Angel's Flight by Juliet Waldron Page A

humorous gray eyes did not appear in the least discouraged.
    “Everything shall be exactly as you wish, Miss TenBroeck.” His promise was made with a gay smile, and sealed with a courtly bow over her hand.
     

 
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    They had made a swift passage, borne on strong winds past Peekskill, beating in no time by the forested cliffs of Bear Mountain. Here the river took a westward crook. The little ship strained, shivered, and spray flew as they made a tacking assault by Round Island and on toward Anthony’s Nose. From there, in happier times, it would have been smooth sailing to West Point.
    They were approaching the rebel line, consisting of a few ragged brigades under General Putnam. That doughty veteran of the French and Indian Wars was attempting to control who and what moved north along the river.
    “Which is where you, Mr. Church, will have to convince some bright young officer that you aren’t a troublemaker,” Angelica said.
    “I shall do my best.”
    The kisses of the night and the proposal of the morning were events that had, for the moment, dropped into the background, exactly as she had asked and he had promised. Conversation, though halting at first, had revived. Jack was just too pleasant to be around, too easy to talk to.
    Angelica was perched on a low crate with Jack beside her. She was holding a pie pan on her lap and they, forks in hand, were dining on the remains of a cold meat pie that had been brought on board from a cook shop at Croton. It was proving to be quite a concoction.
    “What is this?” Making a face, Jack speared a bit of stringy meat and held it up for her inspection. “I keep expecting to come up with a Frenchman’s finger or some such delicacy.”
    Angelica laughed, pleased to have an opportunity to tease him. “Don’t be silly. No Indian made this pie, but some frugal Dutch cook. It tastes to me of squirrel and rabbit, with a little fatback, perhaps, to give it more richness. The rest is parsnips and oyster plant. It’s not stale—something we may devoutly thank her for on this rough ride.”
    The ship, as if to emphasize her point, executed another sickening corkscrew through the water.
    “Scissors in your pocket, and now you tell me you can cook, too,” Jack said, steadying himself.
    “Dutch women, sir, no matter how high their fortune, are taught to cook, to spin, to sew and clean.”
    “A blessing to their husbands in these lazy, modern times.” Jack winked. “No wonder they are so sought after.”
    Angelica decided to ignore that. “What made you see fingers in our dinner?”
    “Well, what’s this?” Jack poked out a bit of meat that was still attached to a fragile length of bone.
    “It looks like squirrel.”
    “Hmm. I hope so. My mind tends toward fingers after nine years in the Canada s among the Indians.”
    “You know perfectly well that’s not a finger.”
    “Of course,” Jack continued playfully. “It’s not the season for Frenchman. Only when things are lean will you be asked to dine upon an enemy. In hard times, real men, as a venerable old chief once told me, eat whatever will go into a pot.”
    Their forks rattled down into the empty pie pan. Angelica began to talk about the Mohawk who still hunted on land that adjoined her father’s farm on Schoharie creek.
    She had been born near Schoharie Town and had lived on that frontier place until her tenth year. She recalled her father grumbling that the Indians were far more candid and easier to get along with than his quarrelsome Scots-Irish neighbors.
    “Are you an only child, then?”
    “Yes. Although my parents were a most loving couple.” The words were out of her mouth before she thought. She damned herself, seeing amusement flash in his beautiful eyes.
    “May I ask about the tragedy which took your parents?”
    “You may, for it was a very long time ago now,” Angelica replied, relieved he was going to let the last opening go. “Papa was kicked in the head by a horse he