The Colonel's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

contained his wife’s portrait. Without thinking, he flicked at the tiny clasp and it sprung open in his hand. Just as suddenly, a speck of decency stung him and he moved to close it—but couldn’t.
    In his palm he held a woman . . . a girl. Not all gossamer and golden like Cecily. Nay, the likeness looking up at him seemed as finely made and enduring as the surrounding silver frame. He felt a strange twist of sentiment. How could an artist contain so much in such a small space—an even smaller face? For a moment he forgot he was kneeling and the wind was whipping the tails of his coat and the snow had frosted the russet queue of his hair.
    Hair like black coffee. Eyes like blue trade beads. The oval face seemed entreating even in miniature, the full, unsmiling mouth a brushstroke of rose. There was something terribly alive within that lovely face, something so vibrant and far-reaching it couldn’t be confined to a locket. Richard Rowan had never shown him this . . . girl-woman. But he knew who she was without a doubt.
    Roxie.

5
    Roxanna stood on the fort’s frozen parade ground, her pale face tilted toward the same blue sky her father was walking beneath as he came back to her from wherever he was. Though she didn’t know just how far he had to go, she had a feeling, with the weather worsening, he’d soon slip past the gates of the fort and swing her off the ground in welcome.
    Simply thinking about it made her smile. She felt like a little girl again, awaiting him after a particularly lengthy enlistment, about to search his pockets for a sugar cone or some fascinating trinket from afar.
    Two years they’d been apart. So much had happened inside those years. Thinking of it squeezed her heart into little pieces. That was why she stood here in the bitterness of mid-December, stirring a steaming kettle of lye-soaked laundry with a wash paddle. Staying inside Papa’s cabin was too dangerous, the solitude resurrecting a host of memories she was desperate to forget. Yet she couldn’t help but think of what her genteel mother, born and bred in Williamsburg, would make of this.
    You must not act like the daughter of a common soldier, Roxanna. Never forget you have refined and polished roots. I may have married your father for love and cast away my own chances at becoming a Carter or a Randolph, but I’ll not let you do the same.
    Oh, what high hopes her mother had had for her! Sometimes Roxanna wondered if all the social scheming, the expense of finishing school, had led Mama to an early grave. Lifting a hand, she wiped away a tear as it slashed across her cold cheek. Papa had been a bitter disappointment to her mother. As a daughter, Roxanna had been no better. Though she tried to recall only pleasant things about her former life, there was more gall than good. This was why she must lose herself in work, as Papa always advised—even work that wasn’t her own.
    Minutes before, the black woman who served them supper each night had been tending to the wash and then disappeared. As Roxanna had watched from her window, studying the unfamiliar moods and rhythms of this strange fort, she soon saw that the fire beneath the huge copper kettle was dwindling and threatening to go out. Snatching up her cloak, she slipped onto the parade ground and began to feed the flames, adding dry wood stacked nearby, aware that the sentries at the gate were watching.
    For several long minutes she waited for the woman to return, finally taking up the paddle to stir the dirty shirts and breeches. A sagging clothesline had been strung up between two posts, awaiting the wash to be wrung out and hung. Carefully, Roxanna began to lift each garment out of the gray water and place it in a draining trough till it was cool enough to handle.
    She knew her help might not be appreciated, but she’d be doomed if she didn’t do something—and she’d not lie abed like her wayward friends in the far cabins. She had awakened in the night to muted