Like turning to him for help.
She’d had no reason to hope for his assistance, but she’d obeyed some instinct that told her to reach out to him in her extremity. They’d met only twice since his return to Philadelphia, and neither meeting could have been termed a success. Just moments before she was stricken, she’d misjudged his mood and appealed to him with a bit of imbecilic coquetry for which she’d been instantly ashamed. He’d turned on his heel and left.
And then saved her life. She was alive because of a man she should count as her enemy.
Or at least she was half alive. And some drama had unfolded here while she was unconscious. The patterned curtains at the foot of the bed were torn, and shreds of knotted blue chintz hung from the arms of the chair beside her bed.
Whoever had been here, whatever had transpired, Tremayne had seen her safely through the night. Now she must see herself safely through the day. Because he had promised to come back for her. And she had made her decision. Lydia Dare’s career as a spy was over. When Peter returned, it would be Kate Grey who would leave with him.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed but when her feet touched the floor, her legs buckled under her. She crawled to the washstand. There was fresh water in the pitcher, and tea—a luxurious concession to her infirmity—and sugar by the kettle. She grasped the cool iron pot stand and pulled it to the edge of the brick, extracted a warm coal from the brass box nestled against the fireback, kindled a small blaze, and lay down to rest on the floor.
The morning passed in a series of similar battles with the weight of the kettle, the brightness of the sun, the chill of the washbasin. Every completed action was a tiny victory.
Mrs. Valby knocked on her door twice, and asked in a worried voice if she was feeling well. Kate called back to her, claiming a headache caused by overindulgence. She knew better than to endanger the Valbys by sharing confidences with them.
Finally, at noon, she was clean and dressed, with a stomach full of sweet tea and a delicate equilibrium that suggested she unlock the door and attempt the stairs, slowly.
By the time she reached the bottom, her knuckles were whiter than the ivory cap of the newel post.
She went straight to the henhouse, punched two holes in an egg, blew the contents out, and slipped a tightly rolled note inside. The egg she marked with a cross and placed at the back of the top shelf where Angela Ferrers knew to look for it. Then she returned to the house and ordered the maids to wash her blue silk petticoat and hang it immediately up to dry in the garden.
It was her signal flag. The Widow, or one of her agents, would see it and come for the message in the egg. Howe and André and their minions were wise to invisible inks, experienced in cracking codes, expert at interrogation, but they could not, if their lives depended on it, imagine that anything normally found in the henhouse or laundry could be important. It was a failing Kate had determined to use against them.
Even the short trip to the garden had tired her, but she knew she mustn’t spend the day in bed. There might be talk, and talk, when you were a spy living under an assumed name, could prove fatal. So she forced herself to join Mrs. Valby in her bedroom for an hour of sewing. Despite the older woman’s stream of pleasant chatter, Kate had to fight to stay awake, jabbing herself with her needle whenever she started to nod off.
When the doorbell rang in the early afternoon the maid brought her a note from a gentleman who, she said, was waiting on her answer. The card was unsigned, but the writer desired an audience with her to tender his apologies for last night.
It could only be Tremayne.
Kate hurried to the parlor and made a hasty attempt to improve her appearance, but she quickly realized that nothing would put roses into her pallid cheeks, and chose a seat by the hearth so she might at least borrow the glow from the fire.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Her caller, when the door opened, was not Tremayne.
It was John André.
* * *
She is a keen hunter and an excellent shot,” Donop said of the Merry Widow, as they marched through the Jersey woods at the head of the Hessian column. “As well as a beauty,” he added, eyeing his companion challengingly.
Tremayne had had no choice but to come. He could not help Kate from a deserters’ prison. His only option was to join Donop on this debacle and pray that Angela Ferrers had not escaped her bonds last night to take a warning to the Rebels; that Fort Mercer remained undergarrisoned, and would surrender without a fight. The sooner the business was done, the sooner he could return to Kate. Lytton trailed silently behind them, and Tremayne hoped he did not speak French.
“The Merry Widow is a known agent of foreign powers, in the pay of the French most likely. You can’t keep her with you if you’re attached to the army,” Tremayne reasoned.
“What,” Donop asked, “is the point in being a count if I may not do as I please? The lady shall get no intelligence through me, and she shall be too well occupied on her back to make other mischief. If there is difficulty with your government, then I shall marry her and there will be an end to it.”
“She is hardly a suitable countess.” Nor was Kate.
“I thought, Lord Sancreed, that your ancestor was a famous Leveller. You have not inherited his egalitarianism.”
“That was my cousin Bayard’s forbear, not mine, and he paid dearly for his principles. He was drawn and quartered and stripped of his lands and title. That is why I hold Sancreed and not Bay. You, on the other hand, are not an egalitarian. You’re just pigheaded on the subject of this woman.”
Donop laughed, the short, sharp bark of delight that Tremayne was coming to recognize as characteristic of the man, whose gusto was infectious. “Hah! Maybe so. Your cousin strives to regain his ancestor’s status through arms. Caide is a famous name. His uncle amassed a great fortune and attempted to buy back the title and disinherit you, did he not?”
Tremayne was not surprised by the count’s depth of knowledge. With its fractious, fractured peerages and patchwork states, the German aristocracy had an insatiable appetite for genealogy and disputed successions. Tremayne spared a glance to be sure Lytton was not paying attention, then said, “Bay does not share his late uncle’s obsession with Sancreed. There is no enmity between us over the title. We were raised together.”
“Still, I always thought it peculiar that his uncle should labor and politic to reclaim the title, when he had no son to pass it on to.”
Tremayne treated Donop to a frosty silence.
“I have trespassed. Forgive me, Major,” Donop said.
“Howe refused your request for more guns.”
The count allowed the subject of Tremayne’s family tree to drop without further comment. “Your general meant to provoke me into disobeying him. He thinks we Germans are cowardly and weak, and that without every convenience of war, we will cower in Philadelphia. But we will show him otherwise.”
He’d pitched the last to be heard in the column behind them. His Jaegers, the elite Hessian riflemen, cheered. Donop waved his showy Hessian tricorn. The peridot on his cockade winked in the sunlight—and shattered into a thousand glittering fragments.
Tremayne, by instinct and training, turned in the direction the bullet had come from. Thick woods on all sides. Perfect for hiding snipers.
What you wanted to do was fold yourself up no wider than one of the surrounding trees, close your eyes, and pray no one hit you. Lytton was already doing a very fine impression of a Dutch elm, but Tremayne had been a soldier long enough to know that death would find him if it was looking hard enough, and all he could control was how he met it.
Donop didn’t so much as flinch. He poked a finger through the bullet hole in his hat and nodded appreciatively. “A good shot. An excellent marksman. But we have better.” He barked a set of orders in German and his Jaegers parted like the Red Sea, dividing down the center of the road and taking up positions in the tree line on either side of the way. They were the cream of the Hessian in
fantry, and it showed.
More shots rang out. Lytton remained frozen in the middle of the road, asking to be hit. Tremayne could have solved a great many of his problems by leaving him there, but he pulled the boy into the tree line instead.
“He’s mad,” Lytton said, watching Donop stroll down the center of the road, a glittering target in blue silk and silver lace. It was the sort of lunatic bravado Tremayne could not help but admire. He was coming to quite like Carl Donop.
A few more shots were exchanged. The skirmish was over almost as soon as it had begun, and the march resumed. Two hours later Donop fell into step beside Tremayne once more and asked, “What do you make of our friends in the woods?”
“They are keeping pace with us, and they are being led by a professional,” he replied.
“Just so,” said Donop. “It is a pity you recruited so many colonials in your last war with the French, then denied them commissions in your army. I understand Washington is just such a man.”
“Hindsight is eagle-eyed,” Tremayne said evenly. But it was true. The tactics employed against their column were exactly right for a small band of militia facing a much larger force on home ground. The Americans knew what they were doing. Say what you liked about the Rebels, and Tremayne often said a great deal, but these particular men were well led, most likely by someone who had served with the British against the French and Indians. There was no shortage of such men in America, but most of them likely mirrored their counterparts in the British Army, and were competent if uninspired tacticians. This unseen adversary was something different. There was a keen intellect, a talent for war, at work somewhere in the Jersey woods.
Donop shared his opinion. As they talked, largely in French, Tremayne found that they had much in common. They were of a similar age, social class, and martial inclination.
But Donop possessed the autocratic arrogance of his race. He spoke now without caution or delicacy, enumerating the deficiencies of the brothers Howe. “They are Whigs. American sympathizers, Black Billy and Black Dick. When the general last stood for Parliament he stated publicly that he would refuse service in America. He is only here because your king personally persuaded him to come. He has no stomach for fighting the Americans; still holds out hopes of negotiating a peace. Only a fool like your secretary of state, Lord Germain, would send such men to prosecute this war. You also, I suspect, have Whig sympathies, Peter. Why, then, did you request service in America?”
Tremayne studied the rutted surface of the road. It was littered with sweet-gum sticker-balls, brown, spiked, and damned uncomfortable beneath his boots. “Because I thought it offered greater scope for advancement.” But what he meant was that he hated his station in Ireland, because he had no desire to uphold laws that were abhorrent to him.
At Haddonfield, Donop found quarters for himself in a trim little farmhouse and camped his men under canvas on the heights overlooking the town. It was then that they realized yet another consequence of Howe’s impulsive orders: the Hessians had no rations. Men could not trek for miles and fight on an empty stomach. Flour and apples might be purchased from the farmers of Haddonfield, but something must be done if the men were to have any meat that night.
Turkey were abundant in the Haddonfield woods, so Donop ordered his Jaeger captain, Ewald, to organize a hunting party, and retired to his quarters to confer with his battalion officers. Since Tremayne was not needed as a translator, he left Donop closeted in the cramped and smoky kitchen of the farmhouse to smoke his pipe in the orchard outside.
He was not alone for long.
“Major.” The energetic Captain Ewald, with his martial bearing and dashing eye patch, who Tremayne noted was only a few years younger than himself, came striding out of the farmhouse, the picture of Hessian professionalism. The man had somehow found time to restore the gloss of his mustache and the shine of boots after the march, no doubt with the same blacking. “The colonel presents his compliments. He wishes that you should not miss the sport.” He handed Tremayne a rifle, longer than the typical Jaeger weapon, and lighter as well.
“This is one of Ferguson’s. How did Donop get hold of it?”
Ewald’s lips twitched. It was not quite a smile. “The count is a man of resource. And he likes his hunting. You have heard of the gun?”
“I’ve heard it may be fired six times in a minute.”
“Just so. And yet your General Howe will not make use of the weapon.”
Tremayne wouldn’t touch the remark about Howe, but he wondered, not for the first time, what it must be like to be an ambitious junior officer without title or fortune, serving beneath a man like Donop, or for that matter, beneath a man like himself. “What is Donop like in the field?” Tremayne asked, flipping open the breech and admiring the smooth motion of the spring.
Ewald, he noted, did nothing so unbefitting his Hessian dignity as to turn and look into the trees behind him, but his eyes did scan the empty fields on either side before he spoke. They were quite alone. “He is as you have observed. Cool under fire. Brave to within a hairsbreadth of recklessness.”
“Just so. And?” Tremayne prompted.
“He has only two faults, Lord Sancreed, and only one of those is likely to get us killed tomorrow. He is proud, and exceedingly fond of the fair sex.”
“I’d rather thought we were here for both reasons: his pride and his amours.”
And now Ewald did turn to look at the farmhouse behind him, and did smile. “You may be interested to know that for a man who rarely denies himself pleasure when it is offered, the count has been curiously temperate these past months. He has not had a woman, that I know of, since Mount Holly.”
Ewald bowed and took his leave to organize the hunting party.
And that was how Tremayne found himself, dogged once more by Lytton, advancing with the ambitious young Jaeger captain, Ewald, and sixty hungry riflemen through the Jersey woods at dusk, the moon already up and night coming on fast.
Turkeys gobbled in the distance. The Jaegers gobbled back, attempting to draw them, but the birds would not come out, and the party was forced to drive deeper into the woods.
Tremayne needed to speak to Lytton privately, before they returned to the city, and this was likely to be his best chance. Having arrived in Philadelphia only the previous day, the young lieutenant had not yet had time to meet Caide’s fiancée and identify her as the spy of Grey Farm. The boy had to be sent back to New York, before he exposed Kate.
Tremayne stopped Lytton at the top of a ravine as the Jaegers descended, gobbling and clucking. When they had passed, Tremayne said, “Has Caide told you why he brought you to Philadelphia?”
“Yes,” the boy said, but he sounded uncertain. “To help you hunt for the spy who stole your dispatches at Grey Farm.”
Kate’s name lingered unspoken between them.
“I don’t want your help. After Mercer is taken, you’re going back to New York.” It sounded like a curt dismissal, but Tremayne couldn’t help that. He could not explain himself.
“I can’t. I was cashiered when your troop was disbanded. Your cousin allowed me to purchase a captaincy in his regiment.”
Tremayne hadn’t known, hadn’t given another thought to Lytton after the court had dismissed him. The boy had been under his command, had been his responsibility. He should have made it his business to see him clear of the whole mess. He had been callous, and now Kate would pay for it. Lytton would expose her. She would be arrested, and hanged.
“You disapproved of my morals at Grey Farm, Phillip. You’ll like my cousin’s even less. Sell your commission or transfer to another regiment before Bay puts you to the test and you find that you cannot stomach his orders, because it will come to that. You will be forced to betray yourself, or your commanding officer.”
“I’m afraid that I can no longer afford such scruples. I mean to make my career in the army, and after what happened while I was under your command, no other regiment will have me.”
And here wa
s the crux of the matter. Tremayne was already perilously close to treason himself. He was consorting with a known spy, concealing her presence from Howe, in direct violation of orders. This, all for a woman he had once kissed fleetingly in a stifling farmhouse many months ago. He had no right to ask another man to dally with treason.
“I may be the author of your misfortune, Phillip, but I have no intention of handing a lady over to Howe for espionage, no matter what she has done. No gentleman would.”
There was something cold and brittle in Lytton’s eyes, and Tremayne recognized it as hurt pride. He recognized also that had he behaved with anything like the chivalry Lytton had unsuccessfully championed at Grey Farm, Kate would not be in danger now. But it was too late. Tremayne had stolen her letter, attempted to seduce her. He had embittered the callow boy standing before him, and placed an innocent girl at the mercy of John André.
Lytton spoke coolly now. “Miss Grey is not a lady; she is a traitor.”
“Howe isn’t looking for Miss Grey. He wants the Merry Widow, Mrs. Ferrers.”
“Then I will advance my fortunes twice as quickly by bringing Howe two spies instead of one.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Lytton. This thing is more complicated than you understand. Trust me. If you discover Miss Grey, you will find no friends in your current posting.” Caide would not love any man who brought him proof of his sweetheart’s treachery. Whatever else his cousin might be, Tremayne had no doubt that in his own strange, obsessive fashion, Bay was in love with Kate. But everything Bay touched, he destroyed. Tremayne would not allow him to destroy Kate.
Below in the ravine, the Jaegers whooped and huzzahed. A giant tom turkey, eyes glittering in the moonlight, breast puffed and wattle trembling, tore from the brush. The angry gobbler clucked and flapped his wings, then rushed at the Hessians. The Jaegers pointed and laughed, and the enlisted men fell back and encouraged Ewald to take his shot.
The Turncoat Page 12
