Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (25 page)

"Then you
die now —"

The report of
Hawthorne's pistol rang through the brush, the ball passing between Sophie and
the assassin.
 
While the horses
skittered in shock, Sophie snatched her musket and dove for cover in the
palmetto underbrush on the other side of the horses.
 
El Serpiente fired his pistol, Hawthorne screamed, and she
cringed.

She took aim on
the Spaniard.
 
Dread stayed her trigger
finger and dribbled sweat down her back.
 
The flint had fallen from her musket.

El Serpiente
whipped out a knife, his attention focused on her.
 
With the musket useless for firing, she prepared again to use it
as a club.
 
Squared off with the
assassin, she heard Mathias from the direction of the abandoned trading post:
"To the horses!
 
Quickly!"

Rather than
leap into the brush for her, the assassin lunged for the nearest horse — that
of Charley Osborn — sliced through the rope guiding the horse, and vaulted onto
the animal barebacked.
 
Reins seized, he
jabbed his heels into the horse's sides, spun him about, and galloped back
toward the road.
 
Mathias's rifle shot
sheared his hat from his head and skimmed his scalp, shattering branches and
showering man and horse with splintered pine.

Sophie's knees
wobbled when she recalled the sight of the assassin's knife.
 
"N-no flint!" she croaked when her
brother and the blacksmith sprinted over to her.
 
That instant, she remembered the rest of it.
 
"Hawthorne!
 
Ye gods!"

Blood seeped
through the right upper portion of his waistcoat, the smell of it mingling with
that of pine straw to form a dusty and acrid stench.
 
While the four other men gathered around, Sophie knelt at his
side, helpless.
 
"Stephen
Hawthorne, thank you for saving my life!"

He moved gray
lips.
 
"In my saddlebags — it was
split between the three of us.
 
You must
help le Comte Dusseau take it to Don Alejandro,
por favor, te suplico
."
 
He lifted his right hand and clutched her
sleeve, his Spanish heritage tumbling from his lips.
 
"
Mesón de Dragon y Phoenix en San Agustín...busca a
Luciano de Herrera
."
 
His voice
began failing, and he forced out final words.
 
"
O la casa de mi tío, Don Antonio Hernandez, en La Habana
..."
 
His body relaxed, and his eyes searched the
sky without sight, a glaze settling over them.

When his hand
fell away from her sleeve, dejection and loss smothered Sophie.
 
Another man dead.
 
Good gods, was there no end to the violence?
 
The sound of an approaching horse dragged
her to her feet.
 
Standing Wolf reined
back.
 
"Redcoats.
 
Four miles away."

At that
proximity, the soldiers would have heard the firearm reports.
 
Runs With Horses rushed over to rope the
horse they'd loaned to Hernandez.
 
Sophie retrieved her musket, mounted Samson, and headed the gelding out,
realizing when she reached the road that she hadn't glanced at Hawthorne's body
again.
 
Perhaps she was indeed capable
of leaving violent death behind, but she was certain she'd never grow inured to
it.
 
Damn the war, the bloody, wretched,
useless war.

Chapter Nineteen

THEIR FIRST
GLIMPSE into Hawthorne's saddlebags didn't occur until mid-afternoon.
 
Whatever the rebel had been protecting with
his pistol wasn't obvious among his personal articles, spare clothing, food,
and extra ammunition.
 
After they'd set
up camp for the night south of Darien, they inspected his property again, and
Sophie wondered whether he'd been crazy.
 
To her eye, there was nothing about his belongings to defend.

Jacques sat
near firelight with the saddlebags.
 
Knife in hand, he prodded seams, scraped surfaces, and whistled through
his teeth.
 
Soon he motioned the others
over and handed each a pistol ball.

Sophie rolled
hers between finger and thumb before holding it closer to the firelight to
examine a section Jacques had scraped off.
 
Beryl green winked at her from the heart of the ball, invoking an
initial thrill of wonder: an emerald disguised as ammunition.

Jacques
insisted that they divide the collection of twenty-four emeralds between them
before he and Standing Wolf left the circle of firelight for their allotted
watch.
 
Mathias hunkered down on his
bedroll to patch a moccasin, and Runs With Horses sharpened his knife.
 
Sophie continued cleaning her musket.
 
Then she cocked the unloaded musket, aimed
it at the ground, and pulled the trigger.
 
To her satisfaction, the new flint sparked.
 
But by then, her wonder over the emeralds had waned.

David, who had
paced awhile, sat near her and flipped a twig into the fire.
 
"I doubted the lure of military
intelligence alone could provide adequate persuasion for the likes of the
Gálvez family.
 
Curse Hawthorne for
taking advantage of us."

Mathias
said,
 
"Too late for curses.
 
He's dead."

David glared at
the campfire.
 
"If the total bribe
was split among three couriers, they'd some seventy emeralds to wave beneath
Don Alejandro's nose.
 
Where did they
come by it all?
 
The Congress hardly has
two pennies to rub together and cannot even send supplies and soldiers to the
rebels in Georgia."

Mathias
shrugged.
 
"Maybe it's another loan
from France."

"France is
destitute, too."
 
David caught
Sophie's gaze and lowered his voice.
 
"Four emeralds apiece will keep us content for awhile.
 
Haven't we discharged our responsibilities
to Hawthorne by now?"

"Those
emeralds are a burden, not a blessing.
 
And we haven't caught the murderer yet.
 
We go on to St. Augustine."

David watched
Jacques slip into the ring of firelight to light his pipe before he said,
"So we mark ourselves as rebel couriers by handing the emeralds over to a
Gálvez?"

"We won't
give them to a Gálvez," said Sophie.
 
"We'll track down this Comte Dusseau person that Hawthorne
mentioned and transfer the onus onto him.
 
Let him decide what to do with the stones.
 
At that point we discharge our responsibilities.
 
And I wager he'll supply us with information
about Father's murder in return."

More tension
infiltrated David's expression.
 
"Dusseau.
 
Who the hell is
he?"

Jacques
stood.
 
"Comte André Yves François
Dusseau, a young man well-connected with the Marquis de Lafayette."

"Charming."
 
David tongued the information with a twist
of sarcasm.
 
"And who was
Hawthorne's
other
traveling companion?"

His question
hung almost as palpably in the air as Jacques's tobacco smoke.
 
"Another spy.
 
There is certainly no shortage of spies in
this
land."
 
The old Frenchman strolled
back out into the foliage.

David's sigh
sounded brittle.
 
"Well, at least
Hawthorne told us where we might find Dusseau.
 
The Dragon and Phoenix Inn in St. Augustine.
 
I wonder why he mentioned an uncle, Don Antonio Hernandez, in
Havana, but didn't say anything about the woman in the black veil at the Church
of Saint Teresa."

Mathias
shrugged.
 
"Rendezvous plans
change."

"Horse
shit.
 
The whole affair reeks worse than
a Savannah bawdyhouse in August.
 
And
who's that Luciano de Herrera fellow we're supposed to seek in St.
Augustine?"

Sophie said,
"I don't know, but I've no desire to meet Herrera or travel to
Havana.
 
The way the Fates have operated
thus far, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if a Spaniard turns out to be an agent
for the Dutch and absconds with all the stones to Holland."

"Ah,
Holland, jumping on Britain's back along with France and Spain."
 
David's chuckle was raspy.
 
"You know, Sophie, you should pen your
memoirs of this adventure."

"No one
would believe it, even if I were a man."

He rose.
 
"All right.
 
I'm for sleep if my arm will let me."

She studied
him.
 
"Is it worse?
 
I can brew you more tea."

"It was
quite bearable until you poked at it before supper and changed the
bandage."

"Very
well.
 
You may change your own bandage
from here on."

"Thank
you."
 
He massaged his lower
back.
 
"Peter's gelding is
odious.
 
I shall be glad to have my horse
back on the morrow."
 
He walked off
to clean his teeth.
 
They were lucky to
have extra horses, even those with cranky personalities, to give their own a
break from the saddle every few days.

She set her
musket aside and ambled to Mathias.
 
"May I join you?"
 
He
nodded, still sewing his moccasin, so she crouched beside him.
 
"If the flint hadn't fallen out, I'd
have shot him."

"You're
alive and well, and that's what counts."
 
He slid the moccasin on his foot and set the kit aside, eyes like
obsidian.
 
"Clearly it wasn't his
time.
 
Besides, he's
mine
."

"But it
may have been his dead partner who killed Jonah."

"That
makes no difference."

No, it didn't
make a difference.
 
She licked her
lips.
 
"I think I figured out what
happened that night."
 
He studied
her with expectation.
 
"Jonah —
with Fairbourne, Travis, Osborn, and Whitney — got the fire going around
Father's corpse.
 
Jonah stayed behind to
make sure the fire didn't get out of control.
 
Whitney and Travis headed straight to the dance.
 
The other two left to clean up first.

"The
Spaniards came upon the scene, and one of them killed Jonah.
 
While they were poking around —"
 
She pressed her hands together to calm their
shaking.
 
"Lieutenant Fairfax found
them and shot El Serpiente's partner in the knee."

"Fairfax."
 
Mathias's eyebrow shot up.

"Unable to
escape, the second assassin was left behind to Fairfax and his — his
interrogation."

Plausibility
sifted into Mathias's expression.
 
"Explain why you think it was Fairfax."

"MacVie
was terrified of him.
 
I suspect he saw
him torturing the Spaniard.
 
The next
morning, Fairfax and Major Hunt came to arrest me.
 
I could tell Fairfax hadn't slept.
 
At one point, he offered to interrogate me, and he appeared
enraptured, even affectionate, at the thought of it.
 
That afternoon, when I went to identify the dead Spaniard, he
interrupted Stoddard's investigation and tried to run him off.
 
I suspect he was looking for evidence he
might have left behind in the dark, perhaps a button torn off his coat while
subduing the Spaniard.
 
And he looked at
the corpse with such affection, as if he were delighted by that agonized face
—"

"And Hunt
did nothing about it."

"I doubt
he knew."

"Of course
he knew.
 
How could he
not
know?
 
Have you forgotten how frightened
the peddlers were of the redcoats?
 
Have
you forgotten how much Fairfax enjoyed killing those bandits last night?
 
Fairfax the machine, and Hunt the spineless:
what an excellent team they make."

The hiss of
venom in Mathias's voice astounded Sophie, almost obliterated her own quiet
instinct that Edward would never willingly choose Fairfax on his
"team."
 
"So logically
you've assessed it."
 
Her nostrils
expanded.
 
"I wonder why you've not
dedicated the same deductive skills to another incident last night with the
bandits."

"How do
you mean?"

"Had I
wanted to become Edward Hunt's mistress, I'd have stayed behind with him
instead of fleeing with you, and I'd never have crawled out my bedroom window a
week ago — also with
you
."

He regarded her
coolly.
 
"Will you continue to flee
from him when he asks you to marry him?"

She
tittered.
 
"He won't do that.
 
He plans to add to his estates and wealth by
marrying a fifteen-year-old cousin."

"He's in
love with
you
, not his cousin.
 
If he marries you instead, he's still far from penniless.
 
You'd turn your back on that?
 
The very sound of it is majestic.
 
Lady Sophie Hunt."

Humor drained
from her heart, replaced with chill and loss.
 
Mathias seemed to be encouraging her to return to Edward.
 
"I don't love him."

"You
didn't love Jim or Richard, either."

She searched
his emotionless face, not comprehending the wall between them.
 
"I admit to making imprudent decisions
when I was young, but I'm a bit older and wiser now."

"And how
is accepting the protection of Edward Hunt an imprudent decision?
 
Through him, you'd spend the rest of your
life in comfort and luxury, something few in Georgia can expect of their
lot."

Confusion wrung
her soul.
 
If only she'd deferred
accepting Richard Barton's proposal another month.
 
But she'd no way of foreseeing that the following month, Stands
Tall would be dead, along with her unborn child.
 
No, Sophie'd had Betsy to think about, Betsy to protect.
 
Betsy.
 
Sweet Betsy.

She lifted her
chin.
 
It was time.
 
"England is a long way from
Georgia.
 
How can I move to England when
—"
 
She made sure her voice held
low.
 
"— when every year, Betsy
looks more and more like her grandmother, Madeleine le Coeuvre?"

While
incredulity swelled across his expression, she was certain frogs stopped
croaking, crickets ceased chirping, and the world paused rotating.
 
She held her breath in nervous
anticipation.
 
Surely now Mathias would
comprehend why she hadn't leaped to accept Edward's offer, and the two of them
could begin to talk at last.
 
But
instead, he scowled, pushed up from the blanket, and swept out into the night
with his rifle.

Anger boiled in
her chest: disbelief that Mathias could
still
not understand.
 
How dared he run away?
 
She jogged after him, her peripheral vision
granting her a view of David's curiosity.
 
Oh, how her brother would tease her on the morrow.

Moonlight broke
through clouds and permitted her to spot Mathias striding southward through
palmetto-strewn swamp grass.
 
She halted
and cupped hands around her mouth.
 
"I'm not going to run the rest of the way to East Florida after
you!"
 
She wasn't sure whether she
felt relief when he stopped and waited for her.

When she
reached him, he remained facing south.
 
"I cannot believe you've never told me.
 
In all of eighteen years, you
never
told me."
 
Sadness weighed down his voice.
 
"Did you never realize how much I
wanted children?"

"Then why
didn't you remarry?"

"Great
gods, Sophie, I lost my mother and first wife to childbirth.
 
I didn't think I could lose a second wife
that way."

"Well, you
have a child."

"No.
 
I never had her.
 
I wasn't there for her birth.
 
I never rocked her to sleep, heard her first words, watched her first
steps, or played with her.
 
Now she's an
adult, and I wasn't even at her wedding!
 
I've missed having
everything
a father should have had."

She glared at
his profile.
 
Damned if he was going to
make her feel guilty for her choices.
 
He had a right to feel loss, but she'd done the best she could to
provide for Betsy, and Betsy had turned out to be a decent, sensible
woman.
 
"Not everything.
 
You and I shall be grandparents in
December."
 
He faced her then,
expression knotted with deepened incredulity and betrayal.
 
"If you so desire, I shall open the
door for you to talk with Betsy."

He spread his
arms in a gesture of being overwhelmed, and she heard lamentation in his
voice.
 
"Betsy won't accept
me!"

"That
depends on how you approach her.
 
She
never knew Jim Neely, and Richard Barton wasn't much of a father to her."

"You'd be
honest with her about us?
 
You act proud
of it."

She felt doubt
and self-recrimination crawling around in his soul and smashed her lips into a
line.
 
Damn.
 
At least she'd been loved by
her
father.
 
"Exactly what about my daughter should
shame me into silence?
 
I will never be
shamed to have given myself to a fine young man in the grotto of the Moon
Eyes.
 
Nor will I ever be shamed to have
borne his daughter or to have sought protection for her with two other men.

"Perhaps
you expect me to be shamed because your stepfather drilled into your head that
your heritage somehow makes you subhuman.
 
If you really must know the truth, why in eighteen years I never told
you that you're Betsy's father, well, it's because I've never forgotten those
scars on your back.
 
Jacob and his
religion would only have made your life more miserable had he known you had an
illegitimate child.
 
That's why I sent
Betsy to Augusta.
 
I didn't want him
seeing Madeleine in her."

His expression
grew guarded.
 
"The opportunity for
Betsy, you, and me to resolve this muddle is forever gone, Sophie.
 
You never tried to talk with me about
it."

This muddle
.
 
She felt ill.
 
"How could I have talked with you about Betsy?
 
You never gave me a chance.
 
Since Richard's death, you've scurried away
from me."

"'Scurried
away?'
 
Not so.
 
I was rebuffed.
 
I've never been able to pierce that phalanx of handsome,
blond-haired, blue-eyed men orbiting you."

"What
phalanx?
 
Edward Hunt is the first since
Richard —"

"At the
harvest festival, right after Joshua's first son was born, Andrew Barton had
you perched on his elbow the entire time.
 
You wouldn't even dance with me —"

"My feet
were sore!
 
And Andrew Barton became a
phalanx of men after that, eh?"

"For years
I watched you select suitors with whom you never shared yourself.
 
I finally decided that all you wanted from
any man was this much."
 
He showed
her his thumb and forefinger spaced but a quarter inch apart.
 
"I gave up."

"You don't
give up at anything.
 
This imaginary
phalanx of blond men helps you to keep me out at a distance!"

"
You
keep all the men who might have a sharing relationship with you out at a
distance."

Baffled, angry,
smarting, she scowled at him.
 
"That afternoon in the grotto wasn't fair to you.
 
We were both hurt by it, and I'm very sorry.
 
I'm also sorry that I kept the truth about
Betsy from you.
 
But I won't be
responsible for your fears about me today.
 
I have my own fears about you to deal with.