Angel's Flight (14 page)

“Not when body—” He bent to drop another of those tantalizing kisses on her bare neck. “—and heart—” He whispered as one hand slipped to tenderly cup her breast. “—shout otherwise.”

“Jack...” She trembled at the feel of his big frame, of his hand upon the ache over her heart. “I can’t.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” he said, in a patient tone that implied this was the end of the matter. “I’ve been protecting you for only a little while, but I find I like the work. After your poor patchwork rebel army is beaten, you’ll need me as well as want me.”

“Damn you, Jack Church,” she whispered, pushing his hand away, quite at her wit’s end. “We aren’t going to lose.”

The only reply he made was to turn her around, catch her hands and kiss them, one after the other.

“Do you know,” he declared, lifting his head again, “that you smell wonderful?”

“Which only proves,” she said, swiftly pulling her hands out of his, “that you are stark, staring mad. I smell like sweat, raw meat and onions. Thank heaven they wash tomorrow. I’m to go with the other women and help. Afterwards, they say they’ll bathe.”

“Indeed?” Jack asked, tamely accepting her dismissal. “And where will you do this? At the creek?”

“Yes. They say there is good place very close, where the water makes a pool and runs clean. They say they undress and wash whatever they have on. I shall certainly join them.”

“You realize you’ll have men peeping from behind every tree.” He waited to see if this might raise a blush, but when it didn’t, he added, “and I shall be among them. For your protection, of course.”

“As long as I don’t see them and no one touches me, they can look as much as they please.” Attempting to ignore him, Angelica began to tug at the sheet.

“An extremely liberal opinion, Miss TenBroeck.”

“Not liberal at all, sir. I’m a poor Dutchwoman driven to madness beyond modesty. And I shall go mad if I don’t soon get myself and my clothes clean soon.”

She was absolutely exhausted. She was weary from the events of the day, weary from his wooing, weary from jumbled images of murder and mayhem, weary with sensations running the gamut from terrible fear to the soul shivering caresses they’d just shared.

Jack took off his outer garments and his stockings. In his long shirt, and without ceremony, he rounded the mattress and got in beside her. A moment later, he brought the blanket over them. His arm came warmly around her, and she found herself far too exhausted to protest. Almost at once his breathing steadied, as he fell into his soldier’s sleep. Angelica did not tarry long behind.

***

When Angelica awoke the next morning, Jack was gone. She put on her stays and dress and went down the ladder, which had been replaced at the trap door.

He was seated by the central hearth eating another sticky bowl of last night’s stew and talking to Ima. The woman sat beside him spooning down the same breakfast and simultaneously suckling her toddler from one freckled breast.

Angelica did not know about the laundry tub the way she knew about cooking and needle work. She’d only seen servants or poor settler women doing their laundry the way she would have to today. With cakes of strong soap, bent or kneeling in the backwash of a stream, they’d slap the soapy garments on the rocks.

As the day opened, much of the camp was stripped. The men were left bare-chested and in their leather breeches. The children ran naked, whooping.

Jack, exploring in their attic, had come up with a baggy shirt and a pair of linen breeches as well as some hose that had been in a trunk. These clothes, belonging to some poor victim of M’Bain’s, allowed Angelica to collect his garments.

“I don’t like to ask you, miss,” he’d humbly said.

“You’ll be better company if I do.”

“Of that, I am certain,” he said, looking down wryly at himself. “I’ll get a bath myself.”

He went off toward the stream quickly. She knew he didn’t like her to see him in those poor clothes. He had been a somber prince among subjects at Governor Tryon’s, but even a farmer’s shapeless apparel couldn’t obscure the essential Jack—muscular and graceful as
a
panther.

The place where the laundry was to be done was a waist-high, backwater elbow, scooped out of rock by long years of wild spring torrents. Only in one spot, on the far side, did a short, four-foot curtain cascade down from the creek above.

The washing pool was almost warm, for the sun had been striking it for a long time. Once the clothes were wetted and the soap worked into the fiber, the women, bare-armed, wearing only stays and shifts, would beat them on the rocks.

Most of the laundry consisted of clothing because, except for what was in the treasure room, there were few sheets in this community. Poor families often slept together naked on furs in front of a fire like Indians.

The labor was continuous. Angelica helped as they spread what they had washed on bushes and a newly strung line to dry. Although the wind died and the sun actually grew hot, no sweat fell because so much of the work took place in the icy water.

The women began on their own dirty calico and homespun skirts, muslin caps and their long shawls. Angelica was surprised to see that, stripped of their shirts and skirts, every one of these women was armed with a dagger.

These were carried in sheaths strapped around the waist between petticoat and shift, exactly like her Dutch housewife’s pocket of scissors, needles and thread. Some took their weapons off and laid them on the bank; others kept them, taking them into the stream.

Careless now, Angelica stripped off her outer dress. She soaped and pounded her blue-and-white muslin, the kerchief, the shirt, and the cap.

Then, after rinsing and spreading the outer garments to dry, she waded with the others out of the sunny, south facing pool. Next, they would bathe.

She had been wondering what they would use for soap and was sincerely hoping it would not be the skin-searing homemade lye soap they’d been using on the clothes. She was happy to see a gleaming, opaque block of honey brown appear. An old woman, Molly, carved it into chunks that were passed around.

“Make her wash with the laundry soap,” sneered Bet, pointing at Angelica. She was one of Nancy Bankhead’s friends. “Let’s see if it’ll make the princess slough her fine skin.”

“Shut yer mouth, Bet. She helped us today an’ yesterday, too. Did a sight more than you,” chided gray-headed Molly. Angelica had learned Molly was M’Bain’s sister. Among the women, her opinions appeared to carry weight.

Bet tossed her dark head defiantly, so the older woman began to scold. “Don’t think I d’n’t see how you spent all yesterday, paradin’ around making trouble between Tommie and Billy. Mr. M’Bain brought this here loot in, so I can give it away,” she added.

Ostentatiously, she handed Angelica a piece. Angelica took the soap with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said.

Ima’s ample body appeared at her side. “Pretty high and mighty, ain’t we?” She chuckled, giving Angelica her gate-toothed, disarming grin. “We’ll wash with genuine Spanish castile. Got it from some folks we took along the Coldenham Road. A rare treasure.”

Around them, the women were separating into twos and threes, going down into the water. Happy chatter had begun as well as giggles at the bubbling and gurgling noises the ballooning shifts made as they emptied of air.

“Come on,” Ima said. “We can wash each other’s hair.”

Slabs of bark with their precious cargo of castile floated on the still backwater. The women began to wash, finally wrestling with their sodden and clinging shifts.

Crouching in the water to hide as much as possible, Angelica stripped off her shift, soaped and rinsed it. Some of the women, Angelica included, put their wet shifts back on again, modestly struggling with the soaked material while keeping as much of themselves as possible submerged. The younger ones, splendidly indifferent, small breasted and beautiful, did not bother.

Then they loosened their hair. Holding their noses and ducking, they got wet and came up sputtering. With the help of a partner, the castile was worked into a lather.

The breeze stilled. The sun beat down out of a blue sky without a single cloudy interruption. The birds sang blithe courting songs. Water purled and gurgled. A more perfect day for the task could hardly be.

At first the women chattered in groups, busy with the business of bathing, but as time went on, they became quieter, soothed by the musical chuckling of the stream. To the north, huge poplars lifted leafy arms to the sky. The sweet, rippling song of finches warbled from the nearby meadow.

The once clear pool was cloudy with soap. Two young girls, one freckled, the other Indian dark, both just budded into womanhood, went wading across the waist high water. With lithe, barefoot skill in spite of the wet, clinging shifts, they climbed to a ledge. Here, where the cascade came sparkling down, they seated themselves inside a veil of water.

“You’re lookin’ blue,” Ima remarked.

Angelica, as if to confirm the opinion, shivered. M’Bain’s sister, Molly, had already taken possession of a sunny spot with another of the grannies. Although these women had scrubbed themselves, they still looked brown as old hides.

Angelica and Ima sat on a rock at a little distance from the older women and began to comb out their hair. Ima’s was carroty red, matching the triangle dimly visible through the sodden shift. A warm breeze passed over them, and shivers grew less as clothing and hair began to dry.

Normally, Angelica would shield herself from the sun when she went outside. She always wore a hat and never worked in the garden anywhere around noon, but today she luxuriated in the light. She didn’t care whether the result was burn, tan or freckles. It felt so good to get warm!

She kept working at her hair, so heavy and so tangled in spots it didn’t seem as if she’d ever get it combed out. In spite of all the work and cold water, cleanliness was wonderful. For the first time since they’d arrived at the Clove, Angelica almost felt relaxed. She grew ever more languid, enjoying the feel of sunshine.

Suddenly, bursting out of the brush with a war whoop came Nancy and her friends, amazons with knives drawn. Angelica leapt to her feet and Ima did, too.

“Cut her, Nance! Cut her!” someone shrieked, and in the next moment Angelica was knocked to the ground.

Angelica gripped the lean brown hand that held the knife, lifted her knee and tried to shove Nancy away, but the dark woman had the sinewy strength of an enraged cat. Beside her on the ground, Ima was in a rolling struggle with Bet.

A third person had a handful of Angelica’s hair. A voice cried,

“Cut it, Jen! Now! Now! Cut it!”

The sun in Angelica’s eyes made a dark shadow of her attacker. The knife gleamed, the point trembling with effort to meet her face. As she wrestled with this, she heard shouts.

Someone caught Nancy, tore her off and tossed her away. Ima’s assailant was pulled up and dismissed with a kick.

“Bitches! Get off her!”

Angelica was yanked upright, directly against a broad, bare chest. “Are you all right?” Jack panted.

At a distance, a man could be seen carrying Jen, screaming and struggling, bodily away.

“Johnnie’ll get you for this, lowlander,” Nancy shrieked. She was on her feet again, making a feint at Jack with her knife.

Jack pushed Angelica behind him, then lunged and caught Nancy’s wrist. Her knife described a whirling arc and splashed into the water.

“Bastard!” Nancy shrieked. After spitting, she splashed into the water to look for it.

The other women had been watching as if the assault was a scene in a play. A few were modestly covering up with the half-dry laundry, for at least a score of men had emerged from the bushes, apparently in Angelica’s defense.

“Bitch!” The sound of slaps and curses rang out. “Di’nt ya hear? M’Bain said she weren’t to be touched!”

Angelica, her ears ringing, her scalp tingling, her arms and shoulders covered with scratches and grazes from the tip of Nancy’s very sharp knife, put her hand into her hair. Miraculously, it was still there.

“You fought ‘em good, miss,” Ima said, examining a bloody scrape on her arm. “You didn’t look like you was that strong.”

Angelica leaned against Jack’s muscular chest, panting. “Why?” she gasped.

From above came an amused cackle. “Hair like you got would fetch a pretty penny at some wigmaker’s,” Molly explained from her perch.

The remaining women were simply folding laundry and collecting their gawking children. Here and there, men hung around, teasing the scantily dressed females.

Jack’s cheeks were pink with shaving, and his chin was smooth. His hair was slicked back. Wet, it looked ashen.

“Where the hell you bin, captain?” someone bellowed. “I was beginnin’ to think you’d broken your parole.”

Jack turned to face his weasel-faced accuser, who was ominously fingering a knife.

“I cleaned up some and then I was in the woods.”

“Doin’ what, you smart son-of-a-bitch?”

“Why, you blind dog!” Jack said contemptuously. “I was up a tree watchin’ the women like everyone else.”