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“My father,” she responded softly.
Ah, he thought. That makes more sense. Whit tilted his head to the side to study her.
“Pardon my forwardness, miss,” he said. “Your accent is laced with bits of the Brit.”
She smiled up at him, doing something to his heart, but he could not name the emotion. “Most Americans maintain the language they learned at their mother’s knees. That is except those from France, Germany, and various other countries on the Continent.”
Whit frowned. “Yet, you are not part of the majority, miss. Am I correct?”
“In truth, sir, I speak my mother’s language quite fluently.” She sounded as if she were teasing him, and Whit did not know exactly what to think of the young woman. Her eyebrow rose in challenge. “Even though ‘most’ Americans do not understand my mother’s language.”
A new reality arrived. He surmised, “Ah, the private’s reference to ‘Injun.’”
She stiffened as if expecting his disdain, but the woman did not look away from his countenance, indicating her strength of character. Whit found he admired her determination.
“Yes, my mother was the equivalent of your British term ‘princess’ of the Powhatan tribe, just as was her mother.” She did not say, just as I am, but the woman’s meaning was implied. “From my last name, you might determine my father is a Scot,” she observed in what appeared to be mild amusement.
“Or someone from Germany,” he countered. Whit discovered his lips twitched in hopes of a smile, which he denied. “I must confess, other than Tecumseh and his braves, and Roundhead and his warriors, I have encountered few Indians upon the American continent. Certainly, none of the Powhatan tribe.” He knew he blushed in awkwardness. “I fear it is very telling of my character that I never bothered to learn more than a few words of Tecumseh’s language.”
Before either of them could say more, a red-headed man in the coat of a gentleman stepped into the hall. “Stanwick.”
“Here,” Whit and Miss Spurlock said together.
Whit presented a nod of farewell to the lady and turned to where the man waited.
“Come in,” the man looked down again to the paper he held in his hand. “Captain Stanwick.”
Whit stepped around the man to enter the small office. Meanwhile, the doctor looked to his daughter. “Are you well, my dear?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Miss Spurlock answered. “Captain Stanwick simply admitted he knew nothing of the Powhatan language.”
“Rightly so,” the doctor announced. “Did you explain to the good captain the Algonquian language of tidewater Virginia has been considered extinct for five and twenty years?”
“Our conversation was interrupted, sir.” Whit could hear the childlike perversity in her tone, and he smiled, despite the inappropriateness of the act.
“No mischief, Beatrice,” the doctor warned as he turned to enter the office, pointedly closing the door behind him and offering a slight bow. “I must apologise, Captain, if my daughter attempted to bam you.”
Whit returned the man’s bow. “Nothing of the sort, Spurlock. I simply stepped in when another refused Miss Spurlock’s offer of liniment.”
“Bloody idiots!” Spurlock growled in frustration. “They distrust me because I am a British subject, who was ‘foolish’, their word, not mine, enough to marry the most beautiful woman I had ever encountered. They distrust my daughter because they fear all Indian tribes. Think them ‘savages’.”
Whit sat in the chair the man indicated. “Then you have always lived in America? Odd as it may sound, although I know those who founded this country were, customarily, British citizens or the descendants of British citizens, when ordered to Canada for the war, I never considered I could be fighting my own. I fought the French on the Continent with Wellington. I suppose I assumed everyone to be of the like of the Frenchies. It is not as if I encountered many French descendants in America, despite your daughter mentioning something to that effect. However, until this journey, I have not been a part of the British forces that occupied strongholds in the ‘States’ proper” He did not know why such an admission was disconcerting, but he found a distinct tightening of his chest as he said the words.
Spurlock commented as he sat, “I suppose you ignored those in French Canada.”
Whit chuckled at his own expense. “Yes, I did not consider the French who aided the Indians across the border as enemies of the British.”
“It sounds as if you have spent more than a few years in the army,” Spurlock observed.
Whit shrugged, embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. “I should likely have found other employment by now; yet, you know men do not enjoy change. A woman embraces it, but we prefer constancy.”
“My late wife would have disagreed with you,” Spurlock countered. “It was my Elizabeth who did not want our family to live in Great Britain. I should never have taken her and Beatrice there. I foolishly missed my home in the lowlands when I should have realized Elizabeth was all the ‘home’ I required.”
Whit felt continuing this conversation would be too personal. Therefore, he asked, “How did you come to serve at Fort McHenry?”
“I returned to America when Beatrice was but ten. We thought to settle again in New York, but Elizabeth was ill and wanted to spend her final days with her family close at hand; therefore, we came to Virginia. When she passed, we moved, and I opened my office in Richmond. However, with the hostilities, I lost patients who feared to have a British-trained surgeon tending them.” Spurlock scowled in apparent frustration. “I have been assigned to ‘duties’ here by the American government. I serve Fort McHenry and Fort Babcock, an earthen gun battery about two miles removed to the west. It was only recently constructed. The Americans do not exactly trust me, but they require my skills, for physicians and surgeons with experience are in short supply.”
“Your tale is unexpected,” Whit remarked.
