Angel's Flight (24 page)

Arent allowed himself a slight smile. “You are in some disorder yourself, cousin.”

“I don’t deny it,” Angelica replied.

“I think my father may have told you some of my feelings about all this.”

“Yes.”

“My offer of marriage still stands, Angelica.”

“Arent,” she began, “I know how kind and generous—how charitable, under the circumstances—your offer is, but, as I suppose Uncle Jacob has told you, I am married. Tricked into it or not,” she continued, feeling a blush rising, “the fact remains. In the second place...Well, I don’t know that even if Mr. Church were no longer in this world it would be right to marry you.”

“You know I’m not all those noble things, cuz,” Arent replied seriously, leaning to set his buttermilk beside the chair. “There is selfishness in all a man like me does, but you know how I feel.”

“So much has happened. So much.” Angelica sighed again. She studied his cup, now beaded and dripping onto the black-and-white tiles of the parlor floor. “Everything is even more complicated than it was before I went away.”

Arent leaned forward. He laid a large hand on her knee. “Do you love him?”

“I know I shouldn’t, for Colonel Church is a Tory, and perhaps, a rogue as well. But I do.” She hadn’t meant to let it happen—so much truth—but tears were filling her eyes. To hide them, she looked away.

“The thought of you loving this stranger gives me pain. Great pain, I tell you true,” Arent answered in a husky voice. “It hurts my heart and it hurts my pride, too. But don’t the preachers tell us this is a less than perfect world?”

He collected her hand and, in so doing, made it vanish inside his. “What kind of affection would I be talking about if pride and pain alone could dismiss it?”

“You are a great gentleman, cousin,” Angelica said. “I fear that I’ve been very unkind to you. Nevertheless, I am married. Colonel Church has promised to return by Christmas.”

“Damn it, Angelica,” Arent growled, abruptly pressing the fingers he’d engulfed. “What on earth were you about, lying down with a smooth-talking English stranger? It’s not as if you were a green girl swept off her feet—or—was it?”

“A married woman has...duties,” Angelica said, lowering her eyes. For a moment, she wondered if she had become as great a liar as the absent Jack, but to admit anything more was too embarrassing.

“Angelica TenBroeck, don’t you play act with me! You’ve never, as long as I’ve known you, done one, single, blessed thing you didn’t want to do.” He had raised his voice, but she was grateful for his honesty and for the restraint he had shown.

Heaven knows, she thought, my refusal and
my
acting like a
spoiled, little girl running away was cruel. I’ve certainly hurt him.

“What is it you want me to say?” she asked. “It seems you and Uncle Jacob are the ones who will make conditions now,” she added, lowering her eyes.

Retreat, she told herself. Retreat like George the Fox and live to fight another day!

“Damn it, Angelica!” Arent exclaimed. “You may fool Papa playing meek, but you don’t fool me.” He dropped her hand, and got up to pace back and forth across the parlor.

“All right,” he finally said. “You’ve told me where you stand. Now, I’ll tell you what I think about this whole business. We’ll wait the year out. That will give you time to sort yourself out, to see whether your Colonel Church survives and whether he returns. If not, then in February, around the cross quarter days—”

“If I haven’t got a big belly on,” Angelica broke in, her temper rising, “you’ll take me home whether I will or no.”

His blue eyes flared into hers. “Even if you have—a big belly.”

She had always known him to be stubborn, but his determination to have her, even in the face of all these new obstacles in his way, was something unexpected.

“Our cousin Nick Gansevoort and his Swantie have been married twelve years without children.” Apparently, Arent’s solution to the possibility of a child sired by Jack was the same as his father’s.

“And how, pray, do you know I would give up the child of my body, even to kind cousin Nick and his wife?”

“Because, Angelica, I believe you’ll do what is right for the TenBroecks. Still,” he continued, his tone gentle again, “this is all speculation. We’ll cross these bridges if and when we come to them.”

“At the Clove—” Angelica’s voice was loud and clear. “—I was married to Colonel John Edward Church. He is a gentleman of perfect suitability, a neighbor, whose maternal grandfather was Gilbert Livingston, third son of Robert of the Manor.”

“And your witnesses were outlaws, now dead,” Arent countered. “To speak bluntly, cuz, I believe this soldiering John Church won’t turn out to be the settling kind. And even if he is, who can say whether he’ll ever return.” Angelica shuddered. She rubbed her arms and gazed into the square, determined face before her.

Arent continued levelly, “A forced marriage among outlaws to a dead man is an event of little importance.”

“But what if he comes back?” Angelica cried. “Sometimes men thought to be lost have come out of the forest years later.”

“Is this to be another ‘Bram, Angelica?”

If his tone hadn’t been so level, so factual, she would have rushed from the room. As it was, she stayed, wiping away the tears that had, at the mention of that fatal name, begun to spill.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly, stretching out his hand. “I just want you to listen to me. To listen to reason.”

“I’m always reasonable,” she said, refusing his hand and ministering to her tears with great dignity.

“If Colonel Church is a gentleman,” Arent continued, “and his initial behavior in rescuing you proves he has a notion of how to be one, he may not return. Why insist upon a marriage which can only separate you from your family and destroy your happiness?”

“Hear me, sir,” Angelica replied, firmly meeting his eyes. “Whether he is our enemy or not, I cannot go with you until I’m certain Jack Church has departed this world.”

Arent’s big frame quivered. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath.

Angelica thought that as much as he was hurting her, she had never respected him so much as in this interview. She understood she had hurt him in return, and she knew his pride was deeply injured, but he had continued to conduct this very difficult discussion like a man of gentility.

Heaving a huge sigh, her cousin opened his eyes. The next thing he did was to seize her hand and ceremoniously kiss it.

“I hear what you say, Cousin Angelica,” he said.

“And I hear what you say.” Angelica looked into his candid blue eyes, the flowery brilliance so very much like her own.

“I believe that in this matter, time will be our arbiter. When the February cross-quarter day comes, you will find this present knot unraveled. By then, I believe that your thoughts and your choices will be far, far clearer.”

With that, prophecy and farewell all rolled into one, Arent politely bowed and left her alone in the parlor.

Chapter Nineteen

Angelica had not
once heard from Jack. The old, familiar worm, the one she’d endured waiting for ‘Bram, had come to life again, and now it busily gnawed at her heart. In spite of the pain that increased every day, she held her head high and worked hard. What else could she do?

Danger was on every side. News arrived of terrible massacres in the Wyoming, Schoharie and Cherry Valleys. In the north, General Burgoyne had begun his trek down from Canada.

Sentries were posted at outlying barns and homesteads; entire families drew together for protection. The TenBroeck kin, their tenants and all the livestock were gathered at Uncle Jacob’s farm.

Arent’s three children, as well as his widowed housekeeper and her small son, moved in. The house became noisy and crowded. Her cousin came and went, for he was still working his crops and riding the farms. He rarely went anywhere alone and always went armed.

Once again, Angelica’s quilting was interrupted, for not only did she have to remove the frame she’d set up to make room, but the housework, with the addition of three active children, increased tenfold. Only occasionally, at night, did she find time, space, and the energy to sit and ponder her scraps.

Sometimes, all she did was to hold what had already been sewn together in her lap and dream over it. As her fingers traced the squares, memories returned.

Here, the bluebirds, handed to her at a glittering New York City ball by her gossiping friend, Minerva. Folded, in her pocket, it had been silent witness to her first meeting with Jack. The vine row recalled the shining past of Aunt Laetitia’s chairs. The luxurious sensuality of the Chinese blue had been discovered in such an unlikely place as that rag picker’s stall in Tarrytown!

Madness, she thought, to be scrounging for material when Armistead could have ridden in at any moment.

Then the next rows were two of stars. The first was teal broadcloth; the second, the shocking burgundy brocade from that ruined party dress she’d found at the Clove.

Amazing to think she’d cut all the star shapes there, in the midst
of that hellhole! Equally amazing, the mad quilter’s forethought that had caused her to stick a swatch of the teal into her pocket before climbing out the window!

Next came what she had worked with dear Jenneke, those stars now sewn onto octagons of cream-colored Osnaberg linen. Then, of course, the hexagons of rose presented to her with such affecting sweetness by that little-girl bride.

As her fingers traveled, her circling thoughts returned to one object.

Jack! Jack! Jack! So many experiences, shocks, and sensations on that terrifying journey! How she had mistrusted him, how she had hated him—and how she had loved him.

As she held the quilt, she remembered his strong hand warm on her shoulder. She remembered his clear eyes smiling down at her with that amused, yet adoring, male expression as he watched her, busy at this most domestic of tasks in the most unlikely places.

***

Angelica awakened to the dogs barking. These days, she shared a crowded bed with Arent’s housekeeper, Annie M’Gregor, and her little boy.

Annie and her son had moved from Arent’s outlying farm to Uncle Jacobs’s home when the British had begun raiding up the river. A large farm just south had been burnt; the owners murdered in their beds, the livestock driven off. Jacob’s tenants, too, had come, along with their animals, to the TenBroeck house, hoping to find safety in numbers.

Hearing the noise, Annie sat up, too. Outside, geese joined the dogs, shrieking an alarm.

As Angelica jumped out of bed, she heard a chorus of whoops, shouts and the thunder of horses ridden fast. Shots were fired. Angelica grabbed her shawl and pushed her feet into shoes.

“Fire! Fire!” a voice cried.

“I’ll get the other children,” Annie said, briskly throwing on an old coat that had belonged to her husband. Widow M’Gregor was not much older than Angelica, but had a five-year-old boy of her own, as well as Arent’s three children in her care.

“Hurry, Kitty!” said Annie, pushing Arent’s oldest, a plump maid of eleven, in front of her. She needed to get the children all together and get them downstairs.

It had been decided it was better they all be on the ground floor during an attack. That way they had a chance of escaping into the
nearby orchard and, from there, into the woods if the Tories came.

The gunfire ceased as abruptly as it had started. Men were still shouting, but there was another sound, too—a rising roar like a dangerous wind.

Leaving the children to be herded the rest of the way to the orchard by capable Annie, Angelica raced ahead down the stairs and toward the kitchen. She didn’t need a candle, for a hellish glow came through the windows. Daisy and frail Derrick were huddled together in the kitchen, wringing their hands and weeping.

From the porch, Angelica saw people dashing in every direction. The barn had been fired, and was beyond saving. Flames danced in a terrible halo around the roof.

Men led animals from the barn. Horses were especially difficult because they panicked in fire and had to be brought out blindfolded.

Loaded with summer hay, the barn was going up fast. The yard milled with squealing animals of every size and shouting people. Cattle and horses were tied to distant trees, to the porch railings, and to the hitching posts in front of the house.

Angelica ran to take an ox from their tenant, Charlie, who immediately turned and dashed back into the inferno. She had just begun to tug at the nose ring of the huge, frightened beast, when she heard loud booms and the hair-raising whistle of passing musket balls.

Someone was taking pot shots at them, but there was no time for fear. She and the others did what they could, taking animals from the men and getting them tied to the porch railings.

The second ox whose lead she grabbed was young and nervous. He shied, yanked Angelica off her feet and dragged her.

“Whoa! Whoa now!” Angelica cried, desperately hanging on.

“Let him go,” cried Harriet, running beside her in a desperate swish of skirts. “He won’t go back inside like
a
one of them crazy horses.”

The red ox, snorting with fear, disappeared into the darkness. Angelica got to her feet.

She could see Arent, his burly body silhouetted by the flames. He and the other men ran in and out of the barn. Suddenly, her eye fell on a man lying in the yard who did not move.

“‘Tis young Mr. O’Hara,” Harriet panted beside her.

Fire shot out of the barn’s doorway. Men ran ahead of it, coughing and choking. One man, a local farmer whose crop was stored in the barn came out last, his clothing on fire. As soon as he was clear, he dropped to the ground and rolled. A woman with a bucket of water
doused him.

Shouts mingled with screams from the barn—a horse they hadn’t been able to get out. Arent fell to his knees, coughing as if his lungs had turned inside out. Two knots of concern gathered, one around each injured man.

A wild gale blew, roaring and lashing, sucking chaff into the howling pile that had been their barn. Angelica’s dress flapped madly. The heat, even at this distance, was scorching.

Flames had eaten to the timber frame. Now laid bare, the black bents arched like enormous ribs against the blaze. There were shrieking groans and explosions like cannon shots as the wood surrendered.

Angelica crouched by Arent and watched as the roof of the barn fell with a deafening roar. Fire shot to the stars. The house, the trees, the fields—everything danced in hellish scarlet.

Two men carrying long rifles came running into the yard. They were members of the local patriot militia.

“Just let us get our hands on the damned cowards, Mynheer TenBroeck!” one of them shouted fiercely over the roaring fire. “They’ll decorate the nearest tree.”

“How’d they do it?” the second man asked. “You were posting watch, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Arent said. Just that much doubled him again, so another local farmer, Cornelius, his face blackened by smoke, supplied the rest.

“They killed the sentries,” Cornelius said, his weathered face grim. “That gave them enough time to get the fire going. When the alarm was raised, they shot at us to hold us back from the barn. Pete and Kip have gone after them.”

Angelica shuddered. Pete and Kip were bondsmen who worked for her cousin—and barely beyond boyhood. Meanwhile, the militiamen nodded and turned to watch the sky-scorching fire.

“It’s a damn good thing it’s set away from the house,” said one of them, gesturing at the barn.

“Mr. Cornelius...” Angelica put her hand on the farmer’s arm. “I see poor Mr. O’Hara over there, but who else is dead?”

“Well,” Cornelius began slowly, “that young fellow who just came up from Coldenham, O’Hara. And—and...” He stopped, looked at his feet and shook his head. It was then that Angelica saw tears running down Arent’s soot-blackened face.

way hatred could be inspired by a word.

If you fought for the king, were you loyalist, or were you Tory?

If you fought for American freedom, did that make you a patriot— or a rebel?

This morning, staring at the smoking, blackened ruin of their barn, she’d had a revelation. As she’d sat with Harriet, both of them getting what milk they could from the frightened cows, she knew that who was right and who was wrong no longer mattered.

Vengeance and survival—that was the whole of war.

It is now, she thought, exactly as Jack predicted that night we stood together on the Judik. War stamped cruel, black boots across the peaceful land.

I have two duties. The first is to survive. The second is to fight those who’ve murdered my uncle and my neighbors!

***

The British continued to sail up the river. They came to Rhinebeck and to Red Hook. They burnt and looted patriot houses and barns. They killed their defenders. It didn’t happen everywhere, but if those particular British soldiers were Hessians made brutal by fighting in Europe, captive women and children were raped and murdered, too.

As soon as those fiery punitive raids were over, the patriots left alive went to homes of their Tory neighbors and returned the favor. Sometimes, to their everlasting shame, even to the assaults upon defenseless women and children.

Up and down the valley, Angelica saw rising columns of smoke. The world, the peaceful Dutch world on the Hudson of warmth, of kith and kin, seemed lost forever.

Angelica and Arent stood together in the family graveyard, gazing at the fresh grave of Jacob TenBroeck. They had laid him to sleep beside his beloved wife who had passed from this world a decade ago.

“So, we agree,” Arent said after a long silence.

“Yes, we do.”

Feeling as if the whole world had just shattered beneath her feet, Angelica added, “At the cross-quarter day of February, if Mr. Church does not return, I will go with you, cousin.”

The voice saying those words sounded firm, but very far away. With every new tale of frontier mayhem, it seemed less and less likely Jack would come back.

And how could she, even if he did, banish herself from her own beloved home place and family to live with a British officer? The kind of man who burned and looted... the kind of evil marauder who had just killed her uncle?

Perhaps, if Jacob hadn’t died, she would have continued to resist, but duty called. And, as terrible as that duty was, she now believed she must put her family first.

I will send him away. I will appeal to his commonsense and to his honor. It will probably end by killing me, but it is only too clear what I must do.

Uncle Jacob had been right to insist she keep silent about her marriage. Without fuss, she could marry Arent and link Grandfather Hendrik’s lands again.

She would mother Arent’s plump, fair children: big eyed Kitty, eleven; wild man Jake, seven; and three-year-old Balthazer, a tousled, roaring, blonde angel. She would cook his food, clean his house and allow him into her bed at night. The TenBroecks would stand together against the British, together against the war, a buttress against the devastation, the chaos, that threatened the fabric of their world.

“If the American cause fails, we shall share a common fate,” she concluded.

Headstones with Dutch inscriptions stood around them, witnesses to her words. The oldest were fading and lichen covered. Four generations of Tenbroecks, back to the first settler, Hendrick TenBroeck and his spouse, Maritje. The spirit of Maritje was said to run strong in the women of this family, for this great-great grandmother had been an unusual, independent woman.

Not only had she been the first midwife in the area, but a salaried employee of the East India Company. For a long time now, Hendrick and Maritje had slept in this spot beneath the apple trees.

Angelica slipped her hand into Arent’s. Together they stared down at the tidy house and at the silent ruin of Uncle Jacob’s huge barn. Her cousin carried her hand to his lips.

Angelica shifted, uncomfortable at the intimate touch. Among all the aches in her heart, there was one that clamored more loudly than the rest.