The Turncoat (14 page)

Donop appeared similarly discomfited and resumed his seat.

The musicians struck up. It was Purcell, mediocre and maudlin.

Donop fidgeted, crossed his elegant legs and recrossed them, every discordant note seeming to afflict him. The Hessians were notoriously vain, and their colonel appeared to be no exception. Tremayne judged Donop to be perhaps five years older than himself. He was tall, blond, handsome, and the polish of his boots, the gold wire on his coat, and the quality of his buttons indicated an independent income.

After the fifth discordant note, the colonel spoke, once more in French. “The little captain means to do us a mischief, I suspect.”

Tremayne was uncertain how to respond. “Do you mean the music, or some other matter?”

Donop cast him a sly glance. “I do not care much for your English composers. But I was not speaking of the music. Howe has set you like a dog on the Widow’s heels. You will not find her. I have searched the Jerseys for the lady for the better part of a year.”

So they were not to speak of music. “Howe has offered me my command if I find her.”

“I was not searching for her for General Howe.” It was a rebuke.

Tremayne accepted it as such. “Have you no thought for your career, Colonel?”

“I will earn that back, honorably. I advise you to do the same.” The Hessian’s voice was low and icy.

“She deceived and disgraced you. You owe her nothing.”

“How long have you been in America, Major?”

“Six months.”

“I have been here more than a year. I have suffered bad food, bad company, and poor entertainment. Only the hunting is any good. But I had three exquisite days in Mount Holly with the most beguiling woman I have ever met. What have you had?”

He should not have looked away from the players. He should have kept his eyes fixed on them, or their instruments, or perhaps examined the paintings, the ersatz Titian over the fire. Instead he turned and found her, across the aisle, absorbed by the music despite its inadequacies. She seemed small and fragile beside Caide, who lounged in the chair next to her, ignoring Purcell entirely. His cousin’s hands rested lightly on her knee and neck, and the possessiveness of his pose drove Tremayne to hot and irrational anger.

And the awareness that André was watching him.

He looked away. Donop had been observing him as well, his expression more quizzical and less frosty than before. “What did the lady look like?” Donop asked him, all amused curiosity.

He was speaking about Mrs. Ferrers, and Tremayne found that his memory of her was inexact. It was Kate he remembered in exquisite detail, but he did his best to recollect. “Tall, slender, handsome rather than beautiful. Fair-haired, I think, though that might have been a wig.”

“I thought as much,” Donop said with quiet satisfaction, and chuckled to himself.

“What?” Tremayne said, irritated with the turn the evening was taking.

“You were not intimately acquainted with the lady. Unless, of course, she kept her wig on. Is that an English custom?”

Tremayne’s anger fled. He smiled, then laughed, and decided he rather liked the colonel. “I didn’t go to bed with the lady. No.”

“You are a poor judge of beauty. And you are not in love with her, which gratifies me,” the colonel said with some satisfaction. “I will do what Howe should have done the instant he disembarked at Head of Elk. I shall attack Fort Mercer, and the river will be opened, and the city will be British for the winter. I will redeem myself in the eyes of my prince, and then I will find the lady.”

Tremayne had reconnoitered Mercer with the Royal Engineers. They hadn’t liked what they’d seen. Mercer was built on high ground. It was a solid, defensible position, and with some work, it could be made very costly to take indeed. Tremayne said as much.

Donop smirked. “The Rebels have many strong positions. In my experience, they abandon them at the first sight of our colors. During the last campaign we took Fort Washington in under an hour. They fled Fort Lee before we could send them our drummer. The poor man had to chase them. In any case, your engineers’ opinion should be taken
cum grano salis
.
Professionals
might differ with their appraisal of the works.”

“Howe cannot put Breed’s Hill behind him. He won’t risk the British lives Mercer would claim.”

“No, Major. But I think he has come to a point where he will risk Hessian lives.” It was said with unconcealed disdain. “He is approaching the problem of the river backwards. He attacks Mifflin, because it is conveniently on our side of the river. He can watch the bombardment in comfort. But Mercer is on the Jersey side. He must venture across the river, which the Rebels control with their flotsam and jetsam of a navy. It is a day’s march, through hostile territory. But Mercer is the supply point. Take Mercer, and Mifflin falls. Howe risks nothing, and gains nothing. I will risk much, and gain glory, and honor, and the freedom to pursue a certain lady.”

“You are willing to risk your career and very probably your life for a woman you knew only three days. What kind of woman is worth that?” Tremayne asked, imagining the ramparts of Fort Mercer.

“The only kind worth having, Major,” Donop said, as the music ended. He stood, bowed once more, and cast a glance at Kate that Tremayne prayed André would miss in the suddenly bustling room. “As I think you already know. Good evening.”

Tremayne realized it was his opportunity to depart. He sped for the door, only to be cut off by the ever-solicitous André.

He was carrying, impossibly, six punch glasses in his two hands, and deposited one in Tremayne’s palm such that Peter either had to grasp it, or let it shatter on the marble floor. “That’s for Miss Dare. Would you be so kind, Major?” And off he went.

Frustrated, Tremayne threaded his way through the crowded parlor to where Kate stood talking with one of the musicians. He handed her the glass and warned away the cellist with a dark look. She accepted the drink with obvious surprise. “Thank you, Major Tremayne. How have you been enjoying Philadelphia?”

“I have not. André doesn’t trust me. His little maneuver with Count Donop was intended to embarrass one of us.”

“It is impossible to embarrass Colonel Donop. He is Hessian and in love, poor man.”

“Yes, with your dear aunt Angela,” he said, for her hearing alone. “The count searched for her for a year.”

“And you think you can find her in the next two weeks,” she replied, just as softly.

“I would have thought you’d have slunk away by now, Peter.” Bay appeared at his shoulder, slipped an arm around Kate’s waist, and pulled her close. “Good for you that you didn’t. You’d miss all the fun.”

“What fun?” Kate asked.

“Howe’s in a snit. Donop’s been stirring up trouble again, writing letters to his princely employer, the Landgraf of Hesse-Cassel, about Howe’s mismanagement of the campaign. Howe has a mind to give Donop what he wants and let Careless Carl make a fool of himself attacking Mercer.”

“You said that fully manned, Mercer was impossible to breach from the land side,” she said, sliding from Bay’s grasp.

“Yes, but it isn’t fully manned. Our reports say the fort is down to two hundred men. The size of that place would require fifteen hundred to defend. A thousand at the very least. The Americans always build too large.” He kissed her forehead, lingering with his face buried in her hair. “It’s nothing to worry about, my love. The Hessians will be out front in the van. Howe won’t commit British troops until the thing looks like a victory.”

Tremayne tried not to look at Bay’s hands, which roamed too freely over Kate’s supple body. Had he made love to her? Would she let him, knowing what he was? Could she feel some attraction to him? Too many women did.

“Peggy and I must go. Will you see us to our carriage, Bay?”

“I’m afraid he can’t.” André appeared behind Tremayne. “Howe wants to see you, Colonel Caide.”

Bay planted a chaste kiss on his fiancée’s hand. “I’ll be back shortly,” he said, and left with André.

“Will you see Peggy and me to our carriage, Major?” she asked sweetly.

“So you can slip away and relay the news about Mercer to your accomplice?” he asked quietly. “Certainly not. Are you sleeping with him?”

She blushed prettily and used her punch glass to hide her flushed face, drinking off the contents and depositing the glass on the mantel.

“I take that as yes.”

“I’m sorry, what was the question?”

“Are you sleeping with
my cousin
?”

“That is none of your business.”

“I’m afraid rather it is. I told you the price of my silence.”

“You were so eager to secure my consent when you thought I was a naive farm girl, and now you care for it not at all. Do you really want me in your bed by blackmail?”

He stepped closer, smelling the rum, sugar, and lime that still lingered on her lips. “I want you in my bed by any means necessary, but I won’t have you fresh from his.”

He saw the flicker in her eyes, the frisson of desire that passed through her body, saw her master it, and damned her for her self-control.

“Then you won’t have me at all.” She turned on her heel to leave, but he caught her by the elbow. She clearly knew better than to cause a scene, and smiled and laughed for the benefit of anyone watching them. But her eyes weren’t smiling. Neither were his.

“Why do you say two weeks?” Tremayne asked. “Why do I have only two weeks to find the Widow?”

“Howe’s predicament is no secret. That is all the time you have left in Philadelphia. Maybe less. The river will freeze, the city will starve, and Howe will be forced to surrender to Washington. Your search will be moot.”

“You’re overconfident. And in danger. André doesn’t trust me. He sent me to bring you punch because he wanted to see us together. Which means he suspects
you
.” And then, because angry as he was, jealous as he was, he had to speak, he added, “Get out of the damned city, Kate. Do it tonight, before something happens.”

“Would you care? If something happened to me?” For just a moment, her face seemed unguarded, her eyes wide, vulnerable, entreating.
Lonely.

But he had to remind himself of what she was. “About the fate of a creature who could open her legs to a man like my cousin, condemn a city to starvation, and damn an army to destruction, all for her politics? Not a goddamn bit. How could I? What kind of a fool do you take me for?”

*   *   *

K
ate watched Peter Tremayne’s retreating back. She hated herself for asking him, because she’d known the answer. Her actions, no matter how many American lives they saved, were a betrayal of her Quaker beliefs. Her “inner light” had led her to this place, and she now wondered what it was that burned in the lamp.

But self-recrimination was a luxury she could not afford tonight. Fort Mercer must be warned. They were indeed down to only two hundred men, and could not stand against Donop’s thousand unless they were reinforced. She had to make her rendezvous with the Widow. With Caide detained at Howe’s pleasure, and Tremayne unable to stop her—because if he exposed her, he exposed himself—there was nothing to prevent her from feigning exhaustion and calling for the Shippen carriage to take her home.

In truth, Kate did feel strangely exhausted. Her eyes felt dry, her head had begun to ache during her conversation with Peter Tremayne, and while earlier she had put it down to the strain of sparring with him, she now felt uncertain that this was the cause.

She was not the worse for drink. Intoxication had been one of Mrs. Ferrers’ categories of instruction. She had taught Kate to build up a tolerance, to know how much she could imbibe and still keep her wits about her. To abstain entirely would bar her from the liquor-fueled gaming tables and dinners, where no one enjoyed the presence of a teetotaler. To appear to drink more than she had was a necessary art, but tonight she had consumed a single glass of punch. She should not be feeling any ill effects.

She reached for her discarded glass, but a hand was there before hers.

André.

“Miss Dare. You look like you could use some air. Let me take you to the garden.”

“I’d prefer to go home, Captain André.”

“John, please. Call me John.”

The candle flames bent and blurred in her vision. When she tried to fix on André’s eyes, the pale gold flecks danced like pinwheels. He slipped a hand around her waist, curiously impersonal, and she realized that he was supporting her. “Let me help you, Miss Dare.”

She tried to free herself, but his grip was like iron and her fingers felt numb and boneless. “Please, my carriage.”

He was leading her toward the door. “Not tonight, Miss Dare. Though I would love to know where you were going, there’s too much to be done. And you’re flushed. I’ll take you somewhere cooler. The icehouse perhaps.”

The icehouse. Where the man had frozen to death last week. She stumbled, looked around desperately, and saw Peter Tremayne. He was watching her. She tried to fix her gaze on him, tried to communicate her distress, but André whirled her down the hall. An icy draft from the back door brought her temporarily to her senses and she dug her nails into his flesh and tore away from him.

Without his supporting arm, the room spun, the floor rose up to meet her, and then didn’t. The embrace that saved her was warm, familiar, and decidedly not Bayard Caide’s.

“I have you, Kate,” whispered Peter Tremayne. “Try to stand, lean on me. Smile. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“I was just taking Miss Dare to the garden for some air.” André’s voice sounded far away to Kate. She knew she was standing, knew that her knees would buckle but for Tremayne’s protective grasp.

“I’ll see her home,
Captain
.” His emphasis on André’s lower rank was decisive.

“Yes. Yes, of course. The worse for drink, I should expect. She’ll sleep till dawn. Safest thing for her. She could do with a visit to the country, I daresay. Clean air. The city vapors can be deadly.”

It was a threat. There was no mistaking it.

His retreating footsteps rang like church bells in Kate’s head. “I’m not drunk,” she managed to say, but the weight of her words unbalanced her and she spun once more toward the floor.