Mood Indigo (17 page)

That other committee—the Committee of Safety that sought to rid Virginia of her Tories—they now had another loyalist to persecute. Jane. And this time Wainwright and his host of fanatics were entrusted with the power to carr
y out their vigilante programs.

Ethan sighed and began to dress for the day, pulling on a ribbed cotton stocking over each muscled calf. For Jane’s safety, it would be best if they returned to Mood Hill. When his work necessitated his absence, he would have to depend on Josiah, Peter, and Icabod to protect his wife.

His wife. His wife in name only.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T
he principal event of Philadelphia’s most popular ball in years, held that August at the country estate known as Walnut Grove, was the exchanging of the black and white cockades—badges that the rebel soldiers wore on their hats. The exchange signified the union of all the colonial armies, of which the New England Militia was the core, under General Washington. At that moment the general continued to besiege Boston like a persistent and nagging fly.

After the exchange
of the cockades, the guests adjourned to the vast dining room. Two tables covered with an incredible assortment of food stretched the length of the room. In addition to fifty pyramids of jellies, syllabub, cakes, and sweetmeats, there were over a thousand other dishes, not including the great tureens of soups and stews. All of this was served by black slaves dressed in Moorish costumes with silver collars and bracelets. Many toasts were exchanged, but the spy Ahmad picked up little information he did not already know. Most of the talk now concerned Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, which George Mason introduced that month. But the rumor went that most members of the Continental Congress thought the idea that all power was vested in and consequently derived from “the people” too radical to be passed.

The most prestigious of patriots graced the hall—John Adams, Randolph Peyton, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, who was recently recalled from England. Ahmad had reason to be wary of Hancock and Adams, for they certainly recalled his participation in the Boston Sons of Liberty meetings. But his clever tongue deceived even the discerning Hancock. From the outset Ahmad reassured Hancock and other patriots that, like them, he had been forced to flee Boston by Gage’s subjugation of that city. He told them in his most humble manner that he sought only the opportunity to serve the colonies here in Philadelphia.

However, Hancock was an exceedingly cautious man, and Ahmad was invited only to the patriotic functions and not the private councils that were usually held immediately afterward.

At midnight a set of doors was opened at one end of the dining room to reveal an enormous ballroom elaborately decorated with flowered arches. The orchestra struck up a minuet, and Ahmad began his enchantment of one patriot lady after another. And at last he was rewarded for his efforts. As dawn broke, he danced the quadrille with Esther Reed, the pretty wife of one of Washington’s ablest officers. Esther was the heroine of a transatlantic romance, for she had been courted in London when her colonial husband was a law student at the Middle Temple and boarding with her father. And though she was a converted patriot
, London was still dear to her.

Ahmad capitalized on this, mentioning his own studies at the Temple Bar. The two reminisced, with Ahmad never touching on politics but bringing London to life again:
Turk’s Head Tavern in Soho where intellectuals like the slovenly Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, and rakish John Wilkes met; Westminster, where deer still grazed in St. James’s Park and the wealthy were moving to escape the horrors of the city; London’s thick, grimy haze that forced one to walk to the middle of London Bridge to try to find a breath of fresh air off the Thames.

At one point the spy permitted himself the merest of smiles as fragile Esther unwittingly divulged, with his skillful prompting, information he was seeking.

“You are too tempting, Madam Reed. Your husband is unwise to leave such a beautiful wife in a city full of men far from home and family.”

She dipped as called for by the music and dimpled a smile up at him. “Ah, but you do not have a family,” she said mischievously. Then, as they straightened, and their hands joined, she added somewhat forlornly, “And I sometimes wonder if Joseph remembers he has a family. His letters seem more preoccupied with Benedict Arnold’s planned march on Quebec than with letters about his new-born son.”

The spy’s pale-blue eyes raked over her appreciatively. “Madam, you are much too slender to have recently given birth to an infant.”

The daring compliment brought a blush to Esther’s' fair cheeks and a babble of words to cover her flustered state— “the horrible war and all these desertions!”

At the first light of dawn Ahmad left the ball, quite satisfied. By midmorning he was on his way to Quebec— this time dressed in the soutaine of a Catholic priest. The journey took him three weeks by canoe and horseback. There were reconnaissance patrols to avoid and the wilderness to contend with—its unyielding forest and frustrating rapids and falls.

One afternoon at dusk
he came upon the body of a British soldier, most likely a deserter. A mongrel dog hovered near. When, a few minutes later, a Yankee patrol passed near, he had to silence the animal’s yelping with the soldier’s bayonet. A messy business for one of his fastidious nature.

At the citadel perched
on the sheer cliff of Cape Diamond, General Carleton received him. With the general was a swarthy Indian dressed in the civilized garb of knee breeches and doublet but wrapped in a foul-smelling blanket. The spy guessed immediately the Indian’s identity. The educated Iroquois chief, Joseph Brant, who had sometime before thrown in with the English. The chief’s eyes met Ahmad’s direct gaze, then shifted away.

“Welcome back to Quebec,” General Carleton said, indicating to the spy the other chair opposite his desk, which was littered with papers and maps.

Ahmad placed the chair in a position that kept the other two men in his line of sight and spun it around to straddle it. His black soutaine hiked up to reveal buckskins. Carleton said, “I see you come this time as a man of God rather than a soldier of war.” It was an uncomfortable attempt at jocularity to cover an uneasiness about the secret agent that the general could not identify.

The man’s lips smiled, and Carleton thought he looked more like a satyr than the priest he was disguised as. “If he were still here, the good Father who last wore this soutaine would no doubt
have appreciated the irony, General.”

The general’s mouth flinched, but the agent continued on in that same easy vein. “However, I come as the Angel of Death. The Continental’s Colonel Arnold is marching on Quebec now with two battalions.”

The general sucked air through his false teeth. “How much of a head start did you have?”

“Benedict Arnold has the head start, by a week. But he has sixty-five tons of provisions and ammunition to haul with him.”

Carleton grunted. “It’ll take him at least two to three months then. We can easily fortify ourselves for a long siege.”

“Can you?” Ahmad asked with a touch of malice. “You have less than four hundred men. I passed settlements all along the Susquehanna Valley that not only will aid the rebels but will join them. Even your Canadians will abet Arnold’s troops. You might succeed in turning Arnold back, but eventually another rebel contingent will attempt the invasion again.”

Carleton drummed his fingertips on the desk, rustling the papers. His small mouth pursed. He did not know whether he was irritated more by the news or by the arrogant man who brought it. “You have a better suggestion, I assume?” he asked sarcastically.

Ahmad’s gaze flicked
to the Indian chief, who had remained stoically silent, then settled again on Carleton. “Have your allies—the Iroquois and Butler’s Rangers—stir up trouble in the valleys as a warning. If every man, woman, and child is killed in—let’s say, just one selected settlement, perhaps the Mohawk Valley, I can assure you that you will never have to contend with an insurrection in other settlements.”

Carleton’s puffy lids flared. “I am not a barbarian to order the scalping and murdering of helpless people! A war is waged between armies!”

The spy shrugged his wide shoulders nonchalantly and smiled. “A war is waged to be won.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

M
aking of the winter’s stock of candles was a dreaded household duty, for the great kettles were tiresomely heavy to handle and the kitchen, despite the open upper half of the Dutch door, was stifling. Worse, neither Porhatras nor Jane knew what they were doing. Ethan had simply said over dinner, “The candle stock is running low, mistress,” assuming she knew what to do.

Or, knowing full well she did not, was he merely trying to provoke some emotional response from her?

How could a man and woman who cordially detested each other live in the same house? Year after miserable year? She and Ethan had only been married a couple of months, and already the strain was beginning to tell. The tension, the unhappiness—she knew it showed in both their faces.

If only they could have remained in Williamsburg, where the crepe myrtle was just beginning to bloom. Where there was some hope of learn
ing about Terence. The many ac¬ivities of the public session would have kept Ethan too busy to pay her much notice. As it was, the two of them seemed to snap at each other like curs over a bone.

Yet she owed him an allegiance, difficult as it was to come by. He had saved her from her father’s wrath. The day her father sailed back to England, after discovering, too late, her marriage with Ethan—that day she was able to put her bitter childhood behind her forever.

She pushed the hair from her face and furiously stirred the fragrantly simmering bayberries. Other women might waste their lives in such a miserable union, but she would not! When this ridiculous war was over—surely, with England’s military power, in the next several months—she would divorce Ethan Gordon. Scandalous—but then she had faced down scandalmongers often since her arrival in the colonies. She would do it again. Whatever it cost to be at Terence’s side, she would pay.

Both One-eyed Peter and Josiah leaned on the lower half of the Dutch door. Josiah’s large, expressive brown eyes sought out Porhatra’s slender form, and not for the first time Jane wondered if Ethan also took an interest in the docile Indian maiden. When he entered the house, he would only nod dutifully at Jane but greet Porhatras in that low, guttural language so unlike his usual soft-spoken drawl.

Did he seek company for his empty bed in the arms of the Indian maiden? The thought stung Jane’s pride anew— and set off dissonant images in her mind. Images of Ethan winding Porhatras’s braids about his hands, of him kissing the delicate Indian woman’s soft, full lips.

Jane held up the ladle for Peter to see the transparent green wax drip. Not wanting to display her ignorance to Ethan, she had once again turned to the one-eyed servant for help. Josiah had explained patiently that bayberries were the best source for candles, since bayberries did not melt in the summer heat as did tallow candles. “Is it the right consistency yet?” she sighed.

“That it is, mistress. Now all that remains is pouring it into the candle rod molds. Here, let me tote the kettle.”

He pushed open the door and crossed the brick floor to heft the kettle for her. His large hands carried the weighty cast-iron kettle over to the molds as if it were a wicker basket. King George, who entered on Peter’s heels, sniffed curiously at the mixture that bubbled over the sides.

“Oh, mistress!” Peter chuckled, “you forgot to tie the wicks above the cylinders!”

The strain and tension that had been steadily building were released in her laughter, which bordered on hysteria. Josiah and Porhatras stared at her, for they failed to see the humor in the situation. “No wicks, no candlelight!” she gasped, wiping the laughter’s tears from the corner of her eyes.

“Peter! Josiah!” All four in the kitchen turned to find Ethan standing in the hall doorway. His dark eyes moved from one to another, glaring at them in reproof. “Icabod cannot hoe the cornfield alone.”

Peter ducked his head with an “Aye,” and, putting down the kettle, shuffled around Jane and Ethan. Josiah and Porhatras, with King George trailing, his tail tucked under him, slipped out the door to leave the two alone.

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “There was no reason for you to growl at the men. They were only helping me.”

“I won’t have my wife making eyes at every male in the vicinity, mistress. Th
is is Mood Hill, not a jaded English salon.”

Her nails dug half moons into her palms. “This is not a
gaol!”

“For all that it may be, thee is my wife, Jane. And thee will behave in a seemly fashion.”

“Your wife in name only!”

The stringent line of his lips eased slightly. “Would thee have it otherwise?”

“No! Do not twist my words. I meant that only a rector’s recited words bind us. No love, no duty hold me here. I shall leave when the time is right.”

He caught her shoulders, his thumbs anchoring beneath her collarbone. His eyes were who
rls of black smoke. “Thee shall never leave. God, not a rector, has joined us together.”