It was a hot, slow, and dirty four hours to Camden. Tavington had given orders to bring plenty of water along, but they were still thirsty and exhausted when they finally saw Fort Carolina in the distance, and Camden beyond it. They had only lost Hawkins, the dragoon on guard duty to the west. His killers had silently come upon him, silently killed him, and silently slunk away when they saw the attack fail.
The few other wounded were able to ride, except Dan Lovins, who was lying bandaged in the wagon he had helped load the day before. The Wilde sisters had rearranged the crates and trunks to allow the filthy featherbed, covered with the quilt turned cleaner side up, to fit in the wagon and provide the wounded man with a fairly comfortable nest.
"I think the head wound is probably from a spent bullet," Miss Wilde had told Tavington. "Still, he's badly concussed, and cannot ride safely, despite his protests. He cannot even walk straight. Melly and Julia will sit with him in the wagon and look after him." She had drawn her veil over her face, and carefully donned her gloves to protect her hands, but no amount of sponging had succeeded in cleaning the blood from her habit. After the celebratory relief following the skirmish, the girls had grown quiet and seemed each in her own way to be coming to grips with the change in their circumstances.
Checking on Lovins' condition during the march, he had heard the two younger girls talking. Apparently, they had recognized some of the militiamen who had attacked them, and had mixed feeling about seeing them dead. Amelia sat silent, with hunched shoulders, attending to Lovins. Julia had fallen asleep, her head pillowed on her arms in a corner of the wagon.
Coming up beside Miss Wilde, he received a nod and a tired smile from beneath her veil, but she seemed in no mood to talk. Even with frequent halts, she was plainly fatigued.
He leaned from his horse. "Are you all right? Do you need to have someone else take the lines?"
"No. No, thank you. I can manage. But," she added wearily, "I am very ready for this day to be over."
"Apparently, your sisters recognized some of the attackers."
"So did I." She said nothing else. She saw that he was still looking at her, questions unanswered.
She went on, reluctantly. "I hardly think Charles Crawford will still want to marry me, now that I've killed his brother." She looked at him again, the heavy veil making her face hard to read. "Oh yes, I saw Francis in the streambed."
"Miss Wilde, I hardly think you should feel responsibility for a rebel's death."
"Ah, but I killed him. I killed him when I complained to you about my lack of a team, and suggested you visit his home. What I am carrying in the wagon is the price of his life. I hope we enjoy it all very much."
"He chose to be a rebel. He chose to rob you. He chose to attack us. You had no part in any of that. Even if you did," he continued, somewhat impatiently, "What does it matter? The rebels are your enemies, my enemies, and the King's enemies. Killing them is my duty. They do not fight like gentlemen, and thus do not deserve the consideration one gives to gentlemen. Though the Lord General," he added with scorn, "appears to think they should be treated as our brothers."
"Now that is interesting. How does one pursue a war with one's brother?"
"Very half-heartedly, it would seem."
"Then we cannot win."
"We shall win," he said confidently. His lips curved in a proud smile. "I have never lost a battle."
She kept her eyes on the road, her profile obscured by the dark veil. "All those victories will not avail us if the Crown decides the war is no longer in its best interest, or the Colonies 'not worth what they do cost the holding.'"
"What is aught, but as 'tis valued?"
"That is a soldier's argument indeed, Prince Troilus: fortune and glory. But the lawyers and bankers in London," she said, "may care a great deal more for the fortune and not a pin for the glory."
He rode beside her for a while in silence. Glancing back at Lovins, he said, "First we must report back to the Fort, and get Lovins and the rest of the wounded to the surgeons. Captain Wilkins and a few of the men will escort you to your aunt's. Has she a manservant?"
"A very aged one. Uncle Ganymede isn't really up to any of the trunks, much less the piano. I will need all the help you can give me." She looked straight ahead, avoiding his eyes. "I realize that words are cheap, but I never thanked you properly for saving my life. So," she said gravely, "thank you. I really am most grateful."
"Miss Wilde, you would not have been in danger, had I not insisted on taking you with me to Camden. You owe me nothing."
"I may not owe you my thanks, but it pleases me to give them to you nonetheless."
"I would gladly give you any pleasure within my power." Good God, did I really say something that stupid? He winced and looked away. He hoped her too innocent to take his words amiss. He had never been anything but awkward with women. With Miss Wilde indeed, he had felt that he was proceeding unusually smoothly, for him. Now he had made an ass of himself. He stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye. She did not seem angry or embarrassed, simply weary.
Carefully, he spoke again. "You're quite welcome."
Tired as she was, she turned the full power of her smile on him. He felt rather---what? He tried to choose the appropriate word. Charmed? Moved? Perhaps –stirred. She was not the greatest beauty he had ever met, and she certainly did not appear to best advantage in a dark veil and bloody habit, but he felt that there was something between them: some connection.
The shame of his father's ruin and his family's sudden fall into poverty had rendered him inept in society. Aware of his status as a poor relation and the son of a bankrupt, his schoolmates had been cruel and his schoolmasters disdainful. To this day, his attempts at polite conversation seemed stilted and forced even to his own ears. Only when he could armour himself in his rank and his rising fame as a soldier, did he feel he had a place among his peers.
If he had met Miss Wilde, the daughter of John Wilde, famous naturalist and wealthy landowner, at some ball or reception, he unquestionably would have been as dull and tongue-tied as he always was with a pretty woman of fortune. But--thank God--they had not met in such a way. Instead, he found her in need of his protection and assistance. They had spoken directly and without pretense of practical matters, but also of books and of nature. She had confided in him: told him her secret thoughts, and trusted him with whatever remained of her past wealth.
Why not? A woman in danger naturally will turn to the man best able to protect her. I cannot fault her for that, it is her woman's instinct, and it serves her well. Perhaps I flatter myself, but it seemed that there was more to it. She talks to me as if she values my opinion, as if my company pleases her, as if she—likes me.
He ventured another glance. She had her attractions, that was undeniable. She was well spoken, an interesting companion, and her care for her sisters bespoke a great capacity for affection and loyalty. She was a capable person as well, aside from being what the world called an accomplished woman.
She was evidently a horsewoman, she could drive a team, she had administered the family plantation by herself; she was resourceful and efficient under pressure. She had a tart tongue, perhaps, but a forgiving nature. She seemed to bear him no ill will for his assertion of authority yesterday.
He smiled to himself. She can even bake an excellent cake.
He admitted that her bond with her two young sisters struck another chord in him. He, too, had once had sisters he had loved dearly. With the collapse of the family fortune, the family itself had fallen apart: he, sent away to boarding school and then to the Army; his elder sister Margaret virtually sold to a wealthy tradesman, and dead in childbed within the year; his cherished little sister and companion Celia, perishing of loneliness and typhus in the wretched school to which she had been banished.
His own mother, lovely and loving as she was, had neither the strength nor the resources to save even herself. The day he left to take up his commission at the age of sixteen was the last time he saw her. They had corresponded faithfully for two years, and then there was nothing. Finally his repeated letters, pleading for word of her, had elicited a curt note from his Uncle Fitzroy-Hughes. His mother was dead of an overdose of laudanum, six months before. She had left nothing but debts. His family hoped he would not follow in the bad example of his parents, but expected little good of such stock. After that, Tavington had not found it hard to cut all ties with his uncle and the rest of his smug relations.
Of his father, there was no word for five years, and then he bore alone the scandal of his father's ugly and shameful death.
Talking with little Julia yesterday had recalled to him how happy he had been with his sisters years ago. It had even reminded him of his secret longing for children of his own. He wondered what kind of father he would be. As always, the first picture that came to mind was that of himself putting a lively little boy on horseback for his first riding lesson. I cannot possibly do as badly as my own father. He remembered Miss Wilde's impulsive confidence about hers: incompetent, negligent, careless, unkind. How well her description of her father described his own. Perhaps they had a great deal in common.
Unbidden came the thought he had tried to repress. What I principally find intriguing is the way she felt when I held her against me. And the way she made me feel.
He shook his head to clear it. When Miss Wilde looked at him, puzzled, he nodded to her coolly, and returned to the head of the column. It would never do to pin his hopes on a two days' acquaintance, even if her sudden reversal of fortune closed the gap between them. In the end, he had nothing to offer her but a soldier's pay, and a hard and rootless life following the army. Better to remain alone, while he had his fortune still to find.