"Katy, you know I've never tried to interfere in what you choose to do, but in truth I must tell you I'm troubled about this Winston. Your carousing about with a smuggler is hardly demeanor fitting our position here. I fear it's already been cause for talk."
She set down the leather bridle she was mending and lifted her eyes, sensing his discomfort. "You'd suppose there were more important things for the island to talk about, especially now."
"What happens to you is important to me; I should hope it's important to you as well, young woman."
She straightened her skirt, and the edge of her crinoline petticoat glistened in the candlelight. "Hugh's a 'smuggler' when I'm out with him, but he's 'Captain Winston' when the militia needs a batch of raw ten-acre freeholders drilled in how to form ranks and prime a musket. I thought it was 'Captain Winston,' and not a 'smuggler' who's been working night and day helping keep trained gunners manning all the breastworks along the coast."
"There's no arguing with you, Katy. I gave that up long ago. I'm just telling you to mind yourself." He swabbed his brow against the heat of early evening and rose to open the jalousies. A light breeze whispered through the room and fluttered the curtains. "I'll grant you he's been a help to us, for all his want of breeding. But what do you know about him? No man who lives the way he does can be thought a gentleman. You've been out riding with him half a dozen times, once all the way over to the breastwork at Oistins. In fact, you must have passed right by the Walrond plantation. It's not gone unnoticed, you can be sure."
He settled back into his chair with a sigh and laid aside his cane. These last few days he had realized more than ever how much he depended on Katherine. "Anthony Walrond's a man of the world, but you can't push him too far. I'm just telling you to try and be discreet. In faith, my greater worry is that . . . that I'd sooner you were here with me more now. Between us, I think the fleet's going to try and invade soon. If not tonight, then tomorrow or the day after for certain. Talk has run its course. And if we've got to fight the English army on our own beaches, God help us."
He could sense the unity on the island dissolving. Many of the smaller planters were growing fearful, and morale in the militia was visibly deteriorating. Half the men would just as soon have done with the constant alerts and dwindling supplies. There was scarcely any meat to be had now, and flour was increasingly being hoarded and rationed. Cassava bread was finding its way onto the tables of English planters who a fortnight earlier would have deemed it fit only for indentures—while the indentures themselves, God knows, were being fed even less than usual. Without the steady delivery of provisions by the Dutch shippers, there probably would be starvation on Barbados inside a month. And with all the new Africans on the island, many militiamen were reluctant to leave their own homes unprotected. Little wonder so many of the smaller freeholders were openly talking about surrender.
"Katy, I hate to ask this, but I do wish you'd stay here in the compound from now on. It's sure to be safer than riding about the island, no matter who you're with."
"I thought I was of age. And therefore free to come and go as I wish."
"Aye, that you are. You're twenty-three and twice as stubborn as your mother ever was. I just don't want to lose you too, the way I lost her." He looked at her, his eyes warm with concern. "Sometimes you seem so much like her. Only I think she truly loved Bermuda. Which I'll warrant you never really did."