The Colonel's Lady Read Online Free PDF

effortlessly, though saying it nearly made him wince.
    Where was God’s grace in this ?
    Phineas’s eyes rolled back and he moaned. Reaching inside his cloak, Cass brought out a silver flask and uncapped it, holding it to Phineas’s wan lips and letting it dribble down to the last medicinal drop.
    “Thankee, Colonel.”
    Cass put a hand on his sagging shoulder, saw the once-pristine shirt spattered red, and it seemed he could feel the life ebbing out of Phineas beat by beat. Cass’s own cold fingers slid to his wrist and found the pulse weak.
    “Guess I get to go home—to Eire — sooner than you.”
    Cass’s throat tightened. “Aye, it does seem you’re about to be promoted. If the Almighty hadn’t beaten me to it, I might have made you a major.”
    A glimmer of a smile appeared, and Phineas gripped Cass’s gloved hand harder. “Ye don’t have t’ tell ’bout this, Cass . . . ’twas just an accident . . . it might go badly after all your trouble . . . back east.”
    A blinding rush of emotion made the man before him a blur. Cassius McLinn had never felt less like an officer in his life.
    Phineas was shaking now, more from the shock of blood loss, he guessed, than the bitter cold. Taking off his camlet cloak, Cass draped it over Phineas, but before it had been tucked under his chin, Phineas drew a final ragged breath. Unseeing amber eyes stared back at Cass and he moved to shut them. After drawing the cape over his friend’s bent head, he half crawled out of the shelter, standing so suddenly he nearly toppled.
    The snow was swirling now—his head was swirling—and the icy whiteness was up to the ankles of his boots. If they didn’t dig the graves fast, they’d be caught in the belly of a blizzard and not make it back. He knew that was what his prisoners hoped—to be stalled here till word reached the upper Shawnee towns of the ambush and more British and Indians could come streaming down to skewer them.
    Striding a bit unsteadily to where twin bonfires blazed, he took Major Hale aside and told him to dig an extra grave. That done, he walked over to the fallen men at the edge of the woods where they’d been laid. Studying the linen sheet covering them and weighted down with heavy rocks, he felt equally burdened. He knew each man simply by the sight of his boots.
    At the very end was Richard Rowan. Kneeling, Cass uncovered him slightly, trying not to look at his face. Quickly he moved stiff fingers over the coarse wool of his uniform, feeling like a pickpocket as he searched for any personal items. Richard had had a fine watch once, and Cass had sometimes seen him reach into a hidden crevice of his coat and retrieve something else in a rare idle moment. Something small and silver that snapped when he shut it.
    Strange how a body was so heavy once the spirit left. And cold . . . so cold. Cass felt half alive himself, doing this terrible disservice to a man who’d been hale and hearty but twelve hours before. He tried to think of anything but touching the familiar coat in this unfamiliar way. His mind kept returning to Cecily. Always Cecily. And the dress she’d been wearing when he’d last seen her. ’Twas the same color as this Continental coat—but dark blue silk, not wool, its folds slipping through his hands like water . . .
    What would she think of him now?
    When he’d nearly given up searching, his fingertips felt something smooth and round just above Richard Rowan’s still heart. Forgive me, old man. In the harsh pewter light, he withdrew a piece of silver on a fine chain. A locket. The sight made his eyes sting, and he swallowed past the knot in his throat.
    He remembered Richard had a wife in Virginia who’d died the previous year. For a week or so after receiving the news, he’d been unable to work, and Cass was struck by the depth of his grief—or regret. Soldiers had all kinds of regrets, mostly having to do with being away from hearth and home. Likely this silver locket