Paxton's War

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Paxton's War

The Paxton Saga

Kerry Newcomb and Frank Schaefer

May, 1780

Five years had passed—five heartbreaking, heroic years—since Paul Revere had roused the New England Minutemen and the shot heard 'round the world had ignited the American Revolution.

For the first thirty-six months, the radical Patriots of the North resisted the English onslaught, so much so that by 1778 Britain was forced to switch strategies: the new plan was to conquer the far more conservative South.

The plan worked in its initial stages. Savannah fell; Augusta fell; and in May 1780, General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered his army of five thousand as the proud city of Charleston—renowed for its alluring beauty, its lucrative commerce, and its cosmopolitan culture—fell into British hands. This was the rebels' darkest hour. The tide had turned against them. The state of South Carolina—the great South itself—was under the command of General Lord Charles Cornwallis.

And yet, even as Loyalists rejoiced and patriots planned their next, desperate moves, even as intrigue and espionage infiltrated the plantations, the battle camps, the gunsmith shops, and the society balls, nature renewed the earth with its blissful promise of fresh green life. Spring arrived in the fertile Carolina countryside with balmy breezes blown sweetly from a docile Atlantic. Wildflowers rioted over hill and vale in extravagant yellows and blues. Lilac and magnolia filled the air with their heady, perfumed presence. And a young woman of twenty, no matter how keen her sense of politics or deep her concern for her family's welfare, could not resist—at least not for a fleeting moment—the seductive reveries of a distant longing, the delicious daydreams of impassioned romance.…

PART I

Chapter 1

Colleen Cassandra McClagan had heard the melody before, yet something had changed. The song was stronger, clearer, louder. It sounded so close, so insistent, that she could almost make out a message. There were words to the song—a poem, a promise, a melody born of the breeze, a windsong that played upon her lips, caressed her ear, and excited her heart. Its source seemed to be the sea, that vast expanse of royal blue that glistened under the brilliant mid-morning sun.

Colleen stood atop the hill, breathed in the magnificence of the landscape that stretched before her—the sweep of white below, the clusters of budding bushes and infant grass—extended her arms to the cloudless sky, closed her eyes, and silently gave thanks for the gift of her life, the miracle of the moment. When she opened her eyes, she suddenly felt foolish for whiling away her time among violets and chirping bluebirds, foolish for ignoring the danger that surrounded her, for forgetting the hour, the obligations, the harsh reality and grave responsibilities she faced as a daughter and a citizen … and yet …

The sweetness of the song stayed with her. Her eye followed the winding coastline, miles to the north and miles to the south, and beyond to the dazzling sea. What was the sea singing? What was the sea saying? Why was the ocean's endless blue so hypnotic? Like some exotic drug, it had her seeing things, believing things, harboring hopes too bold to express. She squinted through the peephole formed by her fist. Could she see the tip of a sail, a tiny dot of white jutting above the horizon? Could the distant vessel be the source of the song? She stared ahead. There
was
a ship coming to port. It was no illusion, no dream. The song was real and it was being sung for her. Finally, she allowed herself the thought:
He's on the ship. He's coming home. Home at last …

The thought frightened her. She had dreamed the dream before, and it had proven false. Instead, there had been ships of war, ships carrying death and destruction, ships of soldiers whom she viewed as cruel jailers, men commissioned by a foreign despot to tax and tyrannize a people deserving of their own freedom. These were thoughts, though, that she dared not utter, especially not to her father, whose wild Scottish temper would explode in fury. He already suspected her sentiments, and his suspicion was enough to cause her anguish. Colleen McClagan was not afraid of her patriotic convictions; quite to the contrary. Though born in America, she, too, had the heart and courage of a valiant Scot. It was only because she loved her father with such tenderness and compassion that she would rather bite her tongue than hurt him. She understood the depth of his pain. She was all that he had in the world.

I am close. I am coming to you. We'll be together soon
.

How could she deny the words to the song? The white speck on the horizon grew and blossomed like a lily until a full set of sails was visible. The melody set her heart racing. Was it just another cruel hoax, another unfulfilled fantasy? He had been gone forty-eight months, exactly fourteen hundred fifty days. She prayed that there would be no more numbers to count, no more surreptitious markings to hide each morning in the secret compartment of the miniature music box which, despite the fact that it had belonged to her mother, Colleen could never bring herself to destroy. She cherished the box and the tiny doll that danced atop its etched surface, just as she cherished the daily ritual of remembering him, his wildly curly hair as he …

“Colleen!” The voice of her father carried from their house at the southern foot of the hill. “You don't want to be late now, lass. Your Mr. Somerset won't want to be kept waiting. Come down here this very instant!”

“Yes, Papa!” she cried, catching one last glimpse of the ship—closer, it was coming closer—as she raced down the hill.

Dr. Roy Wallace McClagan studied the vision of loveliness running toward him. He couldn't help but see how, at age twenty, his daughter so closely resembled her mother, Sheena. At once, the thought delighted and alarmed him. It had been a decade and a half since Sheena had left him. Her desertion and the bloody battle of Cullodeen, during which, at age sixteen, he had seen his fellow Scotsmen mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of the English, had hardened his heart to wars and women. The single exception, though, was the girl who had grown into the woman who offered him the purest love he had known in his lonely lifetime. Watching Colleen—the wind playing with the long tresses of rich blond hair that danced beneath her bee-bright bonnet—he was almost frightened by her beauty.

Her face was illuminated by sparkling amber eyes that revealed a quick intelligence. Her forehead was noticeably high, her flawless skin the color of pearl. With prominent cheekbones accented by deep-set dimples, she expressed a sense of spirited motion. Her smile sang. Somewhat below average height, her slim waist and small breasts added to her youthful, fresh-faced appeal. Her lithe, limber body revealed both a daintiness and a daring. Was her beauty centered in her generous, alluring mouth or her thin, delicate neck? It was difficult to determine, for Colleen's physical appeal went beyond the elegance of her slender nose or the way in which her eyelashes fluttered and curled. In her fiery eyes, her father saw the sun rising over the Highlands of his native land. His daughter blazed with life.

How long could he keep her? When would she leave him? Her smile rivaled the radiance of summer as he watched her race toward him with the grace of a fawn. Well, now, he reminded himself, he had decided already; of course she'd marry, and marry soon, a marriage good for her and good for him. Buckley Somerset was a gentleman and, more to the point, he was wealthy. What more could a father ask for his daughter? Buckley's plantation was but a few miles from McClagan's humble farm. It would be fine indeed to watch his grandchildren grow up in such a secure and opulent setting.

“Good morning, Papa,” Colleen said breathlessly, kissing him on his salt-and-pepper whiskers. His brow, normally knit in a series of nervous furrows, relaxed for the first time that day. “Don't worry,” she added. “I'll be on time.”

“But will you be civil to the gentleman?”

“Civil and sweet,” she promised.

“And sincere,” he reminded her. “'Tis a rare quality in a woman, lass. A quality far more precious than gold.”

Colleen looked into her father's kind but weary eyes. At fifty, he looked at least twenty years older. He reminded her of a frail bird. His back was bent into a painful stoop. Without his customary wig, his thin strands of white hair were tossed about by the wind, making him seem especially vulnerable. He often spoke of quitting his practice, but Colleen never believed him: he would never abandon the suffering children whom he so lovingly attended, the elderly men and women, even the stray puppies and kittens, the ailing birds and horses, toward all of whom he felt a personal and compelling responsibility to nurture back to health. When his remedies failed, he was despondent for days. But when his cures took, his heart filled with gladness.

Colleen just didn't have the heart to tell her father how Buckley Somerset, for all his power and wealth, bored her to tears. Somehow, sometime later she would tell him that he was absolutely unacceptable to her as anything more than a polite escort. But not on the day of the annual Brandborough Spring Fair, a sprawling picnic that promised an afternoon and evening filled with pleasant diversions. “What a lovely spring morning,” she said, taking her father's arm and heading toward the house. “You can see practically all the way across the ocean.”

“What I want to see is you all prim and proper, so hurry and dress. This is no occasion for skimping, mind you. I've set Portia to heating water for your bath, so run along. And dress in your best. I'd wear that white silk headdress if I were you. Indeed, I would.”

She didn't bother to answer. With no intention of wearing a headdress and veil more befitting a wedding than a picnic, she dismissed the thought and, pausing only to look over her shoulder, hurried to the house.