Revolutionary Hearts

Revolutionary Hearts: part three

June 1, 1780

I had planned to avoid him, but from my room I could hear his screams... That nagging little part of myself, the one who demands I help and protect, began to raise its voice at me. I tried to ignore it, but the screams from downstairs kept echoing through the house.

"It'll be alright," I told Will and Alice, who had been hunkered in fear at the foot of my bed. Standing, I had kissed both their foreheads and walked from the room. Making my way down the stairs, I paused at Will's door and peered inside. Mother was cleaning the Red Coat's wounds, scrubbing them raw to get rid of any infection... I hurt just watching.

"Alright," Mother said after quite some time, "I'm done. Shhh..." She brushed the man's sweat-matted, midnight hair from his gray eyes. "Easy, now."

He was panting, his face flushed and partially hidden behind fresh bandages. "Thank you..." he managed.

Mother seemed taken aback. She nodded, then looked up to see me standing in the hall. "Tara? Tara, will you stay with him? I need to go dispose of..." her brown eyes flickered to the soiled clothes she'd had to cut from the man's body.

I nodded. And this is where i find myself now: in my brother's room with a strange and possibly violent man lying in the bed. I'm keeping my eyes down, focusing on my writing, but i feel his gaze upon me. I'm not sure what he is finding in my dark curls or pale skin that is so intriguing...

"You don't want me here," he says to me now. A statement.

I'm NOT going to look at him, but I tell him he's right.

"Can I ask why?"

Ugh. I looked at him. Curse the butterflies in my stomach! What is wrong with me? His voice isn't THAT pleasant! And his face... Well, he's decent, but he's in poor shape. I shouldn't find anything in HIM worth butterflies...

"Because I was on the road two days ago. I saw the massacre." I refuse to refer to THAT as a battle. Battles are two sided.

He leaned his head back against the headboard, his eyes falling shut. A low, pained sigh escaped him. "I was only a private, Miss. I did only as I was told..."

Is that... regret in his voice? "That's no excuse."

"I never said it was."

I just looked at him a while, then something he'd said--the WAY he'd said it--fully registered. "What did you mean 'I WAS only a private?' ...What are you now?"

His eyes opened, locking with mine. "Two days ago, I was Private Daniel Connor. Today..." He looked down in shame. "Today I am a deserter."