The Fallon Blood, page 48
part #1 of Fallon Series
The rabid fire in his voice was terrifying. She backed away from the door, and ran toward the stairs, bumping a chair in her haste. His voice cracked in the hall like a whip.
“So you’ve come back.”
She turned slowly. The boys stood in the drawing room door, frightened. Justin moved toward her, his face a grim death mask. She backed away, one careful step at a time. “I, I saw the people fleeing, and I was afraid to stay at Les Chenes. The rebels may already be there.”
“No, they aren’t at Les Chenes, though I should thank them for sending you to me. They’re all the way up in the High Hills of the Santee, licking their wounds. Oh, no. We flee, but they don’t pursue.”
“But I heard you say Papa Fourrier was dead. You said the rebels—You said they—”
“They killed him. He traced our failures, their successes, and he aged years for every week of it. This morning, he couldn’t be wakened. They killed him as surely as if they’d put a ball between his eyes.”
“I see. I’ll put on mourning—”
“No.” He stopped, his black eyes boring into her. His words were as cold and brittle as ice. “You won’t mourn him. I won’t have a whore mourning my father.”
The breath caught in her throat. What did he know? He looked like murder—Frantically she ran for her room. Before she could get the door shut, he threw his weight against it and forced it open.
“Justin—”
His open-handed blow knocked her across the room. “Be quiet, whore. Be quiet and listen.” He took off his uniform coat and carefully folded it across a chair. “I overheard a man, it doesn’t matter who, ask another man if he’d had the pleasure of Mrs. Fourrier yet. She was, he said, the hottest bit of flesh in the Carolinas.”
“You should’ve challenged him. You should’ve killed him.”
“I told you to shut up. The other man said, yes, he’d enjoyed Elizabeth Fourrier often; but she was a little too free with her favors for his taste. They didn’t speak like men gossiping about a lady. They could’ve been talking about a girl at Sally Pritkin’s house, or Mrs. Jennings’s. I had to find out. I don’t mind killing men to defend my wife’s honor, but to defend a whore? I’d be taken for a fool as well as a cuckold.”
“It’s all lies,” she insisted desperately. “Lies.”
“Men provided the information I needed. Did you actually spread your legs for every officer who passed through Charlestown, or does it just seem that way?” He began kneading his hands. “I should have known. All the tricks you knew, all the special little—yes, Elizabeth, you’re a whore.”
In a single step he was on her. One hand tangled in her hair and swung her around. The other caught her across the face, again and again and again. She fell sprawling across the bed. He began to pant. He slapped and punched, never caring what he hit, all the while ripping at her clothes. And when she lay there naked, bruised and whimpering, he opened his breeches and took her.
As she lay sobbing beneath his pounding he whispered in her ear over and over, “Like a whore. Like a whore.” And the worst of it to her was that, even with the pain and the terror, she still found a thrill of excitement in it. When he was done he wiped himself on a piece of her dress and threw it in her face.
It was too much. Shrieking, she reared up clawing at him. She wanted blood. He fended her off easily, and slapped her back down on the bed.
“Damn you,” she screamed. “You think I’ve bedded everything in breeches I could find? Well, you’re right. And here’s another name for you. Michael Fallon.” She laughed hysterically at the look on his face. “Oh, yes. Michael Fallon. I should’ve married him, not you. And I would have if he’d been here when I found out I was—” An edge of sanity cut into her. She licked her lips and pressed herself deeper into the mattress.
“When you found out you were—you gave me a bastard,” he rasped.
Suddenly his hands were at her throat, lifting her, squeezing. She tried to scream; only a horrible gurgle came out. Everything was going black. She clawed at him, kicked, struggled desperately to hang on to consciousness, to hang on to life.
As abruptly as he’d begun, he released her.
“No.” The word sounded like a snake’s hiss. “I won’t kill you. I have plans for you. Do you think you’ve paid enough? Not nearly. But your screams will pay a part of it. You’ll scream, and you’ll beg me to stop, but you’ll have to pay.” There was no sanity at all behind his glittering eyes.
“Please, Justin,” she babbled. “Oh, God, please.”
“Do you remember Sally Pritkin, Elizabeth? I see you don’t. She’s a procuress, though she looks like a lady. But then, if a whore can look like a lady, why can’t a whoremonger? A few weeks ago I took Hamilton to her house. She was closed—to King’s men. So we opened her up again, her house and her body. You should have heard her scream. It brought her scullery slave on the run. A scullery slave who was sometimes used upstairs when the clients were besotted.” He raised his voice. “Come in, Samantha.”
Samantha stepped silently into the room. Elizabeth’s mouth dried from the look in her eye. She was thinner, and harder.
“She hasn’t forgotten your kindness in selling her,” Justin said dryly. He picked up his coat, but paused at the door. “She’s your new companion, Elizabeth. Day and night. She’ll assist you in making your payments. If you leave her sight for five minutes, or if she tells me you’ve said more than hello to a man, I’ll peel your hide.” His look of anticipation froze her blood. The door slammed behind him.
Even after he was gone Elizabeth couldn’t stop trembling. She was a welter of fear and hate. Justin was insane. She’d suspected, but now she knew. What would he do to Robert? More importantly, what would he do to her? Images of the ways he would make her scream danced in her head. And along with them, remembrance of his look of longing for it, and of the queer thrill that had shot through her even as he was raping her. Oh, God, he’d go further and further. And as afraid as she was of that, she was more afraid of her own reaction to it. She had to get away. She had to.
Suddenly she remembered Samantha’s presence, and her own nakedness. She opened her mouth to call for a robe. The black woman’s flat, hard gaze pinned her to the bed in silence. Those eyes were going to be on her for the rest of her life. A word from Samantha to Justin, and she would start screaming. She’ll assist you in making your payments, he’d said. She wanted to scream, but instead she began hopelessly to cry.
Justin paused on the stairs, looking down at the boys waiting in the hall. How had he ever missed seeing it? All he had to do was know the boy’s father, and Robert was a ten-year-old Michael Fallon, with his high cheekbones and his hooked nose and his damned blue eyes. Bile rose in his throat, but he managed to keep his face calm as he descended.
“Papa,” Robert said, “do you—Papa, what happened?”
“Come here, Gerard. Not you,” he snapped as Robert started to lead him forward. He took a deep breath. “I want Gerard to come to me, by himself.” Both boys watched him as he swung him up to face level, and he had to smile also. Not in answer to Gerard, but for the proof of his eyes that this boy, at least, was a Fourrier.
“Papa—” Robert began hesitantly.
“Sit there,” Justin said, pointing to a chair against the wall. “Don’t move until I tell you to.” He turned to the drawing-room door, still holding Gerard, and stopped. “I think you’re old enough to stop calling me Papa. From now on you will call me sir.”
“Yes, Pa—Yes, sir,” Robert said, but he said it to a closing door. It hadn’t closed all the way. Through the crack he could hear Justin.
“Your grandfather, Gerard. Murdered. You must remember, and hate for it. You must hate the Americans, and most especially the Fallons. You must always hate anyone of the Fallon blood. They must be killed. All of them. They must die.” The voice rasped on and on.
Robert began to feel very alone. And very afraid.
33
November of 1782 was bitterly cold, and there was little in the way of food or comforts in the camp of the Cooper River above the Charlestown Neck. Michael pulled his blanket higher around his shoulders and broke the governor’s seal on a despatch. Probably more instructions regarding the split of authority between the governor and General Greene. Not the first time he wished John Rutledge was still governor. Matthews was more ready to bicker over details than anything else.
The operative phrase leaped off the paper at him:
You are hereby directed to assume the title, rank, and responsibilities of Brigadier General in the militia of the State of South Carolina.
Good God. A brigadier general with a command of one officer, thirteen men, and a boy. It was odd enough to be fitting for an odd anniversary. One year ago today they’d received word that the war was as good as over because Cornwallis had surrendered in Virginia. No one seemed to have told the British in the south, though. The fighting had dragged on, until one by one Savannah and every other town held by the redcoats had been abandoned. Except for Charlestown.
Before he could sink into bitter rumination he went on with his mail. The next was in a woman’s hand. He checked the signature. Ann Thibodeau. That was one of Gabrielle’s friends. He read hurriedly.
My dear Colonel Fallon,
As you must know, Gabrielle came to stay with me at Riverview after her heroic escape from Charlestown. She is a dear friend of mine, and for that reason I dare to intrude in your and her private affairs. For the past year I have believed she was writing you, for I saw the letters. Then I saw her burn one after writing it. I confronted her, and she grew very angry. I fear she is pining because you haven’t come to her. She is on the edge of a decision. You must come quickly, before she makes it, for once made, she will stick by it if it destroys all that she holds dear. Please, for her sake, come.
I am, most respectfully,
Ann Thibodeau
She was angry? He’d been lied to, and she was angry. When his anger had cooled enough for him to write, he’d worried when he hadn’t received a reply to any of his letters. And now this. She was safe on the Santee, and angry because he didn’t walk away from the war and go to her. Without knowing where she was. Damn it, he was forty miles from the Thibodeau plantation and didn’t have two hours together to call his own. And what in hell had she been doing in Charlestown?
Louis pushed open the cabin door and broke in on his thoughts. “Foragers, Michael. They raided three farms above the Goose Creek Bridge.” He paused as if waiting for someone else to speak, a habit he’d picked up since Henri’s death. “They’re running hard for the Neck, or so I expect.”
Michael bit back an oath. Foragers again. The British penned in Charlestown needed food, and they got it by raiding farms. From small parties to hundreds of men at a time they came out. The Legion chased them almost every day. “Mount the men, Louis. We’ll give them a run.”
From Goose Creek the foragers would have to take the Wassamasaw Road to reach Charlestown. Michael brought his men to the road short of the turnoff to Clement’s Ferry and waited. The rumble of approaching wagons came quickly. He motioned everyone back farther into the trees.
There were four wagons, each with a redcoat driver and two infantrymen with muskets. A half-dozen dragoons, along as guards, were driving a score of cattle ahead of them. All kept a wary eye behind for pursuers.
“They won’t expect us from ahead,” Michael said. “Now.” He dug in his spurs and sprang into the road at a gallop, the others howling behind.
The dragoons, apparently thinking it a larger force, bent low over their mounts as if under a hail of fire and galloped toward the city. A few of the wagoneers fired, then they, like the rest, threw down their muskets and threw up their hands.
Michael slowed to a walk short of the wagons. “I’ll tell you, Louis, there’s been a time or two else I wish they’d given up this easy.” He turned to look at his friend, and a riderless horse caught his eye, and a shape on the ground. “Oh, God, no. God damn it, no.” He hit the ground running.
Louis looked up with a quizzical expression. A spreading red patch covered his waistcoat, and there was an ominous, pinkish froth at the corner of his mouth. “It—It doesn’t hurt. Always thought—Always thought it’d hurt.”
“Don’t talk.We’ll get you to a doctor in just a bit.” He stuffed his handkerchief under the vest and felt it soak through immediately. “Get the best team turned around,” he snapped over his shoulder. “You bloody-back bastards unload it at the double, or I’ll hang every one of you.”
Louis’s chest heaved as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath. “Thought—Thought it’d be, big battle. Like Henri.” He started to laugh, and a rivulet of blood ran down from his mouth. “S-stab me if I—” He shuddered once, and was still.
Michael watched the eyes glaze, shaking his head. “No.” He seized Louis’s lapels and pulled him up. “No!” Louis’s head hung back, sightless eyes staring at the sky. Slowly Michael put one arm around his shoulders, the other under his knees. He got to his feet and turned to the wagon. The British prisoners huddled at the back. “Your coats,” he said, jerking his head at the wagon. They complied, hastily and fearfully.
He laid Louis on the piled coats gently. There was blood on his hands, but he couldn’t bring himself to wipe it off. Awkwardly he pulled himself into the saddle.
Tom Jarvis stared at the prisoners and bared an inch of saber. “Tarleton’s quarter,” he said grimly and an echo came from a score of throats. “Tarleton’s quarter.”
Michael paused and looked at the prisoners. One of them had pulled the trigger. One of them—“No,” he rasped finally. “Let them go. We’re escorting Colonel Fourrier home.”
He turned away, up the road, and after a moment Tom followed. A trooper whipped the wagon horses, and the rest of the Legion fell in behind. Not one man looked back at the British standing in the road.
Within two miles a lone rider approached. Michael raised his hand for a halt and waited. The rider resolved into a lieutenant of Continental dragoons, who reined in with a salute.
“General Fallon? I’m Lieutenant Carbell, sir, detached from Bland’s Light Horse to courier duty for General Greene. I’ve been looking for you, sir. Been doing some foraging, I see.” He jerked his head at the wagon.
“In the wagon,” Michael said, biting off each word, “is Lieutenant Colonel Louis Fourrier, late of the Irish Legion. I am taking him to his family home, Les Chenes plantation. Now get out of my way.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean—Sir, I have orders from General Greene, personally. You’re to take command of McCary’s Mounted Rifles and Waring’s Dragoons, cross the Cooper River, and proceed against foragers along the Wando. There must be a dozen parties of them in that area, sir.”
“A message to General Greene, Lieutenant, from me, personally. Do we have to assault Charlestown, I’ll be in the front rank, but I’ll not kill another man to protect a cow. And not one more man of mine will bleed for a bushel of corn. Is that clear, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Perfectly.” Carbell shook his head. “It’s funny, sir. That’s almost the same message General Marion sent in yesterday.”
Michael looked back at the wagon. “Would God I’d thought of it then.” He rode on; the Legion followed in grim silence except for the rumble of the wagon wheels.
The morning of December 13, 1782, dawned crisp and clear over Charlestown.
Across the bay in a wide arc that stretched out of the harbor mouth the evacuation fleet lay, hundreds of sail to take the British Army away from its last foothold in the south. And the thousands of civilians who refused to live under the new government. It was to be an orderly leavetaking, with the Americans moving in as the British fell back.
The British were leaving their redoubts near Shubrick’s plantation on the Neck, marching down the road toward the King Street gate. A single bugle note sounded, and the Americans moved forward, close behind the British.
Michael slouched in the saddle, calmly watching the emplacements and trenches ahead. There’d been a good deal of talk about a trap, about being pulled into the open. He didn’t believe the British would give up their forward redoubts for the few hundred men in the American advance party, but orders had come down. Every musket was loaded and had fixed bayonet, even if it was shouldered. He smiled as men ran into the redoubts and came out shaking their heads. Empty.
The old American lines were empty too, and so were the city streets, except for the British rear guard a few blocks ahead. Every window was shuttered, every door closed. The city seemed deserted.
Suddenly a window above his head banged open. Michael twisted in the saddle, a pistol appearing in his hand. With a sound like hundreds of metallic crickets, musket hammers went back all along the street. The woman leaning out of the window froze, staring at the muzzles aimed at her. A slow smile appeared, and she blew a kiss to Michael. “God bless you,” she called.
As if at a signal other windows opened, and other heads appeared, shouting and cheering, waving flags that must have remained hidden throughout the occupation. A torrent of jubilant sound washed over the street, and sprigs of pine and fern showered down. Girls ran out to bestow kisses and men offered bottles of wine.
Suddenly there was a shot, and total silence fell. A second clipped the horsehair plume from Michael’s helmet. The street filled with a pandemonium of running, screaming people. A sharp movement at a window caught his eye. He moved toward the house, but his men were ahead of him, smashing down the door.
His attacker wouldn’t wait, Michael realized. The rear of the house. He galloped around the corner; fleeing celebrants dashed screaming out of his way. He turned into the alley behind the house just as the back door opened and a man in a red coat ran out.
