Gabriel Martin found a carriage not long after leaving to do his father's bidding. He'd discovered Charlotte's slave, Lucius, coming out of Widow Hammond's barn with the widow's maid at the same time he noticed his aunt's carriage parked out front.
At the sight of Charlotte Tavington's nephew, Lucius suddenly realized how long he'd been away. He quickly gave Bessie a quick kiss, then said, "I'm late! I was supposed to have picked up Miss Charlotte at least forty-five minutes ago!"
After rushing over to untie the horses, he jumped up into the wagon to go back to the tailor shop, hoping Miss Charlotte wouldn't be too angry with him. Before he could pull away, however, Gabriel climbed into the wagon seat beside him.
"Mister Gabriel?" Lucius said cautiously, wondering what he wanted. The Martins had been occasional visitors to Miss Charlotte's home before she'd married Colonel Tavington, but not since that time, so Lucius was hesitant.
"Aunt Charlotte has been attacked in town," Gabriel explained briefly. "We need to get her home."
"Oh, God," the young man moaned. "What happened? Will she be all right?"
"She was nearly ravished," Gabriel told him harshly. "I don't know how it happened, but she's going to be all right. Father and I got there just in time to save her from that humiliation. We need to get her out of here as quickly as possible."
"Oh, my God," Lucius repeated, sick at heart. Feeling miserable, he wished he'd heeded his own instincts and waited outside the tailor shop for her.
The carriage came to a clattering stop a few moments later as Lucius pulled up to where Ben Martin still stood comforting Charlotte. The townspeople had dispersed and he'd sent the rest of his men to their base camp to lay low, so the two stood there alone in the street. Ben had removed his jacket, which was now draped around her shoulders. He'd retrieved her white cap from the ground where it had fallen when Mattie had snatched her hat off her head and it now covered what was left of her hair.
Benjamin Martin didn't say a word to Lucius, but helped Charlotte into the carriage, then got in beside her.
Leaning out the window to Gabriel, who'd alighted from the carriage, he said, "Ride alongside and lead my horse with you. We'll stay just long enough to get her settled, as I don't fancy meeting Tavington, today especially."
"I don't want to be anywhere near when he finds out," Gabriel readily agreed, shivering at the thought.
Charlotte gradually calmed down as the carriage rattled out of town and Pembroke slowly faded into the distance behind them.
"Do you want to talk about it,?" Ben asked quietly a few minutes later when he noticed her relax against the seat cushion.
Charlotte nodded weakly and said, "Give me a moment to collect myself."
As she steeled herself to recount the horror of it all, Ben told her, "I will admit that I was angry beyond belief when I found out that you had refused my offer of marriage to marry a man such as Tavington." He almost succeeded in keeping the venom out of his voice when he said Tavington's name.
Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but Martin held up a hand.
"Let me finish," he said gently. "As I was saying, though I am unhappy about the man you chose to marry, I could never condone what was done to you today. I am ashamed to say that the man who assaulted you was one of my men, but I can assure you that he will be dealt with most severely."
"I know you had nothing to do with it," Charlotte said weakly. "In fact I was surprised to see you at all, as I'd thought you were off fighting somewhere."
Ben smiled indulgently at her, as he realized that British intelligence was monitoring his whereabouts.
"We were to participate in a battle that was concluded before we were even halfway there," he said simply, not elaborating. They'd been stopped by a courier who told them of the Patriot victory at King's Mountain and of Patrick Ferguson's death. "When we got the news, we simply turned around to come back home again to pick up the two men who'd returned to Pembroke for personal business."
"Which were the two who accosted me, I take it," Charlotte reasoned.
"Yes," Ben confirmed. Changing the subject, he asked, "What were you doing in town by yourself, anyway. I'd have thought Tavington would have had more sense than to allow that."
"William doesn't know," Charlotte told him frankly. "I got the idea to come to town this morning." After a long pause, she confided, "You see, I'm with child and I needed to have some jumps and clothing made to see me through until the baby is born. I'd thought I had such things I could use at the plantation house from my first baby, but I found them to be ruined."
Benjamin Martin nearly choked at hearing this, looking as if he was about to swallow his tongue, but he eventually schooled his facial expression.
"Are you all right?" Martin finally asked. "Rollins didn't hurt the baby, did he?"
"The baby is fine," she said. "He didn't get the chance to hurt the baby and I don't think he was aware that I'm with child."
"Still, you need to be seen by a doctor to make sure," Leaning out the window, he called for Gabriel to come over. After his son obeyed, he said, "Gabriel, go ride off and find Doc Sibley and tell him to come to your Aunt Charlotte's house. He's the closest doctor to the plantation."
After Gabriel had ridden off to find the doctor, Ben returned to what he'd been saying. "You should have had more sense than to come to Pembroke alone. You know it's a Patriot town. You should have realized that by marrying the Butcher, you had it coming if you stepped foot in Pembroke."
"I wasn't aware that my marriage was common knowledge in Pembroke," Charlotte shot back frostily. "Apparently, you've let it be known." Giving him a cold glare, she added, "And how dare you say I deserved it simply for choosing to marry the man I love."
"No, I never mentioned it to anyone," Martin insisted. "Gabriel must have told Anne Howard about it. They're engaged, you know. And I didn't say you deserved to be assaulted, but, rather, that this could likely happen if you visited a Patriot town unprotected." After a pause, he added, "But I wouldn't have expected Rollins to recognize you at all, let alone know who you were married to."
Charlotte thought for a minute, then exclaimed, "Oh, yes, of course!"
"What?" Martin asked, confused.
"I didn't recognize the woman who did this to my hair at the time," Charlotte said, making a helpless gesture toward her head. "But I remember her now. When I travelled up from Charlestown with William, we stopped at a small farm for lunch. One of his men discovered a cache of weapons in the barn, so William hanged the farmer for treason. The woman I saw today was that man's wife."
"She's Rollins' sister, Mattie," Ben said. "She must have told him who you were."
"No doubt," Charlotte agreed. "Why was this Rollins person in Pembroke for in the first place? Should he not have been riding with your group?"
"I'd sent him home as his wife was about to have a baby," Ben explained.
"That man has a wife?" Charlotte sneered, shuddering. "It's hard to believe that any woman would marry him. And what was he doing in Pembroke assaulting me when he should have been by her bedside?"
"That's what I intend to find out," Ben said heavily. He did not add that he couldn't see how any woman would marry Tavington, either, but knew it was best to keep his thoughts about that to himself.
The two fell silent for several minutes, then Ben spoke again.
"Are you happy, Charlotte?" he asked suddenly. "I'll admit I can't understand why you refused me to marry Tavington."
Charlotte repressed the urge to roll her eyes at Ben's arrogance, then said firmly, "Yes, I'm very happy. William treats me like a queen and we're very much in love." After a pause, she added, "And although you've been a good brother-in-law to me, I've never thought of you as anything more than a dear friend."
"I see," Ben said slowly, clearly disappointed.
No more words were spoken as they'd now reached the tree-lined lane that led to Charlotte's plantation.
As Ben got down from the carriage, then turned to assist Charlotte to alight, Magnolia and Ruth came outside, alerted by one of the maids about their arrival.
"Mr Ben, what are you doing here?" she demanded, knowing the bad blood between him and William Tavington.
Her eyes then fell on Charlotte, whose gown was in tatters and her chopped hair showing through her now-dirty white cap.
"Oh, dear God, what happened?" Magnolia said, lifting her petticoats as she hurried down the steps.
"She was assaulted and robbed in town," Ben told her briefly, not wanting to go into detail in front of Charlotte. "The doctor's on his way but I need you to get her cleaned up and into bed before the doctor gets here."
"Right away, Mr Ben!" she said wringing her hands in agitation.
After Ben accompanied Charlotte up the stairs and inside the front door, the two women took over, going upstairs with Charlotte to see to her needs until the doctor arrived.
Once the women had disappeared up the stairway, Ben stepped back out onto the porch to wait for Gabriel and the doctor to arrive, keeping alert just in case Tavington and his dragoons should suddenly appear.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
After about a half hour of being trapped by the bear, Sergeant Dobbins and Corporal Peterson were able to move on at last after the bear finally decided to amble away from them further into the forest
"I thought that damn bear would never leave," Peterson grumbled as they walked in the opposite direction from the large creature.
"Don't complain," Dobbins told him reasonably. "At least it didn't decide to make us its dinner."
"Now we have to figure out how to get out of here," Peterson said. "Do you have any idea which way we should be going?"
"Not a clue," Dobbins admitted. "I know one thing, though. The Colonel's wife is going to livid when she sees us again. I hope she had the sense not to wait for us once she was done in the shop and simply started home."
"And that's if the slave returned on time as well," Peterson pointed out. "In either instance, the Colonel is going to have our heads."
"I'm afraid you're right, old man," Dobbins agreed, sighing heavily.
After about forty-five minutes, they noticed the trees thinning out a bit. In another five minutes, they came to the road. Hearing a clattering sound in the distance heading away from them, they looked down the road to see Charlotte Tavington's carriage rapidly disappearing in the distance.
"Well, at least we found the road," Peterson observed.
"Yes, and we now know that Mistress Tavington did the sensible thing and headed home," Dobbins put in. "We'll just follow the road and hope that someone in a wagon comes along to give us a ride back or maybe we'll find some horses to steal along the way. Until that time, we walk."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Ben Martin had been standing on the porch chatting with Rufus for forty minutes before Gabriel reappeared with Doc Sibley. His own horse still trailed beside Gabriel and as the two men stopped and dismounted, Ben took charge of the horse, tying him to a tree nearby.
As the doctor hurried up the stairs, Ruth was waiting for him at the top, ready to show him upstairs.
After the door had closed behind them, Ben turned to Gabriel and asked, "Did you tell Doc Sibley who she's married to?"
"Yes, I did," Gabriel said seriously. "I wanted him to make his own free choice about whether he wanted to come here, so he'd not have any unpleasant surprises." After a pause, he added, "But it didn't matter to him. He said he's always treated the sick, no matter who they were, and wasn't about to stop doing that now."
"That's good for your Aunt Charlotte's sake," Ben remarked. "At his age, he's able to take the neutral stance that Charlotte's husband forced me out of."
"Speaking of Tavington, we probably need to get moving," Gabriel said. "He could show up here at any time and we certainly don't need to be around when he finds out what happened today."
"You're right," his father agreed. "We're going to have to lay low for awhile until things settle down a bit." As almost an afterthought, he added, "Charlotte should be all right here with her staff until Tavington returns."
"Are you going to go up and say goodbye?" Gabriel asked.
"We said our goodbyes in the carriage," Ben said laconically, if not entirely truthfully. Both he and Charlotte knew without saying that as long as the war lasted that there would be little reason or opportunity for them to interact. Ben wasn't sure if their familial relationship could be repaired even after the war, as long as she remained married to the Butcher.
A short time later, after watering the horses, the two men were on their way, moving rapidly on hidden trails in the woods toward their secluded swamp base.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
William Tavington was greatly satisfied as the dragoon column made its way back to the plantation in the early evening hours. They'd managed to find and fire four homesteads belonging to men known to ride with Martin's partisans.
And the last homestead had proven to be the most satisfying of all. The woman there had turned out to be most cooperative when asked questions about her husband's activities. It seemed as if the wench was irritated about her man leaving her alone on their backwoods farm for months at a time while he was off doing "God knows what", to use the woman's own words. She'd lost two babies since her marriage and was nearly at the end of her rope being stuck so far from settled areas.
Tavington had to give part of the credit for the woman's volubility to Sergeant Marcus Tapp, whom he'd spied rogering the young farm wife out behind the barn while the other men ransacked the house prior to firing it and others searched the outbuildings and nearby woods. The woman seemed eager enough to accept Tapp's attentions, so Tavington had left them to their pleasure, after which she'd been most cooperative in answering questions.
The dragoon leader looked back over his shoulder to see the young woman riding double with Tapp, having offered her services to him to take care of all his needs, both sensual and mundane.
They'd occasionally picked up new camp followers in this fashion during Tavington's years in the colonies, so it was not an unusual occurrence when he'd observed Tapp slinging her small bundle of belongings onto his horse, then helping up onto the animal.
Tavington was somewhat surprised that Tapp had decided to accept the woman's offer, however. Marcus Tapp was nearly legendary among the men concerning his apparent ease in getting women of all ages and political persuasions into bed with him. However, he was as equally well-known for not forming any lasting attachments, not letting any woman get too close to him. As they continued to ride, he wondered why Tapp had decided to take this woman along.
Tapp had joined the Green Dragoons in New Jersey in 1779, He'd been the Sheriff of a New Jersey town just over the river from Philadelphia and had proven to be an excellent horseman and swordsman, so Tavington took him on readily enough.
Slightly older and taller than Tavington, the American sheriff bore an uncanny resemblance to his commander, but with his eyes an almost unnaturally pale shade of blue. An ambitious man, Tapp had been a good trooper and Tavington had made good use of his law enforcement experience, mostly in keeping order and discipline among the dragoons. He was Tavington's eyes and ears among the enlisted ranks, keeping him apprised of things he needed to know.
As the dragoon column got closer to the plantation, Tavington's thoughts turned increasingly to Charlotte. He looked forward to lying in her arms tonight, and hoped that she'd not been too bored waiting at home for him.
All was seemingly quiet and peaceful as the group thundered up the familiar tree-lined lane about an hour later. But Tavington had a sudden gut feeling that something wasn't quite right, especially when no one came out onto the porch at their approach to greet them. He didn't see any sign of the two dragoons he'd left to guard the place, which further increased his unease.
No sooner had he dismounted than Magnolia suddenly appeared on the porch, wringing her hands in distressed agitation. Rufus appeared a moment later, looking equally upset.
Not waiting for a groom to take charge of his horse, he tied it to the same tree that Ben Martin had earlier used.
"Come quick, Colonel!" Magnolia cried urgently. "Miss Charlotte needs you right away!"
Tavington hurried up the steps to where the slaves waited for him. "What's wrong?" he demanded. "Is it the baby?"
"No sir," she assured him, after they'd stepped inside the house. "Least ways I don't think so." Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Miss Charlotte went into Pembroke today and was attacked by two men and a woman there."
"What?" Tavington didn't quite believe what he was hearing. "What was she doing in Pembroke? She should have had better sense than to go there unprotected. Where are the two men I left here?"
"She went to town to the tailor shop to see about having new clothes and new stays made," Magnolia reported "The two dragoon men went with her when she left in the carriage, but they didn't come back with her. Nobody knows what happened to them, 'cause they were gone when Miss Charlotte came out of the tailor shop."
Tavington sighed, figuring the two men must have been ambushed and killed. Fearing the worst, he asked in a low voice, "Was she ravished?"
"No, sir, thank God," Magnolia reported. "But them nasty man would have if Mister Ben Martin had not come along and rescued her. He done brought her home and Mister Gabriel fetched the doctor here for her."
"Are they still here?" he demanded, wondering what they were doing in Pembroke when intelligence reports had them riding hard to the north.
"No, sir,' she said. "They lit out of here like the Devil himself was chasing them soon as Doc Sibley got here. I don't think they wanted to see you at all, considerin' it was two of Mister Ben's men that attacked Miss Charlotte."
It took all of Tavington's self control to hold in his rage at this point. His instincts screamed at him to get revenge for the atrocity that had been visited upon his wife, but he would wait until he had the entire story before acting. Years of experience as a soldier had taught him that revenge was a dish best served cold. He would find out from Charlotte exactly what had happened, then he would make sure that those responsible would pay with their lives.
"Where is she now?" Tavington asked in an unnaturally calm voice, his azure eyes having turned to frigid ice. "Is the doctor still with her."
"Yes, sir," she said. "He's been waitin' for you to get home to talk to you." She shivered involuntarily, seeing the expression on Tavington's face. The middle aged slave was suddenly glad not to be the target of his ire.
In a somewhat less icy tone of voice, Tavington said, "Thank you, Magnolia. That will be all for now."
William Tavington mounted the stairs with grim determination. As he reached the top, the door to the bedroom he shared with Charlotte opened and Ruth stepped out into the hall, followed by a small man in middle late middle age.
"Oh, Colonel Tavington!" Ruth exclaimed, trying to keep her voice low "We've been waiting for you! Did Magnolia tell you what happened?"
"Yes, she did," he replied briefly.
The older man turned to him, extending his hand to shake. "I'm Dr James Sibley. You must be Colonel Tavington."
Shaking the man's hand perfunctorily, Tavington got straight to the point "How is she? Is the baby going to be all right?"
"She'll be fine," Dr Sibley assured him. "And the baby is fine" With a concerned frown, he continued, "But as you will see, she's been subject to some rather rude and rough treatment, so she'll need some indulgent cosseting in order to restore her nervous constitution. I've given her a small dose of laudanum and I've left a large bottle for her to use as needed. Rest and relaxation will be the best thing for her."
"Is she still awake?" Tavington demanded.
"She should be," the doctor said. "But go in there now if you want to talk to her for a bit before she falls asleep."
"I'd like it if you would stay here overnight and check her again in the morning before returning home," Tavington told the doctor. "I will, naturally, pay you more to do so."
"No extra pay is necessary," the doctor replied. "I've been treating your wife since she was a child and I want to make sure she's well before I return home."
A moment later, Tavington entered the bedroom to find Charlotte sitting up in bed, staring into space as she mindlessly twisted a handkerchief in her lap. He had to struggle to keep a calm expression on his face when he noticed the bruises on her arms and the results of Mattie's butchery on her hair.
"William…" Charlotte's lip trembled at the sight of her husband standing in the doorway. She'd kept a stiff upper lip all through this ordeal, but the façade began to crumble as she felt safe to express her feelings, now that William was here to be the strong one.
"Oh, my sweet love," Tavington murmured as he rushed to her side, sitting on the side of the bed as he took her into his arms.
"Oh, William it was so horrible!" she exclaimed as she began to sob in his arms. "I've never been so terrified in all my life. I was afraid they were going to kill me once they'd violated me!"
"Shh, shh, it's all right now," he soothed, rubbing her back in small circles. "I'm here now."
For several minutes no more words were spoken as he continued to hold her close, softly murmuring as he rocked slowly back and forth with her as she continued to cry.
Gaining strength and assurance from her husband's strong embrace, Charlotte's sobs began to subside within a short time.
Pulling back from him slightly, she said, "I'm all right now, I think. I draw such strength from your mere presence." Laughing softly, she added, "I haven't dared to look in a mirror. I'm sure that I look frightful. It will take years for my hair to grow back properly."
"My love, you are always beautiful to me," William assured her seriously "I didn't marry a hank of hair; I married you."
"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" she asked.
"Many times," he murmured. "But I never tire of hearing it."
After a few moments, he said, "If you're up to it, I need to hear exactly what happened, so I can find those responsible and make them pay. Why on Earth were you In Pembroke to begin with?"
Taking a deep breath, Charlotte began, "Ruth and I had gone to the attic to find the jumps I'd worn from my first pregnancy, but I found them moth eaten, stained, and utterly ruined. And the gowns I'd worn there were hopelessly out of fashion, so I decided to have more made. There's an excellent tailor shop in Pembroke, so I decided to go there."
"Why did you not wait for me to take you?" he asked. "I would have been most happy to do so."
"Oh, it's such a trivial matter and you have so many important matters to deal with," she told him.
"There is nothing more important to me than you," he replied. "Didn't you know that?"
"Still, though, I didn't want to take you from your duties," she insisted. "And considering that your intelligence reports told you that partisan activity had shifted to the north, I thought it was a safe time to go. I did have your two dragoons along, as well as Lucius with his fowling piece."
"It would seem as if the two dragoons must have been killed when you were inside the shop," Tavington told her. "But where was Lucius when all of this was happening?"
"It's my fault," Charlotte confessed. "He'd wanted to wait for me outside the shop, but I insisted that he go along to visit Bessie, the girl he's been courting, who lives on the outside of town. Please don't punish him, as it was all my doing."
"All right, I won't," Tavington said, heaving a gusty sigh.
"When we rode into town, the dragoons hid in the woods where they had a clear view of the tailor shop. It was quiet when we arrived, and it seemed as if I'd have no trouble, so I sent Lucius on."
"Go on," he encouraged.
"I finished my business more quickly than I'd originally estimated, so when I came out, Lucius had not returned with the carriage. I sat down on a bench to wait and it wasn't long after that when those two partisans appeared out of nowhere, along with that horrible woman Mattie Draper. You remember her, she was the wife of that farmer you executed for treason on our ride up from Charlestown. It seems she is the sister of one of the men, Rollins. And she had to have been the one who alerted the two men as to who I was."
"Ah, yes, I remember," Tavington said, a grim expression on his face. "Continue."
Yawning now, as the laudanum gradually began to take effect on her, she said, "That man, Rollins, began to paw me, but I managed to escape momentarily when some big dogs ran up and knocked him and the other partisan, Billings, down. I ran to a nearby house, but the woman there, Anne Howard, who is my nephew's intended, slammed the door in my face, telling me I was getting what a deserved for marrying you."
"I see," Tavington commented, wishing he'd simply strangled that harridan to death when he'd last been in Pembroke. This time, however, he would make sure she got what she so richly deserved, along with the Draper bitch.
"By this time, they'd nearly caught back up with me, so I ran again. Some of the children in town ran after me, throwing stones and jeering at me. Then I tripped and fell over a rock, and that was when they got me again," she told him. "That repulsive little man, Rollins began to paw at me again, then he dragged me between two buildings to violate me. Before he could do so, his vile sister had them hold me still and she cut off almost all my hair and ruined my gown with her scissors."
Almost losing her composure again, she forced herself to finish the story. "After she was done butchering my hair, I felt him put his fingers up inside me. I tried to get away, but they held me down over a sawhorse. By that time, I could hear quite a few of the townspeople nearby encouraging him to violate me."
She gulped loudly as she repressed the urge to cry again. "But before he could complete the act, Ben Martin rode up and made him stop. He dispersed the crowd, then he and Gabriel made sure I got home safely and also summoned the doctor for me. They left rather quickly once the doctor arrived, as I expect they didn't want to meet you."
He could feel the rage building within him again, as he held her close again after she'd finished telling her story. After a few moments, once he'd felt her relax and the laudanum take a stronger hold on her, he released her and gently pulled the covers up as she leaned back on the bed, ready for sleep.
"Get some rest, love," he murmured. "I need to go talk with my men for awhile. I'll send Ruth in to sit with you while I'm gone."
A few moments later, as he descended the stairs, a plan took hold in his mind to avenge the brutality visited upon his wife. With cold resolve, he stepped outside onto the porch, looking to gather his men together to tell them of his plan.
As he started down the steps, he met Sergeant Marcus Tapp coming up to find him. By this time, the news of what happened to Charlotte Tavington had spread among all the dragoons.
"Colonel!" he called out without waiting for Tavington to acknowledge him. "Captain Bordon sent me to report that Dobbins and Peterson have come back. They just came straggling out of the woods without their horses no more than five minutes ago!"
"Oh?" Tavington responded, his ire building. "Take me to them. I really need to hear why they failed to protect my wife this afternoon."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Author's Note: I borrowed the character of Marcus Tapp from Margaret Lawrence's excellent series of mystery novels taking place in Maine in 1786. Tapp was such a wonderfully delicious and conflicted bad boy that I felt would have made an excellent dragoon before moving to Maine and his role as Sheriff in Lawrence's books after the war.