The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  In an exchange of haphazard kisses and stifled moans, the tin lantern inched along the smooth bed of the press, jostled forward by the motion of two moving in time, bodies parting and meeting again and again, until coming, at last, in an “Oh!” of sweet fury and wondrous release.

  Gasping for breath, Anne relaxed her grip on his shoulders and leaned back on one palm, swiping back long swaths of hair from her face.

  “I must say, Mrs. Merrick.” Stumbling back a step, breathing heavy, Jack fastened his breeches. “You are, by far, the most accommodating devil I have ever worked with . . .”

  “I should hope so!” Anne smiled, tugging at her skirts.

  The shop door slammed open, and the three dragoons stumbled into the room, each with an arm thrown about the other’s shoulders, they burst out in song:

  “We always are ready, Steady, boys, steady,

  We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again . . .”

  Anne hopped down from the press, falling into a crouch beside Jack, knocking the tin and glass lantern to the floorboards at the same moment. Together, they lunged forward to stop the lantern’s clattering trajectory. The crash put a sudden end to the merrymakers’ song.

  “What was that?” Edward Blankenship peeled away, taking a few steps toward the back end of the shop. In answer, Wemyss and Stuart struck up another loud chorus:

  “We ne’er see our foes but we wish them to stay,

  They never see us but they wish us away . . .”

  “Pipe down, you drunken sods!” Blankenship ordered.

  “Wheesht, Wemyss,” Stuart chided. “Our brave captain’s stalking a possible intruder.”

  Wemyss giggled, and began singing in an exaggerated whisper:

  “They swear they’ll invade us, these terrible foes;

  They frighten our women, and our children, and beaus . . .”

  “Quiet!” Blankenship ordered, the zing of sharp steel whisked from its scabbard shrill in the dark.

  At the approach of the dragoon’s boot steps, hard and brisk on the floorboards, Anne and Jack hunkered down, creeping around the engraving press, hiding in the deepest shadows at the short end.

  Blankenship came to a halt with heels crunching on shards of glass at the opposite end of the press. He picked up the broken lantern and set it on the press, calling, “Stuart! Bring the light over.”

  The back of the shop brightened as Stuart drew near, candle in hand, and the glint of Jack’s dagger being inched from his boot caught the corner of Anne’s eye. She popped up to a stand, her hands flying up over her head.

  “Pray, Edward—put by your sword!” Anne rushed around the press. “I had only just doused the light when your boisterous entrance startled me so—I dropped the lantern and . . . and . . .” She covered her face with her hands and began to sob, shoulders shaking, whimpering, “Friend or foe? I could not tell. Instinct bade me hide . . . Marauders, thought I!”

  “My poor Anne,” Edward sheathed his sword, immediately contrite. He moved in to encase her in consoling arms. “I thought—well, I am so sorry to have frightened you so . . .”

  Jack’s scent ripe upon her skin, and his seed seeping sticky from between her legs, Anne could endure the Redcoat’s embrace for only the briefest moment. Pulling away, she snatched the candle from Stuart and led the huddle of Redcoats from the press Jack crouched behind, to the stairway.

  “You all ought to be ashamed,” she sniffled. “Officers in the King’s Army—reeking of rum—behaving no better than common enlisted men on a carouse.”

  “You are correct, madam.” Blankenship offered her an apologetic bow. “Please accept our apologies.”

  Stuart grumbled, “It is Wemyss’s fault—him and his singing . . .”

  “Can you ever forgive me, Mrs. Merrick?” Wemyss blubbered. “I certainly meant no harm . . .”

  “I am spent.” Anne trod up the stairs, dragging along the trio of chastised, drunken dragoons. “It has been, all in all, a very trying day . . .”

  Quick and quiet, Jack stepped to the back door and worked the latch, slipping out to disappear over the garden wall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Society in every state is a blessing,

  but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil;

  in its worst state an intolerable one.

  THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense

  Friday, June 20, 1777

  After Curfew, on the East River

  SIDE BY SIDE amidships, Tully and Titus bent their backs to the oars, becoming the human engine that propelled their flat-bottomed craft upriver in the light of the rising moon.

  At the back end of the pettiauger, Jack sat at the edge of his seat, his right hand light on the rudder, his left comforted by the smooth butt of the loaded pistol tucked into the satin sash at his waist. The breast pocket of the fine frock coat Mulligan dressed him in was bulging heavy with counterfeit banknotes—fifteen hundred pounds to purchase hard-to-come-by trade goods the Continental Army desperately needed if it meant to survive another winter.

  Steering an upriver course parallel to the city’s shoreline, the pettiauger cruised by a dark, saw-toothed skyline of steeples, pitched rooftops and ships’ masts—the silhouette studded here and there by a pinprick of lantern light, or the soft golden glow of candlelit windows left open to catch a fair night wind.

  The shush of muffled oars dipping into the water and the forlorn howl of a far-off hound enhanced the peaceful curfew-quiet. Soothed by a fresh breeze off the water, Jack tried for a moment to forget his city was overrun by a careless occupying force, and mired in a sickly stench of fish offal, rotting carcasses and pig dung simmering and stewing the day long in the summer sun. In truth, the omnipresent reek was far worse than any description he could ever contrive.

  A bad smell . . . smells bad. Jack heaved a sigh, reminded of another, more bothersome indescribable gnawing at the back of his brain.

  The counterfeits were printed and finished, and the particulars of the meeting were arranged to each party’s satisfaction, yet something about the scheme did not smell right, and Jack could not shed the feeling that somehow, something had been overlooked. While donning his disguise at the Thimble and Shears earlier, he’d put a voice to his indefinable concern, only to be fobbed off by his fellows.

  “Your nose is misguided, lad. We’ve been more than thorough in our planning,” Mulligan asserted, tugging an old-fashioned gray periwig over Jack’s jet-black hair. “I have checked and double-checked through my every connection—this quartermaster’s corrupt nature is well-established within the black market. Once he sets greedy eyes on those banknotes, there’s no reason to expect anything but an easy exchange of money for the goods our army is desperate for.”

  Titus agreed. “And the counterfeits are near perfect—but for the slight difference in paper quality, our false notes are practically indiscernible from true.”

  “I know, I know.” Jack shrugged and slipped his arms into the frock coat Mulligan offered. “I can’t say what it is—it’s just that something seems off . . .”

  The tailor stepped back to admire the disguise he’d devised for Jack. “Does he not look every bit the Tory merchant?”

  “Aye, Stitch, he’s as pretty as a new-plucked rose,” Tully teased in his gruff voice, giving Jack a sound thump between the shoulder blades.

  “Aw, Tully,” Jack countered. “I bet that’s what you tell all the boys.”

  “Haw!” Tully laughed along with the others, then hawked up a gob of phlegm, and spat it out the open window. “As to your problem, lad, I’ll put a name on it—woman. Courtin’ your widow has put a blunt edge to your blade, Jack. Gallivanting over rooftops . . . climbing through windows every night . . .”

  “Not to mention what goes on once the window’s been breached.” Titus smirked and winked.

  “Ah, love, true love . . .” The Quaker nodded with a wistful little smile. “I must agree with Mr. Tully. The love of a good woman has the power to temper
the most reckless spirit. Therein lies the source of your unreasonable anxiety, Jack.”

  “Which reminds me . . .” Titus fished through his pocket, and tossed something over to Jack. “I’ve been keeping it for you—thought you might want to have it back one day.”

  Jack caught the item. “My lucky piece!” Happy to see his wise friend had rescued the half-crown he had discarded with such anger and bitterness, he looped the leather thong around his neck, tucked the token inside his shirt and grinned. “I could not want for a better friend than you, Titus.” The scavenged scrap of cast iron served not only as a reminder of his devotion to Anne, but also his devotion to the cause of liberty.

  At the outskirts of the city, Titus and Tully put good muscle to the oars, sending the pettiauger skirting past Peck ’s Slip in no time. Jack nudged the rudder to hug a course closer to the shoreline. “Keep your eyes peeled for the signal,” he said. Relaxing the grip on his pistol, he sought the iron lump lying just beneath the neat bow-knot tied in the linen cravat he wore.

  True love—the Quaker put his finger square on the problem . . .

  Jack had spent the past few nights nestled with the woman he loved warm in his arms, whispering words like marriage, home and children—her head on his shoulder, his nose in her hair—both of them imagining a life together. Suddenly, Jack had something of consequence to risk—or maybe even lose—the prospect of happiness.

  “There’s our green light.” Tully pointed.

  Jack pulled hard on the rudder to aim the prow of the pettiauger at the one shipyard dock beckoning with a green glass lantern mounted atop the pilings—the agreed-upon signal.

  Visible in the dim combination of moonlight and eerie green glow as they edged closer to the dock, a tall officer and two infantrymen armed with muskets rose to attention beside a mass of trade goods—bales of woolen blankets bundled in twine, and long rolls of canvas yardage—stacked in a man-high pile about fifty paces away, just where the dock met land.

  “What a fine covey we have here, mates.” Tully whistled low. “Three red birds ripe for plucking.” Bringing in his oar, he half cocked the two pistols he’d brought and stuffed them into the leather belt at his waist, then retrieved his blunderbuss from under the seat.

  Jack’s fingers tightened to his pistol. Leaning forward, he whispered, “Stand ready to cut loose and row like the devil if aught looks amiss.”

  “Aye that, Jack,” Titus answered. Adjusting the brace of pistols he carried in his belt, he drew a wicked-looking dagger from his boot.

  Jack eased the boat in to thump up against the end of the dock. Titus put his knife between his teeth and leapt out to secure a line to the piling.

  “Stay in the boat,” Jack muttered to Tully, “and keep that good eye on us.”

  Tully slapped a hand to the stock of his blunderbuss. “Don’t worry, Jack. If needs be, I’ll kick up a breeze with my friend here.”

  As any slave would, Titus followed a half step behind Jack, marching the length of the dock in a quickstep. They were met midway by the curt-bowing quartermaster.

  Jack returned the bow, and gestured to the pile of goods. “I take it, sir, you and I have business to transact?”

  “Correct, sir.” A tall, well-built fellow, the quartermaster was relaxed and did not exhibit the least nervousness. In contrast, the two ramrod-stiff grenadiers flanking him gripped their polished muskets with purpose, made even more malevolent by the odd green light.

  The quartermaster ordered his men to stand down and step back. “A necessary precaution against rebel bandits,” he explained, and then, very businesslike, launched into rattling off the details pertaining to the quantity and type of blankets and canvas yardage he had brought to trade. Jack agreed to the prices quoted, which did not vary from those Patsy had purported.

  “Have you the currency?” the quartermaster asked.

  Wishing he could just hand over the notes and be done with it, Jack knew no self-respecting merchant would ever remit payment without assessing the goods firsthand. “That will depend on the quality of the merchandise. May I?” he gestured to the pile at the end of the dock.

  “Of course,” the quartermaster answered, with a sweep of his arm.

  After making a show of unfurling a few of the blankets, and fingering several bolts of canvas between thumb and forefinger, Jack proclaimed, “We can come to terms on this lot . . .” He reached into his pocket and handed over the banded stack of counterfeit notes. “Fifteen hundred, as agreed.”

  The quartermaster took payment, and instantly began counting the money, accepting the banknotes as genuine without question. Relieved the transaction was going as smooth as Mulligan had predicted, and anxious to be back on the river, Jack sent Titus running to bring the boat in closer for quick loading.

  As Jack watched Titus head down the dock, the unmistakable jab of a gun barrel pressed between his shoulder blades was followed by the ominous clack of the hammer cocking back. Jack groaned. “Now, sir . . .”

  “Up with your hands—”

  Jack raised his hands, and fought to keep his voice reasonable. “If there is some misunderstanding concerning the amount, we ought . . .”

  “Not another word.” The quartermaster dug the muzzle of his pistol into Jack’s back as he reached around to disarm him. “Take the negro down,” he ordered, and a grenadier appeared at Jack ’s left, leveling his musket.

  “Titus!” Jack shouted and threw himself into the grenadier just as the trigger was pulled. Titus went flying into the pettiauger. The quartermaster pistol-whipped Jack across the back of the head, dropping him to his knees.

  A half-dozen more soldiers came running out from behind the pile of trade goods, bootsteps rumbling the dock. Tully popped up with a flash and sent the Redcoats down to their bellies with a blast of buckshot spraying from his blunderbuss.

  “Row, Titus, row!” Tully’s gravelly voice sounded, and pistol shots flashed, zinging toward any Redcoat foolish enough to raise his head. Furious oars slapped the water, fading as the craft moved beyond pistol range. The soldiers sprang to their feet, and let off a volley.

  “Fall back,” the quartermaster shouted, jerking Jack up to his feet. “No use wasting lead on those flunkies. We’ve captured the quarry we were after. Shackle the bastard—and search him well. He’ll stand before the provost in the morning.”

  SALLY rushed out the kitchen door with a full pot of coffee, darting over to the right to avoid colliding with Anne, who went spinning through the doorway, the empty tray she held swept up over her head like a gypsy’s tambourine.

  The Crown and Quill was a-bustle, as usual, on a Saturday morning, and Anne was glad for the distraction. The demands of the shop helped her to keep from worrying over whether or not Jack and the others had been successful in their midnight black market dealings.

  “Dinna fash,” Sally advised, as they dealt with the morning rush. “The Stitch would have sent word by now if aught went awry.”

  “You’re right.” Anne nodded. “But you’d think he’d send word that all went well.”

  “Men.” Sally shrugged. “Na?”

  Sally went on to serve her coffee, and Anne replenished her tray with the last of the scones and muffins. She headed back into the fray to catch up with Sally. Scanning the room, she found her at the table closest to the front door, pouring a cup of coffee for Tully.

  News. Anne heaved a sigh of relief. Raising the laden tray on fingertips above her shoulder, she negotiated the tight path between the occupied chairs and benches.

  Before she could reach the front of the shop, Tully tossed back his coffee like a shot of rotgut rum and rushed out the door. Sally left her pot on the table, snatched up her skirts and flew through the shop, blinking back tears.

  Wemyss rose from his seat at a table nearby, tracking Sally’s path to the kitchen. “Your squinty-eyed journeyman seems to have upset our Miss Sally . . .”

  Anne fought the desire to run screaming after her friend. She lowered the
tray into Wemyss’s hands. “Could you mind the shop, Lieutenant, so that I may see to her?”

  “M-mind the—of course!” Wemyss sputtered.

  Anne stepped into the kitchenhouse. Sally huddled on the hearth, her face buried in her apron. Shutting and bolting the door, Anne asked, “What’s happened?”

  Sally looked up with fearful eyes. “The Stitch wants to see you right away.”

  “Why?” Anne grasped Sal by the upper arm. “What’s happened?”

  Sal shrugged. “Nae details. Tully said naught but it’s bad.”

  “How bad? What’s bad?”

  “I dinna ken, Annie. He said, ‘It’s bad,’ and ran out.”

  Anne hopped to her feet, tearing at her apron strings. “I’m to the Thimble and Shears, and I need you to pull yourself together and see to the shop.” She fumbled, trying to tie her bonnet ribbon beneath her chin. “Wemyss is out there wondering what’s amiss. Make up some excuse to explain your erratic behavior and . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists tight, fighting the wave of panic threatening to overcome her reason. She could remember feeling the same breathtaking despair the night the physician had advised her to bid farewell to her little Jemmy. Taking in a long, deep breath through her nose, she released it in a slow whoosh.

  Sally stood, knuckling the tears from her eyes. “What should I say if the captain asks after ye?”

  Anne’s eyes snapped open. “Who? Oh . . . I don’t care . . . tell him . . . tell him I’ve gone to market or some such.”

  KEEPING her expression impassive, and her gait measured and steady, Anne strolled along Queen Street, her mind roiling with a hurricane of possibilities the very best of which were not much better than the very worst.

  The doorbell tinkled bright when she entered the tailor’s shop. “I’ve an appointment with Mr. Mulligan.” One of the stitchers sitting on the worktable led her back through a long hallway, and directed her to a closed door.