Revolutionary Hearts

Revolutionary Hearts: Part Eleven

July 2, 1780 (continued)

The envelope contained several thin, folded pages. As I held them, I wondered if it were possible for such a fragmented heart to beat? I wouldn't have thought so, but as I looked down at the cramped scrawl I'd memorized from a very different letter, the drumming in my ears was deafening. 

My dearest Tara,

I cannot imagine what you are feeling now. If I were given news of you meeting such a fate as you've heard mine to be, I am not sure what I would do. 

But I would not put a great deal of stock in fate, my love. Take a deep breath. I can practically hear you sobbing from the dank, rat hole of a barricade I'm laying in. It kills me that I cannot comfort you in person. That I cannot simply take you in my arms. But please know that as you read these words, wherever, and whenever you read them, my heart still beats. I promise you. 

Calm yourself, Love, and allow me to explain everything from the beginning. Please forgive my crude details, for you asked that I not protect you from my sins. I shall try and tell you everything.

The day I was taken from you seems a distant blur. The whole nightmarish ordeal is clouded by fear. Fear for your safety. Fear of never seeing you again... 

Being trained as I have been, I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings, but I found myself lost in thought. It came as a shock when I was suddenly being pushed to my knees before a simmering fire. 

"I said sit!" a tall, gruff man shouted at me. He was one of the three you would recognize as my captors. 

"Shays!" another of the three shouted. "I have tolds you. We shall treats ze prisoners with respects."

"Yes, Major," Shays said, stepping back from me and saluting the young Frenchman in a rather insolent manner. "Not my fault he's deaf," I heard him mutter under his breath as he walked away.

"Zat is Daniel Shays," the Frenchman said to me. "You will have to forgives him. He is..." He paused, seemingly unsure of how to describe the other soldier. "He is just Shays."

I can't be sure, as my mind was still hazy at the time, but I believe I nodded and asked, "And who the hell are you?" Because let's be honest, I wasn't going to concern myself with protocol, was I? I'm no longer a soldier, and I had never been his soldier at all... What was the point?

I'm fairly certain he smiled at my snark. "Major General Marquis de Lafayette. At your services," he said with a mocking little bow.

Continuing with the honesty, I must admit that I paled at that. I'd just been curt with a Major. I don't think I replied until he prompted me to.

"Private Daniel Connors, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said hoarsely, unsure if I was parched, or just overly emotional. 

"I must apologize to you for zis morning, Private Connors."

"Apologize?"

He nodded, his eyes hinting at a genteel humor. "No matter ze crimes a man has committed, he cannot deserves to be pulled away from a girl so pretty."

Believe it or not, Angel, I actually smiled. "She is beautiful," I breathed. 

"You loves zis girl? Zis, what was it, Tara?"

"I do."

His expression grew more somber. "Then I must offer my sincerest apologies. Nobody deserves to lose ze one they loves in such a manner... As I said. No matters ze crimes they have committed." He paused, collecting himself. "And do you know what crimes you have committed, Private Connors?"