“By all means,” Selena agreed. And then, while the seamstress looked on in stupefied and admiring amazement—Callie Fox seemed impressed, for once—Selena took the men upstairs, into the back room, among the hanging garments and bolts. She even lifted aside some of the draped material that hung over the edges of the worktables.
She did not approach the sewing machines. And she did not have to. Her psychology had worked. The two men, hostile at first, then just a little abashed, now felt like guests in her shop, and began to act as such.
“We got t’ thank ye, ma’am, an’ you can be sure we won’t be blastin’ in at ye again.”
“Next time we’ll knock, sure,” his companion hastened to added. “Now, we got to be off and find our man.”
“Who is he? Perhaps we here at the shop might be on the watch for him and his kind.”
“Just some rebel, no more than a lad. We’ll get ’im, don’t ye worry now.”
A lad? The man who’d rushed in and was now sheltered beneath the sewing machine had been bearded.
The soldiers went out, thanking her, apologizing, thanking her again.
The door slammed shut against the wind. Neither Selena nor Callie moved for a minute; neither of them said a word. Then the draped fabric was pushed away from the sewing machine and Selena found herself staring into the bold, measuring eyes of the erstwhile quarry. He could not be seen by Callie Fox, but he removed his beard momentarily for Selena’s edification.
It was Hamilton. “Perhaps your assistant ought to leave now,” he said.
Selena motioned for Callie to get her wraps. “Do as he says.”
“But, Miz Bloodwell,” the seamstress protested, putting on her cloak and trying to catch a glimpse of Hamilton, “I can’t leave ye, and how’re we t’ know yer all right…?”
Selena did not know what to say. “It isn’t what it seems to be,” she started, knowing that sounded not only unconvincing but suspicious as well, when Otto Kollor came driving up in the coach. Sean, having observed the oncoming storm, must have sent him down to take Selena back home.
“See, there’s Otto now. He’ll take care of me. You just let me handle this, all right?”
Callie Fox shrugged and went outside, pausing to talk to Otto, and pointing almost immediately toward the shop. The big Hessian tried to peer in through the frosted window.
“Well, now,” Hamilton said calmly, coming out of his hiding place. “I can’t say that was comfortable, but it certainly proved to be welcome.”
He yanked the false beard off entirely. His face was smooth-shaven, just as young, bold, and handsome as she remembered. His eyes were even bolder than his face. He stepped close to her.
“I believe we might get along well together.” Even his smile was proprietary. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“There isn’t.”
He feigned disappointment in such a way that she was sure it was just another ploy in his approach.
“Perhaps, on the occasion of our next meeting…”
“There won’t be any…”
But, as she spoke, two things occurred. First, she realized that Penrod had asked her to shelter a rebel leader. No, that couldn’t be; Hamilton’s appearance must have been accidental. Second, she caught a glimpse of Otto Kollor through the shop window. He was leaning forward, bent into the wind and snow, talking with Callie Fox. The seamstress was gesticulating excitedly, and now and then Otto turned to the shop, shaking his head.
“I believe you are safe now,” she told Hamilton. “I must take my carriage home.”
“If I were you, I’d watch out for that big-bottomed cow. I don’t believe she’s on our side.”
“Don’t be presumptuous enough to include me on your side. But how do you come to say that about Callie?”
“Because she kicked me five times while I was under the sewing machine,” Hamilton replied. He was serious. “It was only when I put a knife to her underparts that she desisted.”
Selena saw it at once. Callie was telling Kollor. That meant…
“Look, you’ve got to leave. Or stay here, and let me leave. I’ve got nothing to do with this.”
His glance was direct. “Come now. I know your past. I know your bloodlines. And I sense your instincts. You are one of us and have been since you left your mother’s womb. That’s your nature, my lady. The only difference between us is that you were born rich and I was born poor. But that doesn’t matter, because we share the same spirit. And we’ll both turn out rich anyway.”
He had moved very close to her. She met his eyes, all right but her body was doing those disturbingly familiar things again. Outside, Callie Fox disappeared down the snow-drifting street, and Otto Kollor waited.
“I must be going.”
“No, we must wait for Weddington.”
“I can’t I don’t trust…” She inclined her head toward Otto, who was now stomping his feet and beating himself with his hands to exaggerate the chill.
“We can have him eliminated. Don’t you do that to your drivers?”
He smiled. He had actually heard about Beauchamp?
“That was…”
“Do not think of it. Have your husband threaten to dismiss him. Hessians can’t get jobs too easily, and he is lame as well. He will be tractable.”
“You seem quite confident.”
“I am. And in more ways than one. Look, you are one of us, you are like me…” He moved closer.
Too close. But he did not touch her. Intimacy came naturally from him, sweet as an invitation to delight. With his bearing and confidence, he was close to irresistible. Against her will, in spite of the circumstances, she felt herself going…
They were both startled when Weddington entered. Selena gasped, and Hamilton stepped back, raising his fists in defense, then smiled in relief as he recognized his compatriot beneath the snow-covered hood.
“Dick,” Selena cried, turning on him, oblivious of big Otto pressed up against the window, “Dick, you’ve used me badly. You have, and you know it. I keep getting deeper and deeper into something I don’t understand…”
“You don’t understand fighting the British…?” Hamilton started, trying to make a joke. Weddington raised his hand, and Hamilton ceased.
“First you get me involved just a little,” she accused Dick. “Then you say it won’t involve Sean. But it does. Of course it does. I should have been true to my vow and gone to Sean right away…”
The two men exchanged glances.
“…and now Penrod is involved, and you’ve tricked him, too, somehow. The pillar of the business community, and my partner. Do you have no sense of shame? How can you attract followers at all…?”
She stopped when she saw the puzzled, somewhat chagrined expression on Dick’s face.
“What is it? Now what is it?”
“Selena, didn’t you guess? Gilbertus Penrod is the foremost financial contributor to the cause of the Continental Army. We thought you were with us. And I meant what I said. If I had not thought you willing to be with us, to help us hide Alex, I would never in a thousand years have asked you. But what was this about a vow?”
She explained her promise to Sean: no political turmoil, and no giving vent to her anti-British feelings.
Hamilton just shrugged. “It’s up to you. But we must meet again, don’t you think? Dick, I’d best get out of here. Maybe there’ll be some money on my next trip. Is there a back way?”
There was, and, while Otto was out of sight, tromping up and down the street to keep warm, the young rebel made his escape, bearded once again. Selena reached for her own cloak, still angry, somewhat fearful about the broken vow, and puzzled about her reaction to the apparently incorrigible Hamilton.
She started for the door, but Dick restrained her. There was sympathy in his expression.
“Well?” she asked, still governed by the anger. “What else do you want me to do? What other surprise will you have for me, to get me more involved in…treason?”
> The sound of the word on her lips brought on a quiver of nausea, which she suppressed.
“I understand now,” Weddington told her. “I have gone too far this time. I ought to have told Penrod to be perfectly forthright about what was to occur, about who…”
“And you ought not to have gotten me involved in the first place.”
Selena was trembling now. Everything seemed to be coming down upon her: misunderstandings, conspiracies, complications. And, in the back of her mind was the old, sure knowledge: There is retribution when a vow is broken. But she did not want to admit, just then, that she had been enthusiastic when she’d first learned of Dick’s espionage work.
“All right,” Dick concluded. “You’ll be involved no more. Unless you wish to be. But Alex was right. You’re just like him. You’re just like us. Because you have that necessary spark of independence in your soul…”
Memory carried her back then to the captain’s cabin aboard the Highlander, when Royce Campbell held her in his arms and said, “Selena, you’ve got the fire…”
Don’t think of that.
“…it’s a spark that maybe one person in a thousand possesses. The rest of them go their way, doing exactly what they are told to do, never thinking, never judging. Never acting! That’s why we need you. You’re strong. You can act…”
“I really must be going.”
He smiled a bit apologetically. “I understand. You’ve made your promise, and I’ve made mine. But will it be all right if I continue to stop by from time to time?” He raised his hand as if taking an oath. “No politics. I promise.”
Selena had to smile. She agreed. After she locked the shop, they parted.
“What were you and Callie Fox talking about?” she couldn’t resist asking Otto Kollor as he helped her into the coach.
Either Callie Fox had misread the entire situation, or Otto was not as dull as she had thought. “Ach, it var her sprechen, all time talk, talk talk. She did say you had a poor man in there, hiding of the Soldaten. Das var a gut t’ing you var going, Frau Bloodswell.”
“Bloodwell,” Selena corrected.
She saw it in his eyes again, that look of someone who knows important things. His eyes were slyer than she remembered.
“Let’s go home,” she said, and they drove off into the sightless swirl of the storm. The ice and snow slowed them, and it was very dark when Selena saw the lights of their house on Bowling Green. Davina had already been put to bed for the night, but Sean was waiting for her.
“I was worried,” he said. “I thought I might have to saddle up and come searching for you.”
Selena shook off the snow and hung her fur and scarf on a peg near the doorway, and pulled off her boots.
“Why don’t we get another driver?” she said.
“Because he was late in a storm?” Sean asked. She could tell by his tone that he had no intention of doing any such thing. And she also understood that she had best let the matter drop. If she told him that she thought Otto might be spying on them, he would want to know how on earth she had gotten the idea. He would want to know what she had to hide. She could not mention what had occurred today at La Marinda. Nor could she breath a word of Penrod’s request that she hide Hamilton, and certainly she could not say a word about Weddington, Sean’s associate.
“I just don’t like Otto,” she said.
He embraced her, and told her not to worry, and they went in to a fine supper of veal stew and fresh-baked bread and wine. She told him of Samantha Penrod’s visit and of the masked ball to which they’d been invited. Sean was very pleased, at first, but then, gradually, his mood seemed to fail, and he appeared to be trying to pretend a cheerfulness he did not feel. She did not respond to his mood at first, but when his morose aspect lingered on toward bedtime, she asked him what the matter was.
“Is it something to do with my shop? Or don’t you want my gowns worn on the night of the ball?”
He looked at her for a long time, almost sadly, as if wondering whether to speak at all.
“No, it has nothing to do with your shop,” he said. “But mention of the ball brought my mind back to the Christmas Ball at Edinburgh.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, I guess it’s not that, exactly. I was thinking of another man we knew then, and that thought recalled something I heard a few days ago from Lord Ludford. I’ve been trying not to think of it since then.”
He was talking about Royce Campbell, obviously, but…
“I’m sure you know this already,” he said quietly, his eyes not leaving hers. “There is a rebel ship on the sea that bears your name.”
He was genuinely hurt; she did not know what to say.
“But…but I’m married to you,” she stammered.
“My name does not begin with an R,” he told her, holding her gaze.
He had heard, that night they were making love. And ever since that night he had been keeping it to himself, suffering, not saying a word.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hugging herself suddenly, as if warding off a chill. “It happened that once, but it will never happen again.”
He looked at her.
“Not even in my mind,” she promised. “I have been faithful to you, and I always will be. Not because I have to be faithful, but because I want to. Oh, Sean. We’ve been through too much, learned too much about how the world is, to let anything break us apart now…”
The tears in her eyes were born of love and loyalty, and Sean knew it, and took her into his strong embrace.
“You should have said something right away,” she told him between kisses. “You should not have had to suffer alone when there was no cause to suffer at all…”
He kissed her hungrily and pressed her body close to his. Enveloped by an inexorable tide of passion, they sought with their flesh to burn out all doubt, to push aside the burden of the past. He lifted her and carried her up the grand staircase, then down the long hallway into their bedroom. The candles had not been lighted, but the storm had ceased. Moonlight reached them from the icy blackness of infinity. It was a cold light, but the moon gleamed upon their naked undulations until, hot as passion, warm as pleasured flesh, it blossomed like a mighty flower. Became, for one moment, a sun. She held him with her body when the moment came. Dazed circles of light exploded behind her closed eyelids, so many that she could not count. Nor count the minutes in which she held him.
Then it was over. Wordlessly, they slept, Sean deeply, Selena peacefully. Royce had not been with them. She had a dream of him, however, shortly after dropping into sleep. He was somewhere on the high seas, standing on deck, braced against the roll of the mighty deep. A black cloak stirred and rippled about his shoulders as the wind took it, and his eyes were on the western horizon. Heading for America. His presence was so real, so very close, that she almost felt him there with her in the dream, and awoke suddenly with a sob to find him gone.
Awake, she felt a pang of disloyalty and kissed Sean as he slept. Then, still nervous, she pulled on her robe and walked to the window. The moon shone cold again and very bright. Icy and watchful, it hung in the black abyss, at once an observer and an omen.
Like the man Selena saw then, as her glance fell to the frigid and snow-scoured street. He stood very close to the house, his cape so black it actually glistened in the snowshine and the moonlight. She could see him so clearly, so closely, that she put her hand to her mouth, stifling a cry. He stood still as stone, rapt, undeniable, implacable. And he seemed, just as naturally, to sense her presence, as a predator will incline its head to the slightest ripple in the wind, to the slightest turning of a leaf upon a tree. And, like a cobra, his eyes caught her, trapped her there at the window. Selena stood motionless, incapable of movement, as, slowly, slowly, with an extended parody of saturnine grace, the man removed his hat. Lifted his angled hawk’s face to her, and turning, ever so gracefully, revealed the ear that ought to have been gone. The ear she had severed at Foinaven Lodge.
&nbs
p; It might have been made of rubbery gum, or even wood. But it was attached to his head. McGrover was here. He was the man who had been summoned from England to track the wolf of treason to its lair.
Selena shuddered, and closed her eyes. When she looked again, he was gone.
She crept back into the warmth and safety of the bed.
Sean and Selena Bloodwell were wealthy and powerful now, well-known as loyal to the King. Darius McGrover could be no more than a functionary in Lord Ludford’s entourage. Selena would, of course, continue to devote time to her shop as a woman in business. Nor would she spurn—indeed, she would eagerly accept—the Penrod association.
But she knew it was time to be careful. Very careful.
And, falling once again into the embrace of sleep, she realized that, ever since her arrival in America, she had been waiting for this moment. She had been listening in the night for the scurrying, ratlike sounds which meant that luck was running out.
The past is something that can never be denied, or changed, or pushed aside. But it is the business of the living to make the future what they will.
The Masque
“You look absolutely ravishing, my dear,” Samantha Penrod said, “and everyone is delighted with your gowns.”
She herself was dressed in one of Selena’s inspirations, a luxurious creation of silk, satin, and beads, and the two women stood at the entrance to the long, oak-beamed dining room in the Penrods’ mansion. Selena, herself the object of many an admiring gaze, had carefully chosen a garment of royal blue satin, with a deep neckline and velvet trim. She watched happily as women and men alike applauded a high-necked, long-sleeved, stark-white creation with just a touch of ruffles at wrist and neck. It was worn by young Isabel Rinehart, the banker’s daughter.
Surprisingly, Mrs. Penrod sighed. Selena turned to her.
“Just the guests, my dear. What with the war, I had to be especially careful about whom I invited tonight. But I think everything seems under control, don’t you agree?”
Selena agreed. She did not know about Samantha’s parties in years past, but of one thing she was certain: problems of the winter had flown. She had kept away from any further connection with politics; Dick Weddington had likewise been as good as his word, and had not involved her in any way after Hamilton’s appearance at La Marinda. And, at home, she and Sean had been very happy. Royce Campbell had not been mentioned again. Everything seemed under control, indeed.
Flames of Desire Page 50
