Into the Wilderness (103 page)

Gold
went for seventeen dollars an ounce on the open market; Nathaniel stipulated
sixteen and the doors to the city's warehouses opened to him on well—oiled
hinges. If the merchants of Albany had ever heard rumors of Tory Gold, or been
told of the state's keen interest in recovering that treasure, they were struck
with a sudden and thorough epidemic of forgetfulness which would last until
they estimated that Nathaniel had exhausted his resources.

Elizabeth
had
followed the trading quietly, but she had not missed a step of what went on;
Nathaniel was sure of it. She watched with narrowed eyes as he negotiated the
exchange of one bag of gold for a note signed by Leendert Beekman, not the
biggest or most successful merchant in
Albany
,
but one of the few Nathaniel trusted. While his clerks took care of Nathaniel's
requests, from gunpowder, flints, and pig iron to hair ribbons and a bag of
peppermint drops for Hannah, Beekman took Elizabeth's list and waited on her
personally, measuring flour and sprigged lawn, sewing needles and China tea. He
produced a display case of spectacles, spread out spools of thread and brass
buttons for her examination, and debated with her the relative qualities of
various kinds of ink. When she had chosen three dozen new quills, he produced a
sheet of paper and showed
Elizabeth
his latest acquisition: an artificial quill. A mahogany stem was inset with
carved ivory, and tapered down to a nib of copper and silver. A magical
contrivance that would hold more ink than a quill, and never need to be
sharpened.

She
held it as another woman might hold a jewel she believed to be too extravagant
to even contemplate owning. With a small smile,
Elizabeth
returned the pen to Beekman and
thanked him for his trouble.

With
their purchases wrapped for delivery and Beekman's note firmly in hand, they
went to the bank, where a bored clerk with a mulish mouth and tobacco—stained
fingers counted out the money in a combination of Spanish, British, Dutch, and
New—York currencies, muttering exchange rates under his breath and scribbling
out an accounting as he went along. Nathaniel arranged for a good amount of
this money to be paid into the account of a Mr. James Scott. To his surprise,
Elizabeth
excused herself
during the process and went to speak to the bank manager without him. Walking
back to the Schuyler estate with five hundred dollars in notes and silver and
his hand resting lightly on his rifle, he managed to curb his curiosity.

"Why
James Scott?" Elizabeth asked. "Could not Runs-from-Bears use his own
name?"

He
cast a surprised glance in her direction. "Bears never goes into the bank.
They wouldn't let an Indian do business there, Boots."

She
drew up, flushed with surprise and indignation. "But why not, if he has
money to deposit? The funds from the silver—" She glanced around herself
and dropped her voice. "They are kept in that bank? I assume you were
repaying the funds you borrowed from the silver mine in the spring?"

"Yes."

"Then
who is James Scott?"

"I
am. I do the banking for Runs-from-Bears. It's just a name, Boots."

Elizabeth
shook her head, "I fear I will never understand this business."

"You
could understand it well enough, Boots. You might never like it much. You
realize the treasury could show up at our door tomorrow," he warned her
once again. "Sooner or later somebody's going to start talking about this
gold we're spending so freely, and they'll come looking for the five—guinea
pieces."

"I
am not worried," Elizabeth said, straightening her shoulders. "I will
just tell them you married me for my money.

"That'll
do the trick, all right," Nathaniel said sourly.

In
their room,
Elizabeth
put a small purse in Nathaniel's hands, along with a sheet of paper covered
closely with her strong, upright handwriting.

"Four
hundred dollars, as agreed. In notes. I hope that is satisfactory. And a bill
of sale for the schoolhouse, for your signature."

He
knew better than to show surprise. Nathaniel read the offered document
carefully; he read it again in order to gather his thoughts.

"Mr.
Schuyler arranged for the withdrawal. And Mr. Bennett reviewed the bill of sale
and made a suggestion or two. They were both most helpful."

"So
I see. Did you withdraw all of your aunt Merriweather's funds?"

She
raised an eyebrow.

"Never
mind, Boots. Idle curiosity killed the cat, I'm told. Give me something to
write with, and we'll see this done."

"Wait,"
she said suddenly, and she turned on her heel and left the room. Nathaniel was
just thinking of following her when she reappeared ushering before her a
mystified Mrs. Vanderhyden and Mr. MacIntyre, who ran the estate for the
Schuylers while they spent their summer at
Saratoga
.

"We
need witnesses."

When
all parties had signed the document and they were alone again, she sat down on
the edge of the broad bed and let out a sigh of relief, and then lay back with
an arm across her face.

"Thank
you."

"Don't
mention it. Now I'll have to figure out what to spend this money on. Don't
think I've ever had so much cash and nothing to do with it."

She
peeked at him over the edge of her arm. "If you'd like to make an
investment, I have something to suggest."

He
grinned at her. "I was thinking of a new rifle, but I expect you'll have a
better idea. What is it?"

Elizabeth
shook her head. "I'm not ready to tell you yet. Hopefully tomorrow, before
we leave for home."

Nathaniel
lay down next to her and pulled her face up to his, traced her eyebrow with his
finger. "I'll let you lead me astray tomorrow." His hand slid down
her arm and up her side, probing softly with his thumb for the curve of her
breast. "If you'll let me do the same for you today."

* * *

"I
wasn't made for fancy clothes," he said, picking at his shirtfront. The
coat, borrowed from John Bradstreet's wardrobe, was cut in severe lines,
tight—sleeved and swallow—tailed, and slightly too narrow across the shoulders.
Nathaniel flexed his arms in protest.

"I
beg to disagree," Elizabeth said, her head tilted to one side. Under the
softly gathered, high—wasted skirt—borrowed again from the selection Mrs.
Vanderhyden had provided—one toe tapped softly. She brushed a hand across his
shoulder.

The
color suited him: deep black against the fine
Holland
linen, with a modestly folded jabot
at the neck. The fawn—colored breeches fit him better than the coat, and they
were far less discreet than his usual buckskin leggings: every muscle was
visible when he moved. His hair was brushed back smooth away from his brow and
gathered into a neat tail. The combination of his deeply tanned face above the
startling white linen and the twirling silver earring leant him a dangerous
air, which he supplemented with a scowl.

"I
can't deny that you look pretty, Boots. But I like you better in doeskin with
your legs bare and your hair plaited. I hardly know how to put my hands on
you."

"As
you've had your hands on me quite a lot today, I find it hard to
sympathize." She tugged on the lace shawl tucked into the deeply cut
bodice in a vain attempt to cover more of her bosom. "Rest assured, I do
not enjoy this any more than you do. If I had my way I would spend the evening
in bed. Reading," she added in response to his grin. "But it seems we
have entered into the world of high finance and intrigue, and I suppose we must
play out the game."

"I
never realized you were so ambitious."

"It
comes from marrying into money."

He
grunted, and picked up his rifle to hook the sling over his shoulder. "Let's
go on then and put it behind us."

"You
are going armed to an evening party?"

"I'm
going nowhere without Deerkiller, Boots. You'll have to put up with both of us
barbarians at the table." One brow went up in a sharply defiant angle, and
Elizabeth
realized suddenly that Nathaniel truly dreaded what was before them.

Among
the odds and ends on the dresser, she caught sight of the eagle feather which
he normally wore in his hair.
Elizabeth
reached up on tiptoe and quickly knotted it into the simple black band that
bound the long queue at the nape of his neck.

Nathaniel
looked at himself in the mirror and rewarded her with a wolfish grin.

* * *

Elizabeth
was relieved to find that the party of jurists and merchants she had
anticipated was not to materialize. Instead she found herself in the company of
a small group of French immigrants, aristocrats fleeing the fury of the mob
that had taken over in
France
.
Simon Desjardins and Pierre Pharoux were on their way to found a settlement on
the western frontier. Her first impulse was to sit down with these Frenchmen
and hear directly about the revolution in their homeland, but an introduction
to Judge van der Poole's last guest put this out of her mind completely.

Mr.
Samuel Hench was presented to her as a
Baltimore
printer on business in
Albany
.
He had delivered a number of volumes to the judge, and been asked to stay to
dinner. By the quality of his dress Elizabeth saw that he was very wealthy, and
by its plainness, that he was Quaker. He was a large man, broad in the
shoulder, with sharp features at odds with the mild expression of his blue
eyes. Above a high forehead his hair was iron—gray.

"Mrs.
Bonner," he murmured. "Mr. Bonner. Fate has brought us together this
evening, for otherwise I would have come to look for thee. Or I should say, I would
have been looking for a Miss Middleton, formerly of Oakmere."

Elizabeth
could see the watchful tension in Nathaniel's face, and so she spoke for them
both. "And why is that, Mr. Hench?"

"Because
it would be remiss of me to be in this part of the world and not pay my
respects to Caroline Middleton's daughter."

"You
knew my mother?"
Elizabeth
smiled with relief.

He
bowed briefly. "I knew her as Caroline Clarke, before her marriage to thy
father. Her mother—your grandmother—was my aunt Mathilde, my mother's
sister."

* * *

Nathaniel
found himself between the Frenchmen. They had so many stories about their
adventures to date, and so many questions about the western frontier that van
der Poole's good food grew cold on his plate. Listening to the plans they laid
out for him in detail, plans which were both daring and wildly under informed
to the point of recklessness, Nathaniel grew both alarmed and annoyed. But they
were sincere and they saw the things around them for what they were rather than
for the price they might fetch. He would have liked them, under other
circumstances, so Nathaniel fought the impulse to give them the whole truth in
one lump and watch them choke on it. In another setting, with other company, he
would have told them the worst of what they would face, from impassable rivers
to the Seneca, who would not stand idly by and watch their hunting grounds
divided up among yet more O'seronni.

Far
down the table on its other side,
Elizabeth
was deep in conversation with Samuel Hench. She had that concentrated look
about her, the one that came over her when she was reading, or listening to
Hannah. Nathaniel took another forkful of bass and onion pie, trying at the
same time to turn his attention to the story he was being told of the
Frenchmen's cold reception in Philadelphia.

"Your
secretary of state did not even offer us seats when we came to call on him. He
was openly hostile to our plans to bring our families and colleagues here from
France
."

Mr.
Bennett had been following the conversation without taking part, but now he put
down his glass with a small thump.

"Pardon
me, gentlemen, but I do find that hard to credit. Mr. Jefferson has spent a
great deal of time in
France
,
after all. If his patience is short right now with you or your countrymen, it will
have to do with the fact that your Minister Genet has been outfitting
privateers to attack the British Navy in our waters. But Mr. Jefferson's love
of things French is legendary."

Pharoux
was not going to back down. "I had great hopes of him for exactly that
reason," he said, "You see, I am an architect and an engineer,
monsieur. I hoped that he and I would have some common ground on which to build
an understanding. But it seems we are not the right sort of Frenchmen. We are
on the wrong side of the revolution, and do not deserve to keep our
heads."

His
voice had not risen, but his emotion caught
Elizabeth
's attention.