Merline Lovelace (23 page)

“You’ll have to ask her. But some other time, if you please. We have business to conduct with Mr. Hay.”

“You’re not staying for dinner, after all?”

“Not this night.” Rising, he gathered his saddle pack and musket and gave Irving his hand. “I thank you again for the use of your chamber.”

“You’re more than welcome. I very much hope I shall see you and your lady again. Perhaps at the courthouse?” the journalist probed delicately.

“Perhaps.”

Sweat shone on Louise’s temple and her mouth had taken on a grim cast. Relieving her of her pack, Daniel slung it over his shoulder atop his, slipped a hand under her elbow, and steered her outside. She gulped in the muggy evening air gratefully.

“I begin to think the next months will be a test of my fortitude,” she muttered.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said with a rueful grin. “Shall I have the hostler bring the horses around or can you walk? The hill looks steep.”

“Not as steep as the mountains we have crossed these past weeks. Come, let’s be done with this business.”

They found the Durham house easily enough. It was a three-story brick mansion with a white-columned porch encircling the second level. Candlelight lit the windowpanes and threw a golden glow into the gathering dusk.

A uniformed manservant answered their knock, took their names and showed them into a small parlor off the black and white tiled foyer. Disdaining the sofa and chairs scattered about the parlor, Louise paced the polished oak floorboards until the man they’d come to see hurried across the hall. His hair was neatly clubbed back. He wore the buckled knee britches of a wealthy planter and a wary expression
that could only have come from having been at the forefront of a bitter legal battle for months now.

“Mr. and Mrs. Morgan?”

Despite the stripes on his back and the weeks that had passed since he’d been drummed out of the army, Daniel still found it odd being addressed by Mr. instead of by his military rank.

“I’m George Hay.” The lawyer took in Daniel’s buckskins and Louise’s wrinkled dress in a quick, assessing glance. “Did I understand the manservant correctly? You have evidence to offer in the Burr trial? New evidence?”

“We think so.”

“May I ask what this evidence is?”

Daniel produced the folded sheets of parchment that had traveled with them from New Orleans. “These letters were written by General Wilkinson and sent to his son, Lieutenant James Biddle Wilkinson. They’re in cipher, same as the letter from Burr to the general.”

Hay’s eyes bulged. “Do you know their content?”

“No.”

He looked from Daniel to Louise again and reached out an eager hand. The sheets crackled as he unfolded them one by one and skimmed their contents.

“I shall have to refer to the cipher key,” he muttered, his voice low and heavy with excitement. “I should have it inscribed in my heart by now, but some of these symbols are unfamiliar to me.”

“There’s more,” Daniel said quietly.

“More?”

“My wife overheard a conversation between Lieutenant Wilkinson and an unknown companion. In this conversation, the man indicated he had proof General Wilkinson masterminded the entire conspiracy. She’s also received some indication from the general’s son that his father has not abandoned his plans to set up a separate state west of the Mississippi.”

“Good Lord!” Clearly stunned, Hay swept a hand toward the sofa. “Please, be seated, and tell me what you know and how, precisely, you came by this information.”

The telling took longer than either Daniel or Louise had anticipated. Hay had not served in the Virginia legislature and been elevated to attorney general of the United States without reason. His mind was as prickly as a briar patch. He extracted every detail, from Louise’s recollection of the trappers’ talk about a Spanish agent intending to reclaim the Louisiana Territory for Spain to James’s admission he’d courted her with intent to use her name and her funds in one of his father’s schemes. He also delved delicately into the relationship between James, Louise and Daniel. The fact that Sergeant Major Morgan had been cashiered from the service gave the prosecutor some pause. Daniel didn’t doubt that Hay, like Louise, wondered whether he wanted revenge on the man who’d ordered his flogging and subsequent discharge.

What interested the lawyer most, though, was the discussion Louise had overheard between the lieu
tenant and his visitor. “You say you don’t know this man’s name?”

“No.”

“But you think he was a merchant?”

“Or a banker. He says to James he has a letter from the general with instructions to deposit funds to Burr’s account.”

“Hmm, that in itself is not incriminating. Wilkinson has his finger in so many pies it’s a wonder he himself can keep all his schemes straight. He’ll claim he thought he was investing in a legitimate enterprise. Or that he was merely setting Burr up to betray him.”

Thoughtfully, Hay tapped the folded letters against his knee. “We must hope these documents yield some names. The fact that they were written in Wilkinson’s own hand may provide the first incontrovertible proof of his role in the conspiracy. I’ll get my team together tonight to help me decipher them. Where do you stay? I shall want to speak with you again once we’ve read through the letters.”

“We’ve yet to find rooms,” Daniel said, rising. “We’ll send you word when we do.”

“You’ll not find rooms to let anywhere in Richmond. You must stay here. I’ll speak with my hostess immediately. She’ll be more than happy, I know, to accommodate you.”

Charlotte Durham echoed Hay’s invitation. A petite woman with a mass of curly brown hair and bright, intelligent eyes, she swept into the parlor with a swish of silk skirts.

“But of course you must stay at Durham House! George says you’ve quite astounded him with the information you’ve brought. I’m agog to discover what it is, but know better than to ask. This trial has made lawyers of every one of us.”

Noting the weary slump to his wife’s shoulders, Daniel accepted the generous hospitality with a bow. The brunette looped an arm through Louise’s and guided her into the hall toward the sweeping spiral staircase.

“George told me you’ve been traveling for some weeks. You must be quite weary. I’ll send up hot water for a bath, shall I? And a tray of dinner, unless you should wish to come downstairs and sit at the table with the men while they eat their beefsteak and blue the air with their pipes.”

The mere mention of red meat and the sweet, cloying scent of tobacco put a gray tinge to Louise’s cheeks. “A bath would be most welcome,” she said, “but I don’t wish for a tray. I’m not at all hungry.”

“As you like. Mr. Morgan, shall you join your wife, or the men at table?”

Unwilling to subject his wife to the uncertainties of her stomach once again, Daniel chose to dine with the men. “I’ll take a plate downstairs, if it’s no trouble.”

“None at all. George, take Mr. Morgan into the dining room while I see to his wife.”

When Daniel climbed the stairs some hours later and was shown to a guest chamber, he found a candle
flickering on the dressing table and Louise sound asleep in a high, four-poster bed. She’d flung off the coverlet in deference to the hot August night. Her limbs gleamed faintly through the sheer lawn of a borrowed nightdress.

Blessing Charlotte Durham for more than the hearty beefsteak, rich port and fragrant tobacco he’d just been treated to, Daniel shed his clothes and poured fresh water into the washbowl. He would have preferred a hot bath and a razor to scrape away his beard, but made do with a thorough scrubbing. His skin and hair damp after their toweling, he blew out the candle and eased down beside Louise.

While his eyes adjusted to the gloom, his mind roamed. The talk at the dinner table had centered on the Burr conspiracy. George Hay had excused himself and hurried off to confer with his team of prosecutors, but the rest of the men present were as familiar with the convoluted politics and legalisms involved as Hay himself. While they weren’t yet privy to how Daniel figured into the situation or what startling information he’d brought, they were more than willing to share their opinions on the progress of the trial.

Those opinions had Daniel wondering once again if he’d done right by dragging Louise all the way to Richmond. As young Irving had hinted earlier, this whole sorry affair was sounding more and more about politics than treason.

Maybe Hay was right to question Daniel’s motives in coming forward. Maybe he
did
want revenge on
the Wilkinsons as much as Jefferson apparently did on Burr. Maybe he’d risked Louise’s safety just to be the instrument of the father’s downfall and the son’s disgrace.

Christ! Was he really so small, so bitter? With a little grunt, he dragged his arm over his eyes. The abrupt movement brought a groggy murmur from the woman next to him.

“Daniel?”

He lowered his arm. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

Ignoring his quiet order, she flopped onto her side and propped her head up with one hand. “You smell of pipe smoke and soap.”

His thoughts about the trial fled instantly before the worry she might start retching again. “Does the smoke make you feel ill?”

“Strangely, it makes me hungry.”

“You had no supper. Shall I go downstairs and raid the kitchens?”

“I don’t speak of food. It is you I hunger for.” Her hair draped to one side like a river of dark silk as she trailed her fingers down the damp curves of his chest. “I think I would like to know how it feels to lie under you on this so-soft bed instead of on a rough blanket or the thin, flea-ridden straw mattress of an inn.”

Thinking of the child in her belly, Daniel smiled lazily. “How about you lie
atop
me in this so-soft bed?”

Sliding an arm under her hips, he set her astride
his thighs. She wiggled to free her nightdress from under her knees, then fumbled with the ribbons at the lace-trimmed neck and tugged the billowing folds over her head.

Daniel’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom well enough by now to see every shadowed line and smooth, sinuous curve. The dark nipples tipping her breasts drew him like the call of a siren. He played with the buds, teasing them into points before curving a hand around her neck to draw her down and replace his hands with his tongue and teeth. Arching her back to give him freer access, she let him suckle and tease until her breath came in quick pants.

“Wait,” she gasped when his fingers found the folds of hot, wet flesh between her thighs. “I am too eager!”

Laughter rumbled up from Daniel’s chest. “Didn’t Henri teach you a wife can never be too eager?”

“Ha! You will think otherwise if I find my pleasure too quickly and have no strength left to bring you to yours.”

The rumble of laughter faded. Bringing his hands up, Daniel slid them into the thick curtain of her hair and stilled her wiggling movements.

“You bring me to pleasure a hundred times a day, Louise Therese. Each time I look into your eyes, I see the blue skies of Osage Country. Each time you speak, I hear the ripple of a clear mountain stream. You’re like the land that bred you. Wild and untamed and free.”

She cocked her head. “Did you find it so beautiful, the land of the Osage?”

“When I stood on that ridge with Henri, I thought it more beautiful than any other place on earth. And,” he admitted wryly, “more savage.”

Taking the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, she considered his words.

“Well,” she murmured after a moment, “if it is wild and untamed that thrills you—”

A quick roll brought her off his hips and onto her side. This time, though, they lay head to foot and her mouth closed on his hot, rigid flesh. She slid her lips over the head and danced her tongue down the engorged veins, but it was the way she used her teeth that soon had Daniel grunting.

The stinging little nips were torture enough. She followed them with long, sucking kisses, slathering washes with her tongue and the rake of her nails under his heavy, aching sac. Daniel stood it for as long as he could. Pleasure was shooting through him when he wrapped a fist around her calf, dragged her leg over his shoulder and buried his face in the wet heat between her thighs.

Mere moments later she went taut. Her every muscle strained, then shuddered. A ragged groan ripped from the back of her throat. Daniel tasted the salty froth of her pleasure mere seconds before he spilled his seed into her mouth.

He had no idea how long they lay entangled before he found the strength to disengage and pull her up beside him. She was breathing slow and deep almost
before her head found a comfortable nest in the hollow between his neck and shoulder.

Daniel should have followed her right into sleep. His mind was as exhausted as his body. Tucking her head more snugly in the crook of his shoulder, he stared up into the darkness and once more tried to discern his reasons for insisting they come to Richmond.

The clock in the hall outside their chamber had bonged twelve times before he gave up the attempt to sort through his feelings about the Wilkinsons, father and son. All he could do now was wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

T
he summons from Chief Justice John Marshall arrived while the Durhams and their guests were still at breakfast.

George Hay had warned Daniel and Louise to expect it. He and his team had spent most of the night deciphering the letters from Wilkinson to his son. While they found nothing to pinpoint the general as the one who’d conceived of the traitorous scheme to wrest the territory west of the Mississippi from both U.S. and Spanish control, the letters contained enough ambiguous references to raise serious questions about Wilkinson’s loudly proclaimed innocence. Coupled with Louise’s testimony, they could prove the last nail in the general’s coffin.

Louise, at least, looked presentable for an appearance in court. She’d fully recovered from her illness of the previous day. Either that or their strenuous pleasure of the night before had put a bloom in her cheeks. Charlotte Durham had helped matters by sending a maid to press the wrinkles from the lilac
gown and help dress her hair into a fashionable coronet.

Thomas Durham had offered Daniel the loan of a shirt, trousers and a blue superfine frock coat lavishly adorned with brass buttons. The fawn-colored trousers rose a bit high at the ankle but otherwise fit well enough. The shirt and jacket, however, cut into Daniel’s armpits and threatened to burst at the shoulder seams with the slightest movement. He made do instead with a shirt of unbleached muslin purchased with a handful of coppers from the Durham’s giant of a stable hand. The same accommodating servant also provided a coat of plain black cloth.

“I’d order the carriage brought around,” Durham said with an apologetic smile for Louise, “but the streets are so clogged these days with vehicles of every sort, it’s quicker to walk. Would you mind? It’s only two blocks to the Virginia House of Delegates, where the trial’s being held.”

“I’ve walked much farther than two blocks,” she assured him. “I will tell you sometime of the weeks I trekked down the Arkansaw with Daniel and his men.”

“I should like very much to hear of it.” Tucking Louise’s arm in his, he escorted her from the dining room. “Perhaps you and your husband will extend your visit to Richmond and stay with Charlotte and me after the trial.”

“I thank you, but we have not yet decided what we do after the trial.” She flashed a look over her
shoulder. “Daniel and I will speak of it later. After we talk with this man, Marshall.”

The Virginia House of Delegates crowned a high hill crisscrossed with gullies and overgrown with vines. As Thomas Durham explained to Louise, that talented Virginia native and amateur architect Thomas Jefferson had modeled the building after a Greek temple called the Parthenon. Louise had no idea what a Greek was, much less a Parthenon, but the soaring columns and high, pointed cornices of the temple pleased her eye.

Huge crowds had pitched tents on the sloping grounds of the house. Most of them, it seemed, were lined up at the entrance to the building. Thomas Durham negotiated his charges past the eager spectators and gained access through a side door, where George Hay met them. Although it was still early morning, the lawyer’s face shone with sweat and his starched linen stock had already wilted. A whole team of colleagues surrounded him as he greeted Louise and Daniel with nervous relief.

“Marshall’s waiting for you in a side chamber,” he informed them. “I should warn you he’s a bit perturbed with this sudden presentation of new evidence so late in the trial. Come this way, if you will.”

He led them down a hallway filled with imposing marble statuary and milling crowds. The bystanders parted to let them pass, some good-naturedly, some muttering beneath their breath. Daniel kept a firm
grip on Louise’s elbow so as not to lose her to the jostling throng.

When she came to a dead halt, he almost trod on her heels. “Louise, are you—?”

His concern she’d taken ill again fled when he followed the direction of her narrow-eyed glared and locked gazes with Major General Wilkinson.

Openmouthed in astonishment, the short, rotund officer gaped at them. “Morgan! What do you do here? You and Madame Chartier?”

The man’s utter stupefaction afforded Daniel a fierce satisfaction. All those weeks of hard travel had been worth the effort. He and Louise had arrived in Richmond ahead of any frantic messages from Lieutenant Wilkinson to his father.

“We’ve come to lay information before Mr. Marshall,” he answered flatly.

Wilkinson’s face lost every vestige of color. His glance slewed wildly from Daniel to Louise before fixing on George Hay.

“You damned cur! Have you stooped so low in your efforts to blacken my name that you must drag my son’s affianced bride into matters she knows nothing about?”

Bristling, Hay opened his mouth.

Daniel cut off the prosecutor’s reply with a chop of his hand. His eyes as cold as the ice that had coated the Arkansaw, he set the general straight. “Madame Chartier is no longer affianced to your son. She’s my wife.”

Thrown off balance by the unexpected news, Wilkinson recoiled.

Daniel took grim pleasure in sending him back another step. “I regret we can’t linger to exchange further pleasantries at this moment,” he said. “Chief Justice Marshall awaits us.”

To give him credit, the general didn’t cower. He drew himself up to his full height, which left him well short of the other men, and curled his lip in haughty disdain.

“Marshall wants so badly to exonerate his old friend, Burr, I doubt that he will listen to lies spun by an uneducated half-breed and a man who left his first wife to die by fire.”

Daniel’s hands fisted.

Satisfied that he’d struck a raw nerve, the general pinned Hay with a hard stare. “Are you sure you don’t need to seek guidance from the president before you introduce these people to Marshall?”

The sarcastic reminder that he danced to Jefferson’s tune brought a flush to the attorney’s cheeks. “I’m well aware the president holds you in some regard for exposing Colonel Burr’s perfidy,” Hay said stiffly. “Let us hope his esteem does not prove to be misplaced.”

“Let us hope,” Wilkinson mocked.

“Damned banty-cock,” the attorney muttered as he herded his charges down the hall. “I’d like nothing more than to see him painted with the same tar as Burr.”

Daniel gave him a considering glance. “You walk
a fine line here, my friend. Jefferson may not be best pleased if you go against his wishes regarding the general.”

“The president directed me to try this case to the best of my abilities. That’s what I intend to do.”

Impatiently, he rapped his knuckles against a door set between two life-size marble statues. Just as impatiently, the door was yanked open from the inside. A tall, spare figure with a thick head of dark hair glared at the prosecutor from under beetling brows.

“You took your time getting them here, Mr. Hay. We’re due to reconvene at ten o’clock.”

“I’m aware of that, sir.” Ushering Daniel and Louise inside the small chamber, Hay closed the door. “May I present Mr. Daniel Morgan and his wife, Louise Therese Chartier Morgan?”

Lifting her chin, Louise answered the chief justice’s glower with a cool smile. “Among my mother’s people, I am known as Wah-shi-tu.”

Her composure took some of the starch from Marshall’s rigid spine. He unbent enough to return her thin smile and gesture her to a seat.

“I read the letters Mr. Hay brought to me this morning. Now I would like to hear from your own lips what you know of General Wilkinson’s involvement in the Burr conspiracy.”

Seating herself, Louise smoothed the folds of her gown. Daniel took a stand behind her, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

“I know only what I hear,” she stated calmly. “A
man comes to see James in his quarters in New Orleans—”

“The James she refers to is the general’s second son,” Hay interjected. “James Biddle Wilkinson.”

Marshall’s thick brows snapped together. “Do you think me a fool? I know to whom she refers. If you wish for me to allow you to call her into court, please refrain from further commentary until asked.”

Hay’s mouth tightened at the tongue-lashing, but he obeyed the curt injunction.

Once again Louise related what she’d heard the night of the flogging. Hands clasped behind his back, Marshall listened intently. Daniel studied him with the same intensity.

This was the man who’d determined that a charge of high treason required two eyewitnesses to an overt act against the nation. The controversial ruling had allowed Burr to narrowly escape indictment on that charge and left him facing only the lesser charge of conspiring against a nation friendly to the United States.

Would Marshall now allow General Wilkinson to evade justice to save his friend? Or did he truly agree with Burr’s attorneys, who asserted that Jefferson had trumped up these absurd charges against his old political foe?

Daniel glanced about the chamber, struck by the enormity of events that had brought him to this place, at this time.

With this remarkable woman.

As she finished her brief recitation, Daniel tight
ened his grip on her shoulder. She’d traveled more than a thousand miles with him, engaged in a battle she cared nothing about, had done herself and him proud. Whatever Marshall decided, Daniel knew at that moment he was right to have followed his conscience.

He hadn’t come to Richmond for revenge. He didn’t really care whether Wilkinson was brought down or not. He’d done his duty as he saw it and ended his fourteen years of service to his country with honor.

Completely at peace with himself for the first time since Elizabeth’s death, he felt little more than a brief stab of disappointment when Marshall shook his head.

“I cannot allow her to testify.”

Hay surged forward, looking as though the top of his head might blow off. Marshall stopped him with an impatient wave of one hand.

“Save your dramatics for the courtroom, George. You know as well as I do she presents only hearsay evidence. You would not have brought her to me if you were convinced her testimony would stand.”

“Damn it, John, you have to consider what she says in the context of those letters to Lieutenant Wilkinson. His father all but states his desire to set up his own kingdom, using Mrs. Morgan’s monies to pay for the arms and supplies lost when his plans with Burr failed.”

“Listen to your words, man! Wilkinson
all but states
his desire. Unfortunately, he
doesn’t
come out
and state it. Nor does an overheard conversation between his son and an unknown individual provide admissible evidence of conspiracy to commit treason.”

To Daniel’s surprise, Marshall sounded every bit as frustrated as George Hay. The chief justice caught his assessing look and shrugged.

“I will admit I have no great liking for the general. He doesn’t know fact from fantasy and changes his story every time he takes the stand. It would give me considerable pleasure to hold the strutting cock accountable for his actions, but to do so I must have hard evidence, not hearsay. I’m sorry you’ve come all this way for naught, sir. And you, ma’am.”

“We did what we thought we had to,” Daniel answered. “We’ll leave you now to get on with matters.”

“Where do you go?” Hay asked. “In case I need to reach you,” he added with a dark look at his colleague.

Turning, Louise arched a brow. “Where
do
we go?”

“Damned if I know,” her husband replied, grinning.

“Me, I think we should go back to Osage Country.”

Surprise blanked Daniel’s face. He stared at her nonplussed until he recalled their brief exchange of the previous night. Before he could assure her he had no desire to take her back to a country and a culture
where she felt unwelcome, Marshall bowed over her hand.

“I hear your country is quite beautiful, madam. I wish you a safe journey home.”

“It
is
beautiful,” she agreed. “And it is above all things foolish to think the Osage will share it with the Choctaw and Cherokee.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“This plan to move the eastern tribes off their lands is most absurd.”

“Ah, you speak of the proposed Indian Removal Act.” Slowly, Marshall nodded. “As it happens, ma’am, I agree with you. The act is not only absurd, but an abrogation of treaties concluded in good faith by any number of legal representatives of the United States.”

“I know not this abrogation, but I know this. If other tribes come to Osage Country, my uncle’s warriors will sharpen their spears and wives will weep for their dead husbands. You must tell the Great Father, Jefferson, what I say when next you speak with him.”

“I promise you I shall. The Indian Removal Act is only one of the areas where Mr. Jefferson and I disagree, but it is one of the most serious.”

Satisfied, Louise dipped her head in a brisk nod and left the judge’s chamber. Daniel and George Hay followed her into the crowded hall. A quick sweep of the crowd showed no sign of General Wilkinson. Daniel sincerely hoped the man had gone to ground and was stewing in his own sweat, but couldn’t work
up a real heat about the matter one way or another. He had other, more urgent matters on his mind at the moment.

He waited while George Hay thanked them both sincerely for coming forward and delivering the letters.

“I promise you this won’t be the end of things with Wilkinson. We have our eye on him. We’ll catch him in a trap of his own making later, if not sooner.”

Daniel nodded, impatient now to take Louise away from the tangled web of politics and debate he’d dragged her into. Hay thanked them again, begged them to let him know their direction when they decided on it and hurried off to don his robe and wig.

Daniel didn’t breathe easy until he’d gotten Louise out of the House of Delegates. They picked their way through the tents and gullies to the street below, and stood for a moment in the hot August sun. After being driven by military orders for so many years and by a sense of urgency these past months, it felt strange to have no immediate task or goal. Strange and unsettling, almost as though a great weight had been lifted from his back and he didn’t quite know how to walk upright without it.