Even now Clay walked with a purpose as he left the blockhouse, stooping to the humble chore of redding up the common as he walked. He spent a fair amount of time with Ruth’s blacksmith father at the smithy, where the ring of the hammer and the hiss of the quenching bucket never ceased, though he seemed most preoccupied with the magazine, the garrison’s precious store of gunpowder. Her brothers accompanied him at times as they examined this or that. All watched the gates as if anticipating the return of the spies.
An afternoon at the window had gained more gawking than knitting. An unfinished pair of stockings was proof. Tessa hid them in the basket she’d brought from home. She rubbed her neck, stiff from looking sideways so long.
As the sun sank behind the westernmost trees, Hester prepared stew for supper, the kettle a-simmer with wild onions, potatoes, and leftover meat from the frolic.
“Set out nine bowls and spoons,” Hester told her. “Then make extra cornbread.”
Glad for another task, Tessa emptied the cupboard of dishes, then went about making batter from the corn Keturah had ground.
“Serve those persimmon preserves I’ve been saving for company. The pickles and head cheese too.”
Company meant more than Keturah, likely. With Lemuel gone, she counted eight at supper. Was the extra place, the head of the table, reserved for the colonel?
Time soon told. Changing out of her grease-spackled apron for a clean, cambric one of Hester’s, Tessa noticed her great-aunt didn’t squawk at her borrowing as she sometimes did. The mirror’s cracked reflection had her repinning her flyaway hair and cap, the ruffled edge as ragged as she herself felt. Closing her eyes, she found her thoughts full of a fragmented verse.
Strength and honor are her clothing . . . she shall rejoice in time to come.
’Twas one of Ma’s beloved Scriptures, oft spoken at wit’s end when heartache and uncertainty pressed in. To remember it now seemed to renew her courage, straighten her shoulders. She wasn’t fancy, but she had the Bible to bolster her. She would be a woman of strength and honor, however humble.
When Clay appeared in the cabin’s open door, holding something behind his back and looking cleaned up, her insides did a little dance. He greeted her mother and Hester, saying something in both Lenape and English to Keturah, who responded in kind.
“Miss Swan.” His voice turned her away from the looking glass.
Had he seen her preening? How like her mother she sounded with her formal words, “Colonel Tygart, do come in.”
The women around them stayed busy while Tessa crossed the distance, hating the fire he’d raised on her face. She wished her brothers would come tumbling in.
“What have you behind your back?” she asked him.
His gaze lit with mischief. “Guess.”
She drew back a bit. “I’m used to men—boys—hiding things. Snakes and toads and the like.”
He chuckled, stepping aside as Zadock entered. “A small gift for the Spinster Swan.”
The teasing in his tone tickled her. “Give me a hint, aye?”
He paused, a small scar she hadn’t noticed before stealing her attention. It ran like a whipstitch beneath his blue eye. This close she saw that he had especially long, dark lashes, maybe even longer than her own.
He held out a small, brown-skinned book. Maddie had told him of her hankering to read, then. Could he tell she was glad to the heart?
“Does poetry suit you?” He regarded her intently as if ready to return to Philadelphia or at least the blockhouse for something else instead.
“Aye, though I’ve had little of it.” Taking the offering, she clutched the book to her chest. “I’ve yet to meet a borderman with poetry in his soul.”
“A few words, aye. ‘Beside some water’s rushy brink with me the Muse shall sit, and think.’” His voice, agreeable enough in song, was doubly so in verse. “The poet Thomas Gray.”
She pinked again despite herself. His sudden intensity was not the antidote she needed to root out this sudden and silly enchantment. Nor did it help when Hester placed them side by side at supper. As if sensing Keturah’s fondness for the colonel, Hester seated her by Ma at the table’s opposite end.
Mince tarts concluded the meal, served with strong coffee. Maddie and Jude joined them in time, filling the cabin to bursting. Talk and laughter ebbed and flowed, and as the night ripened Hester made her praiseworthy flip, beating up a froth of eggs, ale, and rum. Tessa took the new grater from her pocket and ground a dusting of nutmeg atop each cup, giving Clay an especially generous dash.
Come morning, would the rest of the Swan clan leave? Or would a spy’s dire report forbid them? For once their slow return didn’t chafe, though she longed to know if Lemuel was well. If she had her druthers she’d take her book of poetry and retreat from so many eyes and ears, feel her soul take flight at a pretty turn of phrase. How she wished for a little of that refinement interwoven with the roughness that was Colonel Tygart. She was all homespun when what she craved was a bit of lace.
In time, the men began a dice game. Tessa looked on as Clay explained the rules of play to her eager brothers. Inexplicably, Keturah became visibly excited at the rattle of the dice in the wooden cup, hovering over the men’s shoulders and watching their every move. The dice were cleverly painted peach pits, the scoring depending on which number landed atop the table. Here Clay had the upper hand, his every move confirming he’d played it long and well.
“Mamantuhwin,” Keturah said to Tessa with a touch of pride, as if pleased to be teaching her for once.
Tessa repeated the lengthy word as Jasper scored and the tension mounted. Would Clay win?
Candles sank into their holders as the game reached fever pitch. Though Hester was yawning, she didn’t dare bring the rare merriment to an end.
Quietly, Tessa slipped out into the May twilight to clear her head of the smoke and noise and cure her craving to watch Clay’s every move. Finding a crude bench at the heart of the common garden, she caressed the book’s smooth cover, breathing in the vanilla perfume of sweet rocket and phlox interwoven with the pungent spice of thyme and sage. Night insects winged about in swarms amid the lazy wink of fireflies. Bedtime at the fort was far later than at home. Yet neither Hester’s flip nor the late hour tired her. Lights were snuffed in the surrounding cabins one by one. A dog barked, and a baby gave a plaintive cry.
’Twas the first time she’d be sorry to face first light. No longer could she deny the reason why. The fort’s gates no longer spelled freedom but absence. Tonight her whole being stood on tiptoe because a man who’d left her addled by asking her to breakfast had addled her further with some poetry.
Lightning struck, she was. To the bone.
13
Clay left Hester’s cabin not long after Tessa, his gaze circling the fort’s two enclosed acres. Rosemary passed him on her return from the necessary, likely. He doffed his hat. He’d not refer to her as widow as some did. The way Westfall eyed her, she’d not be widowed long.
Above him, assigned men stood along the rifle platform, one of them yawning. He’d soon mount those steps come midnight watch. Hester’s flip had done its mellowing work for a time, but now his every sense was needlelike in its sharpness.
Somehow he managed to lose sleep and still function when others fell into a stupor. Seasons of hunger and being on the move with the Lenape had toughened his frame and his temper, another reason this precariously situated fort bore his name.