Susanna Fraser Read Online Free

span than even any of the officers. He led a score or so of men, smaller and paler, but she couldn’t find Sam among them. She frowned with growing unease. Sam always stuck close by Elijah, especially in battle.
    Most of the group scattered toward their tents. But Elijah and three others kept coming straight toward Rose and Luisa. One was Luisa’s own Jemmy Whelan. The other two carried a body between them.
    Abandoning her stewpot, Rose rushed to meet them.
    It was Sam, slung limply between Adam Lewis and Ned Pritchard. He was dead, he had to be dead, or they would have carried him with greater care. In the flickering light from a nearby fire she saw the huge bloodstain across his chest and belly, darker than his red coat and marring his white crossbelts.
    She swayed, and a strong hand caught her under the elbow. “Rose.”
    She turned away from Sam’s stricken body, tilting her head back until she could meet Elijah’s eyes. “What? How?” she asked. “I saw him. After the battle, I saw him.” How had he got himself killed with the battle over?
    “I’m sorry, Rose. It was madness out there. Some of the Frogs stayed behind to loot, and one of them picked a fight with Sam.”
    They’d been fighting over some choice piece of plunder, in other words. Rose took a deep breath to steady herself. At least it had been a Frenchman. It would’ve been harder to bear if Sam had been killed by one of his own countrymen. She shook her head, unable to speak.
    “We’ll take him to where they’re burying the dead from today,” Elijah continued, “but I thought you’d want to see him first.”
    She collected herself. “Yes. Thank you. Here, bring him by my tent.” She led the way, and Lewis and Pritchard set Sam’s body down within the little circle of light cast by her slowly burning fire. The stench of blood and death warred with the rich scent of the beef stew she’d meant as a celebration feast for a living husband. Her mouth watered with nausea and her gorge rose. She swallowed hard, her hand pressed to her mouth.
    Luisa squeezed her shoulders, and the others clustered around them, offering silent sympathy. “Should I wake Jake?” Luisa asked.
    When Rose had been only a little older than Jake, she’d been the one to find her grandmother lying dead in her bed. Hers had been a far more peaceful passing, and still it had given Rose nightmares for months. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t need to see this.”
    She shrugged away from Luisa’s embrace and sank to her knees beside Sam. For the last time, she smoothed back his soft brown hair and bent to kiss his forehead. Not his lips—she wanted to remember them warm and living, as they’d been when he’d kissed her goodbye before marching out that morning.
    A hot tear slid down her cheek, quickly followed by another and another. Then she couldn’t hold back any longer, and her sobs came. The salty taste of her tears mixed with the heavy, metallic smell of Sam’s blood. Luisa knelt beside her and squeezed her hand, weeping too. After a moment, another hand rested on her shoulder, heavy but gentle.
    It was Elijah, holding a bundle of Sam’s gear. “I’m sure you’ll want these things, but was he carrying anything else, that you know of?”
    She shook her head and took one last look at Sam through tear-blurred eyes. “No,” she said. “You can take him away now.”
    Elijah murmured to Lewis and Pritchard, and they took up the body again. Rose got unsteadily to her feet. If she couldn’t see Sam buried, she must watch him out of sight.
    Just before he followed after them, Elijah bent to whisper in her ear. “I was with him at the last,” he said. “I’ll come back and tell you all about it, when there’s less of a crowd.”
    Rose nodded, though she wasn’t sure she could bear to hear the details of Sam’s death. Still, if he’d left any kind of dying message for her, she wanted to know. And she could bear Elijah’s company better than anyone