The Heavens Shall Fall, page 7
part #4 of Winds of Betrayal Series
In their anger against Alexander Clay, the British left little for the family. It was for that reason Major Andre had requested her presence this afternoon.
That alone was not improper. Requesting she come alone…was.
“Mrs. Millbury?”
Susanna looked up. She had quite lost herself in her thoughts, for she found herself alone with the major. She hadn’t even heard the door open or close, but it was closed and they were alone.
“Major Andre, I’m sorry. I must apologize. I hope I didn’t seem rude to Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton.”
“It is understandable. Returning to your old home in this manner, it must conjure up memories.”
Susanna didn’t respond. Instead, she watched him pour two glasses of wine and walk back across the room. He handed one to her. He didn’t ask permission, but sat next to her.
She didn’t flinch, but appraised him coolly. She had always known he was a handsome man, but she had never noticed just how handsome.
Long, thick lashes framed his mesmerizing eyes. He had a distinguished profile with sharp, defined cheekbones and jaw, a prominent nose and a firmly set mouth. He wore a well-powdered wig. He had taken care with his appearance…as well as she had this day.
She had chosen a pale blue gown, knowing well it complimented her large cerulean eyes. Her thick blonde hair, she had uplifted it in a way to have small curled tresses fall softly around her face. Moreover, she had deliberately worn a tight-fitting bodice to expose her cleavage to full advantage.
She recognized his awareness of her efforts. She caught his gaze as it drifted to her breasts. He looked up at her and smiled a mischievous smile. Despite herself, she felt a warm throb pulsating through her. Oh, heavens, she needed to compose herself! It was only a look!
She took a sip of the wine, an excellent cabernet. She wondered briefly whether it had been her grandfather’s. She sat the glass down. “You said you wanted to talk about my grandfather’s possessions. You mentioned that General Clinton might help recover some of my family’s possessions.”
“I should have rephrased the note. It is done.”
“Done? I don’t understand. I thought…”
“I will confess. I wanted to see you in private. If I told you that a certain amount of your grandfather’s possessions had been returned to your mother, I feared you might not accept my invitation.”
“You have me quite confused, Major Andre.”
“Then I will make myself clear, Mrs. Millbury. Your sister’s husband petitioned for your mother. Given his service to the Crown, it was agreed that your mother was entitled to an income. While not extensive, I believe it will be sufficient such that your mother will not have any more financial concerns.”
“You did this?”
He shook his head. “Alas, no. I only wish I could claim responsibility. I relay the information only. I wish only you could have benefited.”
She studied his expression. He could have easily relayed the information to her husband…he should have relayed it to Oswyn. He had an ulterior motive.
Without question, the man had a way about him. Utterly charming. Oozing sensuality. The major raised a speculative eyebrow, but it was the glint in his eyes that irritated her. Arrogance…conceit…confidence he would get his way with her.
She cast him a frown. “I so appreciate the news. You must understand the strain my poor momma has endured, but you could have easily told my husband…you should have told this to my husband. To invite me here in this manner will lead to gossip.”
“It could. I gave it little thought.”
“Because you believe the gossip will be founded,” she finished his thought. “That I would be so grateful to you that I would let you have your way with me…that is what this is about. Do you believe me a fool, Major?”
“Not in the least. I believe you are quite intelligent. You escaped your grandfather’s control by marrying your husband. A kind man. One who would not make demands upon you, but let you lead the life you choose…even if it meant taking a lover.”
His words lingered in the air. Anger raged in her at his arrogance! She rose, but he would have none of it. He caught her hand and pulled her back down on the sofa.
“Let me go, Major. I have no intention of taking a lover. If I did, it would be anyone but you. I abhor you.”
“Temper, temper,” he said in a low, soft voice. “It makes you even more desirable, but I do not believe your words.”
“Then you are the fool.”
“Mrs. Millbury…Susanna…I have been called many things in my life, but never a fool. I believe you knew the exact reason I asked you to come this afternoon. If the idea did not appeal to you, you would not have come.”
Her anger did not lessen with his keen observation. He reached over to her. He unbound her hair, and let it fall down over her shoulders and down her back.
“Don’t,” she uttered in a frail voice. “This was a mistake…”
“No, Susanna.” He leaned over and coaxed her lips apart. “I think you want this.”
He kissed her, gently at first. Then, it became more demanding and intimate. Her control wavered.
“I believe you want to be worshipped. It is what I want to do…worship you,” he whispered on her lips. “I know you, Susanna. The cold front you present is nothing more than a wall you have erected around your heart. You have been hurt…badly. I won’t hurt you.”
“You misunderstand what I want.”
He eased back, but only slightly to look into her eyes, fathomless eyes.
“I think I know exactly what you want.”
He touched her. Delicately, he caressed her face and ran his hand down her neck, lightly touched the top of her bodice, dipped down to touch her exposed skin above the outline of her breasts.
She caught her breath. Despite her stance, her body responded against her will. She fought her senses and lost. Her traitorous body quivered under his command.
Her self-control vanished. Her blue eyes locked to his and she kissed him. He circled her waist in his arms and pulled her to him. In a whirl, she felt him do wicked things to her body. Wicked…wicked things…Never had her body exploded with such sensations.
He took her there on the sofa. She laid underneath him, her bodice undone. Her breasts were freed for his pleasure; her skirt puddled around her waist. He thrust into her hard, over and over again. She wanted it harder. To her horror, she heard her uttered cries…pleading cries.
The tide of desire edged upward until she climaxed. Vaguely, she became aware he was no longer in her as sanity returned. Passion spent, he collapsed on her.
Slowly, the need to compose herself surged through her. However would she ever face this man again! She had succumbed too easily! Moreover, she had lost her advantage.
Oh, she had been the fool. He would only now cast her aside. Her plans ruined!
He eased up over her and smiled. In the next moment, he rose and brought her with him. He helped her tie up her bodice. She reached down to straighten her gown while he buttoned his trousers.
“I have been a scoundrel, have I not, Susanna?”
She could find no words to answer him. Instead, she pushed her skirt down; her loose hair fell about her. “Whatever am I going to do? I will not be presentable to go home.”
“Then don’t.” He stood beside her. “I find I quite like your hair down. Let me make an excuse for your husband. Something that will suffice, a friend who perhaps is sick, and requires your presence for, oh…the next few days…at least.”
In a fog, she nodded and accepted his hand while he led her out of the drawing room. He escorted her up the grand staircase and into his room.
Susanna played a dangerous game. She no longer denied that she desired the man she set to betray. Never had she experienced such passion, but it had nothing to do with love. That she well understood and it did little to ebb her commitment to the mission.
She had not moved back into her old home as the major wanted. She had no wish to be that sort of mistress. She insisted that her husband not be embarrassed. Major Andre honored her request, though most suspected their arrangement.
Susanna was aware that it was only a matter of time before his passion for her waned…or another situation bettered him. She was not obtuse, but neither would she waste the opportunity. Already, she had gathered that something major was on the horizon. More than the Southern Campaign that was already being waged. But what she didn’t yet know.
Major Andre was set to leave shortly, as well as the majority of the British army. She had heard it was for the South, but not from Andre himself. He told her nothing of the affairs of the British army and she didn’t ask.
But she had her ways. While Andre was gone, she intended on using them to her full advantage.
The Southern Campaign
These are the times that try men’s souls.~ Thomas Paine
Chapter Five
Marcus was awash with sweat. He had found the heat and humidity of the South to be most intolerable. He swore he had lost more men to sickness than to battle. It seemed a constant battle with the fever, worse than those irritating militia attacks by the Swamp Fox.
Since his arrival ten months ago, the British tactics had seemed to be most effective. Savannah had fallen without much resistance. Slow and steady. Whereas in the North the army holed up for the winter, the best course of action here in the South was to take Savannah in the cooler weather.
Marcus had worked endlessly alongside General Prévost toward the best course of attack. He disregarded his rank; Marcus once more infiltrated enemy lines. General Prévost cautioned Marcus, but agreed that the need for information outweighed his protest that Marcus conduct the operation from afar.
Despite the danger, Marcus reveled in the action. He donned his buckskins and penetrated into the heart of the enemy. He had been fortunate. His man, Captain Thomas Elliot, was back by his side, along with a new man, Lieutenant Robert Leckie.
Under the guise of Virginians, the three took to the countryside and a dangerous countryside it was. Unlike Virginia, Marcus felt a certain detachment from the people, not the strong conviction of the Loyalists that was promised.
To gain the Loyalists’ support, Marcus saw the need for a show of strength. The Loyalists needed confidence that the British once more had a foothold in the South.
Marcus had learned long ago to study the people. He had not forgotten the lesson. The people in the backcountry had much to be concerned about besides the British: Indian raids, rampant fevers, even their own raiders from both sides.
There again, he didn’t feel a strong attachment from the Patriots to liberty and freedom, either. These Southerners had their own code, a different code than their Northerner counterparts. Here, there were different challenges. Most of all, this damnable, oppressive heat!
Marcus had not been there for the battle, but from all accounts the battle for Savannah had been quick and decisive. Campbell, with three thousand troops from New York, landed at Giradeau’s Plantation a little more than two miles from Savannah. By nightfall, Savannah was in British hands. It was said that the Patriots ran from the battle with hardly raising a defense…so decisive the victory, Campbell lost only seven men.
Marcus arrived with General Prévost in early January, their work far from done. Campbell had done his job, but the years as a prisoner of war had worn on him. He left in July for England, with Savannah firmly in British control.
Now, though, rumors abounded that the Patriots were mounting an assault on Savannah in an attempt to retake the city. The worrisome news suggested a French fleet had docked in the Charles Town harbor.
Marcus had already diverted a crisis for General Clinton as he handled a situation that held more political implications than military. Clinton had sent one of his men into the backcountry, a Major Jake Pennington, along with Leckie, on a covert mission.
Granted, Pennington knew the countryside as he had been assigned to Charles Town before the war, but it had been the manner Clinton had done so. The long, complicated story hadn’t the ending Clinton desired.
Pennington was doing penance for rescuing his wife against orders, when she was trapped behind enemy lines. Not that Marcus denied the man disobeyed orders, but in Marcus’ opinion, it would have been best served to have let the man resign his commission.
Clinton never comprehended the political overture. Pennington had connections…high connections. His wife’s first husband had been the Marquess of Tinley; her father-in-law, the Duke of Eversleigh; Pennington’s stepson, heir of to a dukedom.
Moreover, Pennington was a highly popular officer. The men would have followed him into hell if he ordered…and they had, when a group of British’s finest rescued Lady Pennington.
Marcus had turned a blind eye to the attempt, but it couldn’t be ignored on the return. Marcus had been set to accept Pennington’s resignation, but Clinton’s orders arrived and stated plainly that while he understood the reason, it had consequences.
Pennington volunteered to go behind the lines. Only he hadn’t returned. Leckie returned wounded, but alive and with the needed information…the French Fleet and their attempt at a surprise attack to regain Savannah. Leckie feared Pennington had been mortally wounded.
When word came that Pennington lived, Marcus went behind lines himself to retrieve the wounded officer. Pennington’s brother-in-law, Sumner Meador, had seen to his welfare by gaining the aid of one of the Continental physicians. Dr. Jonathan Corbett.
That information held a particular interest to Marcus. Hannah’s brother! The last he had heard of the good doctor, Corbett had been assigned up North. He could not deny the presence of Corbett excited him, along with the possibility of discovering the whereabouts of Hannah and his child. For no matter what had been told to him, he knew in his heart that his son lived.
At the moment, his first concern was Savannah and their defense against the dreaded alliance of the Americans with the French. But he was a patient man, and would wait for his opportunity.
It would come, of that he was certain. He would be prepared.
* * * *
With the greatest reluctance, Dr. Jonathan Corbett swung his legs over the bed and onto the rug-covered floor. He pulled on his pants, but stood bare-chested and looked around for something suitable to wear. His clothes strewn across the floor in the heat of passion were much too formal to wear in the bright morning light. He picked up the waistcoat he had flung over the chair by the door.
The door opened quietly. Jonathan smiled. His wife eased in with a tray filled with breakfast. He watched her place it down on the table beside the bed.
Rebekah’s smile warmed him with pleasure. Not a beauty in the classical sense, to his eyes she looked incredibly lovely, especially in the morning light. Her unruly auburn hair escaped its braid and framed her finely drawn features. Her blue eyes mesmerized him, and illuminated her own joy from their encounter.
The tension of the night before had faded with the sun, replaced with an intimacy he had never experienced.
She placed her hand upon his shoulder. A sensation went through him that had nothing to do with eating the breakfast she had made for him. He wanted her…again, but it would never do. He had a meeting this morning with General Benjamin Lincoln.
“I’m unsure how you will sneak out without being seen. It is already six. I’m afraid…”
He drew her into his arms. There was no need to tell her he didn’t care if he was seen because his mouth was upon hers. His pulse stirred as his kiss deepened.
Their marriage would no longer be a secret, not now. Knowing this community, rumors he had stayed the night had already circulated.
When he arrived in Charles Town as the personal physician to the commander of the Southern Army, General Benjamin Lincoln, he would have never considered he would have remarried. He had been so intransigently against marriage after his first wife, Catherine, died.
Even now, his heart hardened at the thought of her. The beautiful, flamboyant Catherine. She had betrayed him…betrayed Hannah. Afterwards, he had cared for little except the cause.
That was until he had seen Rebekah. A promise had sent him to check upon her welfare. Rebekah’s father, Rodger Morse, had been a close personal friend of his father. Both Morse and his father had lost their lives in this fight for freedom against the British—a steep price for the pursuit of a new country based on the rights of its people.
Within his home in Williamsburg, the fire burned deep for the cause. He had found indifference, rather than a passion, for liberty here in Charles Town. The Continental Army had been met with resistance. Jonathan had expected it from the Loyalists and British, but the opposition from the residents of Charles Town themselves had surprised him.
Jonathan readily saw that General Lincoln had his back against the wall with the threat bearing down on the Southern army. Not only did Lincoln have to deal with the lack of supplies—including troops—the general also had to deal with the political influence demanded by the local government over his defense of their city. Governor Rutledge and statesman Christopher Gadsden laid constant demands upon Lincoln.
In the years since the first British assault against Charles Town, the port had remained open, being essential for the economy of the Southern colony. However, the resurgence of the British had taken a toll on shipping. When Savannah was lost to the Redcoats, the city’s occupants feared that Charles Town would be next.
The city’s leaders wanted Charles Town to be protected at all cost. Few of the men understood the larger picture, nor did they care in Jonathan’s estimation. Lincoln had the weight of the world on his shoulders—lack of support, lack of supplies, lack of reinforcements, along with a much-maligned militia.
It was rumored that General Henry Clinton had set his cap for the South. The British eyes were now turned toward Charles Town.
