Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  The horses drew the cab down on the Bowling Green, and the great houses stood there, watching on the Hudson.

  “I doubt these will compare with Coldstream Castle,” Weddington said. “But I’m sure you’ll adjust.”

  She turned toward him, her entire body jerking as if pulled by a string of surprise.

  “You knew!”

  He nodded, smiling. “Yes. I put it all together in Ludford’s office, when you gave the name MacPherson, and then Coldstream. I remembered what my father had told me about the Rob Roys, and how all that business saddened him. He greatly admired your father, too. And he thinks Lord North’s policies will lose the New World for Britain. Aha, I see it in your face again!”

  “What?”

  “That slight turn of your lips, that almost imperceptible wrinkle at the bridge of your nose whenever something British is mentioned.”

  She touched her face. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Only to a trained observer. But you should beware of revealing such prejudices, especially with a war in progress. This city can be dangerous.”

  “You are right. But what do you mean? Trained observer?”

  “Selena, you’re no fool,” he said, reining the horses at curbside in front of a row of mansions. He was correct in that assumption, too. Hamilton’s sudden appearance, the flurry of information exchanged by the two men, and Dick’s attitude: all led to one conclusion. He was the master spy that Lord Ludford was seeking.

  “We’re one and the same in our partisanship,” he said. “Let us cooperate, not least so that our fathers’ lives are enhanced. This fine new land requires no king.”

  “But…but Sean’s beliefs…” she doubted.

  Dick waved away her objection. “He’s a bright man. He’ll be one of us before he knows it. When I understood who you were, and guessed at your ideals, not to mention your wealth, I felt I could rely on both of you.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Selena said. She knew Sean, and his passions, and his dreams.

  “Well, wait and see. I brought you along when I picked up Alex so you could see that, even though New York is strongly loyal to the King, there are still people like us here, there is still hope. I’d never think to involve you directly unless…unless, of course, you proffered your help.”

  She did not refuse him, but she could not accept his premise that the rebels had any hope whatever. She and Sean had not come to New York for politics. They had come for safety, and money, to use the city as a way station on the journey back to Scotland. That was the agreement, and they were partners.

  “I’ll say nothing of this conversation,” she told him. “But I don’t believe that I’m interested.”

  “As you wish.” He climbed down from the cab and offered his hand. “Besides, we’re here to find you a home and a substitute for Coldstream. At least for a time. The other is my affair. And I assure you that, in business, I’ll make your husband the most loyal, most accomplished partner he might ever have imagined.”

  She believed him. He was a smart man and he knew his way about. There was a certain danger, but…but because the danger seemed removed, and because he shared her antipathy for England, Selena accepted the situation.

  As they walked up to inspect one of the mansions, Selena wondered about the rebels. Did they truly have a chance? Then she had a sudden, piercing thought. She had to know something, and it could wait no longer.

  “Did you ever hear of a man named Royce Campbell?” she asked.

  Intimations

  The house on Bowling Green was splendidly suited to a rising young merchant and his wife and child. They moved into it during mid-November, with the Hudson already gray, and the air so cold one’s breath frosted even at midday. Dark clouds rose in the northeast, and hung so low over the city that Selena could see the river reflected in them. Thin, cheerless flurries came every other day until finally, with December, the skies sent down an avalanche of snow. It hung upon the black cannons of the Battery fort, iced the pitching masts of ships in the harbor. Soldiers paced and stamped, warming themselves at bonfires on the Green. The fires reminded Selena of Jabal-Mahal, and Sherpa warriors, and dying Davi impaled on the stake.

  She was weeping quietly at the large front window. Davina, now just over one and a half and already a sturdy walker, came over to inspect. A cheerful little girl, she seemed to bear no marks of her violent early days. Selena had made a promise to return the child to Scotland one day, to seek her kin, but she and Sean had no intention of giving her up, ever.

  “Ena?” the little girl asked doubtfully, seeing the tears.

  “Yes, dearest?” she responded, bringing the sobs under control.

  “What’s matter? Cry?”

  “I feel…sad,” Selena explained, taking the child into her arms. “I just feel sad sometimes.”

  The child put her tiny arms around Selena’s neck, hugging her.

  “’Ove,” she cooed, “’ove,” and then leaned back, grinning. “See? Better?”

  “Oh, you little darling,” Selena cried, and tried to keep from sobbing again. The little girl’s attitude was right, too, was it not? Selena should be happy. What was there to cry about? Everything was going so well.

  Each day, Sean would leave the house in a horse-drawn coach of his own, and his Negro driver, Beauchamp, would wheel him over to Wall Street and his office. The street was only a disreputable alley, in truth, and one could see at a glance that it had little to contribute to the future of he city, yet many offices were centered there. Bloodwell-Weddington Enterprises was one of them. In his careful, methodical way, taking care not to arouse suspicion, Sean had traveled once to Boston and then to Philadelphia—both of which were larger than New York—in order to convert the maharajah’s jewels. Now, with a capital of something over two hundred fifty thousand pounds, he had opened a small commercial loan establishment. He worked long days, meeting and getting to know merchants of the city. Dick Weddington had introduced him to some of the key men at first—Adolph Rinehart, the banker; William L. Duckworth, the brewer and manufacturer; and Gilbertus Penrod, the leading real-estate trader and speculator—and after that Sean made his own way. Sean had been very pleased with young Lord Weddington’s help but, as ever, he wished the main effort to be his own. Banking and real estate were Sean’s major preoccupations in these early days; he left to Weddington plans for the mercantile operations.

  “You know,” he said to Selena, one night in mid-December, “I can’t help savoring the good fortune that brought Dick to us. He may well be an Englishman, but when it comes to profit and loss, he thinks like a Scot. He’s already sectored the Hudson Valley and Long Island into likely purchase areas, and he’s drawn up sample purchase contracts, one for farmers and food supplies, one for clothing manufacturers. He’s even hired a staff of purchase agents, and a fine, eager lot they are. Benjamin Zeuchner, Jonah Welch, and Nathan Hale are the brightest lads I’ve seen in many a year. They’ll be all over the area very soon, drumming up business…”

  Sean went on speaking. He could see before him, stretching out toward the future, sweet, rolling vistas of power and accomplishment, position, security, and wealth.

  Selena smiled, and tried not to reveal her growing sense of alarm. Those bright young men of Weddington’s would buy supplies, for certain, and Sean would sell them to the British military, but she knew that Zeuchner and Welch and Hale, and probably many more, would also be in search of military intelligence for the rebel army to use. They would know the specifications of a sound uniform or a high grade of beef, but they would also know how to discern and report the movement of British troops, or the political mood of the colonists in the outlying regions.

  Sean had once again demonstrated the scope of his imagination and the power of his will. But, in his self-absorption, he had a blind spot: politics. So determined was he to keep any political connection at arm’s length, he did not read the situation in the colonies as adeptly as he might have. He spoke, for example, of an early
end to the war. Dick Weddington told Selena that such an outcome was impossible. “If we falter now,” he said, “we shall be hanged for traitors. As Jefferson wrote, We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor’ to the cause of freedom. No, Selena, we’re in this to our necks, in more ways than one. We’re prepared to fight until 1780. Perhaps even beyond.”

  1780! Three more years. Three more years of suspicion and struggle and spies in the street. Three more years with Sean indirectly involved in espionage. And if it should be discovered by the authorities? Selena did not want to think about the possibility. Weddington or no, and hatred of the British notwithstanding, she knew that she ought to have said something to warn Sean as soon as she’d found out what was going on. Had she spoken to him early enough, they might readily have evaded any involvement in the colonial struggle. But it was too late now.

  “Don’t worry, Selena,” Dick had assured her. “In your heart, this is what you want. Sean is protected by not knowing. Thus, if discovered, the fault will be mine. And, if he’d let himself consider the matter, he would be on our side as well. We are going to whip the British so dramatically that all history will ring with the shock.”

  “But how do you know? What makes you so sure?”

  “Because we have to win,” was his answer. “None of us will be able to survive hanging.”

  Small comfort in that.

  Two months in America, Selena was thinking, and already I’m involved in just as much trouble as I ever was. She sat there in the fire-warmed parlor, watching Sean pore over plat books and ledgers. She felt empty and sorry and a little afraid.

  “You’ve been a little morose lately, haven’t you?” she heard Sean ask.

  “What? Oh, no. Not at all.” She tried to smile, but the muscles in her face would not obey.

  “No, come on now.” He got up from his chair and came over to her, knelt down beside her. “Tell me about it. I don’t want anything to upset you. We have had enough of such things in the past.”

  She could see the concern in his eyes and she loved him for it, as ever. He protected her, and cared for her, and thrilled her with his lovemaking. And yet…

  He was waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t know how to tell you,” she began slowly, trying to find words that would explain her melancholy feelings without hurting him. “It’s just that…that sometimes I feel hollow inside, as if time were slipping by, and nothing…”

  “But, darling, New York is just temporary. In a few years we’ll be prepared to return to our true home.”

  She touched his lips.

  “Sean, this town may be scarcely civilized, but it is bustling. It is exciting, in its own wild way. You do things every day, and I spend my days here in the house, directing the servants, amusing Davina, and then when she’s at her nap, I sit here by the fire and listen to the wind howling down the river…” She shook her head and touched his face with her fingertips. “I thought we were going to be partners in everything,” she said. “I want to do something, too.”

  He smiled, and the look of concern left his face. So this was the problem! Why, then it was not serious at all! Had he, perhaps, suspected something else?

  “Of course we are partners,” he said. “What is it that you want to do?”

  She began to tell him of something that she had been considering. “Sean, have you seen how the women dress here? It’s frightening. Even the prettiest of the girls walk around in gowns that seem fashioned from flour sacks…”

  “Probably they are. This is a frontier country…”

  “And wouldn’t it be fine if someone were able to design and sell really beautiful gowns right here in New York? There are so many gowns and costumes that can be made. Gowns that don’t have to be shipped over from Europe. And I’ve been thinking that the effect of a sari, properly translated, could make an exquisite garment. I don’t know how to sew, but seamstresses could be hired, and I remember how the seamstresses at Coldstream made their designs and cut patterns…”

  Sean understood. “You aren’t speaking of opening a shop, are you?” he asked.

  Selena nodded. “Yes. Sean, I want to do it. I know I could make a success of it…”

  Sean shook his head. In the old country, daughters of the nobility did not keep shop. And, here in the new land, as Lord Ludford had illustrated so bluntly, women did not participate in public life or affairs of trade. Women could not even vote!

  “But what will people think?” Sean wondered. “After all, we’re just getting established here, and…”

  “I want to be a real partner,” she told him. “Just as we agreed when we were on the Blue Foray. Just because something is not done here does not mean it is against the law, and there is no law against me having a dress shop, is there?”

  He had to agree. There was no law against it.

  “Oh, Sean, do agree to it. Please agree to it. What I have in mind is not the keeping of a fish cart, but something fine that will appeal to women of my station…”

  Sean understood that, as well. When she saw the smile forming on his lips, she knew he had agreed.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll wager you would have found a Way to carry out your plan even without my formal approbation. So this is what I shall do. I’ll rent you the best shop in town and have it all fixed up for you…”

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “No,” she repeated, a bit more gently. “I’d rather…that is, I’m very grateful, but really. I’d like to…”

  Sean looked a little rueful. “You’d like to do it on your own, is that it?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, perhaps that’s best, too. But watch out for landlords in this town. The men in real estate here are especially crafty.”

  “I know,” she said, “I sleep with one.”

  They laughed then, and embraced, and were in accord once more. But Selena was troubled by more than inactivity and Dick Weddington’s espionage operation, even though he’d told her, time and again, “Selena, it will never involve you, and I’ve even set it up so that Sean will be in the clear.” She was also disconcerted by something else that he had told her about.

  Royce Campbell.

  “If you’ll forgive my impertinence,” he had said that day on Bowling Green, “I was wondering when you would ask. Selena is not the most common of names, and I daresay there is but one vessel on the seven seas so christened. Knowing Campbell’s beliefs, I also felt that you would share our feelings toward Britain, which is another reason why I approached you so directly and so soon…”

  Royce Campbell’s beliefs? she had wondered.

  The story, as Dick Weddington told it, left no doubt that Royce had somehow survived the plague. But the man about whom he spoke seemed different from the one she had known. There was, in Dick’s rendition, no evidence of the lighthearted, casually reckless adventurer Selena had loved. Instead, he seemed a man possessed of inner fire, a driven man.

  “He shipped into New York sometime last fall,” Dick related. “He was on some half-arsed excuse for a freighter that had picked him out of the drink somewhere on the Atlantic. First minute in port, and he’s calling for directions to the nearest shipyard. Nothing would do but that he have a ship, his own ship, no questions asked and money no object. He attracted much attention due to such speed, and also because of his appearance. He was gaunt, burned by the sun, and his eyes were afire with a strange, icy light, as if he’d had a glimpse of heaven somewhere on the edge of the earth and needed the ship to sail back there and seize that vision again. Nor did Campbell remain silent about his political loyalties. It seemed he had a score to settle with the British, something they had done to a person who meant a great deal to him…”

  At this point, Dick had cast her a sidelong glance, but she said nothing.

  “…and he vowed that the cannons aboard his new ship would be trained on anything and everything that flew the Union Jack.

  “Such talk was balm to those of us who had alr
eady made up our minds for independence, but the authorities were less enthusiastic. The shipyards in Boston and Providence and New York were closed to him. As harbor master, I did what I could, but I knew no one would build him a warship. Then he went on down to Baltimore. His sea fever must have died down somewhat by that time, because he handled the matter with a touch of discretion…”

  “So the Selena was built in Baltimore?”

  “No. They wouldn’t build it for him there, either. But he hired an entire shipbuilding crew in Baltimore, right on the spot, and then hired a ship to take the entire crew down to the West Indies. Apparently, he had some property there, or knew some people…”

  Selena remembered Veronica Blakemore, who had been from Jamaica. Memory of the cold beauty with the raven-black hair was not pleasant.

  “…and there in the islands the ship was built,” Dick went on. “And Campbell is at sea again, and our hopes for victory sail with him. I tell you this, I’d not like to be a British captain facing down the sixty cannon on that mighty craft.”

  Selena remembered Royce on the bridge of the Highlander, and the savage joy with which he had readied his guns for the Meridian. Involuntarily, she thrilled to the memory. She trembled. And, at the same time, she realized her excitement must be perceptible to Weddington. Abruptly, she had started away from him, walking up to the house that she and Sean were to purchase shortly thereafter. Her heart was in tumult and she tried to think logically. The feeling she had experienced upon seeing the Selena, and again when Dick had spoken of Royce, was a feeling she could no longer indulge. It could only lead to false hopes and a breaking of vows. She had learned. Dreams, no matter how delicious, led to trouble. She was a woman now, not a schoolgirl with a pride of beaux and a room full of ball gowns. She would put away forever thoughts of that which might have been. It was the best advice that anyone could have, and she gave it to herself.

  Selena waited until the Christmas holiday was over before she bundled into furs and scarves and ordered Beauchamp, their Negro driver, to take her into the business district of the city. She had previously studied a list of agents that was published by the town fathers, and she had selected Gilbertus Penrod as the potential agent to help her in securing a location. Penrod was one of Sean’s competitors in real-estate acquisitions, but the man was well regarded. He and his wife, Samantha, were likewise important figures in the social life of the colonial city.