Tessa set her jaw. Did Hester truly expect her to fix the commander’s breakfast? She’d rather face a multitude of redmen than obey this blatant attempt at matchmaking. Her great-aunt had many fine qualities, but tact wasn’t one of them. Nor was patience.
“Quit your dawdling!” Hester scolded as Tessa took a quick look in a cracked looking glass hauled overmountain long ago. “The man can’t manage a garrison on an empty stomach.”
Tessa shot a glance at the half-open cabin door. Doggone the milking! Where was Ma when she needed her to put a stop to such foolishness?
“Oh, and he’s overfond of sweetening, just so you know,” Hester said with a wave of her hand. “Prefers loaf sugar but he’ll take molasses in a pinch.”
Biting back a retort, Tessa stepped outside into a morning of warm mist, the sky a pleasing pink, the common littered with last night’s revelry. A stone’s throw away was the blockhouse, door open wide, the hearty smell of bear bacon beckoning. Her own stomach rumbled.
Shutting her eyes, she uttered a hasty, heartfelt prayer and then, still addled as a bee in a butter churn, bridged the short distance to the blockhouse. There at the hearth were the fixings of a commander’s breakfast. She noted both coffee and tea. Plenty of sweetening.
No colonel.
From the loft above came a few decisive sounds. The thud of a boot. The opening of a shutter. Singing.
Though low, the voice was distinct and melodious, even rich. “The Nightingale”? ’Twas a tune she knew well. She bit her lip to keep from joining in and focused on the task before her. First, a daub of grease in a hot iron skillet, then hoecake batter fried a deep brown. She herself liked them golden with butter, no sweetening.
“Good morning, one morning, one morning in May,
I spied a young couple all on the highway,
And one was a lady so bright and so fair,
And the other was a soldier, a brave volunteer . . .”
She half chuckled at her old aunt’s prank on Colonel Tygart. What would he think of that?
“Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee,
Now where are you going, my pretty lady?”
Clay paused singing long enough to shave, maneuvering the razor with long, even swipes over his bristled skin. He toweled off on a soft piece of tow linen, taking a last look at the common below through his open window.
A few discarded wooden cups, even a pewter one, glinting in the dirt and grass. A muddy shoe and colorful handkerchief. A few crude toys. All evidence of a merry time, even if one of the fort’s spies had brought a grim report. Few who’d come for the frolic would likely leave the fort till better news was brought.
He resumed his low song, something he’d missed on the trail, though he heard Boone oft sang at the top of his lungs in devil-may-care defiance. But he couldn’t risk the women in his party, so he’d stayed silent all the way from Fort Pitt to Fort Tygart.
As his boot struck the first step, a warm, womanly voice joined in from below. Not Hester. The old woman hadn’t a song in her wilderness-hardened soul. His steps quickened till his boots sounded like a small storm.
“Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee.
Now where are you going, my pretty lady?
I’m going to travel to the banks of the sea,
To see the waters gliding, hear the nightingales sing.”
There at the hearth was a becoming if surprising sight. Miss Swan? Her back to him, she deftly flipped his favored hoecakes, using a free hand to grasp hold of a kettle’s handle with her apron.
Taking a seat at the table, he hated to end her singing. She had a lovely voice, sweet and full-bodied. When she swung around armed with his breakfast, her blatant consternation made him chuckle.
“And your great-aunt is . . . ?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” she answered. A telltale pink stained her features, confirming his suspicions.
Best say it outright. “And bent on a little matchmaking.”
Tessa gave an aggrieved nod. It wasn’t hard to figure. Hester Swan had left a trail of bread crumbs to her niece since she’d cooked his very first meal.
“Tessa is a hand with her garden. Her quince preserves are second to none. She can knit a pair of stockings nearly as fast as I fry an egg. Ever since she was small, my niece has been a wonder digging ginseng. Fleet of foot too. She may not be fancy as a town-bred girl, but she steps a fine reel . . .”
Tessa turned her back on him, retrieving a rasher of bacon. Molasses and butter were already before him, including his usual pewter plate and cup. Eyes down, she set the meat on the table. In the ensuing quiet came a noisy growling. Her stomach?
“Let’s give Hester some satisfaction, aye?” Forking two hoecakes off the stack onto his plate, he added meat and the neatly turned eggs she’d almost forgotten, then reached across the crude table and plunked down the plate.
Their eyes met, hers befuddled. Already she’d begun backing out the door.
“Nay, Miss Swan. Stay.”
A slightly sheepish smile and a blush graced her face. “Is that an order, sir?”
He nodded and started to rise to fetch a second plate, but she’d already whisked it from a shelf. “Overmountain tea or coffee?” he asked.
She sat, eyeing both. “Tea.” Slowly, she reached for the jug of cream yet bypassed the sweetening. “No trouble during the night, I reckon.”
“False alarm, mayhap,” he said, taking coffee with plenty of cream, the fragrant steam rising. “Or a close call.”
Fork mid-mouth, he stayed his hand when she said without a flinch, “I’d be obliged if you’d bless breakfast.”
Tarnation. Suddenly at sea in his own fort, Clay simply stared at her like the heathen he was. Her earnest gaze was violet-gray in the morning shadows, reminding him of polished silver in a shop window.
“We always hold hands doing it,” she said, reaching across the bountiful plates between them.
Humbled and caught off guard, he took her warm, callused fingers in his as she bowed her head reverently and waited. The words that lodged in his throat were so dusty, so tarnished, he had to reach to the uttermost to grasp but a few.
“We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food for life and health and every good . . . By Thine own hand may we be fed.” He swallowed, still groping. “Give us each day our daily bread. Amen.”
Somehow she looked satisfied. He felt he’d successfully run the gauntlet. They released hands, returning to their blessed breakfast, the finest the frontier had to offer. Closing her eyes, she took a sip of fine English tea from Morris and Willing of Philadelphia. Her childish delight tickled him. She was used to making do with nettles and sassafras, likely. City tea was a luxury.
This morn she’d exchanged her pretty party dress for plain homespun. The linen fichu about her shoulders was spotless and smooth, tucked into a striped bodice of common frontier weave, her skirt indigo blue. Covering her dark hair was a linen cap, the barest ruffle at the edge, its strings untied and dangling.
Bare of foot, she accidentally brushed his boot beneath the table. Mercy, but she made it hard for a man to mind his meal. Despite the heavy aroma of fried meat and the more delicate fragrance of hyson tea, he detected clean linen. Herbs. Something else he couldn’t name. Thankfully, he didn’t reek of the trail and was clean-shaven to boot.