Law, Susan Kay (7 page)

A gravelly voice outside called for admittance.

"Come in." Livingston settled back in his chair.

Sergeant Robert Hitchcock barely needed to duck to enter the tent.
He gave a perfunctory but snappy salute, then dropped into the chair his
captain indicated.

The only word for Sergeant Hitchcock was rumpled; his face was
rumpled, his hair was rumpled, and the uniform hanging on his spare frame was
rumpled. No matter what time of the day or night, the sergeant always looked
like he'd just rolled out of bed after sleeping in his clothes.

He was also the best sergeant that Livingston had ever had. Every
inch of his small body was pure toughness, overlaid with a solid, impenetrable
layer of undiluted loyalty. The man was Army, and that said it all. His loyalty
was first to his men, his officers, and his company. His allegiance to his
country and ruler came after his duty to his regiment; it might not have been
the accepted order, but it made him one hell of a soldier.

"Well? How are the repairs going?" Livingston asked.

"Bloody slow, Cap'n." Hitchcock shoved a hand through
the limp strands of his mixed gray and pale blond hair. Damn, he'd lost his hat
again. "Goin' t'take at least two more weeks, probably more like
three."

Livingston's thin lips twitched. "As soon as possible, let's
start transferring the troops into the parts of the fort that are completed.
It'll be a bit crowded, but there's no reason to have every man freezing. Then
we'll shore up the rest as well as we can." He traced the edges of the
stiff linen paper with his fingers. "Not much we can do about it today,
though. It's nearly time to go."

Hitchcock's gaze dropped briefly to the paper. There was no
curiosity in his expression, simply acknowledgment. He'd been in the army too
long to indulge in curiosity. "Got the information, then?"

"Yes. We received it this morning." The captain dropped
the folded paper to the table. "I don't know where they got it, but
they're bloody efficient."

"How much time we got?"

"Not much."

"Exactly what're we supposed t' do about it?"

"Good question. I believe they expect me to 'think of
something.'"

The sergeant snorted. "Somethin' that doesn't involve
shootin' anyone, I suppose."

"That was one of the requirements, yes."

The sergeant mentally ran through his impressive vocabulary of
oaths. One of the frustrations of army life was that the men who gave the
orders often didn't know or had forgotten what it was like out in the field. As
a result, the orders they gave were frequently impossible to follow to the
letter.

The captain wasn't a bad sort, as captains went, Hitchcock
thought. Oh, he wore his wig just a little too tight, but what officer didn't?
At least he didn't whip a man half to death for dropping a little swearword now
and again. And he'd somehow picked up a good, practical grasp of military
tactics. Seemed to be able to move all the troops around in his head and figure
out where they should go.

Hitchcock decided it was going to take most of the captain's
overeducated brains to figure out this one. "So what are we goin' t'do,
Cap'n?"

"Good question." Livingston wasn't entirely sure
himself. He'd been ordered to stop any and all military drills and maneuvers by
the local militia. At the same time, he'd been reminded in no uncertain terms
he was not allowed to fire on civilians without civil authority.

He'd been here long enough to know things didn't always work
precisely as his superiors planned. He'd been among the first thousand troops
sent to Boston in 'sixty-eight. A newly frocked lieutenant, he'd been shocked
when seventy soldiers deserted in the first two weeks, lured by the freedom and
vice of the colonies.

He'd been equally surprised at the Bostonians' treatment of the
soldiers: he'd had rocks, chunks of ice, rotten vegetables, and various
unidentifiable types of animal dung flung at him on a regular basis. There'd
been little he could do in retaliation.

And now this. What did it really matter if the colonists played
around in the square with their guns and their bayonets? It didn't make them
soldiers. One afternoon of drilling would never make a crack unit—it wouldn't
even make a lamentable unit. If he'd been giving the orders, he would have seen
it as an opportunity to discover just what kind of shape the colonists'
defenses were in.

But he wasn't giving the orders. Not yet, at any rate. And the
only way he would ever get that opportunity was to continue to do his job
flawlessly. He had no doubt he would do precisely that. Then he'd receive his
promotion. Perhaps if these little squabbles with the colonies were settled
once and for all, he'd finally be sent back to blessed England, where he
belonged.

"Tea, sir!"

"Enter."

Jon bent over nearly double as he came in, carrying a precariously
balanced tray laden with cups, a steaming pot, and a large assortment of tiny
cakes.

Livingston held his breath as Leighton served him, hoping
that—this time—he'd get his tea without getting drenched, scalded, or otherwise
injured in the process. But there were few jobs the man was at all suited for,
and he seemed to be especially proud of doing this one.

The tea was served without incident. Livingston took a careful sip
of his, sighing with pleasure. A strong, lovely Ceylon blend.

His gaze fell on the paper on his desk. "What am I going to
do? Well—"

"Er, Cap'n?"

"Yes, Sergeant."

Hitchcock cocked a ragged brow at Jon, who was trying to stand
rigidly at attention with his back bent at what surely must have been an
extremely uncomfortable angle.

"Lieutenant, why are you still here?" Livingston asked.

"Didn't say I could go, sir."

"You are dismissed, Leighton."

"Yes, Cap'n." The lieutenant ducked his head and clomped
out the door.

Livingston tsked and shook his head. "He's hopeless,
Hitchcock."

"Yes, sir." Hitchcock hid his grin behind his teacup.
"But he does make one helluva cuppa tea."

"True. Now, then," Livingston said, returning his
attention to business. "What else can we do?" The captain rose from
his chair, and Hitchcock scrambled to his feet. "We will gather the
troops. And we will stop the mustering."

***

Brendan's printshop was in a small trim brick building next to
Grout's store. Carefully holding both cups, Bennie pushed the door open with
her elbow.

"Hello? Brendan?"

"A moment, please. I'll be right with you," he called
from the back room.

Three shelves just inside the door held a sparse selection of
merchandise: writing utensils, ink, chocolate, coffee, a few assorted bottles.
Setting down the tea, Bennie picked up one bottle.

"'Elixir Vitriol,'" she read. "'Miraculous remedy
for fever.'" The next bottle was dark and irregularly shaped. "'Dr.
Walker's Jesuit Drops.' What are they for?"

"Never you mind what they're for." Brendan plucked the
bottle from her hand and returned it to the dusty shelf.

"Do you always have to sneak up on people, Brendan? It
startles me every time. I never hear you coming."

"Can I help it if you're not observant?"

"I'm extremely observant. For instance, I observe that you
don't want to tell me what that remedy is for."

"Not to worry." He wiped his stained fingers on his
equally inky apron. He certainly wasn't going to tell her it was for any one of
a variety of diseases a man could pick up from a loose woman. "It's
nothing you'll ever need to know."

"Oh." Bennie picked up his cup of tea and offered it to
him. "A manly thing, huh?"

"Ah, she comes bearing gifts." He accepted the tea.
"My thanks. And yes, it is something for men."

"I'm going to find out eventually, you know. One of you
always lets it slip."

"It's not going to be me. Not this time, at any rate."

"It's never you." She gave him a mock scowl. "What
do you keep all this stuff here for, anyway?" Bennie gestured at the
decrepit shelves of dusty merchandise, most of which had been there for years.
"You never sell any of it."

Brendan rolled the mug between his long, elegant fingers.
"People expect it."

"And of course you always do what people expect."

His grin flashed suddenly. "Absolutely."

Bennie dragged her forefinger along the edge of a shelf and
frowned at the grime that darkened her fingertip. "Business is good,
then?"

He shrugged noncommittally. "About the same as always. Paper
is still hard to come by. People seem to find other uses for their old linen
than sending it to the paper mill."

Drawing her brows together, Bennie contemplated her brother. Along
with printing contracts, deeds, and other legal papers, he produced
The New
Wexford Journal and Weekly Advertiser.
In this capacity, he often learned
of any news, controversies, or legal problems, both in and out of New Wexford,
before anyone else in the village.

"Have you heard anything lately?"

"About what?" Brendan reached behind his back and untied
his spattered apron.

"The mustering, the British. Whether there will be trouble."

"If you ask me, there's almost bound to be." He yanked
off the apron and tossed it over the counter.

"But the redcoats have orders. They
can't
fire."

"Elizabeth, any time you get that many men with that many
guns and that much anger in one place, I'd be more surprised if there wasn't
trouble than if there was."

Suddenly cold, Bennie rubbed her arms to warm herself.
"Things have been strained between the Crown and the colonies for such a
long time; sometimes worse, sometimes better but never
here,
Brendan.
And never
now.
It could all fall apart, couldn't it?"

"I think you should be prepared for it," he said evenly.

Bennie stilled. The threat had always seemed distant and vague;
there seemed no chance of its ever touching her. But now it was taking on form
and substance. "I don't understand why Britain can't just leave us
alone."

"Elizabeth, think." Brendan lifted a leather jerkin from
its hook on the wall and shrugged into it. "The Crown made a huge
investment in the colonies. They fought the French for years to protect these
territories. From their perspective, are they asking so much? A few pence in
taxes?"

"Taxes we had no voice in, Brendan. No control over."

He frowned, his eyes dark and remote. "How much in this life
do we really have control over? Or, perhaps I should ask, how little?"

Bennie drifted her fingers lightly over the odd collection of
bottles, their smooth curves and familiar solidity strangely reassuring.
"You think it is wrong for us to want our independence?"

"Not wrong, Elizabeth. Foolish, perhaps. I'm not sure we've
really thought through how slim the chances are of our winning it by force, nor
that we've understood what the price will be. I don't like waste, and I don't
relish the thought of any of us dying for nothing." He took his powder
horn from the hook and slipped it over his shoulder.

Bennie blanched. "Dying?" she repeated softly.

Against his thigh, his hand clenched. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth.
I didn't mean to... I really don't think anything is going to happen today. It
wouldn't be worth it, not for either side. I just want you to be prepared for
the possibility—the probability—that something soon will."

She closed her eyes and swallowed against the sudden thickness in
her throat. Her life had been so simple. There had been her music, and there
had been her family. She hadn't wanted anything else, hadn't needed anything
else. But, oh, how she needed that. She couldn't lose part of her family, had
never even seriously considered that she might. Her father, her brothers, even
her steel-under-softness mother, all had seemed indestructible. They'd always
been there, and always would. Even when she'd been a child, and her oldest
brother and, briefly, her father, had gone off to fight the French, she'd known
they'd come home safely. Of course they would. They were Joneses; they'd come
home without a scratch.

But this would be different. It was too big, it was too much.

It couldn't happen. She didn't want it to happen, wouldn't let it
happen, and so it wouldn't.

"Elizabeth?"

"Yes?" Bennie squared her shoulders and opened her eyes,
forcing the disturbing thoughts away. Today would be wonderful, her family was
safe, and everything would go on as always.

"Did I tell you're looking especially pretty this morn?"

She glanced down at her new dress; her mother had prevailed, after
all. Bennie liked the deep, forest green color; it reminded her of the few rare
pines hidden in Finnigan's Wood. The dress was more fitted than she was used
to, snug at the waist, close over her chest. It made her feel exposed, but she
couldn't very well not wear the thing after her mother had gone to the trouble
of making it.