Chapter 5: Mrs. McIver

"This is Mrs. McIver," said the old madam as she presented me to the tall woman at her side. "She needs protection for a while and you are to serve as her driver since that scoundrel fled with some of her silver shortly after her husband disappeared."

That confused me, but I took the young woman's hand briefly and smiled into her dark eyes, admiring her fine body and the violet cameo that hung at the cleft of her high breasts. She had a tiny waist, well-boned in I was sure, flaring hips and long legs.

"Good of you, ' she said quietly, holding my eyes steadily.

"My pleasure," I replied, feeling my blood warm. She was a woman who exuded confidence as well as beauty. She tucked her hand in the crook of my arm and led me down the stairs and out the front door to her lacquered carriage which stood near the mounting stone.

"Nice looking pair," I said, unconsciously thinking about her chest while I assessed her horses.

She leaned forward as she stepped into her open rig, displaying her pointed globes more fully, the bauble bouncing between them. Then she sat, straightened her skirt, smiled at me, touched her dangling brooch and said, "Thank you" with a wry twinkle in her eyes. I smiled back and mounted the driver's seat, well roused.

In less than an hour we were at her country home, a fine, old house atop a gentle hill in the midst of wide and bountiful fields and a grove of elms. I helped her down, followed her into the house and sat with her in the high-ceiling dining room while her coffee-colored maid brought us some cold food and a bottle of wine. I opened the wine and filled our glasses.

"Now," she said, taking a deep breath, "let me explain."

I sipped my wine and crossed my legs. By candle light she was even more lovely.

"My husband is somewhere about, not far off I'm sure. This is my land, and I, like you, am a devoted patriot." She paused, looked over my head, blinked. "He is a bloody Tory." She wiped away a tear.

Now I blinked having seldom heard a woman use that word in mixed company.

"This is my land. It was my father's, and he, my husband, the vain fool, wanted to let the British and their filthy Germans use it."

I waited, sure there was more.

She drank deeply and put down her glass. "He brought them here, some of the officers. Introduced me, and I told them to get out, to leave." She swallowed and moved her empty glass on the polished table top.

I looked at her. She was embarrassed I think.

"I made quite a scene, very loud. He hit me, my husband struck me, and then he left with those men. He cursed and said he would be back and I would be sorry."

"When was this?" I asked.

"Three days ago. It was Saturday," she said.

I refilled her glass as well as my own.

"How many people do you have here?"

She shook her head. "Some have run off. My cook is still here, one of the maids, you saw her, and an old man, a slave that was my father's overseer. He's at least seventy."

"No fieldhands?"

She shook her head. "He told them to leave. Told them the soldiers were coming."

"How are you going to... ?"

"I don't know," she said. "We'll let it lie fallow if need be."

I put my hand atop hers. "Maybe you should leave, let him have it until this is over."

"Never," she said, pulling her hand away. "Never!" She obviously meant it.

We heard feet on the front porch and then someone banged the knocker on the wide front door. She looked out without moving the curtain. "It's him," she said, turning to face me, her mouth a very thin line. "There are two Redcoats with him and a pair of Germans headed for the back door, big ones."

"Is it locked?" I asked, checking my pistol's priming. My musket was out in the stable.

"I doubt it," she said, hurrying off. The knocking continued, even harder.

A cry from the back room got my blood racing, and I hurried toward the sounds of a struggle to find the cook being mauled by two large jaegers, both of them looking very happy about their work as they tore at her clothes and pulled at her hair.

I clubbed one down with the barrel of my heavy pistol and then kicked the other one in the stomach, very low in the belly. I handed the woman my gun and drew my knife. "Go to the front room," I told her as I drove my blade through the moaning Hessian's chest. I lifted the other's head and cut his throat and then followed her after locking the back door and dropping the bar down in its keepers. Blood was covering the pine floor by then.

The front door crashed open and a big Redcoat spun around to face me. I thrust my bayonet into his gut. He screamed as I carved him open and then I was down with two men on me, taking blows and hearing grunting, some of it mine. A shot exploded near my ear, and then something fell on me.

When I awoke, I found myself bound hand and foot in a dark, dirt-floored, stone-walled basement. Kneeling beside me, her hands tied behind her, was Mrs. McIver, a crust of blood at her nose and her bodice gaping open.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered as I rose from the dark.

"What happened?" I asked shaking my head and squinting as a bar of sunlight streamed into my face from a very narrow window slit.

"Two more Germans were out there, big men, nasty. They beat and kicked you. I fired at my husband, but I missed."

"Turn about," I said gesturing with my elbow. She scrambled around and we got our backs together.

"Tomorrow," she whispered, "they are going to let those Germans have me, rape me, those huge men. They are burying the ones you killed."

I fumbled with her knots, gave up, and then, in only five or ten minutes, she managed to untie my hands using her long fingernails. I hugged her, kissed her, untied her and then undid my feet.

"They are going to use you for bayonet practice after they finish with me, use both of us I suspect."

"No, they won't," I said. "We're too smart for them. We'll get out of here."

"There isn't any way," she moaned.

"How many of them?"

"Not sure," she said. "I saw six or seven big Hessians plus my husband and that British officer. You killed three of them."

I searched the basement, found some stone jars and a few tools and as the sun set, we huddled together for warmth. Above us there was a good bit of noisy carousing and a few plaintive cries.

'They're horsing my maid and the poor cook," she said to me.

"Let's take advantage of the noise," I said. I broke the handle off an old hoe and got her to scraping away at the stones just below the window. They had been placed there with little or no mortar. I spent the time making a pry bar from a piece of discarded pipe. Together, over the next few hours, we managed to get several large stones loosened in the wall. When it was quiet upstairs, I lifted the heavy stones out and put them on the floor. Then I helped the woman climb on my back and crawl out of the hole we had made. With her help, I followed.

We hurried to the stable, found my musket and scrambled off into the woods. Along a meandering creek, I found a good hiding place and we clung together until dawn which seemed to come almost at once.

I awoke with this luscious woman clinging to me, raked back her hair, lifted her chin, and kissed her gently. Her eyes popped open and then she smiled. That made me feel a lot better.

She kissed me back and wriggled in my arms, getting still closer, grinding herself into me. She looked up at me. "I can feel it," she said. "Do it. This may be our last chance."

I slid my hand up her bent leg, taking her skirt up to her rounded hip. I put her on her back as she spread her knees, and then I mounted her and quickly drove my fleshy spear into her slick passage. She was warm and ready, arching and gasping as our bodies joined and heaved at each other. I pounded it into her, gritting my teeth, and she soon came, spasming and clamping me tightly within her as she sobbed in joy.

"Max," someone called from nearby. "Hast."

Still heaving deeply into her exciting sheath, near the point of climax, I forced myself away from her, grabbed my musket, checked my priming and handed her my pistol, trying to ignore the thrashing thing poking out from my groin. "Don't shoot unless you must," I whispered as a blue-clad man, a very big man, appeared from the forest, looking all about.