Paxton's War (3 page)

With sincere affection, I am your friend, Jason Behan Paxton

Sincere affection! Loyal friend!
Why not
love?
she wondered. Why not
passion?
Of course he couldn't be expected to include such words. She was glad that he had responded at all. And naturally she was overjoyed that he was actually coming home. She thought back over their long separation. He had written only three letters in four years, and each with the same friendly but distant tone. Had he fallen in love? Would he return with a wife? Surely he would have mentioned a marriage. But, just as surely, the women in the courts of London, Salzburg, and Paris were devastatingly beautiful and irresistibly enchanting. What would he say when he saw her? Certainly he'd consider her provincial, and yet he'd taken the time to write, which meant he cared—at least a little. He must have been impressed with the European writers she told him she'd read, in French as well as English. She'd mentioned her favorite poets, and surely he realized that she was no fool. In her long letters, hadn't she displayed an understanding of the political turmoil that South Carolina faced? Yet, strangely enough, when it came to politics, he had been mysteriously silent, except to indicate his sympathy to the plight of his own people.

But how could he not be sympathetic? He was an artist, and artists were sensitive people, and together they would be artists dedicated to the cause of the revolution. If only she had sent him the poems that expressed her true feelings for him instead of those celebrating the Carolinian countryside in rhyming couplets! Yet, how could she—yet a child, no doubt, in his memories—have told him the truth? How she wished she could send him a portrait of the woman she'd become!

Colleen's eyes went from the letter to the open window. The breeze was blowing stronger, the ship was in full view and nearing port. She found herself trembling ever so slightly. Even in a letter so brief, his words had intoxicated her. She could feel the sincerity of his emotions, the depths of his very being. How lonely he must have been! How lonely she had been without him!

“You'll not insult your Mr. Somerset by making him wait. Do you hear me, lass, or shall I say it again?” her father's voice rang through the house.

“I'm going to my bath, Papa. I won't be long.”

“Don't do no good fo' me to heat water, girl, ya lollygag aroun' an' let it git col'.” As thin, tall, and gnarled as a split-rail stuck upright in the ground, Portia stood with arms on hips and glowered as her mistress ran up the steps of the bathhouse.

“Don't be such an ogre, Portia.” Colleen laughed, hurrying inside and testing the water with her foot. “Mmm. Just right. The day's warm enough. Slightly cool is fine, thank you.”

“Yo' backside be slightly warm, was ya my chile,” Portia grumbled. “Make a soul stan' aroun' when they's work to be done. Give me that robe now, and git yo'self in an' washed.”

The light inside the bathhouse was dim and soft, the great sweetgum tub filled with inviting water. Colleen handed Portia her robe and stepped in, sank into the water with a sigh. Slowly, neck, back, knees, calves, and thighs relaxed in the soothing liquid. Outside, a cardinal sang its repetitious song, and some wrens that made their home in the tree that shaded the bathhouse chirped softly. Inside, the stillness was a balm that, with the water, calmed Colleen's anxious thoughts. The fragrance of the rich wood, like some exotic perfume, transported her to a magic forest where, with closed eyes, she envisioned lovely maples, pines, and long-leaf poplars, and thought of Jason's slender face, the softness of his chestnut-brown eyes, which had always appeared half closed to her, far away, lost in a misty dream. It had been that very expression—she still saw it so clearly—that had rendered her helpless on the day of his departure. The day had been warm and blustery, tinged with an air of excitement, as there always was when a ship sailed. His father standing gruffly by, and flanked by his twin sisters, Jason had been bright-eyed and animated as the hour for his departure approached. The dock was crowded and chaotic as the final provisions were loaded and the crew hurried about its tasks. Horses whinnied, winches and blocks squealed, children ran about shouting and getting underfoot. And in the midst of the madness, Colleen had arrived at virtually the last minute. She hadn't planned to go to the dock—had feared she would cry or otherwise make a fool of herself—but the thought of not seeing him one more time had been too much to bear.

Had she been, then, after all, as silly as she'd feared? Stumbling, hurrying through the crowd, she'd run up to him and, her tongue leaden, had uttered a single, pathetic “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Colleen,” he'd said. “You'll write me, won't you?”

“Of course. I—”

But he'd turned away from her at the boatswain's call. Quickly, he embraced his father and shook his hand, then, Colleen forgotten, bent to kiss his sisters and started up the gangplank.

The sight almost broke her heart. Unable to control herself, Colleen had run after him and had thrown her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him, and, standing on tiptoes, found his mouth with hers. His lips were soft. She had kissed him only once before, and she remembered the sensation as though it had been the day before—the sharp, manly taste of his skin, the moistness of his tongue. Her head whirled with the intimacy of the moment, her heart beat madly as his eyes, his beautiful, sleepy eyes, registered pleasure. She backed off as he smiled. Had he felt the heat of her passion? Had he considered her silly? Had he considered her at all? But there'd been no time to know, no time to ask, because he'd turned and bade his father and sisters a final farewell and walked up the gangplank and out of her life.

Four years, she reflected as the mysterious melody from the sea returned and stirred her to life. Four years and nothing less than a revolution, a transformation from girl to woman. Four years and still, even as she soaked in the cooling water, the song whose source was the white sails moving slowly, steadily over the blue-green sea, came closer and closer.

Chapter 2

Jason Behan Paxton stood on deck listening to a strange, silent song, his eyes fixed on the distant shore he had left four long years earlier. Next to him was his good friend Captain Peter Tregoning of His Majesty's military command. The two were a study in contrast.

Both men were the same age, twenty-five, and of the same height, but while Peter was big-boned, Jason was thinly built. The musician's soft, sensitive face and sloped, smoky brown eyes gave him the profile of a poet as he leaned over the railing and pondered the deep. Draped over his shoulders was a charcoal gray woolen cape, simply but elegantly cut, that he'd purchased in Parma. The wind blew freely through the mass of springy brown curls that crowned his head, giving him an angelic look of disorderly charm. His eyes, deep-set and distant, were accented above by thick, angular brows. Inadvertently, he felt inside his cape and shirt for the gold amulet that hung on a chain around his neck. The family heirloom, passed down from his grandmother, Marie Ravenne, displayed a spreading oak tree entwined with brambles, its design a reminder of all he'd left and all that awaited him.

Standing next to Jason, Peter, the solider, maintained an unflinchingly correct and straight-backed posture. His chiseled chin and clear green eyes spoke of discipline and determination. Flaming orange hair peeked out from beneath his wig. His face was covered with freckles, giving him a strangely boyish quality further contrasted by his uniform, a blood-red coat decorated with silver lace, and tight white breeches tucked into jet-black boots. He was wrapped in a campaign cloak of Mazarine blue whose deep rich exterior added to the somber effect. His leather helmet sported a scarlet plume from its brass crest. The helmet's black facing provided a distinct background for the skull-and-crossbones insignia worn by all members of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons.

From Jason's lips emerged a simple melody that broke the silence between him and his English friend.

“Writing something new?” Peter asked.

“Not really. I'm not sure where it comes from.” Perplexed, he tried to shrug it off. “One of those melodies that comes from … somewhere … and then sticks with you.”

“Jase, I swear that your tombstone will carry the inscription: ‘He died in the middle of a new melody!' Back home, when I had one of the loveliest ladies in all Londontown awaiting your company, you were holed up in your room with your bloody flutes and lutes—composing!”

“But I'm not composing, Peter. Just listening. Remembering, perhaps, but if I have heard it before, I can't figure out where.” Poignant and evocative, the seductive lilt carried him back to the hot summer evening when he'd brought Casey, one of his, father's favorite hounds, to Dr. Roy McClagan's farm beneath the high hill overlooking the Atlantic. Casey had been inexplicably dragging one hind foot for days, and while McClagan examined the dog in his study, Jase happened to glance into one of the side rooms and see Colleen.

He'd known her, of course, as everyone in Brandborough knew each other, and though the brightness of her eyes had attracted him he'd never seen her as more than an alert, inquisitive child who was forever asking questions about his music. Suddenly, though, his perception of her changed radically. Sitting before an oval-shaped mirror no larger than her hand and silently brushing her silken blond hair ever so slowly, ever so deliberately, her head fell back and dipped forward with each elongated stroke. Candlelight gave her skin the color of rich gold, soft and pure, and accented the amber color of her eyes. He was fascinated by her beauty, and though he knew he should turn away, he couldn't.

That she had seen him, too, was obvious, for the soft sway of her body was clearly calculated. Her calculations worked. When she rose from her chair to acknowledge his presence with a greeting and invite him to the porch, where they might view the star-filled summer sky, he was unable to refuse. Nor could he, minutes later, refuse her advance—or was it his?—when, under the silver light of a crescent moon, he felt her heart beating madly against his, felt her lips, moist and warm, felt … But her father's jubilant announcement that a long, sharp thorn embedded near Casey's spine, and undoubtedly pressing against a nerve, had been successfully removed, separated them with a start.

In the months that followed, they became friends. Five years younger than he, only fourteen at the time, she was amazingly well read for a country girl and could discuss William Shakespeare or Roger Bacon, Dante and Molière, and even Jason's favorite—a secret they shared between themselves—the French essayist Montaigne. Her interest in his music was gratifying, and she learned quickly the names of composers and, with his tutelage, the rudiments of reading music. If he had deeper feelings for her, he wasn't inclined to explore them. Rather, being careful to maintain their friendship on a strictly platonic plane, he looked upon her as a companion, and a younger companion at that. And it wasn't until the day of his departure for Europe that he'd tasted her lips again. Yet, suddenly, four years later, that final kiss, along with the first one, had come back to haunt him.

For Peter, the music led not to the past, but to the future. Two years earlier—already they were close friends—Jason had shown him a pair of miniature portraits he had received from his home. “My sisters,” he'd said, laying them on the table. “Were my descriptions apt?”

Why, he could not say, but Peter's heart had raced even as he effected a nonchalance he didn't feel. “Not at all. They're far prettier than your words indicated. Far prettier,” he drawled, indicating the first. “This would be, what's her name? Hope?”

“Aye. Hope Elaine. And the other's Joy Exceeding.”

Jason had spoken at length about his sisters, but nothing had prepared Peter for seeing the portrait of Joy Exceeding. She was, in a word, beautiful. Her face was thin and of a patrician cast, with a slight upturn to her nose. Her hair was similar to Jason's, light brown in color and gently waving. She was the second born, he remembered, and got her name from her mother's exceeding joy at the sight of a second girl. It made no sense whatsoever to him for she was certainly no more beautiful than many women he had known, but he was stricken, and from that moment on, though keeping his true feelings hidden for over a year, found it impossible to keep her from his thoughts.

And finally, he would meet her, see her in person, hear the sound of her voice. Each spin of the taffrail log brought him closer. How ironic that his first trip to the new world was to land him at Brandborough, the very home of his friend, and of Joy Exceeding. And how ironic, too, that the reinforcements he led were being sent to help subdue and secure the Carolinas, in direct contravention to everything Joy Exceeding's father, Ethan, believed. “You haven't forgotten your promise to introduce her to me,” Peter said aloud, suddenly breaking the silence between him and Jason.

“What?” Jason asked. “Oh, Joy. No. Of course not.”

“And your father … Damn it all! I can see it now. The English captain calls on the patriot's daughter. What a fine mess!”

“Perhaps you're right,” Jason said, tongue in cheek. “It might not be a very good idea—”

“Now wait a minute.” Peter laughed. “I've looked at her picture until I'm blue in the face, and read every word of her letters until I'm sure I know her. You can't go back on me now, old friend.”

“And so I shan't,” Jason said. His eyes met Peter's, and his hand gripped his arm in a firm clasp. “You have my word,” he promised solemnly. “And beyond that, you have my friendship.”

The sincerity in Jason's resonant, baritone voice was unquestionable. For the three and half years Peter had known him, he had proven to be a man of easy humor, gentle manners, and uncompromising honor. They had met at the home of Peter's maternal uncle, Sir Walpole Gatley, a distinguished harpsichordist, and, as Peter was an amateur violinist himself, they had struck up an immediate friendship.