The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (47 page)

Emma stomped again in misery and
indignation.
 
Tom gestured in her
direction.
 
"Untie her.
 
I shall guard the door."

Betsy tinkered with the knot from
behind.
 
The blindfold, one of Emma's
lacy tuckers, came off.
 
Emma blinked at
Tom, stared at the bed, then moaned.
 
Betsy stripped off the lacy handkerchief that had been used to gag her
cousin.
 
Emma worked her mouth.
 
"Abel!
 
Oh, Abel!"

Her concern over her husband seemed
shammed, an act in helping Abel maintain a façade of convalescence.
 
But it didn't matter what Betsy and Tom
believed.
 
Emma's true trial would come
when she fell under scrutiny of the investigators over the incident.

Betsy continued working on the
ropes.
 
"Don't worry, he wasn't in
bed when the attack was made."

"Oh, but he was, I assure you,
and he was fast asleep, and I just dozed a minute in this chair reading a book
when I found myself blindfolded, and my hands being bound behind me, and then
my legs.
 
Oh, such horrors!
 
I heard him strike the bed over and over,
and I feared for Abel's life and my own.
 
And oh, my poor, shocked heart, after he left the room, there wasn't a sound
from the bed."

"Dawn isn't far
off."
 
Tom kept an eye on the
doorway.
 
"When did this
happen?"

"I-I don't know."
 
Emma rubbed her chafed wrists.
 
"But I've sat here for at least half an
hour struggling with my bonds and stomping the floor."

Betsy released Emma's left
foot.
 
Her cousin sprang up from the
chair shivering, clasped her arms across her breasts, and reached for a shawl
draped across the foot of the bed.
 
Betsy pushed up from her kneeling position with Emma's book and glanced
at the title.
 
Fanny Hill
.
 
It figured.
 
She dropped it in the chair.
 
"Were you hurt by the intruder?"

Emma considered it a second before
shrewdness filled her expression.
 
"Why, yes, I was ravished!"

Incredulity permeated Tom's
expression and voice.
 
"While you
were bound sitting in the chair?
 
I
should like to see such a feat demonstrated, madam.
 
You don't look at all disheveled."

Emma glared at him.
 
"He put his hands all over me after
he'd bound me, touching me places I should never wish to be touched by a
stranger.
 
And he spent a goodly amount
of time doing it."

"He?
 
So it was a man.
 
You were
blindfolded.
 
He spoke?"

"No. But I assumed it was a
man."

"This presumed man had his way
with you first, leisurely, before going to the bed and cutting it to
pieces?"

Betsy caught Tom's eye and shook
her head.
 
Like Tom, she knew Emma lied
about the intruder ravishing her.
 
Her
cousin's story had plenty of holes in it, but it wasn't their job to expose
them.
 
"Tom, let's escort her
downstairs and awaken Hattie and Sally.
 
We must send for investigators."

The investigators didn't finish
questioning the household until after six-thirty.
 
Betsy and Tom took breakfast in the garden where they couldn't be
overheard.
 
"Too bad we won't be
here in a few days when Emma breaks again."
 
Tom gulped coffee.
 
"It would be amusing to hear the real story."

"You don't think Fairfax was
here, then?"

"No.
 
I think the Branwells staged the incident.
 
It was time for Abel to lay low.
 
He cut up the bed and tied and blindfolded
Emma, ensuring that she'd be unable to identify her 'intruder' and be absolved
of complicity."

"The investigators won't
believe her story."

"Of course not.
 
Abel was supposedly mad and infirm,
requiring a nursemaid.
 
So did this
mystery attacker carry him out?
 
Or did
Abel walk out himself with the attacker?
 
Very suspicious, you see.
 
At the
least, Abel will now be seen to collude with his attacker."

"I doubt he's been in that
room for at least a day."

"I agree with you."

"So if he made good his escape
yesterday, it still could have been Fairfax in there chopping up the bed."

Tom leaned forward with his napkin
to brush a crumb from her chin.
 
"Yes, it might have been, but don't you think realizing Abel had
outwitted him would have enraged him, and he'd have said
something
?
 
Cursed perhaps?
 
And trotted across the hall to vent his rage on Betsy
Sheridan?"

She shuddered.
 
"That's gruesome."

"I'm sorry."
 
Tom touched her cheek with his fingers.
 
"He must know where to find you by
now.
 
I don't see why he wouldn't have
taken advantage of the proximity, made it worth his time."

She stared at a redheaded
woodpecker on an oak limb.
 
"What
if he just wasn't ready to work me into his schedule yet?"

"Betsy, stop worrying.
 
We'll be gone on the morrow."

"Emma lied about being
fondled.
 
And given the circumstances, I
don't think Fairfax would have fondled her."

"Oh, right."
 
Tom snickered.
 
"He's a scoundrel.
 
We already know he enjoyed Margaret.
 
What red-blooded scoundrel who'd bound, blindfolded, and gagged Emma
would resist fondling her a bit?"

"No.
 
He wouldn't have wasted time with her.
 
If given the choice, he'd rather kill than fondle."

Tom frowned and scratched the back
of his neck.
 
"You sound convinced
of that.
 
Why do I get the feeling
there's something
else
you aren't telling me?"

She met his gaze.
 
"I snooped on the delivery of my
message to him.
 
He'd already gotten
started with Margaret, yet he stopped everything when he read the message and
went running off after the lead of van Duser, leaving Margaret behind."

Tom rubbed his jaw.
 
"Are you serious?
 
Margaret, eh?
 
He's even more twisted than I imagined."

"Can you understand now why I
doubt he fondled Emma?
 
After he
discovered the Branwells' ruse, he realized where he might find Abel hiding and
rushed off to verify his hunch.
 
It
promised him more stimulating entertainment than Emma."

Tom let out a deep breath.
 
"I see your point.
 
All right, have Harker walk you home tonight
and the next night.
 
We'll barricade the
door to the room tonight with all our supplies and sleep with our muskets
loaded.
 
And I promise, whether Wade and
Gamble pay me or not, we'll leave on the morrow, at night.
 
Feel better?"

Should you need help, send for me
through Mr. Bledsoe
.
 
If she abandoned Tom, Fairfax would torture
him to death.

"The precautions sound
appropriate."
 
But she didn't feel
better because she suspected it was all futile.
 
Assassins' training hadn't helped two Spaniards from
Casa de
la Sangre Legítima
, and two experienced bodyguards hadn't helped Jan van
Duser.
 
If Fairfax wanted her, he'd
figure out a way to get her.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

BY MONDAY EVENING, investigators
had poked so many holes in Emma's story that she'd become a nervous mess.
 
The Dutchman's partner der Waal volunteered
information that the Branwell-van Duser relationship hadn't been healthy.
 
Suspicion of complicity in van Duser's
disappearance shifted to Abel, whom no one had seen for almost a week.
 
Abel Branwell, wanted for questioning in the
presumed murder of Jan van Duser.
 
How
ironic.

General Edward Stevens from
Virginia arrived with his militia to reinforce Gates.
 
Even though almost two-thirds of the Continentals' ranks
consisted of militia, the Virginians bolstered the count by which the redcoats
were outnumbered.

News of Stevens's arrival propelled
soldiers in the Leaping Stag into a stomping, singing frenzy over the
"rebel scum and whoresons" who dared camp within a day's march of
them.
 
Accustomed to the occupational
activities of British soldiers in Augusta, Betsy found herself both appalled
and fascinated by the bloodlust, sentiment she knew was echoed thirteen miles
north around Continental campfires.
 
They were all feral: rebel and redcoat.
 
When battle descended, victory would go to those with the most cunning
manipulation of feral rage.
 
The men
drawn to war as sport, predators that prowled the perimeter of humanity, would
glut themselves, their atrocities ignored or condoned.

The tavern roared past three
Tuesday morning, offering Betsy and Tom little rest.
 
For all the intensity sweeping the first floor, no one attempted
to break down their door in the middle of the night and hack them to
pieces.
 
Still, Betsy was never so glad
to hear the cock's crow at the retreat of night, knowing it was the last night
she'd spend in a tavern fashioned straight from hell.

Downstairs in the dining room,
Hattie handed her a letter.
 
"Just
arrived, special courier."

After waiting for her to walk away,
Betsy scanned the handwriting on the address and winced.
 
Tom whispered, "Clark?"
 
Intuiting the content, she broke the seal.

Darling, I should never have doubted your Fidelity.
 
Please do not venture forth from Camden
before speaking with me.
 
I haven't much
Time but can meet you inside the Tavern's Stables at 4:45 this Afternoon.
 
Come, I beg of you
.

Her stomach churning, she turned
the letter to Tom and watched his expression pinch as he read it.
 
"Gone a bit flowery in the eleventh
hour, eh?"
 
He clasped her hand and
kept his voice to a whisper.
 
"The
meeting is fifteen minutes before I get off work."

"I don't want you there.
 
I must go alone so he understands that my
decision to leave him isn't influenced by you."

"And what if he wants to be
part of the child's upbringing?"

"Then we shall make
arrangements.
 
Periodic meetings at the
home of a neutral party, perhaps."

"I've the feeling he won't let
you go easily."

"He's bound to that militia
unit he's been fighting with.
 
They'd
hunt him down as a deserter if he tried to follow me."

Tom twined his fingers with
hers.
 
"I'm glad he's arranged this
meeting.
 
If you'd left Camden without
ever seeing him again, you'd always have wondered."

Tears smarted her eyes at his
discernment.
 
"You are my good and
true friend, Tom.
 
I must have done
something right to be gifted with your friendship this day."

"And only a good and true friend
would bruise his arse night after night by sleeping on the floor."
 
He lifted the back of her hand to his
lips.
 
"Expect me a little after
five o'clock.
 
We'll load up the horses
and head west by six.
 
The Continental
Army would capture us and steal our food and supplies if we take the road to
North Carolina tonight."

So they were headed west, past Fort
Cary and across the Wateree River.
 
Perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea to make it appear that they were
returning to Augusta.

After all the revelry in the common
room the night before, Betsy was surprised to find the guestrooms needed little
work.
 
But the ladies were most occupied
when soldiers were bored or celebrating.
 
Monday night, masculine camaraderie and convivial spirits were their
greatest needs.
 
So while the ladies'
duties had been light, the rum and ale was running short, and Henry and Philip
swept up a good deal of broken crockery.