~*~
I woke with a start, swearing I heard a wolf howling. Mathew stirred in our dark chamber as I moved from his bare arms and chest, but he never wakened.
It was now four days into our marriage. I would wake each morning with a heavy arm or leg flung over me, and snoring in place of my sister’s giggles. I’d shove my still raw grief down into the pit of my stomach, yet find a smile easy enough for my husband as he would awaken and hold me.
But at that moment it was the middle of night, and I didn’t know what scream or unrest had alerted me. The night seemed peacefully calm, but I was sure I couldn’t go back to sleep. I smiled at Mathew’s large, muscular form as he stretched into a more comfortable position in his sleep. Then I found a linen shift, let it fall over my shoulders, and tiptoed from what I now considered Mathew’s and my bedchamber.
I glanced once more at my husband’s sleeping form, remembering the morning after our wedding. The sun had been so warm, so cheerfully yellow. It had baptized me from all thoughts centered around betrayal or any other sin I’d committed in my life. I think it did the same for him. Mathew had woken me with fresh coffee and a prideful smile spread wide on his face, making the fine lines around his blue eyes crinkle.
“I made coffee. It’s a first for me. I’ve tasted it, and, although it’s not the best, I doubt it will kill you. I feel so domesticated now. I’ve managed to make coffee, Violet! Are you proud of me?”
I’d smiled and nodded, took the coffee, and, after sipping the powerful brew that almost knocked the wind out of me, I’d managed a convincing smile.
“It’s wonderful . . . dear.”
His smile had widened to what I was sure would be a breaking point, then he took my coffee to the nightstand, and made love to me for the tenth time in our marriage. I should’ve stopped counting by then, but each time was still so new and adventurous and was a wicked heaven.
As I strolled down the stairs I thought of the past four days of our wedded bliss. I’d found myself drawn to his body more and more. Throughout the day, I’d plow the fields, weed, get the seed ready to be sown, and all the other work that needed to be accomplished on a farm, even if one is a newlywed. However, all the labor I had found so rewarding when my mother and sister were alive was now cruel and arduous. But making love . . . oh, that was nice. Instead of feeling numb or on the verge of a glacier-like existence, when Mathew made love to me, I was warm, no, hot, and then I would bubble and break into a million pieces, feeling like I had become glowing white flower petals dancing in a warm summer breeze. How I loved gasping for air, clutching to Mathew’s muscularly squared shoulders, and shuddering with my body’s pleasure.
I walked to the kitchen’s window and held Mathew’s pocket watch up to the moonlight. It was a very bright moon, and showed that it was 1:30 in the morning on April the 19th in the year 1775. We’d made love forty-three times now, and I wondered if I could rouse Mathew for our forty-fourth.
I bit my lip, dampening my evil smile, as I decided to let the poor man rest.
Then it hit me that what I was feeling was . . . happy. Of course my grief would sometimes catch up with me and take my breath away, make me feel hollow and that my bones might break from becoming too fragile. I hurt so much, but Mathew would find me huddled in a corner, set me on his lap, and let me cry on his shoulder, and soon enough I would feel strong and warm again.
I forced myself to have no thoughts regarding that black Jacque. He deserved none of my attention . . . idiotic man with his silly stories and pathological behavior.
But predominately I was happy, not just because I liked to make love to my husband, but I was enjoying all aspects of my married life. Coffee in the morning with sugar and cream, fresh picked wildflowers in the afternoon, but what I enjoyed so much was Mathew himself—his sense of humor, his intellect and insight, his gigantic heart. I silently giggled as my heart fluttered with thoughts about my husband, the man I did love. God, I loved him!
I had to write the date. It was the 19 of April in the Lord’s year of 1775 and I was happily in love.
Mathew had left some parchment on the table and some ink. He’d been working on a letter to his famous cousin, Samuel Adams, who had asked Mathew during our wedding, what he thought it would take to have a unified Continental Army. Mathew had been so flattered he’d been asked, he gave a silly and not too clear statement. He was drunk and kept looking down my dress, but all the same, Mathew was embarrassed he’d said anything at all, and was trying to clarify what he meant in a letter. He thought that, although Boston was under occupation by the Regular soldiers, the rest of the colonies didn’t have much sympathy for us Massachusetts folk, and in fact, thought we were trouble makers. What we needed then from the other colonies was sympathy, and Mathew feared how we could get such emotion to provoke such manpower and money that would give the colonies a united army. He had read me a few paragraphs from his letter, and I’d had to kiss him and asked him to make love to me on the table. He’d pushed the parchment and ink to one side, then lifted me to the other.
Remembering what we had done on the table, that was our forty-first effort, made me blush and smile. Mathew’s eyes had turned into blue smoke while he did everything he could to please me, and eventually, shocking myself, I screamed out for him.
Mathew was a brilliant lover, and I wished I could share that with someone. I wasn’t quite comfortable enough just yet with Bethany to talk about how my husband could make me cry out. Although, come to think upon it, she probably knew as there had been many moments when I had gotten louder than I had intended. Oh dear.
Moonlight poured into the kitchen, making everything silver and seem to be in another dimension of optics, perhaps of reality. I found the parchment, stood beside the table while I forced the lid off the ink, dipped the striped turkey feather quill in the tar liquid, then wrote on a scrap of parchment.
19 April 1775
The quill had more ink than I had expected and blotched a few times, making large black purple impacts on the paper. I let the colored fluid drip again and swiveled it into swimming lines from the dark blotch. I had no idea what else to write and played with the ink more.
A moth flitted across my neck, and I batted it away, only to find the solid feeling of flesh meet my hand. I screeched, jumping and turning into Mathew’s body.
He chuckled and placed a hand over my mouth.
“You’ll wake the Joneses, darling.”
He released his hand while I quietly giggled.
“You scared me, Mathew!”
He smiled down at me, then his eyes flicked to the table. His smile grew, the way a pair of friends who share a secret in common can grin devilishly at each other. He retracted the quill from my hand and placed it on the blotting board.
“Having a problem sleeping?”
I shrugged, noticing his naked chest and stomach, and how he wore his breeches loosened. Something about the loose ties of his breeches over his muscularly lined stomach made my inners flip. I’d seen Chinese acrobats come to Boston, and thought my stomach was imitating their dynamic and explosive moves—a cartwheel here, a flying twist there, summersaults in the air.
I tore my eyes from the wisp of dark blond hair under his bellybutton. “I—I woke up, and realized we’ve been married now for four days, and something about it seemed monumental. I had to write it down. Silly, aren’t I?”
“You being sentimental will never be silly. Not to me.”
I smiled up at him.
“God, you’re beautiful in the moonlight, wife.”
The nightglow played tricks on my vision, and Mathew’s eyes were as dark and blue as the deepest part the ocean could reveal. My breath hitched as I blinked.
But it was Mathew’s hand that wrapped around my hip; it was Mathew’s smile that warmly beamed down on me.
“Thank you, husband.”
Mathew’s other hand pushed onto my hipbone, and the table pressed against my backside.
&nb
sp; As usual my shift slouched over one of my shoulders, and Mathew’s gaze landed on my white exposed skin. His apt fingers fisted the fabric of my shift at my waist, and the flimsy white cloth rose to bare my knees.
“Mathew . . .” I whispered as I wrapped my fingers around his wide shoulders.
“I love you, Violet.” His whisper was fast and his eyes were focused on my thighs.
“I love you.”
Then he stopped. He gazed into my eyes with furrowed blond eyebrows and his breath caught in his chest. I’d wondered what I’d done wrong when he finally inhaled and tilted his head closer to mine.
“You do, don’t you?”
My forearm rested on his chest, and I felt his heart pounding under his ribcage, like a hammer hurrying to build a barn in a day. Better yet, I heard the sensual pounding music of his body. And almost to the same rhythm of his racing heart, we both heard the distinct sound of the Townhouse bell suddenly pierce the peace of the night.
He released his hold on me, and opened the kitchen’s door to the drive where we could see the North Bridge and the Concord River’s swollen waters, just passed that was Concord itself. Any Common House’s Bell being chimed in the middle of the night was not a good omen, and I gripped his hand with both of mine as he walked out to the porch. I followed, letting his body shield mine.
Then I heard the three beat sound of a horse running full gallop. Clop-clop-clop. Clop-clop-clop. Clop-clop-clop. I peeked around Mathew’s wide frame, when he asked, “Who is that out racing his horse?”
In the full silver moon, I saw the black figure running at a break neck speed over the bridge then slow as he approached our drive. The dark figure came into view. I could tell the shadow was a man, then as he approached I vaguely recognized the ragged voice as Dr. Prescott’s.
“The Regulars! They’re coming out!” His horse pawed at the ground in a quick walk, then he yelled, “I’m off to warn Mr. Barrett . . . Colonel Barrett.”
Mathew nodded as the horse sprang into a catapulting jump, but Dr. Prescott held firm, then the horse was granted what it wanted and ran west like it was born of the wind.
I stood closer to Mathew. We both didn’t say a word for a full minute, maybe more, as we watched the ghostly dust that Dr. Prescott’s eager horse made in the bright moonlight as he galloped away.
Colonel Barrett. Good Lord, we never called our militiamen by their military titles. Never. Not until almost two in the morning on this day, this fourth day into my marriage.
Jonah ran to meet us, also wearing breeches in an array that indicated he’d just thrown them on. Mathew turned to him and said calmly to Jonah’s panicked face, “The Regular soldiers are on their way. In February when the Regulars went to Salem, they did so on orders to retrieve the cannons there. More than likely, the Regulars are coming to get the cannons and other arms that were stored here, but most of the arms have been moved, which means the Regulars will march up here for nothing. And they will have to leave with nothing.”
Jonah nodded as Bethany, also dressed in a thin shift, caught up to Jonah and clutched onto his arm.
“I heard tales of the Regulars wanting to arrest Mr. Hancock.” Jonah’s voice was hoarse. “And that other relative of yours, the chubby one—”
Mathew smiled. He smiled, God love him, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Both my famous cousins like to eat. Are you referring to the older Mr. Samuel Adams?”
Jonah nodded and smiled himself. I thought he was thankful that Mathew understood his lack of a charitable description for his cousins. “That’s the one.”
Mathew shrugged and looked back west, as if he could see a phantom horse riding in the distance. “Sam might get arrested as well as Mr. Hancock, but I doubt it. Gage has had plenty of opportunities, and although I’m no judge of character, I doubt the great General Gage has it in him to arrest two of the most prominent men of Massachusetts. No, I think this is more about arms, which as I said, will come to nothing. But,” he sighed heavily and glanced at me then back at Jonah, “I have my duties. I am a militiaman and as such need to muster at Wright’s Tavern. Mr. Jones, I would appreciate you keeping a careful eye on my wife while I’m gone.”
“No,” I said flatly.
Both men turned to me for a second, then ignored me with pursed lips.
“Gladly, Mr. Adams,” Jonah said.
They shook hands, and I was going to smack them, but instead said sternly, “No.”
Mathew sighed again then turned to me. “Violet, I am a lieutenant in Concord’s militia. You were the one who thought it was a good idea for me to sign up. You know my duties—”
“Fine, go to Wright’s Tavern,” I hollered. “But Jonah . . . Bethany, they need to hide.”
Mathew frowned and peeked at the Joneses.
“Please, Mathew, tell them to go into the woods. I was but a girl when the war ended, but I remember vividly the Regulars kidnapping black men and women and making them labor for the army. Please.”
“I remember too.” Bethany’s earthy voice teetered on scratchy and dreamy at the same time. “All the men were rounded up and taken away, never seen again.”
Jonah held Bethany’s arm while he said softly, “Honey, I won’t let them take me. And somebody’s got to protect this farm.”
“You think those men didn’t fight for their lives, Jonah?” Bethany flung her arm away from her husband. “You think I didn’t see my uncle fight with every last ounce in his body so he wouldn’t be taken? Our master even argued with those damned redcoats, but they were all taken away.”
Mathew finally said, “I don’t want to interfere between a wife and her husband, and this fiasco with the redcoats will probably result in nothing, but now that I think upon it, I think it best if you, Mr. Jones, took your wife—”
“I am not going to live a coward’s life!” Jonah yelled.
I found one of Jonah’s hands that wasn’t juggling to hold his obstinate wife, and when I had Jonah’s attention I said, “I would never, never think of you as a coward. Never. I’ve known you for more than five years now, and in all that time, I’ve only thought of you as the bravest man I’ve ever known. My father made the impression on me to always try to see things from another person’s point of view, but I can’t wrap my mind around all the injustice you have seen in your life, a life not much older than mine. I’m asking you to protect yourself and your wife because I love you like a brother, and your wife is the only woman I have left in this world that I can call friend.”
“And sister.” Bethany held my hand then with huge tears gathering in her clear green blue eyes.
My own eyes stung, and I saw both Mathew and Jonah struggling with too much moisture in their eyes too, clearing their throats for a few seconds.
Jonah shook his head. “God damn it, you always get to me, Violet.”
“That means he’s going to do what we ask.” Bethany swung my hand in hers.
And then it was decided. Bethany and Jonah were to take Bess, and the horses, save Cherry, and all the money I had on me, and hide in the woods until it was over. I was to watch the house and farm, unless something—we had no idea what that something could be—happened. Then I was to race into the woods and track the Joneses.
I waved away the Joneses and Bess with tears streaming down my face, while Mathew got dressed and retrieved his sword, musket, balls and powder. Walking in the barn after the Joneses left, I stood before the shelves that held my father’s long rifle. I made the climb quietly, reverently, then took down the more than five-foot long specialized musket. I placed it on the wooden counter and stared down at the fateful weapon.
“Good idea.” Mathew’s voice interrupted the cold blank slate that was my mind—tabula rasa of the overwrought.
I turned to my husband, and instantly he rushed to me, wiping the cold trails of tears from my face.
“Oh, darling,” he whispered as he kissed my cheeks.
“Mathew,” I gripped onto
his blue lapels, and forced my body against his. “I—I don’t want you to go.”
“But—”
“I know. I know. If I were you, in your shoes, I would submit to my duty for the militia too.”
Mathew smiled and nodded. “Thank you for understanding. I must admit there have been multiple times when I thought I should just take you away from all of this. We could runaway together, like a couple of star-crossed lovers.”
“Who aren’t star-crossed at all, my love. Truly, you’d want to run away?”
“My first memory, Violet, was of wanting to tuck you into my arms and take you somewhere completely safe and make you the happiest of all women. Well, back then I wanted to kiss you and hide you in my trunk, like you were my wee, little doll.”
Hot tears floated down my cheeks as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I don’t know what I did that was so right to make you love me, but I’ll be forever grateful . . . darling Mathew.” I reached up on my toes and kissed him, tenderly. Then asked, “Make love to me before you leave.”
“But I’m already so late.” He shook his head, but I knew his body was rebelling.
“Please,” I coaxed, and jumped up to sit on the counter before him. I held his hands and slid them up my legs, revealing more and more each escalating second. My white shift bunched up to my mid-thighs, and I let my legs widen to surround his hips. He groaned.
I released his hands, and he kept moving the gown higher and higher while I reached for his breeches. Suddenly, he captured my hands. “Tell me you love me, Violet. Please, tell me you love me, like you did earlier.”
I swayed closer to him, holding his hands and placing them over my heart. “I love you, Mathew, my husband. I love you so much. I need you.”
He growled and pinned me to the counter with a kiss.