The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (29 page)

“Of course.” A pause. “The paper says things aren’t going well for the army in the north—”

“Honestly, I’m all but out of touch—” His hand was shaking. He spilled some of the wine as he filled the glass.

“And we now have commissioners in Paris. Mr. Deane, Dr. Franklin—”

“I met Franklin in Philadelphia. A genius. Damned—uh—very jolly gentleman, too.”

“So far, he and his associates haven’t been able to promote direct assistance from any of the European countries.”

“I suppose such negotiations take time,” Judson answered in a lame tone, feeling more and more trapped by the moment. He could barely keep his eyes off the sculptured neck of Peggy’s gown. Sweat filmed his forehead. His mind’s eye flickered with images of her naked body on the bedroom floor.

He fought the memories, sipped the port in silence. Again she came to his rescue:

“That British general—the one they call Gentleman Johnny—”

“Burgoyne, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The paper reports he may bring a great force of Germans and those terrible Indians down through York State this summer. There’s turmoil in the west, too.”

It had been months since Judson had thought of his friend George Clark. He brought up his name, said, “I wonder how he’s faring.”

“I understand he was back in Virginia last fall.”

“He was? For what purpose?”

“My father told me he came to see Governor Henry in Williamsburg. He was asking for several hundred pounds of powder to defend the Kentucky settlements. The Indian tribes are raiding there, incited by the British at Detroit. There’s an officer in charge at Detroit who pays silver for American scalps.”

With genuine astonishment, Judson studied Peggy McLean again. He really hadn’t appreciated how much she’d changed. The young woman he’d courted would never have been so matter-of-fact about a subject such as the Indian threat to American settlers on the frontier. In fact the Peggy of the past might have made a gay, tasteless joke about it—if she mentioned it at all. Perhaps the slave uprising hadn’t been without some saving effects. There was a new, assured firmness in her manner. She had passed out of girlhood forever.

Pondering the change while he finished the wine helped relieve his disappointment on another score: not having seen George Clark the preceding autumn.

Ah, but George had probably been warned off:

Don’t bother, with Judson Fletcher any longer. He’s ruined. Drunk all the time. Rutting with a white-trash woman
—

He set the empty goblet on the table, a sudden, jerky motion. His head was buzzing a little. The summerhouse was confining; dangerous. Peggy was too lovely. He damn near ached for her—

“Yes,” he said at last, “Donald did tell me the situation in Kentucky is very perilous. All the settlers have taken to the stockades for fear the men will be shot and the women rap—”

He closed his mouth abruptly. Then:

“Peggy, I believe I should be going.”

She rose, hurrying toward him. Again he thought he saw something unusual in her eyes. Embarrassment over her own quick reaction—

She lifted one slender hand, as if to hold him:

“You mustn’t leave without telling me what plans you have for the future.”

The wine had gotten to him. “None at all. Donald sent me to sit in his stead in Congress. If you listen to the county gossips, you know I botched that. I humiliated Donald—and since returning, my life has been even more distinguished.”

“Judson.”
Her cool, gentle voice caught him up short.

“What?”

“You needn’t sound so bitter. You can’t shock me. I’ve heard everything.”

Something drove him to ask, “Including my relationship with Lottie Shaw?”

“Yes, that too.”

“And you still permit me to come here?”

“Oh, I suppose by custom, I shouldn’t—” She turned away, her cheeks coloring again. From the wine—or something else. “But much as I love my parents, I hope I’ll never be so narrow and unforgiving as they are on occasion. Being married to Seth for even a few years was a blessing. I learned a great many things from him. Things you’d understand because you were his friend. Above all I learned kindness. Love—” Head bowed suddenly, she said, “I only grieve for the waste, Judson. The terrible waste of yourself.”

Without knowing how it happened, he touched her.

Perhaps it was the isolation of the summerhouse; or the wine; or her loveliness and the haunting balsam tang that drifted in the soft lamplight. But standing close behind her, he touched the shoulders of her gown.

Leave, damn you! Before you do something you’ll regret!

He didn’t leave. He said:

“It was the only possible outcome after I lost you, Peggy. Though I didn’t want to, I stayed away because I cared for your husband.”

Head still bowed, she whispered, “Yes, I know.”

“Of all the people along this river, I cared for George Clark and Seth McLean—and so I stopped caring for you. Or tried. You know I came to the house too often. Everyone knew it. I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry for bringing it up now, but I can’t help it—”

He was drowning in the scent from her skin. Against all prudence and judgment, he leaned down to kiss the back of her neck.

Instantly he realized his mistake. He let go of her shoulders—

The rest would never have happened if some impulse hadn’t caused her to weaken just one instant. Swiftly, she reached down with her right hand to grasp his and pull it around to violent, startling contact with her breast. Her eyes were closed:

“I was a good wife to Seth. I couldn’t be anything else. But there was only one man I really loved, ever.”

The flesh beneath her gown seemed to heat his hand; then his whole body. She felt him stiffen. Her eyes flew open, alarmed. She broke away:

“Judson, forgive me—”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Peggy.”

“Yes—what I did just now—taking your hand that way—”

He saw how deeply it disturbed her. Peggy Ashford McLean had always lived by the moral code of the tidewater. Not welcoming it, perhaps. But accepting it. And that code, of which her parents were the symbols, explicitly forbade certain behavior—and a relationship with certain men. He was one of those men and always would be.

Shame reddened Peggy’s cheeks now:

“Perhaps we had better say good evening—”

“Kiss me, Peggy.”

“Oh dear God, don’t—”

“No one will see. We’re far away from the house—”

“Please go. In your presence I’m not as strong as I should be—”

And he had no strength at all, save the special kind she’d roused in him suddenly. If only he hadn’t weakened! Hadn’t indulged his habit; drunk the wine—

But it was too late for ifs. She was far too beautiful. And they were alone—

Clumsily he pulled her into an embrace. She fought back, tried to push him away even as his mouth crushed hard on hers, taking from it all the warmth and sweetness that had been denied him for so long. He felt himself roused again. So did she. With a small, terrified moan she wrenched her head to one side:

“It’s wrong, Judson—this is wrong—”

“Admit you want what I do, Peggy.” His voice was already slurred from the wine. He pressed her backwards, hands caressing her shoulders. Something savage was loose in him, mastering every thought but one; every intent but one—

“I don’t dare admit that. If we were husband and wife—”

“We’ll never be husband and wife. You know that.

“Yes. Yes.”

“But at least we can pretend—”

This time he literally took her prisoner, his arms around her waist. She struggled very little as he kissed her. But for a moment her lips gave no response. Some dim corner of his mind comprehended what he was doing to her. Yet the stark, undammed forces within him overrode conscience. He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids while she whispered her fear, all the old morality of her upbringing crying out against the touching of their bodies, the increasing heat of flesh against flesh with confining clothing between—

Suddenly she clasped her arms around his neck. Her mouth came open under his. He picked her up—she was so light; so airy-light—and bore her to the lounge, his boots trampling the Richmond papers with their news of meaningless distant battles. She resisted hardly at all; a fist against his shoulder for a moment. Then it opened, defeated. The fingers slid to the back of his head—

To have put out the lantern would have betrayed too much. But as he lowered her gently to the lounge, he managed to shut the louvers on the side of the summerhouse facing the plantation buildings. He sat beside her, hands fondling her breasts free of the corseting—

Her gown a tangle around her hips, she let him bare her lower body and kneel over it. A terror filled her eyes all at once. She pushed her palms against him:

“I don’t think I can. Not since—”

“Yes you can, love. Of course you can—”

“No, I’m afraid, I don’t—
ah!”

She uttered the cry as he pierced into her, aware of her fear but unable to stop himself. Tears ran down her cheeks.

She tried to feign feeling; response. But it was as if her body had locked into rigidity. The quick, almost brutal thrusts skidded the lounge back and forth an inch, then two, each motion painful to him but doubly so for her. He saw that in the stricken face pressed close to his; felt it in the taut, abruptly cold body. Who was she seeing with those staring, tear-brimming eyes? Not him. Another man who had stalked up to her bedroom on a night of fire and murder and taken her the same way.
Christ, almost the same way
—

Mercifully, it was soon over.

Panting, he drew back, realizing much too late the kind of choice she had made: on one hand, the impulsive thrust of her emotions; on the other, her scruples and—more important—a fear from which, God help her, she might never recover.

And it had been the wrong choice.

She wouldn’t look at him. She kept her head turned aside on the lounge cushion, tears shining tracks down her cheeks. Drained and hating himself, he brought up one hand to brush at the tears. She pulled her head away as if his fingers were fouled.

“Peggy—”

“Don’t say anything. Don’t speak.”

“I lost control, I—”

“It doesn’t make any difference. You—you felt—how I couldn’t—how—”

“That’ll pass with a man who’s gentle. I wasn’t. I’m sorry. God, believe me, I’m sorry—”

“The sin’s mine as much as yours. Please go.”

“Peggy, there’s no sin if two people want—”

“Yes there is!”
she cried. “I’ve dishonored Seth!”

“Seth’s
dead!”

Her eyes flew open. For one blinding moment she gazed at him with absolute revulsion.

Then she said in a voice whose softness terrified him:

“I am still his wife.”

Struggling to conceal her exposed body, she stood and turned her back, tugging her underthings into place to hide the staining evidence of their mutual weakness. He heard her weeping, and that was how he left her—

He ran down the lawn through the darkness, mounted the gelding, booted it along the lane. The weakness was his;
his!

He’d vowed nothing like this would happen if he called. But he’d made a hundred vows in the past—a thousand!—and broken every one. Whatever he touched became wreckage. And now he’d wrecked the dearest object of all.

Forever, he was certain.

Pacing the Shaw cabin all that long night, Judson seethed with conflicting emotions. Shame. Condemnation of Peggy for leading him on, permitting him—

No, goddammit!
He
was responsible! He had virtually raped her.

Yes, of course, she’d wanted it—at first. But if he’d had the sense to remember the uprising—the strength to call a halt at any of several stages—

The yellow hound licked at his bare foot. Judson kicked the dog’s ribs. The animal fell, yelping, then crept into the cabin corner, its tail curled under its hindquarters.

Judson couldn’t sleep. It was agony for him to imagine what Peggy must be feeling as the sun rose on Caroline County. The deed of last night would probably blot her conscience for a lifetime. She was that sort of person.

Yet he’d gone ahead.
Gone ahead!
Just as he went recklessly ahead with any headstrong wish, no matter the havoc it caused—

He found a quill, a little ink, tore a scrap from an old ledger Tom Shaw had used for keeping a record of his pathetically small purchases of seed and other staples. In the dawn, Judson wrote a single sentence:

I abjectly beg your forgiveness.

He signed his initial, folded the scrap twice, put on his shirt and boots and rode to the McLean house where hands were already heading into the fields. He knocked at the front door. This time ą different house girl answered.

“Please give this to Mrs. McLean at once.”

The girl shook her head. “Mrs. McLean, she still in bed. She was up mos’ of the night feeling poorly.”

“Then give it to her when she wakens.”

“Yes, sar, Mist’ Fletcher, I will.”

Destruction on destruction,
he thought as he galloped down the lane. He had to escape. But the very hope was futile. There was no escape from the failures that were built into the flawed framework of Judson Fletcher. Perhaps old Angus was right after all; perhaps some poisonous perversity raged in his blood, uncontrollable. He wondered if some learned physician might explain it; doubted it. At any rate, if the lord of Sermon Hill was correct—and mounting evidence seemed to indicate he was—it might prove fortunate in the long run that Peggy’s parents had chosen childless Seth over her other suitor—

At the cabin Judson found some corn left. He kicked the hound outside, latched the windows and the door and started drinking. When he woke up hours later, the hound was gone.

A few days later, a McLean black rode over with an answer to Judson’s note:

All shame and responsibility must be shared equally between ourselves. I deem it wisest
—
and safest
—
that we do not ever see one another again. P.