She snatched up a pillow from the settee near the fireplace and flung it at him, albeit halfheartedly. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Rourke. As it happens, I wasn’t thinking about you at all. I was considering my chances of escaping Troy without being scalped by Indians or captured by redcoats!”
He frowned, then sat up and reached for his breeches, which were draped around one of the bedposts. “You aren’t happy here?”
Phoebe averted her eyes. Her pride kept her from admitting that she wouldn’t be happy anywhere without him. “Everyone in your family has been wonderful to me,” she said softly. “But I was afraid.”
“Of what?” Duncan was out of bed, pulling on his breeches, fastening the buttons. She hesitated so long that he came to stand facing her, took her chin in his hand, and made her look at him. “Tell me what you were afraid of, Phoebe.”
She blinked, because she wanted to cry and she wasn’t about to show that kind of weakness. “I was scared you would be stupid enough to come here,” she answered at last. “And I was right.”
His smile was unhurried and more than a little cocky. “Don’t pretend you weren’t glad to see me,” he said. “You obviously were.”
Phoebe twisted free of his grasp. Outside, the music played on, and the laughter ebbed and flowed, but it was only a matter of time before Duncan’s presence would be discovered. When that happened, nothing would save him from a British noose, not her love, not the influence of his father and elder brother. She was outraged by the scope of the risk he was taking. “There are men at this party who want to hang you!”
He uttered a philosophical sigh. “And a few women as well, no doubt,” he allowed. “Dear Phoebe—will you please cease your fretting? I’ve avoided the scaffold since before the war began, and I shall continue to do so. Besides, you knew I was on my way to Troy.”
Phoebe heard footsteps in the hall and voices. Her heart skidded past a couple of beats and then resumed a pace only slightly faster than normal. “Your timing is rotten,” she whispered. “You might have come before the party, or after it—any time but now.”
He had drawn near again, and he kissed her forehead lightly. “I want to see my father,” he said. “Once I’ve satisfied myself that he is well, I will leave again.”
Something in his manner, in the tone of his voice, worried Phoebe even more deeply than his badly timed return to the family plantation. “Taking me with you, of course.”
Duncan hesitated. “Phoebe …”
She folded her arms. “Don’t bother making a speech about how I’ll be safer here at Troy,” she warned, “because it isn’t true. Once some of these Tories and lobsterbacks figure out that I’m not a nun or a mute servant after all …”
Laughter lighted his eyes and made one side of his mouth kick upward. “ ‘A nun or a mute servant’? What in the devil are you talking about?”
Again, Phoebe felt heat surge into her face. “It’s partly my fault,” she confessed, in a rush. “I told Phillippa I was in a convent—you know, to explain my hair. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. But Lucas was the one who told Major Stone I was a bond servant with no voice.” She sighed. “It was a handy story at the time, given the fact that the major met the Charles Town Princess with an escort of armed soldiers and seemed more than a little suspicious about me. Now it’s a problem, though, because he’s here, at this party, and your mother and father have been telling everyone that I’m your wife.”
“I can see the dilemma,” Duncan said, though he didn’t seem very concerned.
“Can you?” Phoebe demanded, getting angry again. How could such an intelligent man be so obtuse? “I’ll be questioned, at the very least, and perhaps even arrested …”
He curved a finger under her chin, which was trembling a little, even though she held it at a defiant angle. “No,” he said. “The British shall not have you, for questioning or for any other purpose. You belong to the Revolution, and to me.”
Phoebe’s heart lightened, though there was a certain poignant sorrow in the knowledge that she would be leaving Troy soon, leaving the family she had come to think of as her own. “How will you manage to see your father with so many people around?”
With that same finger, Duncan traced her lips, which were still swollen from his kisses. He smiled fleetingly at some memory, though whether it was a recent one or not she could not guess. “You will be my messenger,” he said. “Find Father, if you will, and tell him the Prodigal has returned, hungry for the fatted calf.”
Phoebe opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again, knowing it would be a waste of time. “All right,” she agreed doubtfully and at length, straightening her hair, which was growing out and therefore hopeless, and the skirts of her ball gown, which were rumpled. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, assume I’ve been slapped into cuffs, taken downtown, and booked.”
Duncan looked puzzled, which pleased Phoebe, though of course it was small consolation for the risk he was forcing her to take.
She turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and looked down the hall in both directions. Two young girls hurried by, giggling, the crisp satin skirts of their party dresses rustling pleasantly, paying Phoebe no notice whatsoever.
Pulling the door closed behind her, Phoebe set out for the stairway, head held high, strides purposeful, looking neither to right nor left. The lower part of the house was thick with guests—couples were dancing in the parlor-turned-ballroom on the first floor and strolling in the garden. While searching for John Rourke, Phoebe took equal care to avoid Phillippa, Margaret, and Lucas; any one of them would guess, with one look at her eyes, that Duncan was in the house.
Eventually, Phoebe found Marva, bearing a tray of fruit tarts through the crowd, and inquired about her fatherin-law. Marva nodded toward the closed doors of Mr. Rourke’s study.
“He be there, mistress,” the woman said with weary kindness. “You knock and tell master that Marva says he’d better have some supper.”
Phoebe thanked the servant and turned to make her way toward John Rourke’s private domain. She had tapped at one of the towering doors, been invited in, and stepped over the threshold before she thought to wonder if he was alone. By that time, of course, it was too late.
Major Basil Stone stood by the cold fireplace, one crimson-sleeved arm resting against the marble mantelpiece, a snifter of brandy in his other hand. His pale blue gaze fastened on Phoebe the moment she entered the room, and it was plain that he remembered their meeting on the jetty the day she had arrived in Charles Town.
“Well,” he said thoughtfully.
John, who had been seated behind his desk, rose from his chair with a broad, fatherly smile on his face. There was no forestalling the inevitable.
“Here you are, my dear—I was wondering what became of you. Major, may I present my daughter-in-law, Phoebe? Phoebe, this is Major Basil Stone.”
Phoebe stood as boneless as a scarecrow in the center of that graciously masculine room, fingers so tightly interlocked that the knuckles ached, heart wedged into her sinuses and pounding there.
“Your daughter-in-law,” mused the major. “He’s a sly one, your Lucas. Didn’t mention he’d taken a bride when I met him in Charles Town just about a fortnight ago. In fact, he introduced this lovely young lady as a servant.”
Phoebe tried to smile, but she knew her expression was brittle and her eyes were probably a bit glassy. For the moment there was no need to pretend she was mute, as Lucas had claimed. She couldn’t have uttered a word to save herself from pitching headlong into perdition itself.
John Rourke laughed. “I guess Lucas must have thought you’d make a pest of yourself,” he said to Stone, who was obviously a trusted friend. “My eldest son has yet to take a wife, though God knows his mother and I wish he would settle down and start a family. Phoebe is wedded to Duncan.”
The ensuing silence was thunderous. Phoebe’s heart seemed to swell until it filled the room, causing the very walls and floor
boards to throb in time with its too-rapid beat. Perspiration tickled her upper lip and the space between her shoulder blades, and still she just stood there, with a foolish smile teetering on her mouth.
“Phoebe is wedded to Duncan,” Stone repeated, after considerable time had passed. His gaze was speculative, boring deep, seeing far too much.
She cast a desperate glance in her fatherin-law’s direction and saw in an instant that he knew Duncan was in the house at that very moment. Perhaps he had intended to betray his younger son all along, out of some misguided sense of political loyalty …
John Rourke gave a deep sigh and reached out to her, and despite her doubts, Phoebe went to him. He patted her hand and gave her a look full of sorrowful affection. “I fear my son is no sort of gentleman. He married Phoebe on an impulse and then abandoned her to our care.”
“Do you know where your husband is?” Major Stone demanded of Phoebe, crossing the room to stand only a few feet from her.
Phoebe did not dare even to think of the room just upstairs, where Duncan waited, where he had made such thorough love to her only a little while before. She was afraid the major would see the truth in her face. “No,” she murmured, gazing steadfastly at the old man’s nose in order to avoid looking into his eyes. Tension welled up inside her, along with a generous splash of hormones, and she burst into tears. “And I don’t care if I never hear his name again, sir, for he’s a rogue and a rascal, and he never had any intention of being a proper husband to me!”
“There, there,” said John Rourke solicitously, still patting her hand. “Duncan is not worthy of your tears, my dear.” He met the major’s eyes squarely. “Believe me, Basil, when Duncan is found at last, I shall want a word with him myself.”
“You realize,” Stone said, after taking a sip of his brandy, “that it is a crime against the Crown to harbor a wanted man? Even when that fugitive is one’s own flesh and blood?”
“There are many different transgressions under heaven, Basil,” Mr. Rourke replied. “A man is called upon, on occasion, to weigh one against another and attempt to choose the lesser of the two.”
Phoebe held her breath, watching the major out of the corner of her eye. Stone was no fool; at any moment, he would surely summon his men and order them to search Troy from the wine cellars to the rafters.
“If that outlaw is here,” Basil replied, “I will find him.”
Rourke merely gestured with one hand, issuing a silent invitation. Had it not been for his tight grasp on Phoebe’s arm, she might have done something rash, like bolting from the room, shouting for Duncan to run for his life. As it was, just keeping herself from fainting or throwing up on the Persian carpet required all her concentration.
Stone set his brandy snifter on the mantel, his face as chilled and hard as the marble from which the fireplace had been sculpted, and left the room without another word. There was no need for talk now.
Phoebe whirled on her fatherin-law, her eyes burning with furious tears. “How could you?” she whispered, wrenching free and retreating a step. “How could you betray your own son?”
“Dear God!” Mr. Rourke expelled the exclamation on a bitter sigh. His eyes were hollow with despair, and he looked much older than he was and tired to the very marrow of his soul. “He is here, beneath this roof. If Duncan isn’t hanged for a traitor, he shall surely be hanged for a fool.”
14
Lucas’s prediction that Major Stone would never be so ill-mannered as to spoil a party proved to be grossly inaccurate. Phoebe and Mr. Rourke left the study just in time to hear the old soldier making a startling announcement to the assemblage of soldiers and farmers, Tories and closet-patriots.
Stone, the man of the hour, stood on the stairs, in order to be seen and heard.
“By the authority of His Majesty, King George the Third of England,” he announced, “I hereby place John and Lucas Rourke under house arrest.” As a horrified murmur rose from the crowd, Stone raised his voice. His eyes were cold, his cheeks ruddy with conviction, a life led mainly outdoors, and a high-cholesterol diet. “Seize them immediately.”
Lucas, who had been in the center of the ballroom, guiding a pretty young woman through the minuet, reacted with a shouted exclamation, abandoning his partner to push his way through the gathering. In true Rourke fashion, he was not attempting to escape, but advancing on Stone, who was trouble personified, as if he, Lucas, were invincible. His expression was mildly murderous.
Beside Phoebe, John Rourke stood quite still, showing no sign of temper, nor any sign that he planned to resist arrest. He had expected something like this, Phoebe thought, quelling her own repeated surges of hysteria one by one.
A flicker of shadowy movement on the first landing of the great staircase, not ten feet from where Stone stood, compounded her fears a hundredfold.
Duncan.
Please, she pleaded silently, uselessly, don’t do anything stupid.
“Take him,” Major Stone commanded, when Lucas had shouldered his way through to stand practically at his feet. Apparently it was a family trait, heading straight into the teeth of a crisis when any fool would have known to turn and run.
Reluctantly, men in crimson coats and buff breeches separated themselves from the other guests, worried and pallid, intent on the daunting task of subduing Lucas Rourke. Duncan’s elder brother struggled violently and, in the end, was stilled not by the efforts of the six grappling soldiers who had surrounded him, but by the quiet authority of his father’s voice.
“That will be quite enough, Lucas,” John Rourke said simply, as his own hands were wrenched behind him and bound. He held his head high, and his voice was as level as his gaze. He might have been resigned to his fate, Phoebe reflected, but he was no more intimidated than his son. He was, however, much wiser.
Flushed, clearly acting against his own better judgment, Lucas stopped resisting.
Appearing from out of nowhere, Phillippa launched herself at the unfortunate young lieutenant who had taken her father captive. The boy-soldier, pimply and probably homesick, was caught off guard, and raised one arm as if to shove her roughly aside. At this, the elder Mr. Rourke spoke again. His voice was as calm as it had been moments before when he’d reprimanded Lucas.
“Lay a hand on my daughter, sir,” he said, “and I shall kill you for it.”
The lieutenant took heed and lowered his arm to his side, while Phoebe drew Phillippa in a frantic embrace and pulled her back out of the way. Margaret appeared, slightly pale but otherwise self-possessed and full of dignity.
“What is the meaning of this, Basil?” she demanded coolly. “Ours is a Loyalist household, we are subjects of the King. How dare you treat us in such a fashion?”
A shadow of shame moved briefly in Stone’s shrewd eyes, then vanished. “I apologize for the necessity, Mistress Rourke. However, these are desperate times, and regrettably, harsh measures are sometimes required.” He paused and turned to glance behind him, up the darkened stairs, effectively stopping Phoebe’s heart, and then went on in a determined voice. “Men who would shelter an enemy of the King cannot be counted among His Majesty’s friends. John and Lucas Rourke shall be remanded to headquarters in Charles Town, there to be tried as traitors.”
“You have no proof!” Lucas spat, appalled and furious. He was still bond at the wrists, like his father. ’Perhaps they’re right, these rebels, when they accuse the King and his government of tyranny. Only a despot detains honest citizens without just cause!”
The guests, who had been stunned to silence until then, began to murmur among themselves. Phoebe held Phillippa. who was sobbing silently; she did not dare to look toward the stop of the stairs again for fear of revealing what she had guessed—that Duncan was there, just beyond the reach of the lamplight, listening, watching. Planning God only knew what.
“Silence!” shouted the major. “There is no tyranny here. It is Rourke who has broken the law, not me, nor my men.”
“British law,” some intre
pid soul scoffed from within the knot of dumbfounded partygoers. “Not our own!”
There was a flurry of agreement, incendiary, traitorous. The Tories were heard, as well. What an electric party group, Phoebe reflected—Trojans and Greeks.
Again, John Rourke spoke, the voice of reason in a room thrumming with violence barely restrained. Margaret stood straight-spinned and square-shouldered at his side, her hand resting lightly in the curve of his arm. They might have been going in to dinner, for all the alarm either of them showed, instead of facing possible tragedy.
“Shhh,” Phoebe said to Phillippa. The room was an emotional tinderbox, ready to erupt into chaos at any moment. John and Margaret Rourke understood that, Phoebe could see, though she had her doubts about Lucas, and Phillippa was on the point of giving way to hysteria.
With considerable ceremony, Stone left his dais on the stairs and crossed to face his lost and hostess. “I am sorry” he said.
“I know,” John replied hoarsely.
At that, the Rourke men were taken from the room.
“Mama,” Phillippa moaned, trembling, her face wet with tears.
Margaret’s command came quickly and brooked no argument. “Collect yourself, Phillippa,” she said. “Your father and brothers, you and Phoebe and I, we must all be strong and share what courage we can muster among ourselves.”
With that, she swept away, following John and Lucas and their armed guard toward the back of the house. Phillippa straightened her back and dashed at her cheeks with the back of one hand. “Duncan is right,” she whispered, and Phoebe released her, though she remained close by. “This is oppression!”
Another convert to the rebel cause, Phoebe thought, but she took no joy in the fact. Nothing in her high school and college careers had prepared her for the fact that real people had staked everything, their lives, their fortunes, and their personal freedom, such as it was, on one of the greatest gambles in the history of the western world. The players on both sides of this drama were not the flat, lifeless figures in paintings, the fancy handwriting in eighteenth-century diaries, actors in a miniseries, or the subjects of outdated biographies—they were real. They were innocent, idealistic children like Phillippa, skinny boys with bad complexions and a yearning for home, whether that was London or Boston, Brighton or Yorktown. They were good and honorable men, like John Rourke and like Major Basil Stone. They were courageous, beautiful women, like Margaret, like the women who surely waited and worried and made the age-old sacrifices on both sides of the fray.
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