~*~
After running for a few minutes, I wondered if I truly did hear my feet sloshing in river water. I hid in a blueberry bush, and waited for my assailants, but none came. The forest birds sang of their early morning chores, and the trees no longer swayed under the heavy water of my rage. My own body felt lightened, as if the river had seeped out of me. Perhaps that was relief from not having to commit murder. Or was this buoyed sense the sick elation of knowing Kimball was dead? I didn’t want to know which.
I held my breath, listening for the slightest sound of something amiss, but nothing came to my ears. Finally allowing myself to breath, I checked my father’s watch: 7:48. I walked the rest of the way back to my family’s farm, Mathew’s farm. To try to forget the sticky blood on my hands, the way Kimball’s bones felt at the back of his neck, I tried to remember what day it was. Tomorrow would be my wedding day. Would that be Sunday? Or was it Saturday? The fourteenth of April, I knew that much.
The clearing for my house and the field came into sight. If I could fight this insatiable fatigue I could plow and get ready to sow the oats and barley. There were no signs of Jonah or Bethany as I tiptoed through the orchard. The thick tree branches on the western side of the field carefully concealed me. Perhaps not all that well, I considered, as I wore flaming red. I kept cautious eyes for the Joneses, but I didn’t see anyone, except for . . . a far-away black figure, tilting his head in my direction.
Tears stung my eyes before I could believe Jacque really stood on the other side of the field. He was easy to spot with his perfect posture and wearing only black. He moved like an inkblot without any distinction, and in a blink he stood before me.
He reached for my face, but didn’t touch me. Scanning my wardrobe, his eyes descended to my hands, my tomahawk still in my grip.
“Mon Dieu, I’m too late.”
“I didn’t do it. Did you?”
Those otherworldly dark, dark blue eyes studied me.
“Did you kill Kimball before I could?”
He shook his head and opened his mouth as if to speak, but looked down at the blood.
“His neck was slit. I was going to hack him to pieces, but his neck was . . .” As I spoke his black brows furrowed. “You beat me to him, didn’t you? You killed him for me? You were the blur, weren’t you?”
He shook his head again and reached for my tomahawk. He inspected the clean edge, yet there was blood on the handle. All that blood.
“You were the black blur.”
“Chére? I don’t know what you mean by this, but we have to burn the uniform. Clean you up.”
He reached for my arm, but I needed answers. “Colonel Devlin told me someone tried to kill Kimball when he was in Boston. Colonel Devlin called the person who strangled Kimball a black blur because he was so fast. You are . . . so fast. You tried to kill him in Boston and did kill him this morning before I got to him.”
He didn’t answer for a beat. “I only arrived to Concord just now. It was an hour ago that I got the news about your sister and mother passing . . . I’m so sorry, Violet.” At that he did touch me, caressing my shoulders, with one hand encumbered because it still held my bloody tomahawk. He shook his head. “I did not kill anyone this morning.”
So he hadn’t gotten to Kimball before me, but he hadn’t answered about trying to kill Kimball in Boston.
“Let’s get you inside, chér. Even if you didn’t kill Kimball, this is damning evidence you wear. We must get rid of it.”
“But Colonel Devlin said you were shot—shot when you were in Boston.”
He shrugged. “I am not wounded.”
“But you were shot?” My already hoarse voice cracked.
His eyes looked around the field. His jaw line kicked twice. “I should have been here. I should have been the one . . . why didn’t I stay?”
He raked his hand through his hair, letting his black satin ribbon fall like a dead butterfly, fluttering to the ground. The sun cast enough light to make his locks appear black blue. Descartes noted how things appeared different under water—the magnification and tilting of optics, but it was Newton that perfected the theory, and it was through the masters that I realized I was no longer drowning in my sister’s death. I saw Jacque clearly.
“You couldn’t stay because you know,” my voice trembled, “that not being able to touch you causes me pain.”
He groaned and grasped my face with one of his hands, kissing me tenderly, then he pulled away. Blood smudged his lips. I thought I only had blood on my hands. He scooped me into his arms, then in a flash I was in my house, in my bedchamber.
He gently set me on my feet. “Can you stand on your legs again, chér?”
I nodded then gradually held my own weight.
He scanned my person again. “Let’s clean you up.” Nodding to himself, he stepped to my bed then tore the upper sheet and spread the clothe on the floor. He lifted me gently, like I was child, under my armpits, then placed me on the sheet. Carefully, he undid the golden frog buttons of the red jacket. When he was finished he slid the coat off. He laid it on the sheet. I hadn’t worn a corset, and was bare-chested, save for the lavender swirl tied around my arm and the blue-gemmed necklace. I crossed my arms around my bosom, cupping my breasts.
Jacque released the pistol and cartridge bag from my belt, then placed them on the bureau as he had my tomahawk. His hands pushed my breeches over my hips and further down my legs, then he helped me step out of my boots. The small dagger fell out, and he placed that beside the pistol and ax. I had never bought a pair of men’s hose, but wore my stockings, which, although there was no blood on the silk, Jacque removed from my legs too. I stood bare before him, crossing my arms, and shuddering from the chill of the early morning. The Regular soldier’s uniform sprawled on the bed sheet. As if I were trying to imitate my sister, the red woolen clothing looked like it had been my own costume of a gothic mermaid. I’d rid myself of my macabre red fins and the river’s plants and gritty water. Jacque glided over to the basin, and quicker than I thought possible he came back with water and a cloth.
He cleaned my face, then kissed the blood-free skin.
“You might need a bath to remove all the blood.”
“Our tub is stored in the kitchen, in the large blue pantry.” I finally let my arms hang down by my sides, where my hands shook, vaguely thinking how inconvenient it was to take a bath, that I would take a bath only a few times a year. Usually my sister and I would swim in the river to cleanse. At that thought I clenched and wanted to fold into myself.
Jacque nodded through my grief. “I’ll get it ready.”
“I can’t take a bath. Bethany and Jonah will discover me.”
He nodded again. From my periphery, I saw that the basin sloshed red water. The cloth had changed from white to dark pink with splotches of red. How had I managed to swipe all that blood over my person? I must have looked a fright.
“I will distract Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”
I nodded.
His gaze traveled to my chest bearing his gem, then to my stomach, as he wiped my fingers. His hands shook as he finished and laid the cloth in the basin. I still had pink stains on my arms.
“Yes, I’ll prepare a bath for you. This isn’t enough.”
His eyes traversed back to mine. I sniffed and couldn’t restrain myself any longer. I had to hold him. I had to feel him against my cold, goose bump-filled skin. I had to have his body against mine as a measure that I wasn’t completely insane, this wasn’t a hallucination. I lunged for him.
His arms encompassed me tentatively, slowly, too slowly.
“Do you think less of me?” I whispered close to his ear. “For what I would have done?” This was what worried me—Jacque’s opinion of me. I was numb to everything else.
He shook his head against mine. “Never.”
I closed my heavy lids over my eyes that felt as if acid had been poured in them. My eyes, no, my whole body, was raw as if every inch of me had been
sanded.
His arms, twined ‘round my back in a firm embrace. Then he picked me up off the ground, letting my bare feet sway as he held me tight. We stood in our hold for minutes, maybe hours, as I lost track of time.
When he placed me back on the floor, he wrapped another sheet around me.
“I will burn these garments now and clean the ax. I think you might want to hide the ax though or destroy it.”
“It was a gift. I don’t want to get rid of my tomahawk.”
I saw his mouth quirk as if he tried to hide an instant smile. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to ask the Joneses to leave before I burn the clothes. I shall give them some money, ask them to get something for you.”
I nodded again.
“I’m going to ask that they don’t invade in your privacy until tomorrow.”
“I’m getting married tomorrow.”
His jaw line twitched. “I know.” His blue eyes, finding a dark fire, stole a look into mine. “May . . . may I ask, are you marrying for this farm?”
I nodded. “It’s all I have left of Hannah and—”
Jacque frowned but nodded. “Je comprendre.”
A snap of a door closing made both our heads spin in the direction of Jonah’s house.
“Jonah . . .” I whispered.
Jacque nodded. “I’ll get the Joneses to leave.” He swept me in his arms, sheet and all, lifting me off the floor again and walked to my bed while I clung to his neck.
Jacque paused. His black eyebrows furrowed. “Violet, you have money and an unsheathed long sword on your bed.”
It was the tone of his voice, as if that sort of thing happened almost every day that I found ironic and . . . funny. As he lowered me to the bed I nodded and laughed. True, I cried a little too, but I laughed. I clung more to him. He had made me laugh, that man that I loved, made me laugh.
He wore a small smile as he gathered the money and claymore and placed it on my bureau. The claymore he’d lifted as if weighed no more than the money, then he came back to my bed.
“It comforted me,” I whispered, cocking my head toward the silver-colored sword. Jacque nodded as if it made perfect sense to him, or to placate my insanity, and smiled.
“I must get to the Joneses.”
I reached out for his coat’s lapels. “You’re coming back to me?”
Jacque’s eyes reddened as he nodded.
“We will have today, then, won’t we? We’ll have this day together. One last day?”
He nodded reverently. “We’ll have this day together,” he repeated.
Jacque covered me with the quilt my mother had made for my sister and me that held lavender and pink circles in an intricate pattern. He kissed my eyelids, then before he left my room, I gave into the exhaustion and fell asleep.