Written in My Own Heart's Blood

“Whisky do for you?” he asked, handing it over. Rachel looked surprised; whisky wasn’t a popular drink, but Lord John had always had a taste for it and William had taken to it himself—though now, knowing the truth about his disgraceful taint of Scottish blood, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to drink the stuff again.

“It will, I thank thee.” She stood holding it for a moment, clearly wanting to go to Murray but also hesitant to leave. He felt rather grateful to her for that hesitancy; he would as soon not be alone with Jane and Fanny—or, rather, he didn’t want to be alone with the decision as to what the devil to do about them.

Rachel appeared to correctly interpret this feeling, for with a brief “I’ll bring it right back,” she disappeared in the direction of the road.

No one spoke. After that one direct look, Jane had bent her head again and sat quietly, though one hand restlessly smoothed the fabric of her skirt across one round thigh, over and over.

Fanny ran a hand over the crown of Jane’s head in a protective gesture, while staring at William with a complete lack of expression. He found it unnerving.

What was he to do with them? Of course they couldn’t go back to Philadelphia. And he dismissed as unworthy the impulse simply to abandon them to their own devices. But—

“Why not go to New York with the army?” he asked, his voice seeming unnaturally loud, harsh to his own ears. “What made you run yesterday?”

“Oh.” Jane looked up slowly, her eyes a little unfocused, as though she had been dreaming. “I saw him again. The green dragoon. He’d wanted me to go with him the night before, and I wouldn’t. But I saw him again yesterday morning and thought he was looking for me.” She swallowed. “I told you—I know the ones who don’t give up.”

“Very perceptive of you,” he said, eyeing her with some respect. “He doesn’t. You misliked him on sight, then?” Because he didn’t think for an instant that his having forbidden her to ply her trade would have stopped her, had she wanted to.

“It wasn’t that,” she said, and flicked Banastre Tarleton away with the sort of abrupt gesture one uses to shoo insects. “But he’d come to the brothel before, last year. He didn’t go with me then, he chose another girl—but I knew if he spent much time with me, he’d likely remember why I seemed familiar to him. He said I did,” she added, “when he came up to me in the bread line.”

“I see.” He paused. “So you did want to go to New York—but not with the army. Is that right?”

Jane shrugged, angry. “Does it matter?”

“Why the devil shouldn’t it matter?”

“When has it ever mattered what a whore wants?” She sprang up and stamped across the clearing, leaving him staring after her in astonishment.

“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded, turning to Fanny. The younger girl eyed him dubiously, lips pressed together, but then gave a little shrug.

“She thinks you might give her to a conthable or a magith-trate,” she said, struggling a bit with “magistrate.” “Or maybe to the army. It was a tholdier she killed.”

William rubbed a hand over his face. In fact, the thought of delivering Jane to justice had flitted through his mind, in the wake of the shock of learning of her crime. The thought hadn’t outlasted its birth, though.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said to Fanny, striving to sound reasonable. She looked at him skeptically, under level dark brows.

“Why wouldn’ you?”

“Excellent question,” he said dryly. “And I haven’t got an answer. But I suppose I don’t need one.”

He lifted a brow at her, and she gave a small snort of a laugh. Jane was edging along the far side of the clearing, glancing back toward Fanny every few seconds; her intent was clear—but she wouldn’t go without her sister. He was sure of that much.

“Since you’re here with me,” he observed, “and not over there with your sister . . . you don’t want to run, and you know she won’t go without you. Ergo, I conclude that you don’t think I’d give her up to justice.”

She shook her head, slow and solemn as an owl.

“Jane says I don’ know anyting about men yed, but I do.”

He sighed.

“God help me, Frances, you do.”

THERE WAS NO further conversation until Rachel returned a few minutes later.

“I can’t lift him,” she said directly to William, ignoring the girls for the moment. “Will thee help me?”

He rose at once, relieved by the prospect of physical action, but glanced over his shoulder at Jane, still hovering by the far side of the clearing like a hummingbird.

“We’ll be heah,” Fanny said quietly. He gave her a nod, and went.

He found Murray lying by the side of the road, near the wagon. The man wasn’t unconscious, but the influence of the fever upon him was clear; his gaze was bleared and his speech slurring.

“I c’n walk.”

“Like hell you can,” William said briefly. “Hold on to my arm.”

He got the man sitting upright and had a look for himself at the wounded shoulder. The wound itself wasn’t that bad; it was apparent no bones were broken and it hadn’t bled a lot. On the other hand, the flesh was red and swollen and starting to suppurate. He leaned close and took an unobtrusive sniff—not unobtrusive enough: Rachel noticed.

“There’s no gangrene,” she said. “I think there will not—I think things will be well, so long as we can get him to a doctor soon. What does thee mean to do about thy girls?” she added abruptly.