Susanna Fraser Read Online Free Page B

employed his parents from the day they escaped from slavery in Virginia, and who’d spoken for Elijah when at fifteen he’d pleaded to enlist as a true soldier and not only a drummer, and to stay with the Forty-Third instead of joining one of the West Indian regiments of black soldiers led by white officers.
    So he’d performed as requested, and a few days later Farlow had drawn him aside. Could he read, write and work sums on paper as well as he could in his head? Yes , sir , Elijah had answered, unable to imagine separating the abilities. He’d been taught by his father, a literate man, who’d learned as a boy from his own father. Elijah’s grandfather had been white—and the owner of his grandmother. He hadn’t loved his slave-born son enough to grant him his freedom, but he’d given him the softer life of a house slave, trained to serve his master with his mind as well as his body.
    Elijah hadn’t told Farlow all that, not at the beginning. But Farlow, after swearing him to secrecy, had explained his strange problem with writing and sums and offered him occasional work as his clerk, whenever his duties called upon him to keep the company’s or regiment’s books.
    Elijah had accepted. He’d liked the young officer and pitied him for his predicament, and he was never averse to an honest chance to earn a little money when the army was so often behind on giving him his pay. A few of their peers in both the officer and enlisted ranks had remarked on so junior an officer hiring a clerk, but as far as either could tell no one suspected the real reason behind it. After all, why should anyone guess that so clever a man as Farlow struggled to write or work sums? They’d even developed a friendship of a sort, as much as they could across the ranks that separated them, and Elijah enjoyed the odd afternoon spent with pen in hand, working over the regimental accounts. He’d never wanted to become the clerk or gentleman’s private secretary his father had intended him to be, but he had a knack for arithmetic that his everyday life gave him few chances to use.
    Tonight, however, he wanted to go to Rose. Still, he sat down at Farlow’s little table, adjusted the candles so he could see his work, and began reviewing Farlow’s notes. Despite their many errors, he knew the regiment well enough to make quick work of entering the names of the fallen into the registry of the dead.
    “I’ll add Sam Merrifield, sir,” he said as he reached the end of the list.
    “Really? When? I thought I had everyone.”
    Elijah blew out a rueful breath. “After the battle, during the looting.”
    “Too bad. I liked him, from what little I knew of him. He seemed a good sort.”
    “He was.”
    “His wife is the English girl, the pretty one who cooks, isn’t she?”
    More like the beauty whose cooking would have done honor to any aristocratic general’s table. “Yes, sir.”
    “What will become of her now?”
    Elijah shrugged and tried to look as little concerned by the matter as possible. “The usual, I suppose. If she wants to marry, she’ll have her pick of the men.”
    “But what if she doesn’t?”
    “She might go home, if she can afford the ship’s fare.”
    Farlow grinned. “After today, there ought to be plenty to be had, if it’s a matter of taking up a collection.”
    “Indeed, sir.”
    “Did you do well, in the looting?”
    Elijah shifted uncomfortably in the face of such a bald question.
    “Don’t worry, I won’t tell the colonel.”
    He allowed himself a small smile. “I have sufficient unto my needs. And yourself, sir?”
    “Not as much as some—Colonel Dryhurst kept me too close till it was almost over, drat his righteous soul. But I’ve a fine mantilla to send my sister.” He shook out the black lace, which he’d draped over his camp chair, and Elijah made suitable sounds of admiration.
    After a moment, he finished enumerating the back pay that had been due to the dead soldiers, capped the bottle of