Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (30 page)

His lips
caressed the curve of her chin just below her lower lip.
 
"Mmm.
 
Tell me the location of that meeting place, and I'll let you go."

Not from the
way the fire in his groin was talking.
 
She jerked her head aside again, neck muscles tormented and at the limit
of their endurance.
 
"New Orleans.
 
They're supposed to meet in New Orleans if
they cannot meet in St. Augustine."

He altered his
restraint to seize her head and hold it immobile, his mouth poised above
hers.
 
"I'm now thoroughly
intrigued with you.
 
Do you realize no
woman has ever pretended she didn't want me to kiss her?"

"I'm
not
preten —"

It couldn't
have lasted very long, not when she kept her jaw gripped shut and her lips
closed, and yet it seemed interminable.
 
He confined the kiss to a series of strokes and nibbles, while she
exerted by far the greater effort because she remained rigid and unyielding the
entire time.
 
Let him kiss stone for
more response.
 
Yet her body hadn't
exactly turned to stone in the eight years since Richard's death, damn it.
 
At times it quivered with hunger — not
hunger for Fairfax, but he knew widows were bound to be hungry.
 
Outrage surged through her.
 
How dared he invite himself into her
hunger?
 
He dared because he knew just
how much it disgusted her.

He returned his
lips to her jaw line.
 
"If we
continue at this, by the morrow I guarantee you'll no longer be considering it
torture."

"You're a
vile creature."

"And
you're still lying, my enchanting Sophie Barton.
 
We know there will be no meeting of Spaniards and rebels in New
Orleans.
 
Had you mentioned a location
such as — mmm, you've a delightful, throbbing pulse right here on your throat,
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, mmm — a location such as
Havana
, well, perhaps
I'd have believed you."
 
He pulled
back, gloating.
 
"Let's talk about
Havana, shall we?"

If he'd already
possessed military intelligence about Havana, why should he toy with her in
such a way?
 
"I don't know anything
about Havana.
 
Take your hands off
me!"
 
Hearing her voice betray a
flush of tears just beneath her facade, she felt mortified.

"Another
lie.
 
How you flatter me.
 
You
are
enjoying it."

A shadow
crossed the barn door, someone passing outside.
 
Envisioning an enraged El Serpiente slicing not one, but two
throats from ear to ear in that barn behind the tavern, she thrashed in
Fairfax's arms.
 
"Get off me!
 
You disgust me, Lieutenant!"

"No, I
fascinate you.
 
I'm in all your darkest
fancies."

Her tears
spilled through.
 
"Let me go,
please!"

"
Please
?
 
How I love the sound of that word —
seductive, submissive."
 
In
shifting his restraint, he ceased to pin her groin with his.
 
If she could gain a few more inches
maneuverability — she relaxed to signal acquiescence.
 
"Ah, it
is
Havana, then, and after your contact on
Saturday with Don Esteban Hernandez, I wager he told you the names of some of
their agents before he died."
 
Esteban Hernandez?
 
Was that
Stephen Hawthorne's real name?
 
"So
let's start with St. Augustine, darling."
 
He relaxed a little, granting Sophie the space she needed.
 
"Who are the agents in St.
Augustine?"

She heaved her
knee up into his groin.
 
When he doubled
over and exhaled in shock and pain, she thrashed loose.
 
With a growl he lunged for her.
 
She sprinted for the door, hearing his chase
— staggering, raspy-breathed — then a crack of splintering wood as she cleared
the trough.
 
A glance behind brought her
to an abrupt halt.
 
The lieutenant had
collapsed to the ground just outside the barn.

"Miz
Sophie!"
 
Lila stepped toward her
over Fairfax, who was out cold wandering his twisted mind, and past the remains
of the bucket that had ushered him there.
 
The revulsion in Sophie's stomach exploded into a thousand jarring
shards, and she squeaked out Lila's name before falling into the younger
woman's embrace.

Lila's tone
sounded incensed, protective.
 
"There, there.
 
I heard you
call.
 
I didn't know where you was at first.
 
Maybe I should have killed him.
 
He be just like the young massuh.
 
What some men think they got a right to be
doing with women..."
 
She trailed
off in disgust.

"I — we
have to get out of here."
 
And oh,
how she wanted soap and water to scrub her face, throat, and neck.

"Yessum.
 
That one be madder than a hornet when he
wakes up."

"El
Serpiente!"
 
Sophie spun about and
stared at the watering trough.
 
Clouds
from the west had engulfed the setting sun, but she still had enough daylight
to discern that the assassin had disappeared.
 
She whirled on Lila.
 
"Did
you see him leave?
 
What direction did
he take?"

Lila shook her
head.
 
"While I watch from those
trees over yonder, a Spaniard come along, find him, pick him up, and carry him
off."

"A
Spaniard?"
 
Another Spaniard!
 
The fifth assassin?

"Yessum."

David's piquet
game was over, as was Jacques's fun with the doxies and Mathias's tour of the
smithy.
 
They must now fly with the
greatest speed to St. Augustine in hopes that ten British soldiers who knew about
Havana and two Spanish assassins wouldn't reach the city ahead of them and find
André Dusseau.
 
"Tell Cow Ford
adieu, Lila.
 
We're leaving."

Chapter Twenty-Three

BY TWO-THIRTY
THE following afternoon, surrounding plantations, cattle ranches, and fruit groves
and an increase in traffic alerted them that they'd entered the vicinity of St.
Augustine.
 
They halted.
 
Sophie, Ulysses, and Lila dismounted, and
Sophie retrieved the reins of their horses.
 
"If Fort Mose is still standing, it shouldn't be too far away.
 
Good luck to you."

"Thank
you, Miz Sophie."
 
Ulysses bobbed
his head.
 
"And good luck to you
folks, wherever you going."
 
In
seconds, the family disappeared behind clumps of palmettos and moss
curtains.
 
A collective sigh of relief
spread over the party.
 
Abetting the
escape of slaves was punishable by law.
 
No one regretted being divested of the liability.

An hour south,
the foliage to either side of the highway cleared, and the party paused to
absorb the view.
 
Squarish Fort St.
Mark, formerly El Castillo de San Marcos, anchored the northeast corner of St.
Augustine, its impenetrable coquina walls creamy as the inside of a bivalve,
crenellations etched against the cumulus-and-cerulean sky.
 
White, sandy beaches and the Matanzas River
stretched east of the fort.
 
Beyond
that, a watchtower protruded from the low foliage on the north end of Anastasia
Island, a sentry post with an eye on the Atlantic.
 
Rowboats and fishing sloops lazed along the Matanzas.
 
Beyond sandbars, three vessels lay at
anchor: a warship flying the colors of Britain as her ensign, and two merchant
brigs.

The King's
Highway terminated at gates on the northern wall of the city.
 
Two guards conferred a warm welcome, then
Sophie and her party bypassed the public slaughtering pen near the gates.
 
They hadn't traveled far down St. George
Street before an exotic thrill teased Sophie's spine.
 
In place of familiar wood buildings of Georgia and Cow Ford was a
fusion of whitewashed tabby-shell masonry walls, cypress planks, and thatched
roofs of palm fronds — not dwellings of British design.
 
Vine-covered arches beckoned to shadowy
loggias, and she imagined ghosts: a black-veiled
señorita
, a tonsured
friar, even Pedro Menéndez de Avilés himself, the city's founder.
 
Whitewash slapped on walls almost obscured a
non-British coat of arms here, or non-English words there, reinforcing Sophie's
impression that the presence of King George the Third was but a hasty glaze
over the terracotta of a culture that had persevered through two centuries of hurricane,
fire, and massacre.

She shook off
her amazement and trotted Samson up to pace her brother's horse.
 
"David, let's find the Dragon and
Phoenix Inn, as Hernandez recommended."

"What does
it look like I'm trying to do?"

"It looks
like you're trying to tour the city.
 
I
think the inn is on a parallel street.
 
Ask for directions."

He
grumbled.
 
"Why do women always ask
for directions?"

"Because
men are forever getting themselves lost."

"Well,
what did you expect me to do back there, ask one of the gate guards for
directions,
Madame
Secret-Keeper?"

Lack of sleep
had made him just as irritable as she was.
 
Each of them needed a good night's sleep, maybe several good nights'
sleep.
 
But David and the others knew
she'd cheated them of details in her fantastic tale of watching Fairfax and El
Serpiente duel, then extracting Hawthorne's real name out of Fairfax without
receiving injury.

Lila had been
of no help to them in poking holes in the story.
 
The Negro woman had stuck to a minimal-detail account of sneaking
up behind Fairfax after he'd cornered Sophie and braining him with a
bucket.
 
Sophie decided it was simpler
if David and Mathias didn't know the rest.

She dismounted
and walked her horse over to ask directions from a baker.
 
"Left at the next street, eight shops
down on the right," she told David a moment later with a cheery smile.

She spotted the
signboard for the inn as soon as they turned the corner.
 
After dismounting and retrieving their
saddlebags, they headed into the dim, muggy common room of the Dragon and
Phoenix.
 
Most tables were vacant.
 
Three civilians sat engrossed over cards at
one table, and two others conversed at another table.
 
A sixth civilian, dark-haired, sat alone in semi-shadow, a
tankard before him.
 
Not a soldier in
sight.
 
Splendid.

The proprietor
emerged from a back room wiping his hands on an apron.
 
Jacques returned his greeting.
 
"
Monsieur
, we are looking for a
young Frenchman who may have spent last night here.
 
Perhaps he also had another man for a traveling companion."

Sophie studied
the dark-haired man leaning forward on his elbow, listening.
 
He looked Spanish.
 
The proprietor nodded at Jacques.
 
"There was a young Frenchman here last night, and he had an
older fellow with him."

André Dusseau
and the third member of Hernandez's team!
 
Jacques inched forward.
 
"Are either still here?"

The innkeeper's
face grew guarded.
 
"Who wants to
know?"

"I am the
lad's uncle and guardian.
 
The older man
has tried several times to swindle our plantation near Cow Ford from him."

The proprietor
studied Jacques and nodded again.
 
"Some young fellows just won't settle down.
 
Alas, he's no longer here.
 
Left early this morning."

"Where did
he go?"

"I
couldn't say for sure, but I overheard the two discussing business at the
wharf."

A breeze of sticky
air wafted Sophie, and she swiveled in time to spot the dark-haired man
hurrying from the tavern.
 
Mathias,
who'd also been observing him, moved to the window to watch his departure.
 
"David," she whispered.
 
"David, that man who just left..."

"I saw
him."
 
David also peered out the
window.

Jacques waved
his hands as if bargaining at the market.
 
"Did they plan to sail somewhere?"

"I didn't
hear.
 
I don't ask much if their money
is good.
 
I'm sorry I cannot be of more
help, sir."

"
Merci
.
 
You have been of tremendous help.
 
We had best get down to the harbor and see
whether we can catch him before he sails to Jamaica this time."