The flood of dispatches did not abate, though the ratio of excitement to tedium dropped considerably. More parts of the Savannah garrison were indeed carved off and sent north—but to guard prisoners and escort them to prison hulks or other insalubrious quarters, rather than to join in glorious battle.
“At least at the end of our siege, Lincoln took his army off with him,” William remarked to his father and uncle. “Less to tidy up, I mean.”
“Took them off north so Cornwallis could bag them all, you mean.” Uncle Hal was inclined to be snappish, but William had been around soldiers for the majority of his life and recognized the poisonous slow sapping nature of tension that could not be discharged in a good fight, resulting in prickliness and disgruntlement.
“At least Ben wasn’t there,” Uncle Hal added, in a tone that made Papa look sharply at him. “Save me having to shoot him myself to keep him from being hanged.” One corner of his mouth jerked up, in an apparent attempt to make this sound like a joke. Neither his brother nor his nephew was fooled.
A muffled gasp from the door made all three men glance round, to see Amaranthus in her calico jacket and straw hat, she having evidently been out. She had a hand pressed over her mouth, either to keep from saying whatever she was thinking—or perhaps to keep from vomiting, William thought. She was white as one of Lord John’s porcelain figurines, and William moved to take her arm, in case she was about to faint.
She took her hand away from her mouth and let him lead her to a chair, giving Uncle Hal a horrified look as she went. He went a dull red and cleared his throat with a strong harumph.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, unconvincingly.
Amaranthus breathed for a few moments, her bosom stirring the folds of her pale-blue fichu. She shook her head slightly, as though rejecting the advice of an angel on her shoulder, and clenched her gloved hands upon her knee.
“Do you truly mean you would prefer him to be dead?” she said, in a voice like cut glass. “Is his being a traitor more important than his being your son?”
Hal closed his eyes, his face going blank. Lord John and William exchanged uneasy glances, not knowing what to do.
Hal grimaced slightly and opened his eyes, pale blue and cold as winter.
“He made his choice,” he said, speaking directly to Amaranthus. “I can’t change that. And I would rather have him killed cleanly than captured and executed as a traitor. A good death might be the only thing I still could give him.”
He turned and left the room quietly, leaving no sound but the hissing of the candles burning behind him.
WILLIAM WAS DRESSING to go down for breakfast the next morning when a frenzied pounding on his door interrupted him. He opened it to see Miss Crabb in her wrapper and curling papers, holding Trevor, who was in a red-faced passion.
“She’s gone off!” the housekeeper said, and shoved the howling child into his arms. “He’s been bellowing for nearly an hour, and I couldn’t stand it, I really couldn’t, so I went down and found this!” He hadn’t a hand to spare, but she waved a folded note at him in accusation, then stuffed it between his chest and Trevor, unwilling to suffer its touch any longer.
“Er … you’ve read it?” he asked, as politely as possible, shifting Trev to one arm in order to pluck the note out of his shirtfront.
The housekeeper puffed up like an angry, if scrawny, hen.
“Are you accusing me of impertinence, sir?” she demanded, above the noise of Trevor’s wail of “Mamamamamamamamama!” Then she looked down and noticed that William, who had not assumed his breeches yet, was standing there unshaved and barefoot, in nothing but his shirt. She gasped, turned, and fled.
William was beginning to wonder whether perhaps he hadn’t awakened at all and was in the midst of a nightmare, but Trevor put paid to that notion by biting his arm. He hoicked Trevor onto his shoulder, patted his back in a business-like manner, and carried him downstairs—still shrieking—in search of assistance.
He felt oddly calm, in the way that one sometimes is during nightmares, merely watching as terrible things transpire.
She’s gone. He hadn’t the slightest doubt that Miss Crabb was right. He couldn’t get beyond the simple fact of Amaranthus’s disappearance, though. She’s gone. The part of his mind capable of asking questions and making speculations was either still asleep or shocked into paralysis.
He pushed the door to the dining room open and went in. Lord John was sitting at the table in his purple-striped banyan, dipping toast into the yolk of a soft-boiled egg, but at sight of William and his burden, he dropped the toast and shoved back his chair.