Angel's Flight (9 page)

Fiercely, she repeated the original question to herself.

What do I really know about Jack Whoever-He-Is? Only what he tells me. But what makes sense?

He claims to be the third son of a noble English house, and that he is landless. That is nothing to boast about, so that may be true. He says he was dispatched young into the army, and, indeed, he carries himself proud.

Therefore, does it follow, as night follows day that landless Jack Church is on the prowl for a rich wife, as all such gentlemen are? And whom would he be hunting, pray, but an heiress—like me!

Just before he’d turned the world upside down with that fiery kiss, she’d accused him of being equivocal. After all, didn’t he swear to the highest principles and meekest discretion by turns?

Sighing, Angelica slowly separated strands of her heavy hair and
began to braid. Logic was beyond dispiriting. She wondered if this was one of those experiences about which older women had warned her: the flesh burns, but the mind, presently drugged by passion, might someday awaken to find itself in hell...

The spring night was chillier by the minute. Quickly, she finished a fat, loose pigtail and fastened it with an eel skin tie. Then, she climbed onto the bed and pulled up the blankets. For a long time, she lay there shivering.

***

Angelica woke in
half-light as the ship lifted anchor and got under sail again, but didn’t get up, just rolled over to face the wall.

She was tired, so tired! She couldn’t face either Jack or Vanderzee. Moreover, she knew that when they reached Anthony’s Nose and attempted to pass the lines, danger would begin again. Listening to sailor shouts, the bang of tackle and whip of sail, she went back to sleep.

Later, she woke again with a start. The ship had began to make a bow slapping tack. Angelica sat up and peered out the window. An experienced river traveler, she could see they’d rounded Verplanck’s Point and were making the run toward Peekskill.

As she sat there, the connection came to her—the meaning of that new name.

Yes! Church! I know who he is and, no doubt, why he’s here! Grandson of Gilbert...why, his mother is the absentee owner who holds all that land north of mine—up on Katterskill—not Taghanic! A very nice thing it would be for a gentleman, to put this land and mine together...

It made perfect, unpleasant sense. Burning with his kisses, it was no wonder she hadn’t figured it out!

In a burst of nervous energy, Angelica got up to splash the last of the water on her face and wind up her braid.

After fastening her cap securely, she went out. The wind roared and whipped her skirts. Bright blue sky flashed overhead.

At once, she saw Jack. He knelt by the hold, while fastening a feedbag over Hal’s black muzzle.

***

There is something, Jack thought, particularly vulnerable about her in that wrinkled blue calico, her gorgeous spun gold hair almost completely concealed beneath the modest cap.

That hair! He imagined lifting a handful, carefully, while lowering her onto his bed...

His lost Lucy had been blonde, too, but far more delicate. Angelica TenBroeck was taller, stronger, and rounder. And, he thought, happily remembering last night’s encounter, frankly sensual. No virginal playacting—a refreshing change from most English girls.

“Good morning, miss. I see you know how to sleep on a ship.”

“I must have needed sleep, sir.” She shaded her eyes and gazed at the shore. “I see we’ve made Peekskill already.”

“So I am informed.”

“But that is patriot held.” With a certain gratification, she paused to watch Jack wince at the word. Then she added, “Why weren’t we stopped?”

“Well, you slept through a run that took us away from a British ship carrying cannon. She hailed us right after we set off from Croton Village. He must’ve had bigger fish to fry, for another merchantman hove into view and he let us go and went off after that fellow. I’ve already said my prayers several times this morning.”

“And what about your interview with Captain Vanderzee?”

“Well, he didn’t clap me in irons, as you can see,” he replied, gracefully arising. “But I am on parole to stay a proper distance from you, miss.”

“A good idea, I think.” She raised her eyes to study him.

“Well, as much as I shall suffer, I must agree. I believe you have undone a man of the world, Miss TenBroeck.” Jack winked at her, then flashed a brilliant smile. “I’m now in high anticipation of my interview with your uncle.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I most certainly am.” That alarming and dangerous child suddenly flashed in his eyes.

“Well, you shouldn’t be, for I know what he will say.”

“Go to hell, you damned Tory?”

“Something like that.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Jack Church...” Angelica clasped her fine long fingers together and gazed at him earnestly. “I know who you are.”

“Well, of course you do,” he replied, with a cautious expression, which spoke of testing the waters.

“My mother and your mother are second cousins.”

“Some tangle like that. Genealogy confuses me.”

“You’re not at all confused, sir. You, like Armistead, have come to America to capture an heiress.”

“I am not a bit like Armistead. And, as far as coming to America
especially to capture you, I only learned we should be neighbors by accident, while I was inquiring about you after the ball.”

“Am I supposed to believe that? You have demonstrated quite a capacity for-for I hate to say it—”

“Then don’t.” Swiftly, sternly, he cut her off. Liar was, of course, an intolerable word.

“So—so—you’re really Colonel John Church? Really? Truly?” “Yes, Miss TenBroeck.”

“Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?”

“Because of certain terms of my exile between me and Governor Tryon.”

“You were exiled? You never said that!”

“No, at least, not exactly. Exile is not something to boast about. The fact is I’m in America until things change back home. As far as the rest of what I’ve said, it’s true. I’m simply here to oversee my mother’s property.”

Angelica shook her head, but he was smiling at her—that smile that could melt a ton of January snow.

Perhaps, in spite of who he is, he is also who he seems—a fine, honorable, brave, handsome gentleman...

A man who was honorable enough to have slept beside her without making an assault upon her chastity, a sweet and expert lover, who plucked the same secret string of passion that her beloved ‘Bram had touched! There he stood, her brave and resourceful rescuer, a knight in shining armor who had carried her safely away from the loathsome predator, Armistead.

Or is this only what I want to see?

“Let me worry about your uncle, miss,” Jack said lightly.

“Not so fast, sir!” Angelica exclaimed. “I only have your word for all of this. And, as for your principles—you managed to avoid that discussion.” Remembering his strategy of lovemaking, she blushed, then plunged on. “Besides, there is my Cousin Arent, who also wishes to marry me. He is a good patriot, and my Uncle Jacob’s eldest.”

“Whose attentions you were fleeing when you came to New York last fall.”

The idea that he knew about her difficulties with Arent—and dared to bring it up—was not only irritating, but rather shocking. “What did you do with your few days in the city, sir? Nothing but pump gossips about me?”

“Why not?” Jack countered, laughing. “I found the subject uncommonly fascinating.”

“You are shameless!”

“And so are you, miss! How can you stand there and tell me that you intend to go home and marry this same country cousin you ran away from only six months ago?”

“After all that has happened, I think I ought to listen to the advice of my uncle, who has always had my best interest at heart.” Angelica made her reply as steadily as possible. “I’m afraid I have been guilty of acting upon caprice.”

“Caprice?” A roguish and broad wink followed. “Oh, for shame, Miss TenBroeck! That was more than caprice in my arms.”

She began to protest, but he only laughed again, his merry, infectious laugh. “Don’t you know better than any uncle who you should marry? I tell you true—marrying for duty may not always be the sure high road to misery, but it is often the sure high road to boredom and puny, if any, heirs.”

“You presume a great deal! How—how—”

“Crude.” He chuckled as he finished the sentence.

Angelica blushed. She was speechless now, her breath quite taken away.

“You are right to scold me, miss, for something very important is lacking.”

Jack sank
to
one knee to the deck. With a graceful flourish, as if removing a nonexistent hat from his sandy head, he proclaimed, “Miss TenBroeck, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”

“Sir!” Disbelieving, Angelica stared, her cheeks on fire. Nearby, a couple of sailors were elbowing each other.

“This is not a joke!”

“I assure you, I am in earnest.”

“I must have the approval of my guardian, exactly as I told Major Armistead.”

“What?” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “Is my request, most properly and politely framed, to be met with a pitiful attempt at evasion? And—” He was beginning to laugh again and tease her. “— after so much encouragement last night!”

“Please! I cannot answer.”

“Why?” This question came softly. “Because you are out of the frying pan and into the fire?”

“Yes! No. Not exactly. This is too—too—sudden. And—and I suspect your motives.”

“Ah, well, in spite of the last, this gives me hope. I thought,” he said, gazing thoughtfully at her, “that your long sleep would be strengthening, but instead you are full of doubt. I really don’t believe a word of this nonsense, Angel TenBroeck.”

For a moment she gazed at him, framed in the tossing blue of the river. Wind whipped his sunny hair, and those astonishing eyes seemed to be looking right through her.

“No matter how I feel, sir,” Angelica answered with simple dignity, “I cannot marry a Tory.”

“It may, eventually, be to your advantage and to the advantage of your family to have a Tory in it.”

“The exact words of George Armistead.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Angelica was sorry.

“Is that a fair comparison, miss?”

Finally, it seemed, she’d irritated him.

“No.” Angelica was now beset with an impossible longing—to go into his arms. “But we are on opposite sides in a war.”

His beautiful cool eyes fixed her. “Man to woman, Miss TenBroeck, we understand each other very well.”

“I’m ashamed of myself, sir.”

With a wink and a grin, Jack quoted the captain’s rude Dutch, saying, “Shut your mouth.” A hand, the touch of which, in spite of her words, she very much craved, reached for hers.

Angelica took hold. How handsome that strong hand was. How like the rest of him!

“I apologize,” he said solemnly, “if my haste alarms you, miss. Still, allow I’m a little older and have had a few more lessons in life. One I’ve learned is that golden opportunities are rare. We must be quick if we want to seize them.”

Warm fingers sent the unmistakable gentle pressure of affection into hers. “I promise not to speak of this again,” he said, “until I am standing at your side in the presence of your Uncle TenBroeck.”

She looked up at him, feelings of desire and despair, of love and uncertainty, at war in her heart.

“Thank you.”

His fair hair in full sunlight was indisputably blonde, blowing around his head like a moving corona. Those 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 insisted upon keeping.”

“Insisted?”

“Well, that’s how Mama put it. I remember the horse. He was very, very beautiful, but absolutely crazy.”

Angelica felt the sudden pricking of tears. “It’s odd the things one remembers,” she said, trying to maintain her composure. “I remember everyone at the funeral saying Papa knew so much about horses that he was absolutely the last man on earth they ever imagined would end that way.”

“That was on Schoharie?”

“Yes, but right after, we—that is Mama and I—came back to live with Uncle Jacob on Esopus creek.” The move back to the tame farmlands on the Hudson had been a sad time for Angelica.

“Mama was raised on the Hudson,” she explained. “And she had never liked living way out at Schoharie. The Indians and all the rest made her nervous. Mama never got over losing Papa. It was only two winters later, she went into a decline and died.”

“It must’ve been a very bad time for you.”

Angelica nodded. “Yes, but Uncle TenBroeck and his housekeeper, and my cousin Arent and his wife, too, were all so very kind. They are all generous people.” Tears flooded her eyes, but she kept talking, hoping they’d go away.

Jack noticed the extra shine in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you sad,” he said, gently slipping his fingers beneath her hand.

Angelica cleared her throat. Much more than that cursory tale and she would cry. This morning she felt weak to the point of wobbly.

“Now,” she countered, hoping to shift the focus away from herself, “you must tell me a little more about your family.”

“Of course,” he replied, stroking her fingers softly. “Ask away.” “Tell me about the Church family,” she said. “And about what England is like.”

As she asked, she withdrew her hand. To her great relief, Jack simply let it go, like a kinsman who’d been offering comfort instead of a would-be lover.

“Certainly. Which first?”

“Tell me about England. About what your home place is like.”

“What it’s like? Do you mean a description like a travel journal?”

“Yes, please.”

“All right, description first. Oxfordshire, where I was born, is like a well-kept garden.” Jack began easily. “There are slow streams filled with meanders, with willows and cattails. The country rolls from low hills to valleys and every inch is cultivated, except for the tops of hills which are crowned with what we call forests, although to you they’d seem mere wood lots. Very tame compared to this.”

Jack gestured at the dark cliff-fall riverbank. Above were massive stands of chestnut, lifting hazy, new budded crowns to the sky.

“Are there many in your family?”

“Not really. As I’ve said I am the third son, although, actually, owing to my eldest brother’s death—unfounded confidence in his horse, rather like your father—I am now second. I have four sisters, three of them well married and gratifying my mother with grandchildren, as is my scholarly brother Frederick. He was meant for the clergy, but, alas, has now to deal with
an
estate and a title, which
worries him more than I think it ought to.”

“And your mother is alive?”

“Yes. A handsome and pious lady.”

“Just the little you said before makes me recognize a proud Livingston lady.”

Jack chuckled. “Indeed? Papa always swore it was the high German doctor—her maternal grandfather—with whom he engaged whenever they quarreled. Are there any Herr Doktor Professors in your family?” he asked. “I believe I recognize a similar talent for debate.”

Angelica ignored the jest. “Your eyes are your mother’s,” she said. “Of that, I’m certain.”

The eyes in question regarded her levelly. “Yes. As a matter of fact, they are.”

“And exactly how old are you, sir?”

“Upon the first of June I shall be thirty-one. I can’t believe,” he said, almost to himself, “that I’ve lived to be such an old man and am still a bachelor.”

But you haven’t been without the company of women, as much as ever you wanted, Angelica thought, admiring his good looks and thinking of the confident masculinity that had swept away her good sense last night.

“And now, sir, I shall ask a very bold question.”

“I would expect nothing less from an American lady.”

“What, I pray, was your offense which sent you at such a tender age into the army?”

“I fear they were legion, Miss TenBroeck,” he replied.

“And you, the great-grandson of a high German doctor of Red Hook?”

“He would’ve beaten me senseless every day, Mama often declared.”

“Ah, but this is evasion,” Angelica persisted. “I’m beginning to imagine you must have been a terribly bad boy.”

What on earth could he have done? His reaction plainly showed he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Well,” Jack slowly said, “I did exactly what I wanted and then lied to get out of the resulting scrape.”

Suddenly, he looked abashed. Angelica thought embarrassment became him every bit as much as his bolder moods.

“And very interesting and inventive lies they were, too,” he continued. “I spared myself many a thrashing I richly deserved. But, at last, one of my tall tales collapsed on my head like a badly built wall. My father had just died and my mother was terribly upset when she uncovered my delinquency. My Grandfather Church told me, man to man, what I must do to make amends.”

“Yes, you said he was the one who sent you to the army.”

“Ensign Church curried a lot of horses and mucked out stables and polished whole rooms of tack, in between whippings,” Jack ended with a rueful grin.

“Do you think if your father had been alive he would have sent you to the army?”

“Yes. Indulged and excused, I might’ve grown up into a thoroughly bad apple, as some rich men’s sons do. Fortunately, Papa died before the grand finale of all my capers. Everyone would have accused me of causing it—his death by apoplexy, I mean.”

“You are still evading, Colonel Church.”

“Yes, I am. And you do not give up easily.”

“My imagination is running wild. I hope,” she continued, frowning, “you did not kill someone.”

***

As soon as
the words were out of her mouth, she looked so alarmed Jack judged it the lesser evil to make some sort of confession. Of course, he couldn’t tell her the real story. She’d be, just as his pious American mother had been, absolutely horrified.

Perhaps half the story would do. “With the connivance of one of our servants, I took a fine hunter of my father’s and sold him. Then I pretended he’d been stolen, swore it in front of a magistrate and perjured myself.”

“At eleven?”

“I am afraid so.”

“Good Lord!” she cried, unable to imagine anyone so young doing such a thing. “Well, I sincerely hope you have reformed yourself.”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

It was always a tangle for him—a tangle of loyalties. He had needed the money to give to a lowly friend from the stables whose family had been put off their land and were in danger of starving. He had used the hunter to help those people, and he had not told his grandfather what he had done with the money he’d made, not even after many beatings.

To his mother, he confessed the truth, but even she had not understood how he could be “more loyal to some boy in the stables than to your own family.”

Mother had not told his secret, however, and she had blessed him and cried when he’d gone, so young, to the army. It’s always a tangle, Jack thought. And you can only pray to choose the right...

They had reached the part of the river that lay between the promontory of Anthony’s Nose and the high rock of Bear Mountain. White sails were in abundance.

A small craft darted in their direction. Just as swiftly, the sailors of the Judik lowered the Union Jack and raised a simple white flag carrying the motto “Liberty.”

“Shouldn’t we have been stopped by a British ship before we got here?” Angelica wondered.

“Yes. That little chase early this morning wasn’t much for the mighty British navy,” Jack replied.

He gazed away, down the river. Angelica had an odd feeling he was evading her purposefully, as if she might read something in his eyes he didn’t want her to see.

“The rebels must have good spies,” he observed. “Better than I’d have given them credit for.”

“We are not rebels.” It was stupid, this dogged repetition, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“As you say, miss.” The eyes that turned back to her were veiled, his mobile mouth a stern line.

Standing on deck, they could see the small craft of the patriot militia readily passing the boom, which was a series of huge logs bobbing in the river with a submerged chain between. Only larger ships would find it an impediment.

A small, fleet boat drew alongside. It was manned by a scruffy crew of what looked like ordinary Hudson watermen. Only one man, the officer in charge, was in uniform, an ill-fitting blue-and-buff coat. He and Vanderzee retired to the captain’s cabin. After awhile, Jack was called.

Angelica fretted about what would happen, but her anxiety didn’t last. Not much later, they emerged. Jack was his usual cool and confident self, while Vanderzee seemed disgruntled and uneasy.