Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(34)
“Speaking of boys,” Peggy cut into Eliza’s reverie in a bored voice. “Have you noticed Philip and John and Ren have fallen suddenly silent? I do hope they haven’t slipped into a hole somewhere.”
Eliza strained her ears, and indeed heard nothing but her mother’s singing birds.
“They’re probably hunting something. I expect we shall hear a gunshot at any—”
She was cut off by exactly the sound she prognosticated, not once but two, three, four, five times, in rapid succession.
“Did I count five shots?” Mrs. Schuyler said. “I don’t understand. The boys only have the two old muzzle-loaders, and they could not have reloaded that quickly.”
Eliza wondered at her mother’s expert knowledge of munitions—well, she was a soldier’s wife, after all—but before she could ask, she heard the light tread of multiple running feet. A moment later, her three brothers appeared at the base of the garden path and tore toward the feminine quintet in the gazebo. The two older boys each held one of eight-year-old Ren’s hands in one of theirs, and were all but carrying the smaller boy as they charged up. Their guns flapped loosely in their other hands.
“Mama! Mama!” John called. “Redcoats!”
“Redcoats!” Philip and Ren echoed.
“Mama!” John cut them off. “A party of redcoats and Indians is advancing upon the house from the northwest! There are at least fifteen of them, maybe more!”
“What?” Eliza said, standing so suddenly that little Kitty roused from her nap and let out a thin mew. Eliza peered toward the northwest but could see nothing over the well-grown trees of the cherry orchard. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“They fired at us! The white men are dressed as civilians, but there can be no mistake! We must get to the house and prepare to defend it!”
Eliza turned to her mother for direction. Catherine Schuyler was pushing herself to her feet with an inscrutable expression on her face. Before the shocked gaze of her three oldest children, she strode purposefully to John and snatched the rifle from his hand, then turned to Philip and grabbed his, and then, to the gape-jawed astonishment of her audience, threw both weapons deep into the flowerbeds.
“There will be absolutely no defending or firing of any kind!” she said with more passion in her voice than Eliza had ever heard. “Are you mad? If you fire on a British war party, they will cut you down as though you were soldiers on the line. I will not watch my sons shot down in my own house!”
“Mama!” Philip began, but Catherine whirled on him.
“Not another word, or as our Lord and Savior is watching, I will turn you over my knee! To the house, all three of you. And you girls, what are you waiting for? Get up the hill now! Are you going to greet a party of gentlemen in the garden like a group of lolling milkmaids? Up! Up!”
The stunned group began a straggling march up the stone steps that led from the garden to the house. Eliza was still carrying Kitty and found herself clutching the infant so closely to her chest that her sister was beginning to fuss. She willed her arms to relax, yet it was impossible. It seemed unbelievable that even as Alex was risking his life to challenge the British in Virginia half a thousand miles away, she and her mother and sisters and brothers were under fire right here in Albany.
It is a sign of British desperation, she said to herself. But that didn’t make her feel any safer. Or less outraged. Cowards! she thought. Going after women and children! Her heart raced as she thought of her family’s safety, and of Alex’s distraught if anything were to happen to her.
Halfway up the slope, she turned back. To her horror, she saw a swarm of dark-coated figures down at the bottom of the hill. They were pale skinned and dressed in European attire, no redcoats visible, but they didn’t need uniforms to identify themselves as the enemy, anyone could see the hostile expressions on their faces.
“Eliza, please!” Peggy said, taking her arm. “Do not gawk! Get inside!”
She hurried up the hill, but she couldn’t help but feel she was running into a trap. Why had her mother had thrown the boys’ rifles away—the only weapons they had to defend themselves! Rationally, she knew Mrs. Schuyler was correct. If the boys were foolish enough to fire at their attackers, they would be executed in a hail of answering bullets. But to be corralled in the house, with no weapons and no route to escape! It shook her to the core. Yet what else could they do but trust that the men chasing them up the hill were not so dishonorable that they would fire upon civilians?
The last thirty seconds as they ran up the hill were the longest of Eliza’s life. She hunched her shoulders, as if they would somehow provide more protection if the men behind her did choose to fire. But no shots rang out, and at last the Schuyler clan was at the top of the hill and running around the corner of the house to the back door. One by one, they ran inside into the rear hall, where several of the maids were already gathered at the foot of the stairs with Mary and Samson the butler.
“Should I barricade the door, madam?” he asked as soon as John, who insisted on being last through the portal, was inside.
“Leave it open,” Mrs. Schuyler commanded. “We do not want to inflame the passions of our besiegers by forcing them to hack their way in. Please take the maids and my children upstairs and wait in the hall. Do not hide, and if the men do come upstairs, speak to them as briefly but respectfully as possible.”