“I was put in irons by a British officer who took me up as a spy,” he said boldly. Entirely true, he reflected, so far as it goes.
A deep hum of interest ran among the men, who pressed closer to look at him, and the prodding musket barrel was withdrawn altogether.
“Indeed,” said his captor, who had an educated English voice, with a slight Dorset accent. “And what might be your name, sir?”
“Bertram Armstrong,” he replied promptly, using two of his middle names. “And may I have the pleasure of knowing your own name, sir?”
The man pursed his lips a little but answered readily enough.
“I am the Reverend Peleg Woodsworth, Captain of the Sixteenth Pennsylvania, sir. And your company?” Grey saw Woodsworth’s eyes flick toward his liberty cap with its bold motto.
“I haven’t yet joined a company, sir,” he said, softening his own accent just a little. “I was on my way to do so, in fact, when I ran afoul of a British patrol and shortly thereafter found myself in the straits you see.” He raised his wrists a little, clanking. The hum of interest came again, this time with a distinct note of approval.
“Well, then,” Woodsworth said, and lifted his musket to his shoulder. “Come along with us, Mr. Armstrong, and I think we might be able to relieve your straits.”
BLOODY MEN
ONCE THEY REACHED the trace, there were horses, mules, and wagons, as well as militia companies. Rachel was able to ride in a teamster’s wagon filled with sacks of barley, Ian and Rollo trotting along beside, as far as Matson’s Ford, where they were meant to meet Denzell and Dottie. They waited at the ford until midmorning, but there was no sign of Denzell’s wagon, and none of the militia groups crossing there had seen him.
“He’ll have had an emergency,” Rachel said, lifting one shoulder in resignation. “We’d best go on by ourselves; perhaps we can find a wagon on the main road that will carry us into the city.” She wasn’t troubled; any doctor’s family was used to fending for themselves unexpectedly. And she loved being alone with Ian, talking, looking at his face.
Ian agreed that this was good sense, and they splashed across, shoes in hand, the cold water a relief. Even in the forest, the air was close and hot, restless with prowling thunder that never came close enough to do much good.
“Here,” he said to Rachel, and handed her his moccasins, his rifle, and his belt, with powder horn, shot bag, and dirk. “Stand back a bit, aye?” He could see a scour in the streambed, where a persistent eddy had carved a deep hole, a dark, inviting shadow in the ripples of the creek. He leapt from stone to stone and jumped from the last one, going into the hole with a PLUNK! like a dropped boulder. Rollo, belly-deep in the ford and soaked to the shoulders, barked and showered Rachel with water from a huge wagging tail.
Ian’s head lunged back into view, streaming water, and he reached a long, skinny arm toward her leg, beckoning her to join him. She didn’t retreat but held his rifle out at arm’s length and raised one brow, and he dropped his invitation, scrambling out of the hole on hands and knees. He stood up in the ford and shook himself like Rollo, spattering her with icy drops.
“Want to go in?” he asked, grinning as he took back his weapons. He wiped water from his brows and chin with the back of his hand. “It’ll cool ye right down.”
“I would,” she said, smearing the cold droplets over her sweating face with one hand, “if my clothes were as impervious to the elements as thine are.” He had on his worn buckskin leggings and breechclout, with a calico shirt so faded that the red flowers on it were nearly the same color as the brown background. Neither water nor sun would make any difference, and he would look just the same wet or dry—while she would look like a drowned rat all day, and an immodest drowned rat at that, shift and dress half transparent with water and sticking to her.
The casual thought coincided with Ian’s buckling of his belt, and the movement drew her eye to the flap of his linen breechclout—or, rather, to where it had been before he raised it to pull it over his belt.
She drew in her breath audibly and he looked up at her, surprised.
“Eh?”
“Never mind,” she said, her face going hot despite the cool water. But he looked down, following the direction of her gaze, and then looked back, right into her eyes, and she had a strong impulse to jump straight into the water, damage to her wardrobe notwithstanding.
“Are ye bothered?” he said, eyebrows raised, as he plucked at the wet cloth of his breechclout, then dropped the flap.
“No,” she said with dignity. “I’ve seen one before, thee knows. Many of them. Just not . . .” Not one with which I am soon to be intimately acquainted. “Just not . . . yours.”
“I dinna think it’s anything out o’ the ordinary,” he assured her gravely. “But ye can look, if ye like. Just in case. I wouldna want ye to be startled, I mean.”
“Startled,” she repeated, giving him a look. “If thee thinks I am under any illusions about either the object or the process, after living for months in a military camp . . . I doubt I shall be shocked, when the occasion a—” She broke off, a moment too late.
“Rises,” he finished for her, grinning. “I think I’ll be verra disappointed if ye’re not, ken?”
IN SPITE OF the hot blush, which seemed to run from her scalp straight down into her nether regions, she didn’t begrudge him fun at her expense. Anything that made him smile like that was balm to her own spirit.