The Raider Read online

  Jessica rolled out of the line of fire while Alex said a few words meant to discipline sailors.

  “Gor…” Philip said, impressed.

  Sam laughed and jumped on Alex’s belly.

  “Jessica, get him off of me. He’s wet me through to my backbone. Can’t you control these brats?”

  Jess had already picked up Sam but at Alex’s last words, she dropped him so that his diaper made a splat sound. But Alex didn’t notice because when Jess leaned over, he could see all the way down her nightgown.

  “Ah, here they are,” Eleanor said, opening the door. “Out!” she commanded. “Let them have some privacy. Alex, did you sleep in that wig?”

  “Privacy!” Alex grumbled. “No one in this house knows the meaning of the word.”

  Eleanor closed the door and while Alex watched in open-mouthed astonishment, Jess stripped off her nightgown and pulled on underwear and her dress. “Alex, you look awful. Have you been sleeping well? Stay there, I’ll bring you some milquetoast. On second thought, you don’t smell so very good. I could bring you a bath. Wash your hair and back for you. And your feet. I don’t guess you can reach your feet over that belly too well.”

  “Get out of here, Jessica,” Alex said through clenched teeth.

  “Are you always in a bad mood in the morning?”

  “Out,” was all he could manage to say.

  Jess gathered the ledgers on the floor and left him alone.

  By the end of the second day of their marriage, Jessica was ready to call it quits. She was trying her best to be a good wife to Alex, just as she’d promised, but everything she did displeased him. First of all she’d brought him a tray of food, all of it carefully chosen so he didn’t have to chew very much.

  But when she’d tried to feed him, he’d pushed her halfway across the room. He said she was not to treat him as an invalid. Jess said she thought he was an invalid. It had been her experience that he couldn’t even walk a few feet that she didn’t have to put her arms around him and support him. She said she had gone into marriage with him with her eyes open and she had known she would have to be a nurse and was willing. He’d growled at her to bring him two pounds of beef or anything that he could chew.

  He’d left the house after that and returned when Jess was scrubbing Samuel down in a tub set before the fire in Alex’s room. Sam had decided to play with the new piglets and the sow had chased the terrified boy through several feet of mud and manure until Nick had pulled the boy out by his collar. Nick had comforted a crying Eleanor while Jess dumped buckets of water over Sam before taking him inside and giving him a proper bath.

  Alex stood in the doorway and gaped at her for a moment, then turned his back. “Jessica, you are indecent.”

  She glanced down at her wet, clinging underwear. “I didn’t want to get my dress wet. Alex, you have to get over your shyness. We did get married, you know. Sam, stand still so I can dry you. Alex, do I remind you of when you were a man?”

  He whirled to face her. “I’m a man now. God, Jess, you look—” Sam launched himself into Alex’s arms, his damp arms hugging Alex with all his might. Alex smiled and hugged the nude little boy back, nuzzling his damp neck. “For once, Sam, you smell good. You want me to read to you?”

  Sam laughed in answer.

  Jess took the boy. “I’ll put him down before he has an accident on your fine coat.”

  “Jess, please cover up. There are men about the house.”

  “Ah yes. Sorry. I’m not used to a house full of men.”

  Minutes later she was back, bending over, cleaning out the tub.

  “Jess,” Alex asked. “What would you do if you’d married your Raider?”

  She paused in scrubbing. “Help him. I’d know where he was going to be when and I’d be there to cover his back. I’d ride with him.”

  “What if he refused to let you know where he was going to be?”

  She grinned. “Oh, he’d tell me. I could persuade him.”

  “Yes, I believe you could. Then when he was shot at, you’d be there too, is that right?”

  “You take the bad with the good.”

  “Jess, I’m glad you didn’t marry the Raider.”

  Jessica didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Three days after the Montgomery wedding, nearly everyone in town was standing on the wharf, their eyes turned up toward the admiral and his soldiers, who were standing on the bow of a ship.

  For a full minute after the announcement, no one could speak. Everyone just stood there, mouth open, and blinked in disbelief. The admiral had announced that three of Warbrooke’s young men would be taken away to serve in His Majesty’s honor. All three of the men were big, strapping, healthy young men, all three were intelligent and had an air of independence about them.

  One of the young men was Ethan Ledbetter.

  “He thinks he’s sending the Raider away,” Jessica said under her breath.

  The next moment the air was split with Abigail’s screams. Everyone turned to see Ethan put his strong arms around Abby and lead her away.

  Jessica started to follow them, but Alex caught her arm.

  “Leave them,” Alex said, pulling her away.

  She struggled to free herself, but Alex held her fast as he forcibly guided her away from the crowd and toward the forest.

  “Alex, will you stop mothering me? I want to go to Abigail.”

  “For what reason? Jess, you’re to keep your nose out of this. The admiral thinks he has the Raider or he’s sure the Raider will try to rescue the men.”

  She jerked out of Alex’s grip. “And the Raider will rescue the men. Everyone in town knows that.”

  Alex rolled his eyes, his hands in fists at his sides. “Jess, the admiral will have twenty soldiers guarding those three. Not even your Raider can attack against odds like that.”

  Jess smiled at him in a patronizing way. “Alex, cowardly men don’t know what it’s like to not be cowardly. The Raider will be bound by honor to save those three.”

  “Honor? What about blood? The red kind that gets spilled when a man’s shot or stabbed.”

  Jess turned on her heel. “I have no time to talk to you. You’d never understand.”

  He grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. “I understand more than you do. You’re so overwhelmed by the romance of the Raider that you can’t see the consequences. And as for being a coward, let me point out that I have repeatedly saved your hide.”

  Jessica leaned forward until she was nose to nose with Alex. He was actually several inches taller than she but he slouched so badly that they were usually about the same height. “The Raider will be there. I know he will. He could never allow such an injustice to be carried out. Twenty men, a hundred men, a thousand—they’re all the same to him. He doesn’t think about his own safety. He puts others before himself. He can dance before the enemy because he knows he has right on his side. Alex! Are you all right? Sit down here. You look a little pale.”

  Alex sat down on a tree stump, and Jess, worried about him, touched his cheek. He pulled her to him and placed his head on her breast. “Does he mean so much to you?”

  “He means so much to the town. Without him we’d have no hope. Someday maybe all of us will have the courage to stand up against the English, but today there’s just a select few of us.” She was holding him to her, stroking his back as if he were a child.

  “Us?” Alex asked. “I thought only your Raider was standing up for America, that he was the only one braving the English bullets.”

  “Alex, don’t start getting jealous again.”

  “Jealous?” He moved his head so he could look at her but he kept her upper arms pinned down. “My wife rhapsodizes about another man, a man who is bigger than life, a man who makes the gods on Mount Olympus seem like cowards and you tell me not to be jealous.”

  “Alex, you’re hurting me.”

  “Good!” He stood, still gripping her arms. “This little pain is nothing to what