The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (31 page)

Emma sat back and folded her hands
in her lap.
 
"Each woman receives
room and board here and may keep forty percent of her earnings.
 
Two women donate to charity.
 
What war does to women and children is
heinous, and I shall do my part to ease that wherever I can.

"If my business were more
robust, I'd offer this arrangement to other women, for they come to me every
day, begging for help."
 
Emma shook
her head.
 
"Most of them have been
cast away from a church, where they sought protection and charity.
 
Imagine that, having a congregation that
preaches love and giving turn its nose up at you because you suddenly have no
money and no husband.

"You and I are the lucky ones,
Betsy.
 
We've husbands to provide for
us.
 
Let us not judge what other women
must do to survive and help innocent loved ones survive in a war not of their
making.
 
A war that drags on and on,
simply because men won't listen to each other."

***

Betsy spent most of the morning
sweeping, airing, and dusting guestrooms that reeked of various forms of
gentlemen's diversions.
 
Mostly British
officers' diversions, if Emma was accurate about her clientele.
 
Though Clark had been her only lover, she
concluded that it didn't matter whether a man was a colonel or carpenter, rebel
or redcoat.
 
They all smelled the same
when they wallowed in carnal bliss.
 
In
the moment they gave themselves to
le petit mort
, they were each
vulnerable, each very human, despite the rebels' insistence on demonizing the
redcoats.

Each room was furnished with a
sturdy bed, handsome chair, and wardrobe with drawers.
 
To verify that no patron had left personal
articles behind, Betsy opened a drawer in the first room and discovered an
education in silk, leather, wood, and lubricant devices.
 
As she found out, the other rooms were
similarly equipped.

Mid-morning, she paused to glance
out the window toward the kitchen, where Sally stirred stew in a cauldron for
the patrons that night.
 
She remembered a
night Sophie had fallen asleep telling her a bedtime story while stretched out
next to her in bed.
 
Betsy, eight years
old, leaned over, stroked her mother's cheek, and pulled the blanket over her
shoulder.
 
"Always so tired,
Mama.
 
You sleep now."
 
In retrospect, she wondered whether those
circles of fatigue beneath Sophie's eyes were less from weariness than from
worry.

Her lip curled when she recollected
the imperious attitude of Ruth Glenn.
 
"It's time for you to move on," Ruth had said.
 
She envisioned pastors from churches in
Camden saying the same thing to widows knocking on their doors:
Begone.
 
Beg elsewhere.
 
Cease bothering us
.
 
There, but for good fortune, might any widowed mother with hungry
children walk.
 
Had circumstances been
otherwise, Sophie might have walked that route, too.

Betsy finished the rooms just
before eleven and carried a basket of soiled linens, mostly towels, downstairs
in time to accept a delivery of wine.
 
Neither Emma nor Abel was to be found to remit payment to the vendor, so
she shoved the invoice in her pocket and promised the vendor she'd give it to
Abel.
 
Henry and Philip, the lads
cleaning the common room, carried the crates of bottles down to the Leaping
Stag's wine cellar and left Betsy with a lantern to sort things out in the cool
dampness of the cellar.

With the lantern held high and her
eyes wide in awe, Betsy wandered aisles of wine bottles, more wine than she'd
ever seen in one spot, and took the time to decode the floor-to-ceiling storage
plan.
 
She found places for all the new
bottles in the system and stood back to survey the cellar again, wondering how
often Emma ordered wine.
 
She'd cleaned
at least five empty wine bottles from each guestroom.

Back upstairs in the dining room,
she delivered the soiled linens to the washerwoman, who had just arrived.
 
When Hattie informed her that Abel was in
his office with a client, Betsy groped in her pocket for the invoice and headed
for the closed office door.
 
She raised
her hand to knock, the invoice in the other hand, but hesitated, hearing Abel's
voice: "I cannot give you anything today.
 
Next week I should be able to work it into the books."

"Next week will be too
late."
 
Betsy's eyes bugged at the
heavy Spanish accent of Abel's visitor.
 
Why, it sounded just like Basilio's voice!
 
"
Señor
Carter wants storage fees up front."

"See here.
 
I find it exceedingly poor planning on your
part to move all that rubbish this morning, in such a rush.
 
Poor planning on your part does not
constitute an excuse to squeeze my pockets.
 
You shall just have to make do in whatever other way you
can."

She heard menace in the Spaniard's
voice.
 
"Ambrose will not like
this."

Her jaw dangled open in shock.
 
Ambrose.

"Ambrose may bugger himself
for all I care.
 
Tell him I said
so.
 
And next time, you'd bloody well
better use the
back
door, and come after midnight."

Abel yanked the office door open
and caught Betsy in a perfect pose of surprise: mouth open, one hand raised to
knock, invoice in the other hand.
 
For
the second that she darted her gaze from Abel to Basilio — yes, it was indeed a
tired looking Basilio — then back again, she felt her heart stop beating and
her ears buzz with faint.
 
But Basilio
showed no sign of recognition, and she realized with a tremendous surge of
relief that he wouldn't have recognized her from his visits to Augusta anyway
because she been upstairs in bed each time he'd come.
 
She drew a deep breath.
 
"Oh, Mr. Branwell —"

"What the devil do
you
want?"

She thrust the invoice at him.
 
"Wine shipment this morning, sir.
 
I told the vendor you'd send him your
payment."

Abel snatched the invoice from her,
and his expression relaxed but little, even if some of the harshness seeped
from his voice.
 
"Where's the
wine?"

"In the cellar sorted and
stored properly."

"Good."
 
He squinted disapproval at the total on the
invoice.
 
"That will be all."

With a curtsy, she turned and
strode away, her legs somehow managing to not convey that her insides felt like
jelly, for she recognized the symbolism of the bloody beef skewered on Abel's
knife the night before at supper.
 
Abel
had an excellent reason for not wanting her help with the accounting for the
Leaping Stag.
 
He was siphoning money
off his business with British soldiers into the ravenous maw of a rebel spy
ring.

Chapter Twenty-Five

BENEATH THE SHADE of an oak in the
garden, Tom ate bread, yellow cheese, and fried squash, then applied himself to
a mug of beer.
 
Much had changed in the
past two weeks, but not his appetite.
 
Betsy smiled.
 
"When are you
due back?"

"One o'clock."
 
He lowered his voice.
 
"I reckon Clark won't be needing his
tools anytime soon, so I took them."

Her eyes widened.
 
"How?
 
Surely you didn't go into the house after that man's threats?
 
He'd arrest you for burglary."

He shook his head.
 
"I'd planned to sneak in before work,
so I took a sack.
 
But when I got there,
your furniture was loaded on the wagon.
 
Clark's workbench was easy to reach."
 
He drained off his beer.
 
"The German was talking with two Spaniards who'd stolen your
furniture from Augusta.
 
I couldn't get
near the wagon without them seeing me.

"The Spaniards left with the
wagon.
 
The German went back inside the
house.
 
I ran behind and jumped up on
the rear.
 
I unloaded Clark's tools into
the sack and jumped back down with the Spaniards none the wiser."

Betsy regarded him with
admiration.
 
"You amaze me, Tom
Alexander.
 
Did you see where they took
my furniture?"

"It's in a barn about a mile
east of town."

"Hmm.
 
Clark's plans to set up business in Camden
with Uncle Isaac went quite awry.
 
Now
we've made the Ambrose ring nervous."
 
She cocked an eyebrow.
 
"Weren't you late for work?"

"Yes.
 
I ran all the way back.
 
But Mr. Gamble had overslept and wasn't
angry about me being tardy because I helped the apprentices and him open the
shop in no time."

"Let's visit that barn tonight
after supper and inquire after my property."
 
She yawned.
 
"But
then return at a reasonable hour.
 
I
need sleep."

He studied her.
 
"If it's all there, you won't confront
anyone about it, will you?"

"I will, indeed.
 
It was stolen from me, and I want it
back."

"Betsy, I realize all that
furniture is difficult to replace, but the spies have already threatened you
once over it.
 
Perhaps you believe
there's a way to find Clark from the furniture?"

"Of course!
 
Of course there's a connection."
 
She heard herself falter, then took a deep
breath.
 
"I'm not ruling any clues
out at this point."

"The spies will be even more
nervous after tonight.
 
Their primary
business isn't moving furniture.
 
We're
costing them valuable time.
 
Were I them,
I'd hide it in several locations.
 
It's
less difficult to conceal on short notice."

"Less costly, too.
 
That explains why Abel Branwell doesn't want
me helping him with the books."
 
Curiosity sparked in Tom's eyes, and she plunged on.
 
"From a portion of conversation I
overheard between Basilio san Gabriel and him late this morning in his office,
it would seem my cousin's husband is supporting the Ambrose spy ring with funds
embezzled from his business."

"Zounds, what
irony!"
 
Tom rubbed his jaw.
 
"The British army supporting rebel
spies.
 
Assuming you could access his
books without endangering yourself, how would you recognize such a
falsification to confirm it?"

"Well, he might break up a
large sum and lodge it under loans or charitable donations to false
entities."
 
Her lip curled.
 
"More likely he's creating
donations.
 
They're a charitable lot
here, especially the four talented ladies lodged on the upper floor."

Tom studied her the duration of
several heartbeats before his eyebrows raised with understanding.
 
"This is a bawdy house?"

"Officially it's a tavern, but
the Branwells discovered earlier this year how lucrative such a side business
could be."

"I should think so."
 
He leered at the house.
 
"And you've met the ladies?
 
Are they very lovely?"

"No, I haven't met them.
 
They were all asleep in their quarters when
I cleaned the guestrooms earlier."
 
She crossed her arms in a huff at the look on his face, feeling her own
expression sour.
 
Men
.
 
"But you may as well save your
coin.
 
Their clientele is almost
exclusively officers."

He turned back to her, his leer
diffused into a smile of friendship.
 
"Are you jealous?"

"Why should I be?
 
Your business is your own."

He pried one of her hands from its
defensive position and held it in his.
 
"I've no urgent desire to get myself poxed."

"Yes, I suppose every
profession has its hazards.
 
Consider,
though, how the employment of four such ladies might place Abel in a situation
of learning sensitive military information."