Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (53 page)

Jen
snorted.
 
"Because they think we
don't have brains."

Liza tapped her
foot.
 
"Maybe they're afraid of
what we'd say."

Sally peered at
Helen.
 
"My Grandpa taught me
letters and ciphering, but you write like a fancy book writer.
 
And you talk like an English lady.
 
Where'd you learn to write and talk so
well?"

Helen let out a
slow breath.
 
"I was born in
England.
 
The lady of the manor amused
herself by bringing in the local vicar and having him teach village children
reading, writing, and arithmetic."

"Whoo-wee."
 
Jen laughed and slapped her thigh.
 
"While you're washing laundry, I wager
Mrs. Chiswell has some dolt of a man balancing her ledger.
 
But you haven't yet explained why you're
here, why you didn't go home with the other two servants."

Helen shrugged.
 
"Mr. Fairfax wants a record of his
campaign.
 
Mr. Quill doesn't write as
well as I do."

Sally extended
the papers to Liza.
 
"Nothing here
to make her look like a spy."

Helen felt the
pressure of dull anger.
 
Why did women
combat each other?
 
Liza, her cool gaze
unwavering, motioned for Sally to return the desk.

Sally added,
"Peculiar thing is that she doesn't just write about soldiers.
 
She writes a good bit about the rest of
us.
 
Servants, mistresses, washerwomen,
merchants, artisans."

Liza cocked her
eyebrow.
 
"Why waste your ink on
us?
 
We just follow our men."

Helen shrugged
again.
 
"But we've just as much
courage as our men, haven't we?"

The three
seemed taken aback for a moment, as if the thought had never occurred to
them.
 
Then Liza chuckled.
 
"Say, that's a fine idea.
 
I wish I could rub those words in randy
Brady's face the next time he grabs my arse."

"Rub it in
several faces."
 
Sally
scowled.
 
"Do 'em good.
 
Nell's right.
 
We aren't cowards."

Jen grabbed
Liza's wrist for a second.
 
"Glory,
I just had a sweet fancy.
 
After
Tarleton whips the breeches off Morgan, the Legion's puts
us
on the
payroll!"
 
The humor of three
harpies pierced the woods.

Liza wiped her
eyes.
 
"Carry on, Nell."
 
She signaled Sally and Jen, and they backed
from the tarp to leave Helen to her writing.

At noon, the
watch tromped past to replace morning sentries.
 
Frowning, Helen walked out, peered around, and fanned away wood
smoke.
 
Where had Jonathan gone for so
long?
 
Perhaps she'd best stretch her
legs and look for him.
 
Beneath the
tarp, she settled her cloak around her shoulders, knelt, and fished in a sack
for her gloves.

Boot steps
squished through mud, and daylight dimmed again.
 
"Mrs. Chiswell."
 
Three Legion infantrymen stood before the tarp.
 
"Step out here with us.
 
Keep your hands where we can see them."

Puzzled, she
complied, noticing that the men carried muskets.
 
"What's this about, gentlemen?"

The first
infantryman glowered at her.
 
"Mr.
Fairfax has ordered an immediate audience with you.
 
We're to convey you there.
 
He commands us to bring your desk and associated paperwork."

Trepidation
blasted through her, and the day grew colder in a second.
 
She pulled her cloak closer about her.
 
"The desk is in that canvas bag, back
there.
 
I shall fetch it, as well as my
gloves."

The lead
infantryman gripped her upper arm, hauling her outside with him.
 
Before she could protest, one of the other
two pushed her cloak aside.
 
"No
weapons on her that I can see."
 
The third soldier grabbed the bag, leaving her gloves behind.

Appalled at
their treatment, she adjusted the cloak when they released her and fell into
step with them, mud sucking her boot soles.
 
An audience with Fairfax.
 
Anger
and fear dizzied her.
 
Jonathan would be
so worried when he returned.

Incidentally, where
on earth was he?

Only a couple
steps farther, she stumbled, apprehension impaling her.
 
Had Fairfax something to do with Jonathan's
absence?

Chapter Fifty-Four

THEY MARCHED
HELEN to the opposite end of camp, where two corpses of Pickens's spies swayed
in the wind, battered faces and smashed noses purple, trousers reeking with
human waste.
 
A legionnaire shoved aside
the flap of a marquee.
 
"Wait in
there."

One man strode
off with her desk.
 
The other two, on
guard outside, tied the tent closed after she entered.

In the vacant
interior, she exhaled a frigid cloud into gloom.
 
Dark fluid stained turf that had been torn and gouged near the
middle of the marquee.
 
She envisioned
the hanged spies just outside the tent.
 
Anxiety crawled up her back.
 
Right there, they'd been questioned and tortured.
 
The marquee had been set aside for
interrogation.

She paced, as
much to keep warm as to occupy her nerves.
 
She'd withheld everything from Fairfax, broken into his trunk, and
removed her clothing.
 
Violation of
the inner sanctum
.
 
And her laudanum
bottle.
 
Laudanum — she didn't
understand it.
 
Tears blurred her
vision.
 
She dabbed them with her
handkerchief, impatient, angry with herself: her feeble attempt to cram back
terror.

One o'clock
passed, demarked by the calling of the watch.
 
She imagined Fairfax exploring the desk's secrets, fascinated by
them.
 
He'd also read her entire
journal.
 
If he spared her, perhaps he'd
spare the journal.
 
She'd invested so
much time in it.

Jonathan.
 
Guilt and grief clenched her throat.
 
She'd betrayed him, hidden the intrigue
surrounding the desk.
 
That his body
didn't already sway beside those of the spies provided scant comfort.

The urge to use
the latrine awoke in her bladder.
 
Her
stomach growled.
 
She kept pacing.
 
The tent was the temperature of a crypt.

Close to three
o'clock, the flaps were untied.
 
She
ceased pacing and backed from the entrance, away from bloodied ground.
 
Two legionnaires hung lanterns on the
ridgepole, opened a couple of campstools on either side of a small table, and
dropped two canvas bags near a stool.
 
From one bag protruded a corner of her desk.
 
The other covered some smallish rounded object.
 
The men swept out.

Fairfax slapped
the entrance open, horsehair on his helmet bristling, and tied the flaps closed
from the inside.
 
Then he regarded her,
his face devoid of expression, his eyes reptilian, his scarlet uniform a wash
of blood across the marquee's entrance.

She said
nothing, even when he strolled around her.
 
At the furniture, he removed his helmet and placed it on the table.
 
Hair eluded his queue, creating a russet
halo by lantern light.
 
His back to her,
he said, "The heroics of rebels never cease to amuse me.
 
Pickens and his rabble are providing a
shield between us and General Morgan."

Helen suspected
that he'd helped interrogate the spies.
 
Her gulp was audible.

"Three
spies visited us last night.
 
One
escaped."
 
He swiveled to her,
voice silky.
 
"Imagine Colonel
Tarleton's vexation when he learned that the escaped man was Will St.
James."

Unavoidable,
the shock that she felt flood her face.

He assessed her
reaction.
 
"When was the last time
you saw David St. James?"

"In
Wilmington, in my bedroom."
 
Aware
of his icy skepticism, she regarded the tent entrance.

"How is it
you came by the desk for which I'd been searching?"

"I
received it as a gift from Lieutenant Neville."

Fairfax
laughed.
 
"That desk costs more
than a year's pay for him.
 
The truth
this time, as well as where you put your original desk, and why you concealed
the Spanish desk from me."

She drew a
shaky breath.
 
"The final night at
Woodward's, Mr. Neville backed his horse onto my original desk and crushed
it.
 
Naturally I was distressed.
 
He told me he'd seen a desk in market, and
he purchased it as replacement.
 
I did
wonder how a ranger could afford it.
 
After you asked about the desk, I inquired among sutlers and
merchants.
 
The tanner to whom you gave
nine pence told me he saw Mr. Treadaway pass the desk to Mr. Neville."

"Treadaway,
the Legion's agent.
 
That's encouraging
news."

Helen darted a
glance at him and shuddered at the predatorial twist to his lip.
 
"Mr. Treadaway has the financial means
to acquire such a desk.
 
I assumed it
was his attempt to win my favor.
 
But
giving you the desk would have left me without the means to conduct my
work."
 
She eased out another
breath.
 
Surely the explanation
possessed the ring of veracity.
 
After
all, it was about ninety-nine percent true.

He sat on a
stool.
 
"Were it not for a few
details, I'd believe you.
 
For example,
the five secret compartments built into the desk —"

"— Five
secret compartments?"
 
She felt her
eyes bug.
 
Five
.
 
Damn!
 
She'd only found two.

"And each
of them crafted to hold a slip of paper such as a ciphered message."

Time for a
bluff.
 
"I don't believe you.
 
I've used that desk daily for weeks and
never noticed any secret compartments."
 
She mustered her best sneer.
 
"
You're
lying.
 
How
dare you pin espionage on me, just because you cannot catch the real
spies."

He extracted
the desk from the canvas bag and sat it on his lap.
 
"One."
 
He
exposed the first compartment.
 
"Two.
 
Three.
 
Four.
 
And here's our fifth little piggy who went to market."
 
He allowed her a long stare at the drawers
before sliding them back into place and bagging up the desk.
 
"It's your move, darling.
 
Shall we call it checkmate?"

Oh, the tent
was cold.
 
She rubbed her hands
together.
 
"Several times, I
suspected someone went in my tent while we were out, but nothing was ever
stolen.
 
Now, I see.
 
They used my desk as a drop off."

"
They?
"

Uh oh, eager to
feed Fairfax's game, she'd slipped him too much.
 
"The day that Sullivan found me in the men's camp, I'd been
tailing a boy who emerged from my tent."
 
No way would she implicate Rebecca.

Fairfax's eyes
narrowed.
 
"Is he here now with the
Legion?"

"I haven't
seen him."

"Whom did
he visit in the lower camp that day?"

"The
postmaster's assistant, Newman."

Preternatural
radiance sparked in Fairfax's eyes.
 
"Newman!
 
Splendid!
 
You're so close to redeeming yourself that I
shall reward you with news out of Wilmington.
 
Your publisher and his attorney defrauded you and Mrs. Pearson of Mr.
Chiswell's estate and redirected your money to the rebel cause."

"My
god!"
 
She whirled away from him,
hoping he'd read shock in her posture.
 
Fairfax possessed quite an impressive network of his own spies.
 
For a minute or so, he swanked through
details about the altered will and the murders.
 
She blotted her eyes with her handkerchief and sniffled because
he expected tears.
 
At length, he ceased
his prattle.
 
Handkerchief back in her
pocket, she squared her shoulders to face him with, she hoped, forbearance.

Victory swelled
in his expression.
 
"Wouldn't you
agree that it was considerate of Enid to return Mr. St. James's hat to
him?"