The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (38 page)

"Well, now, what you expect
wit' all them dry soldiers camped a mile north o' here?
 
Hrumph."
 
She turned her back on them to butter fresh cornbread.

Tom winked at Betsy and mouthed,
"No Neville."

She exhaled relief and accepted the
chair he pulled out.
 
He sank into the
chair beside hers.
 
When Hattie set
plates before them, they had nothing to say for several minutes.
 
They capped off the meal with blackberry
cobbler, and in a drowse brought on by the afternoon of walking and the supper
of good food, Betsy felt Hattie pat her shoulder.
 
"That's right, child, you go ahead and eat fo' dat baby of
yours.
 
Bless me if you wasn't just skin
and bones when you arrive here last Wednesday."

"Mrs. Sheridan."
 
Betsy blinked at Abel, who stood in the
doorway, and Tom turned his head to regard the dour-faced accountant.
 
"I would speak with you in my
office."
 
Tom rose, and Abel
sniffed.
 
"
Alone
."
 
He vanished down the hallway.

Too sleepy to conjure resistance,
she followed Abel.
 
Only when she
reached his office door did she suspect he might have figured out she'd snooped
in his office Friday morning.
 
But by
the time her reasoning caught up with her groggy senses, the accountant was
already beckoning her inside.
 
She came
fully awake when he shut the door behind her and Adam Neville rose from a chair
in the corner shadows.
 
"Mrs.
Sheridan, what a pleasure to see you again."

She glanced from Abel, whose face
betrayed no sentiment, and who had assumed position near the room's only lamp,
to the floor, where she bit her tongue to stop herself from screeching,
"Branwell, you stinking, miserable excuse for a double agent!"
 
Then she looked back at Neville, whose lip
was still swollen from the encounter with her riding crop a week earlier.
 
She grafted on her tea-party smile.
 
"Lieutenant, what brings you to
Camden?"

He laughed and crossed the rug
between her and Abel.
 
"You're
quite good at this, you know, sending my men and me on to Ninety Six.
 
I even fancy you chewed your way out of your
bonds last Monday morning while we were all sleeping."

"You hardly seemed open to
reasoning, and I didn't desire to birth my child in Augusta jail.
 
As I told you, I was seeking the shelter of
a relation to have my baby in peace.
 
Here I am in the home of my cousin Emma.
 
Have I satisfied your curiosity?"

"And where is Clark?"

She held his gaze.
 
"I've no idea."

"You may as well dispense with
the lies.
 
One of our agents saw you
talking with him in Log Town Friday.
 
Where is he?"

"Random chance made that
encounter possible.
 
I accompanied Emma
to donate medical supplies for Loyalists injured in the Hanging Rock
incident.
 
Clark was one of the injured
men there."

"When will you see him
again?"

She shook her head.
 
"Your guess is as good as mine.
 
To protect himself, he never told me where
he was staying, nor did he set up a time to meet me again."

Neville crossed the room and
returned to the shadows.
 
It was
downright eerie the way he blended with darkness, just the way an Indian would
do.
 
"You're under arrest, madam."

"Yes, I do
remember."
 
She lifted her chin,
feeling her options run out, and extended her wrists.
 
"Go ahead, then, tie me up and take me to jail.
 
There isn't a thing I can do to stop
you."

His eyes glittered from the
shadows, much as Brown's had done from beneath his hat.
 
"You swore allegiance to the king.
 
I admire the grace with which you handle
this.
 
I shall give you the opportunity
to prove your loyalty."

She lowered her wrists, liking the
sound of his prelude even less than the threat of jail.
 
"I've already proven it in the letter I
wrote Colonel Brown before my departure."

"Then you shouldn't mind
proving it again.
 
Clark is working for
rebels while posing as a Loyalist.
 
The
Ambrose spy ring, of which he's a part, aims to assassinate British military
figures in high command positions.
 
A
great deal of funding for the ring's activities comes from the Dutch, although
we aren't certain yet what the Stadtholder's motive is in all this.

"Last month, counterespionage
activities enabled the Earl Cornwallis to learn of an ambush along his return
route to Charles Town, so he took another route.
 
But an operative from the Ambrose ring made an attempt on the
commander at Ninety Six Friday.
 
He
killed an adjunct accompanying the commander and swallowed poison to avoid
interrogation.
 
And, of course, there
was the attempt on Colonel Brown's life by Sooty Johns.
 
So you see, we really must put a stop to the
activity.

"Clark will attempt to meet
you again.
 
Find out as much as possible
about the ring's mission.
 
Names of the
agents.
 
Where they're located.
 
The Stadtholder's stakes.
 
Information like that.
 
Ultimately we expect you to lead us to
Clark, at which point you'll be exonerated from suspicion."

Betsy swallowed, horrified.
 
"How can you expect me to just hand him
over to you?"

The smile spread across Neville's
swollen lips again.
 
"You're
sharing the bed of his apprentice.
 
When
a woman takes up such an arrangement, she often dispenses with the man who is obsolete.
 
Do we understand each other?"
 
She nodded, flabbergasted.
 
"Excellent.
 
When you've information of import, send word to me through Mr.
Branwell.
 
I shan't stray
far."
 
He bowed to Abel.
 
"Sir."
 
He bowed to Betsy.
 
"Again, madam, it's been a pleasure."

As soon as he exited, she pivoted
to follow.
 
Abel slithered to the door
and laid his hand on the latch.
 
"Mrs. Sheridan, I'm not finished with you yet."
 
Here it came, a confrontation over the
snooping.
 
"I've a message to you
from Ambrose."
 
Black humor laced
his tone.
 
"Under no circumstances
are you to follow Neville's orders.
 
If
you contact your husband, it shall be my pleasure to evict you and Mr.
Alexander from my house on your adulterous arses.
 
May heaven help you after Ambrose catches up with you."

God damn the bastard to hell.
 
She returned his glare.
 
"The conservative approach is a curious
one for you, considering the four whores you've lodged upstairs."

His lips pulled back in a
snarl.
 
"Don't be clever with me,
woman, or you shall deeply regret it.
 
Now begone."

She trudged back up the hallway and
through the dining room, dazed that she was expected to serve both rebels and
redcoats.
 
All the way upstairs, she
pinched herself, hoping she'd awaken from the nightmare.
 
But when she reached the second floor, she
realized the nightmare wasn't yet ready to release her.
 
Beside the door to their room, her cousin
had Tom pressed against the wall in a kiss so juicy Betsy could hear the
moisture.
 
In ruthless rhythm, Emma
rotated her pelvis into his groin and rubbed his chest with her silk-covered,
unfettered breasts.
 
Betsy backed around
the entrance of the stairway and down three steps, rage spreading within her.

She heard the kiss break off.
 
"Mrs. Branwell, this is most unseemly
of you."

Emma sounded breathless.
 
"Darling, you must help me.
 
My marriage is unconsummated.
 
Abel has desires only for his accounting
books, while I'm a warm-blooded woman with such diverse needs."

"I'm not the one to gratify
those needs.
 
I'm very much enamored of
my wife."

"Oh, the mockery of it, that
my drab little cousin could arouse a handsome young man like you more than I,
and she stinking of chamberpots."
 
Betsy clenched her fists.
 
Small
wonder Emma felt such affinity for her prostitutes.
 
"Smell my wrist.
 
Lilac.
 
Here on my throat,
too.
 
Feel how soft.
 
Yes?
 
I'm oh so ready for you to take me, even if for only two minutes
—"
 
Silk slithered, and Emma
squeaked with surprise.
 
"Oh!
 
What did you do that for?"

"I already told you I'm not
interested, madam.
 
Good night!"

The bedroom door squawked open and
slammed shut.
 
Emma emitted a ragged sigh,
muttered, "Damn," and shuffled for the stairs.
 
Betsy straightened her shoulders, held the
banister, and waited, her expression neutral.
 
No surprise registered on Emma's face when she turned the corner and
spied Betsy.
 
"Oh, excuse me, dear,
I'm having such trouble sleeping tonight and must have left my laudanum in the
dining room."
 
She glided
downstairs in a cloud of lilac so cloying that Betsy almost gagged.

In the bedroom, Tom bent over the
washbasin dousing his face and neck with cool water, his coat and vest cast
onto the chair.
 
He straightened and
blotted his face on a towel, and they eyed each other in mutual misery too deep
for words.
 
"Betsy, I'm thinking if
we work really hard, we can get out in two weeks."

"Even the morrow won't be soon
enough."

He nodded, flung aside the towel,
and cleaned his teeth.
 
She waited on
the bed for him to finish.
 
While he
opened his blanket, undressed to his shirt, and lay down on the bedroll, she
rushed through her own toilette.
 
The
candle extinguished, they lay in darkness.
 
Tom dropped off into sleep.

But she lay awake a long while,
trussed up in the schemes of the Branwells, Jan van Duser, and Adam
Neville.
 
A fly blundered into a
spider's web, she struggled without escape, awaiting the spider's pleasure.
 
She detested all of them with virulence that
shocked her.

While she lay awake, she realized
Abel wasn't omniscient.
 
He didn't know
she'd snooped in his office.
 
If she did
nothing else, she was determined to decipher the message in Clark's last
letter.
 
The intelligence locked there
might give her leverage.
 
Should she
find Abel's office locked, that ring of keys in the cupboard downstairs
included a spare key for his office.

It occurred to her then that she
wasn't as trussed up as they all presumed.
 
The revelation made her skin crawl.
 
At her disposal was a weapon her antagonists weren't aware of, an
elemental she might loosen upon them if she figured out how to contain him
without destroying anyone she loved in the process.

Words and the printing press: her
family legacy.

What a masterful piece of
propaganda her grandfather had produced with that broadside.
 
History was full of warriors whose only
weapon was words.
 
Words, yes, her means
of directing the beast.
 
With a smile of
satisfaction, she rolled onto her side and slipped into sleep.

Chapter Thirty-One

MONDAY MORNING, BETSY tidied the
guestrooms in time to allow a visit to Abel's office, this time locked.
 
Under pretense of fetching towels, she
trotted the ring of keys upstairs to replace the spare office key with her room
key, in case Hattie or Emma counted keys, then returned the ring to the
cupboard.
 
She'd leave early for the
print shop, find an artisan to copy the key, and replace the original before
anyone was the wiser.

In the accountant's office, she
memorized ten more number-word combinations.
 
Comparing invoices to entries in the ledger, she realized the expenses
of the Ambrose spy ring were being subsidized by so many different
"charitable donations" that it boggled her mind.
 
Tempting as it was to pass invoices on to
the redcoats, she resisted the easy gratification.
 
Abel would figure out she'd undone him and get word to the
spies.
 
Then she and Tom might not escape
Camden.
 
No, she had something far more
appropriate planned for Mr. Abel Branwell.