The Shopkeeper's Widow Page 6

  Delany jerked a slight nod and widened her arms to try to get him to move his hands. He slid his arms once again into place. Does he know what he is doing to me? Never happen. She took a deep breath and forced her gaze to focus on the sights. Breathe out.

  Fire. Huge blinding smoke.

  “Hold,” he said and tightened his grip on her waist. “Give it time.” He released her as the smoke thinned.

  She abruptly moved away.

  “You did it!” Ben cheered.

  She had hit her mark. “Thank you.” She bowed to Field. “I think I can take it from here.”

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “It was my pleasure.”

  “The rest is just practice. Right, Mr. Archer?” Ben asked.

  “Right.”

  “Right,” Delany echoed.

  They stood for an awkward moment looking at each other.

  She smiled at them both. “Now go away so I can practice.”

  ~*~

  The night was cool for early October. Leaves rustled just outside the open window near Field’s chair by the fireplace. A steady breeze riffled the curtain and chilled his arm. Soon it would be time for brilliant roaring fires that sent warm glows across the parlor, making cheery rooms that otherwise would be somber. Tonight, there was only a watered-down version of the blaze he envisioned. There were plenty of candles, but the shadows cast were deep, anxiety-ridden hollows. At home, there were so many occupants that tense silence was never achieved.

  Delany worked her needle as she sat next to Mrs. Harrison on the couch.

  Mrs. Harrison knitted.

  “You know tales are still told by the ancient ones of dead men walking on All Hallow’s Eve,” he said to Ben.

  Ben sat up from his slouch in the chair. “What ancient ones?”

  “The old ones I met in my travels in Ireland and Scotland.”

  Delany chortled.

  “You’ve heard stories of Grace from the swamp, not that I believe in that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Harrison without looking up from her needles.

  “Do you think witches are real?” Ben asked.

  Delany looked at Field. “Yes,” she answered.

  Was she serious?

  As scientific as he found her, a woman who owned a waterfall believed in ancient superstitions?

  Delany leaned toward Ben. “Did your father ever tell you of the time when we were children of the fright we gave to Old Cook?”

  “No.” Ben’s eyes widened.

  Delany laughed, her cloth resting in her lap. “I don’t suppose he would.” She leaned forward, eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “Old Cook told us tales to keep us from the new fairy cakes she made. ‘The fairies’ll come’, she said, ‘and take ya to the fairy mound, and you’ll never come back from there. None ever does.’”

  Ben laughed at Delany’s mimic of the old woman.

  Field had to laugh with him.

  “Well, that was enough for us. No cakes,” she continued. “Until later that night, Uncle Tom and Samuel heard her telling John Milkman what she’d done while he enjoyed a few of her fresh cakes. They had a right jolly laugh, Uncle Tom said.” Delany folded her cloth into a proper square. “Your father, Uncle Tom, and I made a plan. It was mostly Uncle Tom, but your father and I went right along with it.” She looked at Field, her silver eyes twinkling. “To raise the specter of Grace Sherwood.”

  A small shiver of wind tickled the back of Field’s neck.

  “Late one night, when it was storming—not calm like tonight—there were flashes of lightning streaking through the room. We dressed up Sam—he was the tallest—a bit of the moss and an old dress.” She stopped to giggle. “He was the best hag I’ve ever seen.”

  Field sat back with a smile on his face.

  Ben was on the edge of his seat.

  Mrs. Harrison’s needles lay quiet.

  “We crept quietly up the stairs,” Delany whispered, “to her room. Sam threw the door open wide. There was Cook sitting with her candle. The scream she let out nearly put us in the stocks.” She laughed. “We were most fortunate the dear lady didn’t die that night.”

  Field’s laugh mingled with Ben’s and Mrs. Harrison’s. He hadn’t seen such delight on Delany’s face since he’d showed her the dandelion in the field all those years ago. It had been her last visit to Archer Hall. He had missed her. He used to wonder why she hadn’t come back, but then he’d heard that she’d married Tom Fleet.

  “So, you do believe that witches are real?” he asked.

  “The Bible says they are,” she responded, “but I’m not sure that people always identify them correctly.”

  “Have you ever met one?” Ben piped up.

  “I don’t know. I know the Word says they are real, but God has not shown any to me.”

  “It’s a most unscientific position to hold in these enlightened times, Mrs. Fleet. Current thinking says there is no such thing as ghosts or witches. It’s all a humbug easily explained by facts.”

  “Science professes to know a great many things. It has yet to explain why. It understands how, but it doesn’t know why. Why is the candle flickering here present on your face? Why?”

  “I will agree that science doesn’t have all the answers yet.”

  “Do you believe in angels, Mr. Archer?”

  “Yes, of course. Numerous examples are present in our readings every Sunday.”

  “Then you should have no trouble with their counterparts.”

  She rose.

  He stood and bowed.

  ~*~

  This sparring with him was too comfortable. Delany climbed the stairs to her room. Her heart softened at his laughter; her body thrilled to his touch. It was time to be out of his presence while she was still safe. For all John Crawley’s faults, he was right on one score: Field Archer would never love a servant, no matter how different her life had become.

  8

  Field sat astride his horse waiting while Delany, list in hand, checked and double-checked each and every box. She tested the ropes securing the wagon. Field’s cargo was hidden in plain sight amongst the boxes labeled “Fleets Toys and Curiosities” and other distinguishable household items including a couple of old chairs and a cupboard. She had done a brilliant job. Her wagon looked no different than the steady stream of wagons that had been leaving Norfolk down Church Street since he’d arrived.

  He waited while she checked that every person was in place with everything they might possibly need. Ruben Tabb sat in the driver’s seat of the cargo wagon. Mrs. Harrison, her maid Sally, and Mary Tabb were in the coach. Joe Wheelwright stood next to the door of the coach patiently waiting to secure the steps once she entered. Ben sat on his horse, clearly as itchy to leave as Field was himself.

  “Mrs. Fleet.”

  She paused to look back at him and stuck a finger in the air. “Just one more thing, Mr. Archer.” She rushed up the steps back into the house. She returned forthwith carrying a tea chest which she stowed somewhere in the coach. One more pull at the house door to ensure its locked state and one more look around at her arrangements until she finally mounted the steps of the coach.

  Joe pulled up the stairs, and they began to walk away from Norfolk.

  Field took the lead with Ben at his side. The coach followed with the wagon of goods bringing up the rear. It had been a week since he’d met Max Calvert at the coffee house and been warned of the thieving, murderous bands of Tories infesting the swamps around Princess Anne. If he could just get his cargo past this road, he would be in the clear. A week was not quite enough time, but he had done what he could with it. Ben already knew his way around a musket before Field had arrived but had grown rusty living in the city. He was well practiced now. Field was confident that Ben would survive whatever they encountered.

  The roads were soft but passable provided they went slowly and avoided the crusted ruts left by those willing to travel in the mud that had delayed them for the past two weeks.

  The sun baked his back
the two hours it took to leave Norfolk behind. Once out of the city, they entered a dappled shade provided by closely growing trees lining both sides of the road. The fall colors of the tall sweet gums, maples, and oaks shamed the stained glass of cathedrals he’d seen in Europe. A freshening breeze swiftly dusted through the branches. His mouth watered when he saw a bush of chokeberries in the woods almost within reach. He took a deep breath. It was good to be on Virginia soil again.

  Chokeberries. He smiled to himself. He hadn’t seen a chokeberry in years. Hadn’t grown so much as a potted plant since he’d been in England.

  It was faint. The wind was not quite in the right direction, but it was unmistakable.

  Walls of trees contained the sounds of the wagons and the horses blunting Field’s ability to sense the landscape surrounding them, but the sound of a single man riding a horse was as clear as a weed in a well-tended garden.

  “Good day to you, sir,” the man said as he pulled up on Field’s right side. Ben stayed on his left. “It’s a fine day to travel.” This man was not the source of the smell he’d detected as they’d approached the bend in the road. Someone else, at least one man, was still nearby.

  The man in sight was large and finely dressed. Though wearing his own hair, this man gave every impression of being a Virginia gentleman. And one could hardly fault a man for wearing his own hair in the Virginia heat. He himself was guilty of the same since he’d been home.

  “Yes, it is indeed,” Field responded. He put his hand down toward his flintlock.

  “That won’t be necessary, sir. I mean you no harm. I am merely traveling this road on the way to Great Bridge.”

  Sounds of two more riders joining them assaulted his ears.

  The coach stopped.

  Field put out his left hand to signal Ben to stop. Field stopped. The man wheeled around to look at the coach.

  “Josiah Philips. I thought that was you.” Delany stood on the doorway of her coach with a flintlock aimed at the stranger. “You and your men leave right now, or your wife will have a bad day.”

  Philips pointed a pistol at Ben.

  “Mrs. Fleet.” He smiled wide. “I don’t want anything from you. I only want Mr. Archer for Lord Dunmore.”

  Delany didn’t move.

  Philips nodded at his men. They walked their way forward to meet him. “Lord Dunmore will be disappointed that I didn’t bring Mr. Archer. I hate to tell him that you kept me from doing my duty, Mrs. Fleet.”

  The smell of evil rolling off Josiah Philips nearly choked him now.

  Ashen faced, her silver eyes met his.

  Field nodded.

  “Good girl.” Philips grinned.

  Delany’s eyes flashed.

  “Enough.” Field smiled at Delany and nodded. “Until we meet again, Mrs. Fleet.”

  Philips requested and received Field’s musket. Using the pistol, he pointed Field to get in front of him. The men flanked him on either side, and they took off at a trot.

  ~*~

  Delany jumped down from the coach and headed toward Ben. The boy sat rigid in his saddle, head darting this way and that, mind clearly racing.

  “Ben.”

  “I’ll follow them. I’ll meet you at the inn.”

  “No.” She caught the reins just as he made to turn. “Get down. You have to go for help.”

  “But—“

  The look she gave him silenced him, and he reluctantly slid down from the saddle.

  “I know these woods,” she said. “You go in the coach and get your father.”

  “You can’t mean to go by yourself, Miss Delany,” Joe said from his perch atop the coach.

  “You and Ruben continue on to Fleet’s. Samuel will know where I am.”

  She climbed onto Ben’s horse thankful for her brown traveling skirts. They would help conceal her in the woods until Samuel could arrive to help.

  ~*~

  Field prayed that Philips hadn’t heard the snap of Ben’s horse running parallel to them in the woods. Then he prayed that Delany would have the good sense to send her brother-in-law and not herself in pursuit.

  Hopefully, she would have seen to the rifles, but he doubted it. She wasn’t very good at taking directions, especially from him. He nearly smiled at the thought of her pulling away from him as he repositioned her firing stance. The fire of her silver eyes when Philips said “good girl” had been priceless.

  “Go get the boy,” Philips said to the henchman on his left.

  “He’s just a child. He can’t harm you,” Field said.

  “You ever watch anyone die, Archer?”

  Field shot him a look.

  Philips grinned.

  “It’s a struggle. People want to live, you see.” Malevolence emblazed his eyes. “Better than any brew.”

  Field’s intellectual doubt of the personification of evil died. A shaft of fear cooled his anger. This was evil in a human wrapper. His mind cleared. There had to be a way out, and he would find it.

  “What do you want?”

  “Money.”

  “That can be arranged. Provided no harm comes to him.”

  “Not so fast. I haven’t talked to Mrs. Fleet yet. He’s worth more to her, I reckon. And then there’s that family of his over at Lynnhaven.”

  The grimy man returned in a gallop.

  “I didn’t find nobody.”

  Field kept track of the turns in direction by keeping track of the waning sun. By evening, he was reasonably sure he could find his way back to the road. How he would escape his captors was not readily clear.

  They came to rest at a well-used camp in a clearing surrounded by murky swamp and Spanish-moss laden trees. He dismounted on spongy legs.

  The two men with Philips dismounted as well but didn’t seem to have the stiff-legged problem.

  Philips stayed on his horse.

  “Where you think you’re going?” the smelly one demanded.

  “Nature’s call,” Field said dragging his ill functioning legs toward the trees.

  Philips gestured, and the putrid man followed a few steps behind. He remained next to the tree while Field surveyed the ground before him. Philips still sat astride when Field returned to the clearing.

  “I regret that I may not remain with you for the entire evening. I have other appointments which will not keep,” Philips said. “I will return in the morning. Then we shall see what Lord Dunmore would have us do with you.” Philips’s smile was like an etching of the devil Archer had seen in a picture-book somewhere.

  Field suppressed a shudder and nodded an unnecessary reply.

  “Keep him here until I return,” Philips ordered his men.

  At least he was leaving. They would have to sleep sometime.

  ~*~

  Field’s nether regions were stiff from sitting on a log by the campfire. While the fire roasted his cheeks, the nighttime breeze cooled his back. Philips had been gone for at least three hours. Field had until daylight. Night had fallen, and the men guarding him were becoming tired and lazy.

  They had ridden for two hours before stopping at this clearing. Obviously, it was a camp frequented by this bunch. If he’d kept himself oriented correctly, the road lay off to his right. If he could get there, he was certain he could make it to the inn. From there, he would travel to the Fleets’ home.

  The flames in the small fire blazed higher when one of the men threw a pulpy log in its midst.

  The woods beyond were his escape route. The moon was rising, and soon stars would be visible. He could find his way. He wasn’t sure he saw it at first. A figure, indistinct in the light, hovered near the woods.

  “Did you see that?” the smelly man asked, his pale face blanching in the fire’s glow.

  “What?”

  “That.” The man’s hand shook as he pointed to the flames.

  “I don’t see nothin’.”

  “It’s Grace.” Both men stood peering through the fire at the woods. “My old mother said she roams around here.”
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  “You spooked. She’s been dead for years.”

  “They say her body vanished when she died.”

  “Don’t nobody knows what happened when she died.”

  A shuffle of leaves. Snap of a small twig.

  “Didja hear that?”

  “So.”

  “Sounds like a cat. She always had black cats.”

  “Too heavy for a cat.”

  Wintery fingers tickled his neck. “If angels are real, demons are, too,” he said softly.

  “Shut up!” the second man snapped.

  Another shuffling in the woods sounded to the right.

  Both men pointed their guns at the sound.

  Across the clearing, Field saw a small, gaunt specter materialize in front of a large oak fifty yards from the fire, dragged up from the depth of the earth like Samuel. Streaks of grime, scrapings of the passage up through layers of swamp, oozed down from its hair to its skirts. A ragged dress hung from its frame without the fullness of undergarments. White flesh, luminescent in the light of the fire, glowed through tears in mud-slicked sleeves. It took a ragged step forward.

  A breath of cold shivered around him. Field froze. His captors stopped moving. He didn’t dare take his attention from the specter before them to gauge what they were doing.

  Slowly, it raised its arms. Tattered bits of flesh landed just behind it as it moved slowly forward. Its face cracked, the flesh crumbling before them as it beckoned. A horrid black ring where its mouth should be formed a word. “Come,” it appeared to say. “Come…”

  It drew closer.

  “Come,” it beckoned. “Come.”

  The men turned and ran into the woods behind them.

  Field ran toward the apparition. He scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder and made it to the woods before he stopped to check for followers.

  “Where’s the horse?”

  “Put me down,” she demanded in a low growl.

  He obliged her because they needed the horse and she couldn’t very well give him directions upside down with nothing but the ground to navigate by.

  She had left the horse a half mile away. They covered the ground in slow motion.

  He climbed onto the horse and pulled Delany up in front of him. She slid her blunderbuss around to sit on her lap.