A Widow's Guide to Scandal (The Sons of Neptune Book 1)

by Hallie Alexander

  Marcus paused. He was off course. Another sneeze erupted outside.

  “Before that, she defied you in the most disrespectful way possible.”

  Caldwell shifted. Marcus knew he was on to something.

  “You can’t control her. But you can control the virile Shrupp. And what does Shrupp want more than a wife? Come to think of it, I can think of a few things to my horrification, but that’s beside the point. At the top of his list, he wants land and a title. I’m guessing you offered him both, well, not the house. We both know ’twill burn to the ground by the end of the week.”

  “What?” Henrietta gasped.

  So she hadn’t gotten through all the letters. That surprised him. Growing up, he assumed she was the kind of student who finished her schoolwork before the tutor had assigned it.

  “Enough!” Caldwell whipped out a pistol and shook it at Marcus. “Stop your nonsense at once!”

  An uncharacteristic squeak came out of Henrietta’s mouth.

  Marcus winked at her. “I’ll see your one and raise you two.” He reached for the pistols holstered at his hips, uncommon for a British soldier, not for a member of the Sons of Liberty, and steadily aimed one at Caldwell and the other at the priest. Although, it gave Marcus pains to do so. Shooting, or even aiming at, a priest wouldn’t help his afterlife goals.

  The priest’s face drained of color. “Put away your weapons!”

  “She’s coming with me,” Marcus said evenly.

  Caldwell came around his desk. “No, she’s not. She’s not going anywhere with you. You think you shall walk out of here? I’ll shoot you first, and if I miss, they won’t.” He gestured to the soldiers outside the window, parading across the island.

  The priest rifled through his papers again.

  Marcus cocked the pistol leveled at Caldwell. “They think I’m the hero of Bunker Hill. They’ll probably congratulate me on my score.” He winked at Henrietta, the light from the window behind her setting her seething face aglow like a vengeful goddess carved from stone. “Besides, I never said I was leaving the way I came.”

  A stunned moment filled the room.

  Marcus cleared his throat, breaking the spell. “I am willing to negotiate.”

  “I don’t negotiate with traitors,” Caldwell spat back.

  “I’m the one waving around two loaded pistols. Negotiating may be wise—just a suggestion.”

  Caldwell’s bristly eyebrows rose in response. The priest swallowed audibly.

  “Excellent choice,” Marcus remarked. “Release Henrietta from your service and from your life, and I won’t raise the alarm. Keep her here with you, force her to marry Shrupp, and I shall use everything in my arsenal to destroy the few men you have at hand. I know you know exactly who I am and what I am capable of.”

  The windows didn’t dare squeak. The only sound was the sluggish thud of Marcus’s heart. One miscalculation, and he and Henrietta would be in serious trouble. So far as he knew, the bulk of the British army was still in Halifax after evacuating Boston. All ten thousand of them.

  “What proof can you offer that you’ll honor this agreement?”

  Marcus shifted his weight toward Henrietta. “What proof can you offer me you’ll honor yours?”

  “I am a man of integrity,” Caldwell thundered.

  Marcus scoffed. “Maybe yes, maybe no. But I’m not.” Hooking an arm around Henrietta, Marcus pushed her through the open window.

  Chapter 27

  They were in flight, the ground rushing up at them. Yards of linen and cotton of Henrietta’s under-petticoats flew up around them like the sails of a great ship catching the wind. Marcus’s arms tightened across her ribs seconds before her teeth snapped together. They landed in a pile of sweet, musty hay, the force of impact reverberating up her legs. Together, they tumbled forward and rolled.

  A tickle clawed at the back of her throat. She sneezed, jerking the top of her head against Marcus’s chin. She didn’t have time to add this new ache to the list of complaints from landing three stories down in a pile of hay. Shouts came from above them. A guard leaned out Colonel Caldwell’s window.

  “Stop those two!”

  “Time to go.” Marcus shifted, trying to get to his feet. He couldn’t.

  She sneezed again, this time a series of three. The more they shifted in the hay, the more it rained down on them, and the more Henrietta sneezed. Her eyes watered, her throat scratched, and her nose itched.

  “My buttons are stuck on your fichu.” Marcus scrabbled to separate them, keeping an eye on the soldiers running from the yard.

  She peered back, panic spiraling through her veins. Four soldiers with muskets. “Rip it. I don’t care!”

  He gripped the lace and tore, freeing his buttons. The flimsy fichu slipped from her neck. The soldiers drew closer. They’d fall upon them in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

  A drumbeat joined the alarm, or it could have been Henrietta’s heart hammering in her ears.

  “Get up!” He grabbed her hands, hoisting her to her feet. They’d made it three steps. She faltered. Her mother’s ruby brooch!

  It glinted in the hay on the tattered remains of her fichu, the last connection she had to family. The soldiers hastened.

  Seeing what stopped her, he yanked her arm. “No time.”

  She tugged, twisting free.

  “Not another move!” The nearest soldier stood within shouting range.

  Henrietta lunged for her fichu, plucking it from the hay. Hay flew into the soldier’s face. His eyes snapped shut, and his cheeks pinched. He sneezed explosively. Henrietta stuffed the fichu with her mother’s brooch down the front of her dress and ran.

  Ahead of her, Marcus hobbled toward the long dock where a small boat moored among larger vessels. He reached into his coat, his hand arced with a flash of metal, and the rope tying it to the dock broke free. He fell into the hull, boat rolling side to side.

  “Hen! Now!” Marcus sat up and gathered the oars. The boat steadied. “Apollo!”

  Wind pumped in and out of her chest to the point of tears. Damn her stays! Shouts from the soldiers came from behind. More had added to their number.

  Marcus held out his arms, and she dove, leaping from the dock, landing beside him in an unflattering pool of river water and petticoats on the bottom of the boat.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  Henrietta wiped a hank of wet hair from her face and followed his gaze to a boy with wild blond hair being chased by soldiers across the green. “Do you know him?”

  “Aye. That’s Apollo.” He said it with affection and concern. Henrietta allowed herself a moment of confusion. She’d never heard of him before.

  Marcus dipped an oar in the water, hesitating, tracking both sets of soldiers. The ones gaining on them and the ones after Apollo.

  Henrietta’s hands shook, wanting to do something. The boat was wading, going nowhere.

  A soldier gained on the boy, reaching out a gloved hand. His blond hair whipped around, and he dove, rolling away. The soldier stumbled.

  The planks of the dock thundered with soldiers running across them.

  They were twenty feet away. A fresh wave of panic took hold as the soldiers closed in, raising their muskets.

  “Marcus!” she yelled.

  He shoved the end of an oar into the shallow bottom of the bay where oysters grew in beds, and pushed, creating a current of eddies. The boats at the dock drifted from their moorings, their ropes languishing in the water.

  Marcus whooped. “He cut the lines!”

  She was lightheaded, still catching her breath. “Great. Can we go?”

  “As soon as Apollo jumps aboard, we’re gone.”

  The boy leaped, a blur of speed. His foot found a hollow on the side of the shed next t
o the barn, his hands clambered, pulling him up, and then he was on the roof, shouting.

  Henrietta shielded her eyes with her hand and squinted at Apollo set against the bright blue sky. “What is he saying?”

  Marcus laughed deep in his chest. “You shouldn’t wish for me to repeat it.” His humor disappeared as soldiers sank into formation around the shed, pointing their muskets at the boy. “Shit.”

  Hands gripping the oars, he maneuvered the boat closer to the shed. “Come on, come on,” he muttered like a prayer.

  Apollo leaped, legs cycling through the air, arms pumping, the joy of life writ large across his wide, ebullient face.

  Henrietta breathlessly watched the slow arc of Apollo’s descent.

  Feet first, he hit the bay and dove under. A musket fired on shore. A plume of smoke and confusion. Seconds passed. Air bubbles trickled to the surface, then Apollo’s head popped above the waves, slick hair whipping across his brow. Somehow his grin had grown broader.

  Marcus rowed toward him in a flurry of rhythm. Henrietta anchored her feet under the bench and extended an oar to the boy. He grabbed it and hauled himself over.

  “And away we go,” Marcus sang, turning the boat away from Manhattan. An irrepressible grin spread across his face.

  “Are you hurt?” Henrietta asked Apollo.

  In a stunned state, he lay on the bottom of the boat, giggling. “No, ma’am. Are you?”

  She smiled, taking a moment to assess herself. Mostly fine, nothing hurt. Nothing made sense either. One minute she was cornered in Caldwell’s office, the next, flying through the air, and now rowing toward . . . New Jersey? “Not at all. Call me Henrietta. Marcus, your ankle?”

  He managed to look both ashen and puce at the same time. He unclenched his jaw. “Fine.”

  What Marcus had done for her was beyond foolish and unspeakably brave. She thought she loved him before. That was a fraction of what she felt for him now. “Where are we headed?”

  “Paulus Hook. I’ve a mind to survive this day and take to my bed like a dyspeptic dowager.”

  Apollo settled into a seat beside Marcus, taking up an oar. “Will I be late for supper?”

  Marcus regarded him. His face softened as he answered. “Not for the supper we’ll be having, lad.” They both grinned.

  Happiness swelled in Henrietta’s heart. A spray of water wet her cheeks. Dammit. Not water. She was crying. This time, tears of joy.

  She tried to muffle her sniffles, but from all the sneezing, she couldn’t stop her nose from dripping.

  Marcus handed his oar to Apollo and said to Henrietta, “Come here.”

  For once, Henrietta obeyed. She shouldn’t have trusted him. He slid his hand into the slit of her skirts at her hip. Rough fingertips brushed her skin.

  She jerked. “That’s not my pocket!”

  Marcus chuckled low. “Apparently not.” His blunt fingers stroked her bare thigh. A tug pulled at her hip. “This is.”

  She found her handkerchief. Before dabbing her nose, she unfolded it and flicked him with it.

  “Ow!”

  Apollo giggled. Marcus rubbed his hand, taking back the oar, sufficiently chastised.

  ~ ~ ~

  They spent the evening in Paulus Hook, New Jersey, going ashore in a marsh near the fort being built by the Continental Army. After a hardy supper at the Half Moon Tavern, they snuck back into New York by ferry across the Hudson, delivering a snoring Apollo to his much-relieved mother at dawn.

  Henrietta sighed. “Now what?” She was too tired to take another step.

  “Now, we leave the city for Swiftwater, Augie’s farm ten miles north of Turtle Bay.”

  Ten miles. Would they ever sleep again?

  Henrietta thought of her home, of Willow’s room. There was a good chance she’d never see it again. She closed her eyes and imagined her daughter’s clothespress, the dresses, books, and toys, all in their place. It gave her a sense of peace.

  Then her thoughts turned to her friends, and she blinked. “What are we going to do about Turtle Bay?”

  The tender weight of his hands on her arms comforted her. “Do you trust me, Hen?”

  She looked into his blazing blue eyes. His intense confidence burrowed into her heart to join the things she loved most. With Marcus, she was safe. He could think through a situation and act on it. And he did so with her concerns foremost. “I do.” She laughed, looking around her in bewilderment. “You had this all figured out. Of course, I trust you.”

  She cradled his face, drawing him close, and kissed him. Every emotion she ever felt for Marcus rioted through her in the middle of the city sidewalk. This was the thrill of being alive and the thrall of lust.

  His arms wrapped around her, and she gloried in his strength. Against her better judgment, she fell in love with him all over again.

  Chapter 28

  Marcus woke with Henrietta’s fingers brushing his stubbled jaw. She mumbled something about him being a highwayman, then her breathing settled back into sleep.

  He was awake now. Tall trees rushed past the carriage’s windows. Occasionally, he’d see a stone fence, a house set back, but mostly woods lined the roads to Swiftwater. They might live like lords, but they were privateers and preferred discretion over flaunting their wealth. Especially since most of their money went to funding the education of the city’s underprivileged and overlooked, like Apollo.

  Swiftwater came into view. Behind tall iron gates, she spread out on swaths of lush green fields with a stone wall in front dotted with yellow and red flowers marking a yard before the great house. The house had tall glass windows, at least four chimneys, and gravel paths leading to multiple outbuildings. Artful copses and natural rock outcroppings ornamented the fields.

  It wasn’t his home, but Marcus felt his spirits brighten the closer they drew. The carriage came to a stop. Henrietta woke, blinking her world into focus.

  “We’re here.” He helped her down from the carriage. Together, they climbed the half-dozen steps to the house. Each time he bore weight on his right foot, pain lanced through him. He gritted his teeth. Almost there.

  “You are hurt.” Henrietta joined him at his level. “Lean on me.” She didn’t give him a choice, but grabbed his arm and positioned him.

  “You’re making me feel old and feeble.”

  “That’s not my doing. You are old and feeble because you do things like jump out of windows and climb on other people’s roofs.”

  He huffed his dismay. “I’d climb on my own roof too, if it needed fixing.”

  “It’s a wonder you aren’t half-broken.”

  Henrietta’s skin was luminous and her eyes bright. It was good to have her in his arms. “Hetty Betty, if I didn’t know you as I do, I might think you care.”

  They’d reached the top. She untangled herself from him and planted her hands on her hips. As her mouth opened to comment, so did the front door. A woman filled the wide doorway, wearing a colorfully patterned dress and a matching head wrap.

  Pink burnished her rich, walnut cheeks as she gave his redcoat a fierce glower. She ran her gaze over Henrietta.

  “Good day to you, Miss Louisa.” He bent at the waist, formally bowing.

  “Marcus! Come here and give your auntie a hug.” She held out her arms, and he went willingly, nearly collapsing on her in exhaustion.

  Mouth muffled against her shoulder, he said, “Louisa, may I present to you . . .” He stopped himself. After all she’d been through, Caldwell was the last name he figured she’d want to be called. He released Louisa and straightened the front of his uniform. “This is Henrietta Smith. You may call her Hen. I do.”

  “Cluck, cluck,” Henrietta muttered caustically behind him.

  Louisa clapped her hands and let out a walloping laugh, having hea
rd Henrietta as loud as he had. “Oh, I like you. Come in, both of you. Marcus, change your clothes. Hen, it is exceedingly nice to meet you. Make yourself at home. We don’t stand on ceremony here. Just this buffoon.” She flicked Marcus’s ear.

  “Thank you.” Henrietta followed Louisa into the house, flashing Marcus a smirk as she passed him.

  “Let me show you the lay of the land.” The two women went off chatting as if they were old friends, their voices receding down the hall.

  Once inside, Marcus found the walking stick from last winter when he and Augie tracked deer into the woods, hiking a dozen miles and nearly freezing to death. When they’d finally made it back, sore and drunk, Louisa took one look at them and sent them to the barn for the night. Cows, Marcus learned, emitted quality heat, among other less quality emissions. He took the stick.

  Augie kept a room for him on the second floor. It overlooked the pond used to irrigate the fields. There was a decent bed with a colorful quilt folded at the foot, in similar bright hues to Louisa’s dresses. In the clothespress, he found a worn pair of breeches and a hunting shirt. He tucked away the uniform with the sense it may come in handy again.

  The bed called to him, but he didn’t wish to be alone. He made his way below stairs to the sitting room at the front of the house. Henrietta’s and Louisa’s muted voices carried to him. He lay down on the couch and propped his foot on the arm. He’d never been this tired in his life.

  It was true, he was getting old. Almost thirty and still jumping out of windows.

  Rubbing a sore spot on his chest, he yawned broadly, wondering if Henrietta was as exhausted. Emotionally, she was probably somewhere between exasperation and hero worship. He could work with that. It did wonders for his aching body and tarnished vanity.