Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) (8 page)

Diana was grateful, more than grateful, and that was the trouble. Whereas her neighbors, the Sinclairs, were without a home now, she still had hers. She couldn’t help but feel doubly guilty when she recalled Farnsworth telling her that the Sinclair house had been chosen to be his headquarters but that Rawdon had insisted he use Briarhaven instead. If things had been different, the Sinclair ladies might have been forced to give her their hand-me-downs.

“Are your mother and sisters well?” she asked Clay.

Clay nodded. “Colonel Marion found a safe place for them to live. They’re doing fine.”

She started to tell Clay farewell when he startled her by pulling her against his broad chest and kissing her full on the lips. The kiss was brief, and when Diana’s initial shock lessened she saw that Clay was blushing like a schoolboy, which was exactly what Diana had considered him to be until now. But she suddenly realized that Clay was eighteen and no longer resembled the scrawny lad she remembered, having grown into a muscular and rugged looking young man from his time in the swamps. It was apparent from the way he looked at her that he didn’t consider himself anything
but
a man.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, Diana. I’m sorry if I’ve startled you, but I’m not sorry I kissed you. I love you and want to marry you when the war’s over. I know I’m a little younger than you, but I’d make you a good husband, better than that bastard Kingsley. I swear I would.”

Such an honest admission touched her. Clay Sinclair was a gentle and decent person, and she genuinely liked him and didn’t want to hurt him. Yet she couldn’t help reddening at the realization that somehow Clay had learned about Kingsley’s abuse of her. Evidently one of the servants at Briarhaven had spread the word. She wondered how many other people had known. She felt suddenly stripped of her pride.

“I can’t marry you,” she said more harshly than she intended.

Clay’s face seemed to fall, and she realized how she must sound to him, how she hurt him.

“It isn’t that I don’t care for you,” she amended gently, holding his fingers, stiff with cold. “I’m very fond of you, but I won’t marry — ever again. I appreciate that you care about me, but please find someone more deserving of your affection.”

She thought he was about to deny what she said, but he placed her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “If you ever need me for anything, Diana, all you have to do is ask.”

“That means a great deal to me.”

He flashed her a smile and turned away. She watched for a few seconds, and then Clay vanished into the misty swamp.

5

When Diana reached Charlestown nearly three days later, she found that the beautiful city she remembered from her childhood had changed during the British occupation. Many of the grand and gracious homes stood empty and in need of repair from the American and British shellings; homeless people, mostly loyalists who’d come to Charlestown for protection, lived in squalor outside the city limits in a section called Rawdontown. The marketplace, which Diana recalled as picturesque and filled with fragrant smelling fruits and fresh meats, was now inhabited by ravenous buzzards who perched on the rooftops. With a sense of sick dismay, she watched as the creatures flopped beneath the hooves of passing horses to fight other buzzards and stray mongrels, even a person or two, when the market man appeared and threw scraps of meat and fish into the street.

“This is appalling,” she spoke aloud and looked at Samuel Farnsworth who rode alongside her. “Is everyone starving? General Lord Rawdon should do something about this.”

Farnsworth clucked his tongue in disgust, apparently stung by her less-than-kind comment about his superior, a comment that also heaped blame upon himself. “Heavens, Diana, riffraff isn’t Rawdon’s concern, and certainly not mine,” he made a point of reminding her. “Our people are well fed and clothed, no one who is one of us goes hungry. We have a large number of soldiers to feed to win this war. Certainly Rawdon is sorry, I’m sorry about many things, but as in all wars, some people must do without.”

He sounded so callous to Diana’s ears, but she couldn’t deny the truth of what Farnsworth said. She just hoped that Anne and the children hadn’t come to such a fate.

When she arrived at Anne’s house on Orange Street a smile broke over Diana’s face. As Farnsworth helped her dismount he held her against him for a moment longer than Diana thought was necessary. “Should I go inside with you?” he asked in a husky, suggestive voice that caused her to cringe. He’d been such a solicitous companion during their journey, never mentioning anything about what had transpired between them in the kitchen, not giving a hint that he felt anything more than friendship for her. Why did he have to go and spoil all of it now by making her feel uncomfortable?

“Thank you, but I’d like to be alone with my sister. I have no idea what might be wrong with her, and she could be contagious, you know.” That should cool his lust, she decided.

It did.

Captain Farnsworth cleared his throat and released her, waiting until after she’d knocked on Anne’s door and was admitted into the house by Ruthie, an old family servant, before departing.

“Whatever are you doing here, Diana?” Anne inquired minutes later when Diana entered the darkened bedroom.

Diana found Anne huddled in the large bed, a blanket wrapped around her. She looked at Diana like she’d materialized in thin air. The drapes were pulled shut and the room was unbearably cold. No fire roared cheerily in the fireplace, either here or in the parlor where Diana had greeted the children when she came inside.

“I thought you’d be more pleased to see me than that.” Diana kissed Anne on the forehead and would have removed her own cloak but for the chill in the room. “It’s no wonder that you’re ill, Anne. The house is freezing and the children’s’ noses are running. I’ve gotten here just in time. Wait until I see David. I’ll take him to task for not bringing in firewood. Where is he anyway?”

Anne stared at her dazedly. “David’s in prison. He … he … was arrested for trying to join his regiment.”

“What! When did this happen, why did he do that? He knew the conditions of his pardon. Oh, Anne, how awful!”

Diana sat on the bed beside her sister, who started to cry. ‘‘I told him … not to … go,” Anne choked on her tears, “but David has a stubborn streak. He assured us he’d be all right, but … but,” Anne gulped convulsively, “he might be hanged.”

Holding her sister against her as she wept, Diana felt numb with the cold and her own utter disbelief. David Richmond, a man who was kind and gentle but also determined, was going to hang. Diana shivered with the sickening dread that clutched at her stomach. She doubted that Anne and the children would be able to survive without David.

“Perhaps there’s something we can do. Have you talked to Lord Rawdon?” Diana became calm, realizing that if she gave way to her own hysteria, Anne’s dilemma would be worse.

Anne wiped her eyes with the back of her fists. “I can’t even get into see the bloody swine.”

Anne never used strong language, but in this instance Diana agreed with her and mentally cursed the British general in even stronger terms.

“Your showing up now is a kindness, a miracle from God, Diana. I need help with the children since I’m unable to care for them now. All I seem able to do is weep.”

“You’re ill and under a great strain.”

“Why ever would you think I’m ill?”

“Because of the letter from Lo…”

Diana broke off, seeing Anne’s baffled look. She was baffled herself. Now that she’d seen Anne she could tell that Anne wasn’t sick at all, sick at heart, maybe, but certainly not sick physically. But the letter from Rawdon had said Anne was ill and needed her, yet Anne stated she’d never been able to see Rawdon.

“Have you contacted Lord Rawdon by message?” Diana asked.

“Humph! If only I could. Nothing and no one gets past his people except for the chosen few.” Diana saw that Anne’s face was flushed, her spirit seeming to return because of Diana’s presence.

So Anne hadn’t written or seen Rawdon. Then who sent the note to Briarhaven?

Diana opened the drapes to allow the mid-morning sunshine into the room and told Anne to rest, that she’d have Ruthie send up some warm tea so they could talk. Anne smiled gratefully, but the second Diana left the room Diana heard her start to cry again. Downstairs, she spoke with her nephew, who was named after his father and resembled him, and the two younger girls, Jane and Prudence. They were more than happy to see her, and as they ate some cold mutton and drank their tea with her, Diana listened and laughed with them, but she couldn’t forget that Rawdon, or someone who forged the general’s name, had commanded her to come to Charlestown. A sense of alarm swept over her as she wondered who it might be.

~ ~ ~

“Ain’t got no more firewood except for the little in the stove,” Ruthie told her later. “Ain’t got no money either now that Mr. Richmond is in prison. Miss Anne is brave, but she can’t make it without the mister. I don’t know what will happen to her and the children.”

Ruthie’s voice quivered and Diana hugged her. Ruthie had been with the family since before the Montaigne sisters were born and considered herself to be more than a servant, almost like their mother. “You shall all come to Briarhaven if David … if the unspeakable happens.” Diana couldn’t even say the word
hang.
How did Anne manage to live with the horror of not knowing how David was, of wondering if he’d soon be executed? For all of Anne’s tears, Diana admired her sister for not falling completely apart as she feared she herself might do in a similar situation. “I have some money,” Diana assured Ruthie. “We’ll get some firewood and food. In fact, I’ll do that this afternoon.”

Checking upon Anne and finding her asleep an hour later, Diana decided that now would be the perfect time to run her errands. She’d told Ruthie that she had money, which was true, but she hadn’t told her how little money there was. Diana doubted she’d be able to afford much in the way of food. She might even have to resort to fighting off the vultures at the market for the pickings, and as far as firewood, she hoped she could talk Anne into burning some of the furniture if she couldn’t afford the wood. The children needed the extra warmth.

A blustery wind whipped the tendrils of Diana’s hair about her face. The sun’s rays slanted downward but barely warmed Diana as she pulled her black cloak closer against her body and stepped out of the front door. A handsomely rigged ebony carriage halted before her, pulled by two chestnut mares who snorted in the frosty air and seemed oblivious to the small, bespectacled driver who glanced down at Diana.

The man, who wore a dark walking cape and a tricorn hat, jumped from his seat and bowed low to her, startling her when he spoke to her. “I have a message for you, Mrs. Sheridan.”

He handed her a folded piece of parchment and waited patiently while she read it.

If you hope to save David Richmond, please

enter the carriage. Don’t mention to anyone

that you are leaving. The choice is yours.

Diana blinked. “Are you certain this message is for me?”

“Yes, ma’am, if you’re Diana Sheridan of Briarhaven plantation.”

“Who is it from?”

“I’m not at liberty to say anything, ma’am, just to escort you to your destination.”

“And where is that?”

“If you come with me, I shall show you.”

She didn’t know what to do. Who had written this note? Was it from the same person who’d engineered for her to be here in the first place? And if so, how could she possibly help David? For all she knew she might meet with a horrible fate if she entered the carriage. If she did go, Anne would be frantic with worry, but she wondered if she could help David somehow. She had to find out. “I need to tell my sister that I’m leaving.”

“If you do that, ma’am, I won’t be here when you return. I have my orders,” the man told her without the trace of an apology in his tone.

Diana grew more confused with each passing second. Apparently the man saw her indecision and he said, “I assure you that you shall be safe. If you wish, I can come back later and leave a note for your sister not to worry, but
only
if you come with me now. I’m obliged to tell you that time is running out for your brother-in-law.”

Something in the man’s thin face and tone of voice alarmed her. Had David’s fate been decided already? She hated thinking about what might befall Anne and the children without him. She had to discover what this was all about, to see if she could help them — even at the expense of her own safety.

Without saying another word, Diana nodded and the man threw open the carriage door for her. In seconds the carriage was heading away from Orange Street to an uncertain future.

~ ~ ~

A cold wind blew off the Ashley River as the carriage halted before a buff-colored town house on Church Street. Diana was more than puzzled when the man attempted to help her out of the vehicle.

Her gaze took in the high brick walls and the large fan-lighted doorway that she knew led into the piazza of the house. “There must be some mistake. This is the Sheridan townhouse,” she told him. The house had belonged to the Sheridans for a number of years but had been confiscated when the British invaded Charlestown.

“No mistake, ma’am,” her driver told her and went to the front doorway to pound upon the massive brass knocker. Soon a black serving woman with a crisply starched apron tied around her gingham dress answered and solemnly admitted Diana into the main house, which consisted of a central hallway flanked by two rooms on each side.

Leading her up a flight of stairs to the parlor, the woman motioned for Diana to be seated in a Queen Anne style chair whose rosy background complemented the rose and green drapes on the floor-to-ceiling windows.

What am I doing here? Diana asked herself when she was alone. She glanced around the sumptuously decorated room that had changed very little since the last time she’d been here. Harlan no longer owned the house, but someone knew her well enough to bring her to it. Someone knew how much she wanted to help David and Anne. But who? She didn’t like any of this intrigue. In fact, she didn’t care for the frightened feelings within her, and when the woman returned with a warm cup of tea and wouldn’t answer any of Diana’s questions, Diana rose to her feet and pulled her cloak about her.

“I don’t intend to be kept in the dark a moment longer. Please tell whoever is responsible for this … mystery … that I shall be at my sister’s home. Good day.” Diana had barely reached the doorway when the bespectacled driver appeared and blocked her way. “I wish to leave,” she told him.

“As you like, ma’am, but if I take you back to Mrs. Richmond’s any hope of freeing her husband is gone. You’ll be responsible for his death, and I don’t think you’d care to have that on your conscience. Not if by waiting here in the first place you could help him. Have we been unkind to you?” he asked and peered at her intently. “If so, I do apologize.”