Authors: Julie Doherty
Chapter 48
He caught her in the hallway just outside the parlor.
“It’s raining today, Mary.” He gripped her wrists and mashed her against the paneled wall.
The rag she’d been using to polish the candlesticks fell to the painted floorcloth.
His wig was crooked and unkempt, its white curls frowning above his ears. His hot breath blasted her face, and she turned her cheek to it. She tried to shrug out of his embrace, but he held her fast.
“No hanging the wash oot today, lass. Ye’ll have to stay in the hoose wi’ me. What shall we do, aye?”
She felt his hardness at her belly.
“Please, let me go. The chair railing is gouging my back.”
“Master. Call me master.”
“Aye . . . master.”
He thrust his tongue into her ear and smeared a kiss across her cheek. “Ye favor your mother so very much.”
“I beg of ye,” Mary squealed through her tight throat, “let me attend to your hoose. There is much to do.”
“I have much to do, too, Mary.” He clamped his fingers on her jaw and forced her to face him. He grinned, eyes glimmering with cunning and lust.
She held her breath and closed her eyes.
He brushed his fingers across the mounds pushed up from her stays.
“Did Henry e’er touch ye like this? Of course, he did nae. He’s too pious, like his father.” He squeezed her breast, and she yelped.
“Please . . .”
“He’s probably dead, ye know, lost at sea.”
How she longed to shout the truth, that Henry was no navigator, but a robust man, alive and prospering in the backcountry. She knew, because she’d seen him! But that’s what the bastard wanted, and she wouldn’t to give it to him. He could have everything else, but not that.
“Why do ye hate him so much?” she asked.
“He has something I need.”
“A soul?”
He cackled. “I can see why ye caught his eye. Ye’ve a wit about ye, the one thing your mother lacked. She was a beauty, and a woman I thoroughly enjoyed, but she was as dull as a weather-beaten post.”
She didn’t believe him, of course. Everyone knew her parents loved each other. He was trying to raise her ire, hoping she forgot herself and divulged important information.
She decided to turn the tables on him.
“Your wife’s a beauty, too. Probably riding more than your fine horses while ye’re away.”
His nostrils flared, and his face flushed an angry red.
She smirked. “Och, the very idea sickens ye, does it? Why is that? After all, ye have no respect for the sanctity of your marriage, sneaking into rooms and forcing yoursel’ on your servants.”
He trembled with fury. “Now ye listen to me. I had to do that. Had to. And I’ll do it again.” He spread his hands across her belly. “Just as soon as ye whelp this one. Each brat extends your indenture by six months. I canny let ye go until I have what I want.”
“Naomi is bound for life. Ye did nae have to force yoursel’ upon her. Nay, ye did that for the sheer pleasure of it. Mayhap I should tell a magistrate of your depravity . . .
master
.”
He laughed, though his eyes still exhibited rage. “The eminent Hugh Lafferty, a child rapist?” He shook his head, sending his wig further askew. “E’en if ye found a way to get word to a magistrate, no one would believe ye, particularly since Pratt will testify that he has seen ye wi’ no less than two lads on the docks.”
“Ye disgust me, ye filthy pig.” She raised a hand to slap him. He caught it mid-way to his cheek.
“Tut tut.” He cocked his head and sneered. “Nay, lass, I’m no pig. I’m more like a wolf, a ravenous wolf.” He covered her mouth with his and forced her to taste last night’s brandy and this morning’s pipe smoke. He was so old, so vile.
She couldn’t cry out. Unable to breathe, she grew faint. He had her head pinned to the wall, her breasts in his palms.
A crash caused him to release her.
At the bottom of a curving staircase, Naomi, the maid, shuddered with her hands covering her mouth. A tray lay on the hardwood at her feet amid a puddle and broken bits of china.
“Stupid bitch.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and charged toward her.
“It was an accident,” Mary squealed, gasping for air and clawing after him. “I’ll clean it up. She did nae mean to—”
“Mind your place!”
He struck her.
She dropped to the floor, then wobbled to her hands and knees, tasting blood. She reached for a shard of teapot, but he was already out of striking distance.
With the last of her dimming vision, she saw him yank Naomi off her feet and drag her by her hair through the mess to the front door.
Chapter 49
Sarah’s needle popped in and out of the fabric, trailing thread that she tugged into stitches. In a sun patch near her feet, John rocked on his hands and knees. He would soon crawl.
“Ma-ma-ma . . .”
Sarah dropped her sewing to her lap and smiled. “How can ye not be sleepy? Ye had me up all night, ye wee scunner.”
He mimicked her smile, wrinkling up his nose and exposing two lonely teeth in the middle of his lower jaw.
She set the gown aside—it was nearly finished anyway—and picked him up.
“Ye’re in a good mood.” She smoothed the flyaway hair that matched the color of Edward’s.
He patted her cheek and vomited on her lap.
“Och, John.” She carried him across the room to get a towel.
He writhed as she wiped his mouth.
“Hush-a-bye now.” She patted his back and swayed him, hoping he’d fall asleep. “Hush-a-bye.” If he didn’t nap this afternoon, she’d go mad. She already lost one night’s sleep to his sore gums.
A knock at the door sent the baby’s head bobbing off her bosom just as he’d closed his eyes. His expression hinted at an imminent wail, and she tried to suppress his alarm by half-singing as she moved to answer the door. “Who”—she bounced him as she walked—“could that be, aye? Who is that big, bad person knocking at our door?”
Better not be one of the shop’s patrons.
They had a habit of marching up the stairs after hours. She would be less than accommodating today. It was the Sabbath, after all, her only day off. She shifted John to her hip and flung open the door, prepared to confront their unwelcome visitor.
There, blocking the light, a man with a musket doffed his hat and said her name.
Her knees turned to mush. The room closed in on her.
“Whoa, there.” Edward stripped the baby from her arms and helped her to a chair. A natural father, he held John securely in one arm and leaned his rifle against the wall with the other.
She flattened her hand across her belly and tried to talk herself out of fainting.
Edward sat across from her to bounce John on his knee. “Speak, woman. Have I done the wrong thing by coming?”
Their baby leaned back and studied the face of the man holding him. A tiny hand reached up and patted the stubble on Edward’s chin.
Edward laughed as he held the baby out at arm’s length. “My God, Sarah, he’s beautiful. He’s . . .” He pressed John to his chest, his words stolen by emotion.
To see her son in the arms of his father was more than she could bear. It was a moment she never expected to see, one that breached a dam and sent a year’s worth of tears streaming down her cheeks.
Edward settled the baby on a scrap of sheepskin near his feet and handed him a whittled horse from his pocket.
John tapped it against the floor and squealed.
“Sarah.” Edward pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “Come, now. I’m here. I’ve come.”
She melted against his chest, her shock yielding to the sanctuary he offered.
“Ye are nae alone anymore.” His words vibrated against her ear. “I would have come sooner, but I only got your letters. I love ye, woman. By God, I love ye.” He pushed her away so he could look into her eyes, and she saw truth in his expression. “I am sorry I did nae say it the day I left. It seemed mad. We only knew each other for a few days, and—”
“I know.” She nodded. “Took me by surprise, too.”
He brushed his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping away her tears. “Thank God I lived long enough to tell ye.”
“Oh, Edward.” She returned to his embrace. “I love ye so much.”
“May I hold him?”
“Of course!” Sarah set John on Henry’s lap. “He’s your brother.” The boy she last saw in Derry was now a man.
“No, no.” Henry laughed as John reached for his tomahawk. “Ye canny play wi’ that.” He slipped the weapon from his belt and handed it to Edward. “I think he likes the feathers.”
“He loves colorful things. Mercy, lad, I canny get o’er how ye’ve grown. Where are my manners?” Sarah rose and moved to the table where she began to slice bread and cheese.
“We were real sorry to hear about Thomas,” Edward said.
She halted mid-slice, remembering Thomas’s lifeless face rocking in the berth to the sway of the brig.
“With his last breath, he told me I did the right thing by coming here.” She shook away the memory and carried the food to them.
“Thank ye.” Edward took a slice of bread and laid a wedge of cheese on top. “I am pleased ye named John for him.”
“Ye’ve been all alone here since ye came?” Henry asked. “Wi’ the bairn, I mean?”
“Aye.” She took John so Henry could eat.
“Why did ye not send for us?” Henry asked. “Ye should ne’er have been alone all this time.”
“I sent a letter as soon as I could. Expected to hear back from ye in the spring, but when no reply came, I worried that it had been lost, or that perhaps your father no longer . . .”
Edward blushed and swallowed a bite of cheese. “We were nearly a year in the backcountry. They hold the post at Harris’s.”
“I went to send another, but while waiting to post it, I picked up a copy of
The Gazette
. I saw a notice in it seeking news concerning your whereabouts.”
Henry and Edward stiffened in their chairs.
“I worried that any letters to ye would draw notice, so I did nae send anymore.”
Edward patted her arm. “Ye did the right thing.”
“Who could have placed the notice?” Henry asked Edward.
Sarah answered for him. “I went back to look, fearing ye’d found some trouble. Mary Patterson took oot the notice. I remembered her name and was gonny pay a visit to her, but then one of Mistress Troup’s customers told me Mary was Hugh Lafferty’s hoosekeeper. It did nae sit right wi’ me, a servant paying for a notice. I checked
The Gazette
again and saw that inquiries were to be made to a Mister Pratt, Lafferty’s clerk. All of it smelled like John’s arse after too much peach cobbler.”
“Ye e’er see Lafferty?” Edward asked.
“Nobody has but his clerk and his slaves and a few rich widows. I did wonder . . .”
Henry and Edward shared a knowing look.
“Ye wondered right,” Edward said.
“Mercy, Hugh Lafferty is your brother?”
“We think so.”
They told her the whole story.
John threw his whittled horse onto the floor and Sarah stooped to pick it up. “Dear God, that poor lassie. And ye say she’s wi’ bairn?”
Rage simmered in Henry’s eyes. “Aye.”
Sarah relived the hardship of her pregnancy aboard
The Brotherhood
, where Syng and experienced women assisted her. Poor Mary Patterson had no one for help but the fiend who stuck the bairn in her.
“Ye’re here for her, too, I hope.”
“We are.” Edward stood. The forest’s bounty and a year’s worth of labor resulted in a broad frame thick with muscle. He exuded self-sufficiency and strength. Sorley McConnell would have his hands full if matters came to blows.
“What are ye planning?” she asked.
“We’re gonny put ye in a Quaker’s barn west of the city. We’ll get Mary today and meet ye there tonight. What do ye have to take wi’ ye?” He pulled an empty bag from his haversack and handed it to her.
“Naught but a few claithes.” She looked around the room she shared with John. “Most of these things belong to Mistress Troup.”
Henry asked, “Is there a gown in the shop below that we could buy for Mary? She’ll be on the run. Notices will have her wearing Osnaburg. We must change her dress.”
“Mistress Troup supplies the city’s socialites. E’en if a gown was available, the three of us together could nae afford it. But there’s this.” She lifted the gown she’d been sewing from scraps, one Mary needed far worse than she. “Would it work for her?”
“It’s perfect.” Edward looked at Henry, “We’re all set,” and then at Sarah. His expression turned severe. “I will nae lie to ye, Sarah, the backcountry can be rough. There is nae much at our cabin to keep a woman happy.”
She shifted John to her hip and slipped the fingers of her free hand into Edward’s rough ones. “Ye’ll be there, and that’s enough for us.”