ve done all day,” Kate said, and then turned to the soldier. “I’ll go.”
“Both of you are needed,” he said, obviously attempting to follow the order he had been given.
“I can do the work of two,” Kate said and started off, away from Lettie, before the man could contradict her.
“Very well.” His horse trotted past her, toward the farm, kicking dirt up into her face as he went.
She spent the walk to the farm bracing herself against the fact that Elijah would likely be amongst the prisoners. He had grabbed her during their first encounter, although he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Kate had learned to detect that inclination in a man, which is why she had lodged her knife into Trumbull with no regrets. But being taken prisoner could raise a man’s ire, so she’d have to be on her guard.
If he hasn’t already been blamed for Trumbull’s murder and killed. She didn’t like thinking of his hope, however misplaced, being extinguished.
The perimeter of the barn was chaotic: soldiers patrolling, wounded men being treated or begging for aide, guns and the other spoils of war stripped from the prisoners being sorted.
Kate was handed a bucket of water with a ladle and shoved toward the barn door, where the clamor and stench nearly pushed her back outside. The structure was large, but not large enough for the dozens of men packed inside. There were Patriots in ragged uniforms covering every surface. Many of them were injured, and Kate’s gaze shied away from those bloody, hopeless men as she ladled water for the thirsty prisoners to drink.
She was on her fourth bucket and starting to feel something strangely like worry when she finally saw him. She heard the familiar timbre of his voice emanating from a corner of the barn, where he sat beside a man who lay stretched out on the ground. She wondered at the wide berth being given to them, but then she saw the way the man shook as Elijah took off his coat and tucked it around his prone form. Soldiers avoided death at all cost, even in close quarters. The reaper had surely come for this man, but Elijah was beside him all the same.
“And then General Washington walked by, and you could sense the gaze of every man stuck fast to him—not a one of us could look away,” Elijah said in a tone that was much too jovial, given their predicament. He laughed, and then held his arm out in front of the man’s face. “You could feel his presence in the very air, raising the hairs on the backs of your wrists. It was marvelous! Ever hear of the divine right of kings? How a king is chosen by God to rule over his people? I didn’t believe in it until that very moment. If anyone can lead our country to freedom, rest assured it is him.”
All Kate knew of Washington was that he owned slaves and that he didn’t wanted colored men to fight for the Patriots, but damned if Elijah’s vivid words didn’t raise gooseflesh on her sore arms.
“I never got to see him with my own eyes, and now I shan’t,” the man said in a reedy New England accent. “I’m going to die, you know.”
“Perhaps. We all do eventually. Not everyone gets to do it fighting for a worthy cause.” For a moment his gaze was hard and focused elsewhere, but then he stared down at the man. “If you do, it won’t be in vain,” he vowed. His head turned and she saw the instant when he realized she was standing there. She waited for him to yell, to jump up and shake her, to demand she clear his name. Instead, he smiled.
“Are you thirsty, Michael? There’s a beautiful woman waiting to water you, so I think you should say yes.”
“Yes,” Michael echoed weakly. Elijah moved to sit cross-legged and then gently lifted the man’s sweat-soaked head and placed it into his lap. Now that Kate could see his face, she realized Michael was young, barely in his fifteenth year if she guessed correctly. His cheeks were still round where time would have made them lean and hard, and his cherubic face was deathly pale where tears had streaked through the layer of dirt and gore.
Elijah gave her an imploring look, and Kate understood what he wanted of her. She took a few steps closer and then knelt beside them.
“Good evening to you, Michael,” she said in a voice so full of cheer she hardly recognized it as her own. “Did you know the other Patriots here are using horse muck for pillows? You have the most comfortable seat in this entire barn.”
The boy chuckled and then coughed, the sound thick and horrible.
“That wouldn’t be the first time a woman has proclaimed my lap to be a most comfortable resting place,” Elijah said loftily.
Kate paused as she dipped the ladle into the cool water, heat rushing to her cheeks at his bawdy words. She was suddenly disconcerted, unsure of Elijah’s intent. Then she heard Michael laugh again and took the words for what they were: something to ease a dying boy’s pain.
She shot Elijah a warning glance, and then brought the ladle to Michael’s lips. Even with Elijah steadying his head, most of the water ended up spilling down the boy’s cheeks. Still, after three ladles he leaned back with a content smile on his face.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice softer now, so that Kate had to lean in close to hear him. Elijah did, too, so that their foreheads nearly touched. “Tell mother I love her, will you? And Diane McGregor, too.”
With that, his eyes fluttered shut and did not open. His trembling stilled beneath Elijah’s jacket, and his face settled into an expression that was too serene to be confused with slumber.
Kate dropped the ladle into the bucket and swiped at the moisture leaking from her eyes. Why was she crying for this soldier boy who she didn’t know from Adam? One who fought for a country that held her in bondage and called itself a harbinger of freedom? She’d thought herself done with such foolish displays of emotion, but her throat burned with a suppressed sob that said otherwise.
“This is the second time we’ve met with a body between us,” Elijah said as he slid from beneath Michael, gently placing the boy’s head on the ground. “I’d hope for it to be the last, but with this bloody war on that seems rather unlikely.”
Kate glanced at Elijah’s face, at the way his lips were drawn into a grim smile that didn’t match the grief in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, grateful that her voice didn’t break. “Did you know him well?”
Elijah shook his head.
“Only as long as I’ve been held prisoner here. Our acquaintance was limited by the chest wound, you see.”
Kate grabbed the pail and stood, unnerved by his answer. He had shown that level of kindness to a stranger? She wasn’t used to men who behaved this way. Integrity had only been a word in her master’s dictionary or a sermon from the visiting pastor.
He’s in this place because he showed kindness to you, her conscience reminded her.
“Are you thirsty, Elijah?” she asked. She couldn’t protect him from the wrath of the British or his own foolish hope, but she could offer him this small gesture.
He turned his deep brown eyes up to her—still striking, though they were now limned with exhaustion and sadness—and gave a brief nod. Her hand shook as she raised the ladle to his mouth, and water splattered on the dusty ground. She cursed her lack of control over her body, something she thought she had mastered, but Elijah cupped two warm hands around her trembling one and drank deeply.
He kept his eyes open as he quenched his thirst, his gaze locked on Kate’s even after he’d had his fill. She couldn’t help but stare back at him, wondering how the stubbled angles of his jaw and the moist curves of his lips would feel beneath her fingertips. She was abuzz with an odd sensation, as if she’d swallowed a wasp’s nest.
“Thank you, Kate,” he said. No more bawdy words, and no judgment or anger either.
“You’re not like other men,” she blurted out, ashamed as what was supposed to be a private thought tumbled from her lips.
“How so?” he asked, the intensity of his gaze making her feel even more exposed than her slip-up had.
“You’re…” Better, she thought. “…different.”
Elijah smiled. “Something tells me that, coming from you, this is a compliment. Two compliments from the prickly Kate just might make getting blamed for your crime worthwhile. A third might kill me, though, so please be sure to insult my intelligence now, or at the very least my mother.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, and Kate struggled to think of something terrible to say to him, but all she could think of was that he might be in trouble because of her actions. Worse, she found that she actually cared what would happen to him.
“Elijah—”
Her words caught in the back of her throat.
“I was jesting, Kate,” he said. “You should go. I’m going to say a prayer for Michael’s soul now. Perhaps you could pay me the same courtesy.”
Kate nodded and stumbled away from him, away from the strange feelings he conjured in her that were at distinct odds with her resolve. Even though she had long ceased believing in a higher power, her thought as she turned away from him was Heavenly father, I hope I haven’t condemned this man.