Simon Fraser would not allow her to avoid the conversation. “An officer quartered in the rooms above the Crown and Quill set upon by rebel banditti, or some such, as I recall?”
“A truly horrible affair.” Anne steadied her nerves with a good gulp of claret, giving herself a moment in which to spin a fairy tale for the persistent General Fraser. “Three officers were quartered in the rooms above my shop. We had all gone out for an evening of Faro and punch at Mrs. Loring’s on Broad Way. Not feeling well, one of the officers returned home earlier than the rest of us. He must have surprised some miscreants who had broken into my shop, and he was brutally attacked with knife and pistol.”
“Thieves?” the Baroness conjectured.
Anne nodded. “Or perhaps rebel spies searching for intelligence, as the officer in question was aide-de-camp to Howe. But I most suspect rebel fanatics bent on instilling terror among New York’s Loyal citizenry. All rooms were ransacked, and the words ‘Tory Take Care’ were scrawled in blood on my floorboards.” She forced a shudder. “You cannot imagine coming home to such a nightmare. Perhaps it was cowardly of me, but I took the dire warning to heart, and quit the city that very night.”
“Far from cowardly…” Pepperell reached beneath the tablecloth, and rested his hand on Anne’s knee. “I think you are one of the bravest women I’ve ever met.”
Anne rescued the handkerchief from her pocket, dislodging Pepperell’s hand from her knee in the process, and dabbed at an imaginary tear. “Oh, I don’t know about brave…”
“You are certainly wise to seek sanctuary under your brother’s roof,” Fraser added. “Your continued loyalty to the Crown seems to have earned you the enmity of ruthless men.”
“Spineless rogues, these rebels—” Burgoyne’s tone filled with scorn. “Preying upon women.”
Anne nodded. “It was foolish to think that I could survive the turmoil of war without the protection of a man.”
“Not to worry, Mrs. Merrick.” John Burgoyne reached over and gave her hand a brief squeeze. “You are traveling under my protection now, and I will see you safe to your brother’s keeping in Albany.”
“To Albany!” Pepperell proposed.
Anne raised her glass again in silent toast. To Jane MacCrea, and all Americans who’ve suffered under British protection.
Waiters bearing the second service emerged from the marquee to set groaning platters upon the table. Delicate poached trout fillets were garnished with a watercress salad dressed in sweet oil and vinegar. Thick slices carved from a charred saddle of venison swam in mushrooms and rich gravy. In the most fanciful presentation, a brood of roasted pigeons with beaked heads intact were glazed with maple syrup, stuffed with butternuts, and set inside a nest contrived of mashed sweet potatoes.
Lucy and Gordon Lennox took command of the dinner conversation, discussing the latest in theater, music, and literature, and no further mention was made of politics or rebellion. Every now and then, Geoffrey Pepperell leaned in to murmur in her ear about the food or drink. A misty fog floated in, hugging the trees, adding to the dreamlike quality of the evening. Sipping champagne from crystal, surrounded by cultured accents and the tink of silver on china, all overlaid with mellow notes played on cello and viola—if she closed her eyes, Anne could almost forget there even was a war.
Anne set her champagne glass to the side. You are a soldier. This is the enemy.
“Attention!” Fanny Loescher began tapping a spoon to her glass. “Attention, ladies… Shall we all go and pluck a rose?”
The women were each supplied with a lantern, and Fanny led the way into the woods, weaving to and fro along a fairly straight path, until, succumbing to the quantity of spirits imbibed, she fell backward into a thicket of fern. Lucy and Anne tugged Fanny to her feet.
“I swan, I’m about to burst! This is as likely a place as any to water the garden.” Fanny proceeded to hitch up her skirts and squat.
Standing side by side, the Baroness, Lucy, and Anne turned their backs to Fanny, set lanterns on the ground, and extended their skirts outward, creating a curtain for modesty’s sake. The young German baroness was the first to strike up the requisite small talk to disguise the shush of urine driving into the forest floor.
“It is worrisome, indeed, to see how lean the General’s table has grown,” she clucked. “Rattlesnake soup indeed!”
“The fare seemed very generous to me,” Anne said. “Wine and yeast bread—fresh poultry, fish, and meat—this is quality far beyond standard rations.”
“At Fort Anne we were regularly served eight courses with as many different wines, Mrs. Merrick,” Lucy explained. “It is clear this overland trek is taking a toll on the General’s larder.”
“Mrs. Loescher is certainly a drain on his wine supply,” the Baroness said, without even altering the volume of her voice.
“Your turn, Mrs. Lennox.” Fanny took Lucy’s place in line, holding out her skirts.
“The General seems less than his usual self tonight, Mrs. Loescher,” the Baroness said. “Is he not feeling well?”
“He has his moods.” Fanny heaved a sigh. “A courier arrived from Howe this afternoon, and Johnny’s been out of sorts ever since. Very upset, he was, upon reading that letter…”
Anne tempered her eagerness at this revelation. “Bad news, was it?”
Fanny shrugged. “He didn’t say, but it could not have been good news for all his huffing and puffing.”
“It must have been a long letter…” Anne probed. “I would think men of such import would have much to say to one another…”
“Not long at all,” Fanny said. “Written on the tiniest slip of paper folded into a hollow silver bullet—in case the courier needed to swallow it to keep the message from falling into enemy hands.”
“Very clever,” the Baroness said, “but can you imagine having to pass such a thing through your bowels?”
Lucy Lennox rejoined the line, and the Baroness stepped back to take her easement. Anne mined a new vein of conversation. “I suppose you ladies have heard the sad news of poor Jane MacCrae?”
Lucy nodded. “What a tragedy. Her beau went absolutely mad with grief…”
“Another reason for Johnny’s foul mood—he was dealing with his Indians all morning long.” Fanny hiccupped loud, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Pardon me! Too much rich food, I fear…”
“Too much champagne, Mrs. Loescher,” came the Baroness’s forthright response from behind the curtain of skirts.
“A great bulk of our Indian allies have deserted today over the Jane MacCrae affair,” Lucy said. “Mr. Lennox is quite concerned.”
“I said ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ when I heard they left. Thieving and drinking rum is all Indians are ever good for.” Fanny swayed in such an ever-growing orbit, she clutched Anne by the arm to keep from pitching forward. “But Johnny is terribly upset. He says we’ll be needing every fighting man—redskin or white—to break the rebels’ backs.”
“It is plain to see why the General is troubled,” Anne said, linking elbows with Fanny, “what with the rebels wreaking all manner of havoc, and his Indians gone wild. They say supplies are dwindling fast and there will be a move to half rations.”
The Baroness stepped forward, and Anne stepped back to take her turn behind the curtain. Collecting her skirts into a bunch on her lap, she kept an ear on the conversation.
“Never fear, Mrs. Merrick; shortages will be temporary,” the Baroness said, fanning open her skirts. “My husband tells me Colonel Baum will soon lead his regiment on a major foraging expedition. He is to seize rebel stores at a place called Bennington—provender, horses, and wagons—all is to be had there in great quantity.”
“Colonel Baum.” Fanny giggled, bumping Lucy with her hip. “He’s a big, handsome fellow—”
Flustered, Lucy said, “Colonel Baum seems a most serious and disciplined commander, but I wonder, will one German regiment serve the purpose?”
The Baroness nodded. “Mos
t certainly. Baum’s dragoons are ranked among our finest warriors, and General Burgoyne is also assured that a good number of countryside Loyalists will also rise up and join the effort.”
Anne was amazed. The simple business of “plucking a rose” provided more valuable information than any of the time she spent sitting right beside General Burgoyne at the dinner table. As the feminine contingent trooped back to the table, Anne began to compose in her head the message she would send to Jack, eager to get back to her tent and writing materials.
But the evening was far from over. Once the women resumed their seats, the waiters swooped in with the dessert course—gooseberry tartlets served with dollops of sweet cream surrounded by a colorful array of comfits and lozenges.
As the host, General Burgoyne initiated the evening’s entertainment with a reading of a rather drab poem he had penned himself. Lucy and Gordon Lennox followed his lackluster recitation with a harmonic version of “Scarborough Fair” sung a capella. With a little urging from her husband, and using the viola as accompaniment, the Baroness sang an Italian aria in an angelic soprano.
“Brava!” General von Riedesel led, with fervor, the enthusiastic applause for his wife.
Burgoyne tapped his glass for attention. “I have it on good authority that General Fraser has prepared a bit of theater for us—”
Simon Fraser stood, drew his shoulders square, and cleared his throat. “From Henry V, by William Shakespeare:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour…
Anne had never been to a real theater, but her family spent many an evening reading aloud the works of Shakespeare, which were prime among the volumes in her father’s library. Henry V had never been among her favorite plays, as she preferred the comedies, but Simon Fraser’s impassioned delivery combined with his slight Scottish burr lent an air of romance and dash to his performance.
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day
After applauding Fraser’s declamation with gusto, Anne reached into her pocket to clutch the little half-crown token she shared with Jack. How the world had changed, where she, too, was a soldier owning pride and kinship for her own “band of brothers,” and the desperate cause for which they risked all.
“Bravo, General. Bravo!” the Baroness cheered. Mindful that Colonel Baum beside her, who, with his limited command of the English language, seemed close to nodding off, she added, “Mrs. Merrick, perhaps you can uplift the spirit of this gathering with a gay song or poem?”
Anne laughed, shaking her head in the negative. “I’m afraid my talents do not extend beyond setting down words in ink or lead type.”
“Killing snakes,” Geoffrey added, raising his glass of port in salute. “You are very good at killing snakes.”
“I heard a clever riddle…” Fanny offered.
“A riddle!” Lucy Lennox clapped her hands. “Do tell, Mrs. Loescher. I so love riddles!”
Fanny Loescher stood to perform with black curls tousled from her fall into the fern, her rouged lips in a smear. Clutching the stem of her glass in a fist, she took one last gulp. Bracing a hand to the tabletop, she leaned forward, and the brown crests of her nipples peeked over the edge of her blue satin gown and her ample breasts readied to escape the confines of her dress at any moment.
“Now, listen carefully, and see if you can guess the answer.” As if reciting a nursery rhyme to a child, Burgoyne’s mistress launched into a singsong recitation—
My pretty friends, fain would I know,
What thing is it ’twill breed delight?
It strives to stand, but cannot go,
It feeds the mouth that cannot bite.
“Oh dear!” Lucy Lennox went wide-eyed. German brows shot up. Geoffrey Pepperell began to shake with stifled laughter, and Anne hid her blush behind her fan. Burgoyne issued a terse, “Mrs. Loescher!” but Fanny paid him no mind, and carried on with her riddle.
It is a pretty pricking thing,
A pleasing and a standing thing.
It was the truncheon Mars did use,
The bedward bit that maidens choose.
Fanny hiccupped, giggled, and winked. “Do any of you gentlemen have the answer? I know Johnny does… I’d wager Colonel Baum has the answer; don’t you think, Baroness?”
A grim Baroness von Riedesel pushed back her chair. “The time has come for us to bid adieu, General…”
“On the contrary, Baroness, it is time for Mrs. Loescher to bid adieu to our party.” Burgoyne took Fanny by the arm, but she jerked from his grasp, and scampered over to stand behind Simon Fraser.
“Does no one know the answer?” She giggled. “Here’s another clue—
It is a friar with a bald head,
A staff to beat a cuckold dead.
It is a gun that shoots point-blank,
And hits between a maiden’s flank.
“That is enough, Mrs. Loescher.” Stern-lipped Burgoyne chased after Fanny as she skipped around the table, reciting the last verse to her riddle.
It has a head much like a mole’s,
And yet it loves to creep in holes.
The fairest maid that e’er took life,
For love of this, became a wife.
Clapping two hands firm to Fanny’s shoulders, John Burgoyne steered his drunken mistress toward the marquee tent. “Say good night, Mrs. Loescher.”
“Cock!” Fanny shouted instead. “It’s a man’s cock!”
The abrupt departure of their host combined with the riddle’s answer served as a match, igniting guffaws among the men and much fan flutter among the women. The dinner party drew to a hasty close as the guests parted ways in a murmur of “A pleasure” and “Till we meet again.”
Pepperell borrowed a pierced tin lantern to light their way and, offering an elbow to Anne, said, “Best hold tight, at least until we reach the road.”
“I will,” she said, taking hold of his arm. “I’d hate to fall down à la Fanny Loescher plucking a rose… square on her hind end in the bracken with her skirts about her ears!”
“Skirts about her ears, you say? Hmmm… perhaps I ought think twice before ensuring your stability…”
The Captain’s bold innuendo sparked a thrill Anne immediately tempered with innate female wariness. Over the course of the evening it was clear this officer was of a different stamp from those she’d manipulated in the past. Geoffrey Pepperell was not one for following standard protocol.
Very unlike prim and proper Edward Blankenship… but very much like Jack.
Anne drew her arm away, stopped in her tracks, and mustered up some widow-like sternness. “I never would have accepted your invitation to dinner had I known that I would encounter such ungentlemanly behavior. If I did not require the light you bear, I assure you, sir, I would part company with you this instant.”
“Of course you are correct, and I apologize for overstepping the bounds.” Very contrite, Geoffrey at once bowed and offered his hand. “I blame my lapse in manners on too much time spent in the company of rough men. I humbly beg pardon.”
Being too dark to see his face with any clarity, Anne responded with a cool, “Pardon granted,” and took his proffered hand with an uneasy sensibility that the man was not at all sincere in his apology.
Pepperell led the way with the door of the lantern open to offer the most light. Other than a muttered “Careful, now” and “Mind your step,” the hand-in-hand pa
ir reached the corduroy road in uncomfortable silence, where their quiet trek was instantly made friendlier by the scattered campfires flanking the road, and the here-and-there glow of wedge tents lit from within.
Anne pulled her hand free as they set forth on the road, but the Captain immediately reclaimed it. “A moonless night coupled with those silly slippers make for a treacherous path.” He then launched into a long and amusing story of how he and Lennox had prepared the snake soup.
“Mind, Gordie Lennox is the finest of fellows, and my best friend, but he is no cook. I doubt he’s ever boiled water for his own tea, so you can imagine, he near lost his breakfast watching Ohaweio skin the snake…”
The tension Anne carried in her shoulders slipped off, and she found herself laughing as Pepperell described his cooking adventure. “Lennox may be a disaster in the kitchen,” Anne said, “but he and his wife sang a lovely duet this evening.”
“Gordie is an asset to any drawing room,” Pepperell acknowledged. “And the Baroness—she owns a voice suited for the finest opera house in London. Quite a surprise.”
Anne nodded and added, “I enjoyed your commander’s recitation. His selection from Henry V was most stirring.”
Slipping his arm around Anne’s waist, Pepperell’s hand settled too comfortably above her hip. “I found Mrs. Loescher’s riddle most stirring…” he leaned in and murmured into her ear. “My pretty friend, fain would I know, what thing is it ’twill breed delight?”
The warmth of his breath and timbre of his voice sent a confused tremble of pleasure and fear to course her spine. Anne spun free of his grasp, snatched the lantern from his hand, and ran off the road.
Pepperell was fast on her heels. “Wait!” he called. “Mrs. Merrick!”
Afraid she could no more control Geoffrey Pepperell’s bold advances or her own reactions, Anne was driven to outpace the booted footfalls following close behind, weaving a quick path through a maze of tents, unhitched wagons, and hobbled draft animals. Ignoring his calls, she raced up toward the tree line until the flicker of firelight in the sky and the sound of manly voices joined in song pulled her to a halt.
The Turning of Anne Merrick Page 6
