The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (20 page)

"Mr. Fairfax again.
 
You heard about Sooty's murder?
 
That Spaniard killed him.
 
Who are these assassins?
 
Why did they kill the Givenses and
Sooty?
 
Why are they stalking us?"

Betrayal crawled through his
expression.
 
"Good god, they didn't
tell me there were more than five of them.
 
I-I cannot believe they'd do this to me."

"Clark!"
 
Her stomach roiling with dread, Betsy shook
his arm.
 
"Are your rebel 'friends'
hoping you'll get killed by this assassin because they don't trust you?"

"They didn't mistrust Givens
and Sooty, yet now they've been assassinated.
 
Perhaps Ambrose doesn't know about this assassin."

Or perhaps Ambrose was allowing
unproductive branches of the tree to be pruned.
 
Clark was running out of people to trust.
 
Fear galloped through Betsy.
 
"We're no longer safe."
 
Remembering the Spaniard's face so empty of
warmth, she wondered where they would be safe.
 
She reached for the reins and mounted Lady May without Clark's
assistance.

"Where are you going?"

"To report the Spaniard's
latest movements to Colonel Brown."
 
A nudge in the sides sent the mare into a trot.

"No!
 
I'm your husband, and I forbid it!"

The assassin who'd murdered the
Givenses and Sooty was stalking them.
 
Time to seek His Majesty's protection for loyal subjects.
 
She reached the road without acknowledging
Clark and encouraged her horse into a canter toward the center of town.

***

Brown traced his forefinger along
the handle of a teapot on the O'Neals' mantle.
 
No tea had steeped within it for several years.
 
Rebels who controlled imports turned their
noses up at anything British.
 
The
Ranger moved on to regard the clock, poised on eight that evening.
 
"Where had you seen the Spaniard
before?"
 
Face devoid of
cordiality, he swiveled and scrutinized Betsy.

He kept returning to the question,
as if convinced she knew Clark's attacker.
 
She squirmed, her lower back aching from having sat on the stool too
long.
 
The questioning wasn't going
well.
 
Brown seemed to have changed his
mind about her innocence.
 
"Two
nights ago, when he left the Givens shop in Alton, and yesterday on the road
back to Augusta."

"What were you doing when you
saw him in Alton?"

"Riding with Lieutenant
Stoddard back toward the print shop."

"And on the road to
Augusta?"

"I was in the brush back from
the road, of necessity."

"What did Lieutenant Fairfax
do yesterday when you told him about the Spaniard?"

"I-I didn't tell him then
about the Spaniard."

Brown's scrutiny sharpened.
 
"The Spaniard menaced you twice, and
you failed to inform Mr. Fairfax?"

She bounced a glance off the two
Rangers in the doorway, and her stomach gurgled.
 
Interrogation didn't sit well with her digestion.
 
"I ran from the Spaniard straight into
the capture of a bandit.
 
It was
horrifying.
 
After Mr. Fairfax shot the
bandit, I was too shaken to do more than mount my horse."

Brown slammed down a stool before
her and sat.
 
His ever-present hat
shaded the upper portion of his head, and his eyes trapped flecks of lamplight,
making him resemble a night creature with a gleaming stare.
 
Imagining scalped spots beneath the hat
filled her with a blend of pity, revulsion, and dread.

"You told your husband about
your encounters, yet he hasn't filed a complaint about this scoundrel's
activities.
 
Why not?"

"We arrived home to a burned
house.
 
We've been in shock."

Brown braced hands on his knees,
his gaze searing her the way summer sun beat upon pine barrens.
 
"This morning I all but dismissed
evidence brought against you by a fellow officer.
 
Now it appears you lied to me, and he was correct in his
assertions that you're a spy."

She shook her head.
 
"I'm not a spy, and I don't understand
why our being attacked by a Spaniard makes me so.
 
Spaniards support the rebel cause and would attack
Loyalists
."

He watched her expression.
 
"
Casa de la Sangre Legítima
."

"Lieutenant Fairfax told me of
this House of the Rightful Blood.
 
What
is it?"

"It's an extreme faction
dedicated to purging Spanish culture of contamination from the Bourbon
French."

She pulled back to focus on
him.
 
"An impossible endeavor,
considering how long the Bourbons have influenced Spain."

"Nevertheless, the faction has
infiltrated this colonial uprising with assassins directed to murder those who
side with the French or stand in the way.
 
Your husband is part of the Ambrose ring, allied with the French, is he
not?
 
What is his mission?
 
How long has he been a traitor?
 
Who burned your house and stole your
furniture?"

Casa de la Sangre Legítima
.
 
The Ambrose spy ring.
 
Betsy
spread her hands, baffled.
 
"I know
nothing of these matters, Colonel.
 
Perhaps the assassin mistook him for someone else."

A smile swathed Brown's scorn with
all the appeal of a pastry covering rancid meat.
 
"Some of these assassins followed your grandfather, mother,
and uncle all the way to Havana."
 
That was news to her.
 
She
stared.
 
His sarcasm tightened over
frayed patience, and he straightened on the stool.
 
While the clock struck eight, he waited for the vibrations from
the final bong to fade from the air.
 
"Where are
your
loyalties?"

"I'm not a rebel spy,
sir."

"The devil you
aren't!"
 
The stool toppled when he
stalked away before turning on her with a growl.
 
"Last night, a spy from the Ambrose ring named Ralph
Johnston, alias Sooty Johns, bungled an attempt on my life.
 
Although he managed to escape my bodyguards,
he'd fumbled his cover.
 
Casa de la
Sangre Legítima
tracked him down and executed him.

"In the past five years, I've
had my fill of rebels and interrogating them.
 
I've no time for your lies.
 
Were
it possible, I'd recall Mr. Fairfax and invite him to finish this conversation,
since he seems to have a knack for it."
 
He stabbed a finger at her.
 
"You lied to me this morning."

"No, I'm not a rebel
spy!"

"At this point, your
credibility is in the vault, madam.
 
Upon further interrogation, Mrs. Fuller confessed that your uncle
planned to drop in on you Tuesday morning.
 
I ask you again, did you make contact with David St. James earlier this
week?"

Well, damn.
 
Betsy lifted her chin.
 
"No."

"Very well.
 
Since you claim you aren't a rebel spy and
didn't make contact this week with a suspected spy, you shouldn't object to
taking that oath of allegiance to His Majesty."
 
He pounced on her vacillation.
 
"Either you swear allegiance, or I shall escort you to jail
tonight."

She hated being backed into a
corner almost as much as she hated that jail cell.
 
"The king has my allegiance.
 
I swear it."

"Excellent.
 
Your husband renewed his vows when I
questioned him earlier.
 
If you commit
treason, your lives are forfeit.
 
Endeavor to prove yourselves blameless subjects."
 
His expression darkened with ancient pain,
no doubt that of his torture at the hands of rebels in 1775.
 
"I cannot express how much satisfaction
it gives me to see a traitor dangle from a gibbet."

"What of the assassin?"
Betsy whispered, appalled at the pit she was mired it.
 
"Has he been caught?"

"No."

"He may continue to try to
kill my husband."

"I cannot spare soldiers to
guard you day and night, but I can increase the patrol frequency in this
neighborhood.
 
Given those limitations,
you and Mr. Sheridan must remain on this property until we ascertain that the danger
to you is past."

"Does that mean we're under
house arrest?"

Brown crossed his arms over his
chest, a smile twisting his lips.
 
"Madam, I've no grounds to arrest a
faithful
subject who has
committed no crime.
 
It's in your best
interests to remain where we can find you at all times.
 
That way you insure your own safety, and you
assure us of your loyalty."

Chapter Sixteen

HAIR DISHEVELED, CLARK stumped
across the bedroom.
 
"Why in bloody
hell did you report it?
 
I thought
surely you had the sense to realize it would incriminate me!"

"Sense?"
 
Exhaustion stripped away Betsy's
diplomacy.
 
"That assassin might
have killed us all.
 
You didn't even
have the decency to warn me."

"I didn't know.
 
I was told that two assassins were killed
last summer, one was killed in Alton last month, and the others followed your
mother to Havana, where they perished."

"How is it the redcoats knew
of this extra assassin but your fellow Patriots didn't?
 
Oh, face it, Clark.
 
Brown knows all about the ring and is
ninety-five percent certain you're a spy.
 
For all the help the Ambrose ring gives you, they must either want you
dead or locked up."

She stretched out on the bed in her
shift and closed her eyes.
 
"I'm
too tired to beat my brain more with it."
 
The chair legs at the desk squawked.
 
She heard the scratch of quill on paper.
 
"What are you doing?"

"Writing a letter."
 
The scratch of the quill continued for
another quarter minute.
 
Then she
smelled melted sealing wax.
 
"Find
a way to post this letter for me on the morrow, but only if it looks as though
Brown isn't intercepting our mail."

Betsy yawned.
 
"Post it yourself."

"I won't be here."

She chuckled.
 
"As if you'd ride to Camden in the
middle of the night."

"That's precisely what I must
do."

"Oh, stop being foolish and come
to bed."
 
After opening her eyes,
she rolled on her side and watched him stuff his shirt back inside his
breeches.
 
"What are you
doing?"

"Dressing."
 
He hopped into a shoe.

She sat up.
 
"You cannot be serious."

"If I don't draw off the
assassin, he'll keep trying for me.
 
He
may kill you or someone we love in the process."

"We're both under house
arrest.
 
Colonel Brown increased the
patrols.
 
The assassin won't make it
through.
 
Come to bed."

Clark slid on his other shoe.
 
"If Brown knows much about these
assassins and he's certain of my involvement with the Patriots, he intends for
the assassin to take my life.
 
Let the
Spaniard be my executioner as he was Sooty's.
 
To all appearances, Brown will have done everything he could to protect
a loyal subject."
 
He buttoned his
waistcoat.
 
"Don't think I shall
wait here to be butchered like a fox in a hole."

Betsy rolled out of bed and seized
his elbow, mortified by the fervent gleam in her husband's eyes.
 
"This is madness.
 
I cannot let you go.
 
I will not let you go.
 
I shall wake Lucas and have you thrown in
Augusta jail to keep you safe."

"Please, you're making this
more difficult for both of us."