Chapter 12
twelve
These are not troops. These are skeletons.
Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, on arriving at Valley Forge
Maebel Bohannon melted his iron resolve.
He’d never been able to endure a woman’s tears, especially given he was the cause of them.
Reaching out, Rhys took her in his arms, and that inexplicable sense of homecoming swept through him again, that completeness he felt in her company.
He’d steeled himself against this happening, but she was his weakness and he wanted to comfort her.
Kiss her.
Chin resting atop her head, he savored her warmth and softness and that indefinable herbal-honey scent that marked her.
Her silent tears dampened his linen shirt as he held her and stroked her silky hair caught up in pins beneath her cap, its lace edge tickling his rough fingers.
He’d wanted this from the moment he’d met her.
The strength of that first impression at her front door still shook him.
Somehow he’d lost his heart to her the moment he’d first seen and spoken to her.
The suddenness of their mutual attraction astonished him still.
Was he a fool for turning away from her?
“Mae, forgive me . . . please.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. We’re just two people caught up in circumstances beyond our control. Our feelings aren’t wrong. The war is.”
“I won’t leave you heartbroken—or a widow.”
“I’m already heartbroken, Rhys. And I’d marry you tonight if you’d agree. I’d even follow the army for you.”
“Ladies don’t follow armies.”
“Martha Washington does.”
He chuckled. “Don’t say that in the general’s hearing.”
“I’m made of sterner stuff than you think.”
“I agree, but it would be an everlasting punishment to see you suffer in the cold and damp, hungry, mayhap even afraid. And always in danger.”
“Yet you do the same.”
“I’m a soldier, not a civilian.” He returned the pendant to her, tying the ribbon clumsily around her neck before leaving it dangling on her bodice. “You have my heart if not all the rest of me. Let that be enough.”
Stepping back, he fisted his hands lest he reach for her again. Her chin came up, and they regarded each other in the firelight, waging a stoic battle of wills, unable to disguise or deny their bond.
“Good night,” she finally whispered.
His return to camp was bleak, the hole inside him worsened by the fact Mae hadn’t appeared at breakfast when he’d gathered his belongings and left.
He didn’t blame her. They’d said their goodbyes the night before in the firelit kitchen.
For now, he needed to expend his remorse completing the Lowantica Valley hut that bore no resemblance to the Bohannons’ house.
He took up an ax and finished splitting shingles for the crude gable roof before climbing up a makeshift ladder and hammering them on.
Chinking the cracks in the logs came next once the roof was weathertight.
Glad he was of the hefty supply of firewood beneath one eave.
The fireplace wasn’t sufficient to heat even so small a room, but it raised his men’s morale that he was among them . . . even if it removed him from Mae.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He may have distanced himself, but she remained ever present. Winter gave way to a certain idleness that a march and a fight never did. As he wrestled with the winsome image of her in the firelit kitchen, a Scripture lanced his thoughts.
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.
A northeasterly wind buffeted him, foretelling a change of weather. He continued working—trying to push Mae from his mind. A far less bloody battle but a battle nevertheless.
In midafternoon, Bohannon appeared, a hamper in arm. “You may have left Chatham, but it hasn’t left you, General.”
Rhys descended the ladder, belly rumbling, and invited him inside.
“Blast but ’tis frigid!” Setting the hamper on the crude table that also served as a desk, Bohannon took a look around. “Did you shove enough clay in those cracks, sir?”
“There’s never enough of anything,” Rhys said matter-of-factly, wondering what delights the hamper held. “Though I’ve a good supply of furs for my bedding. I’ve a mind to put that bearskin up on the wall.”
Bohannon added another log to the fire. “You’d need wall-to-wall skins to help with that draft.”
“In other words, only a bear wintering in his den would weather this well.”
Bohannon nodded. “Your returning here is good for the men—provided you don’t freeze to death.”
With a rueful smile, Rhys opened the hamper. Mae’s goodwill had obviously withstood his repulse. Bread. Butter. Preserves. Maple syrup. A rasher of bacon. Sausages. A knitted hat. Shirts and stockings neatly folded. Even a striped blanket. What hadn’t she thought of?
Her brother’s next bold words caught him off guard. “I had hoped to have you as more than a commanding officer, but I seem to have been mistaken.”
A brother-in-law? Rhys stanched his surprise. “For now, aye.”
“Mae said nothing, just to be clear. I surmised the rest. For now, I’ll leave you to your hamper as I’m due home before dark.”
“Thank her for me.”
“Aye. I’ll return for morning drill.”
Bohannon left, leaving Rhys alone. Fresh memories of the Chatham parlor and dining room, the fine dishes and spirits, but most of all the companionship, turned the hollow space all the emptier.
Curse the war. Curse the winter.
Shoving comparisons aside, he put the empty hamper away.
While he was here in the foothills, would someone else take first place in Mae’s affections?
He’d heard something about the Presbyterian pastor setting his sights on her.
She’d make a fine pastor’s wife, serving in the meetinghouse that had been her father’s.
Having a family and continuing in the place she’d spent her entire life.
The possibility sat like gravel in his gut. Yet hadn’t he forfeited that right, given he’d stepped back? No matter his feelings for her, the coming confrontation with the British scuttled the most pined-for plans.
If he lived through it, he would return to Virginia.
His acreage waited. His new house had barely been finished before he’d been commissioned, and he prayed the British hadn’t burned it down.
His father and sister would welcome him home, a war veteran, and he’d return to his crops and fields and farm.
Only that peaceful prospect didn’t hold the appeal it once did.
Not without Mae.