In promenade toward the gallery, Anne looked up to see the Domino leaning on the balustrade, black-gloved fingers like talons gripping the wooden rail with both hands. She asked her partner, “Do you know the Domino up there? In the gallery?”
Cathcart glanced up and shook his head. “Why?”
“I feel his eye upon me.”
Her Harlequin took her by the hands and they skipped back to their position. “I’d say most of the men here have their eye on Night.”
Whether dancing, having a drink, or sharing a sweet, every time Anne looked up, she found the Domino watching her from on high like a black hawk, as if he were waiting for the right moment to spread his wings, swoop down, and snatch up his prey. None of the other officers seemed to know who he was, but after several hours passed with the Domino never once leaving his perch, Anne tried to shrug off her unease. Probably a local Loyalist. Most likely timid and shy… inept with women…
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the violinist announced. “This last dance of the evening is followed by a feu de joie at riverside.”
The words brought about an instant scramble for just the right partner. Anne spun around to the tap on her shoulder, expecting Harlequin and his slapstick, but instead meeting Domino, looming. With a brief bow, and in a low, graveled voice he asked, “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”
“I think not…” Anne shook her head, turning on her heel, searching the crowd for Cathcart, or Delancey, or anyone other than this Domino to share the last dance with. “I’m afraid this dance is spoken for…”
“It’s taken me hours to work up the courage to ask…” The thick golden mask kept the man’s eyes in shadow, but his gruff voice, though odd, seemed to carry a smile with it. “Fair Night could not be so cruel as to refuse me now?”
Anne rose up on tiptoes, scanning the crowd for a more likely partner. “I am sorry, sir, but I did make a promise… Another time, perhaps—”
“Alas, I doubt I’ll have another opportunity anytime soon—my company leaves on campaign at first light.”
Anne dropped down to her heels. “None of the other officers have made mention of any campaign…”
“Not common knowledge amongst the lower orders.” The Domino leaned in, whispering in her ear, “I’m with Clinton’s advance corps—at the vanguard of a new offensive.”
“You are correct, sir.” Anne smiled, and dipped a curtsy. “I cannot be so cruel as to refuse you this dance.”
They moved to take positions opposite each other, and the Domino’s silken cape fluttered open long enough for Anne to catch the briefest glimpse of his crimson red jacket.
Ripe fruit…
As they spun and skipped and twirled, Anne kept her eye on the movement of her partner’s loose cloak, hoping to spy a gorget, or catch sight of buttons or lacing—anything that might indicate the Redcoat’s rank or regiment.
He must be among Clinton’s High Command…
The music of the last dance ended all too soon to a chorus of groans and complaints, as many masqueraders crowded forward to beg the orchestra for one more song.
“The masquerade is over…” Anne reached up, as others did, to loosen the ribbons of her mask, but the Domino stayed her hand, grasping her softly by the wrist.
Head bent to hers, his raspy voice tickled her ear. “Like a covered dish, a woman masked increases a man’s appetite. Let us take the air.”
Nodding, Anne left her mask tied. For a man claiming to lack the courage to ask for a simple dance, there was suddenly little timidity in his manner, and something familiar in the way he pressed his hand to the small of her back, guiding her out the doorway.
Anne looped her arm through his and they strolled slowly, following along with other couples heading to the riverfront along a lantern-lit path. As they walked in silence she cast sidelong glances, studying the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, and the color of his hair in the lamplight, wondering how she might know this particular Redcoat.
“It’s a shame we did not meet earlier,” Anne ventured. “Will you be back to Philadelphia soon?”
His laugh was gruff and he shrugged. “One of the many unknowns of this soldier’s life…”
“I don’t envy your day in the saddle after a night of frolic,” Anne said. “Will you be traveling far?”
“Far enough. My turn for a question.” The tall Domino leaned to the side and in a playful whisper asked, “I know you… Do you know me?”
With a shake of her head Anne admitted, “You are too clever—the Golden Cipher I cannot figure.”
Stopping in his tracks, the Domino reached out to stroke her cheek with the back of his gloved fingers. “Yet you are clear as glass to me.”
Anne took a step back. “Were you with Burgoyne on the Hudson?”
The Domino chuckled. “Were you?”
Anne wagged her finger. “Then you must be a customer at the Cup and Book…”
In a voice suddenly less raspy he said, “She’s pretty—the half-caste you have working for you now…”
Now? The word—the tone—froze Anne to the spot. Multiple rockets whistled up into the moonless night, shattering the star-strewn sky in fractured bursts of gold and silver.
“Feu de joie!” The Domino tossed his tricorn to the side and reached to loosen the ribbon at the back of his head. “I know you…” he said, in a clear voice, sweeping the mask from his face. “Do you know me?”
Anne went cold, as if an icicle had been drawn down from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. Dancing at the outer edges of her awareness since she’d first glanced up to the gallery, his name escaped from her lips like a puff of frosted air.
“Edward.”
The fierce saber slash Jack Hampton dealt Edward Blankenship had left a thick pink scar, beginning just above his left brow. It wormed over his eye, coursed across his nose, and cut the corner of his mouth, giving his smile a downward twist. His left eye was sewn shut, and there was a gaping dent at the bridge of his nose, where sharp steel had ravaged bone and cartilage.
“You must recall,” he said, touching the tip of his middle finger to the circular scar centered on his forehead, “the tender remembrance you left behind.”
Anne grabbed up her skirts and ran as fast as she could. She checked over her shoulder, and though Edward Blankenship did not give chase, she continued with all the speed she could muster, to reach the hired carriage.
The liveryman sat on the driver’s seat, eyes to the sky, watching the fireworks as Anne threw herself against the side of the carriage. “Go now! Go! Go! GO!” she shouted, climbing up onto the driver’s seat.
Surprised, the German fumbled for the reins and slapped the horses into movement. Anne turned to see Edward Blankenship standing in a beam of lantern light, tying the golden mask back onto his face.
“Schnell! Schnell!” Anne screamed, pounding on the driver’s back with her fist. She looked again to see the caped silhouette with arm raised, waving good-bye.
“My God…” Heaving a sigh, she squeezed her eyes shut and held tight to the edge of her seat as the carriage sped through the gates and careened out onto the road back to the city.
Slamming the shop door shut, Anne grabbed the candle dish, hiked her skirts, and went tearing up the stairs screaming, “Sallyyy! Piiiiink! Wake up! Get up!”
Sally and Pink shuffled into the hallway in shifts and braids, blinking at the sudden light.
“Get dressed. Time to fly!” Anne breezed past them to her room, setting the candle on her desk. The bleary-eyed women followed in after, and Anne waved them off. “Go! Pack your necessary pockets… I’ll ready the guns.” She kicked off her slippers and turned her back to Sally. “Can you loosen these laces?”
Pink scrubbed her eyes. “Guns?”
“Yes. Guns. Hurry!” Anne gave Pink a little shove to the door. “We have to move fast…”
“Why are ye in such a swivet?” Sally asked, yanking Anne’s laces loose. “Where’re we goin’?
”
“Back to Valley Forge—I sent the liveryman for fresh horses and a wagon.” Anne spun around, shrugging out of her gown, and, seeing the two of them still standing there, she threw up the lid on the chest at the foot of her bed and shouted, “Do as I say! Go!”
“Stop and take a breath,” Sally scolded. “Yer not makin’ any sense.”
“There’s no time!” Anne tore through the bed chest, tossing items onto her bed. “He knows we’re here… He’s alive and he’s coming…”
Sally grabbed Anne by the arm. “Who’s comin’?”
“Edward Blankenship!”
“God almighty!” Sally ripped off her nightcap, and went running to her room.
Pink threw up her arms. “And who’s Edward Blankenship?”
Anne stepped into her skirt. “The Redcoat I thought I killed in New York.”
“Lord in heaven!” The answer sent Pink flying off.
In a matter of minutes they gathered back in Anne’s room, dressed in common skirts, stays, and blouses, wearing sensible shoes and woolen shawls. After Bede’s hanging, they worked together to devise a plan to slip away quickly if the need arose, taking only bare essentials with them. Sally carried a small gunnysack with her letters from David. A purse with all the money she’d earned as a free woman was tucked into Pink’s cleavage, and she pinned her lucken-booth brooch to the inside of her stays. Anne added to her pocket a heavy bag of coin, the bottle of sympathetic stain, the mourning brooch containing a lock of her son’s hair, and the wooden heart Jack had given her.
The case of dueling pistols lay open on the bed. Anne struggled to keep a steady hand, tapping the right amount of priming powder into the pan on the flintlock. After loading both guns, she buckled on a leather belt, stuffing one pistol at her waist and handing the other to Sally, who did the same.
They ran down the stairs and out the door to find the German liveryman waiting under the streetlight with a pair of fresh horses hitched to a light wagon. He smiled in relief to see Anne, and, pointing to the wagon, he asked, “Ist das gut, madam?”
“Very good!” Anne said, relieved he’d understood her panicked instructions. The driver was a brawny young man, and she clapped him by one shoulder and pointed to the west. “You take us west—to the American camp. Valley Forge, ja? Schnell, ja?” She pulled the sack of coin from her pocket, shaking it in front of his eyes before pressing the money into his hand. “There’s twenty Spanish dollars for you…” Before he could refuse, Anne stepped up into the wagon bed. The German stared to the west, his face impassive, weighing the purse in his big palm.
Sally and Pink climbed in behind Anne, and Sally said, “D’ye understand, ye huge cabbage-eater? Amerikaner camp, ja?”
“Ja,” the German said with a nod as he hopped up to take the driver’s seat. “Ich verstehe…”
“Th’ jingle o’ silver is a universal language, na?” Sally said, as they settled into their seats with backs against the wagon wall and legs outstretched.
“You—” The driver swung around in his seat, pointing to each of them in turn. “Amerikaner, Amerikaner, Amerikaner—” Slapping his chest, he added, “Me—Amerikanisch!” With a chipped-tooth grin he tossed the bag of coin into Anne’s lap, snapped the reins, and the wagon lurched up Chestnut Street.
“Fancy that.” Sally laughed. “He’s a lad o’ parts, our German—a rebel!”
Once they turned onto Market Street, the German broke out his whip, building quickly to a steady gallop, the ironshod hooves and wheels rumbling loud on the cobblestones. Anne settled back between Sally and Pink, and they all held hands.
“We are a-fleetin’ and a-flyin’ now!” Pink said. “We’ll be there in no time.”
Sally added, “Fresh horses, a good driver, and less than twenty miles betwixt us and safe haven in Valley Forge.”
With a bone-rattling thump they crossed the city limit and the place where stone paving abruptly transitioned to a rutted dirt road. The pace slowed, but they left the telltale rumble of wheels on stone behind.
“Day’s breaking,” Anne muttered, and, sitting up she stared at the eastern sky brightening with the rise of the sun. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Pink asked.
“Horses.”
“Yer overwrought,” Sally insisted. “Naught but wagon clangor yet ringin’ in yer ears.”
Anne rose up on her knees, tugging the pistol from her belt. “We’re being followed…”
Sally pulled Anne to a sit. “Frettin’ yer guts t’ fiddle strings does ye no good.”
“He’s toying with me, like a cat with a mouse,” Anne said, her eyes riveted to the east.
Pink moved forward, squinting. “There is somethin’ out there… You can see ’em now.”
Along with the clatter of many horse hooves echoing in the quiet of the dawning, a string of tiny specks danced on the horizon. The German cast a glance over his shoulder, and shot up to his feet, cracking the whip over the horses’ heads. “Gott verdammt! Britische dragoner!”
“There’s at least a dozen horsemen…” Pink said. “They’re gaining on us.”
“There’s no way horses pulling a load can outrace a company of British dragoons…” Anne clacked her pistol to half cock. Sally drew hers, and did the same. The German looked back and raised a brow. He sat down and pulled an ancient musketoon from beneath his seat, laying it across his lap.
The sun inched up in the sky as the wagon rumbled along the rutted road, the tiny dark specks grown to full silhouettes, riding two abreast. The dragoons came upon them, red horsehair tails streaming from the tops of their leather helmets, galloping along the roadside, staying just out of pistol range.
These light cavalry dragoons were expert horsemen. Armed with sabers, carbines, and the long-barrel pistols, dragoons were trained to fire and reload at full gallop. Another order was shouted and the horsemen turned, coming in at an angle to the road and the bounding wagon.
“They’ve come into range.” Sally braced the barrel of her pistol on the wagon’s edge. “Do ye see him, Annie?”
“He’s the one masked,” Anne said, “riding the bay charger.”
Wearing a black kerchief tied over the left side of his face, saber raised, Edward Blankenship directed the charge from the rear of the oncoming attack.
Sally aimed and pulled the trigger. “Shite!” she cried, her shot jerked high by a bump in the road. “Wasted!”
The horsemen pushed their mounts to full-stretched gallops, now running parallel to the road and the wagon. The German leveled his weapon at them. In a flash of smoke, the blast of buckshot flying from the flared muzzle of the musketoon sent the attack force into a scatter, three riders dropping back, slowing to a canter.
“Huzzah!” Sally shouted.
Blankenship sheathed his sword, drew his pistol from the saddle-mounted holster, and spurred his mount. Anne took a shot at the fast-moving target to cover the German rushing to reload his musketoon, but the dragoon Captain charged forward unfazed. He came sweeping past, no more than five yards away, and discharged his weapon. The women ducked down at the flash, arms thrown around one another, but the driver was hit square in the chest, the blast from the high-caliber weapon throwing him from his seat. Anne shot up to see the German left behind, lying in a heap at the side of the road.
Terrified by the gunfire, the runaway horses careened off the road, and the women were thrown flat as the wagon veered precariously, wheels crashing and bouncing over the rough terrain. Anne struggled to keep her balance, trying to clamber over the driver’s seat and gain hold of the reins snapping like satin ribbons in the air, just beyond her reach.
The wagon jolted over a tree stump, knocking Anne back with Pink and Sally being thrown from one side of the wagon bed to the other as the driverless, exhausted horses slowed, dragging the wagon to a complete stop.
The fecund steam of sweating horseflesh was suddenly overwhelming as the dragoon company circled the wagon, the horses all huffing great b
reaths of air. Lying in a dazed tumble, head pounding, Anne tried to catch her breath, but the menacing, dull note of hoofbeats closing in set her heart racing anew.
In a creak of leather, several dragoons dismounted, and one leaned over the edge of the wagon, the death’s-head emblem painted on the frontpiece of his black leather helmet gleaming in the oncoming daylight. He issued a terse command. “Out!”
Dazed and shaken, the women helped one another over the wagon side. With the muzzle end of a carbine prodding her ribs, Pink was herded off to one side. Anne and Sally were grabbed gruffly by both the arms and pushed to stand before Edward Blankenship.
Prancing and curveting on a big bay stallion, Edward Blankenship cajoled his mount to stand beside Anne. Sally shrieked when he zinged saber from scabbard, swinging the blade as if to lop Anne’s head clean off, stopping short to let the honed edge hover one scant inch from her neck. Knees buckling, Anne remained upright only with the rough support of the soldier holding her steady.
“This one,” Blankenship said, lightly touching the saber tip to Anne’s forehead, just above the right brow, tracing a diagonal line across her face, mirroring the scar on his own. “I’ll have her bound, gagged, and placed on my horse.”
One of the soldiers pulled a dirty rag from his pocket, stretching it tight to cut the corners of Anne’s mouth. Another bound her wrists with a length of rough hemp rope.
“Cowards! Preying on helpless women!” Sally struggled against her captor’s grip, kicking and wriggling. “Lickin’ the arse of this devil…” she shouted. “Can ye no’ see he’s a mad, twisted devil?”
Leaping from his saddle, Blankenship tossed off his helmet and marched up to Sally. “I am a devil of your mistress’s making,” he shouted, ripping the kerchief aside for all to see his horribly scared and mangled face, “come to you straight from the maw of this hell.” Pulling a fist, he punched Sally so hard in the stomach, she dropped to her knees, coughing and gasping for breath.
Pink pushed past her guard, and ran to crouch beside Sally. Blankenship brushed the dirt from his retrieved helmet and retied his kerchief to mask the worst of his injuries as his men hurried to hoist Anne onto his horse. Swinging up behind her, the Captain ordered his company to remount and re-form. Bound, gagged, and caught in the vise of Blankenship’s arms and legs, Anne looked as sad and helpless as a rag doll caught in a mongrel’s mouth.
The Turning of Anne Merrick Page 39
