Written in My Own Heart's Blood

“She is in the Macken house in the village of Freehold—about six miles in that direction.” She nodded down the road. “My brother is likely there, as well, or nearby; there are still wounded from the battle there. He can deal with I-Ian’s wound.” For the first time, her voice lost its steadiness as her eyes went to her betrothed.

Murray’s eyes were sunken and glazed with fever, but he had sufficient command of himself to reach out his good hand to her. The movement put weight on the bad arm and he grimaced, but Rachel was kneeling beside him in an instant, arms around him.

William coughed and turned discreetly away to leave them a moment’s privacy in which to make their farewells. Whatever his own feelings, they deserved that. He’d seen many wounds go bad, and reckoned Murray’s chances as no better than even. On the other hand, the man was apparently both a bloody Scot and a Mohawk, and both races were notoriously hard to kill.

He had walked away from the road, and his eye now caught the flutter of pink fabric behind a bush.

“Jane!” he called. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” she said. She stepped out into the open, folded her arms, and pointed her chin at him. “What do you mean to do? With me, I mean.”

“Miss Hunter is going to take you and Fanny to a safe place,” he said, as gently as he could. In spite of her brave façade, she reminded him of a fawn, dappled light coming through the trees mottling her face and gown, making her seem shy and insubstantial, as though she might fade into the forest in the next breath. “I’ll send word to you there when I’ve made some . . . suitable arrangement.”

“Her?” Jane shot a surprised glance toward the road. “Why? Why can’t you take us? Doesn’t she want to stay with her—the Indian?”

“Miss Hunter will have time to explain everything to you on the way.” He hesitated, unsure what else to say to her. From the road, he heard the distant murmur of voices, Rachel and Ian Murray. He couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t matter; what they were saying to each other was plain. He felt a small, sharp pain under his third waistcoat button and coughed, trying to dislodge it.

“Thank you, thir,” said a soft voice behind him, and he turned to find Fanny at his elbow. She took his hand, turned it palm upward, and planted a small, warm kiss in the center.

“I—you’re most welcome, Miss Fanny,” he said, smiling at her in spite of everything. She nodded to him, very dignified, and walked out to the road, leaving him with Jane.

For a moment, they stood staring at each other.

“I offered you a lot more than a kiss,” she said quietly. “You didn’t want it. I haven’t got anything else to give you in thanks.”

“Jane,” he said. “It’s not—I didn’t—” And then stopped, desperately sorry but helpless to think of anything he could possibly say in reply. “Safe travels, Jane,” he said at last, his throat tight. “Goodbye.”

IT’S A WISE CHILD WHO KNOWS HIS FATHER

IT WAS APPARENT that, while sound, Rachel’s mule wasn’t up to the weight of two men the size of William and Ian Murray. No matter; they couldn’t go any faster than a walk in any case; Murray could ride, and William would walk alongside to make sure the bastard didn’t fall off.

Murray managed to get up into the saddle, in spite of having only one functional hand; Rachel had roughly bandaged his wounded arm and put it into a sling torn from her underpetticoat. William didn’t offer him assistance, feeling reasonably sure that such an offer would be neither welcomed nor accepted.

Watching the laborious process, though, William was interested to note that while the fabric of the sling was much-laundered and faded, it had been embroidered with small blue and yellow sunbursts along one edge. Did Quaker women commonly wear attractive undergarments beneath their sober gowns?

As they set off at a cautious walk, the sound of the wagon was still audible, though fading into the rush of trees.

“Are ye armed?” Murray asked suddenly.

“Slightly.” He still had the knife Jane had pushed into his hand, now wrapped in a handkerchief and tucked in his pocket, as he had no sheath for it. He fingered the wooden handle, wondering whether it was the same knife that she . . . Well, of course it was.

“I’m not. Will ye find me a club?”

“You don’t trust me to see you safe?” William asked sarcastically.

Murray’s shoulders were slumped and his head thrust forward, nodding a little with the mule’s gait, but he turned and gave William a look that was heavy-eyed with fever, but still surprisingly alert.

“Oh, I trust ye fine. It’s men like the ones ye just fought I dinna trust.”

This was a fair point; the roads were far from safe, and the knowledge gave William a severe pang of conscience on behalf of the women he’d just dispatched, unarmed and unprotected, to drive miles over those very roads with a valuable mule and cart. I should have gone with them, insisted we all go together . . .

“My mam always says there’s no one more stubborn than my uncle Jamie,” Murray observed mildly, “but a Quaker lass wi’ her mind made up could give Uncle Jamie a run for his money, I’ll tell ye. I couldna have stopped her—and neither could you.”

William wasn’t in a mood to discuss any of the persons mentioned, nor yet engage in philosophical discussions of relative stubbornness. He put a hand on the bridle and pulled the mule to a halt.

“Stay here. I see something that might do.” He’d already seen that there was little in the way of fallen branches near the road; there never was, when an army’s foragers had recently passed through. But he saw an orchard of some kind, a little way from the road, with a farmhouse beyond.