A Fierce Devotion

Chapter 1

Western Virginia

The damp May morning carried the earthy, hopeful scent of spring.

Brielle stepped onto the porch of the Rose and Crown where, true to the tavern’s name, an abundance of rose bushes crowded the stone exterior.

About to bloom, they’d soon turn the air to perfume.

Always first to wake, she felt a measure of peace in the dawn hush.

Instead of bemoaning her five o’clock start, she tried to see it as less bane and more blessing.

Doing so helped counter the darkness of her coming here and all the raw memories trailing behind it.

She hurried to the barn, the hem of her indigo petticoats drenched with dew.

A striped barn cat meowed at her appearing, the open air exchanged for potent hay and manure and aged wood.

She much preferred roses. Sitting down atop her milking stool, she spoke softly to the Devon cow she’d named Fleur.

Streams of milk filled the freshly scrubbed bucket, muting Titus’s approach as he passed through the barn.

At the ring of his ax, she nearly sighed aloud.

At eight, he could split and stack wood like a man, his callused hands proof.

He’d had no boyhood to speak of. Orphaned, his plight of being bound to the tavern’s owner for seven more years made her ache when her own servitude was finished far sooner. What would become of him when she left?

What would become of her?

“Miss Brielle.” The whisper came from the back of the barn.

Titus motioned for her to follow. Finished milking, she covered the full pail with a square of clean linen and toted it toward him and the milk house where an enormous elm shaded the cool space.

“Look here in this woodpecker hole.” Titus smiled his lopsided smile, his split lip telling he’d been backhanded by their master. “A clutch of blue bird eggs—I count six.”

Touched by the wonder in his tone, Brielle regarded the colorful eggs with genuine awe. “I forgive that old woodpecker for disturbing our sleep with his drumming, then.”

Titus chuckled then sobered. “Hope that old coon lurking at our back door lately doesn’t discover this nest.”

“I pray not.” She looked to the stables where she heard nickering and jostling, forgetting all about coons and birds. “Another lodger came in late last night.”

“A post rider?”

“A scout.”

“Trouble again?” His eyes rounded. “With French and Indians?”

“The Seven Years’ War is over. The French have surrendered, remember.”

If not the Indians.

She’d say no more lest she frighten him, moving on to churn the butter while he backtracked to the stables.

Midmorning had her clearing the tavern’s public room.

Breakfast had ended, the benches and long tables mostly empty.

Across the wide main passageway was the bar serving ale and cider and other spirits from dawn till well past midnight.

Rarely did she go there. The perpetually stale odor rankled though she was used to it.

The barkeep was the surly Mr. Griffiths, the tavern’s owner.

The scout she’d told Titus about sat near the bar’s fireless hearth.

He looked understandably weary, his expression as grim as he was gritty.

She was used to that, too. She’d nearly forgotten Philadelphia where men and women dressed in fine garments and went about the city.

Here there seemed nothing but humble farmers and frontiersman and their ilk.

“Miss Farrow, see that Ross is fed.”

Brielle startled at Griffiths’ voice. Ross.

The scout? She gave a curt nod and swept past her bondsman into the kitchen where the tavern cook—the latest in a line of them—stirred something in a large kettle.

Two of the enslaved helped her assemble a tray of fried venison, eggs, toast, and freshly ground coffee.

When she returned to the public room, Ross had left the bar and sat down at a just-cleared table. Eyes down, she served him silently, but that didn’t discourage his conversation.

“You bound to Griffiths?” he murmured hoarsely.

She nodded, pouring coffee from a blisteringly hot pot.

“A shame.”

She said nothing to this, fetching milk and sugar for his coffee.

Griffiths might be a brute but he kept a respectable tavern.

Folks came far and wide for the rarity of clean bed linens and cider from his orchards.

But he didn’t like her talking with his guests and so she mostly kept her eyes down and her mouth shut.

He took a stab at an egg. “Ever been proposed to?”

Flushing, she looked at him then and saw he was old enough to be her father. “Now and then.”

He chuckled. “Bet you can’t even count that high.”

“I can’t court nor marry without Mr. Griffiths’ permission.”

And he’d never give permission.

“Indentures are little better than slaves, at least while they’re bound. How many years till you’re free?”

“Two.”

“Hope you get shed of here quicker than that. Griffiths is a hard man, disliked by many.”

Lingering, she decided she’d risk Griffiths’ ire to quell her curiosity. “What news do you bring?”

His affability vanished—and perhaps his appetite with it—as he set down his fork. “The backcountry is afire again. Several frontier forts are hard hit, fifteen killed near Tates Creek, and the bloodshed is spreading.”

“Soldiers and settlers dead?”

“Settlers. A chief named Pontiac has rallied the tribes to fight back against all who take their lands. Virginia is rife with land stealers so the fight continues. I’ve come to carry a warning.”

“You’ll ride on to the back settlements.”

“Of which this is one.” The warning in his eye chilled her. Just west of the Blue Mountains and located near the northern entrance to the Shenandoah Valley, Brielle had often wondered what lay beyond the tavern at the crossroads.

He resumed his meal and she backtracked to the kitchen, trying to steady her nerves by the simple routine of washing the mound of breakfast dishes before working in the garden.

Frequent news of unrest and raids rumbled through the region.

She knew the evils men were capable of though she’d rather not dwell on them.

Just because they’d made peace with the French didn’t mean they’d made peace with France’s Indian allies.

As long as British colonists continued to push west onto Indian lands there’d be unending conflict and blame.

Once Ross had breakfasted, he took to the tavern’s front porch where settlement folk gathered to hear more details about the warning he’d given her earlier. His raised voice echoed back to the kitchen garden behind the tavern and left her wishing she could close her ears.

By midafternoon the scout was on his way, his stabled horse brought round by Titus.

The very air seemed charged with unrest. By suppertime more than travelers crowded the public rooms as settlers gathered to discuss bullet lead and fortifications and lookouts.

The nearest fort—Loudoun—was several miles away, much too distant in time of attack.

As voices ebbed and flowed around her, Brielle served and refilled and cleared, her own stomach rumbling.

Toward dusk she stood on the tavern’s back stoop and looked westward where a skim of black smoke seemed to haze the sky.

A burning cabin or barn? She studied the distant mountains, their clouded tops hazy.

Something ominous twisted inside her and refused to budge.

Heavenly Father, preserve us, please.