Integrity's Choice (Sisters of the Revolution Book 5)

by Diana Davis

  “Yes, you did a very good job in printing it.”

  “Thank you,” Fischer said slowly. That was a singular compliment. She had nothing to say of its content? “Would you like a copy of Columbia’s Fires?”

  “Oh, that would be nice.”

  Fischer set his candlestick on the counter between them. He pulled a pamphlet from the appropriate slot and handed it to her. Constance read the cover with her usual serene smile.

  How he missed that sight.

  “About the other night —” he began.

  Constance looked up, genuinely puzzled.

  “After the Harrisons’ party.”

  She looked back at the pamphlet, and Fischer lost his nerve. He wasn’t even sure what he meant to say: that he was sorry? He was only sorry he’d bungled it so badly, though he still didn’t know quite how he’d gone wrong.

  Well, he was also sorry he’d done it while officially courting Jeanne Dark. Even if she wasn’t responding to his suit, that was definitely still wrong.

  And she should be here any minute, if she were coming.

  Constance tucked the pamphlet into her pocket. Fischer began to quote the price to her but snapped his mouth shut again. He’d given her a copy of the first one, and he’d happily make a present of this as well.

  “Have you any other patriotic pamphlets I ought to read?” she asked.

  “Ah.” Fischer peered at the pigeonholes in front of him. Common Sense was so accessible, and Columbia’s Fields and Fires were so easily understood a child could read them. They were complex enough to engage an adult, of course, on the allegorical level as well. What else might she enjoy?

  Surely she couldn’t find interesting the political theory Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty or Demophilus’s Principles of the Saxon Constitution. Lord Richmond’s motions of dissent in Parliament and Quincy’s opposition to the Port Act were both too arcane. Novanglus was so directly addressed to Massachusettensis that one had to read both, and even Fischer had a hard time staying awake through Evidentiary Foundations of the Constitutional System. What else could he offer? “I have a pamphlet on the nature and extent of Parliament’s authority, but it’s rather dense.”

  Constance pursed her lips, and he sensed he’d said something wrong. “Ah, have you read The Farmer Refuted?” he offered.

  “Yes. And A Full Vindication.”

  Fischer nodded. “Good.” He wanted more than anything to have Constance stay, to invite her in, to sit and talk about all those pamphlets and visit and laugh together as they had, to soak in her acceptance for even half an hour. But if Jeanne Dark was on her way . . .

  She probably wasn’t. It had to be coming on nine by now. She was making her wishes clear.

  “You seem agitated,” Constance observed. Did she have to sound so concerned about him?

  “Pay me no mind; I’m always agitated.”

  “You were not —” She stopped, and Fischer thought he knew what she was going to say. He had not been when he’d spent hours strolling in his garden by her side. And that was certainly true.

  “Constance,” he began. For a moment, he warred within himself: should he ask her to leave, or should he ask if a change of mind had brought her here?

  If Jeanne Dark wasn’t coming and Constance had changed her mind about his offer —

  No. He could not hurt her. His integrity would not allow it. He loved her at least enough to cause her a small pain now — if even that — rather than a greater one later out of his own selfishness.

  Even this internal debate only showed exactly why he needed to keep clear of her, and why she ought to run far away from him.

  “You do know that we’re closed for business?” Fischer tried to soften the query with a smile.

  Constance lowered her eyes. “I understood that when you invited me.”

  When he did what? “Pardon?”

  “Never mind.” With every step she took away from him, Fischer had to resist the urge to run after her and stop her. This was for the best.

  As if she understood his unspoken wishes, Constance stopped and turned back. “Oh, I nearly forgot.” She reached in her pocket. Was she returning the pamphlet?

  She withdrew a sheaf of writing paper. “I came to give you this.”

  Fischer stared at the papers, unwilling to touch them yet. Another poem? “What is it?”

  “The volume I promised you.”

  “When did you do that?”

  “In our letters.”

  Fischer couldn’t help a mystified look. He had not received a letter from Constance since May tenth of last year. Not that he had noted the date.

  Of course he had.

  Constance offered the papers again, and he finally accepted them.

  “I liked your suggestion of Freedom,” she said. When he gave her another clueless expression, she added, “For the title.”

  Was she saying . . . ?

  No, that couldn’t be right.

  Fischer looked down at the pages in his hands. Columbia’s Freedom, ran the title in Constance’s flowing script. The first lines mentioned the farm Columbia, Solomon and Gérard, reviewing what had transpired in Columbia’s Fires.

  He had just given her that pamphlet. Hadn’t he?

  Fischer met her gaze. The light from the windows had nearly faded altogether, leaving them in candlelight, but nothing could obscure the expectant hope in her lovely green eyes.

  He had already disappointed that hope too many times. He dared not speak and do it again.

  “Will you read it?” Constance asked.

  He glanced at the pages and back at her. “Are you trying to say . . . ?”

  The hope in her countenance cleared like a mist disappearing over the river.

  “I am Jeanne Dark.”

  Constance watched the shock play across Fischer’s face, ranging from stunned to awed and back to disbelief. “But the stories —” He held up her pages. “They’re not in your hand. Until now.”

  “My sister helped.” She showed her almost fully healed fingers. “I burnt myself.”

  “You burnt yourself,” he murmured, nodding as if this was familiar to him. Then he shook his head. “I — no.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Fischer began to pace. “But I asked Jeanne —” He whirled on her. “Did I ask you?”

  “To court me? As Jeanne?”

  “I didn’t know. Obviously.” He grimaced. Constance tried to ignore the pang. If the thought of courting her was so abhorrent, why had he asked her directly only a few weeks ago?

  “Yes, somehow I believed you did know.” Constance smiled weakly at her own folly.

  Fischer had moved back from the candlestick far enough that his face was partially in shadow as he watched her. “You believed I knew I was asking you when I asked to court? But you said yes.”

  She nodded.

  “And then you said no.”

  She nodded again. “You were courting ‘Jeanne Dark.’”

  “But didn’t you know you were the same person?”

  “I did; you didn’t.”

  Fischer blinked wide eyes. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “I was trying — all I — I can’t —” He gaped at her, anguish in his brow. “I’m supposed to believe you’re Jeanne Dark?”

  He did not believe her? Constance folded her arms. “How else did I come across all the information I just gave you?”

  “But —” He finally seemed to grasp upon an argument: “You write poetry!”

  Constance stared at him for a long moment, trying to fight back the rising tide. He had read exactly one poem of hers and proclaimed it — and her — irredeemable. “When you say ‘poetry,’ you mean ‘the worst drivel you’ve had the misfortune to read.’ You mean if you printed even a single stanza of my writing, you’d be a laughingstock.” He looked away, but she pressed on. “Is that correct?”
r />   He focused on the floorboards. “I can’t deny I said that.”

  Constance stepped around the clerk’s counter to confront him. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she took hold of the facings of his coat to get his attention.

  Instantly, she had it, and his eyes locked on hers. She’d intended to shake sense into him. Too late, she remembered the other half of that torturous afternoon.

  No, that wasn’t true. She never forgot the image of Patience taking hold of his coat, him holding her, him leaning in toward her sister.

  Fischer’s hands found Constance’s waist. The way that he gazed at her, intent and intense and yearning, weakened her resolve at that critical moment.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Like you did Patience.”

  Fischer startled and pulled back, moving his hands from her waist to her hands on his coat. He carefully loosened her grip then focused on her fingers in his. “I can’t do that.”

  She pulled her hands from his grasp and stepped back. How had she fallen for this again? “What is it you find so repellent about me?” Emotion left a jagged edge on her words, but she didn’t care.

  “I don’t —”

  Constance groaned and moved away, but her shoes rustled papers on the floor. She looked down — her tale. He had dropped her pages.

  Fischer wanted Jeanne Dark. Fischer wanted Patience. Fischer hadn’t changed his mind.

  Fischer did not want her.

  She stooped to pick up the scattered pieces of her tale. Fischer bent to help her, but she pushed his hands away and stood. She took two steps toward the door and stopped.

  She spun back to Fischer and thrust the pages in his face. “You offered for Jeanne because she was an asset to your business with her brilliant writing. You courted Patience because she was an asset to your business with her brilliant mind. And you refuse me because you think Constance Hayes is an idiot.”

  “No,” he protested.

  “I could never be an asset to you, with my terrible, sentimental, humiliating poetry.” With each word, she picked up speed and volume. “You’re still not even sure I could be Jeanne Dark.”

  He opened his mouth, but no words of denial came.

  She marched toward the door, but at the clerk’s counter, she turned back. “I suppose I shall see if Amos Gallagher finds me an asset.”

  “Please — let me at least read it.” He advanced toward her, pleading in his eyes.

  He thought she wanted his approval? She didn’t like the idea of him even seeing her tale if Mr. Gallagher did print it. Fischer did not deserve her words.

  Constance started for the door again, but the candlestick caught her eye.

  She gripped the manuscript tighter. Fischer would never read her words again.

  She touched the corner of the pages to the flame. Instantly, the paper lit.

  “Constance! Egad!” Fischer ran over and snatched the fiery pages from her hands. That was probably lucky for her because at the moment she didn’t care if she did burn herself again.

  Fischer threw the burning papers into the grate. “Why? Your tale!”

  She strode back to him, standing just as close as they had a moment before. This time, she glared into his eyes, and she saw fear.

  She hoped he could see the fire in hers — real and in spirit — as she pronounced each word with precision. “I hate you, Fischer Marks.”

  He had no reply for that either, and Constance wheeled around again.

  “Constance, I love you,” Fischer blurted out.

  Constance stopped at the door. How could he claim that now? “Then why did you throw me off? Court my sister? Never speak to me again?”

  “I — I loved you too much.”

  Too much? What utter nonsense. “Do not use words you don’t understand.”

  She slammed the shop door behind her.

  Fischer took only a moment to douse the flames before he ran after Constance, but she was out of sight by the time he reached the street. He couldn’t help but remember running after her that awful afternoon when she’d seen him kiss Patience.

  How was he supposed to tell her that wasn’t even his idea? That he could scarcely remember it because he’d been wishing so fervently that it was Constance in his arms? That he could never kiss her in that way: prescribed, pro forma, perfidious?

  He couldn’t even do a loveless marriage the proper way. He’d been so certain he’d found the right person to help him move on from Constance, and he’d only found Constance herself.

  It had actually crossed his mind. He was supposed to offer for her. He’d promised Jeanne. Had Constance read that letter? What if he’d done that instead of giving her the truth, correct but extremely ill-advised?

  Jeanne was supposed to help him forget Constance. Not marry her. He couldn’t do that. He had to protect her.

  Fischer returned to the shop, trying to ignore the faintest whiff of violets. He had to think. He fetched the candlestick and knelt before the grate. A few of the pages had been more or less spared. A printer had more than a little experience handling wet paper.

  Once he’d gingerly gathered anything that seemed legible and raked through the ashes for any lucky fragment, Fischer carried the pages upstairs. He had only five legible pieces.

  Could it be true? Of course he couldn’t reconstruct her tale to print it, but he had to know. Obviously Constance knew enough about his correspondence with Jeanne Dark that she had to have at least seen several of his letters to her. Beaufort had said it was his cousin’s friend, not his cousin — but he’d also been not very subtly pushing Fischer in Constance’s direction. Had he orchestrated this on purpose? Had he thought Fischer knew he was writing to Constance?

  And then there was this last volume. Fischer would recognize Constance’s lovely hand anywhere, and it filled these pages as plainly as it had been someone else writing the last two volumes and all her correspondence as Jeanne.

  But he already knew she’d burnt her hand. She’d told him that weeks ago. He’d taken care not to injure it while dancing and then forgot himself after the Harrisons’ party and hurt her.

  Fischer’s heart plummeted. He had hurt her. He’d spent the last year watching her, measuring her reactions, weighing out every word and expression, deciding she must not have been that affected by him.

  Lying to himself. She hated him. Of course she did. He’d known it all along.

  In some depraved way, it was almost gratifying. She had really cared for him — and he for her, but that had been the problem all along for him.

  Fischer peered at the pages, trying to piece together some part of what she’d written. The style was a perfect match. There was a section of Gérard inspiring the animals to rally behind him, of Solomon eloquently persuading the forest, and the kingfisher —

  Fischer reread the lines. She’d killed the kingfisher.

  He snuffed out the candle and laid his head on his arms. All he had ever wanted was to keep from hurting Constance.

  He’d failed Maman and her memory. He’d failed Father. Most of all, he’d failed Constance.

  When it came to her, he was an abject failure.

  Constance hadn’t made it two blocks before she realized what she’d done. Whether Fischer Marks deserved it or not, she had irrevocably lost her temper.

  If some part of her had hoped that they might recover what they’d had, that she still might be happy with him — and obviously some part of her must if she’d gone and demanded a kiss — she’d made that all but impossible.

  Fischer might have loved her — had he really said that? But now he could never.

  She stopped at the alley next to City Tavern and leaned against the building’s brick. This was the exact thing she’d tried so hard to avoid. How had she let her anger get the better of her?

  She was nearly insensible when rough hands grabbed her shoulder. “Take yerself off to the docks,” barked a short man in rough homespun.

 
; Who did he think she was, some sort of lost loose woman? “I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “I’m merely overset.”

  “Well, you need to find somewhere else to do it; we run a fine establishment.”

  Constance glanced up at the levels of windows above them. Not a month ago, she and Fischer had danced the minuet in that room.

  “Trouble there, Tom?” came a voice from behind the servant.

  “No, sir, Mr. Hancock, this miss was just leaving.”

  Constance fought to regain control of her breathing. Did she have to run into the president of Congress in this state?

  “Constance?”

  Mr. Hancock could not know her name, and that was certainly not his voice this time. She opened her eyes and found David standing over her. Behind him in the street’s lamplight, she could see Mr. Hancock and a few other members of the Congress. Was that Dr. Franklin?

  David dismissed the City Tavern servant and eased an arm around Constance. “Whatever’s happened?”

  “Fischer,” she could just manage.

  David grimaced. “You don’t want to take a carriage home, do you?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  He nodded, then turned back to ask Hancock to send his carriage home for him, explaining as little as possible. Constance was at least grateful for that. Holding her in that same protective posture, he walked her away from the other men as quickly as possible without appearing to flee.

  Once they were on the quiet streets of Society Hill, the day’s heat finally starting to leach from the air, David prompted her to speak. The story spilled from her, tear-soaked and disjointed, and she wondered that he made any sense of it whatsoever.

  “Well,” David said once she’d finished. “We were right about one thing when it came to Fischer.”

  “Were we?”

  “Oh yes. He doesn’t know his heart at all.”

  Constance bit her lip. She’d left out the part where he’d said he loved her. It wasn’t a true profession, though. It was a rush of words intended as a shield or a brake. And what on earth could “too much” mean? He might have said anything else in that moment. At least it would have made sense.