For lack of sustenance, the Continentals had razed the countryside on their southward march, concocting eldritch stews made of green corn, green peaches, and whatever else they could get their hands on, and thickening the entire mess with hair powder. Gates's army was a dysenteric, noisome, starving mob overendowed with militia as green as the produce they consumed. And according to reports, Gates was strutting about as if he had plumage worth displaying, forming his own strategies and not listening to his officers.
Granted bluster from rum and ale, British soldiers at the Leaping Stag that night boasted about plowing through the enfeebled Continental horde. But Betsy, in the doorway with Tom, saw it from another angle. Never mind conquest. The fevered, starving Continentals parked thirteen miles north of them could do plenty of damage in Camden just trying to lay their hands on decent food. Ever mindful of Hattie, she murmured in Tom's ear, "Can you not get Mr. Wade to give you last week's pay on the morrow instead of Tuesday so we can leave a day earlier?"
He shook his head. "Believe me, I've tried. He wants those dozen boot orders finished by Tuesday at five."
"How important are boots when armies are about to fight?"
"He's sticking it to all of us, not just me. If anyone leaves on the morrow, he loses all of last week's pay."
With a sniff, Betsy crossed her arms. "After I pick up the packhorse Tuesday at noon, I may as well help Harker pull the press." She and Tom could be ready to leave Tuesday evening. Their first choice of route had become doubtful with the Continentals sprawled across it, but much could change between Sunday and Tuesday evening. They'd decide on their exact route when they were ready to set out.
A soldier burst in through the front doors, and above the din, Betsy distinguished his words: "Lord Cornwallis! The Earl Cornwallis!" The noise level plummeted. Everyone in the tavern fixed attention to the young man, who had outrun his breath and was waiting for it to catch up with him. "He rode out of Charles Town with his men four days ago. He's scarcely paused for need to reach us in time. He's here!"
The tavern exploded with "Huzzahs!" and hats and helmets rode the air. When the men settled down and called for bumpers of drink, Betsy heard a hubbub swelling outside, the parade of Cornwallis and his troops snaking through Camden. One private leaped for the door waving his fellows to follow. "He's headed right up Broad Street!" The common room resounded with the soldiers' stampede and the clank of tankards toppled off tables.
Betsy tugged at Tom's sleeve. "Come on." She motioned him across the hallway to the windowed pantry beside Abel's office.
Redcoats, Jägers, provincials, and militiamen packed the roadside, making the view out difficult. The military entourage flowed past on horseback. Lord Cornwallis rode near the front waving and smiling, his back straight and regal after four days in the saddle, his powdered wig impeccable. Not a speck of travel dust sullied the scarlet of his coat or its gold lace and epaulets. Every inch of him spoke assurance to the desperate faces around him that the King was superior and would triumph.
Betsy's smile was wry. "They've really needed Cornwallis."
"He knows it. He rode up Broad Street just for them."
"He should have come sooner. He'd have scared off Gates."
"Gates would have come whether he was here or not. He's spoiling for a fight. I hope the redcoats give it to him."
She eyed Tom with an eyebrow cocked in amusement. "What, now, have you turned loyal without my knowing it?"
"Hah. I'm all too weary of this war. Perhaps a few more British victories like Savannah and Charles Town will make the rebels willing to talk more and squabble less."
***
She dreamed of a battlefield on a crisp autumn afternoon, with men in red and tartan and buckskin lined up on one side, and opposing them by a thousand yards, men in blue and buckskin standing in formation. Banners snapped in the breeze, and a drum beat: whump, whump, whump. Whump, whump, whump. No one moved. What were they all waiting for? Whump, whump, whump.
She dragged herself from sleep to find Tom crouched at her bedside, listening. Whump, whump, whump. With a gasp, she sat up, her heart drilling through her ribcage, and whispered, "What's that sound?"
"I don't know," he said, low, "but it's coming from across the hallway." Her gaze followed his outstretched arm. Abel's suite. Whump, whump, whump. "I'd better investigate. Stay here."
"Oh, sure, I'll stay here. Do you think I've lost my wits? I'm coming with you."
He sighed and fumbled for his breeches. Whump, whump, whump. "I should have known better than to try to reason with you. Better bring your musket."
Feet bare, throat dry, palms sweaty around the loaded musket, she listened with Tom at the shut door to Abel's suite. Whump, whump, whump. With more courage than she could have summoned, Tom shoved the door open and pulled back outside next to her, his loaded musket ready.
Emma's muffled sobs greeted them, along with more whump, whump, whump. Tom hazarded a look into the room and straightened in astonishment. "Betsy, come here."
At the sound of his voice, the sobs became squealed entreaties spiked with hysteria. Her musket lowered, Betsy followed Tom inside the candlelit bedroom, where she stared, dumbfounded. Blindfolded and gagged, Emma, in a silky shift, sat bound in a plush chair. She'd managed to free her right foot, with which she'd been stomping the floorboards in attempt to draw attention.
Abel was nowhere to be found. Pillows fluffed into human form beneath the bedcovers attested to his absence from bed when his wife was restrained. And a good thing that was, too, for from the quantity of escaped feathers and shredded covers, the blade of a sharp knife or tomahawk had imbedded itself several times in the pillows where his body should have lain.
Betsy eyed Tom, and the sight of him gripping his musket made her tense her fingers about her own musket. "Fairfax," he mouthed.
Her gaze darted to the darkness of the doorway, then back to Emma in sympathy and alarm. How long ago had this happened? Was Fairfax still prowling the house? Why hadn't he killed Emma and come looking for her after uncovering the Branwells' ruse?
Emma stomped again in misery and indignation. Tom gestured in her direction. "Untie her. I shall guard the door."
Betsy tinkered with the knot from behind. The blindfold, one of Emma's lacy tuckers, came off. Emma blinked at Tom, stared at the bed, then moaned. Betsy stripped off the lacy handkerchief that had been used to gag her cousin. Emma worked her mouth. "Abel! Oh, Abel!"
Her concern over her husband seemed shammed, an act in helping Abel maintain a façade of convalescence. But it didn't matter what Betsy and Tom believed. Emma's true trial would come when she fell under scrutiny of the investigators over the incident.
Betsy continued working on the ropes. "Don't worry, he wasn't in bed when the attack was made."
"Oh, but he was, I assure you, and he was fast asleep, and I just dozed a minute in this chair reading a book when I found myself blindfolded, and my hands being bound behind me, and then my legs. Oh, such horrors! I heard him strike the bed over and over, and I feared for Abel's life and my own. And oh, my poor, shocked heart, after he left the room, there wasn't a sound from the bed."
"Dawn isn't far off." Tom kept an eye on the doorway. "When did this happen?"
"I-I don't know." Emma rubbed her chafed wrists. "But I've sat here for at least half an hour struggling with my bonds and stomping the floor."
Betsy released Emma's left foot. Her cousin sprang up from the chair shivering, clasped her arms across her breasts, and reached for a shawl draped across the foot of the bed. Betsy pushed up from her kneeling position with Emma's book and glanced at the title. Fanny Hill. It figured. She dropped it in the chair. "Were you hurt by the intruder?"
Emma considered it a second before shrewdness filled her expression. "Why, yes, I was ravished!"
Incredulity permeated Tom's expression and voice. "While you were bound sitting in the chair? I should like to see such a feat demonstrated, madam. You don't look at all disheveled."
Emma glared at him. "He put his hands all over me after he'd bound me, touching me places I should never wish to be touched by a stranger. And he spent a goodly amount of time doing it."
"He? So it was a man. You were blindfolded. He spoke?"
"No. But I assumed it was a man."
"This presumed man had his way with you first, leisurely, before going to the bed and cutting it to pieces?"
Betsy caught Tom's eye and shook her head. Like Tom, she knew Emma lied about the intruder ravishing her. Her cousin's story had plenty of holes in it, but it wasn't their job to expose them. "Tom, let's escort her downstairs and awaken Hattie and Sally. We must send for investigators."
The investigators didn't finish questioning the household until after six-thirty. Betsy and Tom took breakfast in the garden where they couldn't be overheard. "Too bad we won't be here in a few days when Emma breaks again." Tom gulped coffee. "It would be amusing to hear the real story."
"You don't think Fairfax was here, then?"
"No. I think the Branwells staged the incident. It was time for Abel to lay low. He cut up the bed and tied and blindfolded Emma, ensuring that she'd be unable to identify her 'intruder' and be absolved of complicity."
"The investigators won't believe her story."
"Of course not. Abel was supposedly mad and infirm, requiring a nursemaid. So did this mystery attacker carry him out? Or did Abel walk out himself with the attacker? Very suspicious, you see. At the least, Abel will now be seen to collude with his attacker."
"I doubt he's been in that room for at least a day."
"I agree with you."
"So if he made good his escape yesterday, it still could have been Fairfax in there chopping up the bed."
Tom leaned forward with his napkin to brush a crumb from her chin. "Yes, it might have been, but don't you think realizing Abel had outwitted him would have enraged him, and he'd have said something? Cursed perhaps? And trotted across the hall to vent his rage on Betsy Sheridan?"
She shuddered. "That's gruesome."
"I'm sorry." Tom touched her cheek with his fingers. "He must know where to find you by now. I don't see why he wouldn't have taken advantage of the proximity, made it worth his time."
She stared at a redheaded woodpecker on an oak limb. "What if he just wasn't ready to work me into his schedule yet?"
"Betsy, stop worrying. We'll be gone on the morrow."
"Emma lied about being fondled. And given the circumstances, I don't think Fairfax would have fondled her."
"Oh, right." Tom snickered. "He's a scoundrel. We already know he enjoyed Margaret. What red-blooded scoundrel who'd bound, blindfolded, and gagged Emma would resist fondling her a bit?"
"No. He wouldn't have wasted time with her. If given the choice, he'd rather kill than fondle."
Tom frowned and scratched the back of his neck. "You sound convinced of that. Why do I get the feeling there's something else you aren't telling me?"
She met his gaze. "I snooped on the delivery of my message to him. He'd already gotten started with Margaret, yet he stopped everything when he read the message and went running off after the lead of van Duser, leaving Margaret behind."
Tom rubbed his jaw. "Are you serious? Margaret, eh? He's even more twisted than I imagined."
"Can you understand now why I doubt he fondled Emma? After he discovered the Branwells' ruse, he realized where he might find Abel hiding and rushed off to verify his hunch. It promised him more stimulating entertainment than Emma."
Tom let out a deep breath. "I see your point. All right, have Harker walk you home tonight and the next night. We'll barricade the door to the room tonight with all our supplies and sleep with our muskets loaded. And I promise, whether Wade and Gamble pay me or not, we'll leave on the morrow, at night. Feel better?"
Should you need help, send for me through Mr. Bledsoe. If she abandoned Tom, Fairfax would torture him to death.
"The precautions sound appropriate." But she didn't feel better because she suspected it was all futile. Assassins' training hadn't helped two Spaniards from Casa de la Sangre Legítima, and two experienced bodyguards hadn't helped Jan van Duser. If Fairfax wanted her, he'd figure out a way to get her.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
BY MONDAY EVENING, investigators had poked so many holes in Emma's story that she'd become a nervous mess. The Dutchman's partner der Waal volunteered information that the Branwell-van Duser relationship hadn't been healthy. Suspicion of complicity in van Duser's disappearance shifted to Abel, whom no one had seen for almost a week. Abel Branwell, wanted for questioning in the presumed murder of Jan van Duser. How ironic.
General Edward Stevens from Virginia arrived with his militia to reinforce Gates. Even though almost two-thirds of the Continentals' ranks consisted of militia, the Virginians bolstered the count by which the redcoats were outnumbered.
News of Stevens's arrival propelled soldiers in the Leaping Stag into a stomping, singing frenzy over the "rebel scum and whoresons" who dared camp within a day's march of them. Accustomed to the occupational activities of British soldiers in Augusta, Betsy found herself both appalled and fascinated by the bloodlust, sentiment she knew was echoed thirteen miles north around Continental campfires. They were all feral: rebel and redcoat. When battle descended, victory would go to those with the most cunning manipulation of feral rage. The men drawn to war as sport, predators that prowled the perimeter of humanity, would glut themselves, their atrocities ignored or condoned.
The tavern roared past three Tuesday morning, offering Betsy and Tom little rest. For all the intensity sweeping the first floor, no one attempted to break down their door in the middle of the night and hack them to pieces. Still, Betsy was never so glad to hear the cock's crow at the retreat of night, knowing it was the last night she'd spend in a tavern fashioned straight from hell.
Downstairs in the dining room, Hattie handed her a letter. "Just arrived, special courier."
After waiting for her to walk away, Betsy scanned the handwriting on the address and winced. Tom whispered, "Clark?" Intuiting the content, she broke the seal.
Darling, I should never have doubted your Fidelity. Please do not venture forth from Camden before speaking with me. I haven't much Time but can meet you inside the Tavern's Stables at 4:45 this Afternoon. Come, I beg of you.
Her stomach churning, she turned the letter to Tom and watched his expression pinch as he read it. "Gone a bit flowery in the eleventh hour, eh?" He clasped her hand and kept his voice to a whisper. "The meeting is fifteen minutes before I get off work."
"I don't want you there. I must go alone so he understands that my decision to leave him isn't influenced by you."
"And what if he wants to be part of the child's upbringing?"
"Then we shall make arrangements. Periodic meetings at the home of a neutral party, perhaps."
"I've the feeling he won't let you go easily."
"He's bound to that militia unit he's been fighting with. They'd hunt him down as a deserter if he tried to follow me."
Tom twined his fingers with hers. "I'm glad he's arranged this meeting. If you'd left Camden without ever seeing him again, you'd always have wondered."
Tears smarted her eyes at his discernment. "You are my good and true friend, Tom. I must have done something right to be gifted with your friendship this day."
"And only a good and true friend would bruise his arse night after night by sleeping on the floor." He lifted the back of her hand to his lips. "Expect me a little after five o'clock. We'll load up the horses and head west by six. The Continental Army would capture us and steal our food and supplies if we take the road to North Carolina tonight."
So they were headed west, past Fort Cary and across the Wateree River. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea to make it appear that they were returning to Augusta.
After all the revelry in the common room the night before, Betsy was surprised to find the guestrooms needed little work. But the ladies were most occu
pied when soldiers were bored or celebrating. Monday night, masculine camaraderie and convivial spirits were their greatest needs. So while the ladies' duties had been light, the rum and ale was running short, and Henry and Philip swept up a good deal of broken crockery.
Mid-morning, word galloped like a dispatch rider through town that rebel Thomas Sumter had surprised the garrison at Fort Cary, killing seven and capturing thirty. They'd also confiscated more than two-dozen supply wagons. Rumor spread among the shocked citizens that the redcoats couldn't protect Camden's residents.
Upon hearing the news, Betsy sat down hard, stunned to realize that all direct routes to her mother were now in the hands of the rebels, the ferry blockaded. If she and Tom wanted to leave Camden that night, they'd have to head east or southeast, toward Charles Town, away from the help of kin. She wrestled with despair. Gods, she didn't want to spend another night at the Leaping Stag, and she yearned to be away from the aggression. If only they'd left town two days earlier.
Having completed her duties early, she saddled Lady May and rode out to Josiah Carter's plantation to pick up the packhorse and pay the balance due. The roads were thronged with wagons, refugees, and soldiers. In the midst of the horde, Betsy tasted rising panic. The monstrous storm that had born down on them for weeks was going to burst loose in the next day. In their desire to be prudent, she and Tom had waited too late to leave Camden. It now looked as though they'd have to weather it out with residents, depend on the redcoats for protection.
After stabling the sturdy old gelding with Lady May and Tom's horse, she walked to Wade and Gamble's. Tom guided her outside on the porch and lowered his voice. "Fort Cary, Jesus. We dare not ride west tonight."
The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution Page 27
