 
# The Immortal American

## Red L. Jameson

### Contents

Prologue

1. The Menacing Shot

2. The Philosophy of Justification

3. For Debate

4. The Darkness of Honesty

5. Detours

6. My Own Boston Massacre

7. Torn to Pieces

8. The Confession

9. Consequences

10. Lost

11. So Cruel

12. Promises

13. Murder

14. Proposition

15. Lunacy, or Not

16. Traitor

17. Dark Deeds

18. The Rider

19. Flash of Red

20. It Begins

21. Not Supposed to Happen

22. Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil

23. The Rub

24. Introductions

25. Damned Confrontation

26. Last Effort

27. The Curse

Epilogue

Need more Violet?

Also by Red L. Jameson

Acknowledgments

Something to think about
**For my son, Reid**

# Prologue

### 19 April 1775

My sights aligned on two men, both on horseback, talking heatedly in the forest. Not even the bright afternoon sun could shine through the dense Massachusetts trees to where they were mounted. Dark shadows distorted their faces, making young and handsome into grotesque and macabre.

They were less than three feet from each other, and my rifle inched sideways from one man to the other. Their horses were drawn tight against each other's, circling and tearing into the ground in a nervous dance, sensing the tension from their riders, from the moment, from the God-forsaken day. The riders' irate tones were periodically interrupted by a far-off musket shot and, occasionally, a terrified scream.

Shrouded by an overgrown juniper bush, I was no more than thirty yards away from the arguing men. Tiny thorns imbedded themselves in my arms, legs, and stomach, tearing my skin, reddening my already filthy arms. I was numb to it all.

They were the last two people I loved on this damned earth, those two angry men: Mathew and Jacque. They were all I had to live for, those riders in my rifle's sights.

# The Menacing Shot

### Two months earlier in Concord, Massachusetts . . .

The scent of gunpowder filled my nostrils and the back of my mouth. I'd always thought gunpowder and the earth smelled alike, both heady and slightly sour. But gunpowder stung my nose with its odor, while dirt comforted. Soil provided, while powder had a fate of its own.

Pulling back the dogshead to halfcocked on my long rifle, I placed a large pinch of gunpowder into the priming pan, then closed the frizzen. After dropping the butt of my Kentucky musket to the ground, I poured more powder from my horn into the barrel then dropped a round lead ball into the four-foot long gullet of my gun.

"My dear, are you sure you wouldn't want some help loading that gigantic gun?" Mr. Randolph said, while glancing down my dress' neckline. Ass.

"Randolph," Mr. Clark said, "Adams assured us that the good woman can load her own weapon." But Mr. Clark took the powder horn from my hands. Appearing to pour more down the barrel of my rifle, which would make it far more dangerous to myself than my target, my fiancé, Mathew Adams, snatched the horn away.

"Clark," Mathew winked at me before turning his attention to Mr. Clark, "she seems set with the powder already."

Not accustomed to so much gentlemanly help, I stood mute, likely looking like an idiot to all the world. Mayhap not the entire world, but what felt like it to me. Thirty yards away, my fellow Concordians were having a potluck upon the lush green Common. A couple tavern owners had lent the Common a few tables and chairs and ale, and we, the villagers, had brought the food—cranberry and honey cakes, varieties of meats, cheeses, dried fruit, Anadama bread with apple butter, and, my favorite, freshly picked blueberries.

Mathew had invited his two colleagues, Mr. Clark and Mr. Randolph, all Harvard-trained barristers and now young clerks for the Provincial Congress, who were so thoroughly engaged in assisting me with my long rifle.

"Are you sure, Adams?" Mr. Randolph leaned closer to me, peering down in the general vicinity of my rifle. I hoped. "Your delicate fiancée shouldn't hold that heavy weapon by herself. If you aren't going to help her aim, then I think I should."

I lifted a brow at Mathew.

Mathew furrowed his dark blond eyebrows for a second, but then laughed. "Randolph, I have complete confidence in my Violet. In _you_ , however, I have none." He glanced at me again, an easy smile on his friendly face. In Mathew's grin was warmth, comfort, and familiarity, like swinging on a rope over the river beside my family's farm, something we had done ever since we were children.

Mr. Randolph chuckled and strode closer to Mathew and Mr. Clark. "I don't blame you at all, Adams. She's quite a beauty. I wouldn't trust any man to be close to her either."

_Yes_ , he said that within my earshot. _Yes_ , he was talking about me as if I were an ornament. And, _yes_ , it was infuriating, but what could I do about it? It wasn't the first time a man had talked about a woman as if she were a trinket, nor would it be the last. Perhaps one day I could think of some retort, but for that day, I just grabbed my ramrod and jammed it into the barrel with a wee bit more force than was necessary.

Mathew wrinkled his eyebrows in silent apology for Mr. Randolph's being a blockhead. Soon enough, however, the men were talking boastfully about last week's news of the Salem militia's resistance against the redcoats who had conducted an illegal search of arms and other military supplies. At least, that's the way the band of lawyers surrounding me termed it.

"They held off those damned demons—oh, excuse me, Miss Buccluech—all day, I heard," Mr. Clark said.

I snapped the ramrod back into the hooks on the belly of my rifle.

"No, no, not all day. Just a few hours really," Mathew said. "Violet heard it from Salem's blacksmith himself. It was only a couple hours, the standoff, and in the end, the lobsterbacks did march into Salem, some thirty rods or so, then marched right back to Boston without gaining one grain of powder, let alone any arms from those Salem boys."

As I brought the gun to my shoulder, I pulled the dogshead all the way back—cocked and ready to be fired.

Standing firmly on the emerald grass of the Common, I took aim over the spirited Concord River at a piece of parchment nailed to a tree. It was a broadside declaring that any three or more colonial men meeting to discuss _anything_ , even if it wasn't traitorously speaking about King George _,_ would be arrested on sight, fined and jailed for a month. Except, of course, we could all come together on Sabbath, today, to hail our King and God—preferably in that order, one assumed.

Mr. Randolph asked, "Do you think the Regulars will march to some other village for another seizure?"

I inhaled, aligning my sights. Pausing my exhale, I pulled the trigger. Immediately after the blast, white-blue clouds whooshed around me, making a few wild strands of my dark hair wave in front of my eyes. For a second I was peacefully alone in the sulfuric smoke. Shooting wasn't my favorite activity, but in that ringing silence, away from all prying eyes, there was pleasure enough to make me smile as I let the butt of my rifle sink back to the ground.

The opaque smoke began to clear into a fine gray mist, though tendrils of the vapor clutched onto my white dress and about my head. Slowly the three men reappeared.

"Good Lord in heavens, are you all right, girl?" Mr. Clark exclaimed as Mr. Randolph grabbed the spyglass from Mathew and stared over the swollen rushing river.

Mr. Randolph whistled. " _She got it_."

"No!" Mr. Clark shrieked.

"She _did_. She did, indeed." Mr. Randolph began to chuckle as he turned to me. "There's a brilliant hole in that paper now. That's more than two hundred yards away, you little angel. Look at you, complete with a halo of smoke." He glanced back to Mathew. "Adams, you have swindled your dear friends, I believe."

Mathew chuckled, walked the few paces closer to me then took my free hand in his. All the smoke disappeared with his movement.

"No," Mr. Clark shook his head, then looked in the spyglass himself, followed by another suspicious glance at me. "No, it had to be chance. I didn't even see her aim."

"Well, sir, you weren't paying attention." Mathew beamed at me and held an arm around my shoulders. "I did tell you my fiancée had a hawk's eye."

"I thought you were jesting," Mr. Clark choked. "I thought it was a horrid metaphor for how she viewed you as handsome or some such nonsense." He nervously licked his fat lips and studied me like an insectologist would examine a rare West Indies beetle—intriguing, but still a bug.

I didn't trust myself to say anything smart in reply. Lord, I detested how slow my brain stirred when in public. Sweetly shy, my mother tenderly referred it, but for me it was as if something in me froze when I was in a large group of people, even if most of the Concordians were many feet away.

After my crack shot, the crowd hushed momentarily, but nothing would keep them from their gossiping, chatting, eating, and especially drinking. The gunpowder cloud wasn't even cleared before their busy chatter resumed.

"That wasn't a chance shot, Clark. We were _tricked_." Mr. Randolph's smile was wide and he winked at me.

Mathew laughed. "True, but, Randolph, you owe me money nevertheless."

I looked up at Mathew surprised. "You wagered on my shooting?"

"Ah, the angelic trickster does speak," Mr. Randolph teased with another wink.

Mathew pretended to be sheepish while his light blue eyes glanced down at the ground. He squeezed my shoulders tighter. "I know. I shouldn't have on Sabbath, but, darling, I couldn't pass when there was such easy money to be made." He looked into my eyes and raised his dark blond brows a couple times, which won a smile and chuckle from me.

Mr. Randolph bellowed, "Gladly, I forfeit my money to you, Adams. By God, but I'm smitten now with your fiancée. Miss Buccleuch, if you were to be my bride, I'd have venison at every meal, wouldn't I?"

I laughed again, then turned to Mathew, finally inventing a sound reason for withdrawal. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to find my sister and see if she needs help fending off the twenty-two men who are wooing her."

"Of course, darling." Mathew kissed my forehead, and released me with a broad smile.

Mr. Randolph kissed my hand good-bye. "I could learn how to make venison pie, if you'd hunt for me." He straightened and whispered, "The offer of marriage is open, and, of course, I'd learn to love Mathew too, if you said yes."

I quietly giggled, liking Mr. Randolph's bawd humor, in spite of myself.

Mr. Clark kissed my hand also, but muttered something about women and guns being unholy. I nodded, wondering about Mr. Clark's religious persuasions, then pirouetted on a heel with my rifle that was almost as tall as I.

I was more than twenty feet from where the men were still discussing loudly beer and patriotism, when Mathew caught my arm. I hadn't heard him approach and was shocked when he spun me around, then kissed my cheek. He whispered how he loved me, letting his nose delicately grace the skin behind my ear as he did so. Turning me back in the direction I'd been heading, he chuckled and jogged to rejoin his friends.

Smiling, I touched my freshly kissed cheek and began to walk across the greens. I spotted my mother and sister in the potluck crowd. They loved attending the get-togethers—my mother for the latest gossip, my sister because half of the single men in Concord would follow her around like lost puppies. My blonde mother and sister were bathed in marigold light from the sun, laughing in a group of mostly young men, two of whom were wrestling at my sister's feet. I shook my head at the lads. They were wasting their time. My sister, Hannah, had been receiving court from a Regular officer, a Lieutenant Mark Kimball, and Hannah was besotted. Ten and six years of age, my sister already had an understanding with her suitor.

I walked up the rectangular Commons, past the crowd, toward a two hundred year-old gigantic oak. The Commons were surrounded to the north, east, and south by whitewashed taverns and houses, and the skeletons of maple trees with only tiny, light green buds for coverings. The high rolling, muddy waters of the Concord River framed the west. Just a mile to the north-northwest of the Concord Commons laid my family's farm, close to the aptly named Old North Bridge.

Upon reaching the large tree, which always made me wonder what it would be like to have seen so many years go by, I leaned against it and closed my eyes, letting my rifle rest against the oak too.

"That was quite a shot," a man's deep, French-accented voice casually noted.

Startled, I twirled toward a tall black-haired man, also leaning against the oak, not two feet from me. I hadn't a clue I'd invaded someone else's privacy, and when I realized I had, I tried for a smile and hid my instant fists—my irritating and instantaneous reaction when I was caught off guard.

He softly laughed and caught my rifle I'd knocked over when I'd jumped at his words. His scent wafted into my nose—a masculine aroma of leather, clean pine tar soap, and the hint of the ocean after a storm.

"I apologize for the fright."

Shaking my head, I finally stuttered, "N–no, I'm sorry to have intruded. I didn't see you here . . . at all."

He shrugged with a slight movement from his wide shoulders. "I blend."

He wore all black, which did intermingle into the dark wood of the oak and the shadow that enshrined him, and I wondered if he had come from a funeral. He donned the clothes of a gentleman without lace, yet possessed the build of a man who labored daily.

His eyes were the darkest blue I'd ever beheld—blue onyx. And although I'd met attractive men before, I found him arresting. That alone made me want to run away as fast as I could, yet my feet were oddly rooted to the ground.

"Mademoiselle, your rifle," he whispered, while nodding to the Kentucky long arm that he proffered back to me. "Truly, that was amazing. I've only seen one other shoot like that in my life."

I blushed, despising myself for the heat that burned in my cheeks as I accepted my musket with a maladroit nod.

"It is _your_ rifle, hmm?"

I jerkily nodded again, feeling the fire from my cheeks spread down my neck. "It—it was my father's, but he . . . passed away. It actually had been a gift for my father from a Mohawk friend."

He let a warm gust of air escape his lips. It breezed across my cheeks, enflaming me further. How had he gotten so close?

"I'm so sorry for your loss."

Shaking my head, I tried everything not to meet his eyes. " _Merci_ , erm, thank you, but it has been three years now."

His large, calloused hand engulfed my fingers that were holding my rifle. "The death of a beloved parent is . . . it is painful, no matter how many years go by, _non_?"

"Jacque! There you are! I thought you weren't going to make it." Mathew hollered, seemingly from a world away. As he rushed toward us, he offered a hug to the dark Frenchman, who in turn kissed Mathew three times on his cheeks. Mathew tried to reciprocate the affectionate welcome, but being an Englishman, he stiffly kissed the air with his face in serious concentration, as if putting on French airs was like studying Newton.

" _Oui_ , I made it out on this very warm day. I thought you told me that Massachusetts was always cold."

"Usually it is, but it's also unpredictable." Mathew laughed and looped an arm around my waist. "I see you've met my Violet Buccleuch. Violet, darling, this is André Marie Jean Jacque Beaumont, the man who has been training some of the militias around our colony, and whom I hope I have convinced to train our Concord Militia too."

"Monsieur Beaumont." I curtsied, finding my hot cheeks almost unbearable.

"Miss Buccleuch." Monsieur Beaumont bowed, and caught my hand in his.

Tradition: a man kissing a woman's hand upon introductions. There was nothing extraordinary about it, no error of impropriety. Yet I knew in that moment I had crossed the Rubicon, as it were. He, for his part, behaved no differently than any other man who had ever bent low to kiss my hand in welcome. He never slipped or held my fingers longer than was proper. His kiss was fleeting with the wisp of his lips against my skin, and his afternoon black whiskers tickled me. His long nose barely caressed my hand, but, again, there was nothing new to any of that. Other than the way I felt when he kissed me, kissed my hand.

My heart hammered painfully against my ribs, as if I was on a runaway horse with no reins, dashing at breakneck speeds. V _is insita_ , Newton explained it, the first of his laws—A body at rest stays at rest. A body in motion, like me, would move at constant velocity. Lord, I hoped not.

Monsieur Beaumont stood, a friendly squeeze around my hand while he smiled, then released his grip. "Mathew has spoken of you since the moment I met him. It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

Glancing at Mathew, I tried desperately not to show my nervousness. I might have possessed some semblance of a modest smile. "'Tis a pleasure to meet you as well, Monsieur Beaumont."

Mathew had told me about his new French friend—a mercenary, training the Massachusetts militias whilst there was so much unrest in Boston. When Mathew had told me of his new comrade, I grew suspicious on the spot. Surely, he was some expatriate here to add more riot to the already protesting mobs in Boston. However, I could scarcely consider such thoughts when standing in Monsieur Beaumont's presence.

Common sense vanished when I looked up into his eyes, so dark, so blue. How I desired to gently touch his glossy black eyelashes that framed those orbs of his, but how I needed to never do exactly that. I was engaged—engaged to the man holding my waist at _that_ moment. I was considered pious and obedient. I was a mess.

"Come now, Mathew." Mr. Randolph suddenly appeared and pulled on Mathew's sleeve. "Let's make a bet on the winner of the horseshoes."

Mathew chuckled and was easily led away. "Forgive me, darling, but I'm tempted to make more easy money off Mr. Randolph." He looked at Monsieur Beaumont and said, "Take care of my darling for me!"

I wanted to call out to Mathew to return to me. Of all the times to gamble, it was not now. I needed him, needed his presence to keep my head on my shoulders, needed him near to make the earth under me stop from crumbling under my feet.

Glancing back at Monsieur Beaumont, he had a warm smile on his face while he bowed his head in Mathew's direction. "It would be my honor, _mon ami_."

Monsieur Beaumont turned toward me. "Miss Buccleuch, shall we take a turn?" He extended his bent arm to me while the other flourished forward toward the Concord Common greens.

Horrified, I stood still. Not even daring a breath for fear that if I did I would unleash some evil I'd never known before. Until that very moment I'd been proud of the kind of woman I had become, the provider for my mother and sister when my Da died; the moralist who strived for responsibility and ethics the way a pilgrim staggers on his bloody knees to Jerusalem; the woman who's most proud possession was loyalty. Yet that sun-filled warm day in late February, as I remained motionless upon God's green earth betwixt a foreign French man and an unbending oak tree, everything would change for me.

I took in a shaky breath and reached for Monsieur Beaumont's arm.

# The Philosophy of Justification

"I'm sorry, but, no, you may _not_ have my handkerchief."

My sister joyfully scolded a young man who was begging on his knees in front of her, Monsieur Beaumont, and me.

"Why, Mr. Foster," she teased, "you are quite aware of my feelings regarding a certain lieutenant. I have no affections for you. Now, be gone, you beast."

"Hannah!" I reprimanded my sister with pursed lips and a quick shake of my head, then turned toward the strapping young man with as much sympathy as I could muster. "Mr. Foster, I'm so sorry for my sister's—"

"I like it when she calls me a beast." He got back to his feet on a jump and a large grin. "I'll win you over yet, Hannah Buccleuch." He shouted as he ran toward the crowd of Concordians now serving brandy and wine.

Monsieur Beaumont's chuckle was not apparent except that he was standing very close to me, and I felt the bubble-like repercussions from his laugh tickle my arm and shoulder, like it was champagne for my skin. No, no, I didn't just think that.

My sister turned to Monsieur Beaumont and me and rolled her eyes. "Well, he is a beast. My virtuous sister would never say such things, but I will. Mr. Foster is a pest, Monsieur Beaumont, mark my words."

Monsieur Beaumont's smile widened and he nodded. "I am sure you would know best."

Hannah smiled at him, then looked at me, her voice hushed. "How are you doing, my dear sister?"

She knew I was uncomfortable in crowds, but I nodded, which gained me a quick smile.

Then her grin morphed into a giant sunbeam at Monsieur Beaumont. "My sister isn't a gossip either. So if you want to know all the juicy fat about my community, you'll have to ask me."

"Noted." He bobbed his head again and was still quietly chuckling.

"How is it that you make me sound like such a bore, my beautiful sister?" I asked.

"Oh, Violet!" Hannah snatched my hands in hers and grimaced. "No, you aren't a bore. You're the sweetest, most polite, most thoughtful—"

"Boring. Good grief, I sound like I could cure people from their sleeplessness."

Monsieur Beaumont laughed louder. I stopped myself from shuddering, but just barely.

Hannah rolled her eyes again. I was more than six years her senior and lately the eye rolling had gotten bothersome.

She shook her head. "My sister is anything but boring. When I was a wee bairn, she would tell me stories of fairies who would dance in moonbeams or mermaids singing in this very river." Hannah motioned with a graceful wave toward the Concord waterway. "Oh, the stories she would invent—well, I've never read anything better. And, what she probably won't admit to you—"

"Hannah, please." I foresaw where my sister's conversation was heading and internally cringed as I knew there was no stopping her from embarrassing me now.

"Is that she was my father's son," Hannah continued without noticing my glare. "Not literally, of course. I guarantee she's all woman. I mean that my father taught her to read and write just like the boys. Oh, my father was a Harvard lecturer, by the by, in his younger days. He was said to have a keen knowledge of almost the full curriculum of the university's library, but he met my mother, fell in love, and decided to be done with Harvard and Boston and to come here to farm." She wrinkled her nose. "Can you believe he left Boston for this? My father must have been mad with his love for our mother. Oh, but I digress, which I do quite often. My conversations are filled with tangents that drive my lovely sister insane. I'm not sure what I love more, my digressions or my sister's reaction. Oh, but I must add that my father also taught our Violet how to hunt like a man and think like a man. Now, that's hardly boring, is it, Monsieur Beaumont?"

I avoided looking at Monsieur Beaumont for his response. My right eye might have been twitching with the need to deepen my glowering frown at my sister. She looked down at me with the sweetest, most glorified of smiles, as if she had just saved my life with her words. My anger subsided as I worried about Monsieur Beaumont's judgment toward me—half-man woman that I was.

I wasn't humiliated that I had, indeed, been raised like I was a boy—even playing field hockey. (Before the age of ten I preferred to take my shirt off, just like the lads.) I was embarrassed because I never understood my station, never knew where I belonged. I did like the feel of smooth silk stockings against my bare skin and wearing flowery perfume and swishing about in a skirt. But I also liked wearing breeches and being in the mud and not wholly dependent on a man for my opinions. I liked having my own mind, my own ideas, but I never knew if that was acceptable or not.

Monsieur Beaumont linked my hand through his arm, forcing me to gaze up at his warm smile as I felt his twitching rounded bicep.

"My mother could outshoot any man in Marseille. She was the one that taught me how to use a musket and sword."

"No! Isn't that a coincidence?" my sister hollered. "Violet also reads like my father did. She could probably teach better than any man at that stupid Harvard. She knows all the sciences and math and philosophy and," she clapped and made tiny jumps up and down while she said, "she speaks at least four different languages, including French!"

That was why I could never stay angry at my sister. She might embarrass me or sometimes get annoying with her vanity and the incessant eye rolling, but she loved and adored me and always wanted to brag to others about me. I loved her from the start, as well. At six years of age, I told everyone that she was really _my_ baby. I would, of course, brag about her accomplishments too—like the dress I wore was one of her designs, and she really was one of the best playactors. Too bad respectable ladies weren't welcomed to playact.

Mr. Foster then snuck up behind my sister and grabbed her handkerchief that she had loose in her hand. She turned toward the running back of Mr. Foster and yelled, "Come back here, you beast of a man!" Then took off with her sky blue skirts billowing about her as she gave chase.

I softly laughed and turned toward Monsieur Beaumont, releasing myself from his hold, if only physically. He tilted his face and narrowed his dark blue eyes at me.

"V. V. Buccleuch. It is such an unusual name. Mathew told me it is Scottish. I just assumed it was a relative of yours or maybe your father, but it is you."

I wasn't sure what he was talking about and wondered if the hot sun had gotten the better of him in his dark uniform, but then he said, "Every book I have checked out from the Harvard library has been checked out by you. Every one by a V. Buccleuch."

I smiled and my heart raced. "You must read a lot." I flinched and retracted. "I mean—oh, I sound like a braggart."

His laugh was no longer silent at all. Suddenly he stopped chuckling. "You have Locke's _Letter on Toleration_."

"Yes, I do. I just got that a week ago."

"I know. The librarian told me that a scholar had it."

"He did? Mr. Winthrop was a friend of my father's who lets me check out the books." I was inwardly warmed that Mr. Winthrop would call me a scholar. "I love the philosophical mind of John Locke. Any philosopher really. My father and I used to spend whole days discussing philosophy."

Monsieur Beaumont's smile dimmed. "May I ask, who you talk to now about philosophy?"

I looked over at the smiling face of my mother as she was drinking wine with Mrs. Barrett, and the angry face of my sister as she was pointing a finger at Mr. Foster's chest, and finally my eyes swept over the large frame of Mathew. My mother and sister hadn't ever engaged in philosophy, and Mathew was such a good, kind, and intelligent man, but not a philosopher.

I shrugged. "No one. I—"

"Then, it is settled for us. We must meet . . . every day, I think, to make up for lost time."

"Meet?"

" _Oui_ , don't you think so? After all it was Locke himself that stated that it was a duty for all mankind to come together to discuss philosophy."

I chuckled. " _The Essay Concerning Human Nature_ , yes? That is what you are using as the agent to propel us to discuss philosophy . . . every day?"

He nodded. "All right, I admit, he wrote to explore such subjects within the limits of one's social opportunities, but I have not had anyone to talk to, nor have you, for some time. So we should meet every day. We have so much to discuss. Should we start with the Greeks?"

I'd always wondered what impelled a person's decisions, especially when the choices he or she made could change their lives forever more. Greed? Sex? The Greeks believed these were the main drives of humanity. But what about matters of the heart? What pushes a person to knowingly make a bad judgment?

I cannot tell, as my own heart was beating so voraciously I couldn't hear any advice it was giving.

"I—I want to discuss science and math too. Newton and Leibniz."

Monsieur Beaumont's smile somehow managed to widen. His eyes took in the light of the afternoon sun and radiated it back to me in the deepest color of blue.

"As you wish, but I must warn you, I'm not good at calculus."

I smiled and nodded. "I am. I'll tutor you."

"I will, of course, be a horrid pupil." He lifted one black brow playfully.

I chuckled. "That's all right. I'll just beat you."

"I'm looking forward to it then."

"As am I."

I bit down on my smile as I turned from him, instantly spying my mother and sister—my whole life. If there was even the slightest whisper of me conducting interviews with men, single men, both my mother and sister's lives would be changed, perhaps in ruins, if I was caught being improper.

"No." I couldn't look at him while I gave my answer. I could only stare at my family. "I can't meet you. I'm sorry, I—"

"But I've seen you shoot," he paused.

His long silence provoked me to turn back to him, wondering what his point was. I met his dark, searching eyes.

His nose flared while he said, "With a shot like that you can do anything you want."

# For Debate

"Monsieur Beaumont, spoke of you."

Mathew cleared his throat then smiled at me.

I was in my family's barn, inspecting the moldboard plow's wooden handle that was surely going to break soon when Mathew made this brief statement. It felt like I had been punched right under my ribs. My breath ceased, and I absentmindedly bit my tongue until it bled. The coppery taste of earth filled my mouth. I fiddled with the small crack in the handle, then wiped my hands on my tan breeches and considered how best to appear cavalier.

"Did he?"

Mathew nodded and glanced at Mr. Jones, my family's hired hand, who coughed while he was drying off Bess, the ox, from the morning showers. Whenever it rained like it had all that morning, the scent of the horses and Bess, stored grain, straw and dung amplified in the damp darkness of the barn, making work nearly intolerable.

I, too, peeked at Mr. Jones in Bess's bin, who was humming peacefully to the black cow, but I looked back at Mathew, trying to detect any signs from him to indicate that he thought I was acting odd.

It was the very next day after meeting Monsieur Beaumont, and I hadn't had time to figure out what I felt, let alone how I was supposed to act. I was still wondering just what it was that was affecting me so. Why did I spend almost all of last night contemplating Monsieur Beaumont's words he'd said and the way he smiled or the way he laughed? And, Lord help me, the way he smelled? Oh, he was delicious.

I didn't just think that, couldn't have possibly thought something that ridiculous.

"He did." Mathew's smile wavered for a moment when he looked down at me again. "He was very grateful that you took him by hand and escorted him around the potluck. He had met all the militiamen, of course, but he is, like you, a bit shy in public. Unless he's had a few ales, you know. Bottled courage, they say."

I chuckled at Mathew's jesting and nodded, then fingered the fracture in the wood all the more.

"And might I mention," Mathew continued, "that I was quite proud that you were my fiancée and proud of _you_ too. Taking by arm a Frenchman and making him feel welcome here, that was splendid. As well as that shot. Randolph is in love with you now, I'm sure."

I chuckled again and shook my head. "He is not. Mr. Randolph has an altogether too healthy sense of humor, I'm afraid. I did like him though, that funny man."

"Miss Buccleuch, Bess is as dry as I can get her," Mr. Jones said as he smiled at Mathew and me.

I hadn't noticed Mr. Jones approach, but was grateful for the interruption, grateful to stop obsessing about the way I should appear.

"On behalf of that spoiled cow, thank you for making her more comfortable." I smiled.

Mr. Jones nodded while Mathew strode toward him and shook his hand.

"Ah, Mr. Jones, how are you today?"

"Fine, Mr. Adams. I'm fine. I keep wanting to plow the fields, but with this rain—Good Lord, is that rain tapering off now? After I got that ox all dry, now it's fixing to stop raining."

Mathew chuckled. "It is Massachusetts weather, after all. The one thing it has is unpredictability."

Mathew certainly liked that joke.

Mr. Jones laughed though. "That it does have. It does, indeed."

"Mr. Jones," I said, "'Tis no use, we couldn't plow today anyway. 'Tis too wet now. Please, go inside and eat. Hannah made some beef stew, this time with beef."

My sister, as a way to pretend we weren't quite as poor as we really were, would create many versions of savory dishes that might exclude the main ingredient, like expensive beef. But Mrs. Barrett gave my mother two pounds of the luxurious meat yesterday. The Barretts were one of the riches families in Concord and were charitable to their neighbors. However, charitable is a strange word to use considering they were also slave owners. My father had begged and pleaded for their slaves' freedom, but my father was often ignored for being too intelligent, too radical, or for being too much a Quaker. After all, he had practiced religious freedom within his own house, never forcing my mother, my sister or I to practice his faith. And I, until the age of ten, liked to gallivant around with the boys, often dressing as one, which my father gave me great liberty to do so.

"Beef stew made with real beef. Will wonders ever cease?" Mr. Jones stepped closer to the plow and me. "You need help on the handle?"

"I'm not sure." I shook my head at the plow. "My main problem is wondering if I can afford to buy all the lumber this might require to fix." I sighed, and swept some of my feral black hair out of my eyes. Seeing how concerned Mathew appeared, I laughed to ease his tension. "But I'll get to it, Mr. Jones. Thank you, but you need to go inside and eat. You look thin."

Mr. Jones gently pushed at my ribs with his elbow. "Talk about thin, missy."

He laughed and rushed from me, very aware how I might throw a jab at him for teasing me about my build. My mother jested that if she cooked me, I'd be nothing but string and bones. Being raised around women who were adored for being plump, I detested my body for its lack of fat.

"Mr. Adams, I bid you a good day!" Mr. Jones said while running backward with a gigantic smile.

"You can run, but you know I'm faster!" I hollered.

Mr. Jones laughed harder, but turned and picked up his speed. "I know! I know!"

He closed the barn door after himself, and left me alone with Mathew.

"Will you have lunch with us as well?"

Mathew shook his head. "Sorry, darling, no. Even though Hannah is turning out to be a good cook, I've got to run back to the Safety meeting." He was talking about the Massachusetts Congress, which could no longer be a congress because of the Intolerable Acts, and as such it was called the Committee of Safety. Rather passable title for a colony's illegal congress, I thought.

"Of course." I nodded.

Mathew inhaled sharply and looked down at the plow's handle. I clenched my jaw, getting ready for him to offer me money. As much as I needed his generosity, I hated accepting it. I wasn't too sure why. Too much pride? He was going to be my husband one day. I just hadn't decided on the day yet.

"Darling . . ." His voice trailed off, and his eyes would have burned a hole in the wood with his fierce focus, if he had that ability. I braced myself for his charity. "Do you—do—do you really think—that's a bad choice of words." He sighed and nodded to himself, then finally said, "I do . . . very much . . . like your body as it is. You may not be fleshly, but you have all the . . . rounded areas in all the right spots." His eyes rose and stayed on my chest for a couple seconds before ascending to my face.

I coughed a laugh, truly amazed Mathew was being so bold. These last few months he'd been asking to set the date of our marriage soon, and quite surprisingly had been forward enough to let me know that he did find me attractive and not just as his partner in mind and spirit, but in body too.

"Mathew!"

"Forgive my brashness, I—" He stopped himself.

My cheeks burned with embarrassment as did his, but I decided to say what needed to be said. "I like knowing that the one thing I can offer doesn't disgust you."

"Disgust me? You are . . ." He choked for a moment while his hands stroked the air, much like a sculptor would create breasts out of the heavens. "Violet, darling, you offering me your life to be my partner—well, I'm ever so grateful. You have no idea . . . how you affect me. Nor do I think you understand how you affect men in general. Randolph would literally murder me, if he thought you'd give him a chance, and before he became a lawyer he was in school to become a reverend. Clark couldn't take his eyes off you until you made that shot, but I'm sure, even so, he'd gladly accept your hand. And even Jacque, he couldn't meet my eyes after walking through the Common with you. Darling, you are and have been, since I was a boy of eight years of age, all I dream of."

I reached up on my toes to kiss his cheek. "I'm so lucky to have you, Mathew. Truly, you are the kindest, most generous man, especially when complimenting me—making up preposterous stories—"

"I'm not inventing anything, Violet." Mathew lightly caressed my cheek with one of his fingers. "Oh, darling, you have so much to learn about men."

Three hours later, when the sun peeked through the metallic gray clouds and beamed dandelion rays down on the moist earth, I walked over the edge of a small hill in the copse that surrounded my family's farm. The hardly beaten path I ventured was a game's trail, and one I'd frequent while I would run. I began running, from what my mother told me, before I learned how to crawl. More than twenty years of running for no apparent reason other than to run, I'd learned the trails better than the best hunters.

But today I walked, even though my heart beat in my chest louder and faster than ever before.

I saw him exactly where I'd told him to meet me, by a walnut tree that had forked in the trunk when lightning had struck it, then tried to grow back together years later. The result was a tree with a heart for a trunk. Disastrous, but I was meeting him to inform him I couldn't meet with him ever again.

He turned as he heard me approach. His glossy black hair absorbed all the light and bounced it back in a dark shade of blue.

"I wasn't sure if you would come," he said.

That was the moment I should have said it, should have told him no and run away. I had all my life mapped out for me, and it was going to be a good life with Mathew and my sister and mother, and I couldn't, shouldn't meet him.

Instead, I nodded. "I came."

He finally smiled. "I brought Socrates and wine."

I floated closer to Monsieur Beaumont, not at all aware of my feet or legs. I offered a basket holding fresh and dried fruit. "Blueberries and peach rings." Then I opened my overcoat and extracted the beloved essay. "And Locke."

His eyes scanned the small booklet I held, then glanced at my men's linen shirt where the _Letter of Toleration_ had resided. He swallowed and looked into my eyes, then whispered, " _Parfait_."

"No! That is appallingly not true." I laughed. Monsieur Beaumont and I had been meeting everyday for a full week now. "I did not state that I agree with Locke about tabula rasa. How did we get sidetracked on this subject? We were discussing math." I threw a peach ring at Monsieur Beaumont's perfect long nose.

How had we gotten that comfortable with each other so quickly, to jest and have me throwing food at him? I'll never know.

It all happened so swiftly.

We were sitting beside the heart-shaped walnut tree, just north of my family's farm and the North Bridge as we had done every day in the past seven days. Although daily I made a new oath to stop seeing him, especially so clandestinely, yet each day I couldn't turn away from Monsieur Beaumont.

On the moist black earth that held littered brown leaves of years gone past and a few sprigs of feral grass and fewer still multicolored wild flowers, we perched with books and wine and shy smiles. We were close enough to the waterway to hear the humming of the cold water flowing by, but too far to actually see the Concord River. The sky was thick with heavy gray clouds, yet it was warm enough for both Monsieur Beaumont and I to be without our coats. He wasn't even wearing his waistcoat, which was provocatively intimate. The air enveloping us buzzed with the alarming silence of a coming storm.

Monsieur Beaumont caught the dried fruit in his teeth a second before impact and chewed it with relish. "I don't like math. Calculus, it is a math invented by men who had too much time on their hands. So I'm distracting you from the subject by putting words in your mouth. But I'll be fair now. What would you like to discuss? We can talk about anything except math."

"Coward."

" _Oui_. _"_

"All right." I tried to hide my smile. "Locke's _Two Treaties_."

" _Bien._ You begin, hmm?"

I understood now why the French would use words usually associated with sword fighting when debating. Whenever I'd converse with my father, we would almost always have the same mind on all discussions. When talking to Mathew about the law I was intrigued, but never ventured to address any concern I had—although, I don't know why. But with Monsieur Beaumont I met my match. _Touché_ , _parry, thust_ —we'd argue, discuss, and ponder until the sky peaked midnight blue with streaks of scarlet and orange, then slowly separate from each other, saying our farewells until the sky blackened. How I began to hate the night. It would mean I'd have to be away from Monsieur Beaumont yet again.

I tapped my bottom lip, thinking of Locke, thinking of a conversation that would last for hours. "Locke's views regarding men's rights versus a government's."

"Ah, well, don't start with anything controversial, Miss Buccleuch."

I giggled at his jest, but continued anyway. "Do you believe, like Locke, that a man can and sometimes must stand up for his God-given rights, especially when faced with noxious brutes within a government?"

Monsier Beaumont cocked his head side to side then narrowed his eyes. "Locke was referring to your Civil War when he wrote that. You English had that civil war a couple years ago, _oui_?"

I smiled, not sure if he was horrid at history or just English history, which being French was forgivable. "More like a century ago. Actually _more_ than a century. It was in the middle of the seventeenth century. "

His brows furrowed. " _Oui_? Ah, where does the time go? I remember it like it was yesterday."

I threw another peach ring at him, shaking my head. "You were there?"

He caught the fruit again in his teeth and chewed with a wide grin. "Of course I wasn't in England." He snorted and shook his own head, as if _I_ were the silly one. "But I remember it well."

"Of course you do." I nodded, then gave him an incredulous look, almost rolling my eyes.

He quietly snickered. "We are off subject yet again. I was asking, is your civil war what you are thinking about or the current riots in Boston, with regard to Locke's _Two Treaties_?"

I sobered instantly. Indeed I had been thinking of all the jobless men at Boston's wharf, men who had tarred and feathered a duty collector, making the newspaper headlines with that vicious attack. I thought too of other men who had been too cowardly to dress as themselves, but as Mohawks for the Tea Party just a couple years ago, and just three years before that there were the six dead in what the newspapers now called the Boston Massacre. The mobbing seemed to be escalating, and since Salem, and I'd heard the redcoats, looking for militias' caches of arms to destroy, had marched to Portsmouth. I was fearful that the Massachusetts issues with her mother country was like a bone that had become old and brittle and was about to snap at any moment.

But so apprehensive was I that I dared not talk about the reality of my explosive colony. As if my silence bought my providence a little peace. "Neither. Just hypothetically speaking."

"But of course." Monsieur Beaumont nodded his head, but one of his black brows arched.

A tiny splash landed on my hand. I looked down at the droplet of rain. The moisture on my skin was a welcome for its coolness. I was too hot when I neared Monsieur Beaumont. But I was beginning to like the heat. So I continued our conversation, rain or no, fevered skin or not. "When Locke was referring to men standing up for themselves against their own government, that isn't just a civil war, but could turn into a . . . revolution."

" _Oui_. During your civil war, you English inserted a new government, and if that had lasted then would not your civil war have turned into a revolution?"

"Aye. A revolution. But do you believe 'tis right for men to have a war against their own government?"

He sighed. "As my old age knows, it has been done before. It could be done again."

I snorted and this time couldn't resist an eye roll. From the very first meeting at our heart tree, he'd jested that his perhaps thirty year-old frame was close to two hundred years instead. Perhaps he felt too old to associate with me. As two more fat drops landed on my hatless head, I pushed that nagging thought away. "Are you near a millennium now?"

He chuckled. "Not quite. But two centuries of life feels like a thousand years lived."

I nudged his iron-like arm. "Just hypothetically speaking, of course."

He softly laughed again, but then looked up at the sky. "We are getting rained upon."

When he met my eyes again, I nodded. I didn't want to say our goodbyes just yet. I didn't want to go back to the farm to either pace about our parlor or try to find some odd job, of which there were many, to do. I didn't want to leave him. Monsieur Beaumont was becoming closer to me than any friend had before. _Just a friend_ , I reminded myself daily.

He suddenly clasped my arms. "Are you willing to sit through a science experiment?"

I smiled and nodded as the rain started in earnest to flush us from the forest.

He grabbed his overcoat, which he shook out. Free from rocks and small sticks, Monsieur Beaumont flicked his coat over two branches that stretched out over my head. He used some extra twine I had that I'd used for picking some wild mint to dry. He tied the ends of his coat to the branches, and within just a minute's time I had shelter over my head.

He knelt in front of me, still getting pelted with rain. I scooted to the very edge of the makeshift refuge and waved for him to enter, sit close to me. He hesitated for just a moment, swallowing hard. When he unceremoniously plopped next to me he was wet yet warm. He chuckled, but I noticed his laugh sounded strained. We both tucked our legs to our chests and wrapped our arms around our shins. My shoulder fit under his and my hip, arm, and leg met his. I knew exactly when he was taking a breath.

We looked at each other and chortled again.

"Where were we in our conversation, Miss Buccleuch?"

My brain wouldn't function, and for a moment I thought I just might have the audacity to touch his face, so close to mine. I blinked as I watched a small rivulet run from his dark hair down the side of his countenance. His eyes searched my features, and I was glad for the lack of sunlight to hide my fiery cheeks. My behavior was appalling. What was running through my mind was much worse, and making it impossible was the fact that I couldn't seem to stop myself.

But somehow, through brute force really, I clenched my hands to be still and cleared my throat. "You were saying you were a million years old."

He chuckled yet again, something that came so easy to the both of us when we were together. "We were talking about men overthrowing their governments. Well, that was our targeted conversation, _oui_?"

"Aye." I nodded and tried to hide my smile. Wanting nothing more than to make the moment last I did something I was terribly uncomfortable to do, but knew it would make him stay. "What if, like Locke instructed, the government proved to be tyrannical, brutal, like declaring martial law?"

He took in a deep breath, tickling my ribs against his. "Like your colony now?"

I slowly nodded. "Because of the, as Parliament calls it the Coercive Acts—"

"Your colony calls it, _you_ call it the Intolerable Acts."

"Yes, yes I do. Because of the Intolerable Acts, which were declared because some men had themselves a massive Tea Party and dunked thousands of pounds worth of tea in the Boston Harbor, the Massachusetts General Courts are no more; we cannot have town meetings, except on Sabbath; our governor does not exist, but we have in his place a general who runs my colony, a military _general_ ; Boston Harbor is closed for commerce unless it suits that general governor; we have many, countless many men without a job because of this; and—and we Massachusetts people are no longer chartered with Britain. Do you know what all of that means? We no longer have English liberty. Does that make us English anymore? Or are we orphans?"

Monsieur Beaumont blinked a few times and swallowed. I loved the way his Adam's apple dipped as he swallowed—to me it seemed exotically masculine. "You should be a politician. I was so moved by your speech. Gladly, I will adopt you."

I smiled. "Did you not notice that I'm a woman and as such, apparently, have no place in politics, save for being a politician's wife? Besides, I can only give these little speeches to groups of our numbers. If there were even three of us, I might find myself too shy to make any comments."

Monsieur Beaumont shook his head. "Ah, I have faith in you. You will change that."

I chuckled, not knowing if he was referring to a woman being a politician or my shyness in public.

"So then the question is, Miss Buccleuch, whether or not the Massachusetts' people will further rebel against her mother country, hmm? To, ah, perhaps have the rebellion be something more—what's the word?—destructive, eh?"

To have the burning question spoken out loud was enough to make me want to crawl into a silent pause. I shrugged against his body. "We are just speaking hypothetically, sir."

He chuckled softly, letting the bouncing reverberations of his laughter enter my body, tuck itself deep into my heart.

" _Mais bien sûr._ You wouldn't happen to have read Voltaire?"

"I love Voltaire and Descartes."

He placed his hand over his heart and swayed. "I know that as a man I'm never to ask this from a woman, but—"

I held my breath, waiting for the question.

"You speak so knowledgeably and learned. How old are you?"

I snorted out a laugh—very unladylike. But in breathless anticipation, I had—oh, goodness—I had thought he was going to ask me something improper or indecent, and he merely asked for my age.

"Two and twenty. Now you. You have to tell me your _real_ age."

He squinted and pretended to do arithmetic tables in the air. "One hundred ninety-one years, at least."

I chuckled once more and shook my head.

"Are you laughing at an ancient, infirmed man? And doubting him?"

"Aye, that I am, old man."

At that he pushed me over while I was giggling too hard to straighten. Even with the rain, dousing my on-fire skin, I couldn't impel myself back up. In so many ways I couldn't right myself.

# The Darkness of Honesty

"You have a twig in your shirt." Monsieur Beaumont said, as he gingerly retracted the small dagger of green wood from the arm of my men's white linen shirt.

Another week passed with the only pause in our conversations during the nights and early mornings. I was dreadfully behind in my farm work, but I didn't care. I went as far as to ask Jonah to not worry too. I'd told him it was spring, and we should enjoy the fine weather for once. I also had mentioned something about the birds singing their praise for the glorious earth, and he'd stared at me as if I'd spoken Armenian. He asked if I felt well, but I'd had to meet with Monsieur Beaumont, so I gave him some ridiculous excuse and ran away.

As Monsieur Beaumont worked the tiny piece of wood out of my shirt, we sat very close to each other, as if it was still raining. But there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The bright azure heavens only poured surplus sunbeams, making my skin feel at once luscious yet prickly like I had a slight fever. We sat with our backs against the walnut tree, sagging in our posture as if we were losing our strength. Perhaps we were.

The tiny branch was not getting undone, which made Monsieur Beaumont's face purse in frustration. He seemed especially careful not to touch me.

While he worked on my shirt he asked, "Mathew has told me you play the pianoforte. Yes?"

His words were wrapped tighter in his French accent. I noticed how when he was excited or nervous, his accent was stronger. If I didn't already know French, I would have been lost to much of what he was saying.

"Aye. I do play the pianoforte. It was a rather expensive gift from my father when I was but a child and my sister was only a toddler. My sister, now, has an angelic singing voice. And I try to accompany it." I watched as his fingers smoothed the white linen where a small hole appeared after he'd removed the branch. With the tiny piece of wood still in his palm, he released my shirt on a heavy breath.

He smiled at the place where his fingers had worked on my shirt. "I can imagine your family all playing music together, laughing together. I like you—your family very much. I haven't had much occasion to be in the company of such friendly and warm people in so long."

He sounded forlorn, as if really it had been a thousand years. "How long?"

He sighed. "Ah, at least fifty years."

I laughed and shook my head. "Are you ever going to stop jesting that you are some ancient relic?"

His eyes brightened. "Relic? Hmm . . ." But he shook his head and returned to the earlier subject. "You said your sister sings, but do you not, Miss Buccleuch?"

"I sing horribly, Monsieur Beaumont. And you?"

He laughed. "I sing horribly as well, but also play the pianoforte. Perhaps horribly at that too. I was wondering . . ." He paused and perused where the twig had been in my shirt again. I noticed he still had the bark in the palm of his hand, and was fingering it. ". . . wondering if I might take your family to the opera in Boston. You know Mathew is going there for some convention of some kind, and I was merely escorting him, but I thought why not invite you and your family too? Do you like the opera?"

"Mathew isn't going for some convention. Maybe he's told you that, but really, he's going so he can drink at all the taverns his distant relatives establish, so he can talk about the upcoming congress meeting in Concord in just a few days. Er, forgive me, the Committee of Safety meeting."

"You know about the secret meeting?"

I laughed. "It's no secret. I'm sure even General Gage knows of its whereabouts. What we New Englanders are most proud of, we cannot hold our tongues in check of."

Monsieur Beaumont's smile wavered. "Is there no confidence? Confidentiality?"

I shrugged. "I keep secrets for the people I love or anyone I suppose, if they just ask."

"Does anyone keep _your_ secrets safe?"

I didn't respond.

I'd never had a secret—until now. He, Monsieur Beaumont, was my secret.

I was very skilled at ignoring my emotions, but I didn't view that as clandestine. It was the only thing that could keep me waking so early in the morning to fasten the reins on Bess and plow and sow and work so hard until my fingers would bleed. The only desire I had until I met Monsieur Beaumont was to provide for my sister and mother. To hell with blisters and bleeding and tiredness, if it gave to my family.

But now my emotions were acting like vehemently angry children, yelling at me all the time about how I longed to touch Monsieur Beaumont—his black whiskers around his mouth and jaw line. Would it prickle like sandpaper? Or was his day's length beard soft? And, oh, the glossy black fan of his eyelashes, surrounding his dark, dark blue eyes . . . Could I just feather my fingers against those onyx lashes?

I fantasized about Monsieur Beaumont when I wasn't with him, which anymore wasn't very long. I ached to be closer to him when I was in his presence. My body hummed a constant hymn for him, my heart opened long locked doors for him, my head—oh, it was my undoing.

I hated myself for my traitorous feelings, but surely I could purge my affections. Although my father was Quaker, my mother came from Puritanical stock. The belief that one could cleanse oneself from desires, from wanting, from the body's own needs was simplistic, but lovely. I could do that. I had to. This infatuation—yes, I knew I was utterly smitten with the man, the proof was extraordinary!—was silly and frivolous, and I was certain in time I could stop my heart's disloyal pining.

It didn't help though when Monsieur Beaumont took my hand in his, like he was that very minute. Ach, my idiotic heart.

He offered, "I will be your confidant, if you'd like."

"I'd like that . . . very much. I could be yours, if you'd like. Your confidante, I mean."

" _Oui_?"

I nodded.

He smiled then let it fade as he retracted his hand from mine. The phantom of his hand still around mine played with my mind and body in a cruel way and was enough for me to collapse.

"You first, tell me a secret of yours." He mischievously arched a black brow while he gave me a tiny smile.

Oh dear, that had been a half-cocked idea of mine. I only had one secret, except—

"Hannah—Hannah's been courting a redcoat," I confessed. "I know she's already quite enamored with this young officer, but, now this is the secret, there's something off, regarding their courting. I've never told my mother or Mathew, especially not Hannah. But I believe Hannah's lieutenant is . . . not quite honest with her. You see, Hannah's lieutenant has never called on my sister, never stepped foot on our farm. I think it rather disrespectful of him. Hannah has told me that he has to do drills almost every day, but surely he can come during Sabbath to meet Hannah's family, don't you think?"

"You have never met this man of Hannah's?"

I shook my head and looked down at the brown soil carpeted with pine needles and brown lacey leaves. "I'm frightened he might be of the wrong ilk for my sister. What if he's using her for some selfish game? I have no grounds to merit my fears, but I have them all the same."

Monsieur Beaumont took my hand in his again, this time holding it tighter than before. "What is the name of this officer?"

"Lieutenant Mark Kimball."

"I will find him and discover just what kind of man he is. I will obtain all the details you seek."

I blinked a few times, letting what he had just divulged sink in.

"You are a spy?" Although it was a question, I made it sound more like a statement.

Monsieur Beaumont nodded and smiled brightly. "You are so clever. You have discovered one of my secrets. Does that mean I need to tell you another, to balance our confidence in each other?"

"How can you make light of such a thing? You're a spy!"

"I am not making light of this, as you say. Mathew does not even know what I am. If you told one person what I am, then I would hang in the gallows faster than you could say—"

"Never! I would never tell a soul."

At that moment I gripped onto his other hand furiously, seeking for him to know undoubtedly he could trust me. The sensation of his callused hands against mine was enough to make me stop breathing.

His voice was very low. "I thank you for that. I would hate for my neck to be stretched to an ungodly length. "

"How can you jest so much?"

"If I do not, I fear, I would be weeping, which then might lead you to question my masculinity."

"Men can cry. In fact, I find that I quite admire a man who can cry."

He pretended to boohoo, which got him a smack on his shoulder. He caught my hand that had jabbed at him, while he grinned at me—both my hands in his again. His smile slowly diminished. He seemed to hold his breath.

As much as I loved his touch, I was deeply curious. "How do you do what you do? How do you spy? Are you more a spy for your country or my colony?"

He shrugged. "Most often I have informants who love divulging their state's secrets to me. I give the intelligence to my government. I usually _break_ people's confidentiality." He stared out into the space through the forest's trees. His face turned distant, cold. He morphed into a statue of himself, no longer the warm man I now knew so well. "Sometimes, I am a fly on the wall. I find ways of entering important meetings—no one sees me, and I extract all that I hear.

"At the moment my country is aligning itself to be a source of power and money for your colony, all the American colonies to be precise; therefore, one might incur that I am a spy for both my country _and_ your colony."

He glanced back at me. Then looked again. His eyes sparked with a blue, blue fire. The stone visage he wore cracked and dismantled completely as he took in two sharp breaths. "I know I don't deserve it, being the kind of man I am. But now you know almost everything there is to me. And you promised me . . . more than I have given to others. But I will never tell another soul your confession regarding your sister's officer. I will find all I can on the man. I promise. I will give to you . . . what you give to me." He cleared his throat. Still, his voice was quiet when he asked, "Now that we are confidants, may I call you Violet when we are in private?"

I couldn't answer immediately. My heart had stopped and restarted a million times over as he'd spoken. Just as his dark eyebrows furrowed I could finally spit out, "Yes . . . _oui_." I bit my bottom lip while he smiled at my use of his language.

He softly chuckled and caught a stray strand of my black hair out of my eyes. He smoothed it behind my ear, then skimmed my earlobe delicately. No, that had to have been my imagination. All of it had to be my mind running wild, except, of course, for my now thunderously racing heart, trembling body, and skin so tight I wondered if would burst off me.

His jaw twitched with fast movement, as if kicking at a thought. His pine and leather scent waved into me.

"I have something more I need to confess to you," I whispered.

His nose flared and he slowly nodded.

I swallowed. "I—I—I don't know which name you would prefer to be called. You have so many—André Marie Jean Jacque."

He blinked, swayed, then began to laugh. "Jacque, you may call me Jacque."

"Jacque, it is then."

His smile disappeared, but he said animatedly, "I like how you say my name, like _Jack_."

I looked down at our joined hands. Surely that was a dream. It felt too wonderful to be anything real.

When I looked back up at him, his eyes were so lucid, yet still such a dark blue, I did wonder about my sanity. His breath was rapid, and his eyes kept bouncing down to my lips. Yes, I was merely dreaming. I had to be!

"Yes," I said breathlessly.

His black brows drew down in confusion.

"Yes," I continued, "I, er, my family and I would love to go to the opera with you."

He laughed and withdrew his hands from mine, and I'd never felt so cold in all my life.

# Detours

The day before we were to go to Boston, Hannah cornered me in one of the horses' stalls after I finished changing the straw.

"When are you going to pack?" she asked intently.

"I've packed already."

She shook her head. "We'll be at the opera. You don't have a decent dress for the opera in your baggage."

"How would you know that, little sneak?"

"Who are you calling little, tiny mouse?"

"You aren't that much taller than I." I smiled up at her one or two, mayhap as many as three inches of height she had over me.

Hannah cracked a smile through her chiding. Finally, she let a bust of giggles out. "I . . . I've made you a dress for the opera."

"Ah, that's awfully nice of you."

"I know it is."

"I'm glad you know, and you're so humble too."

Hannah shrugged, playacting being affronted. "Well, of course I do know how nice and generous it was of me to make you a dress, especially when these last few weeks you've been too busy to talk to me. You only run about the countryside when you aren't working the farm."

I grimaced. "Oh, that . . ."

"Yes, that. Don't think Mother and I haven't noticed that you haven't been in the house except for when you sleep at night. Also, you have no appetite. If you weren't constantly smiling and glowing like gold, then I'd worry. Mother thinks that you and Mathew are meeting in secret and working toward breaking your chastity."

I shook my head. "I'm not!" But then I realized I should have agreed to meeting Mathew in secret for, surely, my sister would ask why I was apparently so happy as of late. I cleared my throat, thinking of some excuse. "I just love spring, seeing all the wild flowers in bloom, the animals stirring from their hibernation . . ." I waved my hand around my head like an adorable squirrel was there, stretching and yawning from its winter's sleep.

Hannah let her blonde eyebrows sink in suspicion, but then she shook her head and looked even more cross at me. "What my point is, you haven't been around enough to notice that others in this household are just as joyful as you."

I frowned and thought of Mother. She'd just bickered with Hannah about a wild strawberry jam this morning, so I knew my mother wasn't the culprit Hannah was describing. Then, I looked back up at Hannah who held up her left hand beside her cherry-hued cheek, displaying on her third finger a tiny diamond in a thick gold band—at least the band and the chip of a gem appeared to be real.

"Oh my . . ." I whispered.

Hannah flew into a fit of little jumps as her hands clutched my arms. "I'm getting married too!"

I couldn't breathe. The world began to spin too fast.

"Tomorrow, when we arrive in Boston, my Mark will meet us. I've written Monsieur Beaumont and Mathew, who both extended the invitation to Mark. So, he's coming to the opera with us! You'll get to meet him, finally! I can hardly believe it that I'm getting married soon."

I plastered a smile into place and nodded. "Oh my, how . . . grand is this? My sister is getting married. Oh my . . . oh my . . ."

"I know. I haven't told mother yet. And you know her, she hasn't noticed the ring."

I sincerely doubted Mother hadn't noticed. Knowing my mother, she was biding her time until Hannah broke the news to her. Mother, like my Da, had always given my sister and I enough privacy to grow, and enough room to make many a mistake as well.

Hannah's smile was wider than I'd ever seen it. "I've talked to Mark about our having a double ceremony—"

"Talked?"

"Well, wrote, to be more precise, like we always do, but as I was saying Mark is so wonderful. He wrote back saying whatever pleased me would make him the happiest of men, and it would make me so blissful to be married at the same time you and Mathew pledge your vows. Would you consider it, Vi? I know you weren't planning on getting married soon, but I'd like to. I want to get married in June, maybe even April."

I nodded. My head felt like it might spring off my neck. "Of course, I'll think about it. Of course. My goodness . . . my heavens, this is exciting."

"Oh, won't this be the most amazing event in our lives? We can be married women together. We could have children at the same time. Can you just imagine that?"

I did, and I had. It was our childhood dream, even if she was younger than I. But the hope was that I'd wait for her to find her husband, then we'd have our families together.

Mathew had asked for years to _se fiancer_. When I finally said yes to his proposal, I'd done so realizing his eyes were almost the same light blue hue as Hannah's. I would have children that might look like my sister, and that was all I needed for affirmation that I was making a good decision regarding my marriage to Mathew. Certainly, he had been a friend of my family's and mine since we were children, and his heart and dedication had won me over as well, but it was the warmth from his eyes, so like Hannah's that convinced me that my strategy for my life was a sound one.

But there was something amiss in Hannah's engagement. Why hadn't Lieutenant Kimball asked my mother for Hannah's hand? Why hadn't he met any of us in Hannah's family? Why did I feel like my knees might buckle at any minute?

Hannah held me in a firm embrace. "Dinner is made, Vi. Come in and try to eat. You've been losing weight, darling-girl."

I didn't like that Hannah called me what our mother touted us, her darling-girls. But I kept my smile firmly in place and made it widen when Hannah released me from her hug.

"Please don't tell Mother. I want Mark to say something to her when we get to Boston."

I nodded. "Of course."

"Come. Eat." Hannah began to stroll away with an enormous smile, and perhaps it was my cynical side that thought her grin was a tad silly.

I followed, not knowing a word to say, doubtful whether any of this new development would come to any good.

"Excited to see Boston?" Mr. Jones inquired after we'd all had supper.

Mr. Jones and I were sitting on some burlap bags of oats for Bess and the horses in the barn after dinner, taking turns drinking ale that Jacque had bought for Mr. Jones. He had made the mistake of helping Jacque in Concord when Jacque's black steed had a thorn in the frog of its hoof. It was a mistake because now Mr. Jones had a small winery and enough ale and rum to start a tavern. I'd snickered to myself when Mr. Jones had told me the story of how Jacque had bought him all the alcohol in appreciation. Ah, Jacque was generous and thoughtful and knowledgeable, and I shouldn't be thinking about what else he was.

I shrugged after I sipped the fine cool ale down. "'Tis getting to be a big town, Boston is, but then again Concord is getting big too. I guess I'm excited to go on the trip, aye."

I was lying. I hadn't slept since I'd made the plans to go to Boston. Mayhap a wink here or there, but mostly I would lie in bed thinking of how I might be escorted down a walk on Monsieur Beaumont's arm. I might take Mathew's arm too. When I thought of that, I scolded myself for my absurd feelings.

"Thank you so much for taking care of the farm while we're gone."

Mr. Jones nodded and drank the rest of the bottle. He had another ale by his foot and uncorked it. His eyes were already glassy. I never knew him to be a drinker, but then again it did seem to be the kind of night when the alcohol fell into the pit of my stomach in a satisfying, sparkling way. Perhaps it was the same for him.

The only light that streamed through the open barn's door was that of the evening's peach and pink sunset. Bess and the bay mares were asleep in their bins, and the scent of a promising spring hung in the air, like the way the scent of daffodils can linger in my olfactory. I glanced at Mr. Jones and noticed that he was sweating. His eyes skipped all around the barn and his lips kept pursing and fidgeting.

"Everything all right, Mr. Jones?"

He nodded and smiled. The smile was altogether too large and slightly silly.

"Oh no, not you too." I frowned.

He kept grinning but looked a little anxious. "I've been meaning to talk to you, Miss Buccleuch."

"You're getting married." I stole the bottle from him and downed three cupfuls. After swallowing, I looked upon his happy face.

"How'd you know? I suppose a man can't hide the fact that he's excited about getting married. Lord, but I am excited."

I smiled on a sigh. "When's the happy day, my friend?"

He took the bottle from me and swallowed more than a third of its contents. Finally, he turned to me, his eyes the roundest and saddest I'd ever seen on him. "I need a loan, Miss Buccleuch. My . . . the girl who I'm lookin' to marry, she's back in Virginia. I knew her from when I lived there. I promised her when I left, when I was taken from there up to Boston . . . before I knew your daddy would set me free . . . I made a promise, you see—"

I lay what I hoped to be a cool and calming hand on his warm brown one. "Tell me."

He gave me a quick smile and patted my hand. But as I took my turn with the ale, Mr. Jones's face fell. His voice was far off and gritty. "Her master just upped her price on her."

"She's a slave?"

He nodded. "Not many free black women round here. Not anywhere, now that I think upon it."

I shook my head, handing the brew back to him. "I'm sorry for sounding so naive."

"Nothing to be ashamed of, being innocent of some things. Then again, some things need to be pushed in the light, made known, you know?"

"Yes . . . aye. My father had hoped that slavery would be abolished soon. It is an abomination."

"Yes, I agree, but I was thinking upon something else. Besides I figure, in my mind, I'm paying for this beautiful girl like a dowry, you know? Like a prince does for a princess."

My eyes instantly itched like I was about to cry. How could he turn something so ugly into a fairytale?

I nodded and smiled. "So, this loan—"

"I need fifty pounds. I know it's a lot of money, but you know I'm good for paying it back."

"No."

He turned to me, his nose flared and stared at me like he'd never seen me before.

"No, you won't pay me back." I arched a brow and grabbed the bottle, hiding my smile.

"I was going to give you a hundred pounds as a wedding gift, and you cannot pay a gift back. How rude, Mr. Jones."

He smiled and shook his head. "I can't accept—"

"A hundred and fifty pounds, and if you say one more word, the price will keep going up. Well, until I run out of my savings."

He silently snorted a laugh, then stole the bottle away from me, shaking his head. "I love you, Miss Buccleuch, you stubborn woman."

"I love you too . . . Jonah. May I please call you by your Christian name now that neither of us will be a single person soon?"

"Only if I can call you Violet."

I spat in the palm of my hand and extended it to Jonah. He looked disgusted, but spat in his too and shook my hand.

"Firm shake, that is, laddie." He laughed at my impression of my father's Scottish brogue. I continued without the Celtic accent. "So when are you going to retrieve your bride, _Jonah_?"

"Well, _Violet_. I was hoping to take off when you get back from Boston."

"Oh, yes, Boston. I'm going to Boston tomorrow."

"That you are. Did you forget?"

"Why, yes, I did. In all your exciting news, I forgot. I am so happy for you, friend. Many congratulations on your upcoming marriage."

"Thank you, Vi. I appreciate that. I've worked on your family's farm now for almost five years. You know I think upon you and Hannah like sisters, don't you?"

"And we think upon you as a brother."

Jonah nodded, looking down at our shared ale. "Your father was one brave man, freeing me the way he did. I always thought of your da . . . I never knew my own father."

"My father was very proud of you. I think my father thought of me as his first son and you his second."

He laughed and shoved at my shoulder with one of his own. But then his smile sobered. "As your brother, may I take license to speak freely to you then?"

I squeezed his hard-worked hand. "Of course."

He nodded again and cleared his throat. "What I'm about to say is something that I think should come to light."

"You think I should start farming wheat. I know. Last harvest wheat paid almost double what barley was. I just worry how wheat seems to not be hearty enough for the—"

"It ain't wheat I was wanting to talk to you about, Vi. It's about men."

"Men? Oh Lord, not another lecture pertaining to . . . carnal intimacy. Mother just talked to Hannah and I a little more than a week ago about . . . that subject. I think because Hannah's been so love struck with her beau. I understand vaguely what's going to happen, but I—"

"Woman," Johan interrupted, his voice firmer than I'd ever heard. "Will you be quiet for just one minute? I'm trying to talk."

I bit my bottom lip and tucked my chin a few inches, which made him laugh.

"I'm sorry to have yelled, but my heavens, when you do get started talking there's no stopping you."

I nodded and snickered.

"All right, now . . . what I mean by talking about men is a man's heart. I've known Mr. Adams since your da paid for my papers, and moved to work and live in this here farm. Mr. Adams, he's followed you around in all that time, like you had a piece of his soul that he was gracious enough to wait until you returned it. I had to respect the man for his tenacity."

I smiled, while Jonah eyed me. But then he said seven words that shook my whole world.

He turned to me pointedly. "Mr. Beaumont is a good man too."

I blinked and tried to think of how I should react. I know I stiffened. My shoulders almost touched my ears. But I forced a smile on my face and nodded as nonchalantly as possible.

"I think he might be a good man, yes."

Jonah studied my eyes, then handed me the bottle. "You are a woman now. What are you, eighteen years of age?"

"Two and twenty, actually."

"When did you get so old?"

I laughed, punched him with one arm, and with the other I slugged a drink back. Oh goodness, but I was getting drunk.

He smiled and nodded. "All the same, your mother might be giving some . . . kind of lectures, but I can tell you about a man's heart. Mr. Adams, Mathew, he's got a good heart, and he's been in love with you probably since the day you were born. And you're going to marry him?"

"Yes, you know that."

Jonah nodded. "I do. I know that you should be careful of Mr. Beaumont. He's in love with you too."

It was a thunderclap of information. I was too shocked to act or feel the reverberations echo in my body, but just shook my head.

"Listen, missy, I know when a man is so in love with a woman he can hardly breathe. I know that because the first time I saw Bethany, my . . . fiancée, I nearly fainted. I'd never seen a woman so beautiful. Aw, you and Hannah are awful pretty, but I think of you two like—"

"Like sisters, I know." I laughed, but then defended Jacque as quickly as I could think. "But you're wrong about Monsieur Beaumont. I'm no one of significance, especially to him. I'm a woman who wears breeches; I'm overeducated; I—I work with dirt; I'm always a mess; I look atrocious—"

"Violet," Jonah interrupted again, but with his jaw set the way it was I couldn't find any more words to counter his point. He continued, "I overhear men talking about you. I know you never hear the talk, nor do you ever pay no heed to the men. You're too busy, inside that big head of yours with all those ideas of yours floating around. But they talk about you. Yes, many a man might find you peculiar, but there's something about you. You have spirit, girl, and there is no hiding that. And there's no hiding from the fact that you are a pretty girl, er, woman." He paused, but then gave himself a quick nod. "I'm telling this to you now so you know, and so you know about Mr. Beaumont."

Shaking my head again, I felt my cheeks burning. "Monsieur Beaumont . . . I'm just a country bumpkin to him, I'm sure. Even if you are remotely right, Monsieur Beaumont is not the kind of man who would hurt me."

"I am not talking about that Frenchman hurting you." Jonah patted my hand. "No, he'd never hurt you. He'd hurt himself. He looks at you like he's dying, Violet. I never seen a man so happy to be suffering."

What Jonah said resonated within me, my heart. But still, I had to keep up an appearance of innocence. "Well," I huffed, "even if somehow you are right, what are you suggesting I do about it? I'm engaged . . . to be married . . . to another man."

"Let him know that." He nodded. "Mr. Beaumont needs to hear it from your lips that you're taken. The sooner, the better."

"Jacque knows I'm engaged. He knows it."

"Violet, men, men's hearts are sometimes unstoppable. Take for instance me, I'm _buying_ my wife. I'm buying her freedom. There's only one thing that would stop me from marrying that woman, and that's her. If she'd said no, I'd've a broken heart, never be the same again, but I wouldn't be asking for money, something I swore I would never do. But I did it for her, and I'd do it again. I'm going to travel through Virginia country where the settlers don't take kindly to free black men, and the Indians are known to scalp travelers. Yet, I'm a going. I want that woman to be mine with all my heart. Are you crying?"

I nodded and wiped at my wet cheeks. "It's so beautiful." I hiccupped. "Your love for your fiancé. You have to stop telling me how much you love her or I'll blubber for days."

"I haven't seen you cry since your daddy passed."

I sniffed and smiled. "I know. Lord, I'm a mess."

He smiled sagely. "Nah, you aren't a mess. You're just a romantic fool."

"Don't tell or I'll punch you in the nose."

"And such a lady."

"That's what a lady would do, I'm sure of it."

Jonah smiled down at me. He patted my hand again. "Just tell him yourself, Violet. Tell Mr. Beaumont that you love Mathew and you're going to get married to him. That Frenchman needs to hear it from your lips that you love another."

# My Own Boston Massacre

I breathed a sigh of relief. Jacque's carriage that was to drive my family and me to Boston did not carry him. The driver said that Monsieur Beaumont had traveled ahead and was waiting at the inn we were expected to dine and stay the next two nights. I had pictured myself sitting in between my sister and mother in the carriage, across from Jacque, and how I would have exploded from the desire to touch him. Thank God that didn't happen.

Mathew had traveled ahead as well, saying something about rum and rights to be had for all. I'd laughed and kissed him on his cheek.

In the glass windowed Landau carriage (Of course it was a huge glossy black Landau, the best of the best. It was sent by Jacque.) I couldn't keep my eyes open as soon as we were on the highway, even though Hannah had finally admitted her engagement to Mother, and they were bickering about the arrangement. Still, I slept almost the whole way to Boston on my sister's shoulder while she and my mother debated if Lieutenant Kimball's actions were moral or not. My mother thought the lieutenant should have asked her first for my sister's hand in marriage, but my sister thought he would have asked our father, but since Da had passed away, he didn't know the proper channels of offering himself to our family. I vaguely was aware of the argument in a haze of sleep, and only once was interrupted a few miles shy of Boston by traveling lobsterbacks, strangely enough, asking for directions to Concord.

Gladly, I accepted the sleep, as I didn't want to make any comments of my own. I, too, wanted Lieutenant Kimball to at least pay respect by introducing himself to my mother or even just to me before he'd proposed. This excuse for not having any time off was no justification at all. I knew the redcoats had at least one day off—that was general knowledge. Also, Dr. Prescott, one of the doctors in Concord, had told me about his latest trip to Boston and seeing many of the troops having leisurely days. Lieutenant Kimball could have come the twenty miles from Boston to Concord. True, it was a long trip, but would it be that time-consuming for the one you love? I thought not.

I woke when we stopped in front of the inn at Boston. My sister informed me that she had seen a fabric shop while I had been softly snoring on her, and we _had_ to make a quick stop to shop during our visit in Boston. I smiled and nodded, calculating how much fabric we could afford. What a nice diversion my sister provided me in quickly spinning how much money we could spend, instead of obsessing if Jacque was eagerly awaiting me, like I was of him.

By then, it seemed the more I struggled with trying to forget him, the more I would ponder over every word he uttered or the way the sun sunk into his black hair, reflecting a dark blue light, almost as deep of a blue as his eyes. That deep shade had become my favorite color.

Like a poorly made musket, all my attempts at ending my regards toward Jacque had backfired on me. The sparks of his essence were burning me, yet I loved the sting.

Still, vain or not, I felt I was strong enough to overcome my emotions. For the sake of everyone I loved, I had to . . . eventually.

A friendly young woman, who gave me a letter from Mr. Adams, guided us into the inn and explained to us that Monsieur Beaumont would wait for us in the inn's dining room, but that we were to take our time with settling into our apartment.

I read and giggled at Mathew's note that indicated he would not be dining with us.

> _I am far too drunkenly to ride my horse in my condition_ _in my condition._

I could smell the rum off the paper, and chuckled all the more when I noticed he'd written the date four times, March 20 in our Lord's year of 1775. I was glad that Mathew was having such a good time already. In a day, he would have to be back in Concord, clerking for the supposedly secret congress session.

With two relations of Mathew's already such staunch politicians, Mr. Samuel and Mr. John Adams, I wondered if Mathew would inevitably serve his country of Massachusetts by becoming a statesman too. I wasn't sure I would like to become a politician's wife. Mrs. Abigail Adams, Mr. John Adams' wife, the only female relative of Mathew's who openly liked me and talked with me—the other Adams women thought I was far too educated, like Abigail—told me that she didn't like the long days when her husband was so far away. But she was one that triumphed in her duty, and would be happy when her husband was making speeches in congress and happier still when he was at home.

I sponged my face from the travel's grit with sweet smelling rose soap that Hannah had remembered to bring. She did know how to pack for the occasion. She also had brought with her enough rose, honeysuckle, and apple blossom water to scent all of the brigades of redcoats stationed in Boston.

As I rinsed and baptized myself in floral scents, I washed away the thoughts of Mathew, of getting married, of responsibilities. I was in Boston, going to meet Jacque. I felt like giggling like Hannah and clapping and jumping at the same time too.

Before we dressed, Hannah insisted on pinning my hair up. I was a little frightened with all the teasing of my hair, but when I looked in the mirror, I confess, my sister had done a job that a less assuming Queen Marie Antoinette would be envious of with my black tresses waved, curled and poofed into perfection.

The dress Hannah had sewn for me was of the deepest, richest color of blue I had ever seen in silk, but I had seen many times in a man's eyes. I badgered her about where she had gotten the money for such a lavish dress, but stopped once I saw my reflection in the looking glass.

"My Lord, Hannah, I—I look like a woman!"

My sister chuckled and nodded. "Yes, you do look a bit more feminine."

"You're a miracle worker," I gushed. "Truly. Do you see me? I look gorgeous!"

For the last two weeks I'd been sure Jacque couldn't possibly have any attraction to a woman like me, because I had been so busy on my farm, getting ready for planting, which meant wearing muddy breeches and having dirt under my nails. Often I'd meet Jacque without checking my countenance. And there had been more than once that he'd rubbed crusty dirt from my cheeks. But this night my skin glowed as much as the silk of my dress, if not more. The dress was dark as was my hair, but my arms, shoulders and face were light—creamy. My eyes looked like two emeralds, shining out in the evening's light. I looked nothing like a woman who had just spent yesterday ankle deep in mud sprinkled with manure.

Hannah laughed louder as she pinched her cheeks. "Humility, thy name is not Buccleuch."

"Well, good grief, with a dress like this, I can't be modest. Look at me!"

"I am. Quit boasting, beautiful sister."

"I'm singing praise of your talents, Hannah. My God, but I'm stunning, thanks to you."

Hannah snickered and shook her head. Then, after I swallowed and embarrassedly bit the inside of my lip, I smiled and professed, "But I'm nothing compared to my most beautiful sister and mother, of course."

My mother playfully swatted my bottom through my petticoats and skirt. "Oh, please, Violet, you do not have your sister's flair for playacting. Now, go on, I want to hear how gorgeous you are, daughter."

"No. I'm done now. Thoroughly, humbly, done."

"Are you quite sure?" My mother's blonde eyebrows flicked up with her quick laugh.

I nodded and subdued my own giggle while continuing to bite my lip.

The same young girl who had given us welcome escorted us to the dining room. Everything was a haze until I saw him. The corridors to get to him, I don't remember what they looked like. What my sister and mother had discussed as we traversed to him, I would never be able to recall. I just saw him: Jacque.

He was talking and laughing with a small group of men at a table. He stood beside the table, and turned with a happy smile to my sister and mother. I had straggled behind, unsure of my own reaction at seeing him, and when I finally emerged from my sister's back, I saw him stagger—or was that my imagination? I could have sworn he swayed. His eyes began to darkly glow blue. His lucent gaze quickly skipped down my body, dipping for a brief pause at my chest, but then he closed his eyes. In another moment his face grew austere. Opening his eyes, he turned into a smiling statue. He righted himself and bowed deeply at us three. From the moment of his sway to his bow might have only taken a second, so it might have been only my dreaming mind, making up the scenario that he was so affected by me. I was deep in blue.

My mother was the first to curtsy, then my sister, and I did the same. Monsieur Beaumont made brief introductions for the men he spoke with. They were all French dignitaries of some sort, their titles were very vague-sounding, and I thought that was on purpose. Knowing Jacque to be a spy I wondered if the men were his employers. But it was while listening to them conversing to Jacque that I became alarmed. They were speaking about their King Louis, and how he wished to dine with Jacque. That, I did not think, would not be customary for a King and his spy. Unless Jacque was a _very_ efficient spy, which he might be. But then again, I'd guessed he was he was working in espionage.

It was while I was pondering over Jacque's skills that I overheard one of the men excuse Jacque in order to join my party and had called him, _"Monsieur le Mar–."_

Jacque had interrupted with a nervous laugh, and instructions that he was merely a son of liberty while in the British Americas. He bade his _au revoir_ , and ushered me to a seat, pulling at my arm aggressively as if he were saving me from hell's horse carriage.

_Monsieur le Mar—_ That was the beginning of a title. Jacque was not a mere spy. He was an aristocrat. No. Worse, he was a nobleman. _Monsieur le_ _____ was similar to calling Jacque a lord.

Good Lord.

A lord?

I could only guess that the _Mar_ —that had been interrupted—was for Marquis. Jacque was not just any nobleman, but a very high ranking one. I swallowed, not noticing at first that Jacque sat directly beside me, my mother and sister on the opposite side.

The room was a blur, and I held my breath. Jacque acted every bit a workingman with minimal laces worn on his person and no wig on his head, as well as rough calluses like a man who'd labored all the days of his life.

I shook, my mind twisting in thought, so I hardly heard my sister inquire about his health and how he liked Boston.

Monsieur Beaumont cleared his throat, and I felt him faintly touch my leg with his own, then quickly draw it away.

"I love Boston, of course. It is such a . . . always-moving, always-something happening town. Do you like Boston, Miss Hannah?"

"Oh, yes." Hannah smiled and winked at me. "I saw on the way in that there appears to be a new fabric store. I intend to strong-arm my sister into taking me there."

"Your sister does not like to go to the fabric stores?" Jacque asked. His dark blue gaze slid to meet mine, but then hurried back to my sister.

Hannah shook her head and looked down at her freshly poured red wine. "No. Not our Violet. Violet does not like to visit the shops."

"A woman who does not like to visit the shops? I did not know there was such a woman."

Hannah giggled and nodded, then pointed her freshly sipped glass at me. "That creature, the mythological non-shop visiting woman, sits right beside you, Monsieur Beaumont. She's the one blushing at our conversing about her as if she were not here."

I smiled and brayed a laugh, then held a napkin to my trembling lips, and tried again for a more dignified sound.

Jacque's leg touched mine again, even through all the fabric of my skirts. "Are you well, Miss Buccleuch?"

I glanced at him, feeling angry, betrayed. My mother and sister began bickering about Hannah drinking the wine, while I thought about aristocrats. No, nobility. Damnation, why was I irritated at that? Because, I had to admit, that I had thought he was something akin to me, my class, which was not much. I had envisioned him farming, and leaning against a moldboard plow, wiping the sweat from his brow, and petting his oxen. I had pictured a man who was born into certain hardships such as had I lived through, and I was vexed that I had misjudged him.

Peeking at my argumentative sister and mother, I made sure they were saturated in their conversation, then whispered, "Marquis, is it, Jacque?"

His eyes widened as if I had striped him naked in front of the crowd in the dining room. He held his breath for a moment, then let an eruption of air pensively invade his lungs and exhaled. His beautiful dark eyes became startling blue, and he checked around the dining room once more.

"What of titles," he whispered. His hand fluttered between us, then dropped when he confessed, "I . . . am only a man, Violet."

"Oh." I nodded exaggeratedly. "Yes, I'm sure." I pursed my lips.

His eyes cut to my sister and mother who seemed to be arguing now about a nice white wine versus a headache inducing red. Then, quite surprisingly, he clutched my hand, pulling it to his lap under the table—his callused palms holding my hand between his.

"I am. Truly. Just a man. A weak, suffering man. I am no different than any other."

Through gritted teeth, I whispered, "How can you say that? You're French royalty."

He shook his head, then shrugged. "On my mother's side and my father's I can trace my heritage back to two knights who fought in the first crusade for their king. What of that, hmm? Just because of my heritage I am given a title. _Non_ , I must earn my titles as Rousseau and Descartes and so many other philosophers have laid claim. I have to earn people's respect. I am no royalty that believes God granted me this life. _Non_. That is another man's philosophy to explain why men are created equal, but never treat each other as such. I abhor men who believe that Divinity seeks out titles for men, which is why I'm not popular in court."

I huffed a fast laugh, then shook my head, confused.

"Do you hate me, being born a nobleman?" His whisper was strained, filled with sorrow, almost to a breaking point.

With a tremulous hand, I reached for both of his that still held my one, and held fast while my sister and mother discussed the importation of silk.

"Never." My own whisper was ragged. "Of course not. I could never hate you. I love your speech. It rings of Rousseau and justice and, Lord, I love Rousseau."

He softly chuckled and rummaged for a grip on both my hands. After finding his hold, he whispered, "You were angry with me? For being a born a Marquis?"

"No." I looked down, noticing the way his flat stomach breathed rapidly. "Well, perhaps at first, but that was not entirely why I was . . . warm with you."

"You were angry with me for not confessing sooner—"

"We are each other's confidants, after all." I looked up into his blue, blue eyes.

He held a small, proud smile.

I looked away quickly, aware I had said too much.

His thumb began to rub the knuckle of my first finger. My God, why did that feel so wonderful? Something strong bubbled from very low in my stomach, and wrenched its way through to my chest and heart. I wondered if my corset would burst at the magnitude of my breath and how my breasts ached. My skin felt hot and prickly, but all the same, I so wanted Jacque to keep touching me.

"In time, I fear, I will confess everything to you," he whispered even closer to my ear, his hot breath on the naked skin of my neck.

My body smoldered and screamed of a fire within and branded my skin with his name written on my blazing cheeks. Still, I said, "You fear? Is my confidentiality in question?"

"Never, _mon ami_. Never."

"My goodness, but the two of you are enraptured in a deep conversation. Might I dare to inquire as to the topic?" My mother softly laughed.

I looked up and tried to retract my hands from his. Just before I was released from his grip, Jacque clutched at my fingers, holding me still.

"We were discussing the stand-off between the British Regular soldiers and the Salem militia that happened last month." Jacque said.

"Heavens, that does call for lowered voices then. Here, I was thinking Monsieur Beaumont was confessing some love poem in French to my daughter, but, of course, my dark-haired child discusses battles. So, what do the both of you think of that stand-off?"

I swallowed as Jacque's finger caressed one of my own.

He began with his voice very low. "There will be another search made by the Regulars for cannon and powder and any other firearms, Miss Buccleuch believes. I have to agree with her prediction; although, I worry about what may happen next."

Somewhere between caressing my fingers and my mother's inquisition I had lost my mind and the usage of my mouth.

My mother nodded. "We all worry about what might happen next."

She looked over at me, my fingers still tangled with Jacque's. She tilted her head and let her smile widen. Could she know that I was drenched in a glowing midnight blue? Could she see it encompassing me? I was so in blue.

# Torn to Pieces

Mathew met us at the opera house. He was still drunk, and when kissing hello he turned into my lips with his own. I started away from him, but he followed and whispered into my ear, "By God, you're beautiful. I've always known you to be the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, but even through all these years of knowing you, you still take my breath away with your beauty. I said beauty or beautiful a thousand times, didn't I?"

I chuckled softly. "Thank you for the compliments."

"Even with all the redundancy?"

I laughed again, then one of his fingers slid down my neck, and I felt as if I was betraying . . . betraying who? Jacque? Yes, God, yes. But I was engaged to be married to the man who was smiling down at me, his finger softly sculpting my collarbone.

"Mathew, we're in public," I whispered and purposely glanced around the vestibule of the stage house. My mother and sister looked at a painting of Lake Eerie, while Jacque turned slowly in their direction. Before he pivoted though I saw his nose flare, his shoulders hunch.

"Forgive me, my dear. I will try to keep my hands by my sides," Mathew said as he took a step away from me. "Try, but I'm in trouble with what you're wearing. That dress! 'Tis beautiful. Ah, there's that word again. What color is your corset?"

My jaw flew open. Then I darted another look at my sister, mother, and Jacque who had their backs turned away from Mathew and I.

"Oh . . . oh, dear." Mathew grimaced.

I glared at him.

"I'm sorry." Mathew smiled lazily. "Too many grogs at the tavern, dear. I forget we are not yet married and as such, I'm not supposed to talk to you in those terms. I do so want to marry you. Can we please marry soon? 'Tis been three years now."

"You're very drunk."

"Aye. And I love you, Violet Justine Buccleuch."

I shook my head and began to laugh again. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I'll behave. I promise, if . . . if you'll tell me what color your corset is."

"Mathew!" I slapped his large bicep. "I've never seen you like this."

He stepped forward again and pressed his lips to my ear. "I love you, Violet. I will 'till the day I die. I love you so much. I want you as my wife; I want you in my bed. I love you so much."

Icy-hot pain shot right down the middle of me.

I glanced at my chest. My breasts heaved against the restraints of my corset and dress, but I didn't see any blood. With my heart being torn in two, I could have sworn I would have seen blood pour from my chest. I wanted to cry. Never had I heard Mathew say such brutal yet romantic words, and it did affect me so. My internal organs quivered, and between my legs grew intense liquid heat.

But the feeling of being ripped down the middle made me want to search for Jacque again.

Damnation!

"Lavender," I whispered.

Mathew released me and looked down at me with his dark blond eyebrows cascading into confusion.

I arched a brow and peeped at my chest. "The color is lavender, a light purple."

"Oh!" Mathew smiled, then his eyes tripped to the valley between my breasts. "Oh," he moaned.

"You promised you'd behave." I pointed a finger at him.

Slowly, his eyes rose to meet mine with a half smile, sloppily thrown on his face. "Oh, yes, I will. Are you wearing black garter belts?"

In the theater Mathew sat next to me. Oddly, Jacque was on my other side, my mother beside Mathew, and my sister near Jacque. I felt as if I was at the tumultuous junction of two rivers. Drowning, I was, and I knew it.

Mathew leaned heavily into my shoulder with his chest and whispered over my face to Jacque. "You should have been there, old man. John Hancock was in a form I'd never seen before. This fiancée of his is driving the poor man to his whit's end. He was blathering on and on about how he can't seem to make a good impression on Miss Dorothy Quincy. I've never seen a man so torn to pieces over a woman. And here he is the wealthiest man . . . probably in England, not just the Americas."

"Haven't you?" Jacque whispered back as the orchestra prepared with a few pricks of their instruments and wails from the winds. "Haven't you seen a man torn limb from limb over a woman?"

Jacque's voice was deep and growled. His eyes flicked to mine.

My heart raced.

Mathew blew through pursed lips, making a noise similar to a novice trumpet player. He quietly snickered. "I just never expected a wealthy man to be like that over a woman. He could choose any woman he wants. He's young still, extraordinarily wealthy, a hero to many British Americans, and yet, he's heartsick over just one woman."

Jacque didn't say anything for a few moments. He balled his hands into tight fists. His knuckles turned white. From my periphery I saw that his face was tight. He had fine lines around his frowning mouth, those lines were also white. For half a second he wore a snarl, the next he plastered his face into serene stone, letting one black eyebrow remain elevated.

Jacque turned to Mathew, his breath hot on my face. "Perhaps love is not so easy. Perhaps Monsieur Hancock is just a man under all that wealth, and like all men cannot choose who he loves, but loves anyway."

Mathew nodded and smiled, looking forward while the curtains rose. "Ever the philosopher, you are. You and Violet share that in common, did you know? But you philosophers are wrong, love can be a choice. I've made my choice." He smiled down at me.

"What if she did not love you, hmm?" Jacque hissed. "Would you choose another, then? That would be the thing to do. Just trade her in, if she did not love you in return. Can your love turn off and on like that, _mon ami_?" Jacque's racing heart beat into my arm as he leaned more into me, staring at Mathew with coal dust in his blue eyes.

Mathew turned slowly to look at Jacque. The orchestra had begun their melancholy melody.

Mathew shook his head while looking down at me. "No. I would keep loving her, if she didn't love me in return. I couldn't stop loving her, even if I tried, even if all the world was against me, I'd still love her. I see what you mean, friend, and can only concede the point."

The sting of being torn apart, savaged in two directions was enough for me to look down at my chest again. No blood, but still I felt slashed in half.

"Now, what is this bloody play about?" Mathew chuckled into my ear.

I smeared a smile in place and tried to control my quaking voice as I whispered how _Inphingenie en Aulide_ was about the Greek King Agamenmon and his travels to Troy. But before the king was to leave for Troy, he was told he had to sacrifice his daughter Inphingenie. Achilles, Inphingenie's betrothed, would not let her be sacrificed and tried to rescue her. I stressed how it was one of the few operas with a happy ending, wherein the Goddess Diana changes her mind about Inphingenie being sacrificed, and blesses Inphingenie's wedding as well as her father's trip to Troy.

Mathew whispered loudly, "It's all Greek to me."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that even Jacque couldn't help but smile and chuckle.

That night, Hannah and I slept in one of the beds in the suite that Jacque had rented for us. In the apartment, there were three beds, more room than my sister and mother I were used to. My sister and I didn't want to be separated, so we slept together. We giggled into the night remembering the taste of the food, the costumes of the opera, and how many women swarmed to my sister to give compliments about our dresses. There had been comments about our dresses being similar to the fashion in Paris. I gushed how the design was all my sister's.

Several women obtained, almost through brute force, our card and residence in Concord. There were many promises to visit us and my sister's dresses. In our shared bed, we talked about how she could become a dressmaker. I told her we should run away to Paris where my sister would provide for me, so I could lay on a chaise and eat chocolate and get a huge bottom and have young French men tell me, _"Sans vous je ne suis qu'un ver de terre."_

"And what does that mean?" Hannah snorted.

"I am only an earthworm without you."

Hannah chuckled and squeaked, making our softly snoring mother suck in a gust of air that she let out in a groan. After Mother resumed her blissfully slumbering breath, Hannah asked, "And what is to happen to our fiancés when we go to France?"

"We'll leave all men behind. It'll just be us. We don't need a man's love anyway. We have each other."

Hannah giggled. "I almost believed you."

My heart stabbed in my chest with the dull ache that I had lived with for all of that night. In the next few moments Hannah found sleep, while I could not lose the restless, unrelenting pain in my head and heart.

The next day Mathew was back to Concord. He was exalted he had been asked to be in the caravan to Lexington with Mr. John Hancock and Mr. Samuel Adams, where the latter two were staying during congress. Mathew told me before he'd left that he would show much more sympathy for Mr. Hancock now that he understood better the wealthy man's broken heart, thanks to his friend, Jacque. Mathew encouraged me to speak about philosophy with Jacque, if I so chose. I nodded and let him kiss me on my lips before he went, hoping it would rub out any and all of my affections for Jacque.

All that day Jacque lent his company and his large Landau carriage so that my sister, mother, and I could tour through the town of Boston. And, no, the kiss had done little to staunch my emotions regarding Jacque.

Before we dined, I rummaged through the inn finding a pianoforte and solitude in a dark room with only one candle for light. Playing music reminded me of my father, and as such I hoped I'd gain fortitude or some kernel of wisdom as how to stop my heart's meandering to Jacque. I sat, looking at the keyboard, praying for guidance.

"You will play something?" Jacque asked, making me jump and thump at the ivories on the keyboard.

I clutched at my chest, laughed a high-pitched nervous neigh, while I wondered how he'd found me, how he'd soundlessly entered the room, even latching the door behind without my awares. Then I silenced the noise from the pianoforte. Jacque softly chuckled himself.

Further surprising me, he quickly sat next to me. "I'm sorry. I startled you. I keep doing that."

While shaking my head, the memory of our first meeting invaded, sending quivering blue energy through my body.

"I thought I was alone." I fingered the back of my neck, wiping the phantom feeling of his hands on me away.

" _Non,_ I am here. You will play something for me?"

His eyelids were ever so slightly lowered. The intensity of his dark oceanic eyes waved into my body, crashed into my heart. Oh Lord, we were alone in a secluded room with me falling even more in blue.

"I recall that you play too . . . Jacque?"

He smiled. " _Oui,_ but it's been a long time."

I nodded and looked down at his hands already perched on the pianoforte. "So, you'll play with me?"

He slid closer—his leg touching mine, hip to hip, elbows just kissing. "A duet, it is, then."

We found we knew much of the same music, and a duet was easy to choose. Learning each other's rhythms, our fingers danced on the white and black music-making steps, stirring blazes. We laughed as we created melodies, caressing and feathering each other's fingers until they seemed to burn with the music. The white keys turned pink and the black glowed like dark red-orange embers. Twice the inn's girl reminded us that it was time to eat. We paused before we left for dinner, both of us looking down at the pianoforte and our hands so close to each other's. Had a volcano erupted within my body? When we finally left the small music room, I was certain the pianoforte was on fire.

The French dignitaries sat at a table close to us as we ate our supper. I overheard much of their conversation. They said something to the effect that some French organization planned to finance the Massachusetts' Militias with more guns, powder, and cannons. Alarmed, I looked at Jacque who was sitting close to me again. He gave me a sad smile and held my hand under the table in response.

Mother and Hannah were discussing how Hannah's fiancé had finally written a note, letting Hannah know that he had been delayed because of his soldier's duties. Unfortunately, we had run into many Regulars who had been out strolling through Boston, relaying to us that there was little to do. My sister had the upmost faith in her fiancé, she said with her chin lifted yet trembling. My mother was soft, but trying to reason with Hannah about what kind of a man this Lieutenant Kimball really was.

"They don't know that you speak French," Jacque whispered, interrupting my mother's quiet, calming voice that was trying her best to be both nurturing yet firm with Hannah.

"Should you let them know that I understand them explicitly?" I said _sotto voce_.

Jacque squeezed my hand. "I apologize for their language. They shouldn't swear with women in company, even if they don't think the women can understand."

"I'm not offended by their imprecations. I feel like swearing right now too. Is France giving arms to my Bay Colony as a loan?"

"Not my government, _non_."

I huffed an ironic laugh. "Oh, aye, a supposed French _business_ is gifting arms to my colony. Is that supposed French business backed by your king?"

Jacque's thumb caressed my own, and instantly I forgot all language, even my own name. Through my stupor, he said, "You are so perceptive. I can guess that the arms are truly from my king. But I'm not privy to that knowledge.

"To be honest with you, I think France still winces from the Seven Years' War, and would like to see Britain stumble in her walk to glory."

I swallowed and let what he said filter through. "What you're telling me is that . . . France is instigating a war?"

Jacque shrugged. "I do not know the full intentions of my king and his cabinet of counselors. I know that on the one hand his majesty smarts at a war that ended when he was but a child. On the other hand, Louis is very fond of you British Americans. He likes your vigor and strength."

I smiled and felt my own hand tuck more securely into his. It was as if someone else had reign over my body, for I could not pull away from him.

Jacque's eyes seemed to be as glassy as Hannah's had been last night. He poured glass after glass of white wine for himself, trying to top my mother, my sister, and my cups, but he had been the only one keeping up with his serving. He turned to look at the men sitting close to us, laughing now about how American women loved to _snatch_ —my translation may be off, but something I vaguely understood to mean making love, except without the love. They were intoxicated as well. Jacque sighed and looked back at me. "Perhaps, I could convince you to become a spy with me, hmm?"

I swallowed wondering how much was jest and how much was the wine.

"I'm drunk," Jacque admitted in a coarse whisper. He looked surprised to find himself in his condition.

"I will confess at this table my darkest secret, Violet, while your sister is angrily telling your mother to keep to her own business. Do you want to know the secret that I try to keep hidden even from myself?"

He held onto my hand with both of his. One of his fingers grazed the inside of my wrist. "Your skin is so pale, yet you work outside."

"I keep myself covered, otherwise I'd burn from the sun. I get freckles anyway."

"Do you already have freckles? I see a couple on your shoulders." His gaze felt like fingertips, feathering along my collarbone. "They are so pale of color too. Do you have blue blood in you?"

I slowly nodded and glanced at my mother.

"Yes, I remember now." Jacque gave my hand a squeeze, then swept the back of his fingers against my wrist, causing flames to erupt low in my belly. He continued speaking without noting how where he touched, midnight blue danced on the inside of my skin. "Your mother, from Puritanical aristocrat blood, fell in love with her poor Scottish tutor, your father. What a love story. I find, now, that I quite like to hear happy love stories." He closed his eyes and slightly shook his head. Opening his burnished blue eyes, his jaw clenched and unclenched, then he cleared his throat. "But we were talking about something else."

I nodded again. "You were going to tell me a secret."

"Tell you a secret, indeed. A secret that is almost criminal."

I couldn't tell if he held one of his tiny mischievous smiles, or if his face, although momentarily, fell in dark grief.

"Criminal?"

" _Oui_. It should be a crime, _criminel_. You see," he paused for a long moment, then leaned into my arm, letting his nose touch my cheek as he whispered, "I am not a good man, not at all."

I let out the breath I'd been holding on a quiet chuckle.

"I am." He argued. "I am a horrible, horrible man."

I shook my head, smiling. "No, you're not. I haven't known you for very long, but you are anything but a horrible, horrible man."

"I am. My heart is . . . not good."

"Do you mean literally? Do you have health problems?"

Jacque barked a loud laugh, making my sister and mother stare for a moment at him. But then Hannah began to tell my mother how men of our younger generation were more lax with courting rituals, but it did not mean that the man was any less polite for being more modern.

Jacque leaned into my ear again, this time letting his nose caress the spot of skin behind my ear, turning me on fire. "I have told you before, _chére_ , that I don't have any health problems, save for not dying when I should have years ago. I should have never met you. I would have never known what—" Jacque leaned away suddenly. His face contorted in what looked like pain, but a second later he coated his features in cold stone then said after he sipped more of his wine, "Yes, I will make you a spy, Violet. Like my mother was."

"Your mother?" Yes, that's what I asked. I couldn't keep up with Jacque's spinning, circulating, tornado of a conversation.

He nodded and intertwined his fingers between mine. And the world stopped. The rest of the dining room disappeared. I saw only Jacque smiling at me.

He opened his mouth, and the world spun too quickly again.

" _Oui_ , my mother was a spy for her country. She was very patriotic. She married my father for her king." Jacque mumbled something that sounded like Henry, but then kept talking. "You see, the king thought there might be a coup and the masterminds of it were the nobility. He was right too. He was ahead of his time to get a spy to watch within the ranks of nobility and aristocracy. So my mother married my monstrous father. She died when I was ten years of age. I still miss her. Did I tell you, you remind me of her? Her determined spirit? God, I'm drunk. Don't you think it's a stroke of genius to make you a spy? Yes. Yes. _Oui. Mon Dieu, je suis ivre_."

Later, in bed with my sister, she conveyed how frustrated she was that Mother was trying to sway her affections away from her fiancé. After everything that Jacque had said during dinner, I actually did listen to her. I was gladdened to do so. It relieved my pacing mind. I tried to provide comfort, and told her I would speak with Mother myself in the morning, and remind our mother that just because some of the redcoats weren't busy didn't mean that all of them weren't drilling.

But when Hannah fell asleep, I was left with my own whirling thoughts. I was certain that Jacque was jesting about making me into a spy. I wasn't worried about that. I wasn't even worried that France was willing to pay for the colonies to strike up against their mother country. I wasn't worried about Hannah after she fell asleep. Perhaps I should have been. She was my younger sister who was looking to me for guidance. Only, I felt I had none to offer. I was obsessed with a man I wasn't going to marry. But what I worried about, what kept me awake that night, was that I wasn't alone in this infatuation.

Jacque had folded each of his fingers around mine possessively while he was drunk, and mumbled about the cruelty of this earth before we departed. _". . ._ _en vouloir à ce planète dès ça avoir à en vouloir vontre moi."_

That's what he whispered to my hand, saying his good night to me and that the planet had a grudge against him, and he would have a grudge against it. Strangely, just as I was fading into a restless sleep, I could have sworn he was with me in the very room where my sister and I slept. I sat up with a start and looked around the apartment. He wasn't there. I knew he wouldn't be. Nonetheless loneliness invaded my body when I couldn't make out the form I hoped to be there.

"What have you done to me?" I questioned the darkness. Settling back onto the feather bed, I closed my eyes and asked again, "What have you done to me?"

I dreamt of Jacque whispering near my face, " _Non, chér, que m'avez-vous fait_?"

_What have you done to me?_

# The Confession

"Mama, you don't know what it's like nowadays to court a man." Hannah said, keeping up with her argument. "You met Father so long ago—"

"In the dark ages?" my mother interrupted. "Is that what you think of me and my decrepit form?"

I silently chuckled at my mother's humor.

Jacque had, again, lent us the Landau and four black draft horses that had a very quick gait and would get my mother, sister, and me back to Concord in record time. Jacque himself was somewhere near on his black thoroughbred, riding beside or slightly behind the carriage, which opened enough privacy for my sister to convince my mother that her Lieutenant Kimball was in fact a courteous young man.

"No . . . I'm sorry to sound so insulting, Mother, I just . . . I love him. I do. If you'll only give him a chance—"

"Of course, Hannah, of course. I fell in love with your father when I was but your age, or was I younger? Since I'm so old I have a weakened state of mind. I can hardly remember a thing anymore."

I laughed louder, which earned me a quick glare from Hannah.

"The point is, my youngest daughter, I will gladly give this man any and all opportunities when I meet him. Your own father courageously asked for my hand from my brutish father, who only threw him out after. I would never do that to your man, but I _must_ meet him. That tradition in courting is invaluable and should still be obtained even amongst you younger people."

Hannah nodded, but began another tirade about contemporary living.

Then something sparked in my mind. I remembered how the group of French dignitaries had interrupted our party last night, asking Jacque for a fact about who was King Louis XIV's secretary. Jacque remembered surprisingly well who the man had been. All the Frenchmen chuckled and remarked how it was amazing that he knew his history so thoroughly, such a good French citizen to have memorized all the players of past courts.

My mind clicked. A cog finally caught and spun. Jacque, at dinner, had said his mother had been a spy for King Henry. King Henry IV? That was the last French monarchy with the name, Henry. Yet that couldn't possibly be true, because King Henry IV was from . . . Lord, King Henry IV had been assassinated, if my memory served right, in 1610.

That was almost two centuries ago.

Hannah interrupted my mind's flurry with her voice turned crisp yet slightly whiney. "I am not such a fool you think I am, Mother. And neither is my Mark. He has told me how he wishes to pay out his commission. He plans on retiring soon. He's even promised me he will become a colonist."

My mother was close to tears as Hannah's incense grew. Her chin quivered, and her shoulders slumped.

I half screamed, "I've decided I'm going to elope."

Both my mother and sister turned to me stunned. Their twin-like mouths open, two pairs of blonde eyebrows drew tight.

"Yes, I've made up my mind," I rattled on, "I'm going to marry a Scotsman. One that wears a kilt, not breeches. And—and he'll walk on his hands for me whenever I want."

At that my mother leaned over and swatted my knee then began to quietly laugh, while a tear stole from her eye and ran down her cheek. She had a white kerchief already in her hands and dabbed at her face while her chuckling grew. My sister didn't want to laugh, but soon enough she couldn't purse her lips hard enough to stop her own snickers.

"Mathew will be heartbroken, you know." Hannah shook her head with a small smile still on her face.

My mother chimed in, "Oh, he might understand. After all a man who can walk on his hands while he wears a kilt is quite a find. Not even your beloved father could pull off that feat."

"For you, he probably tried a few times." I arched a brow at my mother, who let her smile make fine lines around her twinkling hazel-blue eyes.

"He did try a few times." She actually blushed.

I laughed so hard my belly began to ache, and the whole while, I could have sworn I heard Jacque's laughter in my ears, bounce through my body, and invade my heart all the more.

Jacque said good-bye as we entered Concord and let the driver take us the rest of the way unescorted to our home, a little over a mile past the Common. He forced a note into my palm before he'd left. I couldn't open it until I would be in pristine privacy, which I knew would only be in the forest, and I'd just have to wait to read it until then, which killed me a bit.

When we arrived home, although evening was encroaching, Jonah thought it best to start his journey to retrieve his wife-to-be. He used one of our horses, and I begged him to take both for the sake of his new wife. But he thought it best to be more frugal and have the one. He'd have his wife sit upon the horse on the way back.

It was so romantic, what Jonah said and the look in his eyes. He appeared to burn from the inside out. Since I had gotten to know that feeling all too well, I let him travel even with the dark night approaching.

I changed into my breeches, boots, and a working shirt and ran into the woods as soon as I could. The sun was blushing, exercising her need to exude the last bit of warmth and color, forming a scarlet and orange horizon. It was just enough light to read the scrawl of Jacque's.

> _My dearest Violet,_
> 
> _Again, meet me again at our usual time and location. Tomorrow._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Jacque_

Neatly, ever so carefully, I folded the note, all the while my solar plexus exploded, and my body burst with Chinese fireworks. I felt as flush as the bleeding sky. My skin was so tight, I itched, prickled, fevered and such heat exploded from between my legs. I trapped the note to my breast where my corset held it close to my heart. Then I ran. I ran after the sky grew into the vast color of Jacque's eyes, and the midnight blue streaked then morphed into black, and still I ran. I ran while seeing the golden yellow owl's eyes scowl at me; I chased the whitetail deer who had tried to find a fitting place to retire for the night; I raced the deer, jumping over logs, flying through the air until, at last, my body could hardly move.

Prone, I lay heaving for air in the forest's tall grass, knowing at that moment I was the most alive I had ever been. Alive, yet not free.

Making it back to my family's house on heavy legs, I ventured toward the porch that was on the east side of our house, the side closest to the Concord River.

"Violet! Are you hurt?"

I halted, not sure who was calling out to me. The voice was deeper and rougher than what I recognized, but finally I saw Mathew's shadowed form chase out to me. The kitchen window glowed with stove fire and candlelight, and I could just make out Mathew's blond hair and concerned face.

"Mathew." I smiled and opened my arms wide.

He scooped me up and rushed me to the porch.

"No, please, Mathew, I don't want to be inside just now. It's such a lovely night. Let's enjoy each other's company outside."

He stalled and looked down at me, his face drawn tight. "Dear, you're drenched. Did you fall in the river?"

"No. It's my perspiration. I'm disgusting, hmm?"

His worried face cracked with a tiny smile that lay only on one side of his face. "No. I—no. This is all from your toiling away on your farm? I . . . I will employ someone besides Mr. Jones. You need more help on the farm—"

"I wasn't working, Mathew. I was . . . running. You can put me down. I know I must be revolting to touch."

To my surprise he didn't release me, but found an old wicker chair and sat with me on his lap.

"Do you remember Reverend Jonas Clarke from Lexington?"

I nodded, while Mathew caressed one of my arms. "Of course," I said. "He was one of the reverends who came here to meet me after I'd read Song of Solomon in the meetinghouse." I cringed, remembering the humiliation of reading that carnal chapter. "In my defense I was only eleven at the time and thought it was a metaphor for something I didn't quite comprehend, but reasoned since I'd found it in the bible it must be holy. All the same, I'm sure he thought I was a devilish girl."

"No, no, on the contrary I was talking to him, and told him who my fiancée was, and he wished me a hearty congratulations. He said he thought only a sturdy Acton boy or some man from the wild frontier would be able to win your heart. He remembers you well and fondly, if I do say so. He thought you were a force to be reckoned with, those were his exact words."

"Hmm, I'm not sure if that's a compliment."

Mathew's hand roamed up to my shoulder, then my chin, where he moved my face to look more directly at him. "I'm honored you are engaged to me, Violet. Honored. I know you don't see it, but you _are_ a force to be reckoned with, like a Noreastern storm. I love your fierce devotion to your family, and will do my best to provide for your mother and sister, so you never have to worry about them again, my love. I will give them a big house, and ensure that Hannah marries a respectable man. I want you to never worry again, my darling. I will take care of Mr. Jones too. Whatever you'd like me to do, I will. My darling, I know, I know how very lucky I am to have you. I love you—"

I interrupted his speech with a kiss. Mathew was such a good, good man. Perhaps if he would kiss me back, pour all his passion into my body, my soul would finally set fire to the right man, the man in front of me.

Releasing his lips, I shyly looked away. He hadn't returned my affections. I sighed, hoping Mathew didn't think me too forward. Then, he grabbed my face in his hands and with reckless abandon pushed his lips upon mine. So surprise was I that I'd my mouth partly open. To my complete astonishment Mathew slid his tongue between my lips. He had never kissed me like that, and at first I felt invaded, but then his tongue softened and caressed my own delicately. Just as I was figuring out how to reciprocate his kiss, he gripped at my waist, then my back, pulling me hard against him. With my legs sitting across him, he captured me uncomfortably, then, in a swift and I thought rather accomplished move, he laid his hands on my hips and lifted. Somehow my legs widened. I sat astride him.

He stopped kissing me, yet pulled me closer, carefully gauging my reaction. First his chest pressed against my own, then his stomach with mine, then . . .

"Oh," I whispered, very surprised, indeed.

In another quick motion, I was standing with him holding onto my arms. Other than his hands on me, not one part of him touched me, and my body ached to have his close again.

"I'm so sorry, my darling. I'm being . . . imprudent. Forgive me, please."

I tilted my head not sure what he was talking about. Forgive him? I liked whatever that was. Well, I knew what _that_ was, but I had no idea that if he pressed against me in that way, I would feel . . . oh, I quite liked that.

He kissed my hand then shook his head. "Again, I'm so sorry, dear. I'll . . . Tomorrow is the first day of the congress. I have no idea how long it will run, but I'll be here as soon as we can retire for the night. I'll make this up to you. I promise."

Could he sit on the chair again and let me try to get close to him? That was . . . well, it was much nicer than I thought it would be. It was just the tiniest bit of a rub, but, oh, the sensation was delicious, delirious, and even more fireworks burst through my body. But instead of asking for what I wanted—and really, how does a lady ask for a tiny more rub, please?—I nodded, tripped on my own feet, and smiled.

Farm work is a strange occupation. One must endeavor to work as hard and as fast as one can when the work is needed, but once the work is done there is such a lull, it's driven many men mad. Hurry, hurry, then wait—that is farming. The waiting requires much patience and the insight of a god. For one needs to be able to foresee the future and what weather can be approaching. It had been such a calm winter, and such a warm spring that no one knew what to do. It was getting towards late March, and usually the fields would have at least five inches if not feet of snow laying in wait to melt for April or as late as May. Planting did not come 'til April. Without Mr. Jones to help me cogitate if I should gamble and risk sowing some seeds soon, I found myself standing in the middle of my earthen fields, the very next day after I'd returned from Boston. The bright yellow sun already drenched me with warmth, and the blue sky had not a cloud in sight. The ever-enlarging Concord River strolled by on her merry way.

The usual time for meeting Jacque was around noon, but it was barely ten in the morning, and already I felt so restless that I wanted to tug my hair out and scream at the sky. My God, what was I doing? What was I thinking? Last night with Mathew had been passionate and sweet. Why then was I still going to meet with Jacque? Mathew was . . . he talked to me like I was his treasure. What woman doesn't wish to be cherished by her husband?

So why still meet with Jacque?

Simply, it felt like I'd be ripping off my own arm if I didn't.

On the western line of my family's land lay a small orchard. Two lines of peach, apple, and crabapple trees were strung together next to the stone and split-rail fence, which dispersed itself into the woods that lay on the hill to the north of my land. Above that squat hill was a larger one with even denser deciduous and evergreen trees called, Punkatasset Hill.

All the leaf bearing trees held tiny, minute buds in their branches that were just cracking and beginning to bloom. Spring was surely coming. I plucked a delicate apple branch and smelled the green growth. While fiddling with the branch's promise, I pondered if I should sow maybe a fourth of the field, then the gamble wouldn't be too great if the snow would come again and destroy the seeds in the ground.

I grew barley and oats; although, I was considering a nice red wheat. I loved watching the grain grasses grow. Some blades of grass trudged through the Massachusetts black-brown soil like the elderly, rounded and stooped; some cut through the dirt like a claymore, its dagger-like end shooting straight for the sky. Yet in the end, they would all grow uniform, Roman sentry hats of straight, proud, golden-red plumes of fruit waving toward the heavens and finally falling shame-faced back toward the earth when the grain was ready for harvest.

I was proud that I possessed the knowledge of how grain grows, pleased with myself that I knew how to irrigate from the swollen waters of the Concord. Becoming a farmer, I was rewarded with being able to see how my labor provided for my mother and sister and Jonah, but I had never selected it for my occupation. Jacque had asked me once what I would choose, if given the opportunity. I could only tell him that I, being a woman, would never be given the chance.

That twist of irony didn't get by me. I was walking into the forest that I knew as well as the deer and squirrels that vacated the lush land, and yet I was not free, while many men in Lexington, men of high rank and patriots to the core, were arguing how to gain more freedom from our mother country.

What would I do with freedom? Who would I be? I smiled as I thought about moving to Paris to eat chocolate and let French men coo over me. But I knew I didn't want that. Or would I? I smiled, shaking my head. If given complete freedom to choose my own partner in life, who would I choose? Mathew was so sweet and kind and . . . if I could renegotiate with Mathew, and still be considered a woman of virtue, would I ask Jacque to be mine? I laughed at the absurdity. Why even think of freedom when I knew my fate was handed to me the day I was born? Yes, it was best just to put freedom, true love, and fairy tales on a high shelf far away.

But why, then, was my heart tormented so? Why did I even have these thoughts? Why couldn't I just build a resistance against Jacque and wanting more from life?

Although it was too early, I ventured to where Jacque and I would meet. I let down my hair and inserted the natural design of the branch to loop through my locks.

My father had told me stories of the Fae people, and one wood nymph who fell so in love with her forest she married it. With my heart lingering on a man I would never get to hold in my arms, I didn't think marrying nature was as crazy as I had when I was a child. Now I understood why a fairy would want to cling to the copse. I had more fondness for the woods than farming. I knew more about how to walk without a trail than I did about grain. And I had always found such comfort in the trees outstretched arms, the soft floor of needles and leaves and occasional patches of grass or wild flowers.

But, again, why even think of such frivolous things when life pressed on me?

Would I spend the rest of my nights in bed with Mathew, yet during the days run to the forest, run to Jacque?

The sun's rays extended down on a boulder close to where Jacque and I were to meet, and I reclined on it, letting the warmth of the rock sink into my skin. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the peace in the yellow solitude. Somewhere above a tiny bird chirped a lazy song.

While in the woods on this stone, mayhap I could indulge in a different kind of destiny—in my imagination I could have a life where I had freedom to love Jacque, to imagine Jacque surround me with his arms. My hands fluttered to my chest, and I smiled. My chest rose and fell at a fast pace when I thought of his eyes scanning my neck, then his lids would droop slightly as he'd peek at my chest. My next inhale was shaky, which made me giggle. Then, I allowed myself the thought of what his hands would feel like instead of his eyes.

Placing my fingertips along my neck, I simulated what he might do. I bit my lips for the much needed touch—a kiss. Turning to my side, I laid still, one hand on my neck the other on my lips.

"Violet?"

I jumped, immediately landing on my feet but stumbling forward—forward momentum—toward Jacque.

Newton's second law of motion: force can be measured by mass and acceleration. What was the mass of my heart? How fast had my heart fallen for him? I staggered into his arms, Jacque's capable arms.

My own chest was flat against his, my stomach and hips curled into his too. My heart slammed into his ribcage, where I felt his do the same.

I looked up at him, my face under his chin. He looked down, his breath warm and quick.

"You're early too." His lips moved close my own.

I nodded as I possessed no real words to communicate. Odd shreds of philosophy and science whirled in my brain. If men were born with rights and certain liberties, what was I? If I was born into submission why did my heart—nay, my soul—wish to be free? Why, oh, why did I want to kiss him?

My arms pressed into his chest. My hands rested on either side of his neck. One of his arms wrapped around the back of my waist, the other held me higher, pressing me even further into him.

"Why did you come early?" Jacque's voice was low and tremulous. His eyes suddenly adjusted to the deeper, more lucid color I loved. Just as his eyes made the adjustment, he pushed me away.

Holding me at his arm's length, I noticed his chest heaving, his eyebrows cast down, and his nose flared.

I shook my head, wondering if he was angry with me. "I . . . I wanted to see you. I couldn't just wait—"

"Why did you want to see me?"

I kept shaking my head. "I enjoy our time together, as friends often do."

He slumped his shoulders. "Of course . . . _mon ami_."

"Is something the matter? Are you not well?"

"I am leaving, leaving Massachusetts, perhaps leaving America."

He said it so quickly I didn't know what exactly he had said, then I wondered if I had heard him correctly.

"No," I whispered.

He looked surprised with a tiny smile. "No?"

I blinked, completely shocked with myself too. I thought I would ask him to forgive my impertinence, but instead out of my mouth came, "That's right, I said no. You cannot leave."

He drily chuckled then shook his head. "Am I to understand this correctly? That you are commanding me to stay?"

I nodded, swallowed, and nodded again. "Yes. Since the Regulars had the standoff with Salem, all the militias in Massachusetts have been drilling for something similar to happen. They need your help and would not ask you to leave. I seriously doubt your country would ask you to leave either with all the tension building. Therefore, I can only deduce that you have not actually been ordered to leave."

Jacque didn't speak for almost a full minute, but then his jaw moved slowly, as if he had a toothache. "I did not say I was ordered to leave."

"You're leaving because you _want_ to? What could have happened that would make you want to leave?"

His naturally flared nostrils distended more, which I worshiped, but when he shook his head and let his hands strengthen in their grip around my arms, I knew I had overstepped his boundaries.

But in an instant the red anger was gone, and his eyes were diverted to my hair. "You have a twig in your tresses." He retrieved it, slightly pulling my locks too. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"

He soothed my hair, my scalp. I slightly shook my head, not wanting to do anything to make him stop touching me.

"Why are you leaving?" My voice sounded gritty and on the cusp of desperate.

"I must." He slowly retracted his hands from me.

I stepped closer, hungry for his touch, searching those dark, dark eyes. "You're not telling me something, and you promised me that I would be your confidante."

He laughed with a sharp, brutal tone, one side of his face lifting in a sarcastic smile. "Such a smart girl."

"Are you mocking me?" I heaved, and cursed myself as I felt the sting of tears in my eyes.

" _Non_. If anything I am mocking myself."

I shook, trembling not from being cold, and not from our strange enigma of a conversation. I loved him, and he was leaving me. _Yes_ , I knew I loved him. As much as I shouldn't have, I did love him. _Yes_ , I knew I couldn't have him be mine, but I could have him close, couldn't I? I could grow old while we talked in the woods. I could have my children with Mathew, but have our blessed dialogue in the wilds. Please, couldn't I, please, have this one thing?

I hit him on the shoulder, enough to make him take a step back.

"No!" I yelled, stepping closer to hit his other shoulder. "No, you cannot leave."

I was about to hit him again, when he caught my fists. I'd fought so hard not to let one tear fall, but Jacque hadn't. Two tears spilled over when I looked up at him.

He shook me as he growled. "You know why I leave. You know it."

"No, you cannot do this to me. I don't know what you're talking about."

"If I stay . . . I cannot stay. I am not strong enough."

I clutched at his overcoat, making fists with the fabric, slightly pounding my balled hands into his firm chest. "Find the strength! I beg of you. Please. I," I choked and felt two cold tears leave my own eyes, "I haven't asked for anything in—in almost three years time. Not one thing. I—I picked up the pieces after my da died. I started farming because we couldn't afford another hired man. I didn't complain. I just did it. I never asked for one thing, but I'm begging you, please, don't leave."

Another one of his tears cascaded out of his eye, trailed down his hollowed cheek where black whiskers skimmed the moisture to nothing. He shook his head at the suddenly gray sky. When had the sky turned so bitter?

"I cannot stay. I cannot."

I grasped onto his coat more. "Why are you doing this to me? I have no friends—"

"I am not your friend!"

His voice was so loud I flinched, as if his words had slapped my cheek.

He pulled on my arms, looking down at me with his brutal honesty. "You know. You have to know it. I've tried to hide it from you, but I know it's become obvious. I think even Mathew knows of my . . . emotions regarding you."

"Your emotions? You're not my friend?"

He actually chuckled then. "You know how to compute integral calculus with a stick for your pen and the earth for your paper, but you are unsure what I'm discussing? Are _you_ mocking _moi_?"

"No." I pushed on his chest with my fists.

"You really don't know," he said as he penetrated my eyes with his stare. "It is such a bizarre world, you know? You are one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, but you are by far the most unassuming. Such a strange combination. Lovely, but I know in a hundred years more time, I'll never meet another woman like you."

I swallowed.

He finally choked, "I am not your friend because a true friend would not have fallen in love with you."

# Consequences

"Forgive me. I tried to fight it." His voice rasped. "I didn't want to love you, not this way. I love Mathew like a brother, and I hate that I may be hurting him. _Non_ , with Mathew's good intentions and noble pursuits, I love him more than I did my own brother."

"You have a brother?" I sniffed.

"Had. Had a brother, _oui_. He was killed."

"I'm so sorry for your loss. I—"

"I don't want to waste time talking about him."

"But can't I still be your confidante? For this little amount of time I've got?"

"Ah, _chére_ , you are torturing me, you know?" His grip softened, but remained glued to my arms.

"No, I don't know. I want you to tell me everything. I want to know every tiny detail, so I can carry that with me when you leave me. I haven't asked for one thing, not even rain when I needed it. I asked you to stay, but you won't."

As tear slid down his cheek, he clutched at his heart with one hand, like I had inserted a dagger through his breastbone. He shook his head and we swayed, as if the earth had forgotten how to hold onto its gravity—back and forth, hither and thither. Jacque held his breath, and when he finally inhaled his face was mere fingerbreadths from mine.

He whispered, "Forgive me . . ."

I opened my mouth, but could not offer any words, as I realized his face was lowering to mine.

"Stop me, Violet. Stop me. Hit me again. Please, stop me."

I didn't.

His lips softly landed on mine. A miraculous warm breeze shuffled all the white, pink and lavender wild blossoms, creating a soft vortex to shelter us in our kiss. They sky wasn't gray. It was white and pink. All of nature was in love—the oak's green branches reached out to embrace us, the weeping willow ceased its crying, and the pine trees stood as sentinels for our kiss.

Jacque caressed my lips with his own, softly feathering mine, until I submitted and began to move my own lips with his. We melded our lips, then our tongues. It was me that forced my tongue in his mouth. In our kiss he clutched at my waist, at my back, pulling me tighter against him, as I pushed my body to his.

Suddenly he pulled away, huffing on my face. "What are you doing?"

I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry at his question, the absence of his lips on mine. "What am _I_ doing? What are _you_ doing?"

He looked baffled, bewildered, but he answered all the same. "I'm being selfish and taking from you and . . . _I'm_ in love with you. I fought it as best as I could—"

"As have I," I blurted, feeling wild and brave. So that was what a Noreastern storm might feel like. I did feel powerful for finally admitting my feelings, but I also knew what destruction I could wreak.

He blinked. His head jerked, then tilted, then jerked again. He began to shake his head as his eyebrows drew together.

" _Non_ . . ." He let go of me completely and stumbled away. Recklessly, I followed but allowed him a couple feet's distance.

" _Non . . . Serait-ce vrai_?"

I nodded just once. "'Tis true. I fought my . . . love as well. But, I love you, Jacque. I do."

I touched my lips. They were raw and swollen. His gaze took in my mouth too. Blazing blue eyes turned molten as I licked where he peered.

He fell to his knees. "The gods are cruel."

I bumbled to my own knees in front of him.

He reached for my face, my cheeks between his hands, looking at me like a man who had just been told he was going to die. "I didn't believe in love like this."

I chuckled, despite my pain. "Neither did I."

He wiped at my tears with the pads of his calloused thumbs. "I don't know what to do. I never thought you'd love me in return."

"I didn't know there was anything to do." Tentatively, I covered his hands with my own, and closed my eyes, savoring his touch to my touch. Moist heat surrounded us, the soft earth under us, the smell of dewy forest, his breath on me.

When I opened my eyes, I saw another tear fall and find a way down his face through his black whiskers that I wished I could caress with my own cheek. He held a tiny smile.

"Of course there is nothing to do. Of course. I . . . _Runaway with me_. I live in Marseille. It is very much like Boston—the people are hearty and love much, passionate people, like you. I live by the sea, where some days the ocean waves are filled with the same green color as your eyes. Would you like to live by the sea, _chér_? With me? I could buy more land for you so you could farm, if you wanted."

He sniffed as he wrapped his thumbs around my hands and guided them to his face. When my fingertips touched that sandpaper-like cheek, there was electricity around us, like a burgeoning storm.

"Are you serious?" My voice sounded unfamiliar, raspy.

He shrugged as he moved my palms to caress his neck too. " _Non_ . . . yes. I don't know." He let two more tears fall from his face before he ventured on with a quaking voice. "I never knew of this kind of love I feel for you. I've lived for what feels like forever some days, but I never knew this. My heart, I didn't know my heart could feel like this. I always pitied the people who acted on their passion. It always ended badly."

"I did too." I softly laughed. "I remember reading _Romeo and Juliet_ and thinking to myself, what complete idiots!"

" _Oui_ , idiots." Then his voice lowered, "And now _I'm_ the idiot. I love you, Violet. You're what I think about as soon as I wake up, and you're what I dream of at night. I had no ill intention when I asked you to meet me to talk of philosophy. Truly, I thought it would be so nice to talk to you more. Within one day's time, I knew I was falling. I should have stopped meeting you, for Mathew, but I couldn't resist."

"For Mathew," I agreed, "I should have stopped too, but I couldn't as well. For Mathew I shouldn't have fallen in love with you either. I'm very angry with myself for falling in love with you. I—I thought I could talk myself out of it. I thought it was just an infatuation. I thought . . . mayhap it is all just a dream."

I plopped down on the damp wood's floor. Fallen leaves were perforated in minute designs, reminiscent of doilies. As I sat on the forest's lace, Jacque scooted to sit next to me, an arm around my shoulders. I turned toward him, threading my arms 'round him, hugging him closer. But he pushed me away, barely touching my arms, while shaking his head. His eyes had grown insanely lucid. " _Non_ , I cannot be that close to you."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

He softly chuckled. "I am too."

What could we do? Runaway, making me the shame of my family? My sister might never be able to marry if I did something like that. And Mathew? I could never hurt Mathew. Could Jacque and I keep our love secret? Torturous and too much a risk. Again, if we were caught, my sister would have no future, and I knew I couldn't do that to Mathew, betray him. I knew my love for Jacque was betrayal enough. The choices were clear for us: we could hurt others or ourselves.

Jacque said into my ear, "I've never met a truly honest man. All men lie, except for Mathew. He talked about you minutes after our introduction, and I thought him some lovesick boy. But I grew to admire him and respect him—his passion for justice and you."

I pulled away enough to look at Jacque. His eyes lost that glow and were misted with moisture.

"My own brother despised me, but I loved him anyway. He was older than me—illegitimate. My father raped his mother, my father's chambermaid. Ah, nobility. It is grand, _non_?"

I blinked. His voice sounded like metal cutting metal.

He looked away, his frown growing. "I would never do such a thing. I never raped. I could not stomach the dungeons. I hated even the branding and the cutting off of fingers for silly, petty crimes. When I became marquis, I no longer permitted torture. Strange too, the crimes ceased. My father would never have believed it, if he had survived." He turned to me, pride growing in a small smile. "I have a small senate and a democracy in my lands. You would love it. Mathew loved it when I told him how I came from nobility but had become elected to rule my people. My people _chose_ me."

"Why did you not tell me any of this?"

He shook his head and looked down at our touching hips. "I was already in love with you, and I was afraid you would think less of me because I was born of nobility."

"Silly man, I would love you if you were a pauper or a king. Of course, oddly enough, I think I'd be more comfortable if you were a pauper, but . . ."

He laughed and sniffed his nose then sighed. "You love me? I can hardly believe it. I am elated _and_ in more pain than before."

"I do love you," I whispered as I tugged on his black satin ribbon that was already hanging in a loose knot at the back of his head. His black wavy hair danced into my hands once I freed it. "I love you. I love you."

He kissed me again. Within seconds the earth shook, but then Jacque pulled himself away. "I must halt. For once in my life, I worry that I will not be able to stop if I let you kiss me more."

I nodded, but still let his hair tickle the palms of my hands.

He hooked a finger under my chin. "I was trying to tell you about my brother, so you would know why I would rather live with this pain than hurt Mathew. Mathew is loyal and true. And my brother, Gérald, was not. I don't blame him for hating my father or me. And he did hate me.

"Long ago, I was betrothed to another, Josephine. I had been engaged to her since I was but three years of age. The night before we were to wed, my brother raped her. I think he was planning on killing her, had her maid not stopped him.

"Her brothers and father were in the manor, and by the time I woke and raced to the hall, I saw just in time, one of her brothers run Gérald through with his sword. My father, for his first and last act of love toward my brother, tried to defend Gérald, but was run through too. Josephine stopped her brothers from killing me also. I have not told another of my brother and father in so long." He paused, holding his breath for a beat, more than likely holding his painful memories as well. He finally exhaled and continued. "Josephine gave me my life, and I in turn gave her whatever she wanted. I don't think she ever wanted to be married, especially to me. I was young and liked fast horses and gave too much money to artists, poets, and philosophers. She was pious and pure. She wanted to become a nun. She was so happy living in the convent. She took care of orphans. She said she always wanted to be a mother, and being a nun she became a mother to hundreds. Such a happy woman, despite all that happened to her. She could have buried herself in the convent, but instead she lived, lived so happy, in love with all those little children."

I hated that I was jealous of the sweet, kind woman, but I was. "Josephine? She's still raising orphans in France?"

" _Non_ , no, she died long ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Now I felt ridiculous about my green, covetous tint.

"The point is, through all that, I learned how to cherish people who are good and kind. I thought, before I knew that you loved me in return, that it was better to wound myself than Mathew. So, I would leave, and Mathew would never know of my betrayal. I am enraged with myself for loving you as well."

I smiled as more tears threatened to fall from my eyes. "There is nothing for us to do with our love. If I left Concord, I would ruin my sister's future, and injure Mathew as well. If we did anything at all, we would only be hurting others." I laughed as tears spilled down my face. Jacque quickly swept them away. "I had no idea that love could be this malicious."

Jacque nodded and let his own tears fall, and I caressed them away with my hands. Somehow the weight of the conversation was too great, and we fell on our sides, lying beside each other, staring into each other's eyes, smiling and crying.

"Utterly, with all my heart I love you," he whispered.

"For the rest of my days, I know I will love you."

He smiled as he played with a strand of my hair that curled around his fingers, while another tear escaped one of his eyes and traveled over his long perfect nose. "May I cut a curl of your hair? To remember you by?"

It was that request that was my undoing. I moaned while I cried. He clutched me, pulling me closer. "I think it best if I leave, don't you, hmm? I cannot hide my love for you now."

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I did try to stop my wailing. My face pressed against his neck and shoulder. I lifted my leg, letting it slide up one of his. He startled and tried to push me away. Hefting my head from him, I laughed as I retrieved the _sgain dhubh_ , a Scottish small, sharp dirk within my boot.

"You thought me trying to seduce you?"

He smiled and nodded as I lent him the dagger. " _Oui_ , I thought . . . your leg," he panted, " _mon Dieu_. And you were just handing me a knife."

I softly giggled as I watched his smiling face. He cut a strand of my hair and then carefully placed the curls into his breast pocket. He gave me my knife, which I put back into my boot. Looking up at him, I noted how serious he had grown. His eyes were glowing that dark blue color, his nose flared as he looked down at my leg tossed on his hip. His hand trembled but slowly reached for my knee. I assumed he would force my leg down, but instead he closed his fingers around my knee, then let his hand slowly climb up my leg. I stopped breathing when he glided past my mid-thigh. A breeze began to softly encompass us again, fluttering white wild petals around, and carefully Jacque slide one of his legs between my own.

Our lips met again. With his other hand he cradled the back of my head. Slowly, we rotated. I pulled on his shirt, his shoulders. We rolled with what gravity had given us, until I was lying on my back with his body almost completely on me. Oh, the weight of him was enough to burn through my body with ecstasy. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

"I love you, _chér_." Then he kissed and bit down my neck. His hands caressed down my arms, finally finding both of my hands in his, interlacing his fingers between mine.

I arched my back, craving his lips and teeth, hungering his taut body on mine. The bliss—could this be real? "I love you. I love you. I love you."

And like a dream, he was gone. I didn't hear his feet fall on the forest's floor. I didn't catch sight of him retreating. Vanished, like a ghost, like a myth, he was no longer anywhere to be seen.

Had it all been a dream? A nightmare?

I clutched at my sides with a hoarse cry. A rock had gotten lodged in one of my fists, and I slammed that fist to the ground cursing love, nature, and anything else that I could think of. Finally, I opened my hand, noting how the rock had cut into my palm, then I saw the fine silver chain and the dark color of the gem smeared with my blood. I gasped. The jewel was the exact color of Jacque's eyes while he had timorously kissed me. I wiped at my tears and let the salty water wash away my red stains. Threading my head through, I strung the necklace 'round my neck. The gem hung in the valley between my breasts, over my heart. Yes, over my heart.

It was at least a week before I felt fully aware of my surroundings again. I had been vaguely aware of the day Jonah introduced his new wife, Bethany. I thought she was so beautiful with her light brown skin and pale green blue eyes and long black curly hair, gleaming silver in the candlelight. She was a little younger than I, but not quite as young as Hannah. She didn't utter a word when she arrived. She didn't let out any noise for many days, in fact.

I'd been in a numb stupor since that day in the woods, that day that Jacque left, and since he'd left the rains never ceased. Perhaps the weather was sympathetic to my mood and poured liquid gray down from the iron clouds, as if to say, _I know_. _It hurts_.

I was playing the melancholy piece by Gregerio Allegri, "Miserere." It was a piece I had been translating into pianoforte since I first heard it. Its intention was as a choral piece. But I never liked to hear my own voice, so for more than five years I had been working from my memory, trying to conduct my fingers to make the sounds of many voices in a solemn hymn for God to grant mercy.

I paused in my work, sniffing my nose, then jumped in my seat as I saw Mrs. Bethany Jones staring at me beside the pianoforte.

"He die on you?"

I blinked, not sure what Mrs. Jones was referring to. Her voice was deep and earthy and rang of her Virginian roots and shook me in its beauty almost as much as her finally talking.

"The music you make, it's for a man you loved. He die on you?"

I opened my mouth, but . . . in a way he had died. He was gone from my life. Gone, like a death. I was disturbed at my depression since Jacque's leaving. After all, we both knew hurting ourselves was far better than the alternative. I should have been gladdened to have made my selfless decision, proud of myself for such a feat, but I felt more lost and resentful every day.

"I see it on you. You got a broken heart, girl. You the color of blue."

I nodded. "Yes, I am."

Mrs. Jones nodded too. "I knew it. You sad in your heart. My mama, she died when I was six years of age. I still miss her. That made my heart sad, still is when I think upon it."

Mrs. Jones scrutinized me with her intense jade and sky blue eyes. She nodded again. "That man you got now, he's a good one—that Mr. Adams. He could mend your heart, ifn' ye let him."

I held my breath as I thought about Mathew. The constant sting in my eyes grew, and I kept blinking to fight it away. I looked to the ceiling in the tiny lean-to library and music room my father had built to accommodate the pianoforte. Then, finally, with one tear falling I admitted, "I thought my heart would always be broken."

Mrs. Jones shook her head. "Nah, it'll scar you, sure, but you'll mend. You made of tough stuff, aye?"

I tilted my head. "I am a Massachusetts woman." I smiled at my joke, while Mrs. Jones nodded and carefully watched me like one might study the town's crazies.

And for the first time in several days, I laughed.

Just a few days later, while I was plowing in the drizzling rain, Hannah surprised me by pinching my arm in her fingers turned vise grip. Her blond hair darkened with the moisture. Her eyes were wide and fearful. That made me stop my labors, as well as the fact that there was no way I could snare free from her grasp. Once immobile, Bess turned her glossy black head, but sighed at the sight of my sister.

Hannah ripped off Father's hat from my skull, let it cascade to the mud, which I almost objected to, but before I could my sister flung a worn butter-colored kitchen clothe over our heads. I hadn't noticed the sound of the rain while I'd been plowing, but with the advent of the thin sheet over the top of our heads the soft thudding of the periodically larger drops of rain sounded like a far away Nangusett drum, one of the rhythms the Indians played for mourning. Not saying one word to me, Hannah gingerly retracted a folded correspondence from her light pink dress's pocket. I noticed she wasn't wearing shoes, and the bottom of her dress was soaked in brown mud. She detested being dirty. As I was about to finally ask about her odd behavior, she slowly extended the postal letter to me, as if she were passing me the Ten Commandments, written by God himself on parchment.

Her voice wobbled as she spoke. "I've read it several times. You have to read it. Am I mistaken? Is he breaking off the engagement?"

# Lost

"It's because I have no real dowry, isn't it?" she almost lost her voice, but then daintily cleared her throat. "Why couldn't we be born into more wealth?"

I sniffed, wiped my hands on my breeches as best I could, then received the note.

> _2 April 1775_
> 
> _To my dear Hannah,_
> 
> _I love you, I do, but I've become uncertain about our arrangement—engagement. My mother has informed me that in my father's will, if I were to marry an American, I could not inherit my £5000. Of course, I'd still like to marry you, you're really the most beautiful woman I've ever known, but what would we do for money? How could we have a future? This weighs heavy on my mind, but my love for you does not die. Let us think together of solutions, my dear. Shall we meet again to discuss our future?_
> 
> _Your humble servant and fiancé,_
> 
> _Mark Kimball_
> 
> _First Lieutenant in His Royal Majesty's British 52 Regiment_

My sister had met this lieutenant only once in Boston when I was selling our barley. I thought it fine that they had exchanged cards and addresses, but they had only seen each other the once . . . that I knew of.

Sighing after reading the letter, I bit my tongue. His dead father wouldn't allow him to marry an American? Really? How ludicrous! What a liar. What a shirk!

I looked up at my sister's light blue eyes, bloodshot and now forming one tear after another that surfed down her alabaster cheek.

That shit. I'd break his nose, if I could find him at that instant.

I hugged my sister who was shaking from the cold rain and her emotions.

"I don't know what it means," I finally huffed. "But we'll figure it out. Have you written a response yet?"

Letting her go, I watched her large rounded eyes keep making tears as she shook her head. "No. Do you think I should?"

"Well, yes, but let's think of the perfect words, all right?"

"Violet, do you think we could get another loan? I mean one with less interest than mother procured after Da died. Something that wouldn't make us in debt for years, but something to show him we aren't completely without funds?"

I swallowed. If I could, I would have gladly gone in debt for Hannah, but this letter was not the voice of a gentleman. A man who already purposed marriage yet renegotiates? I was beginning to loathe this Mark Kimball.

"Monsieur Beaumont . . . he has money, Vi." Hannah had said his name not knowing how it would pierce me, break through all my bulwarks and stab at my already bleeding heart. She continued easily enough. "You could write him a letter, asking for a loan. He'd give you anything. I know. He's in love with you. Mathew told me he's had a death in the family, and has been holed up somewhere in Boston, drinking substantially. But even through his grief and drunkenness I'm sure he'd give you whatever you wanted."

Jacque was drunk? Why hadn't I thought of that? Drinking profusely might have been better than these last two days of running until my feet were bleeding. Running through rain and in the mud was very hard work as well.

I couldn't answer my sister. I wondered if I would ever breathe again. I wondered if I would just turn into a stone statue, staring in bewilderment at my sister. Then, to my rescue, I heard the happy chuckle of Mathew approaching.

"What are you girls doing out here in the rain? Hannah! Your feet! Look at your muddy bare feet, and your teeth are chattering."

He scooped her up in his arms, while laughing, and gave me a quick kiss on my lips. "You're next, missy!" He smiled at me. "I'm coming right back to haul you inside. You shouldn't be working on a day like today. You need to stay inside. Make Mr. Jones come inside too. I've brought some oranges all the way from Florida. We can eat the fruit and sit beside the fire and drink some ale. Oh, with Mrs. Jones too. Let's make Hannah read some Shakespeare."

Hannah wailed. "Mathew, put me down. Violet and I are trying to solve—"

"Hannah," I interrupted. "Mathew's here. He can help us figure out what to do."

At that Mathew looked at me with such open admiration, such ferocious affections, that I felt my cheeks blush. He smiled as Hannah finally cracked a small grin too and propped the yellow sheet over Mathew's tri-horned hat.

"Yes, you can help." She nervously chuckled. "Why didn't I think of talking to you first?"

"Yes, why didn't you think of me first, little sister? I have all the answers, of course." He laughed as he carried my sister away. Hannah began to speak animatedly, and my heart didn't feel so cold and empty as I watched Mathew bob his head at something Hannah had told him.

I had given Bess some corn and was trying to wipe her dry when Mathew rushed into the barn.

"Mr. Jones!" Mathew strode over to Jonah then shook his hand. "Mrs. Jones was inquiring after you. I think she wanted you inside for something."

Mr. Jones, like the newlywed that he was, raced out of the barn faster than a fox's run in a henhouse. I chuckled and shook my head.

"Was it Mrs. Jones wondering where Mr. Jones was or you wanting everyone inside on this rainy day? Why are you released from congress so early?"

Mathew walked to me, and kissed my forehead over Bess's stall door. "Have I told you yet that you look lovely?"

I pursed my lips and stole a glance at a strand of my hair that hung limp and wet over my left cheek.

"I like that wild hair as is, so don't glare at it anymore," Mathew chided with an enormous smile.

I couldn't help but softly chuckle again. "Or what? What can you do to me, Mr. Adams, that would scare me enough to stop scowling?"

Mathew arched his dark blond brows, apparently liking the challenge. "Why, Miss Buccleuch, I would kiss you in earnest, I would."

I feigned a frightened pose and fluttered a hand to my heart. "My, what a threat. Pray, what are my eyes doing now?"

Mathew laughed as I bore down on the black wave of hair in my periphery.

"Miss Buccleuch, I am a man of my word."

"I do hope so."

He kissed me over the stall's door. He'd been so busy with the Provincial Congress these last couple weeks that I hardly got to see him. When I had, he'd been so exhausted that most of the time he couldn't piece together coherent sentences. He'd fallen asleep on our couch several times. But this kiss would wake the dead.

His lips held the perfect amount of fierce ardor yet sensible fragility. His lips melded with mine, blended, then adjusted again. He placed a warm hand on my stone cold cheek, pulling me closer. I balanced on the stall's door that barely hung on from a homemade hinge, but it held me up as my head spun. The warmth from his face, from his lips made my body react. I wanted more. He slipped his tongue along my bottom lip, and I achingly opened to him. Gently he invaded my mouth, caressing, loving.

But it reminded me of another kiss, another's pent up passion.

Jacque.

My whole body winced in the agony of the memory.

Mathew released the kiss and looked down at me with a glimmer of concern. "Are you worried about Hannah?"

I nodded, relieved he couldn't see me interiorly, couldn't see my traitorous thoughts. I was a wicked woman. I may have decided to triumph above my affections toward Jacque and turn away from him, and him me, but my heart was still his. Jacque's name was burnt into my flesh, the memory of his touch invaded the sinew of my body making me weak and want to flop on the ground in tears. I was a turncoat of the emotional kind, the worst kind.

Mathew nodded too. "Yes, Hannah had me read the letter from her lieutenant."

I shook my head from my self-loathing and to appear to be involved in the conversation. I _needed_ to be involved. Hannah was in pain, and I was too busy in my own to pay proper attention. I exhaled, hoping in the breath to eliminate all my selfish designs. "Do you think him a fortune hunter? Surely, he would have known by now that Hannah has no substantial money for a dowry."

Mathew sighed himself, placing his long fingers on top of the gate. "I can only assume that's the game he's playing. I don't know. Much of the letter I believe to be a lie, but I'm not sure what he's trying to get from Hannah. Surely, I too thought of money first, but there is more to the letter that seems strange. I just can't put my finger on it. Jacque said he'd investigate this Lieutenant Kimball, but since he's had a death in the family, he's been . . . grieving."

I nodded and swallowed, hoping I wouldn't betray any emotion.

"Anyhow," Mathew smiled, his face urging me to be full of cheer too, "let's try to distract Hannah for the time being, until we know more about this soldier of hers."

I nodded again, thinking how sage the advice was, but not sure how I could distract the world's most preoccupied young lady from her own engagement.

"Mathew? You still haven't told me why you're out from congress so early? Here it is the mid-afternoon."

"Ah, yes, I was distracted with how beautiful you looked with your hair wet from the rain and a blush on your cheeks from the weather. Or could I pride myself that the rouge arose from seeing me?"

I smiled and let my fingers glide between his on the gate.

Mathew stared at our embracing fingers. "'Tis my distant cousin that is driving some of the other Provincial's away from congress. There was hardly half of the congress showed up, so we cancelled today's session. The missing congressmen all said they are sick, but we've caught those 'sick' men plowing their fields, like you just were, my love. I think they want to get away from Mr. Sam Adams' incessant talk about mustering an army."

"An army? An army for Massachusetts?"

"Sam's true purpose is to make a Continental army. He thought he could convince the Massachusetts' politicians first, then he'd go to the Continental Congress that is to meet soon in Philadelphia with the request to have all the colonies join in a unified army. He keeps raving about Salem, how it won't be the last time the Regulars come marching down the road looking for arms or to arrest him or Mr. Hancock. Lord, he is a vain man."

"Mr. Hancock?"

Mathew nodded. "I've never met a more self-serving individual in my life."

"Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that you were star-struck while talking about Mr. Hancock?"

Mathew's smile widened, yet his eyes looked down sheepishly. "I'm rather impressionable, aren't I?"

I pressed more into our interlaced fingers while grinning, not about to answer.

Mathew's own smile slowly faded. He looked at our joined hands. "Violet?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember a couple weeks ago seeing some redcoats riding their horses about in the country? Specifically here to Concord?"

I thought back through my haze of the last few weeks. "It was warmer then, not raining yet." I nodded. "Yes, I do remember. I believe they were all officers out riding their horses."

"Do you remember if they were . . . armed?"

"They couldn't be." I shook my head. "'Tis a rule of Governor General Gage's. The Regulars out on a holiday ride in the country cannot be armed."

Mathew's fingers tightened in their grip. "Yes, I know. But do you remember if they _were_ armed?"

I remembered riding in the black Landau with my sister and mother as we ventured to Boston. I'd asked for the window screens to be up as I adored how the sun felt on my skin while I slept. I woke with a start because Hannah had screamed something about soldiers in their bright and glorious uniforms. The officers stopped to talk to us in the carriage. Then I remembered wondering about a bulge at the side of a smiling captain, who kept staring at my chest.

I shook my head. "I can't be for certain. Why?"

"I'm sure it's only propaganda that my distant cousin is trying to stir, but he's called a few people in to testify to seeing those same officers armed. Like you mentioned, the officers cannot be out of Boston and carrying weapons. No soldier can. An enlisted man would get flogged. I don't know what they would do to an officer—make him drink his tea without cream for a day." I silently snickered at Mathew's sarcasm. He just continued though, as if on a mission. "I doubt that the lobsterbacks were really carrying pistols. Unless, of course, they were ordered to ride with guns." Mathew sighed, but then plucked one side of his face in a blooming smile. "I think, I hope, Sam's trying in any way possible to get his army."

I nodded, but couldn't stop my memory from recalling the smiling officer and the way something had protruded under that thick red coat very similar to the butt of a pistol.

"I've thought long and hard about a proper response to give to your lieutenant," I told my sister as I slipped into our shared bed later that night. "I think I know just what you should write."

Hannah giggled. What the devil was she laughing at?

One candle was lit to write a most reprimanding letter to Hannah's man. I had a piece of parchment on a small board. The ink and quill I placed on our bedside table when I turned to look at my sister's beaming face.

"Oh, I've written to him long ago, Violet. I couldn't stomach to wait for you to help me. And he's already written me back. I had his letter completely misunderstood. He's set me right though."

"When? When did this all happen? It's only been a few hours since—"

"I lied . . . earlier in the field. I had already written to him, but I didn't want to admit as much to you because the note I sent was rather juvenile, but it must have worked since he sent an instant message back."

I consciously relaxed my on-edge teeth. Setting the board and paper beside the quill, I gave my sister my entire attention, complete with high arched brow.

"Oh, I hate it when you look at me like that." Hannah squealed, nestling under the bedding and flinging the quilt over her head. She murmured under the covers, "Yes, I am wretched for lying, but that face you make . . . I feel as if I'm but seven years of age!"

I frowned down at the lump under the covers. "First tell me how you had all this quick communication today. Boston is still more than twenty miles away, is it not?"

Hannah peeked her eyes and nose over the quilt. "Not when you can travel by ferry over Charles River; it's only eleven miles then. All right, I'll tell you! Just quit with your eyebrow. I gave my letter to Dr. Prescott, who I knew would be traveling to Lexington to visit his Lydia Mulliken. Good Lord, when are they going to get married? Have you heard how late Dr. Prescott was returning from Lydia's house last week? Two in the morning, that's when Dr. Prescott finally returned from Lexington. I dare say what they were doing at two in the morning."

"Hannah!" I inhaled deeply, hoping for some desperately needed patience.

Hannah knitted her light colored brows together. "Dr. Prescott, upon getting my letter, said there was some silversmith in Lexington who happened to be going all the way back to Boston, and that if he hurried, my letter could get to my beloved within a couple hours time. That silversmith must have really flown because I got a reply right before we supped together. Didn't you notice my happy face?"

"I did." We had had a marvelous meal together. Neither Mathew nor I had to poke at Hannah to become cheerful. Not even once. "I just thought that you were happy being in the company of Mathew and the Joneses."

Hannah finally let the rest of her face emerge from the bedding with a large smile. "I was, but mostly I was so content because Mark had written me back, and hastened his letter to me. It must have cost him a small fortune."

"So now he's not worried about £5000? Why did he write such an un-gentlemanlike letter to you in the first place?"

"Violet, I appreciate knowing his worries." Hannah scowled at me, as if I was an errant child, needing my lesson in adulthood. "I don't think there was one ounce of un-gentlemanly demeanor in his letter. After all, we are going to be partners in life, and I need to know what is resting heavy on his mind. But he's not worried about the money any more, as his mother's visited their family's lawyer, and found a loophole within the will. My clever man will be wealthy and have me as a bride as well."

"All of this happened within just a few hours time today?" I asked incredulously. "Your lieutenant hears back from his mother who is in England within a few hours? The fastest sailboat from Massachusetts to England is more than three weeks. Hannah, some of this does not make sense, don't you think?"

Hannah's bottom lip trembled, but she lifted her chin. "He's promised me to clarify everything. In fact we are meeting soon. Very soon. And he will explain everything to you and Mother as well. He's promised me, and I believe him. Please, give him a chance."

I sighed and nodded. "Of course. I just . . . I'm now worried that you've given him too many chances."

Hannah took my hands in hers. "I know you say these things to me because you love me and want the best for me, but I think I've found it, Vi. I really believe I have found a wonderful man."

I squeezed her hands and felt my eyebrows descend to their less suspicious pose. "Very well. And when are we to meet this tall, gorgeous creature of yours?"

Hannah giggled. "Almost immediately. Sleep, and perhaps in the morning you might meet your new brother."

With another sigh, I hugged my sister, hoping she had more than just faith in her soldier, hoping she might find truth in him too. Then I let a worried sleep take me over into the true-to-my-country bitterly cold, black night.

I woke with a start. I didn't scream or holler. I clawed the air hoping to catch hold of some apparition within my dream that I forgot immediately upon awakening.

The sun was bleeding orange and crimson in the dark purple sky. Hannah was already gone.

My sister always woke before me, getting to the morning meal before I was even out of bed. Usually I would read late into the night, sometimes into the witching hours, which would make the morning a drudgery for me. But last night I'd just curled my toes around my sister's, like we usually did, and let anxiety-filled sleep wash over me.

I rinsed my face with cold lavender water that lay in our shared basin on our side table. I wondered just when my sister had had the time to fill the bowl with so much perfumed liquid. Then I saw my sister's elegant handwriting on the parchment I'd brought to bed last night.

> _3 April in ye Lord's year 1775, midnight_
> 
> * * *
> 
> _My dearest Sissy,_
> 
> _I am so very sorry to have been secretive with you. Nothing pains me more than to keep something from you, but my Mark thought it best to not tell until it was all done and said. I'm running away with him to elope. Mark has made all the plans, and my part was just to meet him, which I've asked him to find me at the heart-tree._
> 
> _I know you and I, dear sister, had made plans to marry together, but I couldn't wait. Besides, although I am now keeping a secret from you, I've known for the last month you've been keeping a secret from me—something that would postpone you from getting married, perhaps?_
> 
> _I'll come back to you a married woman, darling-girl. But I'll come back to you. I promise._
> 
> _Your ever loving sissy,_
> 
> _Hannah Beatrice Buccluech, soon to be Mrs. Hannah Kimball_

I shook as I finished reading. Did she really run away? How could she leave me?

In one move I flung my night chemise off. Binding myself in my stay took a few seconds longer than I'd intended, but soon enough I was in my breeches and work shirt. I fisted my sister's lovely written note and scrambled for my mother's room, but she wasn't there either.

I raced down the stairs to the kitchen. It was as silent as a grave. Where was my mother? If my sister wasn't starting breakfast, than my mother or Mrs. Jones was usually busy humming and stirring something.

As if she had read my thoughts, in walked Mrs. Jones with Jonah. They burst through the kitchen door laughing, but their laughter subsided the minute they saw me.

"What is it?" Jonah asked.

Should I tell them? Eloping, although my idealistic sister would think it romantic, was something that many in my hometown would frown upon, scrutinize about, and the gossip mill of Concord could ostracize my sister for her act.

Jonah reached for my arm, the one that held my sister's note now crumpled in my fist. He was the closest man I'd ever had to a brother. He was a good, cherished friend as well.

Timorously I gave him the wrinkled note. His wife, he'd told me, was only learning to read now that she lived with us. Bethany looked to Jonah for answers to my silence.

"Lord," Jonah whispered.

My mother rushed through the kitchen doorway, a basket full of eggs in one hand and our one goat's milk in a pail in the other.

"Violet, go get that ingrate sister of yours awake. I had to do all her chores this cold morning. A frost on everything, including my hands now. How ever did I manage without you girls to retrieve the milk from that sour old goat? And that rooster has got to go. Why, he tried to chase me down, black scoundrel, he is."

After she placed the pail and basket on the counter space provided by a large blue pantry, she finally turned to me.

"What is it, darling-girl? Are you not all the way awake yourself?"

"Mama . . ." I couldn't tell her. I couldn't say another word.

My mother's smile disappeared as Jonah handed her the note. He rasped to his wife what the note indicated as my mother read. She grasped at her heart as she finished the letter, seized her chest as if the emotional pain were physical, was a lynch tightening around her chest. Her child had run away, perhaps the pain _was_ physical.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I had been so obsessed with my grief at losing Jacque that I hadn't noticed my sister as of late, wasn't able to tell that she would rather give up her family and run to her mystery man than stay one more minute where she was being ignored. I had given up Jacque, love, for her! I had sacrificed, but it wasn't enough or mayhap it came too late. I'd been paying no heed to her, in a sense turning my back on her. I was a traitor in so many ways, and she must have sensed it. The strange line about postponing my marriage was answer enough that I hadn't been giving her the regard due her.

If I'd been a better sister than I would have protected her more, told her the dangers of eloping with a man she hardly knew. Their correspondence was every week, but still, what could she learn of a man through his letters? He could have lied about every detail, and she would have never known the difference. Why hadn't I talked to her more? Why hadn't I shared more of the world with her?

Because I'd been thinking too much of myself and my heartache as of late. Because, quite simply, I had betrayed every single soul I knew when I allowed myself to fall in love with Jacque.

Even admitting the plain truth to myself as I did just then, I also yearned for Jacque. How I wished I could lean on him at that very moment, have him help me figure out what to do, how to find my sister.

"Mrs. Buccleuch," Jonah interrupted my shame, "shall I go to Lexington and fetch Mr. Adams? He could help us."

My mother shook her head. "We can't risk having people know."

I blinked through the biting sand in my eyes. "He—he's going to be my husband, Mother. He's basically been a member of this family since I was eight years old. He wouldn't tell a soul."

My mother began to slump toward one of the chairs surrounding a long wooden table that I'd had every meal at since I could remember. Jonah helped her to a seat. My mother's eyes became glazed and she sat mute, looking out the thick glass of our eastern window, as if searching for Hannah. I guessed she was too overwhelmed to talk anymore, to think anymore. Her daughter had run away.

When Jonah straightened, I reached for his shoulder. "Yes, please go get Mathew. He could help. Do you think we should go to Boston to hunt her down? She doesn't state that that's where she's getting eloped, but I'd imagine her lieutenant can't leave Boston, even if to get married."

Jonah nodded, but it was his wife that spoke first. "My old master knows the admiral of the Navy's boats docked in Boston. I met the man on several occasions. I'm sure he'd remember me. I could ask him to help."

A tear of mine strayed from my eye as I realized that Mrs. Jones was not only offering her help, but to call upon a man she'd served when she had been a slave must have been a terrifying thought, but she easily volunteered. I knew that my sister had made her mark on Mrs. Jones. My sister was impossible not to love, not to adore. Hannah had already made two dresses for Mrs. Jones, and the first time Mrs. Jones had tried on one of the dresses she clutched a fist at her mouth and started to huff. My sister had raced to her, declaring that if Mrs. Jones didn't like it she could make another she'd favor more. After a few moments of gasping for air, tears sprang out of Mrs. Jones eyes. She had never been allowed to wear anything remotely like what my sister had made for her. My sister had rolled her eyes. "Why, this is just your cooking gown, Mrs. Jones. This isn't near the glamour I plan to prepare for you."

After that Mrs. Jones started to sing while she made us maple cakes.

And now Mrs. Jones was proffering so much. I numbly nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Jones. Let us hope that Hannah comes back before we have to play that card."

Jonah left after that for Lexington, and Mrs. Jones busied herself in the kitchen, while my mother kept watch out the window. It had been at least three years since I'd been very much help in the kitchen but I tried to assist Mrs. Jones. After breaking a bowl, she took my hands in hers.

"Honey." She'd never called me something so sweet, and it was as comforting as my mother had been when I was a child in need of a kiss and a cleaning after I skinned my knees. "You need to go outside. Go make those horses do some running. Plow the field again. Just do something with your arms and your legs."

I nodded and obeyed.

Slipping into my boots, I decided to run through the woods, north of the farm. It was still early morning, and indeed there had been a frost. The few sprigs of green grass that shot up around the porch of the house were laced in white. I looked out to the copse. The trees looked a dull gray. As uninviting as the forest appeared, I knew I would burn off my nervous energy by running.

I jogged past the black field almost ready to be planted, wondering what life would be like now that my sister had run away. Would she ever come back to me? Would her husband let her? What if I was all alone in this world now?

Of course I had Mathew, my soon-to-be husband, whom I never gave enough credit. I had taken him for granted time and time again. I'd betrayed him by loving another. No matter how I had ended things with Jacque, I'd let myself fall in love with someone other than my fiancé. Mathew was a good man, but I'd always thought of him more as an end to a means. I knew I _had_ to get married. There were no other choices, no other options. I was a woman who couldn't be seen forever in breeches, plowing her field. I was already risking so much because I didn't know how to fit into my station, whatever that was.

I decided, as I began to run in earnest, hardly paying attention to where I was heading, that from there on out, I'd love Mathew. He deserved my heart. He was a very good man, very intelligent, very giving.

But I needed my sister back. I needed Hannah.

She gave my life purpose, my lovely sister.

It was then that I realized I had started to run on the trail that led to the forked walnut tree, the heart-tree as my sister and I had called it when we discovered it as children. She somehow trotted through the forest in the dead of night to find her love.

I stopped myself suddenly, almost tripping in my haste to halt. From my periphery I thought I saw a gem as I ran by it, but now standing in front of it I recognized my sister's blue ribbon that she always wore with one of her favorite white dresses. It shone in the early morning light, making it stand out and the background appear dreary, dead. The ribbon went around her waist and she had a smaller matching one that looped through her hair. The ribbon was the exact same color as her eyes.

Picking up the limp satin, I noticed the chill on it. I threaded the fabric between my fingers until I came to a blotch in the material. A dark mark smeared my sister's ribbon.

Oh God.

I looked up, expecting an answer, but found only the cold forest. I searched the floor of the woods. Indeed, I found the track of my sister's silly shoes, because of their little heel that would make for walking through the copse difficult. I wondered if she'd taken a torch or lamp, for her tiny heel prints were strong and never veered off the trail. But soon enough I couldn't see any more prints. I looked up and around, searching, hoping. What darkened my sister's ribbon?

I kept walking toward the heart-tree, the tree of my secret meetings with Jacque, where I fell in love for the first time in my life, where my sister was going to start a new life. As I walked, I searched the ground for her tracks. Then I saw beside the trail the grass had been broken. It was a large area of grass that lay down and the frost had grown on the grass in an odd way. Did a moose rest here? I looked up. Then I saw one of my sister's dainty shoes. Empty of its owner, lying on its side.

My heart ascended to my throat as I raced to the shoe and picked it up. It was one of her best shoes, but still the heel was worn and painted over by my sister in hopes no one would know that I couldn't afford to buy her newer ones. I searched the ground for its mate and bent down to crawl on the frozen earth. What felt like an hour passed, but I finally found her other shoe.

As soon as I found the missing shoe I looked up at the tree, the loving tree. I saw her white naked legs first.

# So Cruel

Flying the rest of the way to her, I cooed, "Hannah, oh, oh, Hannah."

I knelt beside her bare body. Dried black blood covered her nose, mouth, neck and chest, and a little more of the blackness was smudged between her legs and stomach. As gently as I could, I reached around her arms and waist to pick her up enough to lay her head on my shoulder. Stilling my own breath, I waited for movement from her chest against mine.

Finally, I felt my sister inhale. I clutched at her corn silk hair and cried, so hopeful.

"I'm here. I'm here now, Hannah. I've got you. I'm getting you home. You're safe," I whispered.

Her clothes were close by, scattered and torn. She had indeed worn her beautiful white dress. She was going to get married in her most exquisite dress, but instead—I couldn't focus on what happened to her. Just to get her home.

She never opened her eyes, but painfully moaned while I tried to dress her. The dress was in shreds, but with the use of my coat, she was properly covered enough to gain some heat, I hoped.

I picked up my sister in my arms and began to walk as quickly as I could out of the forest. Cursing my arms within a few moments time as they were shaking, I knew I wouldn't be able to carry my sister the whole way back in my trembling limbs.

"Forgive me," I asked my sister's brutalized face, then rearranged her to splay across my shoulders, taking her weight in my capable back and legs, while I held onto one of her ankles and another of her arms. She let out a slight groan, and I begged her to forgive me again.

As we made our way out, I watched for branches that would reach out and further tear at my sister, but they never tried to slash into her skin. They seemed to slink away. The sun shone on the field when I emerged from the woods, and I saw in the far distance Mathew and his fast sorrel, Cherry. Both Jonah and Mathew must have beat records for running their horses so quickly, but I was grateful.

Mathew finally saw me and rode hard up the drive. He tried to keep the pace as he raced Cherry over the deep soil of the field, but it was wet and thick. Cherry's gait slowed to a struggling walk when Mathew leapt off his horse mid-stride and kept running toward me.

Upon reaching me, I could only utter, "She's hurt. Very badly."

Mathew didn't say a word, but pulled Hannah from my shoulders and cradled her in his arms. He turned and raced with her into the house. I don't know when, but I had somehow fallen after Hannah was lifted from my back. I tasted the earth and my own blood as I must have bit my tongue while I'd tumbled.

I tried to get up, wondering if any of this was real. I must still be asleep with Hannah lying next to me in our shared bedchamber.

But the next thing I saw was Jonah's face hovering over mine. He asked me something in a language I no longer understood, then picked me up and walked a few yards before I jumped from his arms, so I could fly to Hannah. I entered our bedchamber. She lay on the bed, our bed. My mother soothed Hannah with her voice. Mrs. Jones cried, and Mathew tried to remove himself from the room.

I entered as he left.

I couldn't understand the language anyone spoke anymore. Mother asked Mrs. Jones to do something then removed Hannah's white dress. My mother gasped at the blood. Her eyes reddened when she looked down at Hannah's body, and her lips trembled and crumbled into a wail. Mother's hands stretched to my sister but stilled before she actually laid a finger on Hannah, as if she couldn't move anymore, as if she thought that if she moved one more inch, made contact with the white skin of my sister's, then it would be real, this nightmare would become reality. Mrs. Jones shook her head, cried, but found a basin of water and a cloth to clean my sister.

"No, she's cold," I whispered.

Mrs. Jones said some kind of ancient words I didn't know, then shook her head again and produced a woolen white blanket. I helped her wrap my sister's body in the blanket, but then Mrs. Jones set to Hannah's visage to wipe it free from the blood. I heard Mrs. Jones humming a tune that Hannah had been singing for the last two weeks. Then I tucked myself close to my sister and nestled her under the bedding.

I pulled her into my arms, looking at her skin, so pale it reflected lavender and blue around her eyes and lips.

"Don't leave me," I begged of Hannah. "Please. Please. You can't leave me. You're all I have in this world. Please."

My tears fell on her beautiful blonde hair as I picked leaves from her tresses, and Mrs. Jones handed me our shared boar's bristle brush. I gingerly swept her hair free from the wood's debris.

My sister's lips were swollen to the size of a goose's egg, and there was a deep cut on her lower lip that looked like a black crevasse set in a perfect white setting. I kissed it.

"I'll ask the midwife for a healing salve. She has one that she says helps with cuts and wounds. We won't even know it's there in a little time. It won't exist." My tears fell on her forehead, where I wiped them away.

I reached through the blanket for her hands, and placed them in mine, warming them. Then I removed my boots and stockings and placed my feet on hers, trying to warm them too.

I settled my body next to hers and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I saw that Dr. Prescott was there. He gently inspected her body while I guarded her. He would look at me for approval before he examined any area. I clenched my teeth but would nod my head as he made his thorough investigation.

He and my mother cleaned the other spots of blood from Hannah. Her body had started to warm, and she smelled like lavender through the process. The doctor looked relieved, and said something to me, which, again, I had no understanding of.

The doctor covered her with the blankets. I wrapped my arm around her thin shoulders and let my feet be close to hers to absorb all my body's heat. I closed my eyes as I whispered, "I love you, Hannah, and I'll make this all better. I promise. I love you. I love you."

I woke in the dead of the night a few hours after Dr. Prescott had left. There were no noises in the house. Even through the dark, I saw color bloom on her cheeks—light cherry blossom pink. I cried and smiled. "I love you. I'll make it all better." I nodded as I promised again.

Looking just past Hannah, I saw Mrs. Jones sleeping on a chair. She laid her head on the bed, and had an arm protectively around Hannah's waist.

I left the bed, checked on my mother and a clock that let me know it was just after midnight, then crept out of the house. Mathew's horse was no longer tethered to the usual spoke.

I walked to the barn. With every step, I saw her, over and over again. Lying so pale against the frosty ground, her hands had been beside her head as if she had kept fighting even during her unconscious state. She had been so colorless, except for all that blood dried on her body. So much blood. The black blood, the white frost, the gray sorrow.

I would make it all better.

In the barn, I stored many tools on large shelves that reached up to the ceiling. I had to climb some of those shelves, but within a few seconds I drew down a tomahawk and my father's long rifle. I hadn't thought of bringing a candle to see, but my eyes adjusted to the coal-colored night that spilled into the barn through the open door. I checked the rifle first. It needed a good cleaning. It was over a month now since I'd fired it, the day I'd met Jacque. I winced from the remembrance.

The gunpowder was dry; I could tell from smelling the horn. The powder singed my nose, and I sneezed, then coughed until a tear escaped my eye. Angrily I threw the moisture away with the back of my hand, then fingered the tomahawk with my eyes burning. Both the tomahawk and Kentucky rifle were gifts from the same Mohawk family.

When I was a young girl I'd claimed Daganawida, an Indian boy and my closest friend, as my husband. His father and mother merely laughed as I dragged the tall boy around every time I would see him. His father and my father had become friends in Boston, since Daganawida's father was educated in Dartmouth, then Harvard, where he'd met my father. It was when I was six and ten that Daganawida no longer needed prodding to be with me, play with me in the forest. He gave me the tomahawk as a future wedding present. It was lovely with turquoise-colored leather thongs decorating the handle and a hawk's feather dangling from the butt, but the blade itself was where the craftsman had accomplished setting a Celtic band with an eagle's face. It was our two tribes coexisting, Daganawida had told me. He'd embraced me with a chuckle, lamenting how I'd finally won him over. His heart was mine.

His body and spirit were not. The following day Daganawida's father came to mine with the long rifle, a gift to pay for Daganawida's forced rejection. His father told my da that less than a generation ago he would have approved of the match, but with so much hostility between the Iroquois and English, he would only worry over our marriage. Daganawida was rushed north, far from me. I never saw him or his family again.

The tomahawk needed sharpening, and in the dark I found the stone that I used for the scythes during harvest. I grated at the ax, and found that within twenty minutes time I had a lethal weapon and a well-oiled musket. Laying the rifle on a counter, I let my fingers dance with the Celtic weaving, then the sharp blade of my tomahawk.

I threw it against the barn's door, then picked it from the wood.

I had been thinking only of my sister while I was with her, but now, as I stood in the barn, checking the tomahawk's blade again, I thought about the man who had raped my sister. It had to have been her lieutenant. No one else knew where she had been. He had lured her to him, like a monster would its prey.

While fingering the thin edge of the ax, I vowed to never let anything happen to my sister ever again. I would never let my sister out of my sight. I would protect her constantly. I couldn't let anything or anyone hurt her.

The blade of the ax sliced into my thumb. Pleased and bleeding, I walked to the barn's door and was stopped by something: a phantasm. One moment the door was empty, and the next Jacque was there holding me, clutching me, whispering in my ear.

"I came as soon as I got news, _chér._ I'm so sorry. I'll never forgive myself for what has happened."

"Am I dreaming?" I whispered into his shoulder, wrapping my arms around Jacque's neck instantly, even while holding the small ax.

He pulled away enough so I could see him shake his head as his fingers dug into my shoulders and back.

"You're really here? I'm not dreaming this?"

" _Non, chér_. I'm here with you."

My grip on the ax loosened, and I let the tomahawk fall so I could plant myself more firmly against Jacque's shoulder, his body. His heart hammered against my breasts.

"It is you." My voice trembled with the pronouncement.

"I'm so sorry, _chér_. I should have—"

I looked up at him. "No. No. Don't blame yourself. Please. You did nothing—"

" _Exactement._ Only today did I try to search for records of Lieutenant—"

"Don't say his name. Please." I placed my fingers over his perfect lips. He wrapped his fingers around my hand and kissed my fingers then my palm. His nose skimmed the inside of my wrist. "What did you find? It was him that hurt my sister?"

"Yes. He came back to Boston bragging of his . . . actions." Jacque paused and let me sway against him, feeling too exhausted to stand on my own anymore, but he continued. "I found little about the man, other than he's not much of an officer. He commissioned his rank from a wealthy uncle who actually is a decent military man—a major in the Troupe de le Marines. But this man that has hurt your sister, this person is not a good soldier and many of his men call him the Liar Lieutenant, but that was as far as my investigation got before I received the letter from Mathew."

"Letter from Mathew?"

"He wrote to me as soon as he could, asking if I could be of service during your family's time of need. He asked that I place . . . that man under arrest."

"Did you?"

Jacque nodded.

I embraced him. "I can't tell you how much this means to me to have you here."

From my emotions, from our hold onto each other, from the moment, whatever it was, something overpowered him and he walked backwards, stepping onto the tomahawk. He still had one hand on my arm when he reached down and retrieved the ax. In the dark I could only make out his silhouette and the ax's silver gleam that radiated from the sliver of a moon and the dampened stars. But even with that little of light I saw his black brow arch.

"Protection," I said simply, answering the unasked question.

He lifted me with one arm around the back of my waist, while squeezing me to his stomach. My feet dangled in the air as he walked to the counter. After placing the tomahawk by the rifle, his free hand curved around my cheek as he set me back on my own two feet. "Ah, your rifle."

"I won't let him hurt her again."

He nodded. "Mathew couriered the letter to me, for me to be here, while he organizes a group of men to assist him to argue that . . . that man be charged and tried by your colony. I found the man and placed him under arrest easy enough. The British Army I do not have much respect for, but once I spoke of what he had done to your sister, he was jailed right away. Mathew is still arguing for a change of venue."

Jacque was referring to yet another mandate from the Intolerable Acts that ensured that the redcoats were to be tried back in England, even though the crime was committed here in Massachusetts. My sister's rapist would also be jailed amongst his own military, not set in a colonial jail.

"Mathew," Jacque kept saying his name as if just the word itself punctured his tongue, "will have an audience with Governor General Gage himself tomorrow. But already I have heard that your governor general is seriously considering trying the man himself. Gage does not completely agree with the law, and I think he will listen and do as Mathew will ask. Mathew has done so much for Hannah."

Indeed. And I was grateful for all Mathew was doing for my family, for my sister, for me. Very appreciative. Yet . . . how I ached to rest my head against Jacque's strong chest. I didn't question Jacque's knowledge of Gage's inner thoughts. I trusted Jacque, felt safe within his arms.

"Mathew is such a good man, Violet."

I nodded. "But I wanted _you_ here."

He sucked in a sail-ful of air and looked to the barn's ceiling. He kept swallowing, then, dropped his head and kissed me. I had been numb since I'd first read Hannah's note this morning, but Jacque's kiss exploded into me and all my emotions erupted. Tears spilled out of my eyes and felt bitterly cold. I needed his heat to invade my mouth, to find some kind of balance within my body, within my soul.

He lifted me off the ground, and it wasn't a thought at all, but I wrapped my legs around his hips.

He stopped kissing me. Looking down at me, he whispered, "I love you."

In the dark, with only the blade-side of a scythe of a moon in the inky sky, I took in his face. Surprisingly, I saw him well—his strong straight nose flared, and those piercing yet glowing blue eyes of his. Oh, those eyes, like blue fire pouring into my soul.

He adjusted his hold on me, and somehow held me with only one arm as his free hand traced the tiny chain that ran down my chest.

"You wear it?"

"Yes. It's over my heart."

" _Oui_. It is over your heart."

Then, I kissed him with my lips pushing into his, my tongue finding its way into his mouth. He moaned and walked me to a wall, my body learning all he could offer me. He suddenly stopped.

" _Merde_ ," he whispered, and gently released me to the ground. "I will make this right, Violet. I will make this right for you."

Then he vanished. I must have blinked, for he was gone. Only, my blue gem stood on the outside of my shirt, and I had several hundred pound notes in my hand.

"Violet? That you?" Jonah walked into the barn's open door.

I looked about the barn, thinking that I was surly going mad, except for the money in my hand and my body's fire slowly dwindling. Blinking, I looked around one more time.

"Violet?" Jonah's voice was soft as he touched my arm.

My eyes finally focused on him. He flinched as if he were looking at a Heron Indian warrior, instead of me.

He cautiously tilted his head down toward me. "Violet, let's go back to the house." Jonah's hand smoothed my shoulder.

I nodded and folded the money into my pocket. The tomahawk was neatly placed beside the rifle, and I placed the rifle back up on the shelf, but gripped the ax and walked toward Jonah.

He swallowed.

"Protection," I said, not at all recognizing my voice. It was deeper, rougher, and detached.

"Good thinking, Violet, girl. Good thinking." His voice was tempered with down-like comfort. "We'll go back to the house now."

He guided me out of the barn with an arm looped around my shoulders. "I think it's good to protect yourselves, Violet. I really do. Luckily, Miss Hannah doesn't need any more protection from that man."

"He's in custody. I know."

"How you know that? The letter from Mathew only just arrived?"

I never answered, but kept walking.

Jonah whispered to me before we entered my home, "He'll get his justice, Violet-girl. You just wait. He'll get his justice. Mr. Adams is on the job. Ain't nothing going to stop your Mathew Adams."

I stumbled in my footing, but as I forced my gaping heart to go numb, I kept marching back to my sister.

Hannah progressed little as the days passed. She never opened her eyes. She didn't move, and the only noise she made was when the midwife had to funnel a tincture down Hannah's throat in the effort to remove any pregnancy. We also forced beef tea down her, which seemed to help with her color. Both Mrs. Jones and I cried while my sister spit and coughed as we compelled the broth down Hannah's throat. The midwife, Mrs. Smith, had given us many salves: one to rub on her body and face to help her forget the pain, another to heal the deep gash in Hannah's lower lip, and another for internal peace. Mrs. Smith had gotten the recipes for the salves from her mother's, mother's, mother's and so on. It was rather Pagan, she had warned me, but I knew she said that to absolve herself from the panic of judgment that a couple generations ago would have killed her, or at least locked her in the scaffold, for offering my sister the kindness of topically treated inner peace. I'd asked Mrs. Smith to concoct another large batch of the stuff, and shoved twenty pounds in her hand. I'd do anything to get my sister back to me. My lovely sister wouldn't or couldn't open her eyes, even with the pleasant combination of potions that smelled exquisitely of comfrey, chamomile, and mint. Mrs. Jones and I kept washing my sister with lavender, rose, and apple blossom water. It was my method of willing my sister to open her eyes, knowing how she loved the scent of herbs and flowers.

The doctor performed a bloodletting after four days had passed with no movement from Hannah. He was very happy. He said her blood appeared to be thicker than he thought it would be and stronger. When the doctor asked me to dispose of it, I couldn't throw her blood out like it was dirty water. I cried into the bowl. I cried and cried and cried.

My mother found me beside the barn, my tears rolling down my face, and began crying herself. It was Jonah who finally took care of the bowl full of blood and tears. I lay with my sister daily. Jonah did all the farm work, but there wasn't much to do other than to wait out the April rains. Mrs. Jones had baked petite cakes for Hannah, each day hoping she would open her eyes and eat the sweets.

If I wasn't with my sister in our room, I was in the barn. I stared at Bess and the horses. My sister liked the horses. Beautiful creatures, even though ours had no breeding of value. But they were both bays that would run to the ends of earth for Hannah. I wept while I stood in their stall, currying their fur. Strange, but they seemed to understand. The mare with the darker coloring would let me hang on her neck and cry as long as I needed. Her brown eyes would find mine with sorrow filled in them.

Sometimes, I would find the spot where I had clung to Jacque. Did I imagine him completely?

No. I'd paid the doctor and midwife with the money I'd found in my hand from that night.

If I wasn't with my sister or letting the animals comfort me or staring at the spot I might have imagined Jacque, I indulged in a fantasy. Nay, fantasy isn't the right word. It happened innocently enough, this daydream. Mathew had told me how he made sure to have a different regimental officer quartering Kimball, since Kimball's own colonel hadn't been jailing him at all, and had let the rapist wander around Boston at his own whim. That was the first I had allowed anyone to talk about my sister's rapist, and it made me think about him. I knew so little, but could visualize a tall, blond man with a smirk for a smile and that dreaded red coat. Mathew spoke about Kimball's possible punishment: to hang in the gallows in London.

My father had allowed me to hunt with him at eleven years of age, but killing an animal was for food. Killing a human . . . I had never thought of it before. My father had tried to shield me from viewing capital punishment. But being raised during a time of war, I had seen men dead from a musket shot or hanging from trees. They were French allied Herons and Delawares, being picked apart by crows. Horrific, and I had nightmares for weeks about the dead men dancing a jig in the air with bones for fingers and toes, and hollowed black pits for eyes.

What I felt toward Kimball was murky, cold, and vicious. I wanted to see him twisting at the end of a rope, practicing his own death dance. Or to be pierced with bullets, blood oozing from his gaping wounds. Sometimes I envisioned my own hands punching his face, until it no longer existed. I saw it clearly and maddeningly—a nose broken, a jaw dislocated, an eye gouged. I saw blood, black blood, all over a man.

My father would tell me that murder was a barbarian's path, but I had never claimed to be Quaker. Perhaps I was too weak of spirit to stop my visions of seeing Kimball dead, or too barbaric. Of the philosophers I adored, they abhorred violence, yet many, like Locke for one, did write that one could defend oneself. I was sure my sister had. Her fingernails were broken and there was blood crusted on many of them. Not for certain, but I'd thought that blood was her abuser's. But crime, sickening violence, had been committed anyway. Punishment by England's law was death for a convicted rapist. But, Mathew had informed me, many courts in England—sixty percent, he'd said—pardoned rape. This, I thought, was indignant, yes, but what boiled my blood was when Mathew had given me a copy of the laws pertaining to rape. Why the legislature had decided upon a death penalty for raping a woman, especially a single woman, was that she would be deemed worthless after a rape. In other words, her property value was erased.

I wanted to break something. I wanted to break Kimball.

Five days from when Hannah had been assaulted, in the dark cocoon that the night afforded, she woke, sucking in air like she was drowning.

"Hannah." I rejoiced.

"Violet," she croaked.

I began to sob, then twined my arms around her.

"Violet?"

"Hannah."

"I knew you'd be here."

"Yes. I'm here."

"Sing me that song."

I instantly thought of the song I'd invented when she was just born. When I had carried her around telling everyone she was my baby, that I was her mama.

> _"Hannah, baby mine, how I love you._
> 
> _Hannah, Hannah, love, precious one._
> 
> _Hannah, baby mine, how I love you._
> 
> _Hannah, Hannah, love, precious one."_

It was a simple song. I was six when I'd made it. Cradling her to me, I sung it over and over. Finally, my quaking voice made me stop.

"Why are you crying, Vi?"

"I've missed you, Hannah."

"It wasn't a dream, was it?" Her voice wavered.

I cried in response.

Again she sucked in all the surrounding air. I twisted my body into hers, holding her tighter. "I'll make it all better, Hannah. I promise."

She clutched onto me, her nails sinking into my skin while she fought for air.

"I'll make it all better, like it never happened."

"He . . . oh, he hurt me, Violet. He tore my dress, my pretty dress. I stood there like such a fool, astonished he would tear off my dress."

"I'll make it better."

"I stood and stared at him. I couldn't believe he ripped my dress."

"I'll get all sorts of fabric. You can make—no, _I'll_ make you hundreds of better, prettier dresses."

"It was my favorite."

"I'll make one just like it then."

She laughed, and it felt as if the sun were breaking through a Northeastern storm—the black clouds cracked open, and the sun pelted its healing rays down on us. "I love you, Vi, but you can't sew a straight line."

"I'll learn," I choked.

She quit laughing and returned to crying. "He hurt me."

"I know. I know."

"You were there, weren't you?"

"I—"

"You picked me up. I felt you. I thought I had died, and you picked me up and held me like a baby. Like when I was a baby. I thought it was heaven. I thought you were my guardian angel."

"I should have done a better job as guardian for you. I'm so sorry."

Hannah cried. "It was my fault. I never thought he'd—"

"No. It was my fault. I should have warned you, warned you there were men like that out there. My entire fault."

"He killed me, Violet. He killed me."

I wept and clutched at her. "No, he didn't, my baby sister. I won't let him."

# Promises

Each day Hannah woke with more color and her smile grew. I showered her with the wild flowers that were growing in the forest. I wrote her silly little notes and created stories, like I had when we were both children. I sang to her, which she might have regretted ever asking me to do, since my voice was nowhere as glorious as hers or Mrs. Jones's.

Mrs. Jones would spend hours with Hannah too, sewing and making lace and doing everything in her realm to make Hannah laugh.

A week after the incident, Hannah informed me that she wanted to go shopping for fabric, and if I wouldn't mind going with her. Two hours after she'd asked, I had the horses ready with shining coats and a clean wagon with fresh straw for my sister. I had also laid out my father's green and black plaids from Scotland, and wildflowers mixed with peach blossoms pinched into any crevice available. Waiting for my sister on our porch, I danced an antsy waltz in a green dress, while I waited for her to emerge from the house.

Hannah wore a dull brown gray dress she had once detested, but I wouldn't argue with her about her choice. Not today. In time, she'd wear her pretty dresses again.

Jonah drove all of us, including his wife and my mother, to the general store in Concord that didn't have a great selection of fabric, but would have to do. Both Mrs. Jones and I sat next to Hannah, one of us always keeping our hands on her while the cart jostled in time with the horses trot, and bounced even more from the holes in the highway dug from the heavy spring showers.

Hannah closed her eyes and leaned her head against Mrs. Jones's small shoulder. Spying across my sister, I cracked a smile at Mrs. Jones. She grinned back, yet I knew her smile, like my own, like my mother's and Jonah's too was a facial exercise to force our faces to show exactly what we dared not: impotent desperation. Around my sister I reached out for Mrs. Jones's hand. We clutched onto each other through my sister, holding our breath.

My mother hadn't stopped crying for a week, but now tried everything in her power to stop her tears on this trip, resulting in her trembling shoulders, quivering chin, and clutching at her handkerchief. She covered her emotions with a feigned sneeze or cough, but Hannah wasn't fooled. She pointedly looked at my mother and asked if she was coming down with a cold. Midway to Concord, my mother nodded and said she thought she was coming down with something.

"Do you think this is pretty, Violet?"

I nodded enthusiastically at the fabric Hannah extended to me.

She frowned. "Don't lie, sister. Besides, I want this to be for you."

I smiled. "Actually, I do like it. It's the prettiest gray. It's not really gray, is it? It's almost silver, like the breast of a pigeon."

"Nice description. That was lovely. You should be writer, Vi. And yes, it's a great blend, this fabric. It's a silk blend, so it's not as expensive as pure silk. It doesn't quite have the sheen of pure silk, but still, it's lovely, hmm? You can see in the sheen, an almost pearly shine of peachy-pink, don't you think?"

"Yes, yes I do. Now, that was a lovely description. Perhaps we both should be writers."

My sister's grin vanished. Hannah fingered the gray fabric then looked up at me, scowling. "Don't look at me like that."

"Like what? I was just worried I'd said something to offend you."

Hannah shook her head. "I hate it that you all keep looking at me like I'm about to break."

I left my mouth open, gauging what my expression was and how to change it. "I—I don't think you're about to break."

She studied my eyes. "No, you don't. You think I'm already broken."

"No. Never."

She stepped closer to me, clutching the silver cloth. "Well, then you're the only one. I know there's not one man who will marry me now. I know I'll never have the children I wanted. I know my life as I knew it is over. I _am_ broken. I am only a burden to everyone from here on out."

"No. No, Hannah," I cried. I tried to whisper, but the tears, I didn't try to cover. "That's not true. There are good men out there who would die to marry such a beautiful, talented woman—"

"I'm tainted now. I see it on everyone's faces."

"No." I struggled with my voice. It sounded thick and warbled, but I fought through to say, "You're not a burden nor will you ever be a burden to me. You're all I have in this life."

"You have Mathew."

I looked around the store while wiping away my tears. Mother and Mrs. Jones were a few yards away, talking about an orange swath of cloth. I swallowed and lowered my voice. "I'd give him up. I'd give it all up for you. Say the word, and we can venture to Paris where you can become a world-renown dressmaker. Or—or—Africa, I've heard the fields somewhere around Ethiopia have these five foot tall purple flowers. We could live in the purple flowers. Or Egypt, we could see the pyramids. We have the whole world, Hannah. We could storm this world and take it by force, if we wanted." I was clumsily jesting, smiling up into my sister's forlorn face.

"And go somewhere where no one would know my name or that I was . . ." Hannah looked deeply into the gray fabric. Her shoulders slumped and one lone tear trekked down her recently hollowed cheek.

"Yes." I clutched one of her hands. "We could go anywhere you'd want."

She sniffed and smiled slightly as she looked back at me. "Is there a reason you picked Paris first?"

"For dress making, fashion. 'Tis the city of fashion, I assumed. But I don't know. Is there another place where a dress maker could make money?"

Hannah's blonde eyebrows drew together tightly. "For fashion? That's why you picked Paris? Not because of Monsieur Beaumont?"

"He lives in Marseille, not Paris." I grimaced and swallowed. I shouldn't have revealed so much.

"Violet . . ." Her face changed dramatically. She had been so bitterly sad and angry, but now she looked at me with such fierce affection. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"There will be a time, soon, when . . . No. How do I say it?" Her eyebrows puckered. "You have always been so sound with reasoning. I never envied you for it. I'm sorry, but I pitied you instead—how you were always the most pragmatic person I'd ever known." She checked around the store, as if to assure herself no one listened. "You love him, don't you? You're in love with Monsieur Beaumont."

I began to shake my head, but I stopped. Heat blazed my cheeks, and I felt it drop down into my chest. I nodded.

"Do you love Mathew too?"

I nodded again. "I'm an evil woman. I don't know what's wrong with me to—"

"You aren't evil, sissy. You're human, after all. It makes me like you all the more, honestly. You've been like the—what are they called?—the Brahmin? Yes? Yes, like those people, almost inhuman with how you carried on after Da passed away—doing the work of three men on the farm, still spinning for Mother, and your only vice was reading your books until the early morning hours, going through candles like they were kindling. Not much of a vice, if you ask me. You weren't even reading any romances. Anyway, so you fell in love with a couple of wonderful men. What of it? Just—this is what I want of you—I want you to listen to your heart. Stop being so practical and start living your life with your heart. I know that may sound like especially poor advice, coming from me . . ."

"I would never think that," I blubbered.

Hannah smiled while tilting her head toward me. "I'm sure everyone else thinks I'm such an idiot, wandering off in the woods in the middle of the night to convince a man to marry me. But I have to tell you, it wasn't my heart that led me that night. No, it was . . . impetuosity. That letter he'd written about reconsidering our marriage, well, I panicked after receiving it, and promised to do his bidding, which included meeting him secretly. I knew better, my heart was telling me _not_ to go, but I so wanted to be married. Damn the consequences, I was getting married. Now, I'm not fit to be married."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"There are wonderful men out there," I pleaded. "I know it. Some men wouldn't care about . . . Some man out there would take one look at you and only think to himself what a wonderful, bright, and funny woman you are."

Hannah let a soft ironic smile capture her face. "I always knew you were a dreamer, underneath all the responsibility which you wear so nobly, underneath the breeches and the mud—under all of that is a girl who dreams of better days, of Fae people, and of men who wouldn't care that I've been soiled."

I choked and gripped her hand firmly. "You are not soiled. God damn it!"

Bless me, she actually laughed then. "We do have to do something about the swearing though."

I knew then that I'd have to figure out, even if it was constantly at my own expense, how to get my sister laughing for the rest of her life.

Short, quick days passed as Hannah made the silver gray dress for me. A few years ago, she had stopped using fashion plates and only employed her imagination and me as her mannequin. She made the bodice painstakingly, lovingly. The stomacher was the silver gray silk blend with black for sleeves and the minutest of light peachy pink details. The neckline opened wide, which I dare say I needed a neck kerchief considering. But, of course, Hannah insisted she wouldn't make one for the dress. She did so love dressing me scandalously. Oh, but it was hard to pay attention to societal fashion rules when one saw the pretty pinks that reflected silver in the right light, the silver gray that shone like pink, and all of it surrounded by black.

Pink-silver rosebuds interlaced around the hem of the sleeves and all the ruffles and around the neckline. Its sleeves ended just above my elbows where Hannah had the light silver fabric ruffle. It looked like a summer dress, a dark summer dress.

In a couple more days' time the skirt was developed. Usually, Hannah made the skirts full and wide with panniers—the hoop petticoat that would create a gigantic rounded expansion within a gown. But she had a different plan for my dress. She smiled vibrantly (and my heart rejoiced) as she explained that she was creating something that would revolutionize the fashion industry. The skirt flowed from the tight waist, but instead of puffing about, it slid down my body with fluid form. It was predominately black, but a silver gray triangle washed down the center, the slender point of the triangle met at my waist, at the beginning of the stomacher. The pink rosebuds pierced the skirt's silver gray with a criss-cross pattern in the center.

I tried on the finished product only a short time from its conception. Before I was fitted into the dress, Hannah made me wear my corset more in the fashion and cinched my laces as I exhaled out all the air in my lungs. For farming I would lace my own stay until my breasts wouldn't be a bother and not worry about my waist. After she began to sweat and huff from the exertion of getting me in my stays she measured my waist and rolled her eyes when she held up the number to me.

"Good Lord, you eat all the time, but have such a tiny waist." Hannah might have sounded like she was complaining or jealous, but there was a gleam of admiration in her eyes.

"'Tis just the stays. You laced me up but tight enough for me to faint."

She giggled softly while she shook her head. "What do you think of your new dress?"

It was a dark night, and I didn't need any silver looking glass to see my reflection, just the window. In my mirrored image, I saw that she had made the waist look like it disappeared into a black oblivion, and the pink details appeared to wave as if the tiny rose buds were alive and dancing on my dress. I looked like a dark otherworldly angel.

I swallowed in awe.

"Oh, Hannah." My voice shook as I spoke.

"Hannah, this really is your best work." My mother's voice also quivered.

"This should be shown in . . . amongst the Royals," I remarked. "Queen Marie would beg for your services."

Hannah just smiled.

"Miss Hannah, you've made Miss Violet into a princess," Mrs. Jones said in a tiny soft voice.

No one would ever think me a lady who dug my hands in the soil and could swear like a sailor. I did look like royalty.

"Let's do her hair." Hannah's eyebrows arched in excitement.

Mrs. Jones, we had come to discover, was brilliant at teasing. Being a personal slave to the woman of the house, she knew how to make hair gigantic, Virginia-style. She teased both my tresses and Hannah's. A little more than a couple hours later, we were all giggling at our gargantuan hair.

Hannah helped with Mother's locks. I would have never noticed she was growing so many gray hairs, if I weren't close to Hannah teasing our mother's tresses until Marie Antoinette herself would have approved. Mother's mix of blonde and gray looked distinguished, even if it was fluffed a foot above her eyes.

I made Mrs. Jones' hair enormous. Her hair was like black silk in my hands. I loved the kinks of her curls. It was so easy to tease, so malleable. It smelled divine too. She told me she washed it in a gardenia and lily potion her auntie had concocted. I loved the term _auntie_. I would find Hannah a good husband so a batch of children would call me auntie.

I had both my sister and mother smell Mrs. Jones over and over again, declaring her the most exquisitely scented woman ever created.

We were drunk by then—quite drunk. Every year we made batches of beer and hard cider, and mostly used the hard cider for special events. Someone, I think it might have been Hannah, thought that my trying on a dress that I wore for more than a couple hours merited getting into the special brew. I got the very best stuff I could, a mixture of apple, a touch of peach, and honey cider, and we couldn't seem to stop drinking the delicious beverage.

It was an unusually warm spring night, and we had the doors and windows open. With our colossal hair we all were chuckling in the parlor.

"Did you hear that?" Hannah asked. She didn't let us answer. "A cricket. Summer's fast approaching."

We all listened to the sound of the insect. Sure enough, there it was serenading us. "That's beautiful," I whispered as I leaned my swimming head on Hannah's shoulder.

"I love the sound of that. It's like nothing else," Mrs. Jones said.

I nodded. "I also like the sound of summer storms, how the wind whistles through the barley and oats' grass, making the grains look like waves in the ocean. Green waves. It's so . . ."

"It's like another world, you know," my sister finished for me. "Instead of the ocean's blue gray waves, we have green yellow. Instead of violins, we have crickets. It's another world that many scoff at, calling it simple. I used to be one of those people." She took a quick sip of a breath. "But now I see how complex and elegant it is."

It wasn't her words, but her voice that had turned soft and wistful. Only too much so. It was like slurping down a cupful of freshly sugared maple syrup. I wanted to cringe, but tried to grin at my sister for her poetic sentiments.

Looking down at my dark silver and black dress, I didn't want to take it off. If I could, I would have slept in it. Perhaps with getting so intoxicated, I would get my wish, and just fall into a slumber wearing it. How had Hannah done it? How had she known exactly what I was like on the inside and shown it on the outside?

"Your father would have been proud of us, girls. We drank four bottles." My mother chuckled. By then, Mrs. Jones was just considered another one of my mother's daughters.

Mrs. Jones leaned her own head on Hannah's other shoulder. "We done good," Mrs. Jones whispered then hiccupped.

"We done good," my sister and I repeated. Then we all laughed.

"What are you women doing?"

We struggled as one to turn toward Mr. Jones's voice.

"We are getting drunk, husband," Mrs. Jones retorted.

My sister and I buried our heads closer, trying to hide our giggles as Mr. Jones walked in to get a better look at us.

"What happened to your hair?" he asked.

We then couldn't hold back and burst forth with peels of donkey-like laughter.

It was the happiest moment I'd known in so long. I clutched at my sister suddenly. She hadn't spoken of running away, but at every opportunity I spoke of Philadelphia, Quebec, Paris, even Madrid. I spoke a little Spanish, why not?

She would smile every time, and I hoped that with enough persistence we could move. Why not just leave? Why stay here? We would, of course, take the Joneses and mother. I could figure out how to escape Concord with the little money I had and run with my sister wherever she wanted.

Maybe Hannah didn't want to get married any longer or have children. So what? I'd adjust. If Hannah wouldn't have children, then I didn't want any either. As long as I had my sister, I didn't care about any of the other details. I had my sister.

I had my sister.

Mr. Jones swept Mrs. Jones up into his arms and carried her out of our house complaining that he loved his wife so much. Then, I noticed Hannah while she watched Mr. and Mrs. Jones. All I saw was a bone-crushing sorrow. I panicked and wrapped my arms around her and pulled her up the stairs to our chamber. She complied with a sad smile.

# Murder

When I opened my eyes the next morning I was surprised to find Hannah lying on the bedding, fully dressed, her face pale, but smiling.

"You seem so happy when you sleep," Hannah said.

"Do I? Frankly, I'm not feeling the most gay right now. Good grief, did you knit a cape for my tongue this morning and put it on?"

She laughed. "We drank too much."

"Aye, that we did." My voice was as low as a man's and raspy.

"A strong cup of coffee cured me of feeling like my tongue was as fuzzy as wool." She pulled a cup and saucer from the nightstand and carefully handed me the aromatic, heavenly brew. I noticed she had poured my cup of coffee into my mother's finest bone china with the little painted details of an English garden bordering the tips of the porcelain. It was the sole reminder that my mother had once lived in very different circumstances. It was rich, decadent, and usually hidden. I briefly wondered about the cup, but my head throbbed, making any coherent thought incredibly difficult.

I sipped the perfect cup of coffee. "Ah, Hannah, it's so good, but sugar and cream? I'm not sure we can afford this."

"Oh, Violet. Relish the moment for what it's worth. What's that saying? It's French. Um, _carpe diem_?"

"Exactly, _carpe diem_ —to enjoy while one can. But I believe it's Latin."

Hannah rolled her eyes. "You believe?"

"All right, I know it's Latin and was first written by Horace. Happy?"

Hannah quietly chuckled. "Perfectly."

I sighed, thinking about my day and began to groan. "Oh, I have so much work today."

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm going to plow the rest of the field, then I might sow a little of the oat seeds. 'Tis so early this year, but—"

"It's the beginning of April. Don't you usually get to planting by now?"

"Not usually, not until later in April, often May. I'd risk too many frosts and snow if I planted earlier, but perhaps not this year."

"Perhaps this will be the most fruitful year in a long time." Hannah's face oddly paled even more, and it seemed she struggled with her grin.

It chipped away at my heart to watch my sister's face try to act so happy when I could clearly see something else. I had to get her to laugh again. "That sounded dreadfully like a toast. We toasted too many times last night."

My sister's sweet face made yet another attempt at a wide grin, but instead she appeared either disgusted or . . . heart-broken. I should have asked which, but, heaven help me, I wanted to run from the constant anxiety I'd been feeling since . . . since—

When I glanced at Hannah, at the shadows under her eyes, her blue eyes turned gray, it was like watching a young sparrow in a blizzard. As much as I wanted to do something for the tiny shivering form, I wasn't sure what I could do, but moreover if anything would help.

Powerless and angry at my inability, I struggled to get out of bed. "I'd better get to work."

Suddenly Hannah embraced me, hard.

"I've never told you," she said in my ear, "at least never told you enough, how I love you, how I think you're the most beautiful woman, how I love your strong spirit. Violet, listen to your heart, please, for me, do this?"

I swallowed and nodded as I wrapped my arms around her thin neck. "Of course, Hannah, of course. Thank you for the compliments, but I haven't told _you_ enough how beautiful you are."

She pulled away from me, yet clung to my arms.

I couldn't stand the bleakness in her expression, so I babbled. "You, why, you are the reason why men created myths like Helen of Troy. Because of you, women like you. You are perfect. And the fact that you are so talented. Ah! It puts the rest of us women to shame."

Her smile jerked into place. "Good grief, Violet, but you can get so sentimental. I had no idea." Hannah's voice cracked through her own smile, tears standing in her eyes.

She gave me one more squeeze around my arms.

I wish I'd have clung to her. I wish I could have stayed in that moment. To give her one more laugh at my expense or to just stay and watch her lovely face, so full of pain, give me one more crooked smile. But I left, and never had that instant back.

It was an hour past dusk when Jonah came to gather me for our evening meal. I couldn't make out his face in the oily dark, but I knew it was him. The clouds hung low to hide the moon and stars, but there was just enough scarlet sun to make silver pink etchings in the black sky. I had already let Bess back into her bin to eat her dinner, but wanted to restack some of the stones for the fence.

"I'm late. I know, I know," I called out to Jonah's still shadowed yet familiar form. "I've been trying to hurry, but I keep managing to smash my fingers in the rocks. Damnation, if I don't have flat fingers, I don't know what I'll have then."

I hefted another stone onto the pile, then straightened and turned toward Jonah, pushing my hand on a crook in my back and trying to work it out.

I stretched. "I don't know if my back will ever be the same again either. With the planting and sowing and rock pushing, I'm liable to get a stooped back. Someone has to invent a machine that will plant for us. Won't that be something?" I laughed and noticed that Jonah hadn't moved, hadn't chuckled, hadn't said a word.

"Jonah?"

"Violet," I heard him whisper quietly, so quietly.

I knew that tone, why a voice could sound like that—it sounded of savage, senseless pain. I reached out for him with one of my soiled arms.

He rushed to me, and embraced me. "Violet."

I began to wail before he told me.

He tried to comfort me as he whispered the brutal words. "Violet, Hannah . . . drowned . . . I'm sorry."

"No!" I screamed to the black heavens.

"Mr. Brown found her a couple hours ago. Said he . . . went fishing. Found her in the river." I crumpled under his words.

No! No. I couldn't believe it. Wouldn't I be able to tell? Couldn't I know on a spiritual level that my sister was . . .?

I don't know how, but I was suddenly back in my family's house, in the kitchen. A lapse of time I have no recollect for. Mrs. Jones was screaming and throwing pots and pans. As soon as she saw me she raced to me. She embraced me, my body, my still alive flesh, sinew, bones, muscle and the little fat that I was. But I didn't feel her body's warmth against mine. I didn't feel her comfort wrap around me, like the quilt that Hannah and I shared in our bed.

Mrs. Jones, Bethany, looked crazed and feral. Her hair was free from its braided bindings, and waved long to her mid-thigh. She had torn at her clothes. Frayed seams opened to reveal bloody scratched arms. Her lips too were punctured. She had blood on her teeth.

"Baby girl gone, Violet. She gone." Bethany didn't so much make a statement but to ask me, Was my sister truly dead? I had no answer to give, no words, no knowledge. I'd be able to tell in my heart, wouldn't I?

I shook my head, icy wet tears shocking me as they fell from my eyes onto my cheeks, down my neck, collecting in my men's shirt collar. I couldn't live without my sister, no matter what may be fact, I couldn't live without her. She was my heart, the darling of my soul.

"She. Gone." Bethany wailed.

She reached for my hair and shook it free from its pins. She pulled at my shirt's sleeves. They tore away. I saw Mr. Jones try to stop her, but I shook my head.

Mathew came through the kitchen door that moment, and it was then, witnessing his anxious face that I knew my sister had died. He rushed to me. I tried to scream, but no noise emerged.

Before Mathew could reach me there was a soft thud in the kitchen, and everyone turned to see my mother who I hadn't even noticed lay crumpled on the floor. Mathew scooped her up in his arms, and my mother, whom I'd always thought was such a tall, strong woman, looked like a tiny, broken bird in Mathew's large arms.

It was her suffering that broke my own.

"Her chamber, please," I croaked.

Mathew nodded and strode toward the stairs that lifted to the bedchambers. I followed, noticing that Bethany trailed me. Turning my head toward her, I stumbled behind Mathew and my mother. Bethany caught my hand, and we walked to my mother's chamber together.

Mathew laid my mother on the bed, then Mrs. Jones and I covered her in her blankets. Mathew closed the curtains around my mother's four-post kip, while Mrs. Jones and I remained inside, making sure my mother was comfortable in her attire. Although I knew she would never feel at ease in her own skin ever again. Her daughter, my gorgeous sister, was . . .

Mother didn't say anything the whole time. Her silent tears never ceased though.

Both Bethany and I held onto my mother's hands until she slept. We knew she had fallen asleep because her tears stopped. Mrs. Jones and I looked at each other and left my mother's bed only to cling onto each other's hands again.

"We're going to take care of Miss Hannah, Violet?" Bethany asked while we stood in the slim hallway that opened to my mother's chamber and to Hannah's and mine. Who would sleep with me from now on?

Mathew ascended the stairs while I thought of Bethany's question. Yes, Concord had an undertaker, but I needed to take care of my sister one last time. I'd left her this morning, because I was a coward who had run from her pain, her fatal sorrow. I'd fled as if her agony was something that would infect me too. I would never forgive myself for not staying with her, not giving her more attention, not letting myself be susceptible to her anguish.

I nodded at Bethany. I would take care of my beloved sister one last time.

By the faded yellow light of a glimmering whale oil lamp Mathew held, I noted he wore thin white lines down his face, stains of dried tears, while he captured my waist in one of his arms.

"Darling, I'm so sorry," he whispered.

I couldn't find any appropriate words. Language was becoming impossible again to understand. I walked across the hall with his support and opened my chamber, but fell to one of my knees as I tried to walk through. It was too heavy, the thought that I would have to sleep alone. I would no longer have my sister to share my chamber.

Mathew lifted me from the floor, then sat me on his lap on the bed. My chin bobbed to my chest with the overwhelming urge to sleep. If I just slept, then I might be able to wake up and have all of this been a dream. My sister's . . . Lord, no . . . death be nothing but a dream. Not reality. This couldn't be real. My body ached for Hannah's embrace. My arms were so tender to the touch that I felt like my skin had turned into thin paper, easily sliced into. Tender, paper-skinned arms that wanted to hold my sister one more time.

Why did she leave me?

Why? I lived for her. Why wasn't that enough?

The undertaker had my sister. I couldn't let my sister lie in the undertaker's house alone. I needed to be with her. I needed to see her for myself. I needed to dress her and give her a blanket to always keep her warm. I needed . . .

"Bethany," I rasped, "Hannah and Mother were working on that lavender dress, the one with the white rose buds. Did they finish?"

She shook her head. Jonah stood behind her, holding her around her shoulders.

"We'll finish it tonight then."

She nodded. "I'll go get it."

The dress was one of Hannah's most amazing creations, only the dress she'd just made for me competed with its design. Her lavender dress had ruffles about the sleeves and the panniers, which were perfectly feminine. The lavender fabric—lavender was my sister's favorite color—held a sheen, like silk often does, that glimmered of blues, pinks, and whites which matched the embroidery. The whitish roses were large and a focal piece to the dress. Mrs. Jones and I labored over the dress for a couple hours before it was done. Hannah would have been so proud of me as I actually, finally, stitched in straight and proud lines. Oh, Hannah . . .

What happened to you?

God, you were right, Hannah. He killed you.

Bethany and I walked down to the undertaker's house, hand in hand again. Mathew had warned Mr. Robinson, the undertaker, that we were coming, and my lovely fiancé was waiting for us with candles and tears in the doorway of the cellar, the space where my sister lay. He extended the candleholder to me. In one hand I held a basket of dried lavender and mint and a few bundles of the wild flowers I'd picked for her while I'd toiled about our farm earlier. Also in the basket were other mixtures for the dead: salt, white clay, and coins for her eyes. I reached for the candle with my free hand.

"Darling, would you like me to help?" Mathew asked.

I shook my head and tried to say thank you for the thought, but I wasn't sure if words formed out of my mouth any longer. He nodded anyhow and left as Bethany and I walked through the threshold of the cellar's door and down the steps. The floor was cold dirt; so bitter I felt the freeze through the leather soles of my boots.

We approached where my sister lay on a long table.

Bethany gasped, but I couldn't look just yet. Not yet. I closed my eyes and fastened the image of her when I woke this morning, of her smiling face. I locked the vision into my memory, and then, with my eyes still closed, I walked to Hannah.

From the few moments of sanity I'd had since I'd heard my sister drowned, I recollected how Mathew—or was it Jonah?—had told me that she had sown rocks into her pretty white dress, the same dress she wore to meet Kimball. When she'd gotten the opportunity to do that, no one knew. After she had restored the dress, she had sewn the fatal weights into her hemlines and pockets, walked down to the river sometime in the afternoon, and took her last swim.

My traitorous mind ripped open a door that envisioned her struggling in the water. The extra weight from the rocks might not have been needed, since I knew that swimming in a dress with as many petticoats as she liked to wear would not only weigh her down, but strangle any resistance from her legs—if she had fought for her life in those last few seconds. I saw her in one of the deep pockets of the Concord River, descending to the soft bottom with her corn silk hair waving like a waterweed.

Did she cry before she walked into the river? Or was she relieved?

As I thought such things all I could feel was the chill. Cold from the earth, cold on my skin, in my skin. Cold in my veins, pumping cold river water through me.

My hands touched her wintry flesh. I realized, since I knew my sister's body as well as my own, that I was holding onto her forearm. Then I finally opened my eyes. I didn't gasp; I didn't breath; I died a little when I looked at her. The river, although granting her death, had been cruel to her. Her face was swollen, and puffed in an unnatural yellowish blue. The riverbed and whatever logs or rocks there had been in the water had cut her in many places. The cuts themselves were swollen as well—tumescent folds of skin that surrounded deep gashes and pits—deep, black pits. Her hair had all matter of river plants in it. Hannah was a mermaid of the dead.

It took us all night, but we removed almost all traces of my sister's injuries. In the morning's dawn, her face didn't look so swollen after we'd used the salt to shrink the swelling and the clay to smooth over the gaping wounds. Hannah lay with her beautiful blonde hair, freshly washed in magnolia and lily-scented soap, styled expertly. She wore her lavender dress. The aqueous fabric floated around her body, making her look . . . alive. Even with the patches of plaster on her swollen countenance, I wondered if she could take a soggy breath and wake up. But she never did.

In a tale, she would be alive, dancing for some prince. In another life she would have been the princess. She didn't deserve what had happened to her. No one should be raped, I know, but my sister was pure and sweet and kind and considerate and loved with all her heart, and this world opened its mouth and swallowed her into the depths of darkness, an abyss of sorrow, a hell. All of it made me want to close my hands into tight fists and strike out until my knuckles were broken.

I knew that the reverend was going to meet my mother and me to prepare for my sister's funeral close to nine in the morning, and Bethany and I had to trudge our way back to the house. People were already out, doing their morning chores or errands, and watched with careful consideration as we made our way north through town—through the town's Common, the little way past houses and green pastures for sheep, then on the highway, and finally over the North Bridge. A few people had stopped us, and asked when Hannah's service would be and promised to come over soon with bread, beer, venison stew, or anything else they could make for my sad family.

Jonah met us on the drive and folded his beautiful wife into his arms, while one of his hands smoothed my shoulder. His pat avoided the few bloodstains on my shirt. I nodded and walked toward my house that used to be a shining white, but this morning looked mournful gray, and covered in dew as if the house itself was grieving.

"Violet, honey, Mathew is on his way back to Boston to talk again to . . . well, you know." Jonah's voice had gotten so soft, that I had to stop and turn toward him to understand what exactly he was saying. He was gently caressing Bethany's hair from her face when he said, "Your mama hasn't been out of the house, and I didn't know if it was proper if I checked on her."

My mother had been alone in her grief! I tripped in my haste to run to my mother, falling hard on my knees and the heels of my hands. Glancing at my palms, I saw crimson blood instantly ooze. My God, my mother's child had died, an unnatural death, and I had left her alone.

I raced into my house, where I heard nothing. In my mother's room, I found her too still in her bed. One hand lay uselessly upon her chest. Its last clutch on life released. Still . . .

I heard nothing.

# Proposition

I sat at the kitchen table, still in the silver and black dress Hannah had sewn for me, known its ultimate purpose before I did. I had worn it for days now.

A magistrate from Boston was fuming, and Mathew was being quite adamant about something. I didn't know what exactly. I had forgotten language again. Yet I kept on living. My mother and sister had died, but somehow my heart stubbornly kept beating. I know not why. I had nothing to live for anymore.

Mathew slammed his fist on the table. That I understood, the language of violence. The smash of flesh against wood caused me drowsily to wake from my deaf world.

"She will not lose this farm!" Mathew yelled.

I was losing my farm? My family's farm?

"For being a lawyer with some years of training," said the patronizing magistrate, "you don't seem to understand the predicament."

What I did know was that since the Coercive Laws were put into action, our _local_ magistrates no longer existed. Before the Coercive Laws we colonists would usually ask our reverends to dispel our small legal issues. But if the reverend or reverends couldn't make it right, we would have our own magistrate or the General Courts to take up our issues, but we had none of that now. We had government agents from England at the present, acting for our stead. How could a man born three thousand miles away understand me or know what was best for me? What I pieced together was that his name was Mr. Leslie. Fat, red-faced, British born Mr. Leslie.

He continued in a nasal tone. "Mrs. Buccleuch was not good with her money and owes a considerable sum. Miss Buccleuch has inherited that debt. Now I have to put this farm for sale, which does pain me to do, but I have to set what was wrong into what is right, Mr. Adams. I am also a kind and just lawman; therefore, I can take into consideration how much Miss Buccleuch is in debt and ask the buyer for that much more, to assist in this wretched woman's state. I couldn't bear to think of this pretty little thing going to debtors' prison. So you see, I can be of good help and cheer in this endeavor." Mr. Leslie smiled at me and let his eyes drop to my open neckline.

Now I understood: Mr. Leslie was to establish just how destitute I was.

As I studied his ruddy complexion, his protruding belly, the powdered white wig with an obnoxious scent of talc and body odor, and his soft doughy hands, I knew I hated him. Should I pound my knuckles into his dour, fleshy face?

"Cheer?" Mathew erupted into a slight purplish color around his cheeks and neck. "Good Lord, man, do you hear yourself? Have you gone mad? Violet—Miss Buccleuch has just lost her family, her entire family."

"And I grieve for the poor dear. I do. I've just met the pretty miss, and already I have such a strong attachment to her and her welfare. Such a pretty, sad thing, she is. But I still must perform my duties. Miss Buccleuch owes money. As a woman with very little means, this farm must sell in order to preserve order. As I said, I will sell the farm with her debt calculated—"

"Consider it sold then, Mr. Leslie." Mathew's flushed face paled into a light red.

Mr. Leslie puffed out a gasp of laughter. "By whom, Mr. Adams? You? You wish to buy this farm?"

"Yes, I'll buy it. I'll buy it for my soon to-be wife."

Mr. Leslie shook his head, as if talking to a toddler who stole confections. "I've heard about you, you know? All your family I've heard about. Your infamous cousin, Mr. Samuel Adams, is quite a mob provoker. You're other cousin, a Mr. John Adams, was thought to be a loyalist because he defended those brave soldiers who fought off that mob in Boston, now called a massacre. I've heard that even the title of that disaster was created by your Mr. Samuel Adams. But now your Mr. John Adams is a criminal like Mr. Samuel Adams by meeting in your so-called Provincial Congress. Oh, yes, I've heard much about you and how many of the Adams men have no money." Mr. Leslie patted his distended stomach, then cocked his eyes at me. "I've also heard that you've been engaged to this pretty lass for two years. Or was it three? And she's never set the date. Now, I speak to you as a sort of uncle with clarity that your other relations do not possess in their madness for this supposed liberty. But do you really think that if you buy this land for her that she'll finally set the date and marry you? Is that the plan, young man?"

Mathew's face resumed a faint purplish glow, and he made tight fists. He was calculating a blow to Mr. Leslie's pompous nose, I thought. But hitting a crown paid barrister would have gotten Mathew some jail time as well as heavy fines.

I watched Mathew's bright blue eyes set against his angry face . . . his bright blue eyes, eyes the same hue as my sisters.

He had been in my life since my earliest of memories, but I'd ignored him until I was fifteen. Or was it sixteen? That was when Daganawida was forced far from me. I had turned to Mathew for consoling. I'd never told him why I needed his comfort, but he gave it earnestly.

After the solace, he gave me compliments, then shared his intelligence and humor with me. Shortly after that he'd asked if I would accept his gift of giving me his life in marriage. I'd selfishly accepted. I'd only thought of his offering to assist me with the farm and taking care of my mother, sister, and Jonah. Further it would shut up the sharp-tongued women of Concord once I was settled with a husband.

Mathew was nothing but kindness and sweet, quite handsome too and educated. But in all this time I'd never thought of him in such terms.

It was while I watched him size up Mr. Leslie for a blow that I realized how much he'd already given me. He had fought so hard for my sister, to confine and convict her rapist. He had fought so hard for me, to just pay him heed when he'd already fed my family many a time, and had been such a strong shoulder to lean on after my da died. It was at that moment that I knew I not just loved Mathew as I had all along, as my childhood companion, but at that precise second I knew I had fallen in love with him. What a beautiful man he was.

I'd betrayed him over and over again by being selfish and for falling in love with Jacque, and there he was willing to get arrested for me, to protect me, to give to me, to love me.

"I'll marry you, Mathew. In a couple days' time?" I croaked.

Both men looked at me as if I were an apparition that had suddenly solidified before their very eyes.

Mathew blinked.

Mr. Leslie snorted. "Of course, she'll marry you now. Now that you're promising her land." Then Mr. Leslie whispered, "Little vixen."

Mathew's eyes bulged and he lunged at Mr. Leslie. I stopped him by standing in his way.

It _would_ appear that I was finally setting the date because Mathew was indeed buying my family farm. I worried that he would think the same.

Mathew smacked against me with his chest meeting mine, breathing fire on my face, in his attempt to get at Mr. Leslie. I gently placed my hands on his cheeks, noticing the dried tear streaks. He'd cried for my family, had loved them too. My God, but I loved him. I tried to soften my reedy voice. "Mathew, you don't have to buy the farm for me."

His burning blue eyes searched my own. "But you love this house, this farm. Don't you want it?"

It was all I had left of my sister, mother, and father, and there was enough of their spirits permeating throughout the rooms that I didn't want to leave. Selfishly, I nodded.

Mathew's firm face broke into a noble smile. "I'll buy it for you then."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course, I'm sure. I'd give you anything you want, if only I had the means. And I've saved up for awhile, and with suddenly having a rather wealthy friend who complains to me about his neglecting fiancée, I've come into even more money. I can buy you this farm. I'd love to buy this farm for you."

"For us," I whispered.

He surrounded my waist with his hands, smiling. "This farm could be our future."

"I'd like that . . . very much, Mathew."

He embraced me and swept me off my feet. Feeling his steel-like arms around me, his body pressing into mine, and his surrounding heat, I realized I could live for him, for the farm. I could find a reason to keep living.

Mr. Leslie cleared his throat, and Mathew placed me back down on the ground. We both turned to the barrister.

He sniffed and managed a cursory look at my chest before he swept his eyes to the floor. "I'm a proud man, and don't do this very often, but I must apologize for my outburst. It's obvious you truly do love each other.

"Miss Buccleuch, I am sincerely sorrowful for you and your loss, but, if I might be so bold, I'd like to be the first to congratulate the two of you. I will draw the papers immediately for the sale." He turned with a fury of black and red from his cape, then said at the door, "Good afternoon."

"Good, he's gone," Mathew said through gritted teeth after Mr. Leslie left. "I thought I might kill him if he looked at your breasts one more time."

Shocked, I peered up at Mathew.

He shrugged. "I've tried all my life to act as gentlemanlike as possible, but when it comes to you . . . I've come to realize lately, I'm most appallingly barbaric. I'm sorry—"

"Don't be sorry." I let my hand wander to his chest, feeling the vibrations of his racing heart in my palm. "I rather like your barbarity."

He softly chuckled and placed his hand over mine. "You don't have to marry me soon, Violet. We can take our time. As you wish—"

"Tomorrow? Could we marry tomorrow? I'm sorry for interrupting."

He swallowed, the smile gone from his face. "That's all right. We don't have to marry tomorrow—"

"I should get a dress. Or make one. Or something. Maybe we should marry in two days time. Would that be all right with you? To marry in two days? I'm sorry. I interrupted again."

He stuttered, coughed, and finally whispered, "I don't want you to marry me if you feel obligated."

I shook my head. His kindness poured through my skin. It felt golden and wholesome. "I—Mathew, did you know that your eyes and my sister's are—were very similar? They are. I've often thought that with you as my husband, I'd have children that looked like my sister. And I'd like that very much. I want to live here in this house with you as my husband."

He wrapped his fingers around mine in a more firm embrace, but I started to shiver.

"Mathew, I'm cold." He moved as if he was going to try to briskly rub my arms, but I stopped him. "No, please . . . I'm so cold on the inside. Will you kiss me? Like you did that one night, when I sat on your lap in the wicker chair outside? Will you kiss me like that again, please?"

He lowered his head, but stopped on a heavy sigh. His hands gripped my waist. His eyes already looked glassy and drunk. "I—I had to stop myself then, and I should warn you that I will probably have to stop again. I—"

"Don't stop. I don't want you to. I feel so cold. I want to feel warm again."

His breath stopped, and he hammered his lips onto mine. I grabbed his waistcoat lapel and pulled while his lips urged mine open. Our bodies collided and pushed even more into each other's with every escalating second. He pushed me toward the kitchen's table, where I felt the lip of the oak's wood bash into my backside.

Then, a knock sounded on my kitchen's door.

Mathew pulled away from me whispering, "Damn it."

I smiled up at him, his curse, his swollen lips, his bloodshot blue eyes, and his handsome face. He was heaving for air but trying to hide that fact when I reached for the door.

I opened the kitchen's entrance to a crowd of well-doers. Although most of the town and some people from the surrounding villages came to my sister and mother's funerals, I hadn't thought of a wake. I was alone and didn't remember proper social protocols. But the people who filled my small kitchen remembered. Many of the men were from the Massachusetts's congress. Mr. Adams, Samuel, and Mr. Hancock attended, who each kissed my hand and mumbled their sincere sympathies to me.

Bread and beer and even rum were passed around. Some well-planned, good-intended soul or souls brought dishes of meat pies and even a couple fruit ones. More food was brought, but already my pantry was overflowing, and I instructed some women to Mrs. Jones's house for more storage. With that most of the women were gone, and left milling about my kitchen were all men, dressed in bleak black with somber faces and stiff smiles for me.

I swayed in the sea of male mourners, and had to find a seat at my kitchen's table—no, Mathew's table, but soon to be ours.

Was I seeing correctly? There, standing amongst the suddenly quiet grievers was a redcoat?

I blinked as I saw the grey haired man swoop his hat off in a polished fashion. He then lowered until one of his knees was on the floor, the other mere inches from my own leg.

"Miss Violet Buccleuch, I presume?"

I nodded. His voice was deep, authoritative.

"I am Colonel Richard Devlin. I have come to extend my deepest sympathies to you."

"Thank you." My voice still cracked with every strained word.

"I have come to listen to you, if you would like."

"About what?" I asked bluntly.

He blinked, but then smiled. "Your complaints, if any. Anything you'd like, actually."

I stared at him. I had no clue as how to guess his age. He had eyes that had squinted into the sun for some years. His skin was wrinkled, but in a way that conveyed brutal determination, not how old he was. He wore no wig, no powder for his dark hair that did have a few patches of gray. And when he smiled, it wasn't a rigid, grimace-grin, like what most of the men around me wore. Colonel Devlin exuded confidence, but something else too. Something I didn't understand at that minute. Just then I realized too that he smelled like leather, gunpowder, and Jacque.

For a moment I couldn't breathe. Where was he? Where was my Jacque? Even with knowing that I loved Mathew deeply, I missed Jacque so much.

Mathew placed a possessive hand on my shoulder, and stiffly I turned to see his face so severe I almost didn't recognize it. Mathew whispered, "Colonel Devlin is the regimental officer in charge of Lieutenant Kimball's incarceration."

I turned back to Colonel Devlin quickly. He nodded affirmation.

Instead of perhaps screaming at him my outrage, I looked into his eyes. In his warm brown eyes I saw, unlike the men who were in my kitchen giving me their sympathy, I saw something more in Colonel Devlin's: empathy. The kind of pain I was in, the way my body and soul was numb one minute, the next frozen, he knew too. It was reflected in his eyes.

I leaned into the colonel's ear and whispered so no one could hear. "He killed her, you know?" He nodded, so I continued, "My mother too." He nodded again, then I searched his eyes. "Yes, you do know."

Colonel Devlin blinked a few times. He swallowed and when he spoke, his voice sounded choked. "What can I do for you?"

A man from the crowd shouted, "For a start you can give us Lieutenant Kimball. Damn the Coercive Laws! That man needs to be tried by Provincials."

I quit listening. They were only talking about politics from there on out. I heard Mathew yell a few times. All of them yelled, except for Colonel Devlin, who gave his ear attentively. He was constantly polite. Colonel Devlin listened and listened. The men's yells dimmed. Some left, but not angry. The men had vented their frustration and could go back home to their families. I had no family any more. In two days time I would have Mathew. But for that moment, in my kitchen with the crowd of mourners, I knew I was utterly alone.

The whole time Colonel Devlin listened to the men's rants and ravings, he knelt beside me. Eventually, he had taken my hand and kissed it. He said something, but I wasn't listening anymore.

I heard nothing.

I woke with a start, and looked around the now quiet, completely empty kitchen. Still sitting at the table, I had made the wooden surface a pillow. I wondered when I had fallen asleep. Embarrassingly before the mourners had left or after? A note lay limply in my hand in Mathew's broad scrawl that read how he'd be in Lexington with his cousin. But if I needed him, I could send a messenger, and he'd be at my side within minutes.

I heard a rap again, which more than likely had woken me in the first place. Forcing the letter into my pocket, I turned to the kitchen's door and opened it, hoping for a hallucination, hoping for Jacque.

It was Colonel Devlin. Only, he was wearing ebony civilian clothing, not his scarlet uniform. It had only been a few hours since I had seen him with the afternoon's sun gracing his wide shoulders and glinting off his graying swarthy hair. Yet now that the sun set in the horizon, it made him appear even larger, darker. To most others, I guessed, he would have made an intimidating sight. But there was something about his gentle smile, the way he looked at me square in the eyes, something of which even Mathew seemed to find difficult as of late. Easily I opened the door to Colonel Devlin.

I had no words upon letting him into my house. He had none either, apparently, since neither of us spoke. He carried a leather case, which he placed on the table.

He turned to me, his face taut. His eyebrows suddenly furrowed. I didn't realize I was standing so close to him, but I could feel his warm breath on my face.

"Miss Buccleuch . . . I . . . I know this is uncustomary to have me here, in your house—"

"It's not my house anymore."

"Not your house?"

"No. I've been forced to sell it."

Colonel Devlin reached for my hands. "I'm so sorry."

A tear fell, cascading down my cheek. I shrugged. "Would you like some mead? A neighbor of mine makes it. He sent it over, to help with the suffering, he'd said."

"Ah, well-farers. They seem to abound to you. And . . . yes, I would love to share some mead with you, but I don't want to be any trouble. Besides, I have brandy on my person." He unbuttoned his overcoat and retracted a silver flask, smiling timidly.

Grief is a miserable encounter. When I was in the presence of so many people, all the men from Concord and the politicians, I was unable to be myself or even be human. I was the shell of a person I once knew. But now, being in Colonel Devlin's company, I was freer with my words, my emotions, myself than I might have ever been, as if I were already drunk.

"Ah, I knew I'd like you."

"As I knew, I'd like you," he said in halting words.

He gave me his flask, and I gave him the bottle of mead. We sat at my table together.

"Shall we make do without glasses?"

He smiled broadly and nodded. Holding the bottle, he toasted. "To . . . comrades, of sorts."

I taped his flask against the bottle and drank down the harsh drink. Liquid lava swelled down my throat and tickled my empty belly, threatening an evacuation of any remains, but I held my ground with the liquor, having nothing to vomit anyway.

He cleared his throat. "I have heard news you are to marry soon?" He didn't look at me but my oak table.

"Yes. You heard correctly."

"You are marrying the man who bought your farm?"

"I am."

Colonel Devlin let his eyes rise back to meet mine.

"Are you happy, then, with this arrangement?"

It was completely rude of the colonel to ask, but for some reason I didn't bristle at the offense. He seemed concerned, legitimately concerned.

I shrugged.

It was answer enough for him. It had to be. I had no idea how to explain myself. Happy? I finally realized I truly loved Mathew. I'd be able to live in the house I had always fantasized I'd raise my own children, in the home I had been a child myself. It was a dream come true, save for the fact that my sister, the only other person I cared to include in my future was now dead. Oh, and I was a traitor of the worst kind, in love with another man at the same time I loved my fiancé.

Happy would not be in my vocabulary for a while, but I was content enough.

Colonel Devlin stood, moved his chair slightly, then knelt beside me, clutching my hands. "Miss Buccleuch, I'm sorry. I feel responsible for your loss. Lieutenant Kimball was not in my regiment, but I didn't think much of him. I should have . . . I'm so sorry."

"'Tisn't your fault. The fault lies with Kimball himself." It was difficult voicing that monster's name, but after I did I felt . . . ridiculously confident and managed to say all that was on my mind. "But I have to admit that I'm beginning to despise your uniform. I'm glad you didn't wear it. I'm sorry for that, but I'm starting that hate that color of red. It doesn't make sense, I know, to be angry against men who have nothing to do with this crime. If my father were still alive, I know he'd give me similar counsel."

He took in a breath. "But what lies in your heart?"

I tried to smile to cover my lurid emotions. "Heart? My heart drowned in that river over yonder, sir."

He squeezed my hands again and nodded, then cleared his throat. "My mother . . ." His voice was lowered, hushed, almost reverent, yet raw. "My mother, she was a very beautiful woman, like you. I was told your sister was quite attractive as well."

I nodded. He had no idea how I never compared to my sister's splendor.

"It happened to my mother," he spoke quickly. "It happened when I was on the verge of becoming a man, about twelve years of age. My father died, unexpectedly. It was the very day my father died actually. There was a group of men, five or more, waiting for my mother after she returned from the undertaker's. They captured her in front of me. I tried to protect her, but I wasn't strong enough. Forgive my immodesty."

He took off his overcoat, then untied his cravat, the loose plain silk dangled around his thick neck, down his chest. While his umber eyes studied me, he untied his undershirt, but I saw it before he was finished. He exposed his neck and upper chest. And there on his tanned skin was a thick silver snake that coiled about his neck, zig-zagging from ear to ear, and continued down his neck to his upper chest. He didn't reveal much of himself, just enough for me to see his long, gruesome scar.

"They tried to kill me," he continued. "The cuts weren't deep enough though. But they got to my mother. She, they didn't try to kill with their knives. They took turns with her. She never recovered afterward. She lives in an institution, I hope happily. She was everything to me." He paused while he swallowed, and I watched the hulking man blink his tears away. "I wouldn't speak so boldly to any woman of such a crime and malicious deeds, but what you've gone through . . . Again, I'm so sorry, and I know it's no consolation, but I understand, and I'd like to be of service to you."

I don't know what possessed me, but I reached out and touched the soft plains of the silver snake on his neck. He looked surprised too, as his eyes grew wide, but then with feathers for my fingertips, he let out a soft breath, relaxing. I touched long ago suffering, still carved into his body, mayhap still etched in his soul. When our eyes locked, I met my twin in pain. "I'm sorry about your mother . . . your neck."

"We are kindred spirits, are we not?"

I nodded. "Comrades in grief."

He nodded too. "I was thirteen when I joined the military. Quickly, I rose in rank. They call me a hero, but . . . it was my anger, my rage, that catapulted my military career. I didn't care about death; I wanted vengeance. They call me a gentleman of honor now because I've conquered many a battlefield. Me, a man not born into privilege, but fought my way here. I didn't fight to become a gentleman. I fought because that was all I could think of, dream of. I've never married, nor had I any such designs, for I knew my heart was blackened with my need for vengeance."

I nodded. My heart wasn't blackened. It was under water. But no matter what color the heart or in what environment, I knew what he had wanted, what he had needed. I knew it as I knew in my crimson marrow, I had a keening for death as well.

Colonel Devlin clutched at my hands then, still on his neck, yet the embrace of his fingers didn't feel connected to me, more like two shadows linking.

"I've never admitted to anyone what I'm about to confess to you," he whispered, "but not that long ago, I sought the men who hurt my mother. There were only three still alive, and I wished I had done something sooner. We are such a civilized culture. We don't speak of vengeance, do we?"

I shook my head.

"I had them killed. The men that raped my mother."

Something snapped inside my body, my heart. His revenge resonated within me.

"Lieutenant Kimball has already had his life threatened. Immediately after his arrest, there was a man—we never saw him, some black blur—who snuck into Kimball's chambers and was attempting to strangle him when he was caught by the guards. Or do you know this already? Was it one of your men after Kimball?"

My mouth was agape slightly, which was answer enough for Colonel Devlin. He sighed.

Someone had tried to kill Kimball already? Who would do that? Jonah might, but he'd been almost constantly beside me since Hannah's death. Mathew? Mathew, who had gone down to Boston to talk to the very man I was in company with? Mathew had said something about recently realizing his barbaric nature, but I just took that as meaning a jealous possession over me. Could Mathew have tried to kill Kimball?

"The man who had tried to assassinate Kimball surely couldn't have survived," Colonel Devlin mentioned. "The guards shot him repeatedly before he made his escape. Lieutenant Kimball endured, but unfortunately, Kimball gained most of his wounds after that incident."

Mathew was very much alive, but could the guards have missed on all accounts?

Then I realized the trick of words Colonel Devlin had used. " _After_ that incident? Not during?"

Colonel Devlin smiled proudly. "Of course during the incident, his neck was nearly broken, but _after_ the attempted murder, Kimball needed better men to guard him. That's why I requested him to be in my regiment, guarded by my men. Men who . . . feel the same as I regarding the violence of rape."

"He's still alive though?"

Colonel Devlin nodded. "Until I met you, the plan was to slowly beat him to death."

My heart quickened. "And now?"

"I have moved Prisoner Kimball to outside your hamlet. Just down the river a mile or little more. Tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning, there is a change of shift of the guards. At that time, Prisoner Kimball will not be properly protected. Lieutenant Kimball will be unguarded, alone from 7:30 until 8:00. In that time, you can have a man of your choosing do whatever you deem to be justice."

Colonel Devlin released my hands. He pulled the leather satchel toward me and then opened it. His earlier worn uniform's distinct red flashed before my eyes.

"Have the man dress in this," he said hurriedly.

"Is this yours?"

He shook his head. "It was the only uniform I could get without questions. 'Tis a bit small. I apologize for this. But while your man wears this, I will personally guarantee his safety."

I nodded and looked down at the bright red cloth.

"I . . . you might rest easier once Kimball is dead."

"I might."

"I would do it for you, if need be."

"Would you?"

He nodded and found my hands resting on my lap again. "I would. If you ask me, I will." His hands were callused, and, again, it reminded me of Jacque.

Jacque . . .

Colonel Devlin handed me two cards. "One is the home I keep in Boston, the other is my estate in England. I'm leaving, soon, back for England. I have long had sympathies for you colonists, and can no longer understand the purpose of the military being here. Peacekeepers? No, we soldiers are stirring a hornets' nest. In protest of recent events, I'm retiring and returning back to England.

"But I digress. I've given you both my cards . . . I'm not sure why. I doubt you will ever want to see me again. I doubt you want any reminder of . . . this time. But if you are ever in need, please think upon me. I know I am a stranger to you, but think upon me as a kindred soul, who would like to know that you are safe."

I clutched his cards and nodded. I couldn't form any words to express my appreciation or . . . I wasn't sure, if anything, I was feeling.

He sighed. "I have Kimball in a tent, not far from where you live. Ask your man to come a mile and a half north-northeast, up the Concord River where it bends, close to where the large boulder with the painted eagle sits. Do you know where that is?"

I nodded again.

"I will be at the boulder to meet your man at 7:30 tomorrow morning."

I nodded once more and glanced at the red uniform then back up to Colonel Devlin in time to see him shake his head. "Truly, all my heart extents to you."

I kept nodding and thought of tomorrow's plans.

After Colonel Devlin left, I stood over the uniform for a long time, feeling the cloth with my fingertips, and wondered what my sister would say of it. Was it pure wool, Hannah? Or a wool blend?

Feeling particularly cold in the center of my body, I carried it up to my bedchamber—the chamber that Hannah smiled in, dreamed in, and figuratively died in. The house creaked and moaned as I never had heard before. Did it miss my sister too? My mother? Even my father?

It was black outside, and while I undressed, I saw my reflection in the glass of the window that over looked the fields and the copse that I knew intimately. The other window pointed in the direction of the Joneses' house, the barn, and the river that slashed across the forest. That same river was swollen and flooded with melted snow and recent spring showers. The river gushed and gurgled its sacred, old-as-time language to me. Was it whispering how it took my sister's life? How it helped ease my sister's pain until there was no sadness, malaise, or despondency. With murky brown frigid water, the river swam by and comforted my sister, as Hannah had asked it to.

My eyes adjusted from viewing the woods to myself in the glass. This morning, I had tied the laces at the back of my waist myself. I had forced the strings too tight and looked at the angry red criss-crossed lines on my back by contorting my head at the window. Unfastening the pins in my hair, I stood bare before the woman in the glass.

My hair waved down to my hips, and as such I didn't see my breasts, but a glance of shoulders there, a bellybutton here. My skin glowed white, my eyes were a vibrant green. I looked so alive. Why didn't I just die? This pain that made my bones so brittle wasn't killing me. Why not?

While walking naked in my chamber, I found a scrap of the lavender foamy fabric that was Hannah's funeral dress and tied it around my arm. Lying down on her side of the bed, I looked up at the dark ceiling.

Tomorrow was to be a day of grieving for me, the next was my wedding. Soon, I would no longer be a virgin and have no one to talk to about the intimacies of corporally knowing my husband.

This was the thought that tipped my decision.

I had looked forward to the day when I could giggle with my sister about my lover husband. I would whisper to her some vague innuendo of what making love was like, but now I couldn't do any of that. I had slept alone, for the first time ever, last night. Although, it wasn't really sleep. Anytime I would fall into a doze, I'd wake and search for my sister. Then the muscles in my body twisted, sinew snapped, my bones would crush all over again with the pain that she was no longer alive.

Yes, that decided it.

Tomorrow, I was going to become a murderer.

I dressed in the uniform. It was a bit roomy, but not by much. It was a uniform for a boy, probably for a drummer.

Tying my hair back with a black ribbon at the nape of my neck, like the men do, I then tucked the rest of my tresses into the jacket. I didn't have to search far to find my _sgian dubh_ , the small, sharp dagger. Sliding my feet into my riding boots, the knife hooked inside and rubbed against my calf. I tried to see if the tomahawk would fit in the other boot's sleeve, but it was too thick at its apex. Sliding the ax up my arm's sleeve, I found a perfect fit, which concealed it flawlessly. I had to hold my hand a certain way, but with a flick of my wrist, the tomahawk sprung from my sleeve, where I caught it by the handle.

After calculating the distance of the walk, and all other endeavors pertaining to murder, I took the uniform off, laid it on the floor, then laid my knife and ax at the foot of my bed. With only the wisp of light purple cloth on my arm and a long thin silver chain that held an acorn-sized blue diamond over my heart, I walked back to my father and mother's chamber. My father kept a claymore sword as a keepsake of his heritage. I hefted it out of its leather sheathing. I would have liked to tear Kimball's arms off with the weight of the weapon, but it would have been too heavy to carry through the woods. It would be conspicuous too. I wanted something swift, fast. The tomahawk.

Carrying the claymore with me to my chamber, the utterly alone chamber, I laid down with the sword. There was something comforting about the long rapier. Or perhaps I was completely mad by that time with my grief. At first I rested with it beside me, staring at the metal, the craftsmanship of the twisted knots of the Scot Celts. Then, thinking of warriors from past times, of kings who fought with their troops, I pulled it on top of me, like the tombs of the great knights, placing the cold weapon to run down the length of my body.

This long sword had been handed down by generations of Scot men. The claymore had known battle, and I found it to be my only friend in the dark of that night.

I observed the black hours progress slowly. My father's pocket watch kept time for me, while I held it in my palm. The hands moved at a bitterly slow pace through the long night. The moon, that white half globe, tried to glimmer through my windows, but my evil demise wouldn't allow any illumination to shine in. The greasy, gritty water of my heart consumed all the light.

I wondered where Jacque was. Oh, Descartes, how I understand at long last your prophetic philosophy: What is real? What is a dream? This cannot be my life. I didn't deserve my entire family to die. I know, I know, no one does, but . . . but perhaps, left over in my blood from my mother's line of Puritans who arrived in Massachusetts as the very first settlers, I somehow had believed that if I just tried hard, labored long enough, good things would always happen to me. I had had sufficient misfortune with my father's untimely death, but I had survived and made it so that my family endured. (Dare I mention that we flourished with our love and laughter?)

Now this? None of my family members were alive. I was an orphan in this world. Certainly, I had Mathew, and I loved him, and promised myself I would do better by him, but I had never envisioned a life without my family, my sister. What was I to work for now? What could I fight for? Why was I still alive when all I was living for was gone? This house, this farm was my only reminder of a life once lived.

I let my eyes drift closed, but they jerked open only a minute later.

Then it was time.

# Lunacy, or Not

Leaving the claymore on my bed, I dressed and armed myself. I departed before I saw any signs that the Joneses might be rising. In the night, I had retrieved the box full of my savings and left it on my bed, indicating—I hoped—that if I died, they were to have all of it: Bess, the wagon, and the horses too. I'd heard of a small town in Pennsylvania, where the Dutch and some Quakers had settled, where free blacks were being treated fairly. I left a map with the town circled next to all my money.

In the woods the early morning sun bled its orange and rouge rays in between the gray tree trunks and even bleaker clouds. I walked, feeling the tomahawk sit on my palm, the _sgain dubh_ catch at my calf.

It didn't take long, not long at all, before I heard the signals that men were close by—a fire popping, a clang against metal, deep male murmurs. I wore my father's large brimmed brown leather hat low on my head. It hid my face well. I slunk through the woods, remembering how Daganawida had taught me to walk without any sound. With each step I absorbed all the impact into my feet and legs.

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me sooner, but I suddenly realized that Colonel Devlin, by taking Kimball to the outskirts of Concord, was almost certainly breaking the rules for quartering a prisoner. For that I was grateful.

Colonel Devlin cut a fine image in the very early morning light. His tall broad back faced me, a back not many men could brag about, except for a warrior like him. I knew it was him, also, because I could smell him. All my senses were heightened that morning. I walked within three feet of him, then stood still. He cleared his throat, then as if sensing a ghost, he turned quickly to me.

He gasped. At first he looked shocked that anyone had gotten that close to him, then further surprised as he realized it was me in the red uniform. He stumbled a couple steps away, clenching his teeth. "Violet, couldn't you find a man?"

My teeth were chattering in anticipation, so I could only grunt out, " _I_ want to do this."

Colonel Devlin's eyes rounded, and he held his breath. "Are you sure?"

I nodded.

"Of course. I understand. I do." He sighed, then his shoulders stooped as he whispered. "I did the same. I didn't want you to know that I committed murder with my own hands. I'm an officer and considered a gentleman, but what of gentlemanlike battle? I've killed hordes of men with cannons and rows of men with rifles. And that is a gentleman? No . . . No, I forget myself and you, and why you are here." He sighed again and straightened his shoulders. "He's through that clearing, by the river. You have twenty minutes."

I nodded again.

He extended a pistol and a bag of bullet cartridges to me. I took them both, pushing the gun into the belt of my breeches and the cartridges—paper pouches full of gunpowder and bullets—I wrapped the leather pouch around my waistband too.

"You may consider them a gift."

I looked up at him when I heard the strained inflection in his voice.

"Violet, if you find that after . . . it's changed you, as killing a man changed me, come to me. I will protect you."

Nodding again, I hardly heeded his words, as I stepped away from the colonel and turned to the clearing. Listening until his footfalls were far away, I then searched for my sister's rapist. Only twenty feet from where I had stood with Colonel Devlin was all it took for me to see him—my sister and my mother's murderer. The man who ripped my love, my life, my heart and soul away from me.

He wasn't a monster or a devilishly appearing fiend. He was just a man, tied to a tree with his head drooping to his chest, sleeping. His dirty blond hair hung loose around his shoulders, and I couldn't make out his face, but I knew he was just a man after all.

I walked quietly, so quietly. But I wasn't walking, I was swimming. The forest floor became the river's bed, granting me silent passage. Murky, shadowy water flooded and filled the forest. The trees turned into water plants that swayed in premonition of what I was about to do. They grieved for me, cried for me, yelled for me.

He still wore his dark red coat with its regal gold frog buttons and gold fringe at his shoulders, yet the coat was battered and dirty. His light colored hair was covered in filth, and I could just see that both his eyes were swollen and black.

The river gushed, became a maelstrom around my prey and me. He hadn't moved as I made my approach, and there I stood beside one of his legs, waiting for him to look up at me. Waiting for him to leer at me, then to plead for mercy. I would tell him that I had none. No, better, I would ask where his mercy had been for my sister. I would tell him he was going to hell, and I was going to take him there. Then I would slash his throat or his head or his heart. Yes, find if he even had a heart.

Time slowly inched by, more slowly than last night's turtle's pace. I could not hold back the swirling cold river any more. I gripped at his matted, dirt infested hair and yanked his head up. He had a deep cut on his bottom lip that looked black and thick. It was almost exactly where he'd smashed Hannah's lip, forever scarring her. I was going to scream at him, but extended my arm behind my back, stretched my hand forward, letting the tomahawk spring out, catching it and clutching the tool with my rage.

Then I saw his bloody neck. Like Colonel Devlin, Kimball wore a smile under his jaw, a morbid grin. The skin along his upper neck had been deeply ripped apart. Black red blood stained him, darkened his uniform's collar.

The Britons were always proud of their Roman past, even choosing to have red uniforms, to hide the blood of their dead enemies' or their own. Had I not lifted Kimball's head, I would have never known that someone beat me to killing him. I let my tomahawk fall to the ground on a soft thud. Out of grotesque, unkempt rage, I strangled his neck, but upon feeling what might have been his backbone, I retracted. What I felt was cool. His body was losing its heat. He had been dead for at least an hour, maybe more. I stood, staring down at my murdered prey confused, feeling the tidal waters stir to a stop. A snap behind me quickened my senses. I grabbed my tomahawk and ran.

After running for a few minutes, I wondered if I truly did hear my feet sloshing in river water. I hid in a blueberry bush, and waited for my assailants, but none came. The forest birds sang of their early morning chores, and the trees no longer swayed under the heavy water of my rage. My own body felt lightened, as if the river had seeped out of me. Perhaps that was relief from not having to commit murder. Or was this buoyed sense the sick elation of knowing Kimball was dead? I didn't want to know which.

I held my breath, listening for the slightest sound of something amiss, but nothing came to my ears. Finally allowing myself to breath, I checked my father's watch: 7:48. I walked the rest of the way back to my family's farm, Mathew's farm. To try to forget the sticky blood on my hands, the way Kimball's bones felt at the back of his neck, I tried to remember what day it was. Tomorrow would be my wedding day. Would that be Sunday? Or was it Saturday? The fourteenth of April, I knew that much.

The clearing for my house and the field came into sight. If I could fight this insatiable fatigue I could plow and get ready to sow the oats and barley. There were no signs of Jonah or Bethany as I tiptoed through the orchard. The thick tree branches on the western side of the field carefully concealed me. Perhaps not all that well, I considered, as I wore flaming red. I kept cautious eyes for the Joneses, but I didn't see anyone, except for . . . a far-away black figure, tilting his head in my direction.

Tears stung my eyes before I could believe Jacque really stood on the other side of the field. He was easy to spot with his perfect posture and wearing only black. He moved like an inkblot without any distinction, and in a blink he stood before me.

He reached for my face, but didn't touch me. Scanning my wardrobe, his eyes descended to my hands, my tomahawk still in my grip.

" _Mon Dieu_ , I'm too late."

"I didn't do it. Did you?"

Those otherworldly dark, dark blue eyes studied me.

"Did you kill Kimball before I could?"

He shook his head and opened his mouth as if to speak, but looked down at the blood.

"His neck was slit. I was going to hack him to pieces, but his neck was . . ." As I spoke his black brows furrowed. "You beat me to him, didn't you? You killed him for me? You were the blur, weren't you?"

He shook his head again and reached for my tomahawk. He inspected the clean edge, yet there was blood on the handle. All that blood.

"You were the black blur."

" _Chére_? I don't know what you mean by this, but we have to burn the uniform. Clean you up."

He reached for my arm, but I needed answers. "Colonel Devlin told me someone tried to kill Kimball when he was in Boston. Colonel Devlin called the person who strangled Kimball a black blur because he was so fast. _You_ are . . . so fast. You tried to kill him in Boston and _did_ kill him this morning before I got to him."

He didn't answer for a beat. "I only arrived to Concord just now. It was an hour ago that I got the news about your sister and mother passing . . . I'm so sorry, Violet." At that he did touch me, caressing my shoulders, with one hand encumbered because it still held my bloody tomahawk. He shook his head. "I did not kill anyone this morning."

So he hadn't gotten to Kimball before me, but he hadn't answered about trying to kill Kimball in Boston.

"Let's get you inside, _chér_. Even if you didn't kill Kimball, this is damning evidence you wear. We must get rid of it."

"But Colonel Devlin said you were shot—shot when you were in Boston."

He shrugged. "I am not wounded."

"But you were shot?" My already hoarse voice cracked.

His eyes looked around the field. His jaw line kicked twice. "I should have been here. I should have been the one . . . why didn't I stay?"

He raked his hand through his hair, letting his black satin ribbon fall like a dead butterfly, fluttering to the ground. The sun cast enough light to make his locks appear black blue. Descartes noted how things appeared different under water—the magnification and tilting of optics, but it was Newton that perfected the theory, and it was through the masters that I realized I was no longer drowning in my sister's death. I saw Jacque clearly.

"You couldn't stay because you know," my voice trembled, "that not being able to touch you causes me pain."

He groaned and grasped my face with one of his hands, kissing me tenderly, then he pulled away. Blood smudged his lips. I thought I only had blood on my hands. He scooped me into his arms, then in a flash I was in my house, in my bedchamber.

He gently set me on my feet. "Can you stand on your legs again, _chér_?"

I nodded then gradually held my own weight.

He scanned my person again. "Let's clean you up." Nodding to himself, he stepped to my bed then tore the upper sheet and spread the clothe on the floor. He lifted me gently, like I was child, under my armpits, then placed me on the sheet. Carefully, he undid the golden frog buttons of the red jacket. When he was finished he slid the coat off. He laid it on the sheet. I hadn't worn a corset, and was bare-chested, save for the lavender swirl tied around my arm and the blue-gemmed necklace. I crossed my arms around my bosom, cupping my breasts.

Jacque released the pistol and cartridge bag from my belt, then placed them on the bureau as he had my tomahawk. His hands pushed my breeches over my hips and further down my legs, then he helped me step out of my boots. The small dagger fell out, and he placed that beside the pistol and ax. I had never bought a pair of men's hose, but wore my stockings, which, although there was no blood on the silk, Jacque removed from my legs too. I stood bare before him, crossing my arms, and shuddering from the chill of the early morning. The Regular soldier's uniform sprawled on the bed sheet. As if I were trying to imitate my sister, the red woolen clothing looked like it had been my own costume of a gothic mermaid. I'd rid myself of my macabre red fins and the river's plants and gritty water. Jacque glided over to the basin, and quicker than I thought possible he came back with water and a cloth.

He cleaned my face, then kissed the blood-free skin.

"You might need a bath to remove all the blood."

"Our tub is stored in the kitchen, in the large blue pantry." I finally let my arms hang down by my sides, where my hands shook, vaguely thinking how inconvenient it was to take a bath, that I would take a bath only a few times a year. Usually my sister and I would swim in the river to cleanse. At that thought I clenched and wanted to fold into myself.

Jacque nodded through my grief. "I'll get it ready."

"I can't take a bath. Bethany and Jonah will discover me."

He nodded again. From my periphery, I saw that the basin sloshed red water. The cloth had changed from white to dark pink with splotches of red. How had I managed to swipe all that blood over my person? I must have looked a fright.

"I will distract Mr. and Mrs. Jones."

I nodded.

His gaze traveled to my chest bearing his gem, then to my stomach, as he wiped my fingers. His hands shook as he finished and laid the cloth in the basin. I still had pink stains on my arms.

"Yes, I'll prepare a bath for you. This isn't enough."

His eyes traversed back to mine. I sniffed and couldn't restrain myself any longer. I had to hold him. I had to feel him against my cold, goose bump-filled skin. I had to have his body against mine as a measure that I wasn't completely insane, this wasn't a hallucination. I lunged for him.

His arms encompassed me tentatively, slowly, too slowly.

"Do you think less of me?" I whispered close to his ear. "For what I would have done?" This was what worried me—Jacque's opinion of me. I was numb to everything else.

He shook his head against mine. "Never."

I closed my heavy lids over my eyes that felt as if acid had been poured in them. My eyes, no, my whole body, was raw as if every inch of me had been sanded.

His arms, twined 'round my back in a firm embrace. Then he picked me up off the ground, letting my bare feet sway as he held me tight. We stood in our hold for minutes, maybe hours, as I lost track of time.

When he placed me back on the floor, he wrapped another sheet around me.

"I will burn these garments now and clean the ax. I think you might want to hide the ax though or destroy it."

"It was a gift. I don't want to get rid of my tomahawk."

I saw his mouth quirk as if he tried to hide an instant smile. He cleared his throat. "I'm going to ask the Joneses to leave before I burn the clothes. I shall give them some money, ask them to get something for you."

I nodded again.

"I'm going to ask that they don't invade in your privacy until tomorrow."

"I'm getting married tomorrow."

His jaw line twitched. "I know." His blue eyes, finding a dark fire, stole a look into mine. "May . . . may I ask, are you marrying for this farm?"

I nodded. "It's all I have left of Hannah and—"

Jacque frowned but nodded. " _Je comprendre_."

A snap of a door closing made both our heads spin in the direction of Jonah's house.

"Jonah . . ." I whispered.

Jacque nodded. "I'll get the Joneses to leave." He swept me in his arms, sheet and all, lifting me off the floor again and walked to my bed while I clung to his neck.

Jacque paused. His black eyebrows furrowed. "Violet, you have money and an unsheathed long sword on your bed."

It was the tone of his voice, as if that sort of thing happened almost every day that I found ironic and . . . funny. As he lowered me to the bed I nodded and laughed. True, I cried a little too, but I laughed. I clung more to him. He had made me laugh, that man that I loved, made me laugh.

He wore a small smile as he gathered the money and claymore and placed it on my bureau. The claymore he'd lifted as if weighed no more than the money, then he came back to my bed.

"It comforted me," I whispered, cocking my head toward the silver-colored sword. Jacque nodded as if it made perfect sense to him, or to placate my insanity, and smiled.

"I must get to the Joneses."

I reached out for his coat's lapels. "You're coming back to me?"

Jacque's eyes reddened as he nodded.

"We will have today, then, won't we? We'll have this day together. One last day?"

He nodded reverently. "We'll have this day together," he repeated.

Jacque covered me with the quilt my mother had made for my sister and me that held lavender and pink circles in an intricate pattern. He kissed my eyelids, then before he left my room, I gave into the exhaustion and fell asleep.

I woke smelling beef stew and Jacque. He lay beside me, on top of the bedding, smiling. He'd taken his overcoat _and_ waistcoat off, yet wore his black shirt, complete with cravat tied neatly at his neck.

"You sleep like an angel."

I lifted a brow, sure that I had had my mouth open.

He softly chuckled.

As I smiled, a shot of pain came from my lips. I felt with my fingertips, the rough and cracked topography of my mouth.

"You're lips are chapped, _chér_. Have a drink." He rose out of bed, then offered me a long flute with sparkling gold water.

"Champagne?"

The fluted glass was not my own, but then as I examined around me, there wasn't much that was mine in my chamber anymore. Hannah and I had a bed, two nightstands, a bureau, and a trunk—more furniture than others, I would venture to say, but still a minimum of things. Those articles of furniture were still intact, but around the room Jacque had managed three lilac-colored velvet sitting chairs and a matching chaise. How he had gotten all the furniture into the small space without waking me was unbelievable. There were bouquets of wild flowers mixed with apple and cherry blossoms everywhere.

Also, there was now a small silver table in one corner filled with a large bowl of what I suspected to be the stew. There was flatware—gold? Real gold?—and porcelain bowls, and seven bottles of champagne on the table.

Jacque smiled shyly at me. "Not a good day for champagne? I know. I know. I don't know what got into me when I was ordering at the inn. I wanted—"

"No. It's perfect. I don't want to be reminded of . . . the past or the future. I would like one day's reprieve to be in this reverie with you, please. Take my mind's worries away, just for one day."

I did want to know who had killed Kimball before I'd gotten to him, but that would wait. It was a gift to be with Jacque one more day, to not be married, when my conscious would more than likely gnaw at me until I vowed to start wearing a hairshirt for betraying Mathew. But I had one last day. My guilt and sins would have to wait for the morrow.

He held his breath while he looked me over. Finally, his eyes settled back down at the golden bubbling brew in his hand and nodded.

"Of course." He walked to my side of the bed, and sat close to my legs while letting me take the glass of champagne. "We have today, then, eh? We have all of today."

I nodded as I sat up, grappling with the sheet to stay close to my chest, then took the glass.

"I have the perfect distraction, then." Jacque smiled as I looked up at him. He made sure I was comfortable leaning against some feather pillows, which I didn't own, before he said, "I've been hinting to you, when we would have our philosophical talks, about this subject."

I smiled, and let the remnants of river mud wash away as I waited while he cleared his throat and bit at his bottom lip in contemplation.

"Violet, how old do you think I am?"

"Twenty-eight?"

"Ah, how you flatter me. Now, be truthful. How old do you think I am?"

I pursed my lips, then gave in to his request. "Thirty."

He smiled. "Not one and thirty?"

"You could pass for thirty-one, yes. Are you thirty-one?"

" _Non_."

I wanted to growl at him, but said, "Are you going to tell me how old you are then?"

" _Oui_ , but I already have. Plenty of times." He kept his small smile but then scooted closer to me. His nose slightly flared as he watched my face, my eyes, studying me, my reaction to what he would say. "I love it how you get frustrated and your eyes glow like emeralds. Ah, it was my mother's favorite stone. Now, it is mine as well. I have a man back in my province making me a ring with a gem the color of your eyes. I need the reminder of you. Are you ready for me to tell you my age?"

I blinked, feeling the whirlwind of what he had said pass through the blue diamond that shielded my numb heart, piercing it with freezing sunshine. Ah, the ever paradoxical feelings of being in Jacque's company.

"I was born in the Lord's year of fifteen hundred eighty-four."

I arched my brow again.

" _Oui_ , I am one hundred ninety-one years of age."

I shook my head and thought about rolling my eyes like Hannah would have.

"You think I am jesting?"

I grinned.

"Because, hopefully, I do not look almost two centuries years of age?"

"You look nowhere near a hundred years of age. You appear youthful and virile."

"Ah, thank you, _chére_."

"You're welcome, man who fishes for compliments at the oddest of times."

He snickered and untied his cravat and pulled the black silk from his black shirt, then released his high collar. Untying his shirt, he revealed his left collarbone and a small portion of his male chest. "There. I was shot there."

I looked at his perfect skin, then to where he pointed, noting a minute yellowish circle, like an old bruise.

He pointed to his left side. "And there," then to his right leg, "here," his left knee, "and here," then his right cheek, "and here." He smiled and folded his hands on his lap as he said nonchalantly, "Those Brits wasted five bullets on me. They do like to fire their muskets though."

My smile slowly dimmed as I studied Jacque's face with his tiny grin and the way his one black brow arched just so. He was serious. Or seriously mocking me. I shook my head. "Colonel Devlin said the man who attacked Kimball wouldn't have survived. There was too much blood."

"Ah, _oui_ , I was bleeding horribly. Then . . . I wasn't. As far as I know, I don't have any bullets in my body any longer either. It wasn't my first time being shot. Once I was shot ten and four times. I've been run through a dozen times, ten times with a bayonet, twice with sword, though not a sword as big as yours. My, what a big weapon you have. Ah, but I was saying, admitting to you that I'm not that good of a mercenary. I just live through it somehow. I've gotten better in these last twenty years though, at being a mercenary, I mean, as well as not getting myself shot or stabbed. It does hurt me so when I do."

I just stared at him.

"Bewildering, isn't it?"

I snorted. "You have no idea. I'm not saying I believe you, but how . . . how did this happen?"

He sighed and shrugged. "It is a long story."

"We have all day."

He bit his bottom lip for a moment, then smiled. "I wish I could kiss you. I wish I could kiss you for the next century, centuries. Now, if you believe me even a little, about being close to two centuries years old, then imagine finally finding the love of my life and not being able to have her. I've searched for you for decades, and now that I've found you . . . ah, but life is bitter and sweet—ironic." His voice skirted close to a warble, but he cleared his throat and smiled at me. "But I must tell you why I don't die. _Oui_. I told you of watching as both my brother and father were run through, and Josephine protected me from her brothers. Thanks to her I lived, so I didn't marry her as she wished. But what was I to do then? My mother, while she lived, had been employed by King Henry IV, and when he was assassinated I felt a duty to try to work for his son, King Louis XIII. It was actually his mother, the Italian, Marie de Medici, that convinced me to try to navigate to India, to find a place to settle a colony or a factory for my queen and her son king. The year was sixteen hundred fifteen when we set sail for India, for king and country as you Brits would say, hmm? _Oui_."

I knew so little about the far away country of India, but had heard of exotic spices that made a man's tongue burn and his heart to be impassioned. It was a nation of jungles and tigers, beautiful people and sensual dances, and myths of men levitating and of a state of bliss that lasts forever more. England had colonized India before France, but I vaguely was aware that France had had some problems with colonization there.

I looked at Jacque whose lids were heavy and his eyes were far away as he stared at the gem outside my bedding, covering my chest.

"I bought you this," he gingerly fingered the blue diamond, "because . . . you were the first soul I encountered in so long that gave me hope. Hope that I may not be alone. But alas—this rock you wear reminds me of the oceans as we traveled to India. So blue, so dark and yet so blue. I was sick for many days before I got my sea legs. As soon as I did, land was spotted. We'd lost the other ship that escorted us and knew that we were landing much farther north than intended. Such a great distance away."

His voice faded and he wore a bleak frown. "We moored off shore, paddled our way inland in dinghies, all of us. That was my idiotic order. I killed all those men by never thinking about the threat of what lay for us at that beach."

I knew not what he was talking about, but understood he was lost somewhere in the past. A dark, aching past. Wrapping my hand around his, I laid it on my chest, on the stone, over my heart.

"All my men died when we were ambushed by the natives," he said, his voice thick. "Now, with so many years behind me, I sympathize with the men that killed my crew. What were we thinking to sail across the oceans and plant a flag on their land and call it our own? What do any of us think when we usurp land? I—I don't blame them, now, for their violence. They were protecting their families, their land. I escaped, but was the lone survivor. I ran through the jungles. I ran through the villages. I ran for days. I ran from hooded snakes. I ran from frightened children. I ran and ran and ran. I stole food as I ran, drank from muddy puddles and kept running for my life. It wasn't until I was standing amongst strange, arid yet freezing mountains that I stopped running.

"I thought I would die then from my thirst." He let out a bitter laugh. "I found a spring in a valley between mountains. I was so thirsty. I never thought about the strange location for a spring of water. It was a tiny clear puddle, really. Not more than a few inches in diameter. I dipped my canteen, then let my face fall in the water, drinking until it ran dry."

His eyes glowed darkly. "It was then that I died."

I must have given him an incredulous look, because he snorted and shook his head. "I did die. I felt my heart stop. It was excruciating. I was sad to not be buried in my France, near my mother as I hoped. I thought about Marseille, and how much I loved my province. I thought about the fact that I'd never been to America, and how I had wanted to come, to face more adventure, how I hadn't read more books, learned more languages, learned to paint horribly, and how I had never had fallen in love. So much yet to do, but there I was dying. Before I died a man in just a little swap of cloth came out, and pointed his finger at me, laughing hysterically. And then I died.

"I woke up—I don't know, a few minutes later—inside a cave with the little man burning a sweet smelling fire beside me. My heart was beating again, achingly so. The little man laughed at me and spoke Hindi, but being the glorified Frenchman that I was, I had never bothered to learn his language before I arrived on his soil. He bade me to stay with him, that much I understood, when I tried to leave, and he shoved me back in his cave. It took a few weeks, but slowly I grasped that I'd drunk from a sacred pool. That the water was gone now because I was going to live indefinitely."

He smiled down at me. "I didn't believe it either. But I've been killed so many times, and mother forgive me for I know it to be a sin, but I've tried to commit suicide a time or two. I wake up again and again, my heart still beating."

I cocked my head to the side, and reached up for his said heart, feeling it patter against my hand.

"'Tis a good heart beat."

He nodded. "You don't believe me, do you?"

I wasn't sure if he was trying to tell me the story to distract me from my suffering or if he was even in the least a little serious.

He shrugged. "I've since learned Hindi and have gone back to find the man, but I couldn't find him. I don't know if I'll ever die. I've been so lonely, Violet. Until I met you."

He looked down at me then with something dark passing through his eyes. His forehead wrinkled with a thought, but then he inhaled and asked me again. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes . . . I don't know. Everything about you—it all seems not to be reality. I've often wondered if I just imagined you."

"That I am nothing but a figment of your imagination? I am the opposite of Descartes' thesis: You think me; therefore, I am."

"Yes." I smiled.

"I assure you, I'm real. You are real. I am here and you are too." His forehead again lined in some kind of worry as he repeated himself, "You are real. I've dreamed of you before you were born, a raven-haired beauty with the spirit of my mother's, and you are so much more than I imaged. I wish . . ."

But he never allowed himself to finish his thought. He lay down over my chest and held me in his arms, and I could not fight my weariness any longer. I loved his lulling story about immortality. What a lovely tale.

In between catnaps, Jacque bathed me until the water was clear from all pink remains. He washed my hair in silence. When he cleansed my body, his nose flared and his eyelids became heavy and drooped from time to time. I teased him and asked if he was bored.

"It is not boredom, _chér_. I'm praying."

"Praying?"

He smiled at my breasts and nodded. "Thanking God for all the glories of the world."

"You don't think that some glories are too small? Too thin and bony?"

He softly chuckled and shook his head. " _Non_." His fingertips ran across my ribs, making me giggle and squirm from his touch. He let a shock of leering smile appear as he whispered, " _Parfait_."

Another time when I'd been awake, Jacque had fed me and had me drink the champagne. He'd also given me water with mint steeped in it. It was his mother's remedy for any ailment, the champagne and minty water. With the evening half spent, slightly drunk, and I couldn't seem to stop smiling, I had to agree with his mother about this cure-all.

As day turned into night I believed in fairy tales. In the hours of darkness I curved my finger along Jacque's long nose, while he closed his eyes and smiled. Jacque played devil's advocate to my devil's advocate, both of us arguing just for the sake of arguing, and chuckling about inductive versus deductive thought and reasoning and rationality versus empiricism. We laughed until we both agreed to be utter skeptics, except regarding Voltaire and poetry. "Ah, we must never be cynical about poetry," Jacque said while he swept his nose against my shoulder as we lay in my bed.

All of the day had been spent in conversation laying on the bed, the chaise, or sitting on Jacque's lap on a chair. The night turned into lazy poetic murmurs with shy touches to each other's shoulders, necks, arms, hands, and each other's faces. It was past the witching hour when I fought sleep with every ounce within my body, but after Jacque's voice took on a deep, musical melody, reciting Shakespeare's love Sonnets, number eighteen, in French, I let slumber embrace me.

> " _Te comparerai-je à un jour d'été? Tu es plus aimable et plus tempéré. Les vents violents font tomber les tendres bourgeons de mai, et le bail de l'été est de trop courte durée . . . Mais ton éternel été ne se flétrira pas et ne sera pas dépossédé de tes graces . . . Tant que les hommes respireront et que les yeux pourront voir, ceci vivra et te donnera la vie._ "

Upon waking in the early morning, I despised the fact that I'd let sleep win. I felt robbed from hours I could have spent adoring Jacque. The sky was still dark blue, so like Jacque's now opening eyes. Yet the heavens cracked with golden rays that bit the sky, bleeding it with crimson and tender pink. For a moment, while in Jacque's strong arms that currently tightened in their hold of me, I thought about running away with him. I fantasized about leaving, never to see the Joneses or Mathew again. I would never see the farm either. I would run with him, and have my nights filled with his body, my days filled with his tender dark blue eyes. I didn't think of honor or respect or circumstances. My only thought was of him. Until my mind skipped over a memory of Hannah—her smiling face.

Before I thought of Hannah I had almost asked him to run away with me.

Instead I kissed him.

Volcanic heat poured from his body into mine as he returned my kiss. This was the last moment I would have Jacque in my life. I would marry soon, and I might bear children that could look like my sister. Yet I would never taste Jacque again. I would never see colors again or fairies or hear a man tell me that he had searched for me for decades.

I pulled at his undershirt, grasping it in my fists, forcing his body to meld with mine—side by side we lay kissing. His hands gently explored my hair, smoothing it, then journeyed down my neck. His other hand found my waist and embraced me all the more.

I tasted his salty, metallic tears. He released me enough to whisper, " _Je t'aime, chér. Je t'aime. Vous êtes un ange descend sur terre._ "

I sobbed at him calling me an angel come to earth. I whispered, " _Vos yeux sont aussi bleus que l'océan._ I'll never look at the sea without thinking of you, your eyes. _Je t'aime_. I love you. I love you."

He kissed me in a frenzy. I reciprocated.

Then he pulled away, held my hands still. He swallowed, his whole face tense.

"I—I . . ."

I kissed him lightly. "I know."

"You kissed me. I—but you kissed me."

"I love you so much, Jacque. You must know, I always will."

He looked at me then, his face so tense, his nose flared, his black brows furiously furrowed. Then suddenly he let out a breath. The tension seemed to go, as if he were resigned to our fate. "How do you feel, _chér_?"

I softly laughed. He was so sweet and considerate. "I'm nauseated. Sick. My head is killing me from drinking too much or . . . from the thought of losing you. Forever. By God, but I will love you for as long as I live."

He found a small smile and nodded. _"Bien."_ He rose to one of his elbows and reached for an empty goblet. From somewhere he retracted a silver flask, so similar to Colonel Devlin's that it surprised me. He unscrewed the lid. "This will help with the headache," he said, as he gingerly poured the clear liquid into the glass.

"Another of your mother's tinctures?"

His smile was tight, but he shook his head. " _Non_ , this is one is mine. Not of my creation. It is one I . . . discovered."

I reached for the glass. Today would be the day I'd have to explain how champagne flutes landed in my room, how the velvet chairs came to be, how I was a betrayer of the worst kind, yet couldn't seem to help myself from being anything but.

" _Chér_?"

I lifted the flute to my lips, but arched a brow to let him know I was listening.

"I—I love you. Please, remember that," he whispered.

I kissed him again, but was so thirsty that the kiss was quick as well as my gulping down the oddly icy cool water he'd given me. It was just water, no herbs or taste other than the purest water I'd ever had in my mouth.

I smiled at him. He smiled back, but held his breath.

Then my throat closed.

I reached for it, letting the flute fall to the floor and could hear the flat melodies of shattered glass, but my hand could only go so far before I couldn't move anymore.

"Ah, _cher_ , I'm so sorry."

I tried to suck in a breath, to communicate my need for help, but I couldn't breathe. I struggled, but felt my body start to shake of its own accord.

"Oh, the tremors," Jacque whispered. "I'd forgotten about the tremors. I forgot that I was paralyzed too, but I remember now as I watch you die."

# Traitor

My body convulsed again and again. Tight pinchers wrapped around my chest, especially my heart. My heart! It exploded yet felt wrapped in ever growing pressure. I was going to die if Jacque didn't do something. I tried to reach for him, but he just lay beside me, still on one of his elbows, looking down at me with concern on his face. But he wasn't doing a damned thing.

Just as suddenly as my seizure began it stopped.

"You're going to die now, _chér._ I'm so sorry. I know I should have given you a choice, but I couldn't let you decide for yourself. Besides, it was you who kissed me. I am so sorry. So sorry."

What was he saying?

Darkness crowded my vision, but I fought it. Every muscle in my body tensed with the effort to stop the blackness that I was drowning in.

"Don't fight it, Violet. Let yourself die."

Another bout of seizures ensued, wracking my body all over the bed. Finally Jacque sat up more. His forehead creased, the lines around his mouth became white with worry.

" _Mon Dieu._ You are strong, but you are making this more painful than necessary. Let it happen, my love, let yourself succumb."

My body was on fire. Prickly flaming needles were in every pore, throughout my joints, and deep within my belly and chest. The stabbing inflamed then acid was drenched throughout.

It was then, that moment that I finally realized that Jacque had poisoned me, was killing me. Why? I wanted to scream.

A tear fell from my eye, skid across my temple and gathered in my hairline.

Jacque gently wiped my tear with his hand. "C _hére_ , I'm so sorry. You're in so much pain."

His own eyes glistened with moisture.

But I wasn't about to let him kill me.

I fought to keep my eyes open as my vision blurred again and again with bleak blackness. I burned from the inside out. My body stiffened again and the spasms recommenced.

" _Je suis désolé. Je suis si désolé. Mais je ne pourrais pas tu relâcher_."

Jacque said that he was sorry, but he couldn't release me.

Couldn't release me?

One of the jolts convulsed me so my back arched off the bed. I stayed ungodly bent for an eternity, the blackness swallowing me. The last voice I thought I heard was Hannah's, screaming out my name.

I heard a door open and close. It had to be the kitchen door with Mrs. Jones coming to wake me for my wedding.

"It is Mrs. Jones," Jacque whispered.

I breathed a sigh of relief at hearing Jacque's always calm voice. What an awful dream I'd had.

But the reality was I was to marry today. I would never have Jacque in my bed again. Or be encircled in his scent like I was at that moment—leather, pine, and what was that? Anxiety?

I wanted to laugh. How could I smell anxiety?

" _Tu respirez_."

Of course I was breathing, I wanted to say to Jacque, but I found that my mouth felt sticky. More than likely because I'd slept for so long.

Jacque caressed my cheek, and I couldn't help but smile. By God but I loved him.

" _Remercier Dieu."_

Why was Jacque thanking God? Why was I so cold? Was I covered in sweat? Was I still under the quilt? Why couldn't I open my eyes to check?

Suddenly I thought I heard Bethany move about the kitchen. I could have sworn I heard her say to herself that she was going to let me sleep in, that I needed as much rest as I could get, that she would come up and get me in twenty minutes time. No thirty, she said.

But she was a floor under me, and there was no way I could hear her that clearly. I never had before. Once my mother had yelled at my father in the kitchen. My sister and I had been in our chamber, and even then we'd only heard the muffled shouts that my father had spent too much money on tobacco yet again.

"Violet, _chér_ , I need you to wake up. Mrs. Jones is in the house. She's going to come up soon to get you ready for your wedding. We must leave now."

Yes, he had to leave me, and I had to leave for my wedding.

Jacque wrapped his hands around my arms and tried to gently shake me awake.

I fought the glue in my eyelids, then they sprang open. Oh! How that hurt. I clumsily covered my eyes to shield them from the burn of the—of the colors. Only my arm felt too heavy and when I'd finally summoned the strength, I smacked my forehead maladroitly before I covered my eyes with my forearm. It wasn't that my chamber was too bright, there was just too many colors. They were in such immense detail. Too much. The colors were too loud.

"Ah, I'm sorry," Jacque said. "I forgot how odd the transformation felt. Seeing more clearly, the better hearing, being faster, stronger . . ."

What on earth was he talking about?

I peeked at him. His face slowly came into focus. He was smiling, yet his countenance was smeared with worry. His hands around my arms softened into a caress. Lord, he was beautiful. His glossy black hair, light skin, and those glowing eyes. Dark, dark blue gazing down at me. I didn't want to move from his stare.

"There you are. Come back to me." He smiled proudly, like a new parent. "Are you still in pain?"

I sucked in a breath, realization dawning on me.

I tried to ask why I might be in pain, but my mouth was curdled in mud and cotton.

"Can you move, Violet?"

I tried to lift my shoulder, to adjust my position, but I felt so heavy, as if I weighed the same as Bess. I tried to shake my head, but my head was still. My God, what was wrong with me? Did Jacque really poison me?

I heard Bethany again mutter something about getting the eggs from the chickens being as much fun as sucking lye juice. But then the kitchen's door opened and closed, and I guessed that she had gone to fetch the eggs anyway.

I looked at Jacque, noticing that my breath felt pinched and with every fast gulp of air, my ribs felt as if they were healing from serious blows. I'd once fallen from the wagon and landed on my back, knocking the air out of me. My ribs had ached for weeks, like the bones themselves were too large for my skin and lungs. That was how I felt at that instant.

Jacque smiled down at me comfortingly. "Violet, I'm going to have to carry you away now."

He _had_ poisoned me! He'd made it so I was paralyzed to do his bidding.

What bothered me the most at that moment was that somewhere in my mind or in my heart, I understood what he had done and why. Something in me wanted to run away with him, and to take the choice away would make it that much less guilt inducing. Somewhere in my soul I sympathized.

As he leaned over me, gently cradling my head, then sliding an arm around my legs, something else in me screamed for my freedom. He'd poisoned me into paralysis. He'd taken my choice away, admitting that himself, and damn him to hell, but I wasn't going to go with him. Not that way!

He tried to lift me, but my head bobbed at what must have looked like an ugly angle. He stopped to adjust his hold, and I sprang from him.

Surprised to be able to use my body again, as well as how I had suddenly jumped on top of my bureau, I struggled with the sheet covering me, trying for some kind of decorum while I glared down at him.

He blinked. His arms still outstretched.

He straightened slowly.

"I'm not paralyzed anymore."

# Dark Deeds

He smiled. "I see that."

"You tried to poison me."

He shook his head.

I pointed a finger at him, still precariously balanced on the armoire. "How else was I paralyzed other than you poisoned me, Jacque?"

He kept his tiny smile, further infuriating me. "That was not poison, _chér_."

My finger pointing at him turned into a fist. I growled. "How could you?"

" _Oui_. Yes, I know. I should have asked you first."

"Asked me?"

He shrugged.

I jumped down from the chifferobe, hoping I wouldn't make too much noise, and when I did land I heard nothing. Jacque didn't look surprised. In fact his unconcerned countenance, that small smile of his, and the fact that he had poisoned me was enough for me to rage. "Asked me? And how would you have asked me if you could poison me, hmm? I'd like to know. 'Violet, _chér_ , I'd like to poison you so I can run away with you. What do you say, _chér?'_ "

The man actually had the nerve to chuckle. "I love how you imitate me. I don't sound so regal though."

I made a noise that was part growl, part anguished howl, not sure if I would throttle him.

"But we do have to leave soon, Violet. I hear Mrs. Jones approaching from retrieving the eggs."

I pointed a finger at him again. "How do you know she got the eggs?"

He slid off the bed, and stood before me. "You heard her too, Violet. Didn't you?"

I swallowed and backed away from him.

"Didn't you, _chér_?"

I shook my head. "You poisoned me, paralyzing me, so you could kidnap me."

He shook his own head. " _Non_ , I gave you . . . I didn't paralyze you."

We both heard the kitchen door open and the whispered walk of Bethany as she went to place the new eggs in the pantry. She was mumbling something about the black rooster, the son of the devil, pecked at her.

"You hear her too, don't you, _chér_?"

I looked at Jacque, realizing I was panting. I shook my head.

He squinted his eyes, then smiled. "Yes, you do."

We both jumped as we heard a crash below, more than likely a bowl fell to the floor.

He sighed and extended his hand. "I know I should have asked you. I know. You will have to forgive me later, because right now we have to run. Run away from here. It pains me to do this to Mathew, but I've waited for you much longer than he's even been alive. You are mine now."

_Mine_. The words echoed in my heart, resonating and breaking something in me.

I did not want to be owned by anyone.

I pushed at Jacque's chest. He skittered across the floor four feet. I looked at my hands, unsure how my anger had amplified my strength so much. But when I looked back up at Jacque he did not look as amused as I was.

"Come, we have no time now." He walked closer to me, an arm extended, but his brows down. "She's making her way through the parlor and the interior stairs. We'll have to leave by the window."

I opened the window, shutters too.

"Ah, sense pervades you now."

And that was my undoing. I wanted to punch him right on his little smile.

"Leave."

"Hmm? You must get dressed, _chér_."

"Get out of my chamber."

He straightened and cocked his head as if he suddenly didn't understand English.

"Out! Get out. Get out of my chamber. Get out of my life. _My_ life, Jacque. Not yours. You don't own me."

He rubbed his hand over his heart, nodding. "Yes, yes, I don't own you. I know. I've never treated you like property, nor do I plan to. I love you, Violet. I know I should have asked you first, but it is for the best. No other, not even me, could appreciate the gift I—"

"Gift? The gift of your eternal love as long as you poison me to do your bidding?"

" _Non._ "

"Yes. Certainly, you never treated me like property, until today. Get out!"

He blinked and kept rubbing his hand over his heart. I noticed he winced.

" _Non_ , this won't do. You are—you are like me now. You died."

All the cogs clicked into place. "That's why you would make up such silly stories about being almost two hundred years old. You did it to try to convince me that you made me immortal too?"

"I—"

"I'll never run away with you, Jacque. Not now. Not ever. By poisoning me, taking away my choice, I'll only run _from_ you."

He grunted and swayed, his hand over his heart pressed even further into his chest.

"Stop with the playacting. Just stop." I tried to restrain my voice, but I was close to screaming at him. "What you have done today, by God you could have killed me, only proves to me that you are no one I should love."

I heard the soft plods of Bethany's feet ascending the stairs. Jacque must have too, because when I looked at him, he frowned at the door.

Slowly, he turned back to me. He nodded once.

"You have made your choice then, when I gave you none." He walked toward the window, as I slunk away from him.

He clutched at his chest, his eyes reddening. "I should have asked first. I will forever regret that." He stepped a leg through, but then stopped and looked at me. He reached for me, but I repulsed. His face broke then, and he grasped all the more at his chest as if the pain were piercing. It might have been. Finally, he choked, "Forever more."

I turned at the soft tap of Bethany at my door, then looked back at my now vacant window. I rushed to see him running from my farm, but he wasn't there. He'd vanished.

"Lord in heavens, girl, what are you doing?"

I spun around to see Mrs. Jones, who looked horrified at me. She ran to me, picking up the sheet I let fall around my feet in a thin white fabric lake. She covered my chest, while sputtering, "Don't tell me you're trying to kill yourself because I couldn't take that, Violet. I could not take that."

I shook my head.

"Good. Now, what were you doing poking your bare ass out of the window?"

What had I done? I'd made Jacque run away from me. But he'd tried to kill me, I reminded myself. Why? Why had he done that? If he hadn't, I might have . . .

It didn't matter now. All along I had a plan, and I was going to abide by it. Today was my wedding. Mathew, oh, Mathew would hopefully never know of my lying with another man whilst I'd slept. He'd never know what a traitor I had been. I would marry the right man, the good and decent man, Mathew.

I thought of an excuse to give Bethany. "I—I thought I saw something."

She looked up at me. Her eyes suddenly round with worry. My voice had warbled too much.

"You saw something?"

I nodded.

"What you see?"

I swallowed. "A ghost."

Mrs. Jones and I drank the remaining champagne bottles while she helped me get ready for my wedding. She never asked about the furniture or the champagne. She just smiled.

She washed my hair in her magnolia and lily wash. Then, we drank more. Well, it was me who drank profusely. It helped cloud any thoughts, other than I was to be married soon. It was what I needed, to get drunk. My sister had died, the next day my mother. I attempted to kill Kimball only to be beat out by some mysterious person. And then there was Jacque . . . I went to whisky if I let him invade even an iota of my thoughts. I drank more than I ever had before, yet it never seemed to completely numb me, wash me in a cloud of stupor.

Hannah had begun a dress before the incident that I guessed was for my wedding. It wasn't finished when Hannah died, but Mrs. Jones had completed it yesterday. It was a soft cream fabric with simple, subtle frills—just for me. It was elegant and yet enchanting. It was Hannah.

I wed in the early evening. I don't remember much of it, to my embarrassment. I'd drained three bottles of whisky by myself and was as drunk as a lord. So was Bethany. I clutched at her before the ceremony. She cooed and soothed me the best she could.

I remember seeing Mathew for the first time with the reverend. I remember how Mathew stared at me. He seemed in awe of me, and I was thankful my sister had designed such a beautiful dress. I remember the way he held my hand and rubbed the top of it. For part of the ceremony he had to remove his hand from mine. I looked down and suddenly remembered Kimball's blood on it and almost retched.

I remember saying the right words at the right time and being proud of myself for that. I remember how just as the ceremony was ending everyone thought they heard a wolf howling, but I wondered if it was my wounded, idiotic Jacque. I almost winced as I stopped yet another thought that revolved around him. I'd managed to clear my mind of all wandering feelings, even the grief filled ones, gorged with bone breaking sadness that my mother and sister were not here with me. I dared not think of anything, too afraid that if I did I might run from my own wedding, screaming, gnashing my teeth, pulling at my hair, and begging God for the apocalypse.

Mrs. Jones and I drank more while many men and women came and wished their congratulations to Mathew and me. Both famous Adams men asked me for a dance. Mr. John Adams complimented my dress, but more my fortitude. He was sorry I had just lost my family, but, and although it was a piteous consolation, he admitted, I was gaining a new one. Since I adored his wife, I didn't bristle at his words.

Someone brought a fiddle, and sweet music filled my house. There was brief talk about a vigilante who had killed my sister's rapist, but I only heard the whispers of their conversations. Then someone brought a bagpipe, the once forbidden music of my ancestry, and I couldn't hold back any longer from my tears. I wept. Mrs. Jones sat next to me, clutching at me. I told her of our shared ancestry, since she was my sister now, and how my grandfather had played. She told me she had no recollection of her own father or grandfather. And like Mr. John Adams, I knew it was no solace, but I told her I'd be proud if she adopted my Scottish heritage as her own—bagpipes, haggis, and all.

I don't know when the townspeople left, but soon Mr. Jones was trying to separate Bethany and myself. We grabbed at each other. Me nervously, her crying for my sister and trying to whisper to me the secrets of how not to get sore on my wedding night. Mr. Jones had to carry her off over his shoulder.

Then I was in my bedchamber with Mathew.

"No," I whispered to him, while he looked at my dress.

"I . . . I won't hurt you, Violet."

"Not this room," I pleaded.

Mathew blinked. He looked at the bed, then at the drawing of my sister I had made when I was but nine years of age, hanging over the bureau. It was a horrible representation, but I was nine and never all that artistic. I had made it out of love and as my sister grew she would smile at it and, of course, tell me how she adored it. Understanding spread over Mathew's face when he glanced back at me.

He smiled gently and nodded. "Of course."

I padded across the hallway to my mother and father's room, wondering when or how had I lost my shoes? I had replaced the claymore to its rightful corner, and stood, watching it as Mathew latched the door shut. I heard him approaching, and felt . . . I don't know how to describe it. I wasn't disgusted with Mathew or what we were about to do, but felt unattached from the moment, from Mathew, namely myself.

"Violet? Darling?"

I turned to him, wondering if he knew how to take off my complicated dress.

"I must have a word with you."

His tone was . . . harsh.

That snapped me back into my body, into the moment.

He sighed and plopped on a chair my father had made that held a lumpy purple cushion. Mathew winced and moved the round pillow to his lap, where he proceeded to cling to the fabric with tight fists.

He knew. Mathew had to have known about Jacque, that I loved him, _had_ loved him. I couldn't love a man who would be that devious. Could I?

"I don't know how to begin." His voice was rough.

My knees were going to give way at any second. I began to tremble as I watched Mathew grip the pillow, seeming not to dare a look at me. I sunk to the floor, my dress billowing around me in creamy clouds.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have proceeded with our marriage," he said, "but I needed to buy the house and farm for you, and our marriage finalized the deed, which is now in your name too."

My heart shredded into a thousand pieces, yet was beating excruciatingly loud. Surely, Mathew could hear it—how my heart was breaking for him. How could I be so despicable when Mathew was so giving?

"Thank you, Mathew," I whispered, tears stinging my eyes.

He nodded and gave me a quick look, but then his jaw tightened, and he stared down at the twisted cushion. His eyes grew dark, his blond brows furrowed. A muscle along his jaw twitched. He appeared to be brutally angry. I didn't blame him. How could I make it up to him? Or could I?

"I need to inform you about—" He glanced at me. His agonized face made me want to race to him, to comfort him, but then he bore down once more at the purple pillow on his lap with such a grimace, I lost all nerve then, as he continued to talk. "I need you to know the kind of man you're marrying, Violet. I need you to know the real me, since we are to be partners in life, I need you to know what you are getting yourself in for."

I cocked my head. I thought he was going to point his finger and tell me he knew about Jacque, but this . . .

"I—I must confess, first, that I'm not a virgin."

I folded my hands on my lap. "Oh?"

He shook his head. "I meant to wait until tonight, our wedding night, but—are you a virgin?"

I nodded. At least in that regard I had been a loyal fiancé to him.

He slumped his shoulders on a heavy sigh. "I'm a cad."

"No."

"Yes, darling, I am. I thought that it would be a good idea to know what . . . making love would be like, so I could . . . please you."

"That's thoughtful." Again, I wanted to reach out to console him, but I couldn't find it in me to do, since I had become grotesquely ironic. I was jealous. Insanely jealous, and there I sat, the woman who just the night before laid with a man in my bed. Certainly, Jacque kept all his clothes on, and we had only kissed, but—oh, _I_ was the cad.

He snorted and shook his head. "I've made love now a few more times than would be considered thoughtful." He looked up at me suddenly. "But I'll never do it again. With another woman. And I only performed with a lamb's skin on my—do you know what I mean by that?"

I nodded. I'd had a recent visit to the midwife who had educated me in many of the devices that might protect a woman from pregnancy.

If I didn't know better and if the light had been brighter I would have sworn that Mathew was blushing, but he just continued. "I'll never lie with another woman again. I promise."

I swallowed, feeling his words pierce through all the mutilated pieces of my heart. "Do you love her?"

He shook his head vehemently. "No! Lord, no. I—she was—she knew I came to her for you."

"Oh," I could only whisper, "well."

"Do you despise me?"

I shook my head and looked down at my tortured hands as I contorted them in my hold. "I—no."

"Yes, and well you should. I am a rake of a man, a—"

"No, I don't despise you. I'm dreadfully jealous."

I glanced up at him. He blinked a few times then shook his head.

"I'm sorry."

I nodded.

"I should have waited for you, as you have done for me."

I shrugged.

"Do you think you could still love me?"

I smiled. "Mathew . . . my darling, if having intimate relations with another woman is your worst crime, than I'm a very lucky woman. Most men have mistresses and—"

He'd snorted when I'd said the words "worst crime." And now he appeared to be fuming. He kept giving his head a fierce shake. He flung the purple cushion to the bed, and rushed to one of the windows, where he stood looking out at the waxing moon. It was now more than half full, and shone enough to illuminate Mathew's tense face.

I finally stood and walked to him, but he sidestepped my advances.

"I carried on about my virginity, or lack of it rather, when truly I am . . . I—I am a monster."

I reached for him, but he wouldn't let me touch him and turned his back to me.

"Mathew, you had carnal intimacies with another woman. I'm jealous, yes, but—"

He swiveled back to me, his mouth in a snarl. "I love you so much, you know? I've loved you since I was ten years of age. I liked you a lot before that, you were my best mate, but it was then that I decided I'd marry you."

"And you have, darling. I am married to you now."

He shook his head slowly. "We could get a divorce. You could still own the land, of course. I'd give it to you. You wouldn't have to contact me ever again."

I let out a shock of a breath. "What? You love me, but you want a divorce? What did I do?"

But I knew what I'd done. I was just too much a coward to admit it. I was forcing him to admit my sin. God, I was a wretch.

"'Tis not you, Violet." He lashed out with his voice, but then quieted his tone as he said, "'Tis me that is the beast." He leaned forward slightly, and that was when I heard a familiar thud-thud, a heartbeat. Only, it wasn't mine. I distinctly heard Mathew's heart racing. Oh, how the man must have been in pain. I tried to reach out for him one more time, but he continued speedily talking. "I have a demon inside me now."

"Demon?"

He nodded, then turned away again. "If you want a divorce, I'll understand."

Finally I grasped for his coat's arm and yanked him to me. "What on earth are you talking about, Mathew? I don't want a divorce."

He shook his head. "Nay, 'tis too disgraceful for you." He tentatively touched my chin. "You did nothing. You even saved yourself for me. We don't have to make love. I understand."

I growled at him. "Mathew, you are wearing on my last nerve. I just married you. _You_ , damn it! I know I will be getting the land, but I finally set the date because—because," it pained me to admit how selfish I had been all these years, but I had to, for him, "I finally saw you. I saw whom you really are when you were arguing with that magistrate from Boston. I finally saw how loving and kind and determined you are, but more than that I saw you, how much you love me. Why on earth would I want to turn away from that?"

He let his hands drop to his sides. "I murdered Kimball."

# The Rider

He turned from me again.

"I murdered a man, Violet. 'Twasn't the way I thought it would be. It was . . . The Lord knows how I admired your father and his Quaker sensibilities and yours. Still, I found out where Kimball was jailed. He was here—well, close to Concord, if you can believe that. As if someone among the redcoats wanted that man dead." He paused, and I noticed his hands trembling. "I found him. He was roped to a tree, sleeping, and like a coward I reached around the tree and slit his neck. It was . . . not what I thought. I—I—" He sucked in a breath and bowed his head.

As dark a deed as murder is, a devious side of me gurgled in appreciation.

_He_ was the one that beat me to Kimball. _He_ was the one that bought my family's farm for me. _He_ was the one.

During the wedding ceremony I'd mimicked the reverend, not even listening to the words I swore to God and before all of Concord. By doing so I was a blasphemer now too, to add to my ugly list of sins. But not anymore.

I would be a good wife to Mathew. I would—over the years, no doubt—somehow make it up to Mathew for my indiscretion and my insincere vows. I made my own promise at that moment. I would love Mathew. I would be devoted to him and him alone. He deserved that. He was my family now. He was the one.

Tentatively I wrapped my arms around his waist, arms and all. He didn't struggle, but held his breath.

"I do not share my father's Quaker sensibilities, Mathew, for I must confess to you: you beat me to him," I whispered, "to Kimball."

He spun around and my arms hung loose beside me as he searched my face. I continued. "I found Kimball, and, aye, Colonel Devlin came to me in private to see about . . . justice, I think he called it, for that rapist. I went to kill Kimball myself, but you were there first. What you call yourself a monster for, I am also guilty of."

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out of his perfect lips.

Reaching up, I softly held his lightly whiskered cheeks between my palms. I forced him to bend to me, to lower his head, so I wouldn't have to stand on my tiptoes anymore, but he stiffly stepped back.

I heaved for air, my arms still outstretched, suddenly realizing how I needed his body's warmth against me, to feel something other than dead inside.

"Am I understanding you correctly?"

I nodded.

"You think me no demon?"

I shook my head. "As demonic as I."

He blinked then slowly swallowed.

He flopped back, luckily within reach of my parent's bed. He sat with shock rippling through his face.

"You don't despise me?"

I shook my head again as I gingerly approached him. His legs were wide apart, as if helping him with his balance, and I lowered myself between his long limbs. Tentatively I wrapped my hands around his knees. The warmth from his body spread its way up my fingers, like the way whisky can race its heat into the belly. I smoothed my hands up a few more inches, feeling the steel structure of his thighs. I let myself gaze upon his body for once. I'd always felt hesitant and wondered what he might think of me, what others might think, if I'd let myself investigate what might lie under his clothes. His legs seemed impossibly long and muscular. I wondered what it would be like to touch every inch of them. At that thought my breasts ached against the constraints of my stay. The apex of my legs became lusciously warm. My eyes ventured onward to his flat stomach and the way he breathed. He seemed to be struggling for air, and I looked up at his angst-ridden face.

His voice strained when he said, "Do you—do you think you could love me, after all?"

I nodded.

His hands were in fists beside his hips, and I didn't pause for a moment when I reached for them. First I stretched out his fingers, then I clutched his hand around my cheek. Mathew's eyebrows were still furrowed.

"Mathew," I whispered. "My Mathew, _you_ are the one I choose."

I thought I heard a twin boom from two cannons then, but it dawned in me that I was listening to Mathew's heart again. His brows lifted, but his countenance was still tormented. I released his hand, and he immediately withdrew it to his lap. I began to unpin my dress. His heart thundered. His eyes widened, but he didn't move, didn't seem to breath, and it took me forever to finally unhinge myself from the top of my dress. He sucked in a sip of air as he looked me over, but he still didn't move. It took me another eternity to loosen my corset, and even longer to wiggle myself free from my outer clothing. I sat on my shins in my shift, loving the rhythm Mathew was offering me in his fast paced heartbeat.

He made like he was going to touch me, but stopped himself. His arm was frozen in the air, but I caught it and urged his hand to my shoulder. My wide necked shift, seeming to know my wishes, moved and revealed my shoulder the second before I forced Mathew's hand on me.

His fingers burned my skin, but I welcomed the too hot touch. He, again, didn't move. He looked like a drowning man, needing to gasp for breath, yet not free to do so. I panicked, wondering if he would ever respond to me. But it was then that my eyes fell on his breeches, at the apex of his legs. Men's anatomy wasn't a complete mystery to me. After all, I'd been raised on a farm, but I must admit that what I saw in one instant both intimidated and fascinated me. The fabric of his breeches tented toward me, and between my own legs heated more. Curiosity got the better of me. I once more wrapped my hands around his thighs and slowly ascended toward his narrow hips. He clutched at my shoulder. Raising myself on my knees, I pleaded with my eyes, for I knew not the words to ask.

"Mathew."

He swallowed.

My hands discovered the crease between his legs and his stomach on either side of him, then, finally, he grabbed me and lifted me in an all-encompassing kiss.

I woke with a start, swearing I heard a wolf howling. Mathew stirred in our dark chamber as I moved from his bare arms and chest, but he never wakened.

It was now four days into our marriage. I would wake each morning with a heavy arm or leg flung over me, and snoring in place of my sister's giggles. I'd shove my still raw grief down into the pit of my stomach, yet find a smile easy enough for my husband as he would awaken and hold me.

But at that moment it was the middle of night, and I didn't know what scream or unrest had alerted me. The night seemed peacefully calm, but I was sure I couldn't go back to sleep. I smiled at Mathew's large, muscular form as he stretched into a more comfortable position in his sleep. Then I found a linen shift, let it fall over my shoulders, and tiptoed from what I now considered Mathew's and my bedchamber.

I glanced once more at my husband's sleeping form, remembering the morning after our wedding. The sun had been so warm, so cheerfully yellow. It had baptized me from all thoughts centered around betrayal or any other sin I'd committed in my life. I think it did the same for him. Mathew had woken me with fresh coffee and a prideful smile spread wide on his face, making the fine lines around his blue eyes crinkle.

"I made coffee. It's a first for me. I've tasted it, and, although it's not the best, I doubt it will kill you. I feel so domesticated now. I've managed to make coffee, Violet! Are you proud of me?"

I'd smiled and nodded, took the coffee, and, after sipping the powerful brew that almost knocked the wind out of me, I'd managed a convincing smile.

"It's wonderful . . . dear."

His smile had widened to what I was sure would be a breaking point, then he took my coffee to the nightstand, and made love to me for the tenth time in our marriage. I should've stopped counting by then, but each time was still so new and adventurous and was a wicked heaven.

As I strolled down the stairs I thought of the past four days of our wedded bliss. I'd found myself drawn to his body more and more. Throughout the day, I'd plow the fields, weed, get the seed ready to be sown, and all the other work that needed to be accomplished on a farm, even if one is a newlywed. However, all the labor I had found so rewarding when my mother and sister were alive was now cruel and arduous. But making love . . . oh, that was nice. Instead of feeling numb or on the verge of a glacier-like existence, when Mathew made love to me, I was warm, no, hot, and then I would bubble and break into a million pieces, feeling like I had become glowing white flower petals dancing in a warm summer breeze. How I loved gasping for air, clutching to Mathew's muscularly squared shoulders, and shuddering with my body's pleasure.

I walked to the kitchen's window and held Mathew's pocket watch up to the moonlight. It was a very bright moon, and showed that it was 1:30 in the morning on April the 19th in the year 1775. We'd made love forty-three times now, and I wondered if I could rouse Mathew for our forty-fourth.

I bit my lip, dampening my evil smile, as I decided to let the poor man rest.

Then it hit me that what I was feeling was . . . happy. Of course my grief would sometimes catch up with me and take my breath away, make me feel hollow and that my bones might break from becoming too fragile. I hurt so much, but Mathew would find me huddled in a corner, set me on his lap, and let me cry on his shoulder, and soon enough I would feel strong and warm again.

I forced myself to have no thoughts regarding that black Jacque. He deserved none of my attention . . . idiotic man with his silly stories and pathological behavior.

But predominately I was happy, not just because I liked to make love to my husband, but I was enjoying all aspects of my married life. Coffee in the morning with sugar and cream, fresh picked wildflowers in the afternoon, but what I enjoyed so much was Mathew himself—his sense of humor, his intellect and insight, his gigantic heart. I silently giggled as my heart fluttered with thoughts about my husband, the man I did love. God, I loved him!

I had to write the date. It was the 19 of April in the Lord's year of 1775 and I was happily in love.

Mathew had left some parchment on the table and some ink. He'd been working on a letter to his famous cousin, Samuel Adams, who had asked Mathew during our wedding, what he thought it would take to have a unified Continental Army. Mathew had been so flattered he'd been asked, he gave a silly and not too clear statement. He was drunk and kept looking down my dress, but all the same, Mathew was embarrassed he'd said anything at all, and was trying to clarify what he meant in a letter. He thought that, although Boston was under occupation by the Regular soldiers, the rest of the colonies didn't have much sympathy for us Massachusetts folk, and in fact, thought we were trouble makers. What we needed then from the other colonies was sympathy, and Mathew feared how we could get such emotion to provoke such manpower and money that would give the colonies a united army. He had read me a few paragraphs from his letter, and I'd had to kiss him and asked him to make love to me on the table. He'd pushed the parchment and ink to one side, then lifted me to the other.

Remembering what we had done on the table, that was our forty-first effort, made me blush and smile. Mathew's eyes had turned into blue smoke while he did everything he could to please me, and eventually, shocking myself, I screamed out for him.

Mathew was a brilliant lover, and I wished I could share that with someone. I wasn't quite comfortable enough just yet with Bethany to talk about how my husband could make me cry out. Although, come to think upon it, she probably knew as there had been many moments when I had gotten louder than I had intended. Oh dear.

Moonlight poured into the kitchen, making everything silver and seem to be in another dimension of optics, perhaps of reality. I found the parchment, stood beside the table while I forced the lid off the ink, dipped the striped turkey feather quill in the tar liquid, then wrote on a scrap of parchment.

> 19 April 1775

The quill had more ink than I had expected and blotched a few times, making large black purple impacts on the paper. I let the colored fluid drip again and swiveled it into swimming lines from the dark blotch. I had no idea what else to write and played with the ink more.

A moth flitted across my neck, and I batted it away, only to find the solid feeling of flesh meet my hand. I screeched, jumping and turning into Mathew's body.

He chuckled and placed a hand over my mouth.

"You'll wake the Joneses, darling."

He released his hand while I quietly giggled.

"You scared me, Mathew!"

He smiled down at me, then his eyes flicked to the table. His smile grew, the way a pair of friends who share a secret in common can grin devilishly at each other. He retracted the quill from my hand and placed it on the blotting board.

"Having a problem sleeping?"

I shrugged, noticing his naked chest and stomach, and how he wore his breeches loosened. Something about the loose ties of his breeches over his muscularly lined stomach made my inners flip. I'd seen Chinese acrobats come to Boston, and thought my stomach was imitating their dynamic and explosive moves—a cartwheel here, a flying twist there, summersaults in the air.

I tore my eyes from the wisp of dark blond hair under his bellybutton. "I—I woke up, and realized we've been married now for four days, and something about it seemed monumental. I had to write it down. Silly, aren't I?"

"You being sentimental will never be silly. Not to me."

I smiled up at him.

"God, you're beautiful in the moonlight, wife."

The nightglow played tricks on my vision, and Mathew's eyes were as dark and blue as the deepest part the ocean could reveal. My breath hitched as I blinked.

But it was _Mathew's_ hand that wrapped around my hip; it was _Mathew'_ s smile that warmly beamed down on me.

"Thank you, husband."

Mathew's other hand pushed onto my hipbone, and the table pressed against my backside.

As usual my shift slouched over one of my shoulders, and Mathew's gaze landed on my white exposed skin. His apt fingers fisted the fabric of my shift at my waist, and the flimsy white cloth rose to bare my knees.

"Mathew . . ." I whispered as I wrapped my fingers around his wide shoulders.

"I love you, Violet." His whisper was fast and his eyes were focused on my thighs.

"I love you."

Then he stopped. He gazed into my eyes with furrowed blond eyebrows and his breath caught in his chest. I'd wondered what I'd done wrong when he finally inhaled and tilted his head closer to mine.

"You do, don't you?"

My forearm rested on his chest, and I felt his heart pounding under his ribcage, like a hammer hurrying to build a barn in a day. Better yet, I heard the sensual pounding music of his body. And almost to the same rhythm of his racing heart, we both heard the distinct sound of the Townhouse bell suddenly pierce the peace of the night.

He released his hold on me, and opened the kitchen's door to the drive where we could see the North Bridge and the Concord River's swollen waters, just passed that was Concord itself. Any Common House's Bell being chimed in the middle of the night was not a good omen, and I gripped his hand with both of mine as he walked out to the porch. I followed, letting his body shield mine.

Then I heard the three beat sound of a horse running full gallop. Clop-clop-clop. Clop-clop-clop. Clop-clop-clop. I peeked around Mathew's wide frame, when he asked, "Who is that out racing his horse?"

In the full silver moon, I saw the black figure running at a break neck speed over the bridge then slow as he approached our drive. The dark figure came into view. I could tell the shadow was a man, then as he approached I vaguely recognized the ragged voice as Dr. Prescott's.

"The Regulars! They're coming out!" His horse pawed at the ground in a quick walk, then he yelled, "I'm off to warn Mr. Barrett . . . Colonel Barrett."

Mathew nodded as the horse sprang into a catapulting jump, but Dr. Prescott held firm, then the horse was granted what it wanted and ran west like it was born of the wind.

I stood closer to Mathew. We both didn't say a word for a full minute, maybe more, as we watched the ghostly dust that Dr. Prescott's eager horse made in the bright moonlight as he galloped away.

_Colonel Barrett_. Good Lord, we never called our militiamen by their military titles. Never. Not until almost two in the morning on this day, this fourth day into my marriage.

Jonah ran to meet us, also wearing breeches in an array that indicated he'd just thrown them on. Mathew turned to him and said calmly to Jonah's panicked face, "The Regular soldiers are on their way. In February when the Regulars went to Salem, they did so on orders to retrieve the cannons there. More than likely, the Regulars are coming to get the cannons and other arms that were stored here, but most of the arms have been moved, which means the Regulars will march up here for nothing. And they will have to leave with nothing."

Jonah nodded as Bethany, also dressed in a thin shift, caught up to Jonah and clutched onto his arm.

"I heard tales of the Regulars wanting to arrest Mr. Hancock." Jonah's voice was hoarse. "And that other relative of yours, the chubby one—"

Mathew smiled. He smiled, God love him, as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Both my famous cousins like to eat. Are you referring to the older Mr. _Samuel_ Adams?"

Jonah nodded and smiled himself. I thought he was thankful that Mathew understood his lack of a charitable description for his cousins. "That's the one."

Mathew shrugged and looked back west, as if he could see a phantom horse riding in the distance. "Sam might get arrested as well as Mr. Hancock, but I doubt it. Gage has had plenty of opportunities, and although I'm no judge of character, I doubt the great General Gage has it in him to arrest two of the most prominent men of Massachusetts. No, I think this is more about arms, which as I said, will come to nothing. But," he sighed heavily and glanced at me then back at Jonah, "I have my duties. I am a militiaman and as such need to muster at Wright's Tavern. Mr. Jones, I would appreciate you keeping a careful eye on my wife while I'm gone."

"No," I said flatly.

Both men turned to me for a second, then ignored me with pursed lips.

"Gladly, Mr. Adams," Jonah said.

They shook hands, and I was going to smack them, but instead said sternly, "No."

Mathew sighed again then turned to me. "Violet, I am a lieutenant in Concord's militia. You were the one who thought it was a good idea for me to sign up. You know my duties—"

"Fine, go to Wright's Tavern," I hollered. "But Jonah . . . Bethany, they need to hide."

Mathew frowned and peeked at the Joneses.

"Please, Mathew, tell them to go into the woods. I was but a girl when the war ended, but I remember vividly the Regulars kidnapping black men and women and making them labor for the army. Please."

"I remember too." Bethany's earthy voice teetered on scratchy and dreamy at the same time. "All the men were rounded up and taken away, never seen again."

Jonah held Bethany's arm while he said softly, "Honey, I won't let them take me. And somebody's got to protect this farm."

"You think those men didn't fight for their lives, Jonah?" Bethany flung her arm away from her husband. "You think I didn't see my uncle fight with every last ounce in his body so he wouldn't be taken? Our master even argued with those damned redcoats, but they were all taken away."

Mathew finally said, "I don't want to interfere between a wife and her husband, and this fiasco with the redcoats will probably result in nothing, but now that I think upon it, I think it best if you, Mr. Jones, took your wife—"

"I am not going to live a coward's life!" Jonah yelled.

I found one of Jonah's hands that wasn't juggling to hold his obstinate wife, and when I had Jonah's attention I said, "I would never, never think of you as a coward. Never. I've known you for more than five years now, and in all that time, I've only thought of you as the bravest man I've ever known. My father made the impression on me to always try to see things from another person's point of view, but I can't wrap my mind around all the injustice you have seen in your life, a life not much older than mine. I'm asking you to protect yourself and your wife because I love you like a brother, and your wife is the only woman I have left in this world that I can call friend."

"And sister." Bethany held my hand then with huge tears gathering in her clear green blue eyes.

My own eyes stung, and I saw both Mathew and Jonah struggling with too much moisture in their eyes too, clearing their throats for a few seconds.

Jonah shook his head. "God damn it, you always get to me, Violet."

"That means he's going to do what we ask." Bethany swung my hand in hers.

And then it was decided. Bethany and Jonah were to take Bess, and the horses, save Cherry, and all the money I had on me, and hide in the woods until it was over. I was to watch the house and farm, unless something—we had no idea what that something could be—happened. Then I was to race into the woods and track the Joneses.

I waved away the Joneses and Bess with tears streaming down my face, while Mathew got dressed and retrieved his sword, musket, balls and powder. Walking in the barn after the Joneses left, I stood before the shelves that held my father's long rifle. I made the climb quietly, reverently, then took down the more than five-foot long specialized musket. I placed it on the wooden counter and stared down at the fateful weapon.

"Good idea." Mathew's voice interrupted the cold blank slate that was my mind— _tabula rasa_ of the overwrought.

I turned to my husband, and instantly he rushed to me, wiping the cold trails of tears from my face.

"Oh, darling," he whispered as he kissed my cheeks.

"Mathew," I gripped onto his blue lapels, and forced my body against his. "I—I don't want you to go."

"But—"

"I know. I know. If I were you, in your shoes, I would submit to my duty for the militia too."

Mathew smiled and nodded. "Thank you for understanding. I must admit there have been multiple times when I thought I should just take you away from all of this. We could runaway together, like a couple of star-crossed lovers."

"Who aren't star-crossed at all, my love. Truly, you'd want to run away?"

"My first memory, Violet, was of wanting to tuck you into my arms and take you somewhere completely safe and make you the happiest of all women. Well, back then I wanted to kiss you and hide you in my trunk, like you were my wee, little doll."

Hot tears floated down my cheeks as I wrapped my arms around his neck. "I don't know what I did that was so right to make you love me, but I'll be forever grateful . . . darling Mathew." I reached up on my toes and kissed him, tenderly. Then asked, "Make love to me before you leave."

"But I'm already so late." He shook his head, but I knew his body was rebelling.

"Please," I coaxed, and jumped up to sit on the counter before him. I held his hands and slid them up my legs, revealing more and more each escalating second. My white shift bunched up to my mid-thighs, and I let my legs widen to surround his hips. He groaned.

I released his hands, and he kept moving the gown higher and higher while I reached for his breeches. Suddenly, he captured my hands. "Tell me you love me, Violet. Please, tell me you love me, like you did earlier."

I swayed closer to him, holding his hands and placing them over my heart. "I love you, Mathew, my husband. I love you so much. I need you."

He growled and pinned me to the counter with a kiss.

Nearly out of my mind with wandering through the house without a soul to occupy it for almost an hour, it was 2:30 in the morning, when I heard the clop-clop-clop-clop of Cherry and raced to the kitchen window. The full moon was so bright I could easily see Mathew trot up our drive. Tearing from the kitchen, I waved as I raced through the porch. I had decided since the Regular Army were coming, to wear a dress, which meant running to my husband was troublesome around all my skirts, and I almost laughed at how ridiculous I felt.

Perhaps the Regulars changed their minds. Mayhap, I thought on a giggle, they turned around, thinking what lunacy and barbaric acts it was to search through men's houses and barns, forsaking that man's right to privacy, for the sake of keeping the peace. I couldn't read Mathew's shadowed face and held Cherry's reins before Mathew said, "We are to regroup if given word that the Regulars are on their way. Some of the others are at the Barrett's farm to make travel plans with a left over cannon and arms, but since I have a new wife, I was told I can be back in my bed with . . . said wife."

At that I did chuckle.

It was close to daybreak, about six in the morning, when we heard the impatient sound of a horse thundering up our drive. Mathew flew down the stairs and out the house, but with the chamber's window open, I could hear the entire staccato conversation.

"Lieutenant Adams, you are requested to meet with Major Buttrick for a war council."

"Of course. Please inform the major I will be there shortly. Is there intelligence, Ed?"

There was a short pause then an adolescent voice cracked, "There were shots fired in Lexington. Eight militiamen dead, more wounded."

# Flash of Red

Newton's third law: for every action there is a reaction.

I closed my eyes wondering what my fellow Provincials' response would be. Eight men dead. More wounded.

Mathew interrupted my thoughts as he got ready a second time for the approaching redcoats.

"This morning, oh dear Lord, Violet, I took you on that counter. . . you didn't have the sponge combination—contraption. What does one call it? Child-stopping-mechanism you got from the midwife. Oh, you might be pregnant. I'm so sorry, dear. I wasn't thinking. I know you don't want children yet. I was so caught up in the moment, and—"

That was what Mathew said to me only moments before he was to leave to meet the other officers of the militia. I tamped my laughter down by biting my bottom lip, blushed and shrugged, so happy that he thought of our making love instead of my darker worries. "I was caught up in the moment as well. In fact, if my memory serves, _I_ was the one that asked you to . . ." I tilted my head toward the ceiling of our bedchamber, almost ready to say _make my legs shake while I screamed out in ecstasy_ , but I wasn't sure if I was bold enough to say that sort of thing . . . yet.

"Oh, right, right, my naughty wife. What am I saying? You're completely brilliant. That idea in the barn—undeniably genius, of this I'm sure."

I chuckled more.

"And if I had more time, wife, I'd take you again. My goodness, I think I'm insatiable concerning you."

"Well, I am the same, Mathew."

He veered closer to me, then growled and stopped himself. "What you've done to me. What you've done to my body, but," he cleared his throat and nodded, making fists then flexing out his fingers, "but we have to be more careful. You need time to grieve." He softly caressed one of my cheeks, the other hand slipping to my waist.

I shook my head. "I'm done with grieving. Or, to be more precise, I'll always miss my sister and mother, but I don't want to be stuck with the dead. I want to start living. I'm ready for children. I'm ready for _your_ children. I want to have children that look like you. Do you think you're ready for that?"

"No." He shook his head. "I want our children to look like you."

I laughed and blinked. When I closed my eyes I saw an image of me as an old withered woman, like some of the stalks of oats as they pushed their way through the soil. I saw my back stooped with the test of time, heavy on my shoulders, burdened my neck and head with wrinkles. Happy wrinkles. I saw myself smiling with blond grandchildren and Mathew beside me, his age-spotted hand on mine. I saw love all around us.

As Mathew mounted Cherry, fresh from his brief nap and prancing about to make getting in the saddle a challenge, I called out, "Remember what you asked to be on the kitchen table when you return?"

He blinked and shook his head.

My smile grew as I said, "That dish we had in the barn this morning, that same dinner we had after you read me your letter to your cousin. Do you remember it now?"

His eyes widened as the rising sun streaked a crimson ray into the horizon and beyond. That scarlet hue made him look like he shined in heaven's own light. His blond hair took more gold into it, his skin glowed, his light blue eyes shone out like a beacon for my soul to come back to him, always to come back to him. He reminded me of the stories I'd heard of God's guardian angels, even with the shock on his face once he caught on to my meaning. He swallowed and nodded.

"I'll have that same dish for you on the kitchen table when you get back to me."

Mathew gave me leering smile and tipped his hat. "You're a brilliant wife. You do know that, don't you?"

I giggled.

"I love you, brilliant wife!" he said as Cherry crow hopped, then stopped with a firm pull of the reins by Mathew.

"I love _you_ , husband of mine!"

Hours later I weeded in one of Mathew's coats as the west wind bit with ice. The warm spring weather had drained away the second my husband had left. I blew hot air on my frozen fingertips covered in dirt when I heard the subtle thunder of men marching. It had too much rhythm to be a natural sound, and was muffled by the dirt and gravel of the highway in front of my house, the North Road, but it was distinguishable nonetheless. **Thud** -thud-thud-thud, **thud** -thud-thud-thud. Men marching toward fate is an eerie noise whose meaning cannot be mistaken for anything other than anxiety or doom.

There is a sense of tragedy within a military. No, it's not just the presence of a soldier that brings about this feeling of calamity and catastrophe; it's not just that a soldier wears a sword, holds a musket; it's also not just that a military man can endeavor to kill. It's the knowledge that destiny is riding beside the soldier. Flanked close, predestination, whether grave or triumphant, is the mistress of a soldier.

While I wiped the moist earth from my hands, I knew not what the future was with the redcoats. Shots fired in Lexington? Men dead? I couldn't believe it. Surely, the shots were merely gunpowder—a normal warning tactic. Or was the powder truly mixed with lethal lead balls? _Please, please, let there be peace_ , I whispered to the black soil as I stood.

I walked gingerly to my house. Once inside, I took off both Mathew's coat and the lavender apron that shielded me from staining my mossy green dress from the dirt, hung them on hooks, then with shaking hands, found a cup of cold coffee to indulge.

I stood at one of the windows at the front of the house, sipping the bitter black brew, waiting for the crimson color to cut up the road, but instead saw all manner of men—Provincial men—hurrying over the North Bridge, and there on the west side of the bridge was Cherry and my Mathew waving an arm in the direction of the copse behind our house. Had I truly been that involved in the garden that I hadn't heard what looked like hundreds of men run up the hill west of my property?

Apparently.

My white knuckles gripping the coffee cup was evidence enough of my nerves. I took a deep, shaky breath, hoping to calm myself. But the thudding of men, professional soldiers marching greeted my ears. I looked back at the highway, over the North Bridge and there they were, the blood-bedecked soldiers. The last few Provincial men raced up the hill, as the Regulars arrived on the east side of the bridge.

Although the clouds hung low, they never did shed one drop of moisture. The wind was steady and strong, and there was enough sun peeking through the clouds to see the gleam of the redcoats and their bayonets as they approached.

I raced to the other side of the house, in the parlor, to see that my husband and the other militiamen stood on the hill, just northwest of the house, looking down at the Regulars making their march.

Then, I flew back to the kitchen where I saw a gorgeous gray horse smoothly sail over the North Bridge with a captain and lieutenant leading what looked like hundreds of lobsterbacks. I sipped more coffee, and counted the rows of soldiers. Four men in a row. One—two—three—four—five—six . . . ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . and more . . . My God. Two hundred? Almost two hundred men marched across the North Bridge while the captain in a huge black hat with gold feathers plumed over the edge sat in front of my property talking with a couple of his lieutenants.

My fingers nervously rapped against my lips as I watched the captain look down at a piece of paper then up, inspecting the countryside and then me. I gasped as I realized I had walked out of the kitchen and stood on the porch with three Regular officers staring at me.

Could I have been more thoughtless? I could have kicked myself for my careless actions and blinked as the captain waved at me.

Quivering, I waved back.

Not more than a couple rods from me, I saw the young captain give me a small smile and then talk to his officers. At that instant, to my utter dismay, the captain spurred his horse, and he came trotting up my drive to me with one of his lieutenants, or was it another captain? I chewed a wild mint leaf I had picked from the Concord's widened shores earlier that morning—my morning absolutions, both forgiving the river and hating it—while the officers approached.

"Good morning, miss!"

Tonguing the mint to the side of my mouth, I nodded and croaked, "Morning."

"I am Captain Parsons and this is Captain Laurie. We were wondering if we might trouble you for some information."

"They hid all the cannons under my corset."

All right, now, I'll admit I'm not the best when I'm nervous, but there's something about being nervous and angry that can make me a bit of a lunatic. I internally cringed at my bawd statement, when both the captains began to laugh, then laugh in hysterics.

"Oh . . . oh . . . she's got a sense of humor!" Captain Laurie exclaimed.

I arched my brow at being talked to as if I weren't in their presence—Lord, I detested that—but held a tiny grin on my face, the same kind of granite smile I had seen Jacque bestow when he was his most uncomfortable.

"Now, those smart colonists have us," Captain Laurie said. "We can't search this kind lady's person for the cannons. Or can we?"

"No . . . although . . . no, we can't," Captain Parsons said, and stole a look at my chest before he continued. "Thank you for the laugh, good woman. Pray, may I ask for your name?"

Mathew had advised me to tell the redcoats, if asked, any surname other than his. Even though his cousin, the lawyer, John Adams, had defended the Regular soldiers who had been part of the Boston Massacre, it still wasn't enough to have the name Adams not hated amongst the British-born soldiers. Samuel Adams had been a very busy man, making speeches and stirring tea parties.

"I am Mrs. . . ." I couldn't think of any name, other than Adams. I wanted to say I was the wife of Samuel Adams himself. I wanted to watch the Regular officers' greedy eyes, flickering to my chest and sometimes to my eyes, widen at the realization that I was someone of consequence. I was a woman to be reckoned with. "Beaumont," I finally choked out.

Good heavens, of all the names to think of. Why hadn't I just used my maiden name? Lord, what had I just said?

"Hmm." Captain Parsons's smile dimmed.

"Your husband is French?" Captain Laurie asked.

"Oh, my husband was born and raised here in Massachusetts. His grandfather was a Huguenot." I tilted my head with no further explanation.

I was getting rather good at lying, I thought.

"Ah." Captain Parsons leaned closer to me. "Is your husband a Huguenot also?"

"Oh, no," I said and rolled my eyes at the Captain, like we were old friends who could tease each other. He liked this informality between us, and peeked again at my breasts to prove it. I continued, though I wanted to smack the men converging around me. "I converted him to His Majesty's Church years ago. I wouldn't have married the man otherwise."

"What a bright woman you are."

I let my eyes fall to the ground in feigned polite acceptance of the compliment.

"Would you mind telling me where the Barrett farm is located? I have on my map it's a few miles west on this highway, but we've had some problems with the reliability of our maps."

I swallowed and thought of Mrs. Barrett and her friendship with my mother. Mrs. Barrett was Colonel Barrett's wife. Colonel Barrett was more than likely stationed only a few hundred yards away from me on the hill over my house. I thought of Mr. Barrett's farm, one of the wealthiest, and how there had been a stockpile of weapons stored in his barn, but Mathew had informed me that the militia had moved it elsewhere. Most of it, at least.

I loved the Barretts, even though I abhorred their owning slaves. Still, I didn't want any harm to come to anyone.

As if knowing my thoughts Captain Parsons let his horse walk closer to me, where he whispered, "Don't worry, pet. No harm will come to these Barretts. We just need the arms—the cannons you claim to be on your slender body. I promise no harm will come to the Barretts themselves."

"You promise me?"

Captain Parsons smiled and nodded.

"Your map is wrong," I said quietly. "The Barretts are only two miles from here, and if you break your promise, Captain, I'll hunt you down like I would a wolf that's eaten my cattle."

Captain Parsons let his smile widen, then he slid his eyes over my whole body. "I like you, you know? I've never met a woman with your sense of humor before."

I let my smile widen, sure that my malicious designs were close to becoming palpable. Then, looking down at the highway, I noted nearly a hundred pairs of eyes curiously peering at me.

"'Tis a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Beaumont. I would like to meet your husband one day—the man who married such a rare creature such as you."

I nodded and curtsied. "I'm sure you'll meet him soon enough, Captain."

At that the captain scanned the hill a couple hundred yards from my house, then looked back at my smiling, proud face. He bowed his head once and left with Captain Laurie following.

I watched through my kitchen's thick glass window as Captain Parsons divided his troops in half and rode with now a hundred soldiers toward the Barrett's farm. The other hundred was stationed on the low hill in front of my house, and there were a few other soldiers spanning the North Highway. Of the half that remained, the men were slight of build with long limbs, built for speed—light infantry, I guessed. After all, I was born during a war that savaged the whole world, and had gotten to know the difference between a heavily built grenadier and the light infantry, I thought I perused.

I hated wearing the damned dress, and threw on a pair of midnight blue breeches and a white shirt, grabbed my cold coffee, sipped, then raced to the parlor window, took another sip, then gagged as I watched the militia—young and old men, rich and poor—spread themselves, hundreds of them, on the hill then descend straight for the Regulars.

# It Begins

Not at all subtle, the militia had their fifers and drummers playing a cheerful tune as they strolled down the hill, muskets in hand or any other weapon they could find on their farm. A few young men—boys, really—held axes or butcher knives.

Rushing to another window, I saw Captain Laurie, looking up the hill, then shouting out some kind of order for his men as his horse curled in a tight circle, then trotted back toward the Old North Bridge. The men who stood guard of the highway followed him to the west side of the bridge.

A Regular lieutenant nodded toward Captain Laurie and his retreating men. Captain Laurie rode close to the lieutenant and spoke as his eyes shot toward the approaching militia.

Colonel Barrett was at the front, just like the Regular officers were always in head of their men, so too was my husband, which made me stop breathing and choke. After I finally inhaled, I ravished more of the wild mint leaves. Damn it. I hated just standing, watching, waiting. It was this thought that made me snap, my jaw clenched tight, and I threw the coffee cup on the floor, feeling satisfied as the white porcelain shattered into a tiny white flakes, flakes like snow.

Making tight fists, I wondered what to do other than just watch as the militia, looking like a gigantic blob of men, faced the Regulars, usually a formidable sight, but against so many Provincial's appeared puny and pathetic.

Colonel Barrett, on a white mare, faced the bridge with a scowl, his eyes scanning toward Concord from time to time.

Rushing to my kitchen, I saw out the east window that smoke from the town's Commons spiraled toward the steel-colored clouds. It was a fair amount of smoke, but from the distance I couldn't tell if it was a house or a barn or what, but obviously something massive was on fire back in Concord. Something was on fire, indeed.

I ran to the parlor again, where Colonel Barrett just finished shouting an order, and the militiamen formed a line on the highway, as the Regulars stood guard of the west side of the bridge. The militia marched two lines at a time that snaked down the road looking like a multi-speckled dragon, like pictures of the Chinese dragons of war. Colonel Barrett, on horseback, strode back up the hill beside my house and consulted with other officers, including my husband who had ridden up the hill with the colonel.

What could I do? What could I do? My heart pushed at my ribs as I stared at Mathew making his way back down to the highway, making me think my chest might explode at any minute. Colonel Barrett gave an order, and the men marched slowly toward the bridge. Their muskets were loaded with long flints, which meant that gunpowder and possibly bullets were inserted in their muskets as well. Then Captain Laurie screamed something to his men, and the soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder and made the short distance to the east side of the bridge.

Along the highway the Concord River had flooded, and the ditches that ran parallel to the road were smothered in smoky cold water. Was it the river? Was the river possessed by a demon who wanted more blood on her watery hands? Daganawida had told me about the spirits of water being the most clever of all, and how I was to flatter and play trickster to the river, to appease the never resting spirit. Or was the river merely a cold witness to my sister's death, Kimball's death? And now there were men with muskets who faced each other over that murky water.

Colonel Barrett began to slow his horse as a young militia captain I recognized as an Acton man, who'd always pestered my sister and I during the counties' dances, walked in front toward the west entrance of the bridge. Beside the Acton man was a fifer who began a high-pitched, fast-paced, thrashing melody, and somewhere in the multicolored dragon was the beat of the drums.

The last of the Regulars retreating to the east side of the bridge stooped over and tried to pry some of the planks of wood free from the bridge as they passed.

"Stop harming the bridge!" a militiaman yelled.

Captain Laurie said something to his Regular troops, and the bridge was left alone.

Colonel Barrett could be heard giving orders not to shoot unless fired upon. Then he looked directly at Captain Laurie, waiting, it appeared, for the captain to make a further retreat or . . . God, what else could the captain do?

On the east side of the bridge Captain Laurie was in front of his men. His face was ruddy and even from the distance of my house, I saw his visage glistening with sweat. His eyes never focused on anything in particular or any one person, instead they bounced from the militiamen to his own, back and forth, thither and hither. He looked nearly mad by the time he screamed, and this I heard distinctly, "Formation for street firing!"

Captain Laurie's men clustered around the bridge's opening. They tightened in formation, appearing to be a smaller red blur at the end of the bridge. Although being just a woman with no military education, to me it looked like the perfect target at the end of the bridge. Instead of using the space provided, to appear more intimidating or to be a wider target, the Regulars looked like one sitting red duck.

The militia, led by the Acton man—oh, what was his name? I was so glad to hear when he'd gotten married, hoping that would stop him from trying to pull me too close while we danced the pousette—kept a steady pace as he approached the bridge, only fifty yards from where Captain Laurie screamed, "Hold the line, boys. Tight formation!"

A lieutenant at the rear of the blood-colored blob shook his head, frowned, and gave out an order to flank the men who were making ready to shoot while in street firing position. The geranium target at the end of the bridge blurred with activity, but none of it looked organized. Then the redcoats tightened in on themselves all the more.

As Isaac Davis—yes! That was his name—marched over the threshold of the bridge, the tight scarlet ball aimed their muskets over their comrades shoulders, bayonets affixed, making the muskets sway like slithering snakes. And that was when a shot was fired. I jumped and shook as the report of the gunfire rattled my house. Gasping and holding my lips with my fingertips, another redcoat fired and Mr. Davis was no longer walking forward.

Another shot rang out, and the fifer who had stood beside Mr. Davis dropped. The music stopped, but the beat remained.

A man screamed, "God damn it! They're firing ball!"

Another militiaman yelled, "Fire, fellow-soldiers! For God's sake, fire!"

Then the militia, while marching forward, returned fire. The volley of popping noises was, at first, a loud bang, but then succeeded in no rhythm but steady enough so I could hear men yelling, but no coherent words could be made out.

Next another returning shot was fired in loud staccato booms of smoke and balls flying in the air, whistling past like gaps in a house can make during a Noreastern storm. Then the red blob became smaller and smaller, finally collapsing as the Regulars ran in retreat. It happened so quickly. First one man, then another and another ran, ran as fast as they could in no formation, no lines, away from the bridge. The fastest evacuation I thought possible to be executed by a hundred men. The Regulars were outnumbered more than four times, and to make matters worse, even I, a simple farmer's daughter, had seen that they'd been outmaneuvered.

The retreat lasted mere seconds, and the militia stood on the bridge, some on the highway, in awe. What had just happened? There were men lying on the bridge and around the bridge. How many were dead? How many were injured? How many were just cowering, crying for their mothers?

Mathew, still on horseback, stood on the highway. He looked toward our house with a slight grin. The whole of the militia wore a crazed face. If I were to guess, they never would have thought they could have made the world's strongest military run away. It was a collective face of four hundred men that was part stunned, part angry, and part rejoicing.

The jubilation commenced in a loud huzzah from someone in the crowd, then someone laughed, and the large mob whooped to God for their luck. A few men gave chase to the lobsterbacks, while others ran off, and some knelt to either pray or cry.

Colonel Barrett screamed. His horse trampled the highway in a nervous pounding of her hooves, and finally the men listened. The colonel no longer had a reason to yell once the men stood still, so I couldn't tell what he was saying. But by his pointing I gathered that some of the four hundred militia were to collect in the woods again behind my farm, and others were to secure the bridge.

Mathew asked something of Colonel Barrett who nodded. Mathew nodded himself, dismounted, and walked with Cherry up the drive to our house.

I stood in the kitchen fidgeting while I waited for Mathew, and within seconds he strode in on a big smile and thunderous confidence.

"Did you see?"

I nodded and ran to his ready arms. I had never been more terrified in my life as when I saw the Regulars shooting at my militiamen, at my husband. I had never felt my heart beat like that before. It was louder than the volley of gunfire, louder than four hundred men firing their muskets almost at the same time. I was sure my heart had galloped up into my throat, where I thought it might still be lodged.

I cried then, clutching onto Mathew with all my might. I never wanted to see anything like that again.

"Oh, oh . . . oh dear . . . what's wrong, Violet? Didn't you see that we got those damned redcoats running? Running, I tell you. Can you believe it? What are these tears for?"

I smacked him on his shoulder, hard. Harder than I'd wanted.

Mathew rubbed his shoulder, looking at me like I had just turned into a troll. No words came out of my mouth, or into my head, as I just stared at him, incensed he could be so . . . damned cocky at a time like this.

"Violet . . ."

Then I kissed him.

Yes, I was crazy, but I had just endured watching the man I loved being shot at. Somehow, God Almighty, he had survived.

Mathew lost his footing, and we bounced against the dark blue pantry in the kitchen. I clutched at his face, pulling him more into our kiss, inserting my tongue in his mouth, forcing my body against his, feeling him alive all over me.

Finally Mathew chuckled and pulled at my arms. He separated himself from my lips enough to say, "Were you worried about me, dear?"

I nodded.

There was a knock on the kitchen's door. I couldn't let Mathew get too far from me, so I followed him like a lost soul. Mathew said, "one more minute," to someone, shut the door, and smiled back at me.

"I have a minute."

I nodded and tried for a grin. "I'm sorry I hit you."

Mathew held onto my waist and let his smile enhance. "I think that was just concern for me, which flatters me to no end, dear."

I giggled.

"You should have been a boxer, wife. You have a nasty good punch."

"I'm sorry, again."

"I'll wear this bruise proudly, knowing how you love me and worry about me. Of course, if any of the men discover it, I'll say I was in hand-to-hand combat with a Regular."

"I think you should, yes."

"Can I say I love you again?"

"Please. Yes, please."

He kissed me first, thereupon whispered he loved me three times, then there was another knock.

Mathew huffed as he stormed to the door. "God damn it! I said I'll be there in a minute!" He whipped the door open and there stood Colonel Barrett.

"Oh . . . sir," Mathew stuttered.

Mr. Barrett gave me a small friendly smile before he waved Mathew's harsh words away. "I've been a newly married man myself, once upon a time long ago. I understand the need for a minute here or there." He came into our kitchen while both Mathew and I blushed. "Mrs. Adams." He came over to me and gave me a soft hug. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to have some of the Regular soldiers who are wounded treated here. You have your man, Mr. Jones, on hand to help?"

"No," I only offered.

Colonel Barrett dug his graying eyebrows in confusion for a moment, but then he sighed and nodded. "Reverend Emerson has some of the wounded, both Massachusetts' boys and Regulars. I was hoping you could take care of some of them too. I've already sent a messenger to my wife, so she will come and assist you."

I nodded while thinking I didn't want to take care of any soldiers—ones that wore a woolen red coat or ones that wore casual clothing of the day. I wanted this whole damned thing to end. I wanted Mathew to stay close to me, mayhap get me back into our bed and make love to me or just be close. I didn't want to stay at home, tending to strangers, but I nodded while Mathew looked down at me with pride growing in his warm blue eyes.

"Of course."

"Thank you." Colonel Barrett moved closer to the door, but then turned back toward me. "We're leaving the Regular's who died where they lay—for now."

"How many are dead?" Mathew asked.

Colonel Barrett shrugged. "Not sure. Of the Regulars, it appears there were two or three. Probably more as we saw some of the Regulars take their wounded and perhaps dead to the Emerson farm, trying to hideout, I'd guess. Might be a couple around your farm, Adams. Could take a few privates to scout out your place, make sure all the redcoats are accounted for. Of the militia . . . Captain Davis was one of the first to fall."

I gasped and held my fingers to my lips.

Colonel Barrett nodded gravely, but flicked a sympathetic grin to me. "He was a good man, very brave."

I nodded.

"What are we going to do?" Mathew asked.

Colonel Barrett shot an apprehensive glance at me, but then answered, "A rather fat redcoat colonel and a few companies of grenadiers met the retreating men on the road. The colonel and grenadiers escorted their retreating comrades back to Concord where, if I were to take a guess, that bloated colonel will rest his men, let them eat, and then begin their way back to Boston."

"What of the Regulars at your farm, Mr. Barrett? The ones searching for our militia's arms?" I asked timidly.

Colonel Barrett sharply inhaled and nodded. "God damn, I forgot about them in all this hubbub. I have to make an order not to shoot unless fired upon. I have to—" And he was out the door.

"That was a very smart question to ask, darling, and very bright to remember. I forgot, even Colonel Barrett forgot," Mathew said.

I smiled and held him one more time before he left, in a hurry to scout out the farm, then to be with his men. He said his good bye so quickly, I didn't think he heard me tell him that he was my heart, my love.

Mrs. Barrett would be coming soon, if she wasn't delayed by Captain Parsons and his entourage, but already the wounded, all scarlet coated, lay on my front yard, mostly taking care of themselves as I stood staring at them. There were only about ten of them, huddled together, some crying, some quiet and blanched, others looking in my house's windows. I frowned at that, but went to fetch a small bucket and filled it as full as I could muster while still being able to carry it. Odd, but I could carry it rather easily. It must have been my nerves, amplifying my strength.

Trying to hinder the sloshing, I carefully set down the basin of clean water a few feet from the men, all of whom, but one, could walk. I raced back inside my house for sheets and cups and came back, carefully settling everything on the ground, including small corn cakes that Bethany had made yesterday. The young men stopped their crying and were very quiet while staring at me with dead eyes. Those boys would never be the same again, not after seeing men die. I filled the cups and gave each man the fresh well water.

We didn't say anything to each other, the wounded and I. We just gave each other quick glances, and I tried for a calming smile. Only one boy could stammer a thank you as he drank the water and stared at his bleeding leg.

Then I heard it. I don't know why I didn't hear it sooner, but as I turned toward the highway there were more men marching toward the North Bridge. This time from the west side. Captain Parsons was returning.

Oh, God, couldn't this dispute be over?

Just then I saw the bright red of Cherry. Mathew galloped to the east side of the bridge and a little past to a small hill. Just beyond the hill was a stonewall. Cherry ran his precious rider until I could no longer see him past the wall, but I did notice there were many men standing guard nearby. Since I knew the location as well as the back of my hand, I could guess that Mathew and a couple hundred men were stationed around the rounded hill, protecting the bridge, in a blind spot to me, and a blind spot to the marching hundred Regular soldiers.

I looked down at the wounded. There was one boy who had lost consciousness. Damnation. Glancing at the boy who had whispered his thanks earlier, I said, "That's Captain Parsons on the highway, I'm sure of it. I think you should carry that boy and meet up with your other troops down on the highway. Not that you're a bother to me, I love having bleeding guests, but you might feel more comfortable with your own."

The brunette boy with blood dripping down his calf nodded and tried to stand on one leg. All of them helped each other up, but between the lot of them, no one could carry the concussed boy. They all made brave attempts, but in the end I pushed them aside, and somehow loaded the boy on my shoulders, thanking God the boy was probably only sixteen, if that, and skinny. I carried him down to the highway, while the rest of the wounded hobbled behind me.

As gently as I could, I set the boy down on the one dry spot wide and long enough to hold a man. I couldn't tell why the boy wouldn't open his eyes. He didn't appear to have a wound on his head, and was breathing just fine. I hoped he'd just fainted. His face held the softness of youth with acne and the sparse hairs of early manhood above his lip. As I stood, I said to the group of wounded soldiers, "I—I—well, I wish you a full recovery." Then I ran away.

Finally, up the hill to my house's porch, I shuddered as I studied the highway where Captain Parsons approached with nearly a hundred men. The marching red line was a ways off and couldn't have seen me, I hoped. Yet growing nervous, I hastily retreated into the house.

I took in a deep breath, weighing my choices, bit my lip and turned around in the parlor. Thanks to Bethany everything looked clean and tidy and smelled faintly of lavender, just like my sister had left the house. God, how I loved his house, how I wanted to have children in this house—Mathew's children. I was furious at Mathew for being with his militia, but also fiercely proud that he was with his men. And all I really wanted was that picture I had developed of Mathew and me growing old together, having children, and living in love.

I grabbed an overcoat that hung on the couch. While rushing through the house, I noticed that it was another of my husband's, this one black and simple, and hung past my hands. Rolling the cuffs, I walked through the kitchen, but then stopped. My rifle leaned against the wall in the corner beside the smaller blue pantry. The pan where gunpowder was to be filled was blackened, and even with all the oil in the world I couldn't make it gleam. I genuflected before the rifle, fingering the cherry wood and the brass-color of the metal. I needed to have children that looked like Mathew, raised in the house where I had grown from babe to woman. I needed to fulfill that dream. How I cherished thinking the word, husband—the man who was bound to me, mine. I winced as I remembered Jacque saying those words. How ironic! Now I whispered them to myself—my husband, mine—and the words resonated with warmth and rightness.

Wrapping my hands around the stock of my rifle I prayed for destiny. It was my fate as a woman to have babies and live in a house filled with love, was it not? I was in love with my husband, and I was not about to let anything stand between me and my wishes, my desires, my husband. I'd already had so much taken from me, but not my husband. Not as I could do something about it. I righted myself as I tied the bag of lead balls and extra gunpowder to my belt then bulleted out of my house.

Just as I jumped from the porch I saw a black steed carrying a very familiar form to the other side of the wall, close to where Mathew was hiding. Wide shoulders, slim waist and hair so dark that it almost appeared blue . . .

Jacque.

# Not Supposed to Happen

What the hell was he doing here? I stole behind the Joneses house, let my rifle lean against the wall, and peeked around the corner. I couldn't see the horse or the rider. Could I have imagined him?

I couldn't see much from my disadvantaged viewpoint, save for the approaching redcoats on the highway. I needed to get to higher ground, but I knew that of the hills behind the farm, specifically Punkatasset Hill, were littered with militia members. Damn, I had to chance it.

I had grabbed my father's wide brimmed hat as I'd left the house, and pulled it down low. Then clutching my rifle, I jogged through my freshly plowed field. It was a perfect day for planting, I realized.

I rushed through the copse and quieted my step to listen for any militiaman that might be roaming through the woods. Or Regulars. I couldn't sense any person near, so I decided to make a run for the other side of the Concord River. I blinked. That was all it took for me to remember the iron feel of his wide shoulders, how silky his midnight blue hair was, as Jacque had nestled with me, whispering sweet love poems in French. I jolted as I opened my eyes, recalling too well Jacque poisoning me.

Ass! Lunatic ass.

Gritting my teeth as I ran to the river to where I knew a fallen oak provided a bridge so I could cross the full river and be on the same side as my husband and his militia, a few rods from where they stood. And Jacque too. The gall of the man! As I crossed the tree bridge, the river murmured and sputtered. Impregnated by the spring showers and the gradual melting of snow, it was huge, brown, and alive. I didn't blame the river for my sister's death . . . sometimes. My sister was in more pain than she could explain, more pain than she could endure. I knew it and had wrestled with her agony, tried to force her to live for me. But all the while, I knew she hadn't truly survived. She had told me herself of her own murder.

I found a thick and wide weeping willow to hide under that provided me safeguard from most eyes, I hoped, as I scanned in front of me through the crowd of Provincial men for my husband and that damned Jacque. The willow's budding leaves were like green flowers surrounding me. Those tiny green blossoms floated around, sometimes shyly tickling me, sometimes angrily whipping me if the wind picked up. I hung on to one small branch, like I would my sister's hand, and watched my husband talk to my phantom, Jacque.

Oh yes, he was there. I hadn't imagined him.

What was he doing here?

Behind the rock and earthen wall that stood on the eastern side of the North Bridge, Jacque said something that made Mathew laugh so hard that he had to tilt his head back. The sun shone at that moment through the gray clouds and glistened off my husband's blond hair, presenting him again to be angelic—Gabriel of the most high, the greatest of the sacred warriors. He laughed once more as Jacque made another statement, and I saw that Jacque held a tight small smile himself. They both were on horseback while the militia that surrounded them were on foot, muskets at the ready.

Then I saw in my periphery the approaching Regulars. I jumped on a three-foot tall boulder and saw the red worm of men marching closer and closer to the Old North Bridge. I could clearly see the vibrant flare of golden feathers atop a red uniform, Captain Parsons.

The odd thought suddenly occurred to me that I saw them all rather well. They were more than a hundred feet from me, but I saw them as if I had a spyglass. Strange. Can one's vision improve with age? Perhaps it was because I was in a stressful situation, and I just thought I saw things more clearly.

Further I could have sworn I heard Captain Parsons give orders to slow his troops. Over the distance and the loud river there was no possible way for me to hear that. But no matter.

I jumped down from my perch and, while crouching, raced closer to my husband, looking for a vantage point to take aim at any man that might target Mathew. Was that the reason Jacque had shown up? My stomach dropped and hollowed. I fell to a knee, yet stared at Jacque. His back was to me, so I couldn't read his face.

I panicked and tried to stand, but floundered all the more, until I was on a hand too, crouched low, staring at the black back of the man I had thought I'd love so well. Another cursory glance at the Regulars let me know that they were now close to the front of my drive. Captain Parsons found the boys I'd left on the road and conferred for a moment, but then gave orders for some of his troops to collect the man that was still unconscious. Other injured red coated men seemed to come out of the very woodwork of barns or houses and were ushered close, safe. Then the captain's gaze lay upon the dead on the highway. There were only a handful really, but one redcoat had been axed through his face. I had seen the brutalized dead man earlier when I'd instructed the boys to stay and wait for their officer to come for them. It was something I wanted to forget I had ever seen. Yet couldn't stop envisioning the hollow space where a face should have been on a bloody head. The captain shook his head and spat in the opposite direction of the body.

Then my husband gave a quiet order. In one flowing unit more than two hundred men stepped from the rock wall to let themselves be seen.

Parsons' breath hitched.

The world quit spinning. Or God closed his eyes.

The biting cold wind stopped. All men stood still, not even breathing as they stared at each other. I doubt the Regulars ever imagined that the militia could have mustered more than two hundred men to guard the bridge. I wondered if the Regulars thought all those men with muskets were just apparitions—two hundred ghosts.

Then the oddest thing happened, something I couldn't have even imagined, it was so utterly ridiculous. Elias Brown, a man who talked to himself and urinated publicly in the Concord Common, suddenly appeared and shambled 'round the Regulars with a pot and sipping cup, asking if anyone wanted a drink of some questionable cider. Surprising me all the more, some Regular soldiers took out their billfolds and offered money for the brew. A few minutes later, Elias proceeded on to the militia, offering said cider to those men too.

What offhand madness in the midst of the tense stare-off between militia and Regulars. Elias mayhap saw no sides, only men, who wanted a drink and to forget their death-defying worries. Perhaps Elias wasn't as crazy as I thought. Or perhaps I was just as farcical, since some part of me understood, too, that ultimately there were no sides, just worries. But of those worries there was only one that mattered: Love.

I had to keep my husband safe.

Captain Parsons flicked his gaze sideways then back. Then I spotted Jacque's head moving to look at me. From such a distance, he might think he could make out a frame of a human, but I could have sworn he shook his head and rubbed over his heart. Could he see me? I knew I blended well into my surroundings. Daganawida had taught me how to camouflage myself.

But my eyes diverted back to Captain Parsons and his men. My husband gave another quiet order, and the militia moved to the side of the highway, making room for their hundred counterparts. Captain Parsons gave a curt nod, then with just a flick of his wrist his men moved eastward, carrying their wounded or helping the limping.

One of the scarlet privates bellowed at the militiamen some kind of insult as he passed. The militia straightened their backs and squared their shoulders at the Regulars. A few more screams were issued from some other Regular privates. Then I saw Captain Parsons trod his horse closer to the Regulars that were yelling. He pointed a finger to Concord; the troops began to march quietly.

I looked again at my husband and Jacque, but in that small gap of time Jacque had disappeared. Quietly gasping, I circled, looking for the man in black. He was nowhere to be seen.

The militiamen that had been on the hill behind my house suddenly floated into view and caught up with their comrades on the east side of the North Bridge. The crowd was enormous. Colonel Barrett talked with the other officers. A decision was made.

A militia captain talked to my husband and other lieutenants, the lieutenants barked something and the huge group of men started to follow the Regulars from a safe distance. Many militiamen were jogging through fields and began to vanish as they merged into the woods. If I were to guess these men were there for periphery support for the militia that followed the Regulars on the highway. Both Regulars and militiamen walked east toward Concord.

My husband began to trot with Cherry toward the east as well, and I decided to follow him. Maybe Jacque had disappeared for good.

Mathew drove Cherry off the highway and through a small plowed field then into the forest himself. I gave chase, knowing I could never keep the pace with Cherry, but still I would try.

Surprising me all the more, I caught up with my husband in a matter of minutes. I had to run through the outer circle of the forest, so as to not be detected, but even with all the mud, the few bogs, fallen trees, or overgrown blueberry or juniper bushes I somehow ran faster and jumped farther than I ever had before.

No, no, Mathew had probably paused a few times to watch over his militiamen that were cutting through the trail that paralleled the highway to Concord. That was more than likely the reason for my catching up with him.

I crept close enough to Mathew to hear him get the order to speed ahead to Concord to gather intelligence as to what the Regulars were doing. Mathew took a wide game's trail that ventured close enough to Concord to spy the Commons. I was on a less traveled game's path that paralleled my husband's. I could just make out that the redcoats were sitting, supping, or treating the wounded, but most were napping. Napping!

How they could do such a thing on a day like today? Well, they must have been exhausted. And I recollected that when terrified or completely overwhelmed, my body would shut down too, and beg for sleep. Such an odd thing, the human body, for it was constantly striving to survive.

Mathew cocked his head up then squinted his eyes. I wondered what he was looking for, but then he sighed and pulled on Cherry's reins, digging his heels into the sides of his red horse and began to gallop through the trail. He was probably looking for another position for his reconnaissance, and I decided to run alongside him, as best as I could. I kept my eyes on my husband, whose form was beginning to get smaller and smaller. Gripping my rifle, I put more effort into my legs. They pumped quickly and almost easily. So I decided to try to run even faster. Then faster. And faster. I was actually catching up again to the galloping Cherry when suddenly a thick black tree branch reached across my chest, and I thudded to the ground on my back, struggling for air.

Rocking from side to side in my agony, I clutched at where the branch had struck, feeling the phantom clamp surround my ribs, making me feel as if every bone was broken around my lungs. I heard the very distinct French accented voice say, "It will heal soon."

# Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil

Jacque crouched beside me and placed a warm hand on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down at me apologetically with dark brows drawn tight, "I didn't mean to catch you with such force, but you were running wickedly fast."

The pain exploded through two of my ribs, making my back bow. A second later, almost as if it were not my own body, I could breathe again. I was fine. Sucking in a sail-ful of air, but then I coughed and eventually gagged.

What had just happened? I curled my body around Jacque's bent legs, trying not to vomit. Dear Lord, had I just imagined the pain? For it was gone. Completely. Utterly. Gone. My mind searched for information, trying to recall if I had truly been hurt at all. My strength was back. I swatted his hand away and sat up.

"What—what—what—?"

His face darkened as he looked at his hand that I had rejected. "What, Violet, is the question you want to ask?" His voice was too low, too emotionless.

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard about Lexington. I came as soon as I could."

"Why?"

He looked at me incredulously, as if I were mentally slow, but then he arched his brow. "I could tell you that I'm supposed to be here. I was training those militiamen who fired on those British Regulars. But that is not quite the truth. I could tell you that I'm here to gather intelligence for my country or that I wanted to join the fight myself, but, again, that is not quite the truth. Each of those statements are a little truthful, but not—"

"So what is the truth, Jacque?"

After I had said his name one of his eyes slightly twitched, but he recovered to his cold countenance in a second. "To protect your husband."

My mouth might have been gaping for a few moments before he murmured, "You have made your choice abundantly clear to me, and, honestly," his shoulders slumped, "I don't blame you. Mathew is the better man. He is kind and virtuous, and I am . . . ah, so old."

"So you came to protect him? Really? Then why aren't you with my husband now?"

"The British Regulars are resting in your Concord Commons for God knows how long. Their officer in charge is not a swift decision maker, so they might be there for a year or more." His smile widened at his own humor.

"You think Mathew doesn't need your protection right now, that nothing more will escalate while the Regulars are in the Commons?"

" _Oui._ Besides, I needed to," he paused and swallowed, "tell you more about your current condition. Mathew should know too and soon. He will grow suspicious if you don't."

"What are you talking about? My condition?"

His lips pursed, and he talked with his voice thick with anger. "You never let me explain."

"How on earth can you explain why you poisoned me? I know why. You were trying to trick me."

"No trick." His nose flared. "How has the running been lately, Violet? Didn't you notice that you can run faster now? That you can see better? You can even hear better? Your ability to smell is massively improved, and sometimes, as odd as it sounds, you can hear, see, or scent a person's emotions. Tell me you have noticed."

I swallowed and straightened my back, not wanting to tell him anything.

His smile widened. "Violet, _chér_ —er, Violet, you are not the same person you were before you drank the water I gave you."

"Yes, I know. You poisoned me. I will never trust you again."

He shook his head, a small smile still annoyingly visible. "I didn't poison you."

"I almost died, you liar!"

" _You did die_ ," he said it so calmly I almost didn't hear him. He leaned closer to me. "You know you did. You felt your heart stop. You couldn't breathe anymore—"

"It was the poison you gave me. It made me—"

"For the last time, I didn't poison you! I love you. Why would I want to kill you? I love you as I've never loved another person. I thought—I thought—it doesn't matter what I thought. It just matters that you finally listen to me. I didn't poison you, and from here on out you will never be poisoned. Or, more to the point, you may be poisoned but you will never die from it. I know." He snorted.

I wanted to push him over. But I held my anger in check. "What are you talking about?"

He snorted again and shook his head. "The water you drank was the water I saved from the sacred Indian spring. You are immortal now, like me. You will never age either."

I used my hands behind me and my feet to scoot away from him, shaking my own head.

"Don't believe me?"

I laughed. "How could I? I never noticed that you were mad."

At that he laughed very hard. He leaned his head back, as my husband had earlier, and actually fell backward because he was laughing so violently. I took a few more crablike crawls away from him, but then he straightened quickly, pointing a pistol at me.

I scrambled away, but he pounced. He pinned me down, the pistol's barrel directly on my breastbone, right over my heart. He pressed the gun so hard into my chest that I could feel the earth beneath seem to make the same shape of the barrel through my back.

"Do you still wear the gem I gave you?" he whispered.

Panicked, I tried to push the gun away, my throat tightened and my heart pounded so loud I was certain he heard it. But no matter how much I fought with both my arms, his one hand remained steadfast to hold the pistol over my heart. His legs held mine down as well. I tried to buck him off, but my body just crashed more into his.

"Fighting me won't help. I've had almost two hundred years to gain my strength, and at the risk of sounding like a braggart, you have no chance of escape. Violet, do you still wear the necklace?"

I nodded slowly, hoping this might be the answer to calm his craziness.

With his one free hand he gently slid his fingers along my neck, feeling for the silver, then retracted it from between my breasts. The sun just then peeked its way through the clouds and the dark blue gem glimmered like the Atlantic Ocean might if it were iced. He smiled wistfully at the blue diamond.

Then he looked down at me with that damned small smile. "Mayhap you still have affections for me?"

I wasn't about to say anything, not sure what might free me or chain me closer in his iron-strong grip. He shrugged, as if my not answering didn't matter. His legs tightened all the more against my thighs, pinning me further to the ground. One of his hands still held the glowing necklace fluttering in the space between us, and the other hand held his gun to my heart.

"This will sting," he warned.

Frantically I tried to pry the pistol from him, but in the next second the excruciating bang from his pistol sounded in my ears. Gunpowder smoke filled my nostrils, then there was nothing.

# The Rub

Hannah sat in a meadow of bluebells, strumming her fingers along the tops of the flowers. Her hair glistened in a warm sun, but she appeared to have been crying. Suddenly, she turned and began to smile in my direction.

"I miss you so much, Sissy," she whispered.

I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, that I wasn't the same without her, that I was now a different person, but who I was I knew not. I wanted to tell her that I forgave her. That I loved her and I understood.

My lips were glued shut, and no matter how much I struggled they remained closed.

"Now I get to be your guardian angel." She smiled again. "Seems fair to me."

I tried to swallow, to take in a breath of air, but there was none to take. Suddenly, I remembered that Jacque had shot me through the heart. I was dead.

"You're not dead, silly girl." Hannah laughed like we were back at our family's farm, sharing secrets. "My, but aren't _you_ the dramatic one. No, no, you aren't dead. Weren't you listening to Jacque? You'll never die again."

In a flash I opened my eyes to the smoky clouds. Clutching at my bleeding heart, I took a deep breath of Massachusetts' air.

"There, there," Jacque whispered.

I was in his arms, and he stared down at me with a lone tear descending his hollowed check, his black stubble slowing the moisture.

The pain in my chest was enough to remind me of when Jacque had poisoned me, as if my muscles were turning themselves inside out, then igniting on fire. I looked down at my bloody hands and the red stains on my shirt that encircled the hole in my chest. A gaping red-black hole!

There wasn't as much blood as I thought there should be, but then again I'd thought I was dead.

I _should_ be dead.

Something creamy white flashed beneath the gaping wound. Like two sides of ivory clothe being sewn back together, my breastbone stitched itself whole. Gleaming white and completely healed, the bone, _my bone_ , was intact. It was gristly to watch and felt as if searing hot needles worked on my body, but I couldn't turn away. Just as quick as my bone reconstructed itself, I saw red-pink sinew suddenly appear and stretch over my unbroken bone. Lastly, my pink skin, like fingers reaching to intimately interlace with another's, extended and blended the seams until there was nothing but a bruise under my bloody linen shirt. My corset was completely ruined by blood and the shredded hole in the center.

I fingered my still sensitive casing. The blood on either side of my skin was still so fresh it felt warm and wet, not yet cold and sticky.

Jacque adjusted his hold on me, reminding me of where I was. Perhaps, too, harking me back to _wh_ o I was now.

I jumped from him and couldn't believe how far I'd flung myself—at least six feet. Yet my legs were so weak, I fell on my knees instantly.

He sighed and nodded, still sitting with his legs crossed. "You have your strength back, I see."

I clutched at my shirt, at my tender skin. No words came to my mind, but I managed a confused gargling sound.

Jacque ignored the noise. "Since I knew no Hindi," he began, "I know virtually nothing of our condition; other than, of course, I don't think I can die; I don't age, and," he paused and looked away from me, "I—probably you too—can't have children."

That I did hear. For some strange reason I couldn't quite grasp, even with watching my own bone meld into a healed one, that I couldn't die. But not have children?

"What do you mean?" My voice rasped.

He looked at me, probably unsure of my odd sounding voice, but then he quickly gazed back down to the ground. "The man, the little man in the cave had said something about it, but I couldn't catch what he was saying. He had pantomimed something about a baby, then shook his finger at me. At the time I merely thought he was crazy or trying to preach abstinence. He lost his patience with me and stabbed me in the heart. I'm sorry to have given you a similar demonstration, but it was the only way _I_ understood. Even then I hardly wrapped my head around it, but now after so many years, after I've had to leave my home so many times because my own people become suspicious of the fact that I don't age, after—after everything, I know I will keep on living. I don't know if there is anything that will kill me from this curse. And it is a curse. Trust me—"

"What? What did you do to me? What do you mean I can't have children?"

His jaw line twitched. "You, more than likely, like me, will not be able to have children."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that now you will live forever. You don't need to propagate yourself in a child. As I said the little man in the cave—"

"I don't care what he said! Why do you believe you can't have children?"

He was silent for a long moment. "I," he paused, "have . . . not . . . had . . . a child . . . myself."

"You've had opportunity? To make a child? I thought you said something about not being like your father, not—"

"Never raping. _Oui_ , I never raped a woman. Never." He inhaled sharply, then slowly drew out his breath. "That does not mean I was chaste."

I gasped. God, I wanted to slap myself for my loud reaction. I recovered quickly, however. Nonetheless, Jacque wore a small quirk of a satisfied smile, which I wanted to smack off, was going to punch off once I knew more of the wildness he spoke of. "Tell me more. How do you know you can't have children now? Mayhap you couldn't have children _before_ you drank the water?"

"I impregnated one of my mistresses well before I left for India."

I swallowed, very aware of how my heart ached. It had to be from the burn of being recreated, not from any jealousy for a man I should hate. He had killed me twice now!

He shrugged and looked up with a small lopsided smile. "I wasn't as emotionally matured as I am now. Although being the recipient of me forcing you to drink water that has made you immortal, you may not feel I am wholly developed." He kept a small smirk despite my not laughing at his self-depreciating humor. "I—I—only had mistresses that wanted me. I swear, unlike my father, I never forced myself on any of those women."

I gritted my teeth. "I don't care." I lied. "I don't care about the women you were intimate with." Yet through all my bravado I embarrassingly added, "You have a child?"

He sipped in a breath. "My mistress miscarried. She was seven months along. She died shortly after." A streak of legitimate pain crossed his eyes, making the dark azure, just blue.

"I'm sorry . . . sorry for your loss."

He nodded once curtly.

I didn't want to feel sorry for him, so I continued our conversation. "You have had mistresses since? And none of them were with child?"

He nodded. "Correct."

I swallowed. "That doesn't mean _I_ can't have a baby. I'm a woman. Perhaps the water works differently with women."

He looked up. His eyes returned to resolved dark blue, but he forced a quirk of a smile on his visage. "Perhaps. As I said, I don't know very much about our condition."

His grin was made of cold marble. He'd turned statuesque. He was hiding his true emotions, for which I didn't blame him. He was trying to give me hope, and for that I could almost think a kind thought about him. Almost.

"How can I tell Mathew about my condition?" I slumped to the earth.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "You could shoot yourself in front of him."

I felt my own nose flare at Jacque. "You know, one day I just might strangle you for this."

He actually smiled. "Do try. I know I need the punishment."

"Is there anything that _will_ kill you?"

He shot a glance at me. His eyes could not hide the hurt I'd caused in that instant, but the next he concealed his everything. "I know not. There might be something."

I shook my head. "How on earth am I going to tell Mathew this?"

He shrugged only one shoulder this time, seeming to care even less as the conversation meandered.

"How am I going to tell him that I can't age? Wait, what if I _can_ age?"

"I doubt it. You heal quickly, which I believe also inhibits your aging process."

I nodded. Then my nodding became maniacal as inspiration set in. "Wait! Do you have more of that water?"

One of his eyes twitched, as he shook his head.

"You found the water in India?"

He nodded. "The water vanished after I drank it, Violet. I only had that little bit in my flask, because I had learned from the days of running to capture as much water as I could before I drank from the puddle, never knowing I would have the time to sit and drink or keep running."

I regarded him for sincerity. From the strain in his voice I could tell that he knew what I was after. If I couldn't die, then neither could my husband. I needed Mathew to take a sip of the strange spring water. I needed my husband. He was my savior when the world took everything away from me. I was such a fool to waste so much time not truly appreciating him, for betraying him with my desire for Jacque, for so many things I knew I was a devil of a woman, but somehow Mathew still loved me. He loved me, and his love saved me.

How could I have no ending? How could this be?

Yet I'd seen my own skin become whole again. If I hadn't seen it, felt the fire and ice of healing so quickly, then I wouldn't have believed any of this.

Jacque interrupted my tornado-like thoughts. "The little man in the cave said something about either there being more immortals, like us, or that there was more water somewhere on this earth."

I looked up into his black blue eyes. "So we could go back to India to find him, your little cave man. What if he . . . couldn't die too? What if he was alive, but just not back in that cave when you went to look for him? We could search for him, couldn't we? Then Mathew could—or wait! What if there is something out there that is the opposite of the water, and it would make me . . . die again. I mean, that I _could_ die again, so I could live a normal life with Mathew? Do you think there such a thing?"

His statue face cracked. He visibly winced, but nodded. "Of course. There could be something like that out there. Perhaps I didn't do enough searching for that little man. Perhaps he is still alive. We . . . all of us could travel to India to figure this out. At my expense, of course. You and Mathew could call it your honeymoon."

His voice broke, but he kept a smile on his face. It was strained and awkward, but I was grateful for it. I didn't know what I would do if he would show his true emotions.

"Then I have to find my husband in this mess, and we will go to Boston then to India."

"I think your husband will wish to stay with his militia until he is no longer needed."

Lord, I'd almost forgotten about this God forsaken day. There were dead men in Lexington. Isaac was dead. Other colonists were dead. Dead redcoats too.

The lobsterbacks were waiting for their orders in the Concord Commons from some plump colonel who couldn't make up his mind about what he should do. That much had been relayed to me. My husband was to wait with other militiamen in the copse that surrounded Concord, watching to see what the redcoats would do.

I looked at Jacque, the man who had all the answers. "What is the militia going to do once the redcoats leave?"

His jaw line bulged. "Do you know Meriam's Corner?"

I nodded once, recalling the lush meadowland that encompassed the Meriam house. The home itself was more than a century old and stood only a few miles from Concord. It was called Meriam's Corner, instead of homestead, because the Lexington Highway ran in front of it at a sharp corner to compensate for the crossroad that ran to its west, Bedford Road. The meadow would, by now, have a vast array of wild flowers there this time of year, mostly yellow buttercups. Lord, how could I think upon flowers at a time like this?

"The militia intends to send a message to the British soldiers and their General Gage, perhaps all the world," Jacque said. "They intend to fire once the British army is on Meriam's Bridge."

Meriam's Bridge was small and made room for only one wagon to pass at a time. I visualized the militia waiting for the redcoats to pass over the bridge, effectively bottlenecking the Regulars, becoming better targets for the ever-increasing Massachusetts' militias.

It would be a slaughter.

I stood and turned, looking through the forest, searching for Mathew through the thick trees. "Why? Why are they doing this?"

"Reciprocity, Violet."

I looked at Jacque. He seemed shrunken from our conversation. He had been hoping for a helpmate and found obstinate me instead. My heart pinched, but that was all the feeling I would give him at the moment. I should hate him. Hate him for doing this to me, but I would figure out how to hate him later. I had to find my husband.

"I have to get Mathew—"

"Violet, he's a gentleman. He won't leave his militia. He gave his oath he wouldn't."

I had tried to seduce Mathew from joining his militia this morning, but not even that had slowed him down. All right, suffice to say he was distracted and took his time when I needed him to, but after we were done, he left me for this battle. The only reason he would ever leave this cause was if I were in danger. Seeing as how I could now heal my own broken, gun-punctured heart, there was no way I could be in any real peril. Ever again, for that matter. I could try to fake that I was threatened somehow, but I wasn't the playactor that my sister was. I'd probably just admit my lie to Mathew anyway, which would make him, more than likely, cross with me for trying to take him away from a noble battle.

"It is why I decided to come and protect him, Violet," Jacque said. "I knew he would stay to fight."

My heart sank. Damn Mathew's virtues.

Then I remembered that being a militiaman, Mathew could possibly face criminal charges if he left while he was still needed. I sighed.

I had already decided to protect my husband, to protect my future. But what kind of future did I have now? I could hardly understand that twice Jacque had just killed me, and that was really starting to irritate me, but how could I tell Mathew about my condition, especially since I had become . . . a not dying person because I had spent a chaste yet lustful night with Jacque? How could I explain my disloyalty? How could I explain that I might not be able to have our children?

No, no, I had to have Mathew's children. I dreamt of our babies. They had his blond hair and my streak of stubbornness. I would find a way to tell him about whatever was wrong with me, but then tell him I'd make it right. I was his wife, and I loved him, and I loved our future children, our future.

Nothing was going to stand in my way of my expectations.

# Introductions

The major disadvantage to a rifled musket, like the one I was carrying, was in its reloading time. It would take up to a full minute, sometimes more, to cool the rifle enough to reload. Also, the gunpowder itself could foul up the barrel, making accuracy a distant dream. The Kentucky rifle often needed a good cleaning after so many shots, which was not conducive for battle. Hunting, yes, but definitely not for warfare.

I would need a pistol too, as a weapon that I could use while the long rifle cooled or needed a cleaning. I had Colonel Devlin's sidearm, but that was more than a mile away at my house. And since no one knew if the fat colonel would leave Concord any time soon, I wasn't sure I could leave my Mathew unattended, even if Jacque had promised to watch over him. Actually, especially because Jacque had promised to watch over my beloved.

There was only one course for my dilemma: I would have to pilfer a pistol. As fate would have it, a few hundred soldiers, men who often were with weapons, were lying 'round the Concord Commons eating their midday meal.

I made sure Jacque was occupied, then ventured off to perform my first act of thievery.

It was difficult navigating around all the militia soldiers. Luckily, I seemed to be at my best and managed to maneuver in and out of the crowd of men at record speed. Further helping me was my father's large brimmed hat and my husband's now muddy black overcoat. Thank God for black. It hid the specks of blood from being shot by Jacque. By God, I just might shoot him myself after today, even if it was childish of me, but I thought Jacque owed me at least one death to my two.

I stopped in my tracks at that last thought. Cocking my head to the side, I wondered if I had just imagined my deaths. Imagined Jacque too? After all, this was lunacy to believe I was . . . undying.

Pulling my husband's coat from my neck, I peered down. My men's white linen shirt was no more but red and pink shreds. The beautiful light blue corset under had a large hole over my heart and blood splattered over the whole of my chest.

Looking up, I gulped down the need to scream, but instead made tight fists. I nodded to myself. I had somehow died twice yet still lived. Once more I glanced under Mathew's coat, caught sight of the wreckage, then decided to continue on with my plans. I couldn't solve my bizarre problems while staring at my now bruised skin. Damnation.

I approached the Commons by way of scraping my thin body on the sides of houses so as not to be detected. It was the first time I thanked God for my figure.

I could make out the Commons easily enough from where I stood, leaning against the Brown's home. Astonishing me, I spied the Regular soldiers acting kind almost to the point of scrupulous to my fellow Concordian women, as the women served them water and loaves of bread and stew. A few companies were in the very beginning of making their formation to march back to Boston, but most of the Regulars sat in crowds, eating in a hurry.

I needed one man who had unpacked his arms, and for him to be alone or nearly alone, so I could steal his pistols. Pistols were usually something only a wealthy officer could own, so I began my search for a high-ranking soldier.

Found him! He was a lieutenant who was angrily talking with his fellow officers, his back turned against his pistols, a sword, a powder horn, and a cartridge bag. All his arms were unattended, and, glory be, he had a shred of bread neatly packed beside one of his pistols. Oh, thank heavens, for I was hungry too.

A herd of sheep provided me coverage while I crept toward the arms and bread. They bayed happily, as they were quite pleased with the crawling woman who let them munch on her hat and hair. I let them nibble on me as much as they wanted, as they encircled me, protecting me from sight.

Then, shocking me almost into a scream, the angry young lieutenant plopped down near his arms and bread. He was looking away from his provisions, but still he was less than two feet from them, and I was less than two feet from him.

_Help me. Help me, please_ , I prayed . . . I don't know to whom. The sheep? They got me that much closer to my prey, but should I really filch from a man who might notice me? As I listed off reasons to run away, the lieutenant's head suddenly jerked upright, and I saw the granddaughter of Colonel Barrett, Melicent, walking toward us. She was fifteen, and very much her grandfather's granddaughter in her self-determination and self-reliance. She approached the young lieutenant with a large pot of water and drinking spoon. Melicent looked down at the Regular soldier as if he were a bug she would like to squish under her boot.

"Water?" she asked with disdain clearly marked in her dark eyes.

"Ah, thank you, miss," said the man, not noticing how Melicent stared at him as if he were the devil himself.

Seizing the opportunity, I inched forward with the sheep protecting me from the lieutenant's view, but not Melicent's. She saw me immediately, but darted her eyes back down at the man close to her feet. She bit her bottom lip, while her dark eyebrows lowered.

The lieutenant took a few sips, then after saying thanks again, leaned back, very close to his stash of arms, and very close to my outstretched hand.

"Take more," Melicent hollered.

The soldier stopped his descent and stiffened his back. "No, no, thank you. I shouldn't take more than any of my men."

Melicent glanced at me, then back down to the lieutenant, then bellowed, "I like you. Very much. I like a man who shares."

That halted him instantly.

If it had been any other day, any other circumstances, I would have laughed until I rolled around on the ground at Melicent's loud and forward behavior. But I needed the man's gun to try to shoot his fellow soldiers. Sobering thought, that.

The lieutenant slowly rose to his feet, looking down at Melicent. She tried not to recoil as I stole his bread and pistol then rushed away. Yet I could hear him say, "When this is all sorted, I could call on you, if you'd like? I must confess . . . I like a bold woman."

I don't know how she answered as I ran so fast I could only hear the drum-like beat of my heart and wondered if my feet ever touched the ground. The sun popped out again from the clouds and was at its highest peak above my head—noon—when I heard in the distance the Regular fifers begin to play for the soldiers to get into formation. Then I kept running to Meriam's Corner. Even while holding my very long rifle, more balls and powder for my new-to-me pistol all tucked into my belt, I knew I was sprinting faster than ever before. I was rushing so fast that I saw everything in blurs. Oh, what had happened to me?

I tripped and fell as a spark in my memory served me at that damned time. Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote of a spring of water that caused people to remain young and live eternally. Skidding to a stop, I winced as agony shattered through my jaw, chest, knees, and an elbow. The pain shockingly intensified, then ebbed. I sat up as I recalled other stories: a spring in Ethiopia, another reported in the Caribbean, Juan Ponce de León supposedly found the Fountain of Youth in the Floridas. There were tales of eternal water from Germany, Scotland—or was it Ireland?—as well as Spain. I pressed my fingers to my jaw. When retracting my hand from my visage, I saw blood. Not much, just a smear. Yet after I dabbed at my jaw with the sleeve of my coat, I couldn't find any more blood. Mayhap because I wasn't injured anymore.

Tears stung my eyes, and I ached to be comforted. What had I turned into? As much as I hated to explain whatever I was now, there was only one person I wanted to cling to, have him wrap his large arms around me. I needed to push all thoughts aside and just find my husband.

I got up and ran through the woods. Spotting Jacque first, then my heart warmed and grew in size as I finally found my husband. They were both riding their horses, talking and smiling at each other as if they were out on a day's hunt, as if they weren't joined by an ever mounting militia about to commit battle.

The militia had, indeed, grown with every minute. I couldn't believe how many more officers and their men were now lining behind and ahead of my husband on the wide trail parallel to the highway. None of them wore any kind of uniform, many just as muddy as me. Suddenly they all stopped and hushed.

Off toward the Commons I heard the fife's song change to a quick paced one, and their drums began to set a fast rhythm too. The lobsterbacks were on the move.

I trudged carefully closer to my husband. Jacque and I both agreed that it was for the best that I shadow Mathew, not let him see me. Mathew would want me safe at home, God bless him. So I had to figure out how to stay near enough to protect him, yet far enough that I wouldn't distract him. I somehow succeeded in this.

For about fifteen minutes the quieted militia followed the redcoats while they left Concord. Being that the militia was steadily increasing it was difficult to keep the forest still, and the Regulars, as they walked along the rutted highway, watched the woods with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

At Meriam's Farm, the meadow was wide and large, making it so that some of the militiamen became bold enough to walk out of the copse and expose themselves as they marched alongside the redcoats. The Regulars knew very well that they were being escorted out, and each soldier held tight his Brown Bess—his smoothbore musket.

Ahead of me stretched a game trail. I followed it until it rose enough for me to get a better vantage point. As much as I hated leaving my husband's side, I knew that if I could see more, the better I would be at spotting any risks for him. I ran to a hill where an overgrown juniper bush had usurped most of the trail. It was the perfect location to bury myself while I loaded my weapons. I didn't think even Jacque could catch sight of my nest.

The thorns from the juniper were strong enough to rip at my skin when I hunkered into its lair, and at first I flinched from the scratches, then shuddered as my wounds almost instantly healed. I swallowed away my tight throat and put my energy into placing the gunpowder in the frizzen pan, then a little down the barrel of my gun, next came the bullet. I replicated the procedure with the pistol, then searched my surroundings for my husband.

Across the highway from the long line of redcoats I saw the distinct shadows of more men. The militia surrounded the Regulars on both sides. This was going to be a complete ambush. Shaking my head, I tried my damndest to not think about the moral ramifications. I wanted to yell at my father for installing me with such thoughts in the first place. What good could these considerations come to when blood had already been shed?

The sun beamed down on the earth and shot a few rays into the forest. When had the sun begun to shine? Wasn't that a strange phenomenon? When I thought the world was on fire, about to go up in smoke, Mother Nature proved me wrong by letting the sun shimmer, growing green grass, and nurturing yellow buttercups in a field.

I listened to my breath when I saw a Regular officer on horseback followed by some wagons start the parade down the highway toward Lexington, toward Meriam's Farm, toward destiny. Paying attention to the air going in and out of my body was a ritual that Daganawida had taught me—how to calm my body with breath so that it clarified my thoughts, bringing me better aim and a more productive hunt.

I nestled to my belly, securing my rifle's butt against my shoulder, and spied through my rifle's sights upon the scene below me. My eyes caught the bright red of Cherry, and I smiled. That big horse was one of the reddest sorrels I'd ever seen. I wiped my grin off when I realized, oh dear God, Cherry would make for an easy target if Mathew ever moved from the woods. As I was thinking that, Jacque caught up and rode beside him. I sighed as Jacque's dark horse overshadowed Mathew's. Their horses strolled at a turtle's pace, and Mathew said something to Jacque that made him lift his black brows in surprise. But after a beat he nodded. Both men reined in their horses to a standstill, as the militia walked around them on the trail, and the redcoats kept marching toward Meriam's Bridge.

Mathew nodded as men passed, some saluting. He looked like a god atop that on-fire horse, his own golden hair loosened and waving about like he was Thor himself. He was beautiful. He glanced at his dark comrade, and my finger inched toward the trigger when I sighted Jacque. I chided myself, knowing I couldn't make a sound, let alone shoot someone, but there sat black Jacque, the man that had forever changed me. What a choice of words! Forever.

I hated him. I _wanted_ to hate him. Well, I did hate that I thought of the way his voice softened when he recited French poetry. Then I hated myself as I peered down at Jacque, the sun pouring down on the two men at that instant, but it made Jacque so blue, not black, as I wanted.

Luckily I couldn't think any more of the two men I loved as I noticed that there were some men, militia, making their way to _my_ hill up top. There were only four of them in total, but I stopped breathing as I watched their approach.

Not one of them noticed me, until one was standing almost on top of me.

"Jesus, boy, why didn't you say you were already stationed here?"

Rolling to my back, the rifle long against my body, I looked up at the young man. I recognized him as another man from Acton. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, but I'd danced with him several times at a few county dances. Although he'd been too nervous to talk to me when we danced, he'd asked me repeatedly to be his partner.

But as I lay before him with my rifle he did not recognize me.

"I thought I was the only one here with a rifle." He hunkered down next to me, less than a foot from my person, not taking another glance at me, then threw his cartridge bag and a powder horn close to mine. "You're quiet. Where you from?"

"Concord." My voice was raspy due to the fact that I was dreadfully thirsty.

He nodded and flung a canteen at my chest. I caught it and whispered my thanks.

He nodded once more. "I'm from Acton. Sam, Sam Raymond's my name."

After a heavenly sip, I gave him back his canteen.

He extracted a cartridge and tore the paper that held one bullet and a pinch of powder, then stuffed them down the barrel of his pistol. "You got a name, boy?"

I watched as he extracted his ramrod and was beginning to shove it down his gun when I said, "Mrs. Adams. Violet Adams. You know me, Mr. Raymond. We've danced before."

Slowly he lifted his gaze from his labor. He stretched his neck to get a better look at me, his brown brows furrowed.

His mouth opened and he quit breathing.

I couldn't help but smile at the dumbfounded look he had.

Suddenly he laughed. "I should have known. You smell too damn good."

I chuckled myself.

He reached out and wiped at my cheek, but then stopped himself, extracting his hand almost painfully away from me.

"Sorry. I just wanted to see under the mud to make sure it was really you."

"My face is muddy?" I asked.

He nodded. "Looks like you got blood on you too. You ain't been in a fight, have you?"

No, I was just shot in the heart. I shook my head. "I ran into a blueberry bush. Might be juice from the berries."

He nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Mrs., er, what are you doing out here?"

"Same thing as you, I suspect, Mr. Raymond." I knew that Samuel Raymond had an eye that other men swore the devil himself inserted, and as such was one of the best hunters in Middlesex. The four other men must be his peers—fellow snipers.

Even though the gravity of our mission should have been weighing my mind with sober thoughts, I only thought of Mr. Raymond being a pest on the dance floor, as many of the Acton boys were. Although too shy with me, he'd terrorized my poor sister almost to tears once, then as I danced with him minutes after I had calmed Hannah down, I'd stomped on his toes until his eyes watered, all the while smiling coyly at him. As Hannah, my mother and I left the dance, he'd hobbled after me in stocking feet, clutching at his toes, and claimed to be mortally wounded.

He crouched low to accost me with a gigantic smile.

"Miss . . . er, Mrs. Adams. I seem to be having a problem saying your name now."

I took his hat from his head and set it close to our powder horns. "How about Violet, then?"

He gave me another giant smile, then scooted to lie on his belly next to me as I rolled back to my stomach too.

"Violet," he parroted. He said my name on a sigh then elbowed my arm. "I was real sorry to hear about Miss Hannah. She was real nice. I liked her. Sure did. I always liked you too. Thought I'd marry one of you girls. Then, you had to marry Adams, _Lieutenant_ Adams, I should say."

For some strange reason, his jesting soothed me, and the usual sensation of bleeding internally when someone mentioned my sister's name was not there.

"Mr. Raymond, I do believe this is the most you've ever spoken to me. And you seem to be quite the flirt. What's the change?"

"Sam," he instructed then gave me a quick glance. "Don't know. Figure since you're dirty as hell I can talk to you now."

I quietly laughed.

"My pa told me that you have quite the eye, for shooting, that is," Sam said. "Your daddy was bragging about you, and my pa said, 'Ain't no woman who can shoot that good.' And your daddy grabbed you, and had you shoot at a target, and my pa came home shaking his head, saying, 'Didn't know women could do that sort of thing.'"

I smiled and recalled the incident. I'd done my father proud that day, making a shot with my rifle a little more than three hundred fifty yards away. One man had call me a saint and another a witch. Ah, men. What can one do with them?

"I heard you have quite the sharp eye as well."

He nodded and licked his lips, looking at the passing redcoats and militiamen. "Don't like to brag, and I'm real humble about it, but I bet I could outshoot you."

"Humble, indeed."

He flicked his eyes over my face and down past my shoulders. "We could runaway together after this. I heard Nova Scotia's real nice." Despite the day, the circumstances, the fact that I was where I was to protect my husband, I liked Sam's flirty teasing. He was a calming energy to my frenzied, frantic one.

"We could." I smiled.

"You like the Carolinas more, don't you?"

I shrugged. "I've never been outside our country, Massachusetts."

"Me neither."

We both stopped our gabbing as the Regulars marched closer and closer. The crimson soldiers oozed down the road. Two wagons, I was sure that had been confiscated, were at the front of the parade, more than likely holding the wounded that couldn't walk. Other, more capable injured were at the center of two long lines of red-clad men. I wondered how the boy with acne was, hoping he had survived.

Sam whispered even more quietly, "How'd Adams talk you into shooting for us boys?"

I glanced at him and wasn't too sure if I should answer him, but he gave me his amiable wide grin and I gave in. "He doesn't know I'm here."

Sam shook his head. "Damnation, I'm lyin' here next to a real renegade then?"

I chuckled and shoved at his arm.

He scooted nearer, then whistled. "Nice rifle, Renegade."

"Thank you." Then I looked at his. It was also a long rifle, but was a few years more modern than mine. "Your rifle is very fine too."

Sam fingered the pistol I had inherited and cocked a brow at me. "Nice pistol too . . . uh, Lieutenant Sutherland."

I pursed my lips as I read the former owner's name on a gold plate at the bottom of the pistol. "Oh . . . oh, right, I . . . found this, you know."

"I bet you did, missy." He laughed.

"Well, all right, I made a deal with a group of sheep for it. They concealed me as I stole it from an officer."

"What'd the sheep get out of the bargain?"

"They bit my hair and back."

"Hell, I'd give you all this year's grain if you'd let me bite your back."

I quietly chuckled again and slugged his arm. He rubbed where I smacked him and smiled at me.

"Do you flirt with the other militiamen this way, when you're readying yourself for battle?"

"Sure. Calms my nerves. Doesn't much calm the man I'm next to though." I quietly laughed, while he continued to talk. "Have I ever told you that I think more women should wear breeches?" He shook his head and looked down my body again. "Yes, sir, women in breeches would sure be a good thing, I think."

I laughed again, and then we both startled at the firing of guns. We looked down our sights as smoke erupted from behind the marching Regulars. Good grief, but someone was shooting at the Regulars' back. Reciprocity, I wondered about the word. The Regulars broke from formation and began to return fire into the woods and behind them. At the front of the red parade they were just beginning to cross Meriam's Bridge.

There was returning volley for a couple seconds more when Sam leaned into my ear and whispered, "Aim for the officers."

I peeked at him, then back down to Mathew. His men surrounded him while they hid behind trees, shrubs, or a large rock. He had a hand up and was quieting his men, making them wait for the right opportunity to fire.

"Those are the orders?" I whispered back to Sam.

Sam nodded. "We shoot if we've got a clear shot."

I nodded too and waited.

There were a few more shots fired, then quiet—deafening silence.

Something was finally called out from one of the Regular officers, and the light infantry that flanked the stockier and supposedly braver grenadiers turned, then the line of the grenadiers about faced—right in front of where Mathew sat on Cherry. His hand, palm out to his men, waved about, as if pleading with them to stay still. Jacque was trying to maneuver around Cherry, protecting Mathew from the highway, the Regulars. But in a fast move Mathew gripped Jacque's reins at the bit, and stopped the dark horse, forcing Jacque to be motionless beside him.

Then from the other side of the highway a shot was heard, then several more. The Regulars turned around and waited for their officer to say something, but the officer—if I wasn't mistaken I thought him to be Captain Parsons with his gold plumed hat—never uttered a word, but looked hither and thither across the road.

Then one of Mathew's men fired upon the Regulars. A redcoat fell to the ground and screamed as he lay at the feet of his comrades. The captain made up his mind, unsheathed his sword then raised it to the growing gray sky. The sun hid for what happened next. The captain then lowered his rapier toward the copse, right at Mathew's head.

I wasn't going to have any of that.

# Damned Confrontation

Neither was Mathew. As he gave the signal to shoot, but before the militia had the time to pull their triggers, I set my sights on the captain's gloriously tall hat. Never closing my eyes, I held my breath. My finger did the rest. I blinked finally when the smoke hit me, but felt Sam nudge my arm as he said, "Jesus, good shooting. Just aim lower next time."

Looking down, I saw that the captain was without a hat and somehow had lost his sword. The line of Regulars faltered. Many soldiers were on the ground, some screaming, some quiet, and I waited with my pistol ready to see if they would shoot at my husband. Some of the Regulars returned a volley, but there was no aim in their firing. Some shot their guns to the sky, perhaps begging to God for mercy, or angry at God for forsaking them.

The Captain's horse stirred under him, but he had the gray mare under control within a moment. He was clearly confounded. He kept reaching for his phantom hat. A random Regular soldier bent down to retrieve it, then Sam fired his rifle. When the smoke cleared, I saw that Sam had not shot the soldier, but the hat from his hands. That gigantic black hat with gold fringe was again on the ground, now lying on its side.

I kept my hand steady on my pistol, waiting for my rifle to cool. I was too far away to aim with predictability for a pistol, and hoped I wouldn't hurt any of the militia. The light infantryman who had tried to retrieve the hat looked down at it as if it were possessed. The officer, still on his horse, grunted something to the soldier, and the troops began to march on. As the lobsterbacks double-time marched, they trampled the once glorious hat. Many had funneled through Meriam's Bridge, but a few redcoats lay on the road, crying, screaming, or moaning. My heart twitched for the ones that made no noise at all.

There were periodic shots fired from the militia on both sides of the highway. Someone let loose a victorious scream, an Indian war whoop. Then followed a few volleys into the air, which made the Regulars begin to stampede away all the more.

Sam nudged me again with his elbow. "Now, we'll really get 'em to run."

The Regulars were already running for their lives, and the militias were on their heels.

Sam hurriedly grabbed his canteen, horn, cartridge bag, and hat then scooted to his knees. "You coming?" he asked.

I looked down at Mathew and Jacque. For some strange reason they weren't moving, just sitting on their horses, very close to each other, while their men raced on to keep up with the Regulars.

"No. I'm keeping close to Mathew, er, Lieutenant Adams."

I looked up in time to see Sam smile warmly and nod. "Sure wish I could find me a wife like you."

I thought of Melicent and grinned. "You will."

He winked and waved good-bye as he bound down the hill.

I peered at Jacque and my husband, vaguely aware that I was staring at them from my rifle's sights. I thought about greeting them, but the way they whispered to each other, the way the shadows of their faces morphed into something dark, made me stay still.

Their murmurs became more dramatic, heated. Mathew threw a hand to the now opaque gray black sky, shaking his head vigorously.

Suddenly Mathew barked, "Because she's my wife!"

My heart stopped.

Jacque turned away from Mathew and looked in my direction. Did he know I hid on top of the hill, shrouded by a juniper?

"I'm very aware of that." I heard Jacque respond quite clearly.

Mathew and Jacque, in the darkness of the forest, turned from youthful men into twisted angry images—morbid and waxen.

"Don't take that patronizing, French tone with me."

Jacque cocked his head to the side. "And what tone would you like me to take, hmm? German? Russian?"

The horses started a nervous pawing at the ground and in so doing rotated in a tight circle close to each other.

Mathew made a furious gurgling noise. "The point is, Frenchman, that she's my wife now. I know you understand that. Your English isn't that poor."

"What is your point?"

"She's mine now!" Mathew screamed.

Just a few days ago, or was it just this morning, I had thought how lovely it was to have Mathew be mine. To belong to me, to my heart. There was connection and closeness when I thought of Mathew as my husband. I felt luxuriously honored.

But the way he had yelled those words—smeared with something so utterly not romantic, not connection—so similar to what Jacque had said that one dreadful morning, didn't ring of hearts belonging to each other's. What Mathew had screamed felt like . . . ownership.

"Mine," Mathew continued, "as in, you dare touch her in any way, I'll kill you. You speak to her ever again, and I'll kill you."

I could guess the patronizing look Jacque gave Mathew now.

"You think I'm not serious?"

" _Non, non_. I think you're very serious. You will kill me. I wish you much luck with that endeavor."

Mathew's hand sprang to his pistol holstered on his hip.

Jacque extended his hands in surrender. "Please, _mon ami_ , there is so much fighting with the British soldiers today, can't we just kill them? Not me?"

"Everything is a joke to you. But know this: I jest not! Violet has made her choice, and it was me she chose. She is _my_ wife. Mine!"

There it was again—the resonating feeling that Mathew was talking about me as if he owned me. It was then that I realized why I took so much offense to when Jacque had called me his. He thought he possessed me, as if I were a mere trinket, not a woman, not a heart to love.

Irritated at Mathew's tone, his meaning, it took me a couple seconds to realize the phrase Mathew had used regarding me making a choice. Mathew knew I had had another suitor. He had to have known about Jacque after all.

"My wife will do my bidding now."

Oh, I really didn't like that. I would have a serious talk with my husband later.

As Mathew continued my trigger finger itched.

"Which means that if I ask her to stay away from you, she will."

Jacque actually chuckled. "You don't know your wife very well, if you think that."

Mathew pulled his pistol and placed it on Jacque's right eye. "Don't know my wife? I've known her since I was child, loved her since I was a child. I know everything about that woman. I know you briefly distracted her, but in the end she chose me. She chose me!"

" _Oui_ , yes, she chose you. So why are you trying to kill me? You have clearly won her. She's yours, as you say. Yours."

Mathew took his pistol away from Jacque's face.

Jacque nodded, his voice softened. "You won her, because you are the better man between the two of us. I know this, Mathew."

Mathew relaxed.

"But I am the one better _for_ her."

Mathew smacked the barrel of his gun against Jacque's face again. Mathew's jaw line tightened to the point where I almost didn't recognize him.

"Go ahead, _mon ami_ , pull the trigger," Jacque said calmly. "Shoot me. I deserve it. That was a cheap thing for me to say." He paused long enough to take a deep breath. "I am just an old, lonely man, Mathew. I am pathetic, and I know it. I am in love with a woman who is in love with . . . you. Trust me, I know how idiotic I am in this situation."

Mathew again loosened his grip and let his pistol fall to his side. His face broke from its tense bindings into a softer plane. He searched the canopy of the forest for some answer. Shaking his head, he said to Cherry's neck. "Even though I should hate you, I cannot."

"I hate myself enough for the both of us, I think."

Mathew actually smiled briefly, but then he appeared to want to say something, yet just shook his head again. Then he dug his heels in, and Cherry flew through the woods.

More shots fired somewhere in the distance. Jacque dismounted, stumbled, then fell onto the ground. I sprang from my camouflage and raced down the hill to him. He was on his haunches, leaning back, looking for answers at the top of the trees, as Mathew had done.

"Where are they going?" I asked.

Jacque sprang on me faster than a mountain lioness searching for prey for her cubs. He hovered over me, pinning me down once more with his powerful arms and legs, but relaxed once recognition passed his eyes. He closed his lids and swayed down, almost touching my body with his own.

"Violet," he whispered over and over again. "Violet, Violet, Violet." After a moment he asked, "How did you sneak up on me?"

His hold on me had loosened, and I knew I could escape, but just stared up at him. Once, now another world away, I'd wanted Jacque exactly where he was, between my legs, painfully close. I swallowed and heard his heart pounding. "You were probably distracted by the argument you'd just had with Mathew."

Jacque leaned away from me, a hand still on my stomach, but gave me enough room to sit up.

" _Oui_ , perhaps, I was . . . absorbed in our conversation."

"Pointing a pistol at your head hardly makes for any kind of _conversation_."

Jacque shrugged. "If I was him, I would have taken that shot and killed me. He has every right to be angry. Hate me." He slowly shook his head and released his hand from my waist. "I tried so hard not to love you or even think about you. I fought harder at not loving you than any battle I have ever been in."

I nodded, but couldn't respond. I'd fallen in love with him too. As I looked upon his sad blue eyes, long nose that I adored, and unshaven hollowed cheeks, I hated that I still found him so arresting. I hated that I could remember how I'd never had as much pleasure in a conversation as I had with him. I hated that we could finish each other's sentences, something Mathew and I still couldn't do, although we'd known each other all our lives. Even though falling in love with Jacque seemed to happen in another lifetime, I remembered it well. But then I dredged up how he'd killed me twice, and I stiffened my spine.

He sighed.

We stared at each other for a long moment. The chilly breeze of the morning was back. The trees around us drooped with the heavy burden of the day's battle and now wounded hearts.

He started to talk, but only the strained sound of a man dying came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I will send you a map of India, where I found the spring water, at least as close to it as I can recall. I ventured to China as well, for it was there that I heard about eight immortals and thought I could find them, discover more about my condition, but I never found anyone. I'll send you my notes on that journey anyway. Perhaps you and Mathew will discover more than I have. You have each other. Two are better than one." He stopped abruptly and looked down at the space between us. "I will search on my end to find if there is a cure, of course. I will let you know anything I find." He slowly lifted his head and stared into my eyes. "With all my heart, Violet, I'm so sorry. In a desperate and lonely act I have done such wrong to you, to Mathew too. But I will make this right. I promise."

I realized then that he was trying to leave me. We would be in contact, because my undying conditioned needed to be solved, but he would keep his distance. He was promising that to me.

I nodded. "I have to catch up with Mathew."

He just looked at me for a long moment, then he sighed. "Good bye, Violet."

The words spilled out of my mouth before I had time to censor them. " _Au revoir, mon amour._ "

His eyes widened, but I escaped before he could respond. I scooped up my rifle and already had the bag of bullets on my belt, then ran. Racing faster than I ever had before, I slowed until I past the tail end of the militiamen, as they began to near Lincoln.

At this point I didn't care any longer if anyone saw me. I just wanted Mathew to be safe. Trotting, I gained my breath. Then someone snapped my arm and twirled me around.

"Sam," I whispered on a smile as my chest smacked into his.

He smiled down at me, then kept his hold on my arm as we crept to a thicket of Tulip trees. "Violet," he whispered, "your eyes and that rifle are needed up here. We've got one lieutenant down, but we need to get a few more captains. Those redcoats sure know how to run, I tell you."

I nodded and crouched low into the thicket that revealed four other men. They stared at me. They were mostly young men, twenty years of age at the most, except for one man of thirty or so that I recognized also from Acton.

"All you Acton boys have sharp eyes?" I smiled, trying for a jesting confidence, when of all the damned moments of the day it was then that I wanted to lie down and cry.

The eldest man smiled as Sam nudged me in the ribs. Ouch. Even though I'd been shot hours ago, my bones still ached, yet I resisted a wince.

"I heard that Concord had their women out fighting for them. Now I believe it. Josiah, Josiah Whitney." The eldest of the men extended his hand to me, and I shook it.

"Vi." I nodded, not saying the rest of my name. They probably knew it anyway, and I reasoned that if they didn't have to call me Mrs. Adams then I could be one of them—just one of the boys.

Then Sam had to mention, "Isn't she something in those breeches?"

An amen was said as well as a couple grunts.

"As good as she looks, her shooting's better. Better than mine," Sam added.

The men's eyes widened, but as Sam slapped me on my back, they all gave me a quick nod of what I thought was respect. And that was my initiation with the other snipers.

Sam spoke up again. "Tell Vi the orders."

Mr. Whitney nodded. "We're still targeting officers. Makes the rest of the lobsterbacks real nervous when their officers fall off their horses."

I nodded myself and swallowed. I wasn't going to admit that I doubted I could shoot to kill. Shoot to injure, yes, but I didn't think I had it in me to kill. Unless Mathew was endangered.

"As I was saying," Mr. Whitley began, "that sharp turn in the highway up ahead. Everyone know it? It's about midway through Lincoln?"

We all nodded.

Mr. Whitley continued, "If we got ahead of that angle in the road, we'd have all the Regular officers pointing their big hats right as us, perfect targets."

Sam elbowed me again with a smile, and I tried not to grimace. Certainly, with my new condition I could heal quickly, but there was the residual ache of a wound that was, well, normal. At least that part of me was the same.

Mr. Whitley cracked a small half smile. "We're marching triple time to get there, boys, er—"

I shrugged as Mr. Whitley gave me an apologetic grin.

Mr. Whitley led, as we followed, but I mimicked Sam more than anything. He'd hide behind a tree, and I would too. The big young man would aim while concealed behind that tree, then shoot. I tried to do the same.

On the torso of the redcoats' uniform was a white cross of belts. It made for a perfect target, but I knew that shooting at it would more than likely be fatal. So instead I aimed at shoulders, and sometimes the legs of a man. I missed quite often at first, which utterly irritated me. But shooting at a man was much different than hunting a doe. For a deer, I'd wait until the happy animal was chewing their cud, standing still, or at the very least walking slowly, then fire. For today though I had to measure my aim against my target's movement, quick movement at that, and after a while I finally could figure where a man might be when my bullet would make its impact.

As Sam and I ran from tree to tree he informed me that Mr. Whitley's father had been a Ranger in the French Indian War and had taught him all the tactics before his untimely death from being trampled by a runaway horse. Isn't that just like life? To fight during a war, against an esteemed enemy, yet get killed by a damned horse afterward.

We ran in a jagged line behind Mr. Whitley, not even the militia seemed aware of our company as we passed.

I saw Cherry and Mathew as I ran, but he did not see me. Mathew was encouraging his men to keep up with the Regulars who were keeping a brutally quick pace.

We all managed to make it to Lincoln where the highway did hold the tight corner that Mr. Whitley spoke of.

I caught up with Mr. Whitley quickly. "I want to be closer to my husband," I said as I grabbed his linen shirt in an effort to plead for my case.

He looked down at his forearm, and I released the light hold I had on him. His brown eyes met mine for a moment and he nodded. "I sure wish you'd stay with us. Saw you picking off most of the men we shot at. You got good eyes. Most of the other boys, 'cept Sam, don't have the aim. But I understand. If my wife were fighting, I'd want to be close to her too."

That was permission enough. I took off running. My legs were, oddly, never tired, and although I should've been hungry, I wasn't. I just wanted to be close to Mathew. I wanted this day to be over and all the violence to end. I wanted Mathew to take me home, once and for all, and hold me.

I found Cherry, of course, and slowed immediately, as I paralleled the horse. Mathew sat calmly on the gelding, his voice steady and strong to his men.

The woods enveloped me as I walked beside Mathew, a few feet off. His gentle voice reminded me of my wedding night, how after he'd made his confessions to me, he'd erupted with passion, yet I knew it to be bridled. He had made sure to pleasure me before himself. I recalled his lips roaming my body, and how the thought alone made my breasts ache.

Mathew took out his sword, yet kept his voice serene, urging his men forward a little more, a little more.

His voice had been so gentle with me that night, asking me if I wanted more. Did I like it when he kissed this? Did it feel good when he suckled that? So carefully he'd dipped his head between my legs, making me catch my breath.

The loud pop of a musket erupting yards away startled me, and I returned to watching my husband riding slowly along the trail. Then I checked on the Regulars, still on the highway, making sure not one of them would turn and aim their guns at my Mathew. Then I remembered when he finally pushed himself inside me, the pain, the elation, his eyes searching mine. He'd asked on a tender whisper if it hurt too much. I couldn't answer with words. My desire was too strong by then. I wrapped my legs around him, making him smile.

"Quiet, men, quiet. We'll get our chance yet." Mathew grinned at his men.

They respected him. I saw it in their eyes. They beamed back at him, trusting my Mathew, proud of their commander.

Lincoln went by in a hurry, and as we approached Lexington, Mathew's voice grew fuller and more animated. "It's about time, boys. It's about time."

The Regulars were beginning to slow down, but the militia was not. I saw on the other side of the highway that there were many companies in the woods, following the redcoats as we were.

"Eight men died just this morning at the hands of these bastards." Mathew's voice began to boom. "Eight. These were men with all their lives yet to live. Men with children and young wives. Men like you and me. They died today with their backs turned on the Regulars because they were making ready to go back home. They didn't come to fight. They were leaving, giving way to the Regulars to search their houses looking for ammunition and arms that the Regulars didn't even have a proper search warrant for. Those damned demons were conducting unlawful search and seizures when they killed eight of our men. Eight. And ten more are wounded.

"For the last ten years the Regulars and all of the King's men have been trying to whittle away our God-given rights as Englishmen to protect our homes and protect our loved ones. They've been trying to take away our God-given right to have our government be fair in dealing with us. And today those blasted redcoats killed men, our men, as they were making their way back to their homes." Mathew's voice broke with emotion. The faces of the men marching beside him shone. My God, but he would make a good politician.

Mathew gripped his sword as he said, "Today is the day when we say, 'No more.' We say it as one. One brotherhood, one family, today is the day that united we say," he raised his sword, "don't tread on me!"

"Don't tread on me!" a man echoed.

Then four thousand voices rang out, "Don't tread on me!"

Subsequently, the militia on both sides ambushed.

The Regular officers, those still firmly in their stirrups, had enough insight to know that Mathew was making his speech to up the already high morale of the militia and to attack. The Regulars were running by the time the militia opened fire on the rushing red uniforms, racing into Lexington.

I didn't watch much of the action, only the environment around Mathew. If any Regular soldier aimed his musket in my husband's direction, which many did as Mathew had made himself quite a target with his loud speech, I shot. Again, I aimed for shoulders and legs and hats. I exhaled after every shot, gave my long rifle a few moments to cool, then packed the bullet deeply, slid my rod back into place, aimed and fired and fired, again and again. Within the short moments of the ambush, I spent half of my bullets, and worried about the powder ruining the helical grooving inside the barrel.

Suddenly a gargantuan boom exploded, and the Lexington's meetinghouse shattered through and through—cannon fire. That meant that there were more redcoats in Lexington, and they were armed to the teeth.

The militia, held away from Lexington, out of the cannon's range, stayed in the woods, as the Regulars made their passage into the sanctuary of the small town. Both the Regulars and the militia rested. I was certain both sides were in meetings, war councils, trying to figure out what was to be done now.

Mathew made signs that he was going to dismount when Mr. Whitley immerged close by and looked out at the highway little more than fifty yards in front of my husband. There lay at least four men clad in red. I didn't think I had shot any of them with that severe of a wound to lie bleeding on the road.

"You got an angel watching out for you, Mr. Adams," Mr. Whitley said, pointing with his head at the prostate redcoats.

Mathew looked at the lobsterbacks on the road. I realized then that the men on the highway were dead.

"Was that your handy work, Mr. Whitley?"

"No, sir. I was up ahead some."

Suddenly Mathew looked angry, nodded, and at a quick clip, rode Cherry further east into the forest.

I was certain I hadn't shot anyone to death, but . . .

I looked around and saw about twenty feet above me, a rifle's barrel slowly sink into a bush.

Mathew truly did have an angel watching over him, a blue angel.

# Last Effort

In Lexington a thousand relief Regular soldiers met their compatriots. That's what Sam told me that Mr. Whitely had heard from Colonel Barrett, a thousand new redbacks, had come to rescue what was left of the seven hundred soldiers that had marched through our Massachusetts' country in search of cannons, rifles, gunpowder and bullets.

Like Concord, a dense forest enveloped Lexington, yet through it I could just spy the early spring green lawn of Lexington's Common. On it laid a little over fifteen hundred Regular soldiers. Lexington men had died in that exact site less than ten hours ago. The redcoats were taking a break from their retreat, treating their injured, and eating from the town's people. Were the Lexington people forced to feed them? I know not. I do know that as colonists we pride ourselves on our good food and our etiquette. I'd like to think that the people of Lexington tried to service food and water to the redcoats because, really, why not? Why not show a little decorum in the midst of barbaric battle?

During the reprieve from the skirmish, a gigantic boom of cannons was held about every five to ten minutes, making any further attack from the militia worthless, as well as any conversation that could be had. But it didn't deter Sam all that much.

I liked him very much, that funny boy.

Sam gave me a portion of some aged sharp cheese and bread. The dark brown bread was amazing. Anadama. I recalled that Hannah had finally gotten the recipe for that particular bread and was going to feed it to her fiancé. I shuddered at the thought.

"You know where it gets its name from, don't you?" Sam smiled at me.

I shook my head while chewing on the bread he spoke of.

"Some fisherman's wife out of Boston made this bread up, and that fisherman didn't eat it until he was on his boat, the boat full of sailors, you know. That's when he finally bit into this here bread and said, 'Anna, damn her, that's good bread.' Now you get it. Annadamnher. Anadama."

I choked with my quiet laughter and slugged Sam's shoulder.

"I ain't making it up. That's a true life story."

I finally swallowed and rolled my eyes.

Sam nudged me in the ribs again, and we ate the rest of his cheese and bread silenced by the salute of the occasional fire from the cannons.

"You know what just sticks in my craw about his whole thing?"

I looked up at Sam and wiped his upper lip free from brown bread crumbs. Somehow, I felt he was kin to me, like a younger, annoying brother.

I shook my head. "But I reckon you'll tell me."

"I will, Vi. And I'm going to right now. So these Regular soldiers, they come all this way out here, specifically to Concord—"

"My home town."

"Aye, your home town, Concord, looking for arms, but here they are shooting into the woods, not getting even close to a one of us with their cannon and muskets. Wasting all that ammunition. Makes me wonder, you know, were they going to steal our arms just so they could use it to keep shooting at us?"

I nodded. "Makes one wonder, all right."

"Why'd they do this, anyway? Why'd they pick a fight with us? I ain't never wanted to do anything but have me a farm and not be a virgin."

"What noble pursuits."

He winked at me. "You willin' to help me out with any of that?"

I sniffed and tilted my head to the sky. "I'll talk to Mathew, _my husband_ , about that."

He pushed on my shoulder and bore a huge lazy smile.

Mr. Whitley, while crouching low, walked to where Sam and I sat.

"You get enough to eat, Vi?" Mr. Whitley asked.

"How come you don't ask me, Mr. Whitley? Ain't I as pretty as Vi for you to worry about what's in my belly?" Sam kept his smile, even through all the booms from the Regulars' cannonade.

Mr. Whitley looked Sam over and said with a straight face, "No."

"Damnation, I think I'm just as pretty as Vi."

I rolled my eyes at Sam and nodded to Mr. Whitley. Mr. Whitley was a lieutenant of the Acton Militia, but more than that he was in charge of the sharp shooters, and had just gained another brick of men from Sudbury who had lost their Ranger commander. I had become one of his men in the last three hours, since Sam had snatched me while I was running away from Jacque.

Mr. Whitley, either not really listening or thinking it gentile, gave me another slice of bread and ten rings of dried apple.

"Really, sir, I don't need any more." I tried to give it back, but Mr. Whitley, stubborn man, refused to look at me or take the food.

I divided the bread and apple rings in half and gave it to Sam, who began to eat at the dried apples—with a grin, of course.

Mr. Whitley took in a huge breath. "We're going all the way to Boston."

"Damn," Sam said through a mouthful.

"Watch your mouth in front of the lady," Mr. Whitley chastised.

I sighed, and how I hated my shaking voice while I said it, but I had to, to gain some sort of equal respectability in Mr. Whitley's eyes. "Yes, Sam, quit fucking swearing around me."

Sam snorted and clapped me on the back with a loud thud. "That's it. I have to marry you now. God, I love you."

Even Mr. Whitley wore a small smile, but he began to frown when he said, "She's already married, kid. Which reminds me," he turned to me, the lines around his mouth and eyes cracked, adding more stress to his already tense face, "I told Colonel Barrett I picked up another man. I didn't want to tell him who, but he insisted I say. I told him to keep it in confidence, but, God damn it, when I was making my way over to the two of you, I saw Colonel Barrett talking to your husband, Vi."

"Oh, no." I sighed.

"You going to eat the rest of your bread?"

On default I handed the half slice to Sam, wondering if Mathew was coming to yell at me and order me to go home. Out of the periphery of my eye I saw the rest of the brick that Mr. Whitely commanded start to group around us, perhaps to join in the rally to keep me aboard this enterprise, perhaps they were a bunch of gossips, I don't know.

Mr. Whitely smiled at Sam, I think despite himself, and Sam just shrugged. "We'll just tell Adams she's too good not to be with us. We need her, right?"

Mr. Whitely frowned and sat down on a group of green ferns.

"We'll tell Adams she needs to be with us," Sam repeated, losing his smile, and taking an edge of defiance in his tone.

"I'm not one to meddle in a marriage, kid." Mr. Whitely finally let his brown eyes meet mine, looking like a man in the middle of an estate hearing.

"Hell, this ain't about a marriage," Sam said. "This is about needing all good men, er, and a woman, I guess, to help with fighting these redcoats. This is about getting our rights back as Englishmen. This is about making a stand, like Adams said."

"Yes, I did," Mathew said, making all of us jump.

Mathew smiled down at us. We stood, then heard the loud boom of another cannon being fired somewhere into oblivion. Shrinking from the impact of the noise, we then smiled at each other sheepishly.

Mathew clutched onto my wrist and pulled me into his arms. He chuckled softly while he retrieved a handkerchief and wiped at my face.

"Gunpowder?" he asked as he showed me the black markings on his white linen kerchief.

I nodded.

He shook his head. "I should have known it was you, watching over me. Has she told you about the time I tried to prove my manliness to her by taking her on a hunting expedition?"

The other snipers shook their heads while Mathew sat within the circle of men, pulling me on his lap. He'd never been so affectionate or so jolly. His face shone brightly, and he had a smile almost as big as Sam's. He had made such a great speech, and lifted the spirits of thousands of men, while dampening almost seven hundred redcoats.

I knew it then, he was destined to become a politician, like his distant cousins, Samuel and John. Lord, but I didn't want to be a politician's wife. Namely I didn't want the lifestyle, but on the other hand, I would do anything for the man whose warm legs I sat upon.

"Well, I was eighteen, and you were, what, fifteen?"

I nodded and smiled.

"I knew that her father had taken her hunting, as he'd bragged about it. So I thought I could prove what a man I was by taking her on our own hunting trip, close to the hollow where all the Dutch seemed to have settled there. What is that hollow called?"

Mr. Whitley responded and Mathew nodded. "Right. I decided to take her there, a most romantic spot was my reasoning, when a huge elk runs from the woods straight toward us. My chance to prove myself to my love, I think. Only, I'm shaking because I've never shot at anything so big, and truthfully I was just thinking about what kind of petticoat she was wearing that day."

At that all the men started to laugh. I blushed and hid my face in Mathew's shoulder.

Mathew proceeded. "So, I blunder and shoot wildly. I wasn't even holding my musket correctly, and had packed too much powder in the pan. The recoil knocked me asunder and flat on my back."

The men laughed harder at this.

"There I am, on my ass, this wild, gargantuan stag coming to kill the love of my life and me, and then, she rips the musket from my fingers, reloads the rifle in a second's time, and on the most sturdy yet feminine legs, she shoots the elk, square between the eyes."

Some of the men were tearing up they were laughing so hard by that time.

"I asked her to marry me on the spot," Mathew said on a calm sweet voice. "It only took three years for her to say yes, if you can believe that."

Sam clapped Mathew on the shoulder while wiping at his eyes. In just one day's time, Mathew had become a demigod in the militia, and I saw it right there. He was humble and humorous, spirited and intelligent, passionate and articulate. With him, the men would feel safe and virtuous about what they were doing. With him, the militia would stay strong and have high morale. With Mathew, there was a promise of a bright future.

Mathew's grin dimmed. "May I speak with this sniper, my beautiful bride, in privacy, please."

All the men around me, uncomfortably started to move, but did not leave. Finally, Mr. Whitely said, "Lord help me, but Lieutenant Adams, I need her. I don't want her to go home. Not yet, at least."

Mathew's grip on my waist tightened. "I can understand, but—"

"I'll vouch for her safety, sir."

"Lieutenant Whitely—"

Sam interrupted Mathew this time. "Sir, I'll guarantee her safety as well. I'll take a bullet before she ever does."

I began to shake my head, but soon I heard the murmurings of all the men around me agree to put their life before mine. I was moved to the point of tears, and didn't know if I should smack all of them upside the head, imprecate, or just cry in gratitude.

"I can understand. I do," Mathew said slowly and calmly. "But I want my wife to be home and safe."

"No," I said softly.

Mathew straightened and looked down at me surprised and perhaps a bit hurt I would openly defy him.

I couldn't contain my emotions, and began to cry. "I'm sorry, husband, to be so disrespectful in front of an audience, but don't you see? It's not my home without you. I won't step one foot in that house without you. I can't do it. I need you. You're . . . my . . . everything."

Men cleared their throats and sniffed, as Mathew's eyes began to glisten with tears of his own.

He shook his head, but then slowly began the oscillation into nodding. "Fine. Stay. As long we stay in ambush mode. If we ever turn into . . . firing lines or hand-to-hand combat, you run like hell for the hills, you hear me?"

I nodded and smiled and embraced him around the neck.

"I still need a damned moment of privacy with my wife so I might kiss her rapturously and find out what color her corset is today."

I heard the men's rough guffaws, and Mathew wrapped me in his arms and carried me into the woods. I looked over Mathew's shoulder in time to see all the men, my men, turn their heads and walk away from wherever Mathew was taking me. We would be given plenty of privacy.

There was so much to say to Mathew, so much I had to confess. But we just sat on a lump of a log, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried on his shoulder, while he held me through the continual cannon fire. I heard, even through my own heart's beating and the cannonade, his heart thumping after mine and felt oddly sleepy as I listened to it.

I finally sniffed and looked up at him, surprised to see that he had a couple tear streaks of his own. He grinned though.

"As much as I wish you to be home and safe, I'm glad to see you, love," he whispered.

"Mathew." I squeezed him again. I could only whisper my next words. "I really can't go home without you. I need you."

He tugged me away enough to look down at me. I wiped at his tears, but my hands were so dirty I only managed to smudge my gorgeous husband's face. He smiled as I gave up in my endeavors with a growl and apology for marking his visage. I looked deeply into his light blue eyes, such a similar shade as my sister's.

"We don't have much time," he said. "Our intelligence believes that the Regulars will leave Lexington soon."

"Intelligence?"

"Jacque." Mathew smiled, but in his face I saw a wisp of pain.

I would never tell Mathew that I knew of his conduct regarding Jacque. It would be a secret in our marriage, but some are best left alone.

"So we march on to Boston?"

"Yes." Mathew nodded.

"Could I talk you into running away with me, Mr. Adams?" I stole Sam's line, but I didn't think he'd mind.

Mathew grinned. "Where shall we go, Mrs. Adams?"

"A sugar island."

He cocked his head. "The West Indies? Don't you think we'll get too hot?"

"Oh, aye. We'd have to take our clothes off every day."

"Terrible, terrible." He snickered.

The crack of a cannon whirling into the sky made us clutch onto each other. After the echoing boom silenced, Mathew sighed.

"When we get to Boston, I'd prefer to have you go back home."

"I cannot leave you, husband."

"Truly, dear, are you going to be a sniper during this whole affair? What if this battle turns into a war? What if we are to fight for years? You won't go back home then?"

"Not without you. Perhaps by then I could talk you into going home with me though. I have so much to tell you."

He kissed my cheek. "Tell me what?"

But I couldn't. Mayhap I should have, but I just couldn't force my lips to open and tell him that I couldn't die, that I might not be able to have our children, that I was now wholly different. I wanted in that little space of time to believe that our future was what I had envisioned: children and grandchildren, us growing old together.

"How much I love you, of course," I told him instead.

Mathew smiled and raked his fingers through his loose blond hair, making the black ribbon at the nape of his neck finally give up on its good fight and release his shoulder-length locks. I ran my fingers though his silky golden waves, not being able to help myself as I smiled thinking of all the times I'd seen him with his hair untied. Feeling intimate, I snuggled closer to him.

"Good Lord, Lieutenant Whitely will have to seek a commission for you."

"Good, it's decided then."

Mathew gripped around my wrists. "No, it's certainly not decided. It's just decided until Boston."

I frowned at him.

"We'll discuss what to do after I get my orders in Boston."

"I won't leave you, no matter how cross you are at me."

His shoulders slumped and he gave me a weary grin. "When we get to Boston, we'll decide what to do. For now, you stay close to Lieutenant Whitely."

"No. I'm staying close to you."

"Damn it, Violet, please." Mathew looked warmly at me, but then on a sigh said, "Our children will probably give me white hair by the time I'm thirty with your genes in them."

And that was what broke me. Tears streamed down my face, feeling cold and shocking me, but down they came. God, how I wanted children with him.

He wiped at my tears then kissed my cheeks. "All right, all right, dear wife, come with me. Just . . . don't get shot."

I already had, but he didn't need to worry about that just yet. So I nodded and smiled. It wouldn't matter if I was shot or not. It just mattered that he not get hurt.

Jacque was right, the Regulars made their way out of Lexington a few minutes later. Mathew's pocket watch read it was four in the afternoon, and as soon as the field pieces were incapable of firing, the militia began their attack. There were more than twice as many redcoats now. Flanking the long red line were fresh troops, eagerly searching the woods for something to fire at.

I paralleled Mathew at all times, and now Sam was stationed next to me. Mathew's platoon were getting very good at finding the perfect covering, firing upon the Regulars, then racing away without injury. The Regulars were a walking red target. They did not fare as well.

Within a half hour the Regulars and Provincial militias approached the small village of Menotomy. By then the fresh Regular troops had gotten very accurate at firing into the woods. Further the Provincials were beginning to get arrogant—not a good combination. I could understand the Provincials' cockiness. Throughout the last few hours the other town's militia's kept pouring in men. Sam had told me that Colonel Barrett, who was no longer the commanding officer, had thought that at least four thousand militia, minutemen, and other Massachusetts men who wanted to join the fight crouched in the woods, firing on the redcoats. Four thousand.

Perhaps because there were so many militia, not soldiers who had been trained into obedience, all hell broke loose as the redcoats entered Menotomy.

"Shit," Sam offered as we watched several militiamen get shot as they approached the redcoats. Some militiamen hid behind houses. If the Regulars discovered them, the redcoats shot the men then barged into the house that the militia soldiers had hid behind, firing off more rounds in the home. The cacophony of hundreds of shots being fired made my ears feel like they might be bleeding from the inside. Then militiamen emerged from the copse and fought in the open.

"Go," Sam yelled and shoved me up the hill. He pointed with his eyes away from the village, away from the turmoil.

The militia chased after the Regulars. Both armies ran into the town of Menotomy, firing their muskets. The skirmish transformed into something even more brutal—hand-to-hand combat.

"Go!" Sam yelled again.

I shook my head, watching the world blaze on fire, but let him shove me away again. Then, he turned and ran for the village. Orange flames licked a barn close-by and burned my brain. I hadn't thought this would happen. We were supposed to just snipe at the Regulars, make them sorry for what they had done in Lexington and the North Bridge, then when we ran them back to Boston, we'd all have a good laugh at their expense. No. No. This was not supposed to happen.

Mathew.

Like an earthquake rupturing my senses, everything in my body reminded me to find him. I had to find Mathew.

He was my everything.

I packed a bullet into my rifle and began running, my eyes searching for the bright red orange of Cherry. Racing into the outskirts of the fighting, I saw men wrestling, punching with their muskets, or bayonet for the redcoats, or using knives or their own fists. Not the whole lot of the militia joined in the face-to-face fighting, and I'd wager that most of the militia were still burrowed in the woods, but it was enough to look like complete chaos. Where was Mathew? He was only fifteen feet away when some of the militiamen ran into Menotomy, then Sam had yelled, and when I looked again, Mathew was gone. He had to be in here, somewhere.

I almost stumbled across a redcoat on his belly who gripped at the grass. He coated the lush green lawn with his red blood. His red coat mushroomed darker at the center of his back. He looked up at me, blinking, and oddly smiled.

"An angel . . ." Then his head heavily fell against the ground.

Pivoting, I looked for Cherry. There were many horses in the Common, but none as bright a red as Mathew's sorrel. I got into an altercation with a redcoat, who punched my ear, then upon seeing my face said, "Oh, pardon me, miss."

I broke his nose with the butt of my rifle and ran away.

My ear throbbed, and when I checked it was bleeding. I heard the beating of my heart better. It was a loud infernal noise, amplifying the picture before me of fighting men, vicious fists, wicked sharp edged knives, wounded flesh, and so much blood. From my periphery I caught sight of a bright red orange. Cherry!

He was without his owner.

# The Curse

Running to the horse, I grabbed his reins, and looked into the gelding's eyes, as if I could find where Mathew was from those dark brown, tormented orbs. Cherry had a fingerbreadth gash on his right shoulder, but otherwise appeared to be fine. I thought for a moment that I should race Cherry out to safety, but my need to find Mathew was too great. I wrapped the reins around Cherry's neck and smacked him on his rump. He burst into a fast gait. Then, as if worried, he halted, turned just his head to look at me, but decided against being my hero, and ran for the hills. Something I had promised I would do, but knew even at the time I couldn't fulfill.

I swallowed and quickly perused the Provincial men that lay on the green grass of the Common. Mathew had been wearing white breeches, the same breeches he wore loosely when we'd heard the bell chime too early this morning. He'd made love to me against the counter afterward, his breeches pushed down past his hips.

I searched for white breeches with black riding boots, and a fine blue overcoat—wait! He'd taken off his overcoat in the warmth of the afternoon. He was just wearing his linen white shirt and a royal blue waistcoat. He hadn't had time for stiff collars or any such affair. He'd worn mostly white save for the vest and overcoat.

No one on the ground matched his description, which for a breath, I let relief consume me.

Then a man wearing scarlet bumped me into. He turned toward me, distracted, I think, by my female face and for a moment we almost smiled at each other. It was Captain Parsons, of all people. He took in my appearance, my clothing, and finally my rifle.

He cocked his head to the side and frowned. "But you were so funny."

"And I'm not now?"

He actually snorted a chuckle. He looked utterly frazzled and spent, but then he bowed to me. I curtsied, as we both began to laugh. He took my hand in his, and kissed it. "It truly has been a pleasure, but I must bid you adieu."

I curtsied again, and smiled. "Adieu, Captain."

"Ah, there's my horse." And with that he found a gray mare and launched himself on the horse's saddle. "I hope to see you again, brave little colonist. Perhaps without such a big gun though."

"I, too, hope you never have to see me with my rifle again," I said and arched my brow.

Captain Parsons touched the brim of his hat, that was intact, and galloped his horse to the east. Other redcoats joined him, running for the highway too. And I searched for a pair of white breeches and wide shoulders with blond hair. I looked mainly to the ground, but didn't rule out that Mathew could be standing. Please, please, let him still be standing.

Small fights occurred around me, but most of the Regulars were trying to make for the highway. There were so many men laying, crawling, crying on the ground. Some just stood as they looked 'round completely shocked.

I saw William, one of the boys in Mr. Whitely's brick, crying. He stood over a young boy, not much older than him, it appeared, wearing the dreaded red uniform. William was mouthing over and over the words, "I'm sorry." The boy on the ground did not have half his face.

I caught sight of Sam who smiled and waved, then shooed me away with one of his hands as Mr. Whitely looked upon me too. Mr. Whitely did not look too friendly, so I avoided eye contact with him.

Then, I saw him, my beautiful husband. He stood, shaking hands with another Concord man. They smiled at each other like boys who had just managed to break a beaver's dam—so proud of themselves. Then three Regulars came running past Mathew. One extended his arm in the direction of my husband. He had a pistol in his hand.

I dropped to one knee, while I placed my rifle sternly against my shoulder, took aim and held my breath. Just before I fired, another gun blasted. I shot too, and the redcoat with the pistol spun with the impact of the first bullet, then my leaden ball made him levitate for a moment. The pistol took wings and soared far from the man. His two comrades ran even faster away. Then gravity once again commenced and shoved the recoat dead to the ground.

Mathew looked at the redcoat then back at George, the man whom he had been shaking hands with. Mathew concernedly bent to make sure the Regular soldier was dead. My husband held his hand above the man's nose, but after a few beats, straightened and nodded to George. Next they both looked in my direction.

"I told you to get away from the battle if it turned into hand-to-hand combat," were the first words out Mathew's mouth. I didn't care that he was reprimanding me. I began to smile and cry, releasing my rifle. Standing on shaking legs, I ran to my Mathew. But when finally embracing him, my legs gave way.

He lifted me, so my feet swayed under me. I held him about his neck as tight as I could without suffocating him.

"You were supposed to run for the hills. You promised me," he whispered in my ear.

"I cannot lose you," was my only defense, which made him hold me that much more.

There was still occasional gunfire as the redcoats made their retreat. They were running, and some of the militia were already making their way back into the woods to further escort the Regulars all the way back to Boston. The face-to-face fighting had ceased in Menotomy, and the lawn of the Common was littered with dead and alive but wounded bodies, both Regulars and militia.

Mathew lowered me back to my feet. He held onto my waist as he looked down at me with a huge smile.

"What am I going to do with you?"

I shrugged and grinned back. "I think you'll have to love me for the rest of your life."

He rolled his eyes. "Ah, what a sentence. What cruel justice."

I giggled. "'Tis fair. After all, I'm going to love you for the rest of _my_ life."

His smile diminished slightly, and he cocked his head to the side. "You really do love me, don't you?"

"Of course I do—"

And then Mathew convulsed, as if he'd been hit far too hard in the back, and grimaced.

Clutching at my waist to stay up, he fell on me nonetheless. Trying to hold onto him, I wondered what had happened. I leaned against his body, keeping him on his legs, abruptly aware of his weight, all his weight on me.

"Mathew," I whispered in deep fright, finally realizing he'd been shot.

I heard a primal scream from behind me and many shots fired. The yell sounded again, and a few more discharges followed. But then I only heard Mathew, struggling for breath. Intensely I listened to his heart. But the beating was too rushed, too erratic, and I hoped to God that I was just hearing men's hurried feet, racing to us for assistance.

I braced my legs more into the ground, and looked up into my surprised husband's face. He coughed and spurted blood in a red cloud around me.

" _No, no, no, no_." I shook my head and in one last effort, grabbed him about his waist, to hold him up, but he crumpled down, and I went with him. We both landed on our knees, me holding him upright by my failing legs.

Mathew made choking noises and gurgled blood, as I forced him upright.

"Please, no . . ." I begged. I begged of God. I begged of my husband. I begged of this universe to please, please take the bullet back. _Please._

Mathew's head fell on my shoulder, and I reached for his cheek, turning him to look at me. His beautiful sky blue eyes glistened.

"Wife . . ." He croaked.

"Mathew . . . my husband . . . my husband. Don't leave me. Please."

Blood lined his lips, and he tried to smile for me.

I maneuvered my body and sat with Mathew sprawled on my lap, his fading face gazing ever more peacefully at me. I hiccupped for breath and sobbed as he reached for my cheek.

"I love you so much. You cannot do this to me. Don't leave me. I have nothing without you."

It was slight but he shook his head. I saw then the crimson blood gushing from his chest, his beautiful chest that I knew intimately. I had touched that chest so often in the last four days, kissing him there, making him lean his head back and growl such a happy sound.

I forced his palm against my cheek when I felt him weaken. "No . . . no. You have to stay with me. I cannot live without you, my love. I love you. I love you. I love you."

He choked and choked and choked. Blood spewed from his mouth. I cradled him to me with my one arm, the other still holding his hand to my cheek. With my forehead against his I heard him whisper, "Love you . . . all my life."

I held him closer as I heard his heartbeat become even more irregular. With a burst I heard three more beats, and then I heard no more.

No more.

# Epilogue

Recently promoted Captain Whitley warmed his hands on a small fire. It had been two weeks since the Regulars had been run out of the Massachusetts' countryside. Now it was a full-fledged siege, the Siege of Boston. He scrubbed his hands over his face, probably noting his long whiskers. He sat alone on a small stool and gave a quick sigh, then leaned to his side to pick up a scrap of thin paper. He wrapped it tightly around a stick that he used as a dowel and licked the end of the paper, sealing it into a cylinder. Then he twisted the bottom of the paper cylinder tight. After that he retracted the dowel. Sliding a round lead ball into the device, he subsequently capped it with a funnel. Next he grabbed his powder horn and tapped a small amount into the paper cartridge.

I came to stand closer to him, and my movement finally caught his attention. He startled. The paper tube, metal ball, and black gunpowder flew into the air. The fragrance of the powder immediately trapped into my nose. It still reminded me of soil.

The earth comforted and provided, while gunpowder . . .

I'd spent the last two weeks sleeping on my husband's grave. The soft soil had given me all the soothing reassurance it could, but I still was frozen in my body—forever missing my husband.

It was melodramatic of me, I know, but waking every day craving my husband's touch, my sister's giggles, and my mother's nurturing had driven me completely mad. Further agitation was the knowledge that two haunting blue eyes watched me, my every move. While weeping uncontrollably upon a dark and dreary night, I plunged my _sgian dubh_ deep into my chest.

I woke moments later, the dagger removed from my breast, a small blue purple bruise in its place. At first I thought Jacque had been the culprit that had taken the knife from my person. But for once I didn't feel his pervasive presence. I could only surmise that it was my own body that had eliminated the sharp dirk from my heart. No matter how much pain I endured, no matter what dagger was drudged through my heart, I would keep waking.

It was that last admittance that enabled me to run.

I sprinted as fast as I could. The trees and Massachusetts' houses and taverns turned into a blur. I needed time. Aye, I had plenty of it, since I would forever more continue to keep waking, no matter what happened to me. But I needed time away from Jacque, from the Joneses, from my grief-filled life. I needed to think of what to do, what _I_ could do. I'd run to Cambridge, the headquarters for the militias conducting the siege.

Captain Whitley righted himself as I sat on another stool by his fire. My rifle spanned my lap.

"Little sneak."

I gave him a small shrug.

He studied me, and I let him while I stirred the golden orange coals of his fire with a long branch, the scent of acrid gunpowder still filling my nostrils. At length, I turned to him, watching as he kept opening his mouth with, I'm sure, many sentiments of sorrow for me, wondering if I was all right, had I eaten enough, what of my destiny now?

He looked down at my rifle. I wore my husband's overcoat unbuttoned and was certain he could easily see the two pistols I carried in holsters on the inside, and a tomahawk wedged beside one of the pistols. He sighed. "Reporting for duty?"

And what of my fate?

I took a sharp inhalation, but nodded all the same.

Aye, like gunpowder, my providence was now of my own choosing. Disguising myself as a lad and joining the militia was a surefire way of escaping Jacque. For a few weeks, at least. Part of the militia was encamped at Harvard, where the university stood vacant while tensions boiled over. I could begin at the library, where I might find more about Herodotus and the cursed water that I'd drunk. Mayhap I could find a way to make myself . . . human again.

Perhaps, like the lot in my life, I would find more than I was looking for...

# Need more Violet?

**Here is the first chapter of the next Immortal American Series, _The Bones of War_**

**Chapter One**

* * *

_June 17, 1775_

_Cambridge, Massachusetts – Harvard's Library_

* * *

Cannon fire is so thunderous, so penetrating, it easily shakes one's bones, rattles the marrow, until all one is left with is tremors. Truth is like a cannonade. Most especially if the truth is something that one wants to run from, hide from, crawl into the earth itself to get away from. Nevertheless one can never hide from truth. But I was giving it a hell of a try.

I sat up with a start, accidentally ripping the paper in the book that served as my pillow, trying to decipher the noise that had taken me from my dream. The book was Herodotus' tale of the Fountain of Eternal Youth in Ethiopia and none too helpful. He was also a complete misogynistic ass, making remarks that women lost respect as soon as they took off their clothes. Ach. Lunacy! Hadn't he ever heard of a happy marriage?

My heart gashed open at the careless thought about my dead husband, Mathew, which always cracked the dam to my other grief—how I ached for my sister and missed my mother and father. Examining the beams above my head, I held my breath as fine dust floated down. Sacred messages from the beyond? Glancing out the window, I saw the very early signs of dawn approaching—a midnight blue joining a purple sky with flames from the golden sun just peeking their way over the horizon.

Then the building shuddered from a boom. Cannon fire. I'd been sleeping so deeply that I hadn't distinguished it. I shook my head, and realized there was a piece of paper glued to my cheek. Tearing it from my visage, I stared at the one phrase it held: "The destiny of a man is in his soul."

Holding my breath, I read it twice more. Lately, philosophy, once so easy to ponder, had become more akin to a rock lodged in my brain, in my way. I couldn't fathom theories any longer. And science, my previously cherished topic, had become nothing more than glaringly incoherent ideas and numbers swirled into the cosmos. But this quote shook me.

Another cannon exploded somewhere north, far enough away to make the shrill of the noise faint, yet close enough that the library trembled with the impact. Finally taking a shaky breath, I shoved the line into a pocket of my breeches then slammed the volume closed. Realizing I was taking my frustration out on a book, a beloved book, I carefully placed it back where it belonged and gauged my surroundings.

The library at Harvard was barren of life, save me. One would think—well, at least I would think—that there would be hordes of men vacating the expansive room, loaded with leather covered records, but that was never the case. In all the nights I'd run to the library, I hadn't met one person, not even a sly child in this room. However, making my escape was never easy. Harvard campus was reserved for the officers of the militias that surrounded Boston in an ongoing siege against the redcoats, and I was a mere private. I could be punished if discovered, since my lowly rank meant I needed to sleep in a tent on the ground, not on a bed in a Harvard building.

I checked my clothes, making sure my breeches were in order, and that my tight corset—goodness, how could I sleep in the uncomfortable thing!—nestled my breasts in tightly. It was already a hot morning and my skin held a slight sheen from my sweat. I knew my face would be an utter mess. I kept it that way. The dirtier I appeared, the less likely the men would look at my countenance. However, as much as I tried to keep to myself and remain hostile—after all I was drowning in grief and self-pity—I was somehow making friends.

Racing out of the vestibule of the library, and not seeing any officers or other militiamen, I sprinted for my tent in Harvard Yard. Swarms of men stood outside their pavilions looking to Charlestown as another cannon careened from Boston. Already in the black purple haze of the dawn there were torrid apparitions. Or was that a heat wave? Or my sister, Hannah, haunting me? God, I missed her. My eldritch heart longed for her.

As I raced past, I vaguely heard men murmuring in their sleepy tones. They mostly cursed something about the god-awful time in the morning, but the way they stared toward the northeasterly direction, as if spellbound, was worrisome enough for me to add a bit more speed to my gait.

I flew across a corner and knocked into the man who claimed to be my big brother, Colin McKay. He chuckled and took me by my shoulder.

"Where ye been, lad?"

He had a thick accent that most people didn't quite understand, save me. That was thanks to my Da who also was from Scottish Highland blood.

"Don't tell me ye been stealing more rum. Ye'll get into real trouble one of these days."

That was how I met him. He caught me stealing his rum. Not one of my finest moments, I'll admit, and he'd promptly broken my nose as soon as he'd caught me. After I'd managed to rise soon after the punch, he'd laughed and grabbed me around my neck, nearly throttling me, and said something about respecting a man who could take a punch like that. I saw stars for hours, but never told him that. At our first role call I stuttered my Christian name, just calling myself Vi, but then I stole from him again, his surname, McKay. I really needed to quit thieving from the man, but it came to me so easily. Besides, I needed not only the disguise of being a man, but also a different name, for I feared I was being hunted by my past, a blue past by the name of Jacque Beaumont.

I shook my head at Colin. "What happened?"

He shrugged and looked toward the Charlestown peninsula too. His air of calm was not a forced one, and I wasn't as scattered as I should have been when the Royal Navy threw cannon balls our way. But then again, they'd done it a few hundred times before, trying to threaten us with a cannonade that's aim was off. We were sure this was on purpose, that the Navy docked around the almost island of Boston did not have orders to kill us. Just scare us witless. Even though the gigantic booms that reverberated through my ribs and rattled my teeth were loud, they were getting more annoying than frightful.

Colin's tent flapped opened and a young blonde woman, still adjusting her dress, emerged. He didn't even glance at her, the scoundrel, but she could hardly stop staring at him. He was quite possibly the most handsome man I'd ever encountered, and he knew just how devastatingly good-looking he was too. The blonde cleared her throat daintily, but Colin didn't notice. I tried to avoid eye contact with her, but she woefully turned to me.

Sighing, I elbowed the callous man. He gazed down at me with his dark brows drawn. I pointedly peeked in the direction of the woman, and he finally scanned in her direction, but said nothing.

She licked her lips and pleaded with her eyes, but just then another cannon exploded. After she flinched, she said, "I must leave. Back to work."

Colin nodded and turned back to Charlestown.

Defeated, she slumped her shoulders and trudged away.

I elbowed Colin again. This time he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck in a tight vise.

"What is it, Vi?" His tone was almost irritated, but for some strange reason he'd always soften and give in to a chuckle when confronting me.

"At least say good bye to the lass."

"I don't want to lead her by the nose."

"Do you want to bed her again?" I asked, thinking of the one thing that might interest him to be somewhat mannerly toward the woman.

He lifted a dark brow, thinking. He took at least ten seconds to consider. Then finally letting me go, he called out to the retreating back of the lonely girl.

She turned to him, a wide, silly smile on her face.

"You, um, have a nice day." That was Colin's attempt at chivalry.

The blonde beamed and skipped away after calling her own sentimental sap in return. I rolled my eyes, but still felt bad for the woman.

"You don't even remember her name." I sighed, knowing he usually didn't, then tried a different tactic. "Was that so hard?"

He shrugged, but looked down at me with a wicked grin. Before he could jest about what had been hard on him last night, I punched his shoulder then stepped out of his reach. He laughed heartily.

"Ye're learning fast, lad." He'd been teaching me how to fight, along with my other campsite "brothers." Hanley and Henry were across a shrubbery from my tent, and I was surprised I hadn't seen the father and son duo yet to watch as Charlestown was bombed by the British Royal Navy.

"I'm going to see Hanley."

Colin nodded. "I'll go with ye."

Because Colin viewed women as toys for his pleasure, I assumed he would think less of our Oneida neighbors too, but he surprised me with his deep respect for Hanley and Henry. We were quite a group of misfits in the New Hampshire militia I had been assigned. Colin had the thick brogue, as well as stole most of the women—married or not—for his own carnal needs, so he was an outcast. Hanley and Henry—well, they were Native Americans, fiercely needed for scouting, but often I wondered if colonists deeply resented them of that or if it was just because they were Indians. Then there was me, a woman disguising herself as a man, er, actually I passed as a boy of about fifteen, mayhap sixteen. If I was caught in my masquerade, then I could be fined, probably have a length in jail, or worse, be shackled to a stock or pillory to be the ridicule of the Massachusetts' country. Still, I was here. And I was a better shot with my rifle then the whole company combined, which only got me a slap on the back from my commander, Colonel John Stark.

I walked fast in front of Colin, very aware he might retaliate and try to trip me for striking him. He merely chuckled, which made me hasten my pace all the more. I wasn't looking down, just looking for Henry or Hanley, which was my undoing.

Too late to see I'd stumbled over a log of leg, I flew face down, but never felt the earth meet my stomach. Instead the man I'd tripped over caught me. He quickly spun me around, so I lay cradled in his arms. I looked up into dream eyes. Two perfectly gold brown orbs ringed with light blue held my gaze. Those eyes held a warmth that the man's face did not reflect. He looked like he was on the cusp of smiling, but never did. Yet his eyes were.

"Vi!" Hanley called out.

He gripped one of my arms and gracelessly flung me from the man I stared at. Straightening slowly, I couldn't help but continue gawking. The man at my feet sat cross-legged, but then unhurriedly stood. It seemed to take an eternity for the man to rise to his full stature, and in that time Hanley whispered, "Are you all right? Did you get hurt?" Although the words were of concern, his tone was reproving.

I shook my head at Hanley, then turned to the giant of the man I'd sprawled upon. "I'm so sorry."

He didn't answer, didn't even shake his head or shrug his shoulders. He just gave me his piercing stare, as if he saw right through me. Oh Lord, when he'd caught me, I realized, he'd had to manhandle me. I was fairly certain he'd felt my corset under my white—well, dirty cream colored—men's linen shirt. Worse, from the slight edge of discomfort on my right breast, I was pretty sure he'd caught me by the one part of my anatomy that was _obviously_ feminine. Well, I did have two of them, but only one ached slightly, as if bruised.

I stepped back, which made the tall man's stare intensify.

"This is Machk," Hanley instructed, waving a hand to his comrade. "Machk, this is the boy I was telling you about, the one with the hawk's eye, Vi McKay."

"Usually my little brother isn't quite so clumsy." Colin came up beside me. "Forgive him, for he was just running from me." Colin proffered his hand.

Machk took it and shook and nodded, never uttering a word. But when his eyes scanned me again, I didn't detect any animosity. On the contrary, he seemed to be laughing, even if his face was nothing close to that.

I took another step back.

Henry came out of his tent when another cannon boomed. He smiled at Colin and me but lost his grin when he glanced at Machk.

"Are they actually shooting at people this time?" Henry asked.

Shrugging, I couldn't offer much about the cannonade. No one else had an opinion either. For a long beat no one said anything, but then Colin continued his introductions.

"I'm Colin McKay, Mr. Machk."

"Mac," the giant of a man said. His voice was low, yet surprisingly gentle. "Please, Mr. McKay, call me just Mac." He had the tiniest trace of an intonation when he spoke, although I couldn't place it. Some Indians I knew from accent alone, but Mac's English was as New England as my own with a slight crispness towards certain consonants.

Colin let a wide grin spread on his face. "I like any man who has part of my name in his. And call me Colin."

Mac nodded and then glanced at me. I know it was rude, but for some odd reason I couldn't shake the man's hand. Twasn't that I was afraid of him. On the contrary, I felt an odd sense of familiarity, although he was a stranger to me.

However, I couldn't help but obsess if he'd felt one of my breasts or not. If he knew my secret. The way he glanced at me, like he did know—knew all my skeletons that lurked in my cupboard—it made me feel . . . Well, I should have wanted to run from him. Instead I craved to slip off my mask of the continual dirt I wore.

I'd been in this camp for almost two months, and I was just about ready to lose my mind from the lies I spewed on a daily basis. It had been more than sixty days since my husband had died, and I'd thought that since Mathew would have been stationed here, I owed it to him to sign up in his stead. Further I'd chosen to enlist in the militia because they were stationed around Harvard, which I thought the library would help me in my research to discover more about my abnormal condition. But I had come here mainly, to run from Jacque, a man I loved, but hated that I did. I'd lost everything because I'd loved him.

Yet at that moment I just wanted reprieve from it all. Perhaps talking to someone, a tall stranger, would help.

To our amazement the cannonade seemed to stop, and Henry, Hanley, and Colin discussed what could be happening, while I assessed the tall man in our midst. He stood mute for much of the conversation, yet looked interested in the events. But when he glanced at me again, I felt my cheeks burn. What if he told the men that surrounded me that I was—who I was?

He straightened in his height suddenly. Standing at least six and-a-half feet, almost a head above the men, and certainly a foot above me, but he looked down to the ground. His nearly black brows drawn tight. He wore what most of the men surrounding me did—leather leggings (I couldn't wear such things, otherwise, I'd worry about my hardly rounded hips revealing my sex, and Colin wore his kilt), a hunter's homespun shirt, and hardly visible breechcloth under his shirt. Then Mac lifted his head, a long braid falling over one of his wide shoulders. His hair was a dark brown, but lightened to gold at the tips. Did he—? He did the damnedest thing. I think he tried to smile at me.

I can't be for certain, because it looked like such a strained expression. But it was as if he knew my anxiety and was trying to comfort me, trying to convey something.

"McKay! God damn it, where are you?" A young man called out.

Colin excused himself and jogged around the bush to where we heard the adolescent voice. I straggled behind.

The boy was about fourteen and wearing breeches under his white nightshirt, still hanging limply and wrinkled down to his knees. His hair was a mess. He had a whale oil lamp in one hand, although the sun was quickly ascending past the horizon.

"Aye," Colin hollered. "What'll it be, lad?"

The boy blinked and tried to decipher what Colin had said. He sharply inhaled, insight beaming in his juvenile eyes. "Colonel Stark is wanting you and the younger McKay to report for duty immediately to the Square."

Colin looked over his shoulder at me, but then nodded. "We'll be there in a minute."

The boy again took a good second or two to translate, then bobbed his head, and trotted away.

"You think they want my father and me too?" Henry asked behind me. Glancing his direction, I noticed Hanley and Mac were close by as well. Henry clamped onto my shoulder, but then appeared disturbed. "Lord, Vi, your shoulder is as thin as a woman's."

Colin chuckled, as I squirmed from Henry's grasp, determining Mac's expression scrupulously. He's visage was neutral from any emotion, save his otherworldly eyes. I swear, he was smiling with those glowing orbs, and only at me.

"I'll ask the colonel if ye're needed." Collin said, as I walked backwards from Henry and Hanley, especially Mac.

Henry nodded. "Just come and get me if they want us. Except for digging. Or other labor. We came here to fight, not to work ourselves to death. Could do that back home, if I had the hankering."

Colin laughed, then turned in the direction of his tent. "Building fortifications is part of fighting. I've dug many a ditch in my day."

I scrambled toward my own tent, next to Colin's.

Then I heard Henry called out. "All the same, if there's digging, we aren't here."

Colin chuckled again, as if he didn't have a care in the world, as if the Royal Navy weren't bombing a colonial town, as if we, colonists, weren't conducting a siege against our sovereign's soldiers.

I flew into my tent and checked my corset. It was slightly off-kilter, and I wondered again if Mac had felt that I was a woman. Letting out a rough sigh, I spied down my body. In the valley between my breasts lay a dark blue gem, still attached 'round my neck in a silver necklace. It was a reminder of my previous life—love, betrayal, and so much death. Jacque had given it to me. I should have sold it. But I couldn't. I didn't even understand why myself, for Lord knew I needed to let it go.

"Vi," Colin shouted outside of my tent. "Ye coming?"

Was I?

While still in the confines of my tent I looked down at my long rifle. I'd already holstered two pistols and wedged my tomahawk near my ribs. While fingering the frizzen pan of my musket, I wondered what I was doing here, but then shook my head. What good would come to stopping and thinking anyway?

All my life I'd plow through things, running. I'd sprinted before I learned how to crawl, my mother had told me. In my previous life, I'd literally plowed in my father's stead. However, my constant need to keep pushing was a form of running—running from my feelings, my grief, reality. 'Tis all I knew how to do. Push through, to run from what lay in my heart.

Grabbing my rifle around the stock, I hefted myself out of my tent.

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**Grab your copy of _The Bones of War_ wherever books are sold!**

# Also by Red L. Jameson

Red writes historical urban fantasy in the series The Immortal American, as well as time-travel romance, fantasy/military romance, and contemporary romance, and as under the pen name R. L. Jameson she writes erotic romance.

**Historical Urban Fantasy**

_The Immortal American Series_

The Immortal American

The Bones of War

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**Time-Travel Romance**

_The Glimpse Time Travel_ Series

Enemy of Mine, Book 1

Highlander of Mine, Book 2

Cowboy of Mine, Book 3

Duchess of Mine, Book 4

Enemy For All Time, Book 5 (A Novella)

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**Contemporary Romance**

_The Wild Love Series_

Bad Medicine, Book 1

Bad Neighbors, Book 2

Bad Friends, Book 3

_Stand Alone Books_

The Sacrifice, a contemporary romance novella

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**Fantasy/Military Romance**

_With These Wings_ Series

Wing These Wings, Book 1

With These Wings, Book 2

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**Erotic Romance by R. L. Jameson**

_The Wild Love Ménage Series_

Shine, Book 1

Fly, Book 2

Awake, Book 3

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**And don't forget to sign up for Red's newsletter where you can find out about her latest releases! Sign upHERE!**

# Acknowledgments

The fabulous works of William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"

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For the French translation of Sonnet 18, I looked to the French translator Isabelle Schwartz-Gastine. _Merci beaucoup_!
Please give generously to . . .

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The Wounded Warrior Project

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&

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The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
**Copyright © 2013 by Red L. Jameson**

**All rights reserved**

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**By payment of required fees, you have been granted the _non_ -exclusive, _non_ -transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of copyright owner.**

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**This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.**

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**The reverse engineering, uploading, and/or distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.**
