Authors: Traitorous Hearts
Cad braced his fists on his hips and bellowed, "Adam!"
"Right here, Da." Adam stepped from behind his father.
Taller than Cadwallader, he was a brawny man, muscular from his work as the
town's blacksmith and just past thirty years of age. His blunt-featured face
was roughly good-looking, his hair a sheaf of the pure gold his father's must
once have been.
"Adam?" Captain Livingston's mouth curved wryly.
"How appropriate for a first-born son."
Cad placed his hands on his son's shoulders. His voice was low, so
only Adam could hear. "I don't want you to just beat that lobsterback, do
you hear me? I want you to humiliate him."
Adam gave a confident grin. "When have I ever done anything
else, Da?"
Cad clapped him heartily on the back. "True enough, son. True
enough."
Going to the nearest table, Adam turned a bench sideways and
straddled it. Once he had braced himself to his satisfaction, he plunked his
elbow on the table and looked expectantly at Lieutenant Leighton.
Leighton brightened. "Hello. I'm Jon."
"Uh, yeah, I know that." Adam gestured at the opposite
seat. "So are you going to sit down, or are you going to just stand there
like a lump all night?"
"Sure." The lieutenant bobbed his head. "Thank
you." He plopped down, a little off center, and wobbled for a minute
before finding a precarious balance.
Adam looked up at the man across from him, realizing he hadn't had
to look up at another man since he'd reached his full growth. It was
unsettling—or it would have been, if the man didn't have such a friendly,
vacant grin on his face, like a puppy who didn't realize the wagon he was so
happy to see was just about to run him over.
Leighton didn't have a clue what to do, Adam realized. "Look,
first put your elbow on the table, all right?"
"All right." The lieutenant did as he was told.
"Then put your forearm up in the air, and we're going to
clasp hands."
"Uh-huh." He obligingly grabbed Adam's hand.
Adam gave a deep, exasperated sigh. How was he supposed to work up
the appropriate anger and concentration? "Listen carefully now, Leighton.
When Da says 'Now,' I'm going to try and push your arm down to the table, and
you're supposed to try and push mine. We can't lift our elbows. Do you
understand?"
"Uh-huh."
Adam tried again. "It's a game."
"I like games."
He gave up. "Da, go ahead."
"Just a moment," Captain Livingston interrupted.
"Why should Jones be the one to begin the competition?"
"Do you object to this?" Cad asked.
"Well, actually, yes. How do I know the two of you don't have
some secret signal worked out, giving your son a head-start, and thus the
advantage?"
"Are you questioning my honor?" Cad raged, taking a step
toward the Englishman.
"Da, wait!" Adam nearly came off his bench in protest.
"What does it really matter who starts us?"
Cad forced himself to relax. "It doesn't, I guess. You'll win
anyway. Rufus!"
"Yes, Cad?" A thin, bespectacled man, anxious for this
chance to get a better view, hurried forward from his place in the back of the
room.
"If I can't start them, you can't start them, Captain. Same
reason." There was steely determination and barely suppressed anger in
Cad's voice. "Rufus can start them. He's the shopkeeper, and he depends as
much on your business as ours."
"Agreed."
"Start them."
Rufus nervously pushed his spectacles up his thin nose. "But,
Cad—"
"Start them!" The shout resonated off the ceiling.
"Fine." Rufus scuttled to the table where Adam and
Lieutenant Leighton sat, their beefy fists wrapped around each other. "Are
you both ready?"
"Yes. Are we going to play now?" Leighton asked
excitedly.
Adam rolled his eyes. "Would you just get on with it,
Rufus?"
"Yes. On my count of three. Ready? One..." All the
spectators, their drinks forgotten, leaned forward in anticipation.
"Two... now!"
Muscles strained. Biceps bulged. Tendons tightened and veins stood
out in bold relief. Adam grunted, then groaned. Turned red, then purple. Sweat
trickled down his face and dripped onto the table. Still the hands remained upright,
locked.
And through it all, Leighton grinned.
Finally, slowly, almost imperceptibly, the hands inched toward the
table. Adam's eyes grew wide with disbelief, and he pushed himself, taking a
deep, gulping breath that bulged his cheeks, but to no avail. The back of his
hand dropped to the planked wood.
"Good game. Next?" Jon said brightly.
The crowd was silent, stunned. Since Adam had been twenty-three,
when he'd finally managed to defeat his father, they'd never seen him lose.
Hell, no one had even bothered to challenge him for four years.
Adam, his face rigidly set, shoved his bench back from the table
and stomped out the door, giving the wall a thunderous kick as he left.
Captain Livingston applauded enthusiastically. "Rather good
showing by your son, there, Jones. That's one. Shall we work our way down the
list?"
Cad clenched his fists. "Adam's just a bit out of practice.
The others will do better."
"If you insist. Well then, where is your second son?"
"Ah, well." Cad shuffled his feet.
"Brendan's—"
"I can speak for myself, Father," said a young man
standing a bit away from the rest.
"Brendan..."
Brendan faced the captain. He was of average height and slender
build; in no other place but among a collection of such outsize men as the
Joneses would he look small, but here he undeniably did. He was dark-haired,
had graceful, almost delicate bones, and looked nothing like any of his
brothers.
"What my father is trying to say, Captain, is that I don't
have the, uh, heft of the rest of my family. If you'd consider turning to a
test of wits rather than strength, I'd be happy to oblige you."
"You don't look much like your father, do you?"
"I favor Mother. Now, what do you say?"
Livingston shook his head. "No, I'll stick to the original
wager. It will be a contest of strength. Do you concede this match,
Jones?"
"I concede nothing!" The men closest to Cad flinched at
his bellow.
"But I do," Brendan said calmly. "I see no
advantage in wasting my energy on a cause I cannot hope to win. It is something
you might consider, Father."
Father and son stared at each other, the argument clearly an old
one, but, equally clearly, neither was ready to yield to the other.
"Sometimes I wonder how I ever produced you," Cad
finally said.
"I often wonder the same."
"There will be time for family squabbles later, Jones. I'm
here to win some drinks. Who is the next one?" Captain Livingston asked.
"Carter."
"Carter. Good God, man, you can't mean you named them
alphabetically?"
"I most certainly did."
The captain chuckled. "Well, then, bring them on."
Carter proved no better than Adam, nor did David, nor Frank. By
the time Jon met George, the consensus was that the lieutenant must be tiring.
They were wrong. One big, strapping blond man after another was defeated,
giving way to strapping blond adolescents. Through it all, the lieutenant
grinned and laughed and generally seemed delighted with the whole process. By
the time Henry and then Isaac lost, Cad's anger had faded into weary
resignation. This man could best his sons. He was mightily tempted to give it a
shot himself, but he knew deep down, bitter as it was, that he would not fare
better. Besides, Mary, his wife, would make sure he regretted it if he did
something so foolish.
"Well, that's it, then." Captain Livingston leaned back,
crossing his thin legs at the knee, his booted foot swinging. "You may as
well bring us some beer."
"No E," the lieutenant put in abruptly.
"What?" Livingston asked.
"No E." Leighton pointed to the door.
"A—Adam." He gestured to Brendan, who was propped comfortably against
a far wall as he watched the proceedings. "B." He pointed to the
remaining Jones sons in turn. "C, D, F, G, H, I. No E."
"That's right, isn't it?" Captain Livingston clicked his
tongue against his teeth. "We may as well make this complete. Where's the
fifth one, Jones? Hiding him? Perhaps he's not quite up to snuff, eh?"
"I told you, Bennie can't—"
"Bennie? We're looking for the E one. Lose track of your
letters, Jones?"
Cad ground his teeth together. "I most certainly did not!
Bennie's a nickname."
"Well, then, bring him out. I'm sure Lieutenant Leighton
wouldn't mind humiliating another one of your sons."
"I'm Bennie." At the soft, musical voice, Jon leapt to
his feet, tipping his bench over in his haste to stand rigidly at attention.
"Dear God!" Captain Livingston's boots thunked on the
plank floor as he abruptly sat up. "He's a woman!"
"How brilliant of you to notice, Captain. I am Elizabeth
Jones," she said.
The captain stood and circled her slowly while she stood
comfortably tall and waited. She was clearly a Jones: tall, strong-boned, and
clean-featured. Her hair, wayward curls escaping from the tight braid down her
back, combined all the various shades of her brothers': sunny gold, pale wheat,
and a few strands of the dark, warm brown that matched her eyes. And, despite
the loose, concealing fit of her flowing white shirt and baggy, gathered brown
skirt, she was also clearly a woman. She had broad, square shoulders,
generously rounded hips, and a matching, impressive bosom. The bunched fabric
at her middle hid but hinted tantalizingly at a sharply curved waist.
Captain Livingston smiled slowly and reached out to wind a curl of
her hair around his forefinger, marveling at his good fortune. This wonderfully
proportioned woman was the most intriguing female he'd seen since he'd landed.
She was not only a colonial, but she worked in such a place as the Dancing Eel;
clearly a woman who'd be flattered by the enthusiastic attentions of a young,
fast-rising British officer. "You're rather a lot of woman, aren't
you?" His gaze dropped to her breasts. "Ample. I like that."
The spectators drew a collective, anticipatory breath and waited.
In New Wexford, Elizabeth held a rather unique position. They didn't think of
her as a girl, exactly; she was just Bennie Jones. She didn't really have a
gender. But, on rare occasions, a traveler passing through town, intrigued by
her curvy figure and encouraged by her quiet manner, would make the mistake of
thinking that a wench who worked in a tavern was naturally a tavern wench.
The damage Bennie could do to a man's ego was matched only by the
damage she could do to his body— she'd had eight brothers to learn from, after
all. And if that weren't enough, any man who was, in her brothers' opinion,
disrespectful
to Bennie could look forward to a painful visit from one or two or several
of the Jones boys.
Bennie stared directly down at the captain from her two-inch
advantage. She grasped his wrist in one hand, and peeled his fingers off her
hair with the other, bending those fingers back, and back, and back.
"Yes, I am a lot of woman. It's too bad you're so little a
man, isn't it," she said, so quietly Livingston was the only one who could
hear her.
The captain's face blanched nearly as white as his wig. He tried
to jerk his hand from her grasp, but her grip was firm. She smiled and released
him, giving a careless shrug. "Too bad."
Color flooded back into his face. "Why, you..." He
stopped. "Lieutenant Leighton, it appears you have another drink to
win."
"Now see here, Captain Livingston. I won't be having my
Bennie touching that lump you call a lieutenant. I'll
give
you the damn
drink," Cad protested.
"Oh, but that wouldn't be acceptable at all," Livingston
replied. "We had a wager. One drink for every one of your offspring the
lieutenant defeats. I demand that you honor it."
"But you didn't make Brendan go through with it."
"No." The captain chuckled. "But there was no sport
in that. This, I think, could be highly entertaining."
"I will not have it!" Cad thundered.
"Da." Bennie laid a calming hand on her father's arm.
"I don't mind."
"Ben, he could hurt you."
She shook her head. "He won't."
"You sound very sure."
"I am."
Cad sighed heavily. "But, Bennie, I—"
"I'm going to do it anyway, Da, whatever you say."
"Do none of you ever plan to let me finish a sentence?"
She rose to plant a kiss on his grizzled cheek. "I can't help
it, Da. I'm a Jones."
She walked over to her opponent, who, for some reason, was still
at attention, his gaze fixed at some point over everyone's head.