The Wood's Edge Read online

  Wells’s grimace came near a grin. “Suppose I earned a few years today, Capt’n?”

  Lang’s eyes grew luminous. “You’ve a point there, son. But now the good major’s stumbled upon us, I’m thinking he’ll be the one deciding the matter—if major he is.” The blue gaze scoured Reginald for any indication of rank, settling with a raised brow on the baby in his arms. “Only it’s grown hard to judge of such things since commencement of the morning’s festivities.”

  “You may argue that you outrank me, Captain,” Jones snapped. “But I’ll thank you to trust I know my commanding officer when—”

  Thunder boomed, silencing Jones. Even Reginald jumped; this was much louder than any before. In fact…

  Heledd clutched the babe as muffled echoes rolled, bouncing back from unseen ridges. “Are the French attacking again?”

  “Was it thunder?” Helpless on the ground, Wells looked terrified.

  “Ordnance,” Reginald said. “But not French. Fort Edward. And,” he pointed along the stream, “I make it in that direction.”

  Captain Ephraim Lang threw back his head in a soundless whoop. “Webb’s guiding us in like a harbor light! Least he can do, eh, boys?”

  Jones’s relief was too great to bristle at being addressed so casually by a provincial. “The very least!”

  Heledd gave a small sob. Reginald’s chest ached at sight of her, all tangles and tatters. “Gentlemen, my wife can go no farther today, so neither shall I.”

  Heledd’s exhaustion and distress settled the issue. They set a watch, Jones volunteering first. There was little to do toward bedding down but gather up a pallet of leaves—in abundant supply—for what Reginald hoped, but dared not pray, would be a peaceful night.

  Lying with the boy asleep beside her and the girl next to the boy, Heledd raised her head and looked about her suddenly.

  “Reginald, what has become of my gowns?”

  “We lost your gowns,” he reminded her in a whisper, chilled by the blankness of her gaze. “With the baggage.” Nothing resembling memory stirred in her eyes. “If they don’t turn up at Fort Edward, we…”

  No longer listening, she stroked a fingertip along the babe’s cheek. “I would call him William. After my father. William Llewellyn. Is that agreeable?”

  Reginald’s throat constricted. When he could breathe again, he did so until assured his voice would be steady. “Aye. If it pleases you.”

  “He pleases me.” Through grime and forest shadow, her smile was an incongruous ray of light. “William…William.”

  Reginald spotted Jones, walking the perimeter of their tiny camp, then he lay down beside his wife, the babies now between them. The cannon at Fort Edward gave another muffled boom. The echo rolled across the wilderness, meant to console and guide those stumbling toward it.

  To Reginald’s ears it made an ominous underscore to the name bestowed on the changeling who had replaced their son: William Llewellyn Aubrey.

  The dream has visited me so often since Fort William Henry, I know it now as once I knew myself—or the man I was before I set foot within those timbered walls. Not that the dream is the same each time. Though its end holds true, the means to that end shift like light on water. Often it is a blade that ends it. Other times an arrow. Sometimes a club, wickedly spiked. Once it was a stone clenched in a fist. A brown fist, strong-fingered and hard.

  Now I make no claim to prophecy, but this I know: it is a matter of time before my waking eyes see that which haunts me in the night. I am in the forest, hard by the wilderness road. It is everlasting dim beneath trees so broad below and laced above I see but a few paces on. I had a musket, a blade, a hat, a coat. They are stripped from me, and I am naked. And he is there. I tell you I know this, though I see him not for the gloom. He hunts me. With painted face and shaven scalp, he hunts. And so as the hunted do, I run. Not fleet like the deer, for I clutch to my chest what he seeks to take from me. It slows me, grown heavier in my arms as the years have passed.

  I’ve no love for an untamed wood. It is his home, see. Him it serves, while thwarting me. Brambles snake across my feet. Sinkholes open and suck me down, trammeled. He looms over me, a coppery Goliath murderous in his hate. Yet no move do I make to save myself, for in this there is also relief, and though foolish, there is hope—that it will be enough, a life for a life. That it will satisfy a God who grinds even His darlings down to bone. “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.” So said righteous Job. So think I, far from righteous, as the hatchet—arrow, club, stone—falls to cleave my skull. But as it falls I know it will not be enough. Death will be too swift.

  Then comes the lung-burn of waking, the stunning sanctuary of barred doors, stone walls, a pistol within reach. Beside me sleeps my wife, haunted by her own demons but unsuspecting of that which stalks me. I do not reach for her. She is no comfort to me. Nor am I to her. Because of what I did for her.

  And if that is not an irony, then I know not the meaning of the word.

  5

  October 1759

  Schenectady

  Life at fourteen was pure vexation. What else could it be for one caught in that limbo between girlhood and womanhood? It was like being a leaf snagged on driftwood, forced to pray for a pitying eddy to nudge one along life’s river.

  Lydia Eve McClaren, fourteen’s latest victim, thought it intolerable that she should look as awkward as she felt. In the past twelvemonth her height had outstripped her weight. Her nose had surged ahead of the rest of her features. Her hands, once so biddable, now rebelled against whatever she set them to do. But never had she felt more keenly her body’s betrayals than now, approaching the below-stairs chamber that contained Major Reginald Aubrey.

  After two years of heroically fighting the French in Canada, the major had returned to the McClaren’s household—with whom his wife and children had billeted in his absence—for a stint of convalescence of undetermined length.

  “ ’Tis a stubborn wound,” Papa had confided to Jacob van Bergen, his apprentice at the apothecary shop. Lydia hadn’t managed to learn precisely what part of Major Aubrey had suffered the injury. Shoulder? Limb? Chest? Nor by what means. Bullet? Blade? Shrapnel? This hadn’t prevented her rifling her mental catalog of the herbs she might use to poultice a wound labeled stubborn. Not that Papa would permit her to see the major’s wound, much less treat it.

  Pausing in the passage, Lydia took a firmer grip on the tray she’d carried from the kitchen, swallowing back a surge of nerves. Had she been wise to don her second-best gown—the dun wool brocaded in red—or merely ridiculous? Possess yourself, Lydia. You’re no longer twelve, prone to silly infatuations for officers in smart red coats. Not even tall, handsome officers with lilting Welsh accents who fight off cruel Indians to save orphaned babies.

  She reached the chamber near the back stairs without dropping the tray or spilling its contents, to find the door ajar. Beyond it rose a Scotch-burred rumble. Papa’s voice. But here was a quandary. Should she free a hand to knock—and risk sending the tray tumbling to the floor in a catastrophe of tea and shattered cups—or call out and interrupt their conversation?

  She was on the verge of applying the toe of her shoe to the door when the well-remembered cadence of Major Aubrey’s voice, with its long vowels and nearly rolled r’s, washed over her.

  “Heledd is looking well, she is. And the children. I cannot believe my eyes, so much have they grown.”

  The sadness in the major’s tone caught at Lydia’s heart, promptly melting it. And she’d yet to even set eyes upon him. That had been deliberate, of course. Even Mrs. Aubrey had kept to the kitchen with the children and Agnes McClaren, Lydia’s mother, while the major undertook the halting journey from the wagon that had conveyed him from the army’s general hospital in Albany into the house, assisted by the men of his regiment who’d escorted him to his family’s present billet in Schenectady. Keeping Lydia at bay had preserved the major’s dignity—she was sensible of it—yet it underscored the fa
ct that Papa still thought it necessary to shield her from the grim realities of his profession.

  “I ken ’tis hard, having missed these years with William,” Papa said beyond the door. “He’s a fine wee lad. What happened before, his taking on at sight o’ ye…”

  “He’ll sort out who I am in time,” the major said. “I am beyond thankful—to you and Mrs. McClaren—that you’ve sheltered my family these long months. It cannot have been easy.”

  Papa cleared his throat. “Aye, weel. Mrs. Aubrey makes no secret she pines for seeing Wales again.”

  “So I have heard.” Weariness swamped the major’s voice. It made Lydia wish they’d kept Mrs. Aubrey from him altogether, at least until he’d rested from the ordeal of travel.

  Shame made her repent the thought. Naturally Mrs. Aubrey had wanted to see her husband. If only she hadn’t launched at once upon her favorite theme—taking herself, her son, and preferably Major Aubrey as well, back to Wales. Forever.

  Silence fell at last in the room beyond. Into it Lydia called, “Tea, Papa. For you and Major Aubrey.”

  “Ah, Lydia.” Relief brightened her father’s tone. “Bring it in, lass.”

  Contrary to her expectation, the major wasn’t tucked up in the high-post bed dominating the room. Wrapped in a banyan, bareheaded, he sat in a wing chair pulled near the blazing hearth, across from Papa who occupied its twin. Curled asleep against an arm of Major Aubrey’s chair, half in his lap, was Anna.

  Lydia flushed with pleasure at the sight.

  The major had changed in two years. The scar across his cheekbone was harder now to see, having healed from its livid red to a thin line the color of the surrounding skin. October sunlight slanting through the parted curtains showed pain etched at the corners of the major’s slate-blue eyes. The strain of long enduring it bracketed his mouth. Both vanished briefly as he returned her smile.

  “Now, George. Who is this young woman so kind to bring us our tea? Never tell me ’tis the little blue-eyed daughter of yours I recall.”

  Lydia’s insides softened to a pudding. “Your hair is shorter,” she blurted, and blushed from stem to stern. Her wrists began to ache for gripping the tray. Its contents gave an ominous rattle.

  “Lydia,” Papa said with mild alarm. “Set down the tray, there’s a good lass.”

  She reached the table beside the major’s chair without mishap. Hands free, she made the major a wobbly bob. “It’s good to see you again Mister—Major—sir.”

  Lydia stifled a groan. Young woman? Pitiful child, more like.

  “Your servant, Miss McClaren.” Major Aubrey’s smile broadened. “And ’tis a keen memory you have.” He raised a hand to his hair, fingers mussing the short curls as they glided through. It was sun-bleached, almost blond. Black-haired as a raven herself, Lydia was envious. “Aye, I cropped it. At the advice of the Rangers, with whom some of the officers trained for woodland warfare.”

  Beside him Anna stirred. “Lydee!”

  The child reached for her, squirming against Major Aubrey. His wince was slight, but Lydia noted it. “Shall I take her?”

  “Do you, please.” His eyes thanked her, though it seemed he’d rather have kept the girl near. Lydia hoped so. Oh, she hoped.

  Hoisting the drowsy child onto her hip, she felt the warm cling of soft limbs, the small head drooping like a noonday flower into the curve of her neck. “Does she remember you? She wasn’t much older than William when…”

  Seeing him flinch at her words, her face flamed again.

  “Whether she recalls me I cannot say,” Major Aubrey replied. “I remember her well enough.”

  Lydia’s gaze fell to his scar, reminded of those days after Fort William Henry’s fall, the rumors of the massacre away north at Lake George. Reports at the time had been uniformly alarming, though wildly at variance. Ten thousand French—twenty thousand. Two thousand Indians—ten thousand. Overrunning the forts. Marching next for Albany, where the McClarens had then resided.

  No such attack had come. What had come was the major, seeking billet for his traumatized wife and the babies he’d brought alive through it all—his newborn son and an orphan rescued from the side of her murdered parents, with no one found since to claim her. Lydia’s parents, moved by the plight of Fort William Henry’s survivors, had opened their Albany home to the officer’s family. Major Aubrey gratefully accepted billet for his wife and children and, for a few memorable days, had remained with them before rejoining his regiment.

  Beyond the window a cart rattled by, loud in a silence Lydia nervously filled. “And your wound, Major? Does it pain you greatly? Was it musket ball or—”

  “Lydia.” Papa all but rolled his eyes at the major. “I canna turn round these days without the lass peering into my receipt book, filling her head with needless remedies.”

  Needless remedies? With all her heart, Lydia wished the polished floorboards would part and swallow her whole.

  “ ’Tis all right, her asking.” Major Aubrey straightened in the chair, wincing again, but when he addressed her it was without condescension. “You’ll have heard of Brigadier Wolfe? His capture of Quebec?”

  “The British scaled the cliffs to the Plains of Abraham, outside the city. That’s where the battle was fought—and won. Brigadier Wolfe died a hero there.”

  “That he did…though one nation’s hero may be another’s villain.” Major Aubrey spoke as though he was thinking aloud. Recalling himself, he gave her a half smile. “Had I not taken injury already I should have been there with my battalion.”

  “The Royal Americans.”

  Major Aubrey nodded. “Over two hundred we lost that day—apart from Wolfe. But my campaign ended weeks before, at a place called Beauport, a few miles up the St. Lawrence from Quebec. We were meant to break the French defenses, entrenched on a height. I was barely out of the landing boat when I was hit. ’Twas come on to rain, see, a proper deluge, with neither side making headway and our powder wet and useless. So the attack was abandoned. I managed to haul myself back into the boat to be ferried away. The army surgeon removed the ball. Above my hip it was.”

  The right hip, Lydia judged, by the angle at which he sat. When the major spoke again he addressed Papa as well, who appeared to be hearing this for the first time—probably why he hadn’t interrupted the major and sent her double-quick from the room. “But the wound has never healed proper. It tries to, only to green again and lay me low with fever—which is more than your father likely wished you to know of the matter, Miss McClaren.”

  Indeed, there went Papa’s lowering brows, his firming mouth, the look he invariably donned before bidding her run along to the kitchen and mind her mama. Before he could do so she hurried to inquire, “Did the regimental surgeon try boiled sassafras root for a poultice? It’s efficacious for drawing out impurities, according to—”

  George McClaren’s throat-clearing bordered on a growl. “Lydia, take the bairn to the kitchen, aye? The major and I have matters to discuss before he rests. I’ll pour the tea.”

  Lydia left the door ajar but had hardly taken her hand from the latch when the major’s voice halted her. “Well? Was she right in her remedy?”

  “Aye, maybe so,” came the grudging paternal reply. “Though I didna wish to say so in her hearing, ken.”

  Lydia’s spirits sank. Silence elapsed, filled with the clink of tea service.

  “She’s a bright girl, George. I should think I would be proud, did Anna come into such focus, in time.”

  Lydia’s spirits soared.

  Her papa chuckled. “Tell me that again in ten years, lad, and I’ll believe ye then.”

  Lydia fumed down the passage to the parlor. Hadn’t she a brain in her head as sharp as Jacob van Bergen’s? And stomach enough to face the infirmities he and Papa were called on to treat? For a fact, she did. How frustrating that she seemed the only one possessed of such conviction.

  Anna’s head popped up from her shoulder, as if the child sensed her turmoil. Or else L
ydia had squeezed too tight. “Sorry, love. It’s only—I doubt Papa sees me equal to tweezing out a splinter.”

  “Spinster?”

  “Splinter. Though I’m sure spinster is what Mama fears I’m destined to be.” Sighing, Lydia buried her face in Anna’s hair, which flowed past her shoulders—absurdly thick for a child of three—in a honeyed wave of blond-brown. It even smelled like honey, though Lydia had never reasoned why.

  The instant she stepped into the kitchen, she was assaulted by questions.

  “Is my husband pleased with the tea? The almond biscuits are his favorite. Did he mention that? I was so careful not to burn them.”

  Heledd Aubrey, the most delicately beautiful woman Lydia had ever seen, stood at the worktable, knife poised over turnips she’d been chopping for the stew Agnes McClaren stirred at the hearth.

  Lydia avoided her gaze. “No, Mrs. Aubrey, he didn’t. Papa ordered me away before I could serve.”

  William, the Aubreys’ son, hunkered on the flagstones, pudgy knees poking from beneath his frock, fair head haloed in a shaft of sunlight from the south-facing window. At his feet an army of wooden soldiers, coats painted cochineal red, stood arrayed for battle. Seeing him, Anna squirmed in her arms. Lydia slid her to the floor.

  Mrs. Aubrey watched the girl make a beeline for William.

  Lydia held her breath as the boy, younger of the two by ten months, thrust his favorite soldier into Anna’s hand. “Papa,” he said.

  Mrs. Aubrey beamed. “You see? He does remember Reginald.”

  Neither Lydia nor her mother mentioned that since William burst into tears at sight of the major limping into the house in civilian clothes, Heledd had hardly ceased explaining that his papa wore a red coat just like one of his prized toy soldiers, that the man in the room by the back stairs was his papa, and soon she would show William the red coat his papa wore.