Love A Rebel...Love A Rogue by Shirl Henke

Author:Shirl Henke
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 2011-03-12T08:00:00+00:00

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Quintin rode toward Blackthorne Hill, letting Domino pick his way slowly through the undergrowth that encroached upon the seldom-used trail. He had a great deal to ponder. As if his personal life were not in enough chaos, the war was approaching disaster. British forces seemed to be triumphant across the Carolinas.

There was only one American commander left in the southern theater with brains and discipline enough to win, and Quint had just ridden away from that man—Colonel Francis Marion. When he'd reached General Horatio Gates's encampment, his information and advice were studiously ignored by the new American commander in the South. That was where he'd met the French Huguenot. Marion, too, had been ignored.

In spite of his dark mood, Quintin grinned ruefully. Francis did not exactly cut an imposing figure to command instant attention. He was thin and short, even scraggly, with stringy black hair and a great beak of a nose set in a small, intense face. But there was much more to the man on closer inspection. His mouth was resolute, and his black eyes burned with the light of keen intelligence. He was soft-spoken and cautious, but when he voiced an opinion it invariably made sense. He and Quintin had been drawn together immediately in their opposition to the arrogant and impetuous Gates, full of himself ever since his triumph at Saratoga nearly three years earlier.

When Marion asked to be allowed to return to guerilla fighting in the Carolina back country—skirmishing British supply lines and burning ferries and bridges—Gates quickly agreed, glad to be rid of the troublesome fellow. Quintin had joined Marion at his camp on the Santee River and participated in a number of raids.

Outraged, one British officer they captured had blurted out, “You do not sleep and fight like gentlemen, but waylay us like savages from behind trees!”

To Marion's way of thinking, that was the only sort of war that made sense. Quintin agreed and wished to remain and fight for the patriot cause, even though he had eaten little but sweet potatoes, slept on nothing but the damp, swampy earth and had scant opportunity for the amenities of a toilette in the past month.

A few days before he departed, dispatches arrived with grisly news. Gates had led his men against superior forces and was cut to pieces at Camden. One of the Revolution's most noble and skillful officers, Baron deKalb, was killed in the engagement. A scant two days later, that bloody butcher, Banastre Tarleton, led his battle-hardened dragoons against the Carolina partisan Sumter at Fishing Creek. Tarleton caught the ignorant popinjay Sumter bathing in the stream! Although the rebel narrowly escaped with his life, more than eight hundred Americans were captured or killed.

Marion had kept the news from his men, swearing Quintin to secrecy and pleading with him to return to Georgia and resume his intelligence work.

“A damned bloody spy, that's what I am. God, how I sicken of the deception.” He rubbed his eyes, then felt the stubby bristle on his jaw.

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