Written in My Own Heart's Blood

He didn’t bother telling her again that they weren’t his. Evidently they were, at least in terms of immediate responsibilities.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, rising to his feet. He glanced into the woods, but the clearing was far enough in that there was no flicker of garment or movement visible.

“They can’t go to Philadelphia, and I can’t take them back to the army. The best I can think of just now is to find them some place of refuge in one of the little villages hereabouts and cache them there until I can make some provision to get them to . . . to someplace safer.” Wherever the hell that might be. Canada? he wondered wildly.

Rachel shook her head decidedly.

“Thee has no notion how people talk in small places—or how quickly news and rumor spread.” She glanced down at Murray, who was still sitting upright but swaying, his eyes half closed.

“They have no other profession,” she said. “And it would be quickly apparent to anyone what that profession is. They require not only refuge but refuge with people who will not cast them out once that becomes known.”

She was brown with the sun—her blue calico bonnet had fallen off in the struggle with Jane and hung back over her shoulders—but her face paled when she looked at Murray. She clenched her fists, closed her eyes for an instant, then opened them, straightening to her full height, and looked William in the eye.

“There is a small settlement of Friends, perhaps two hours’ travel from here. No more than three or four farms. I know of it from one of the women who came to Valley Forge with her husband. The girls could be kept safe there, for a while, at least.”

“No!” Murray said. “Ye canna be . . .” He paused, eyes going out of focus, and braced himself on his sound arm, still swaying. He swallowed thickly. “No,” he repeated. “Not . . . safe.”

“It isn’t,” William agreed. “Three young women on the road, alone? And without even a pistol to defend yourselves?”

“If I had a pistol I would not use it,” Rachel pointed out with some asperity. “Nor a cannon, come to that.”

Murray laughed—or at least made a noise that might pass for amusement.

“Aye,” he managed, and stopped to breathe before getting the next words out. “You take them,” he said to William. “I’ll . . . do here, fine.”

“Thee bloody won’t,” Rachel said fiercely. She grabbed William’s arm and pulled him closer to Murray. “Look at him! Tell him, since he professes not to believe me.”

William looked, reluctantly, glancing at Murray’s face, pale as suet and slick with an unhealthy sweat. Flies clustered thick on Murray’s shoulder; he lacked the strength to brush them away.

“Merde,” William muttered under his breath. Then louder, though still with reluctance, “She’s right. You need a doctor, if you’re to have a chance of keeping your arm.”

That thought evidently hadn’t struck Murray; death, yes—amputation, no. He turned his head and frowned at the wound.

“Bloody hell,” William said, and turned to Rachel.

“All right,” he said. “Tell me where this settlement is. I’ll take them.”

She grimaced, fists balling up at her sides. “Even Friends may not take well to the sudden appearance of a stranger who asks them to give indefinite sanctuary to a murderess. I am not a stranger and can plead the girl’s case better than thee can.” She drew a breath that swelled her bosom noticeably and looked at Murray, then turned her head to give William a piercing look.

“If I do this, thee must see him safe.”

“I must?”

“Rachel!” Murray said hoarsely, but she ignored him.

“Yes. We’ll have to take the wagon, the girls and I.”

William drew a breath of his own, but he could see that she was right. He could also see just what the decision to save Jane was costing her.

“All right,” he said tersely. He reached up and took the gorget from his neck and handed it to her. “Give Jane this. She may need it, if they find themselves on their own.” Oddly, the removal of the gorget seemed a weight off his mind, as well. Even the possibility of being arrested if anyone in Philadelphia recognized him didn’t trouble him overmuch.

He was about to remove his incriminating coat and waistcoat—he’d have to hide those somewhere—when Rachel stepped close to him and laid a hand on his arm.

“This man is my heart and my soul,” she said simply, looking up into his face. “And he is thy own blood, whatever thee may presently feel about the fact. I trust thee to see him safe, for all our sakes.”

William gave her a long look, thought of several possible replies, and made none of them, but gave a curt nod.

“Where should I take him?” he asked. “To my—to Lady J—I mean, to Mrs. F—I mean, God damn it,” he amended, feeling the blood rise in his cheeks, “to his aunt?”

Rachel looked at him, startled.

“Thee doesn’t know? Of course thee doesn’t, how could thee?” She waved off her own denseness, impatient. “His aunt was shot in the course of the battle, outside Tennent Church, where she was tending the wounded.”

William’s annoyance was doused at once, as though ice water had been poured on his head, flooding his veins.

“Is she dead?”

“By the grace of our Lord, no,” she said, and he felt the tightness in his chest relax a little. “Or at least she wasn’t yesterday,” she amended with a frown. “Though very badly hurt.” The tightness returned.