Chapter 33
thirty-three
British intelligence report, New York
How good it was to sit around the family table with everything just as it had been before she’d wed and left. Jon presided with a prayer, Joanna served, and the children chattered as Coralie sat beside Mae, Rhys and James opposite.
“Did you fort dwellers bring any news?” Joanna asked as she sat down.
Mae tensed, hoping Jane McCrea wouldn’t be mentioned in front of the children.
“Little to report,” James replied, buttering his bread, “except for General Washington encamping a few miles north of here.”
“At the Clove, yes, in Ramapo Valley. On the other hand, I heard Ticonderoga and Edward have both fallen.” Joanna’s delight turned to dismay. “One hardly knows what to pray for from day to day.”
“All changes hourly,” Jon said. “This war is truly tit for tat.”
“Be on your guard from every direction,” Rhys told them, taking a drink of cider.
James nodded. “So far you’ve had nothing stolen or destroyed?”
“Nothing thus far.” Joanna passed a basket of bread. “Word is there’s activity on the other side of the river, though. Something about a Loyalist spy hiding in a cave between raids on Patriot farms.”
“We have more to fear from that Ramapo Valley gang, horse stealing for the British and all else,” Jon told them between bites.
“Claudius Smith?” Rhys looked up from his plate. “He goes by the alias of James Reed and John Wright.”
“That’s the one.” Joanna grimaced. “Evil by any name.”
Jon met her eyes. “We’ve had militia on watch in the Ramapo Mountains because of him and his fellows. We don’t want trouble come the harvest.”
“Wise,” Rhys said. “I’d also recommend the militia assist in bringing in the valley’s wheat, if only to stand guard once the harvest is underway.”
Jon nodded. “All the farms could be covered that way.”
“Now that Washington is at the Clove I doubt there’ll be much trouble.”
Mae listened, yearning for Virginia. Yet how could one pine for a place they’d never been? Rhys gave her a glimpse of his farming life as he talked, but try as she might, she couldn’t see him trading his rifle to get behind a plow or planting seed or even haying, scythe in hand.
“So how is life at Fort Montgomery, Mae?” Coralie asked as she poured more cider.
“Never dull,” Mae replied, having lost count of time. “I’ve finished making cockades and am now sewing garments again.”
“And the officers’ wives?”
“We met for tea recently. And we usually have dinner together with the officers.”
“I’m glad you’re not the only woman there,” Joanna told her, taking Phemie on her lap. “Though I know there are plenty of women followers on hand. I’ve even thought of taking some produce to sell on Sutler’s Row myself.”
As the heaping contents of the dishes dwindled, Mae stood. “Let me tidy up. ’Tis the least I can do after so fine a Sabbath dinner.”
“I’ll make no objection,” Joanna replied with a grateful smile.
Mae plucked an apron from a wall peg and tied it around her waist while her oldest nieces began clearing the table. How good it felt to do the most mundane tasks and be among family again. Seeing Coralie hale and hearty dispelled the lingering taint of her own nightmare.
As the men rose from their chairs and left the house, Mae looked up from scrubbing dishes. “I thought I heard a horse.”
Joanna brightened. “The post rider, likely, though he’s not been by for some time.”
At that, Coralie rose from the table, hastened out the door, and bypassed the men on the porch. Might it be too much to hope Coralie would have a letter?
Going to a window, Mae saw the rider slow and greet Coralie.
He came to a full stop near the barn before rummaging in a saddlebag.
Mae could sense her sister’s tempered hopes, ready to be snuffed like candle flame, and all but held her breath.
At last the rider leaned forward and extended a letter. For Coralie or someone else?
Coralie’s smile answered as she turned back to the house. Good tidings or ill? As he was an officer, the whereabouts and fate of Eben Gibbs were ever in question.
Lord, let it be good news, please.
Mae returned to her dishwashing while Joanna sat down in her favorite chair, both of them waiting.
Coralie returned on catlike feet, reading as she walked.
She came to a stop by the hearth, and the room grew more hushed.
A sudden cry rent the quiet kitchen, shattering Mae’s hopes.
Coralie hurled the letter into the low fire, then fled upstairs.
Drying her hands on her apron, Mae watched the paper curl as flames licked the edges, ending in embers and ash.
Joanna looked perplexed. “What on earth?”
Coralie had held tight to her secret. Would it be left to Mae to tell them?
“My sister had some sort of understanding with a British officer stationed in New York,” she began quietly. “Lieutenant Eben Gibbs was originally from Chatham, but his family left for New York City at the start of the war, given their Loyalist stance. He and Coralie kept corresponding . . .”
Joanna sighed. “I pray the man’s not ill—or dead—though I never thought I’d be saying that about a British soldier.”
“I’ll go up to her.” Mae hung the dish towel on a peg, trying to summon the right words before climbing the stairs with a weight like a cold iron on her heart.
Coralie was in her room beneath the eave, sobbing so hard she struggled to breathe.
Mae sat beside her and placed a hand on her shuddering back. “Sister, what has happened?”
Long moments ticked past as Coralie continued crying. “Eben wants nothing to do with me. I’ve come all this way only to hear him say his feelings have changed—that he refuses to marry into a family of Patriots.”
So he blamed them and their loyalties? “Are you sure you read it rightly?”
“He was quite clear.” Her embittered voice broke, and she shook Mae off. “You and James and Jon and Aaron are to blame!”
Schooling her tone, Mae forged ahead. “Best you find out now rather than later if he’s a wastrel and a rogue.”
“Oh? He’s neither, though I well know how you feel about him.” Coralie dug in her pocket for a handkerchief. “Leave me be—right now. I want to be alone.”
Mae stood, feeling helpless in the face of such an emotional storm, and returned to the kitchen. Her nieces had finished washing dishes and gone outside. Joanna waited, seated by her spinning wheel, her face full of questions.
“Lieutenant Gibbs has decided to end matters between them.”
“Jilted, then.” Joanna’s distress mirrored Mae’s. “She’s talked of little else since you left, forever waiting for a letter.”
Mae stood by as James entered the kitchen, returning his empty cider mug. “Why is Coralie crying?”
“You don’t know the whole story, but in a few words, Coralie has just been jilted by Lieutenant Eben Gibbs.” Mae gestured to the hearth’s fire. “She burned his letter she was so distraught.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised.” James looked at the dwindling flames, where only a blackened corner of the letter remained. “But I’m truly sorry for her misery, if nothing else.”
Jon entered next as sobbing was again heard on high. “All is not well, I take it.”
“A matter of the heart,” Mae told him, explaining it all over again.
“I wish she’d told us there was more to their arrangement than letter writing.” Her eldest brother took a seat at the empty table. “As for Coralie, she always did have the worse end of the staff.”
Guilt pricked Mae. That was the short of it. Coralie had always been in her shadow, the least of the sisters, or so Coralie said and believed. Less comely, less capable, less well in body. It had been a thorn betwixt them since childhood. And now this . . .
James looked at her in concern. “Although you may want to stay on and comfort her, we need to return to the fort.”
“I understand.” Mae removed her apron, feeling as much relief as sorrow. “In her current mood, my being here will only aggravate. My place is with Rhys.”
Rhys mounted Copper and extended a hand to Mae as she stepped from the mounting block.
She swung herself into the saddle and smoothed her petticoats, keeping them free of the stirrups.
With her arms anchored around his waist, he let James lead, Jon in the rear, all of them watchful with nary a word spoken.
Though he rued Coralie’s hurt, he was glad Mae wanted to return with him.
Between anticipated raids on valley Patriots and the British advance down the Hudson, the farm was less secure than the fort.
He was hours away from ordering his riflemen out to harass British patrols and scouts, including their supply lines.
Washington’s latest orders had been clear.
“Wear down, disrupt, distress, but avoid engaging in full-blown battle.”
He leaned out of the saddle far enough to snatch a wild rose. Mae took it, the delicate bloom fragile in her hand. He sensed her wordless pleasure as she leaned into him like a caress, her softness pressed to his straight back.
When the fort’s main gates appeared at the end of the rutted, dusty road, he let out a pent-up breath.
Helping Mae dismount, the sun catching in her pale hair, he tried to push aside the nightmarish happening with Jane McCrea.
He knew details few did. How violent the last moments of her life had been.
How her hair had touched the ground, a yellow-gold torrent like Mae’s.
News of her death had begun to spread like fire, many blaming the British for such brutality.
For now, Mae stood looking up at him, a light in her eyes that bespoke relief at their safe return. Yet he read sadness there too, a concern for her sister, who hadn’t the happiness they had.
“Where to now?” she asked as they cleared the front gates.
“Once I return you to our quarters, I’ll meet with Clinton and hear the latest intelligence.”
“Please don’t ride out on a patrol without telling me.”
“Never,” he vowed. “And you?”
“I shall finish that letter to Aunt Verity and see if Lucy is ready to begin cutting more cloth for officers’ coats.”
He pushed open the door to their quiet, spare barracks room, wanting to join her, a headache pulsing at his temples. “Till supper then.”