The Butcher's Daughter

Chapter 14

William continued to escape from dreaming as best he could. When Cornwallis got ear of the night raids that the dragoons were initiating, he summoned William to his quarters. It was not the fury of his commander that William feared, but the effect that seeing Mabel again would have on him. With Mabel and Annabelle pushed far into the back of his mind, he was unstoppable, and he was managing extraordinarily well with replacing the desire to protect his family with his ambitions as a soldier. But this solution was temporary and doomed to fail.

"You haven't asked how your friend is faring, Colonel," Cornwallis noted when his reprimands had declined into a lull. "I was under the impression that you cared a great deal for that little gobshite."

William's stern expression melted away without warning. He'd never known the gentlemanly Lord Cornwallis to be capable of such profanity. "She speaks often. But she speaks well," he defended Mabel with a tone of accidental admiration.

"Young Mabel brought something to my attention the other day, Colonel. I thought that she was out of her mind at first and dismissed her in something of a rage. Would you like to know what it was she told me?"

"If your Lordship doesn't mind," William drained his face of emotion and returned to his tall, almost regal stance, "I'd rather return to the fields. Now that you have spoken, or rather, hollered your part."

"Mabel suggested," Cornwallis continued, ignoring William's uncordial remark, "that you are more liable to follow my orders and withhold your brutality when she rides with you. After careful consideration, I have decided that you are to reinstate her."

"Careful consideration, my Lord!?" William nearly shouted, erupting out whatever remnants of a shell that he had enclosed himself within.
"When last we spoke of Mabel, you said that she wouldn't stand a chance in combat!"

"And you wanted to use her as a buffer, remember? I am willing to try anything if only to deter your brutality for a while. If Mabel is the soldier that you made her out to be last time, surely, no harm will come to her."

"Use my own words against me, why don't you!?" Barked the sleep-deprived dragoon, casting his shadow over his seated commander. "There was something to your first impression after all," his voice might have softened, but didn't waver in his desperation, "I do care for Mabel. Which is why I have decided to send her to England in my stead. I will follow your orders, my Lord. I will forego my own lunges for victory and fall into obscurity if you will ready a coach and guards to take Mabel to the harbor in Charlestown."

"It sounds to me," Cornwallis traced his lips with the edge of his finger in thought, "as if you are asking for a favor, Colonel."

"You have endorsed the relocation of many soldiers' families, have you not?"

Cornwallis wasn't phased in the least, "I don't know which well you are drawing this information from, Colonel. Even if she was English and bore your last name, why would I personally fund her voyage? And across the sea to England, no less!?"

"If proximity is your concern, the Caribbean would be sufficient. Or any place of the like. All that I want is for Mabel to be safe."

"Tell me," he leaned across his desk in interest, "what is your relationship to Miss Casey." He locked eyes with William, parsing their shape and the stunning waves and flecks of blue at the perfectly round centers of their white shores. He considered asking about the similarities between William's eyes and Mabel's, but couldn't find the words to do so. "Is she your wife?"

"No."

"No? She is incredibly secretive, I'll have you know. And so are you, Colonel. Secrecy is one thing that I will not stand for."